Speaker 1: Once a high flying minister, now a broken man.
Speaker 2: It was a significant error of judgment on my part,
Speaker 2: but it was an honester.
Speaker 3: In two thousand and nine, he was found guilty of
Speaker 3: corruptly receiving secret commissions and jailed for seven years. In
Speaker 3: twenty ten, he was found guilty on five charges of
Speaker 3: official corruption and five charges of perjury and jailed for
Speaker 3: an additional seven years.
Speaker 2: And I said, but I'm going to get searched. You'll
Speaker 2: be right, stick, get down the front of your pants,
Speaker 2: and fuck if I say no, I'm going to get
Speaker 2: the crap belted out of me somewhere down the road.
Speaker 2: My name is Gordon Nuddle, and this is my story.
Speaker 3: The Man behind the Rose. Episode three. Hello, my name
Speaker 3: is Patrick Condrey. This episode finds us still in maximum security,
Speaker 3: where Gordon Nuttle was to eventually spend more than five
Speaker 3: years of his life, a brutal punishment that many now
Speaker 3: say was over the top and unnecessarily harsh. Gordon Nuttle
Speaker 3: has not been paid for taking part in this podcast.
Speaker 3: Last Time, Nuttle revealed that first occasion in maximum security
Speaker 3: when it feared he was going to be bashed. Now
Speaker 3: a notorious multiple murderer who was the boss of the
Speaker 3: entire jail. Wanted a quiet word with the former cabinet minister.
Speaker 2: And he was mean, that mean, all tough, just me,
Speaker 2: but me. And he's sitting down again. I'm going to
Speaker 2: the oble and he's sitting in a chair and he's
Speaker 2: sitting back there. Someone said, George wants to see you.
Speaker 4: Could you say no?
Speaker 2: No, you don't say no, Well if you can, but
Speaker 2: it's got consequences to that. And George was the tough
Speaker 2: guy in the all of the job. Every wing had
Speaker 2: its tough guy, but he was the toughest of the tough.
Speaker 2: I got called over and he said sit down. He said,
Speaker 2: I've been watching you. So he said, you're all right.
Speaker 2: He didn't give anybody up. There was no one to
Speaker 2: give up, but anyone that nothing. You didn't give anybody up.
Speaker 2: He said, there might be a favorite to our want
Speaker 2: from me down the rain. Let's bear that in mind,
Speaker 2: all right. So a few days later here comes to
Speaker 2: favor in those sage. You can still smoke in the general.
Speaker 2: In that unit where I was isolated, there's ten isolation cells.
Speaker 2: There's two that are kept for prisoners like mate, and
Speaker 2: the other eight for the boys. That have been really
Speaker 2: naughty in jab and so they strum in isolation. And
Speaker 2: in those isolation shells there's nothing. It's just the walls
Speaker 2: and the toilet, and they're fed by other inmates. The
Speaker 2: other they pulled Trilley along, lift the lid to the
Speaker 2: door and put the food through like that. A few
Speaker 2: days later, I'm at the able. Spake walked up to
Speaker 2: me with a pouch of tobacco. Because when you go
Speaker 2: back to yourself after being an be able, you get
Speaker 2: searched again. He said, there's a blake in your unit
Speaker 2: that's feeding the boys in isolation. He said, you ought
Speaker 2: to give this to him. He's got instructions to do
Speaker 2: something else with it. I said, all right. He said,
Speaker 2: you're going to take it back, and I said, but
Speaker 2: I'm going to get searched. You'll be right. Stick it
Speaker 2: down the front. Stick it down the front of your pants.
Speaker 2: They won't search you there. Fuck If I say no,
Speaker 2: I'm going to get the crap belt it out of
Speaker 2: me somewhere down the road. And if the guard catches
Speaker 2: me with this ship, any trusts that they had in
Speaker 2: me gone. So I'm between the devil and the deep
Speaker 2: blue sea here. So I stick it down the front,
Speaker 2: come up to the guard and I'm, you know, trying
Speaker 2: to stay calm, shipping bricks. So they searched me and
Speaker 2: I got through, but sometimes the script searcher they didn't
Speaker 2: and that's why they stript searcher. So I got through
Speaker 2: and I went straight over to this other bike and
Speaker 2: I said here. He said, yep, I've been expecting it.
