Latest / Real Crime with Adam Shand / The Prince of the Painters and Dockers Union | Ron Isherwood

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The Prince of the Painters and Dockers Union | Ron Isherwood · Real Crime with Adam Shand

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Appoch production. This episode contains discussions of family violence, child abuse,
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: drug use and crime. Listener discretion is advised. Welcome to
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Real Crime with Adam Shand I'm your host Adam Shand.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: I called them the princes of the old Underworld, the
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: sons of the crooks who ran the Australian organized crime
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: scene in the nineteen fifty through to the nineteen seventies,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: when the business was armed robbery, standover, industrial scale shoplifting,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: slide grogging and sp bookmaking often carried out with the
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: assistance of corrupt police and even judges. Painters and dockers
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: union linked to organized crime networks spanning Melbourne's waterfront. Police
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: confirm Underworld connections reach the highest levels. These boys were
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: born into crime. They grew up in the shadow of
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: famous fathers and look forward to inheriting the keys to
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: the kingdom. Some even went to private schools and had
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: every advantage, but still owed everything to the criminal roughts
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: that financed their lives. The Royal Commission uncovers network of
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: standover men, corrupt officials and at least fifteen unsolved murders
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: tied to Melbourne's waterfront unions. They'd grown up around death
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: and betrayal, but learned to accept these as the costs
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: of doing business. But then in the nineteen seventies the
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: business changed. Drugs took over everything, the old codes disappeared,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: and the status quo these princes knew was destroyed. Heroin
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: floods Melbourne streets as underworld pivots from armed robbery to narcotics.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Ron Ishuwood was one of those princes. His father, Big
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: ron Isshuewood, was a highly respected member of the notorious
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Painters and Dockers Union in Melbourne, and his son, Little
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: Ron was groomed to follow in dad's footsteps. Like many
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: of the princes, Ron was sold the lie of crime
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: and well and truly brought into it, becoming a gunman, thief, junkie,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: drug dealer and would be cop killer. Most of those
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: before the age of twenty. A seventeen year old faces
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: attempted murder chargers following shootout with Victoria police. One day,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: Roe wake up to the lie and has spent half
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: his life overcoming the impact of his early choices, which
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: really were choices at all. Little Ron is now seventy
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: one and lives with his regrets, but unlike many, he's
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: dedicated to helping others and has found peace in his
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: life after turning his heart around. That's my pleasure to
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: welcome ron Isshaw to Real Crime.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: Get I run, Hey, Adam, thank you very much, really
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: appreciate you inviting me onto your show. Of course, anybody
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: that's anybody in the crime world knows who Adam Shandy is.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: And I'd say that the nicest way because I've listened
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: to a lot of your stuff, and you know, it's
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: very unbiased, which I like, A spade is spade, you know,
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: And that's the trouble. These days we only have we
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: don't have black and white anymore. Everything's in shades.
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: It's like you're either a copper or a creme, or
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: a creme or a copper, and you're allowed to be
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: both these days. And everything he's lived on social media
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: and like in our days, and you're old enough to remember,
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: we're called impol the quiet achievers.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: The reason why I called this podcast Real Crime is
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: because I think it captures the reality of the crime world,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: hopefully through my experience. And I think true crime tends
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: to glorify crime. And I think one thing I've observed
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: with sons and daughters of crime figures of that era.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: They live with the trauma of what happened. Getting a
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: call at school that your uncle has been murdered. Yeah,
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: coming home and hearing your mother get bashed. Living with
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: all is trauma and dampening down their emotions until they
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: feel nothing. And let's start with the heavy regret first.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: I know that your biggest regret is that you didn't
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: shoot your father and kill him when you had the chance,
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: which speaks volumes about the way he determined your choices.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, when my father was an extremely violent human being
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: in every way.
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: Physical violence is nothing.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: That sounds crazy, but when you've grown up in that world,
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: physical violence means nothing. The emotional and spiritual abuse was phenomenal.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: That's the stuff that it's into every pause of your being,
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: and you learn to hate, and you learn to as
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: a kid.
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: My father used to beat my mother. My mother was.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: Five foot tall four forty eleven and three quarters, she
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: used to tell me, and my father was six foot tall,
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: X light everybody champion boxer, very good boxer, extremely violent.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: I've watched him Bashy's brothers and he actually got joy
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: out of beating people.
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: He actually like he got off on it. He actually
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: got off on it.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: And I remember beating my mum as a little boy,
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: and I'm fourteen at this stage, and I come flying
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: into the bedroom you are, and I'm like, don't you
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: hit my mother? And he just smiled and he said,
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: what you think is time to you? And he bashed
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: me so bad, and he had no shoes on it, and
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: he kicked my head in and his toeennails cut all
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: my head open, so there was blood everywhere. And then
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: he just got up and walked out and he said,
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: clean that piece of shit up and walked out of
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: the house and got in his.
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: Car and drove away.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: And that's what I said to mom, you know, I said,
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: when he comes home, I'm going to shoot him. So
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: I had guns, so I'm going to shoot him. When
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: the police come, you just tell him that he was
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: beating you up and I protected you. And it was
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: a long time ago, you know. And my mother said
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: to me, look right, and the eyes said, honey, he's
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: not worth going to jail for.
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: She didn't say, don't kill your father.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: I love him, or you know that's your dad, or
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: it was like he's not worth going to jail for.
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: And you know, that stuck with me my whole life.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: You know, I think that I had to deal with
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: later on in life, when I started my own healing process.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: I had to come to the terms with the fact
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: that my mother lived with him, and every time she'd
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: leave him, he'd track her down and bash her and
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: bring her home. He was sexually abusing her daughter, who
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: was my stepsister. She actually ended up having a child
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: to him, and they had to pretend. In the seventies
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: late sixties, I was eleven years of age, so I
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: was nineteen sixty six sixty five. My mother dressing up
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: with a dress on and putting a pillow under her
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: dress so that when the people came to visit, she
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: looked like she was pregnant. And it was my eldest
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: sister who was actually pregnant and going through this facade
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: that she was having a child. Once a child was born,
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: my mother took the child. My oldest sister went to
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: live up in the bush where we came from with
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: my mother's sister, and we all live happily ever after,
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: like nothing had ever happened. You know, as eleven year
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: old child, that was really confusing.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: At eleven, you're thinking about knocking year old man. But
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: because your mother seems to represented the empathy and compassion
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: that you wouldn't really discover for decades after that. Yep,
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: And you had to submerge those feelings because the choices
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: were being made for you. The old man, as I say,
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: he was part of the Painters and Dockers Union, the
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: Tory that he ran Melbourne back in those days. And
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: I guess you could see your future in the shadow
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: of Big Ron.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: Well, it's a real complicated situation for my brain to understand.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: He's a man that I wanted to kill, but he's
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: a man that I wanted.