Speaker 2: And I didn't know who he gave it to, where
Speaker 2: it went, didn't know, didn't care, did my job so
Speaker 2: out of relief. So you live in that environment. That's
Speaker 2: the environment you live in. And what I learned with
Speaker 2: the guards in their defense, they don't know you. They
Speaker 2: don't know whether you're going to play out, where you're
Speaker 2: going to behave or what you're going to be like.
Speaker 2: But once you've earnt their trust, you're okay.
Speaker 3: Nottle's time in maximum security still haunts him to this
Speaker 3: day and has followed him to the quiet, sleepy community
Speaker 3: of Woodgate Beach. He might be a free man now,
Speaker 3: but the level of violence he witnessed isn't easily raised
Speaker 3: in terms of your time in maximum security? Do you
Speaker 3: still have nightmares about it? Do you still have flat?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're a lot less frequent, but yeah, I still have.
Speaker 4: Is any one thing that no not urgitated, not.
Speaker 2: In particular, you know, one day it might be it
Speaker 2: might be about someone getting bashed up or whatever.
Speaker 4: And did you see people being bashed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I saw, I saw. I looked out
Speaker 2: at the football level and two blocks were up against
Speaker 2: the fence and belting my crap out of each other.
Speaker 2: They were hammer and tong and of course the guards
Speaker 2: come run along and they would have been put in
Speaker 2: isolation and probably transferred to different trails. After that, I
Speaker 2: had another fella. I was in my unit. I just
Speaker 2: walked up, he was next to me, bang just decked him.
Speaker 2: Didn't like him, didn't like him, just and belt it
Speaker 2: into it. You know, blood everywhere, and it's just so.
Speaker 2: Then the one time that I nearly got into trouble,
Speaker 2: I was at the gym and I'd found these old
Speaker 2: lawn bars and I had chunks out of it and
Speaker 2: I cleaned them up, and this fella come to get
Speaker 2: when I said, hang on, mate, hang on, and my
Speaker 2: mate behind me, I didn't realize this black had picked
Speaker 2: it up and he was going to bang me with it.
Speaker 2: He just come charging and I was getting these balls
Speaker 2: out for people and he come charging and just idiot
Speaker 2: and I said, I hang on, I just hang on,
Speaker 2: and he picked a bup. I didn't see it. He
Speaker 2: picked him up. He was going to bang me on
Speaker 2: the back of the head with it, and one of
Speaker 2: the boys stopped him. That was close and one of
Speaker 2: my fellows that I got on with, he said, you
Speaker 2: need to be more mindful around you because you just slipped.
Speaker 2: You don't think, and he said you need to be
Speaker 2: more mindful around you and you're surround school. He said,
Speaker 2: you went really class. He said that could have killed her.
Speaker 3: I know it's might be difficult to talk about, but
Speaker 3: did you ever think of self harming yourself?
Speaker 2: No? No, I'm a great believer in I need to
Speaker 2: be careful because it's a sensitive subject for lots of people,
Speaker 2: you know, people like self harm or suicide. There's a
Speaker 2: whole range of issues around that. I felt I had
Speaker 2: too much to live for with my family, and that's
Speaker 2: what kept me going. You know. My youngest daughter, Kim
Speaker 2: once said to me, every storm has its ending, Dad,
Speaker 2: and at the end of that storm is a rainbow.
Speaker 2: And that's truism. At some stage, it ends and that's
Speaker 2: when when I went to the farm, it felt like
Speaker 2: it was the beginning of that end. You know, the
Speaker 2: storm was dying. So you know the thing. The thing
Speaker 2: about being a maximum security it's very hard to escape
Speaker 2: the misery and find a happy place and find it quiet.