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: Him to be proud of me.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: You know, I shot my first man at sixteen years
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: of age and my father was driving the car. He
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: abused me for only shooting him in the legs. He's like,
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: you don't shoot people in the leagus. You know they
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: come back and square up, they can.
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: Give you up.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: And that bloke actually didn't give me up. He pointed
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: me out in a lineup and gave me up. Later
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: on in life, you know, I'd got charge with that
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: particular crime and got found not guilty of it because
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: a guy called Johnny Reagan, who anybody who knows. Anybody
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: knew John Regan was a pretty nasty bit of goods.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: The magician. The magician made people disappear. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  Speaker 2: And john had went down and the guy that got shot,
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: allegedly shot was against you, you know, he wasn't some you know,
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: I can say this with a pure heart. I never
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: harmed innocent people, you know, like being a drug dealer.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: I harmed a lot of people in the end, but
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: in those days, I want a drug user. I was
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: a boxer, I trained, you know, I was a fitness fannic.
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  Speaker 2: And Johnny went down and had a chat to this
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: guy and said.
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: The zach words were.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: They came to visit me at Pintry and they said,
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: it's sweet. You're going to be found not guilty. John
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: came down from Sydney and had a chat to him
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: and said to him, if ron goes under your going under, Ronald,
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: come out you won't. So, of course when we went
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: to trial, he got up in court told his story
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  Speaker 2: and the prosecutor said, he is the man in court today.
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  Speaker 3: He looked around the court and he said, no, he's
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: not well.
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  Speaker 2: The court blew up and the judge said, why did
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: you point that man out, and he said, because that
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: was the man the police told me to. So it
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: just blew the case to piece. He became a hostile witness.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: None of his evidence is credible. The second guy, who
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: is his mate, was also been shot. They said, why
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: did you point him out? He said, because he was
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: handcuffed and I wanted someone to pay. So the case
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: was dismissed.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: You know, might I say, though, that your father saying
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: to you you should have shot him sounds to me
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: more like he was worried about someone backing up on
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: him as Zachtel rather than you.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: At this particular stage of my life, my father was
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: fighting with the Canes, Brian and Les and ray Kine.
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: They tried to stand over because my man made two
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: up games and they tried to stand over the games.
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: And they'd come.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: My man was a pretty big guy, handed with his hands,
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: and they tried to get protection money off him. Anytime
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: to get out and nick off. So the next night
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: they drove past and they shot up his car. I
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: don't know why he shoot a car. A car can't
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: shoot back anyway, They shot up his car. So my
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: job from then on for the next three months was
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: to sit parked three cars away from where my father's
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: car was, with a pump action shotgun. Me and another
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: young fella. We'd sit in the car all night and
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: wait for my old man to come home. And he'd
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: come home around about three or four o'clock with a
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: type game had finished and start at ten and go
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: through or three, and I'd sit in the car with
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: a shotgunder the fourteen year old boy, the pump action shotgun.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: Fifteen year old boy, waiting for somebody to come and
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: try to kill my father.
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: And my job was to protect him.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: And this low down rat had been bashing your mum,
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: bashing you, and there you are prepared to kill for him.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: I can see the complicated nature of this relationship.
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And I would have killed for him.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: There's not a doubt in the wide world that you know,
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: if somebody had to come to harm him.
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: I had this incredible sense of the live of crime.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: I believed it. I believed it. I've believed in this
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: red shit. This brother's for life. We die by the sword,
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: we live by the sword. You know, you don't talk
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: to the coppers, you don't have sex with your mate's missus.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: Man was rooting one of his best mates, missuses, you know,
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: which i'd found out later on, you know, and all
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: this incongruent lie that I bought into. See the first
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: guy that was ever shot was over four dollars over
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: a game of snooker. A friend of mine had a
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: game of snooker at the two ype game for a
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: dollar and the guy said double enoughing, so that was
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: two bucks. The guy said double enoughing, so that was
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: four dollars. And then the guy said to my mate,
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: piss off, you're not getting paid. So that's how the
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: fight started. And then he was shot over the four dollar.
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: People saying you shot some of for four dollars, and said, no,
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: you missed the point. I shot him for the principal.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: You didn't shoot him for the four dollars. You shot
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: him for the principal, because in my belief system, if
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: I let him do that, then everybody could stand over me.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: Everybody could then take advantage of me, and I'd feel
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: like a coward because I was brought up the you know,
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: And I went to jail at that time. Not long after,
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: I got involved in a shootout with the police, and
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: I went to jail, and I came out on bail.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: I'd been in jail about I'm only seventeen years of age,
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: just turned seventeen. It was in December nineteen seventy one,
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: and I just turned seventeen. I went to jail, and
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: I met up with Peter Allen and well, Graham Jensen
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: was like my cousin. Graham and I grew up together.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: His older brother was mate with my dad. And so
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: you know, when I went to jail, it wasn't like,
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: don't get me wrong, it was scary, but I wasn't
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: really scary for me because I lived under that name.
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: I had that umbrella of the Painters and Doctors' Union.
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: I'm an issue would My uncle was against Ray, you know,
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: so everyone knew, you know, and I was that good kid.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: You had a shoot out of the copper's good on
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: your son, you know, and pats on the back and eye,
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: and you shot that f and dog and he give
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: you up and he's pointed you out in the lineup,
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: you know, and all that stuff. Not strutting around like
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: a rooster.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: Because the gunman back in the day were regarded as
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: having dash. Yeah, now, prepared to do things that others weren't.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: I remember chop a Red telling me about how he
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: shot up like that and killed her in the knee.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: I think it was around early seventies, and he said
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: to me, I wanted to know what it felt like
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: to do that, and ultimately when he killed Sammy the
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: Turk down at Bojangles nightclub, Yes, know what it felt
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: like to kill someone. I don't think people outside the
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: world can understand what that's like, but it was the
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: law of the jungle.
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: You know, I've heard different people, and this is not
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: putting shit on anybody or glorifying it in whatsoever. I
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: will not glorify shooting people of crime and all that.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: I won't glorified it's all bullshit. But I've heard people,
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: you know, on podcasts say, when I shot him, I
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: had this incredible adrelline Russian and I felt like a
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: god in that. I never felt that, mate. You know
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: what I felt, Hope would I get pinched for this.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: I didn't have empathy of compassion or ravardo and ego.
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: That wasn't even part of it. You know, you weren't
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: shooting him to make a big shot of yourself. You
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: were shooting him for a reason.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: Because, as you say, you're all in the game as
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: it were, and from the early seventies you found yourself
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: on the Billy Longley side of the battle for the
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: painters and Dockers. He was battling fiction control of the
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Union with Pat Shannon. As you found yourself with your
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: dad on Billy's side here, I knew you very well,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: and alongside was Jimmy Baisley, the gunman who ended up
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: killing Donald McCay and Dugan Isabelle Wilson, and so you were.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: And that was a very violent era. I mean, the
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: Costigan Royal Commission found I think fifteen murders were at
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: least were committed around that period. So there was that
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: kill or be killed or the other one. We catch
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: and kill our own.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: I have the T shirt here. I have the Tedal patterns,
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: a T shirt that we catch and kill our own.
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: I've got it.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: I've kept it for nostalgia as I've got it in
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: my rooms. It never gets worn, but I have that
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: T shirt we catch and kill our own. Australian Pans
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: and Doggers Federation.
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, a lot of people don't know that.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: There was another guy as well that was involved with
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: Jimmy and Billy. His name was Kevin. You never hear him.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: You never ever hear his name. He was a really
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: nice guy. When I got out on bail. I've got
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: out on bail after being in there for ten months.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: He may have had some aboriginal in him, this guy.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: And we walked out of my mom and Dad's house.
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: Will be in Glen Whaley at that time. And that
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: the old days. You never brought family into into wars.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: You know, your families weren't involved in wars. You know,
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: you never went to the people's home. You shoots in
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: front of their kids. You know, there was it was rules.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: There was rules.
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: And Billy and I.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: Were walking out the front door and we had this
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: little meat high fence, remember the old brick fence, and
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: then had a little up and then had another meter
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: and a car drove passed and it was the game Brothers.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: I think it was like Shamings. Anyway, this start shot well,
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: I had a shotgun. There was in two pieces of
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: pump shotgun. I was laying on the ground trying to
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: put the shotgun into one piece, and I watched Billy,
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: you're hiding behind the letterbox, fired two shots from the
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: forty five into the ground.
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: He never even shot at the car. And so you know,
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: I'm a pretty crazy kid at this stage.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: I've just got out on bail. I've got five attempted murders.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: Use a fire and prevent lawful apprehension. Here's a firearm
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: with intent to murder. Here's a fireum to cause grievers
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: bodily harm. So I've got this massive and everything. I
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: say that with me as I'm sure you would have
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: done your homework. Even on the front of my book.
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: Cover is my criminal history so that people can't get it.
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: That's not true.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: I've actually had people query things that I've written, and
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: I always bring it back gay no section such that
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: starts this court case, or because I like to be transparent.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: I like to tell the truth, you know what I mean.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: And it's hard to tell the truth when you're a criminal.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: It's interesting when you bring up Billy Longley. Billy spent
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: a long time in his later years trying to talk
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: up his role in the Painters and Dockers Wars and
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: what he did. But really, I mean, he was known
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: for shooting his wife. He didn't have time for that.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: He should have, and in the end, the rivalry between
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: him and Pat Shannon ended in October seventy three when
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: Longley gets Kevin Taylor and Gary Harding, two junkies, to
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: go and shoot Shannon in the Druids Hotel in South
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: Melbourne and doesn't do it himself. So there's Billy with
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: the big forty fives and the steps and the Texan.
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: And he used to say to me, oh, this Carl
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: Williams and so and so forth. There nothing you should
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: go back to the painters and dockers. Well, I don't
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: know if it was all myth. It's all myth, Mark.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: And again it was encouraging people under their control to
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: do the stupid dirty work which would often land them
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: in prison.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: The cemetery, which was me a seventeen year old kid.
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: When you and I old chat the other day, I
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: told you we were out looking for the enemy. You know,
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: the Brothers the Canes and you know that was the enemy,
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: and we're looking for those because they were dangerous. We
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: were out looking for them one night and we went
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: down to the Victorian Marcus and to the nappies two
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: up game. That was our opposition, that was my old
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: man's opposition. Upstairs, there was a guy standing on the
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: door and we eated a twenty two of the silence
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: are on it and telescopic sites and that, and they said,
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: I put one in that blowst leg. This is Billy
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: put one in that blow's leg. And I said, why,
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: I'll just put the skids under him scare them. And
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: I said, even back then I had prince. I said, no,
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: I'm not fucking going to shoot someone who's standing on
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: a corner for ten bucks probably a night, that's what
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: they'll probably get in those days. Ten dollars stand in
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: the corner, stopped the drunks from coming in, and let
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: you know, the coppers run the way up the stairs.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: Said I'm not shooting that bloke for nothing, you know.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: And anyway then they're like ah, they drove away. What
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: happened after that night, blongly when he fired the gun
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: into the ground and we came inside and I said,
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: he's an EF and dog, that bloke. And I'm talking
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: out longly in front of Jimmy, Baisley, Kevin and my
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: old man, and everyone's gone white. They go, what I said,
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: he's an F and dog. I said, I seen him
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: shoot into the ground. He never shot at that character all,
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: you know, And Kevin grabbed me. He said come here.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: He said, come for a walk, and he took me
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: for walk. Kevin said, mate, sometimes things are what they
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: seem to be. Yeah, So he took me for walk,
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: and when he came he said, you've gotta be really
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: careful putting him on the dog button in front of people,
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: because he's a dangerous man. He will get somebody else
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: to do something. This is on God's oath. May I
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: not move from this seat ever. That night he was
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: on watch because we used to have turning watching the
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: house to be awake all night in case they came
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: to the house to kill us. Him and his wife
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: climbed out of the window like rats of the night
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: and snuck away while our family was asleep. Rang Frannie
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: Bayless and said to Frannie, I'll give you the location
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: where everyone's sleep and then give him the lay.