Speaker 2: It's nearly impossible to find somewhere where it's quiet because
Speaker 2: in your cell there is a speaker built into the wall,
Speaker 2: and that thing never shuts up all day. The guards
Speaker 2: are on it all day. Solence I come here, sonce,
Speaker 2: I go there. You know you do this, do that,
Speaker 2: and that never stops all bloody day, drives insaying I
Speaker 2: used to get toilet paper and soak it, stick it
Speaker 2: on to try and cut the noise out. You're not
Speaker 2: allowed to do that. Now that I'm f they can't
Speaker 2: come again in it. But there was nowhere to go,
Speaker 2: nowhere for peace, nowhere to go for quiet. Even at
Speaker 2: night you'd hear guys screaming and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 2: So it's very hard to escape that bubble of misery
Speaker 2: and be out of that.
Speaker 3: Did you ever fear for his life while he was
Speaker 3: in maximum security?
Speaker 5: I wasn't really scared that somebody would kill him.
Speaker 2: In there.
Speaker 5: I was scared that because you know what you think about,
Speaker 5: because you don't know what it's like in there, your
Speaker 5: mind goes to places that.
Speaker 3: You did you see in the movie that's right.
Speaker 5: And I remember there was one day there was a
Speaker 5: terrible fight in there, and Dad was very shaken up
Speaker 5: about it.
Speaker 3: Lisa Nuttel took the lead in coordinating family visits for
Speaker 3: her brother and sister and the growing brood of grandchildren
Speaker 3: as well was her father's friends.
Speaker 5: I was more worried that he would do something to
Speaker 5: himself in there. That was my concern.
Speaker 4: He would be soul destroyed.
Speaker 5: Oh devastating. And I'll never forget one day we visited
Speaker 5: him and he was empty. He was I don't know
Speaker 5: how long this was in maybe an a bit over
Speaker 5: a year, and he was just in his eyes, he
Speaker 5: was just empty and he was really sad that day
Speaker 5: and I just had a feeling and I remember I
Speaker 5: can close my eyes and see this. I hugged him
Speaker 5: and I said, don't do anything, Please, don't do anything stupid.
Speaker 5: And he said to me that he was thinking about
Speaker 5: it at that point and that that visit changed his mind. Yeah,
Speaker 5: so I worried. I knew that if he wanted to,
Speaker 5: he could have done something and that would have that
Speaker 5: just would have been devastating. So I was more scared
Speaker 5: of that than somebody else hurting him.
Speaker 3: Nuhle's health when he was in the bad place, as
Speaker 3: he refers to his time in maximum security, did deteriorate.
Speaker 3: At one stage, things were so bad the prison nurse
Speaker 3: thought he might die. And even though he was at
Speaker 3: death's door, he still wasn't getting any favors from some
Speaker 3: of the guards.
Speaker 2: I collapsed and mysel couldn't stop vomiting. I was in
Speaker 2: a really, really, really bad way. It took me up
Speaker 2: to the infirmary. The nurses tried everything. She said, you
Speaker 2: need to go to hospital with called the ambulance. His
Speaker 2: guard came in, so they handcuffed my hands and I've
Speaker 2: got a sick bag like that, and I'm struggling that
Speaker 2: I was a crook and that out of it. He
Speaker 2: wanted to shackle me. He's standing there was shackled like
Speaker 2: shackle me hands and feet with a chain in between.
Speaker 2: He wanted to shackle me. I am in la la land.
Speaker 2: But it's about the treatment of you as if you
Speaker 2: were dangerous. And I know that when the ambulance arrived.
Speaker 2: There was a discussion I heard it between the nurse,
Speaker 2: the ambo and this guard and they had to fight
Speaker 2: tooth and nail to get this guard to agree not
Speaker 2: to shackle me. But they handcuffed me. They put me
Speaker 2: on the bed and they handcuffed me there on the
Speaker 2: rail of the bed. In the bottom of the PA hospital.
Speaker 2: There's a whole section for prisoners. So this is the
Speaker 2: funny part of this. There's got to be a funny
Speaker 2: side somewhere. I'm in them, I'm in the ambulance and
Speaker 2: the guy said, look, I'm going to give you a
Speaker 2: bit of stuff here, just to ease the pain and all.
Speaker 2: And I said, oh, thank you for that. He said,
Speaker 2: what did you do before you got here? He said,
Speaker 2: I was a health minister. He kind of looked at me.
Speaker 2: How in this belief.
Speaker 1: Not all was shaking. As he sat in the prisoner's dock,
Speaker 1: he held his head in his hands and was visibly
Speaker 1: fighting back tears.
Speaker 3: In the immediate aftermath of his convictions for receiving secret commissions,
Speaker 3: corruption and perjury, his former labor mates were not sympathetic.
Speaker 1: These crimes are serious, and frankly, they are reprehensible. I'm
Speaker 1: very pleased to see that the courts have taken them seriously.
Speaker 3: And I'm bla I took over as Premier from Peter
Speaker 3: Beedy in September two thousand and seven and were still
Speaker 3: premiere in two thousand and nine when Nuttle was convicted
Speaker 3: and jailed the first time.
Speaker 1: These are sort of crimes that go to the heart
Speaker 1: of public trust in our system of government.
Speaker 3: In October twenty ten, after Nuttle's second corruption conviction, former
Speaker 3: colleagues likened Nuttle's convictions with the long serving Nationals Premiere,
Speaker 3: Sir Joe B.
Speaker 4: LK.
Speaker 3: Peterson, who in nineteen ninety one faced criminal trial for
Speaker 3: perjury following evidence he'd given to the Fitzgerald inquiry. An
Speaker 3: earlier proposed charge of corruption was incorporated into the perjury charge.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I noticed that. But the irony, the irony
Speaker 2: of that is that when the Sun Corpse Stadium was rebuilt,
Speaker 2: Peter Betty pushed jar around in a wheelchair, checking him off,
Speaker 2: welcome you here, I hope you enjoy it, and gave
Speaker 2: him a state funeral. You've got to put it all
Speaker 2: the perspective at it.
Speaker 3: If you had your time again, would you do it
Speaker 3: exactly the same or would you what would you do differently?
Speaker 2: Look, it was a significant error of judgment on my part.
Speaker 2: I don't shy away from that, but it was an
Speaker 2: honest ere I get it. If you're trying to be
Speaker 2: a crook. If I'm going to be crooked, why would
Speaker 2: I bug our eyes around with three hundred green You know,
Speaker 2: none of it made sense, but certainly in hindsight I
Speaker 2: can see that people would think businessman politician money exchanged
Speaker 2: their crooks.
Speaker 3: Good and that'll spend more than five years in maximum
Speaker 3: security and another twelve months at a prison farm before
Speaker 3: serving eight years out on parole, for a total of
Speaker 3: a fourteen year sentence. A glance through the sentences of
Speaker 3: other politicians who were charged and convicted are illuminating. In
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty nine, former National Party MP Don Lane was
Speaker 3: sentenced to twelve months prison on twenty seven counts of
Speaker 3: misappropriate adding public money.
Speaker 2: After six months holding his tongue, Don Lane was ready
Speaker 2: to tell the world the sorry story of his time
Speaker 2: as a guest at Her Majesty's correctional Center. But I
Speaker 2: must say that the shock of being imprisoned behind twenty
Speaker 2: foot of razawi and steel gates is not a pleasant one.
Speaker 3: From Parliament House to the courthouse.
Speaker 2: Mister Driscoll, why did you do it? Was it great?
Speaker 5: He asked their rivals supermarket giants, West Farmers and Woolworths
Speaker 5: the secret commissions that were never paid.
Speaker 3: More recently, former LPMP Scott Driscoll was sentenced to jail
Speaker 3: time after being found guilty of fraud. Sentenced to six
Speaker 3: years imprisonment for fraud and corruption. It'll be at least
Speaker 3: eighteen months before Driscoll serves his time and is eligible
Speaker 3: for parole. So Queensland has a rich history of politicians
Speaker 3: going to jail for doing the wrong thing, but only
Speaker 3: Gordon Nattle had to spend more than five years in
Speaker 3: maximum security.
Speaker 4: Can you believe.
Speaker 3: That you had to spend five years in that environment
Speaker 3: for what you did.
Speaker 2: And it was wrong? And whoever, whoever made those decisions
Speaker 2: and did that, that's a million dollar question. The question
Speaker 2: to me is why why don't you progress me like
Speaker 2: any other normal prisoner. And it took my eldest daughter
Speaker 2: in a letter campaign to top management as to why
Speaker 2: eventually they should send me to the farm. I mean
Speaker 2: my kid, my grandkids, they're little. They would come and
Speaker 2: visit me in this horrible environment. Even in the visiting
Speaker 2: area it's all caged and all the rest of it.