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: Out of the our.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: He rang my mum's house because those days was named
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: Obile Farms. There was a landline, and said, what about
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: your dog mate Longley. He's just rang us and wants
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: to do a deal and hainges all up. So there's
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: Billy Longley and that's that's that's on my mum's grave.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: That's exactly the conversation I told you is exactly one
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: hundred percent of how it happened.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: You talk about the myth of crime and the myth
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: of staunchness and all this sort of stuff. You know,
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: when you look at both sides of that. Billy Longley
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: ends up giving evidence at the Costa and Royal Commission too,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: the painters and do and gives up a lot of people,
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: tolds the whole story. And on the other side of
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: the coin, Brian Kane becomes a police informer and then
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: November nineteen seventy nine he kills Ray Chuck Bennett, the
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: famous armed Robert On behalf of the police is assisted
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: by the Police Act. In fact, the good old days
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: we're not that good and probably mostly myth.
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: Mate or myth. They were sexually abusing each other's wives.
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: They're robbing each other. Yeah.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: I don't like to speak ill dead right, but I'm
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: going to tell you the truth, Adam. I'm not going
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: to sit here and bullshit to you know. I mean,
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: that's not it's not my nature, you know. I'd rather
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: say someone to go and get deft than bullshits. Yeah,
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: And the only reason people lies because they're afraid. They're
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: either afraid or they're a big note. They try to
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: make it bigger than what it is, or they try
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: to downplay because their fears of judgment or rejection or repercussion.
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: I don't have that fear. I don't have that fear
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: of repercussion.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: Well you shouldn't. You've lived long enough and got through
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: the break enough times, you know. But I think it's
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: really important to have some realism about this because what
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: I see in the crime world these days, all this
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: invocation of brotherhood and love and all the man hugging
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: and all that. I'll be there for you, I'll be
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: you know, I'll look after your missus, all that sort
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: of stuff, you know, But you're always in the dock
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: on your own. You do your time on your own.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: And I think, particularly with the drugs that permeate most
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: of these criminal relationships these days, the invocations of loyalty
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: and staunchness and so forth is even more intense. And
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: when it all breaks apart, the shooting begins, you know,
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: and particularly in the biking clubs. And that's what I've
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: noticed there is that one day a bloke's telling you
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: he's your best mate, he loves you, and the next
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: minute you're out in bad standing and he's coming around
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: to Bashia. So there's no loyalty. And I think some
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: of the best trips I've ever heard worked on their
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: own for that very fact.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: The Lone Rangers I call on the Loan Rangers. There
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: was a guy, he's dead. He died in the late sixties.
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: His name was James Constantine, Jimmy Constantine. Jimmy actually killed
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: himself doing a Jewish stocktake little building up in it
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: may have been in Peran, and he used night for
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: pill and jelly knight, he never used it before. And
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: his wife and kid were sitting in the car parked
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: down the road. Well, Jimmy'd ran in. He's just going
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: to put some explosive in. They're going to set fire
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: to the joint and blow the joint up and they're
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: going to get their money and the Jewish owners. And
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: Jimmy was running up beside the building when it went
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: off and the war fell on top and killed him.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: And his little boy was probably five, and he said,
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: I send the war for on my daddy. I send
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: the wharf fall on my daddy. I sent the wharf
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: and I never forget that. He was the first guy
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: that I felt was a real gangster, a real man.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: He was family man, really quiet, wasn't a big shot,
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: didn't go to the races, always immagetly dressed, well spoken.
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: Pulled the chair out my mother when we went to cafe.
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: You know, like those days.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: Chinese restaurant was a cafe down in Punch Street, down
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: next to cliffs and Neil that it was a top
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: top joint, you know, Chinese restaurant. You know, get chicken
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: che on me in and that was about the change.
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: And then going to Carlton have a pizza. You know,
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: we had no culture Australia. Come on, you know, froud
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: a out of stag on the barbie, just touching on it,
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: you said that the bike is and that all that
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: came in afterwards. And when I became a drug dealer,
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: it was because I was a drug addict and I've
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: seen how much money was involved in it, and I
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: started telling the old cringe. You know, I'm a by
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: that stage, I'm a twenty something year old kid driving
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: a brand new GT Falcon there still run now, breaking
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: into burly bras and doing big warehouse breaking enders and
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: then have to fence the shit off and this You're
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: driving a bloody you know, an e K Holt and
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: you know, I am driving a brand new j D
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: Felk and wearing a particularly watch and they're like, what
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: are you doing?
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: Kid?
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: And I said, you know, I'm involving some blows. And
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: drug dealing those days was a very small window. There
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: wasn't a lot of drug addicts, and we all knew
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: each other. Victor Sphinx like, if someone got some hash
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: into the country, I'd go straight down to the Koudji
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: Bay Hotel. Where's Victor? Because Victor was on the heroine
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: of the stage. Victor, is that your hash? Yeah, no,
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: it's not mine, but it belongs to so and so.
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: So we all knew. Everyone knew whose gear it was.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: You know I was Buddhistic, Say okay, it was the Fibbers,
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: So everyone knew whose gear it was, you know.