Speaker 2: They would come and visit me, these little ones, and
Speaker 2: there are pedophiles in there there, and I felt like,
Speaker 2: you know, I said to my don't bring the kids.
Speaker 2: Don't just don't bring them. But the kids wanted to
Speaker 2: see me. But you can't nurse them, you can't hold them,
Speaker 2: you can't cuddle them, and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 4: So actually they were advised not to bring the.
Speaker 2: Kids, yes, but we persevered with that. But we sat,
Speaker 2: We tried to sit in a corner. There'd be a
Speaker 2: big group of people visiting it at the same time.
Speaker 3: And did those family visits they help.
Speaker 4: You through it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, they do. You look forward to it, but it's
Speaker 2: after the event, when you've got to go and you
Speaker 2: go back to your cell. That's that's when it really
Speaker 2: hits you. After those visits. It it's so hard to
Speaker 2: deal with. And I couldn't tell you the number of
Speaker 2: times I cried and broke down in my cell on
Speaker 2: my own because after it, before and after the visits,
Speaker 2: you get strip searched. You know, it's humiliating, It is
Speaker 2: really humiliating.
Speaker 4: You know you're not a bad bugger.
Speaker 2: No, But what I what I never understood was why
Speaker 2: they kept me there?
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 2: What? What? What purpose was that?
Speaker 4: What? To me?
Speaker 2: More? Or what or why? My view was that it
Speaker 2: was about they didn't want the perception that I was
Speaker 2: getting any favors, and they didn't want any media around that.
Speaker 3: So because of who you were, and we should say
Speaker 3: that that that coughs as a result of the can
Speaker 3: cancer that you so, So your view is that because
Speaker 3: of who you were, yes, you spent more time in
Speaker 3: maximum security, but.
Speaker 2: It wasn't But it wasn't about my welfare either. It
Speaker 2: was about their welfare.
Speaker 4: When you say there, well, well the.
Speaker 2: Department or the politicians that he's not getting any special treatment.
Speaker 2: But I didn't ask. All I wanted was to be
Speaker 2: progressed through the system like everyone else. And I remember
Speaker 2: the day I finally got to go to the farm.
Speaker 2: I got called up and I said, there's a so
Speaker 2: and so from in town's here to see you. Well,
Speaker 2: they called me in, sat me down, she said, And
Speaker 2: this is five and a bit years and I'm still
Speaker 2: there maximum security, more than five years maximum security. So
Speaker 2: I've only got eleven and a half months ago to
Speaker 2: I'm eligible for parole, and she said, ah, we're going
Speaker 2: to send you to the farm. I said, okay, I said,
Speaker 2: what brought this on? She said, out there visiting is
Speaker 2: a lot different, and you'll have an opportunity to one
Speaker 2: closer to your grandkids and all the rest of it
Speaker 2: before your release. And I thought, what a croc of
Speaker 2: shit that is. You know, what a weak, bloody excuse
Speaker 2: that is, you know, And I felt like screaming at her.
Speaker 2: But you're thankful for small mercies.
Speaker 3: But it seems Gordon had a guardian angel in the
Speaker 3: form of his daughter Lisa, who remembers the day well.
Speaker 3: Lisa felt she had a full time job coordinating family
Speaker 3: and friends to visit, wrote letters and made calls to
Speaker 3: Governor General, Corrective services ministers, Directors General, trying to get
Speaker 3: her father moved out of the maximum security jail cell.
Speaker 5: And I remember I was ironing and I had this
Speaker 5: final phone call with the DJ because he'd been rejected
Speaker 5: again going to the farm, because he'd have review and
Speaker 5: he'd always passed with flying colors, like he was a
Speaker 5: model prisoner. He wasn't doing anything, you know, he kept
Speaker 5: his head down, he did everything right and they just
Speaker 5: kept saying, it's you know, it's they called it the
Speaker 5: Curer mail test, so we can't be seen to be
Speaker 5: doing you favors. But at this point he was in
Speaker 5: Wolston with the murderer of Daniel Morcombe, with Max Seeker,
Speaker 5: with you know, people that had committed very violent crimes
Speaker 5: against women, children, you know, And it had gotten to
Speaker 5: a point where the guards had said to me, and
Speaker 5: this was probably my final straw, but they said, you
Speaker 5: need to stop bringing the kids here. Now there are
Speaker 5: predators in here and they will find you. You need
Speaker 5: to be very, very careful. And that was when I
Speaker 5: kind of ramped up. Okay, we've got to get him
Speaker 5: out of here for his sake, for everyone's. But he'd
Speaker 5: had enough to like he was skin and bone. He
Speaker 5: was trying to make the best of the situation as
Speaker 5: it was, but he just we just couldn't understand, Like
Speaker 5: year but went by year after year, and it's like,
Speaker 5: why aren't they shifting you?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 5: But I remember I was ironing. I was standing there,
Speaker 5: I was ironing, and I was on the phone to
Speaker 5: the DG. And I told her what the guards had
Speaker 5: said to me, and I said, I can't do this
Speaker 5: to my kids anymore. We can't do this anymore, I said,
Speaker 5: we can't keep taking our kids there, so you need
Speaker 5: to shift him. And when she finally went in to
Speaker 5: do another review, she said to Dad that it was
Speaker 5: that that made her make the decision to shift him.
Speaker 5: So that was a really exciting day. If I hadn't
Speaker 5: brought up my kids and the guards hadn't have said
Speaker 5: that to me that day, I don't know if they
Speaker 5: ever would have moved Dad. I don't I don't know
Speaker 5: if they would have, but he really needed was so
Speaker 5: worn out at that point.
Speaker 3: Meanwhile, back at the prison, it was moving day.
Speaker 2: So normally when they send it to the farm, it
Speaker 2: takes a couple of weeks, she told. A couple of
Speaker 2: weeks later, she said, you'll be advised, but it won't
Speaker 2: be long, Okay, So she went. I got sent back,
Speaker 2: and then about an hour later I got called up
Speaker 2: again and there's other officer comes to see me and said,
Speaker 2: you're going within the next twenty four hours. You may
Speaker 2: be going tonight, you may be going at daylight tomorrow,
Speaker 2: or you may be going at nine o'clock tonight. I
Speaker 2: don't know. She said, you've got to go back to yourself.
Speaker 2: You can't tell anyone not to tell a soul because
Speaker 2: a paranoid about the media. They are paranoid. So I
Speaker 2: went back. I said, can I tell my family? She
Speaker 2: said yes, but they can't tell the media. She said, Gordon,
Speaker 2: I can't stress that enough. If anyone finds out, they'll
Speaker 2: cancel this. They will cancel it on you. I went
Speaker 2: back and rang Leasa, my eldest daughter, Lisa, and I said,
Speaker 2: because I'm allowed six minute funk calls, And I said,
Speaker 2: can you tell the other kids? Let everyone know, but
Speaker 2: they're not to say anything till I'm out there. Not
Speaker 2: till I'm out there, Lisa. So I had to go
Speaker 2: back and kind of pack my bag, which is not
Speaker 2: a lot. I got to tell you, you don't have
Speaker 2: a lot of possessions, not till the Blakes I'm in
Speaker 2: the unit with not say nothing. So didn't nothing happen
Speaker 2: that night, early the next morning, nothing. Then all of
Speaker 2: a sudden, bang bang bang bang, I'm out the door.
Speaker 2: I'm in a Ford motor car. I got to sit
Speaker 2: in the front seat, no handcuffs, and I got to
Speaker 2: put a seatbelt on because you drive everywhere in a
Speaker 2: van and a prison bee and I'm in a car
Speaker 2: and I put a seatbelt on. Surreal, seriously surreal, and
Speaker 2: we drive out that they have one more whack at
Speaker 2: me before we go. We're going to go to another
Speaker 2: prison to pick up another bloke, and when we got there,
Speaker 2: something happened and we all got thrown into it cell
Speaker 2: for another couple of hours. Anyway, finally we get in
Speaker 2: the car and we're going and we go through these
Speaker 2: suburbs and went through this place where there was shops
Speaker 2: and mum pushing a pram with a bubby in it
Speaker 2: and street lights. I know that all sounds weird, but
Speaker 2: I have when you haven't seen any of that, you've
Speaker 2: seen nothing, and you're kind of looking at it and
Speaker 2: the farms right down near the New South Wales border.