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: And our gang was called the.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: Powder Gang because you know, I was a heroin addict,
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: So of course I wanted to bring heroin into the country.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: But it wasn't based around being an drug dealer. No.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: You mentioned a few famous names that Victor Spinx. He
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: began as one of the famous Kangaroo Gang of shoplifters
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: back in the sixties and he was really really good,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: and then little by little everything changed into the seventies.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: Later on, as you say, Victor is involved in drug
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: dealing importation. Same with the fibber Jack Warren. He was
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: a famous member of the Kangaroo Gang and a beautiful man.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: Everyone loved him. Irony, of course for the Fibber was
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: that his son Barry got heavily involved in the drugs
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: importation and died of heroine up in the Philippines. So
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: the whole thing sort of collapsed on itself. And it's
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: funny you mentioned Frannie Bayless before. He was also one
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: of the Kangaroo Gang. I ran into him at Bertie
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: Kid's funeral a few months ago and I had a
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: chat to him and and he's this little old man now.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: And I saw him again, noo that I was walking
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: down the street to get a pie at Keith's Pie's
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: and Richmond one of the best. Yeah, I'm and there
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: was Freddie again, and he's just this little old man now.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: You'd never know what he was involved with in the past.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: But boys, and turbulent times. Turbulent times when your old
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: man gets run out of Melbourne. Eventually he goes to
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: Sydney and you follow him. Yes, and that's when you're
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: involvement in drugs really begins and you start to tangle
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: with some famous names up there, many of whom are dead. Yeah.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: I might that take place by beating the attempted murders.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: And I've got three years for the break and enders
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: that I had. We had the shootout of the coppers
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: with my co accused pleaded guilty to the shootout. We
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: pleaded guilty. We did a plea bargain and he pleaded
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: guilty to that, and they dropped the attempted murder charge
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: and just use fire on prevent level apprehension. I got
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: sent back in a youth training center and I've actually
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: got introduced to drugs in jail. The system put me
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: on a drug called like Actual, which is a psych
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: drug schizophrenia. Yeah, it's a misdiagnosis, a drug editing somebody who,
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: once he starts using a drug, can no longer guarantee
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: his behavior. Now's more than one personality. He's ay the
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: stone or he's rugging, hanging out and he's desperate. You know,
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: a psychopath is somebody who hasn't got a conscience. So
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: when you're using, you've got no conscience. So they diagnosed
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: me as a schizophrenic psychopath and put me on like
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: a fool. When I got out of jail, they came
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: to Sydney all of a suddenly mixed up with Jackie
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: Clark and that crew, you know, like they're running the
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: show McPherson. I never had to do with McPherson. That
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: wasn't my crew. But by that stage I was still
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: running with the painters and dockers, and I became a
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: heroin addict. And the minute I became a heroineutict, they
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: all just banned me. I got away with it for
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: a little while because you lose weight and that, and
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: they said what's wrong. I said, oh, I've got some
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: stomach cans, and they It's quite sad when you think
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: about it, because in the old days, they used to
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: put a barrel on.
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: You know, they put a party on a Sunday.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: Down the Union rooms and they all tip money in
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: to pay for your lawyer or you know what if
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: you were sick.
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: And so they put a barrel on.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: And I was just a bullshit artist who was on heroin,
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: so they put a barrel and they found out about that,
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: and they weren't too happy about that, so they sort
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: of black banned me from, which stun me a favor,
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: black bear me from. The Sydney crims weren't the same
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: as the Melbourne crims, trust me. You know, the Melbourne crims.
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: They were ten times more violent, one hundred times more violent.
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: Longely.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: You used to say, the old saying was that Sydney
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: for cash, Melbourne for blokes. And there was more of
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: a staunch scene down in Melbourne. People did as you say,
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: They did look after each other to a certain extent.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: Those wasn't it a fair bit of backstabbing and shooting
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: and burning and the rest of it too, But there
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: was a pretense of unity to that extent.
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, one hundred percent.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: And in Sydney it was all about money and it
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: was tied up pretty strong with Stan Smith, Georgie Freeman,
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: Lenny McPherson. They had all the all the joints up there,
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: and I was just happy being a drug deal. By
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: that stage, I'd become a drug addict and I hadn't compensated.
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: To me.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: I didn't understand too many years later, he said, when
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: you first came to Sydney, he said, we were a
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: bit concerned about you. This is the old consortant squad.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: He said, you're a dangers, you're in tell and you're
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: fucking willing. He said, Now we don't care about you,
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: just a junkie. We just wait at the nearest chemistry.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: I who we want a pincher And you know I
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: didn't quite get it, but you know it was true.
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: You know I'd become useless, worthless and hopeless. My relationship
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: with my father had gone. My mom passed away in
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: nineteen seventy three, just after I got released from jail
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: from Melbourne. When you're just nineteen, yeah, when I was nineteen.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: As soon as mum died, I started using drugs. My
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: mum was was my rudder. She was my emotional and
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: spiritual connection with the world. And once mum died, I
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: had no connection. I had no sounding board, no no anchor,
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: and I got lost, mate, I've got really got lost
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: in the world of drug dealing. Drug use more than
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: anything else, and.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: You're able to submerge your pain and trauma and your
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: lack of empathy with the highs of drugs and I
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: guess it's a fair bit of crime as well, because
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: it was a fair bit of adrenaline in the crime world. Well, yes,
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: you were just managing everything that had begun much much earlier,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: when you're listening to your father beat your mother up
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: and getting involved in all his violence. And drugs were
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: the perfect sort of salve to all that.
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: I loved them, a sh honest truth my first injectant
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: of her, and was like, oh my god, how long
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: has this been going on for? I had a shot
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: on I came remember the day just I had a
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: shot on the Sunday. I bought a half an ounce
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: on the Monday. And the guy that saw me my shot,
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: he saw me my first shot, and he started working
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: for me. The next day I bought half an oun
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: and he started selling my caps for me. And now
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: relationship and we still talk every now and again. Here's
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: the guy that gave me my friend I couldn't even
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: shoot myself up, and his plan and he's got a
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: really successful life and he's got a great life, you know.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: But the drugs became God, they became everything. And in
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: nineteen eighty one, Roger Rogerson had just knocked Warren Lamb
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: FRENCHI who was a maid of mine. French and I
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: were mate in jail, we trained together. I never had
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: no time for Needdie Smith. I never have, never fucking
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: will have. I've seen Needdie Smith shit himself on numerous occasions.
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: You know where Eddie was, Don't don't get me wrong.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: He was dangerous. He'd kill you if the odds are
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: in his favor.
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: It was a bit like names.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: We should do a bit of background there. Roger Rogers,
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: of course, was former New South Wales detective and war
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: On Land Franchie was the I don't think he was
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: a drug dealer more a drug he wasn't.
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: He wasn't He wasn't even a drug user.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: And I think it was in June eighty one when
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: war On Land Franchi is killed in Dangar place by Rogerson.
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: That's dirrect.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: I think Roger got a medal for that. But you
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: know the background to what really happened. So what actually occurred.
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: French he was selling her on for a Smith.
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: He'd come around to my joint about four weeks before
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: that happened and said to me he was going out
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: of Sally and Hackstep at that time. Warren he just
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: got out of jail. We've been in jail together. I
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: was telling him about drug dealing. I was teaching Warren
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: how to be a drug dealer because Warren was a
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: little armed robbery. He'd done nothing really. His own man
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: was also a gunsmith, so his on man used to
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: import guns. So Warren was getting out of jail and
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: I said to him, the money's in the drugs these days.