Speaker 2: So the further we went became more country and you're
Speaker 2: just looking at the hills and the trees and other
Speaker 2: cars going past, and it's just amazing. You know, you
Speaker 2: just think, oh, this is the beginning of the end.
Speaker 2: This is the beginning of the end.
Speaker 4: And did you believe that at the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I did. I believe that the worst of jail
Speaker 2: was behind me, and I wasn't going to do it,
Speaker 2: because when you get out there, if you misbehave, it's
Speaker 2: called tip. They tip your back and you don't get
Speaker 2: a second chance. And I knew i'd be fine, but
Speaker 2: it was just just that trip out, that first trip out.
Speaker 2: Remember the very first day at the farm. We got
Speaker 2: there and the first people you've got to seize the nurse,
Speaker 2: which is fair enough. And when I saw her, she
Speaker 2: had been where I was kept in the maximum security
Speaker 2: that she'd been transferred out to the phone, and she
Speaker 2: looked at me and she said, what have I done
Speaker 2: to you? I was down to seven the act kills.
Speaker 2: I've been really sick. I've been taken to hospital several times. Anyway,
Speaker 2: the boss of the farm there was me and another
Speaker 2: blake there and he called us in. He said, see
Speaker 2: all those fences down there, that's a perimeter. He said,
Speaker 2: you can leave anytime you want. He said, but I
Speaker 2: guarantee you two things. One you'll get caught and two
Speaker 2: you won't be coming back here. That's pretty good advice.
Speaker 2: But I remember that the first I got there about lunchtime,
Speaker 2: and the first afternoon they'd let you settle in allocat
Speaker 2: your room, and I stayed in the same room for
Speaker 2: the whole eleven months. Usually blakes get moved around a bit.
Speaker 2: And I sat out the back and I'm looking up
Speaker 2: at the mountains and guard came past and he said
Speaker 2: how are you? And I said all right. He said
Speaker 2: I can I have a word to you and I
Speaker 2: said yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: He said, well, I'm going to be the guy looking
Speaker 2: after you for the next twelve months. He said. Here
Speaker 2: at the farm, we send people out to work camps
Speaker 2: out west. He said, you won't be going to any
Speaker 2: of those. Why not media? They're worried about the media.
Speaker 2: Still worried about the media. They are still worried about
Speaker 2: the media. And he said because of the media. He said,
Speaker 2: all right. He said, but you will be going out
Speaker 2: for me to do jobs around the district here. I said, yeah, anyway,
Speaker 2: give me a bit of a rundown. So I got
Speaker 2: up and I went for a walk. And they've got
Speaker 2: half a dozen horses, and they've got cattle and all
Speaker 2: the rest of it. This horse came over, so some
Speaker 2: of the boys must must. I didn't know this, but
Speaker 2: I would have fed them an apple or because you
Speaker 2: actually get proper fruit and real food at the farm.
Speaker 2: Very different to maximum security. And he came over and
Speaker 2: I patted this horse and it is the first time
Speaker 2: I'd pattered or touched an animal in over five years.
Speaker 2: And I know that sounds weird, but it's it's it
Speaker 2: felt just beautiful just to be able to pat this horse,
Speaker 2: you know. And then I went for a walk and
Speaker 2: I picked up a leaf from under a tree and
Speaker 2: I held it in my hand and I hadn't done
Speaker 2: that in five years, you know, the simple thing, little
Speaker 2: tiny little things like that, and it was just I
Speaker 2: just it was just breathing. I felt as I could
Speaker 2: breathe again, that life wouldn't be as bad. It was
Speaker 2: still crappy moments, even on the farm it's still, but
Speaker 2: it's a working farm. Everyone's got to work. So I
Speaker 2: did a cert three and agricultural studies or something. I've
Speaker 2: got to certificate in Therequeensland University.