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: Is not in armed robberies, is not in this. It's
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: not in that, you know.
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: But the trouble was Neddie Smith had groomed him in jail.
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: He said, make it out and I'll give you a
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: start selling gear for me. I got out of jail
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: within a couple of weeks, I.
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: Hooked up with Warren. Warren was given me tick.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: And because I'm a drug user, every time Warren had
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: come to pick up his money, I'm short because I've
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: used most of it.
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: And he's like, mate, what are you doing? And I said,
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: I just give us.
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: Another half an ounce. I'll make it up to you
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: next week, you know, And I remember this like yesterday
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: was so funny. He said, where's my mate Ronnie gone?
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: He said, who the fuck are you? He said, where's
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: Ron gone? Because you know it changes you when you
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: use drugs, would come so self centered and all that
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: matters is to get stoned.
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: When he came to my place, I wasn't my place.
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: I never had a place.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: I was always sleeping on someone's lounge, and I'd become
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: a gutter junkie. There's no highlight in me into my using.
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: He said, I'm going to knock the big bloke. Now
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: it was Smith, and I said stop. I said, mate,
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: if you're going to knock him, don't tell anybody. I said,
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: because if you tell the wrong person, he'll get you knocked.
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: I said, don't do it. I said, just knock him
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: and get on with it. Because he was saying that
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: Smith was cutting the dope because Salienne was a junkie.
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: Shellian was telling Warren needs treating you like your goose.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: He's cutting your dab, and Warren was fairly willing. He
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: was a willing little bloke. So he must have went
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: and told other people I'm going to knock Eddie. In
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: that three week period, I get pinched. I'm sitting on
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: remand the next thing I hear Warren fla French has
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: just been killed. Another guy comes into jail and he
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: says to me, mrc in de Longbain. He goes Roger
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: Rogerson had picked him up and said to him, where's
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: he sure would, because I think Rogerson must have been
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: paranoid that French he knew that he told French. He
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: told me that he was going to knock Smith and
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: he told me he had to give Roger twenty grand
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: because they'd shot at a copper, him and another guy.
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: And I shopped myself.
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: That's been honest. I shopped myself. I was like, oh, fucky, now,
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: I don't want to get bail. I don't want to
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: get I'm not going out there to get knocked.
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: Because see, I.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: Knew Butchy Burns, Robert Robert who he killed, Roger Rogerson killed.
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: And I also knew the other bloke that Roger Rogerson
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: had killed as well. He killed him on works release.
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: He was doing bank robers and works release. So there
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: were three blokes that I had close associated with that
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: Roger killed. So I had no doubt in my mind
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: that I was going to be in the next one.
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: So I went to a rehab. I went to a
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: drug rehab, and that was in nineteen eighty one. And
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: that's when this recovery thing started for me.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: So you can thank Roger.
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, thank Roger the Dodger for it's really funny.
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: My what do you call him?
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: They do nerves doctor and injects my neck because I've
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: got a really bad neck in Jecksman. When Roger died,
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: he sent me a message because he's got my book
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: he is. He said, I got good news for you.
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: Roger died today.
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: You know. He's really funny. Yeah, so he sent me,
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: you know, but today my phone is full of really
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: good people.
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: My phone's full of counselors, you know, council workers, council mayors, coppers,
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: coppers that you know like Mick Kennedy. You know Mick
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: ken He was on the major current squad that was
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: on my case in ninety ninety three years on the
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: major current squad on my case, you know.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: And that's why we're speaking because Mick said to me,
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: you need to speak to Ron. You'll get on with him.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: He's got a great story to tell because you typify
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: someone who's got the insight into his life, who's yeah,
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: got through the break. You shouldn't be alive. No, it
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: should have been Roger could have got you and rehabit
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: freedom he really wanted and could have gotcha. You're old man.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: A dozen reasons why you shouldn't be here today. The
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: one I feel sorry for is Sally Ane Hutchtep because
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: and it amazes me that she lasted until February eighty
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: six where she turns up strangled and drowned in a
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: pond in Centennial Park because she was speaking out against
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: Neddie Smith and Roger about the killing of her boyfriend
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: Warren Land. Francie, you knew sally Anne as well.
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: Yes, mate, Yeah, Shellianne slept in the same bed, never
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: slept with her will mates. But she's just stared at
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: the front of the pub in Broadway and yell out
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: you're an ef and dog Smith, you work with the jacks,
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: you're a police informer. And she'd declare him in the
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: middle of the street when you know no one was
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: doing that those days. Neddie had the green light, and
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: shelle Anne was just relentless. You know, if he as
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: walked through the cross, she'd just start bagging him. You're
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: a police informer, you know you work on both sides.
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: You know she was relentless, Sally And and yeah, I
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: know Shelleanne's daughter. You know, it's quite sad, you know,
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: like mate, Sellam was just collateral damage because she was
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: in love with Warren. She actually was in love with Warren.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: Well, that's right. And I think back in those days,
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: I said before, Sydney was so much about money and
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: it was so connected with the corrupt elements of New
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: South Wales police. This would come back to bite you eventually.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: In those days you had to work with the say
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: so of the coppers. How did you survive up there
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: doing what you were doing without paying the coppers?
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: This is a true story.
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: What happened was they threw me into a doorway up
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: the cross and said to me, if you want to
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: sell up a you sell our gear or you sell
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: no one's gear.
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: This is a true story.
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: I said, well, I sell no one's gear and I
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: went and started selling gear around Burrowood Stratfield that area.
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: Because mate, I'm not a tough guy. I'm not a gangster.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: I did some bad things and all that stuff, and
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: I am I ashamed of it.
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: I regret it. I regret it.
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: I don't know what shame is.
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: I didn't know right from wrong. Shames when you knew
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: you were doing something wrong. I didn't know I was
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: doing something wrong. I actually thought I was doing good.
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: I was a good boy.
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: If my old man had been a copper, I'd be
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: the head of the police force. If my old man
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: was a lawyer, I'd be a qus ce you. I mean,
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: I was that sort of guy that I always wanted
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: to be the best. I always wanted to strive hard.
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm seventy one years of age. I still
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: work nearly seven days a week. I'm helping people in recovery.
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: We're helping people that have been sexually abused in institutions.