Speaker 3: Completely different life to the previous five and a big
Speaker 3: year totally. Did you have any jobs when you're in
Speaker 3: maximum security?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah. I worked in the gym for a while,
Speaker 2: and then I worked in what they call bulk stools,
Speaker 2: which is an area where everything comes into the prison, everything, food, clothes,
Speaker 2: every single thing that comes through there. And I've only
Speaker 2: got the most trusted president. So I worked there for
Speaker 2: two or three years, which was really good because you've
Speaker 2: got to actually talk to some prison officers that a
Speaker 2: couple of them had a bit of house. You kind
Speaker 2: of got a nicer lunch. I know that sounds funny,
Speaker 2: but you've got a bit of a nicer lunch, so
Speaker 2: that sort of thing. So yeah, I kind of got
Speaker 2: caught up in there for a few years. I was
Speaker 2: there for a few years, which was good, and then
Speaker 2: when I got sick, I didn't do anything for the
Speaker 2: last three or four months, so I was on sick
Speaker 2: leave the head nurse. I was a real mess. And
Speaker 2: I don't know whether I don't have any scientific proof
Speaker 2: to any of this, but I honestly believe that my cancer.
Speaker 2: The neurologists said to me that the tumor has been
Speaker 2: in my body for over a decade if you count back.
Speaker 2: For me, it's the stress of all that time and
Speaker 2: the body's reacted in this way. And kidney cancer is
Speaker 2: one of the hardest cancers to detect, and it's always
Speaker 2: a secondary cause that that's how they find it. And
Speaker 2: that was that little lump on my neck. So that's
Speaker 2: how they found. In my view, that's what started it.
Speaker 2: Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't that's the view I hold.
Speaker 2: But anyway, back out, I'll get to the farm. And
Speaker 2: I worked. I did this course for three or four months,
Speaker 2: six months, can't remember. Then I worked with the cattle
Speaker 2: for a little while. And then I went out. I
Speaker 2: painted a church. Me and a few bucks. We painted
Speaker 2: a little country church. We go out there and paint
Speaker 2: this church. It was just lovely out in the countryside,
Speaker 2: just peaceful, just painting. And then even on the very
Speaker 2: last day, in the afternoon, they sent me out to
Speaker 2: do some water testing in the local creeks and rivers
Speaker 2: with a officer. But keep me busy, keep me busy
Speaker 2: before you before we left.
Speaker 3: Is it it's eight years since then you've been on parole.
Speaker 4: Does it ever seem like a dream?
Speaker 2: No, When you have your dreams and you wake up,
Speaker 2: it never seems like a dream.
Speaker 4: Mate.
Speaker 2: It was horrible, very hard. You can't forget it. As
Speaker 2: much as you try and want to try and put
Speaker 2: in the recesses of your mind, it's there. You cannot
Speaker 2: forget it. It changes you. It changes you as a
Speaker 2: person in a big way. I'm far far more appreciative,
Speaker 2: even before I diagnosed with the cancer, far far more
Speaker 2: appreciative of every day of being able to see the
Speaker 2: ocean and go for a swim, and having family and
Speaker 2: friends around and living life. You know, we appreciate all
Speaker 2: that so much more, very much more.
Speaker 4: Next time.
Speaker 5: The best of my life was so exciting. I'll never
Speaker 5: forget because we had it all.
Speaker 3: Planned, Operation Governor, the top secret plan to sneak a
Speaker 3: high profile prison inmate pass the waiting media and into
Speaker 3: the arms of his family.
Speaker 4: After good and Nuttle was granted parole.
Speaker 3: But the news came as a surprise to everyone, even
Speaker 3: the boss at the prison far.
Speaker 2: And he said, we've just heard on the radio that
Speaker 2: your parole has been approved. He said, we haven't been advised,
Speaker 2: he said. I've got no other information I can give
Speaker 2: to you at this time, he said, but all the
Speaker 2: details are being released on air as we speak.
Speaker 3: The Man Behind the Rose podcast writer, producer and host
Speaker 3: Patrick Condren. Sound design and editing Mark Right Graphics by
Speaker 3: Jason Blandford. The Man Behind the Rose is a seven
Speaker 3: News production