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: And I run a really successful building company, you know,
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: and we work hard. We work, but I mean people
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: think crimes easy crimes, not easy crimes hard work, especially
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: the old days. Cutting a hole through the wall, getting
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: into the safe, cutting the safe open, it took freaking
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: sometimes five or six hours. Sometimes I take the whole
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: weekend to get into a joint. You know, people just
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: think it's easy money.
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: It's not.
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you have done a lot of great work in
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: helping people with addiction. I think you call yourself a
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: recovery transformation coach. And I wonder whether and I don't
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: like saying this, but when you were dealing heroin back
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: there in the eighties, a lot of young people were
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: dying from heroin. Is what you're doing now a form
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: of penance, a form of redemption as well.
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: One hundred percent, one hundred percent. It's my way of
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: giving back my ignorance can't cut it anymore. My ignorance
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: just don't cut it, you know, even when I went
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: back into crime. I went back to crime for a
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: very short period of time in two thousand and late
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: ninety nine, and I got eighteen years. But it wasn't heroin.
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: It was cocaine. And I justified in my own, poor
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: simple little mind cocaine. Who uses cocaine? Lawyers, judges, stock exchange.
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: You know, it wasn't a street drug those days. It
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: wasn't a street drug. And I wouldn't go near heroin.
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: I would never gain in the eyes, you know, I've
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: never I refused to gain n any of those drugs.
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: And to me, cocaine was a rich man's driver. And
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: I was resentful to the world because I never took
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: responsibility for my life, because I always played the poor
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: me card, like I never had a chance. You know
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: I was born with this lie of crime and blah
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: blah blah. But you know what, I was still my choices.
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: I don't justify it.
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: I'm not a victim.
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: And when I got eighteen years in two thousand and two,
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: I got sentence to eighteen years and I'm federal prisoner.
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: Halftime, Terry A.
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: Gorman, very famous solicitor, came downstairs and he said to me, are.
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: You going to be okay Ron? And I said, yeah,
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: I am. Mate.
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: He said, I'm so sorry. I said, don't be. We'd
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: formed this relationship, you know, because he knew who I
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: was at that time. And I only went back into crime.
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: And this is not being justifying it to help the mate.
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: And mate had got himself into trouble with the cartel
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: and he'd lost a lot of dope in Argentina. And
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: he came to me and he said, please, brother, help me.
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: Just come and vouch for me. And I did that,
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: and cut a long story short, I got SENNSD eighteen years.
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: People say, what was it like going back to prison
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: after being out of prison for twenty years? In going
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: back to prison clean, you know, completely drug free. So
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: I've had a drink since eighty two. I haven't had
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: a drugs since eighty six, and I said it was horrific.
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: I said, but it was the best thing that ever
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: happened to me.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: Because it was so different. It was so different to
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: the time you'd done back in the seventies and penridges.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, there was some structure to the gangs inside jail,
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: but the level of violence and drug use and madness
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: in today's prisons, and you've seen it the last twenty years,
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: it hasn't got any better.
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: It's got worse one hundred times.
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: It must have been a massive eye open for you.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: And I guess because you didn't help your mate Francis
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: Burns on that job. Are you still mates with him?
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: I haven't spoken word to since the day I was sentenced.
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: What would you ad him? If you did?
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: He might hear this in giving we receive for life,
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: Onder how he's gone. I heard his clinic swimming pools
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: for fifty bucks an hour or something. In giving me receive,
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: you know that's the reality.
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: I have a beautiful family. My children love me, my
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: children respect me. My neighbors are the first person to
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: call me if something's broken in the street, if something.
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: Needs to be fixed, Ronald, do it.
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: Ron will help us, you know, Like I like who
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: I am today, Adam, I really like the human being
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: I've become, which is such a really nice thing. I
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: believe I was always a good person doing bad things.
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: I wasn't a bad person. I was a good person.
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: I just had bad information. And I've had to reprogram
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: my brain.
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: You have, and that's the hardest thing. And I think
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: giving up alcohol, giving up drugs, giving up crime, there's
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: a loss. That's probably the wrong word for it, but
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: a loss of joy, excitement, adrenaline, identity, identity.
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: In my drug and alcohol business, I deal with a
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: lot of people who are really high achievers. They can't
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: go to the normal twelve step programs or the normal
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: detox or now I'm dealing with people who are worth
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: hundreds of hundreds of mellions of dollars, or ex cops
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: or the cops who are still cops, or ex prison officers,
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: or doctors or nurses, and they can't go and come
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: out and say I have a drug problem because they
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: lose their job. So they've got to come behind the
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: black curtain and get help through someone like me who
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: goes okay, and their animinity is the most important part.
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: Of my program.
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: That's why my program's so successful.
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: Because I have a.
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: Really bad memory. I've always had a bad memory, you know.
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: I suffer with them. Nietzschere.
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: That's a good thing. That's a good thing for a
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: crook too. I mean, I think these days crooks. You're
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: not a crook anymore, of course, but the problems. They
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: put them inside a police station, deprive them of drugs
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: for a couple of days, and them they'll say.
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: Anything, Yeah, mine mate, say that they're two hit wonders.
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: One need to start and one need to stop them
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: because they just don't shut up, you know. And I'm
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: a copper made of mine up here on the Sunshine Cases.
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: One of the boss that up here. You know, it
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: sounds really funny when I say this evening in my
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: own brain sty, but you know, one of the biggest
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: commanders in Melbourne. I think he's got eight police stations
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: under his command. I treated his son and he just
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: said to me, know, you help save my son's life.
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: I've got over here.
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: I've got Glenn Archer, one of the most famous footballers
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: in Australian AFL, with a placard over there that says, Ronnie,
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: thank you for helping save so many lives.
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: Love and respect, Glenn. I'm a street kid from fitz Roy.
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: Things like that are more important than the rolics and
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: the cars and the house and the other things.
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: I love the most. Integrity and the fact that if
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: I say I'm going to do something, I do it.
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: If I say I'm not going to do it, I
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: don't do it. I have a real, real good set
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: of principles.
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: I'm reliable, I'm consistent, I'm congruent, I'm respectful, and I'm honest.
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: What a really nice word. Honest. Such a good word, mate,
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: I love it.
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: I love the interesting thinking about the old school Crims.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: Bob Dillon. He said that if you're going to be
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: an outlaw, you've got to be honest. I think the
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: ones it sounds, it sounds contradictory, but I think that
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: integrity of the old school crim certainly was very very important.
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: And you know, so many of your cohorts, no matter
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: how high they got, it ended in sickness and death
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: and misery. Victor Sphinx, good example. I think you hain
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: like six million dollars in the bank when he died.
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: What was his final days one.
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: Hundred and twenty dollars room at the Southern Cross Hotel
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: in George Street and the young har Aboriginal girl shooting
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: up ice. Fucking horrific, horrific. I have so many friends
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: and I've said it to them, you are so poor
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: or you have his money. You know, that's one of
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: my favorite sayings, you are so poor. I met Charlie
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: Sheen in America in ninety four. I use that line
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: on Charlie and he was so pissed off with me, said, mate,
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: you're so broke. I said, oh, you've got his money.
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: Then he went on to completely lose the plot. Now
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: he's clean.
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: I've had the pleasure of meeting some really beautiful people
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: in the indust recovery.
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: Journey, you know, doctors, lawyers and just good people.
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: You know, there's so many good people out there that
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: get caught up in this drug trap. And it is
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: a trap.
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: You just have a couple of bumps after work.
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: We know.
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: I have a dream at them and it's going to
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: sound really funny, and I don't talk about this much.
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: I want to open a rehab for first responders, for police,
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: ambulance drivers, paramedics, tow truck drivers, first responders, people that
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: are the first on the sea when someone's got a
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: baby in a microwave, where just gone to a car crash,
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: or someone's just had their head blown off.
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: And I want to open a rehab just for that.
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: You know. It's called Fresh First Responders and Emotional Safety House.
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: And that's my purpose in.
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: Life now is to make enough money through my other
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: companies that I can open this rehab and people go,
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: I mean, well, would want to help the conference for
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: us because it's who do you call when you're in trouble?
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: You don't call the gangster down the street.
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: You don't, you don't. And we sued to talk about
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: this off air. I can introduce you to some people
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: who are on the same track with you. We can
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: talk about that off air. I've listened to a lot
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: of your podcasts and things, and you've been interviewed numerous
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: times about your journey and especially with your dad. But
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: one question they don't ask is whatever happened to your dad?
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: He died a miserable, lonely old man up Nick Cabra
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: Matta in a house that had no hot water service
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: in it, and his wife was his new wife was
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: boiling jugs. Like when I was a kid, we know,
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: and you're a little kid, we didn't have water. They
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: boil the kettles on the woodstove and tip them in
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: the bath, you know. I remember my mom carrying pots
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: in and put them in the bath rest to have
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: a bath, you know. And he died penniless, very lonely,
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: and very bitter, very bitter. You know. I never spoke
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: to him for many, many years, mate, I didn't speak
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: to him for over twenty years. I grew up, I
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: grew up, you know, and I just I didn't really
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: send him anymore. I actually hided him in the end.
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: It was really pitiful. And because I knew who he
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: really was, and he knew that I knew who he
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: really was. I think that as a father, my children
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: absolutely adore me. And that's one of the greatest gifts
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: I've got out of all my achievements. Getting off drugs
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: was the first thing, is the most important thing. Is
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: without getting off drugs, I wouldn't have been capable of
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: doing all the other things I've done.
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: Did you make your peace with your old man?
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: No, mate, No way, no fucking way, mate. I was
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: in jail when he died.
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: No, only Resona would have went to his funeral, just
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: to make sure he was dead. It's the only reason
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: would have went there.
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: I'm going to be provocative here. It isn't the final
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: part of recovery and peace, making peace with the past
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: and forgiving. Wasn't that something that was important to you?
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: I forgave me.
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: I can only be responsible for my part in it.
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: I don't believe he deserved forgiveness. I don't believe he
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: deserved recognition as a father. There's difference between having sex
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: with a woman and who are having a child to
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: you and being a father.
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: Because I've been both.
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: You know, I had a child born well, Peter Allen
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: and I both got kids to the same girl. I
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: married her back in the seventies. You know, we're both
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: go And I wasn't a good dad mate, you know,
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: And I really wasn't. And today, you know, I do
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: a lot of work with kids of disability because my
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: son had a disability. And I did not leave his
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: mother because he had the disability, but I didn't support him.
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: I gave him money, you know, the old gangster bullshit.
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: Just feed the money and that fixes it.
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: Up today.
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: I deal with a company called Compass. They deal with
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: disability children. We rent them properties, we help them a lot,
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: we donate to them. My wife has a company which
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: is called Beyond Lighthouse. We help sexual abuse victims and
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: we do that a lot of the time at a cost.
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: We don't get nothing. We don't get kickbacks from the
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: lawyers like Russell Mansell was and all that shit. We
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: don't get all that shit.
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: Mate.
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: We don't do it for that reason. We're not motivated
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: for that reason. We're motivated by helping people, you know,
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: which is nice.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: And you've already got plenty and love as well.
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: Ron.
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: This is a happy ending to a story that should
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: have ended many decades ago in the cemetery. And you've prospered,
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: You've helped others, and I hope you live a long
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: time so you can spread more of this gospel and
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: turn more lives around. Thank you so much for your
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: time today, mate. I really appreciate that.
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: I really appreciate you too, ad them. I really I
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: love what you're doing.
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: And I actually see a true sincerity, which is very
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: rare these days. I try, my best, mate, you know
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: what can I get out of it not what can
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: I give. The more we give, the more we receive.
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: Well, I find that my old man was a psychiatrist. Story.
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: He was a forensic psychiatrist who used to go and
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: treat Neddie Smith, and his view was always, don't waste
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: your time judging people. Try to understand them. And that's
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: I guess my mission, and that infuses evey thing I do.
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: But yeah, you're taking it to the next level. I'm
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: really grateful for your work. Thanks for your time.
• 51:27
  Speaker 3: Ron, appreciate your time. Thanks very much, Adam.
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: That's one issue with there. It's an amazing story. I'm
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: going to put some links in the show notes, runs,
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: podcast and some other useful things that will help you
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: just grasp the dimension of this journey and if you're
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: in that place where you're trying to make change. He's
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: a man whose whole destiny was written for him, but
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: he rewrote the chapters and the story is unfolding still
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: at seventy one, we're all capable of that. It's an exciting,
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: challenging opportunity to live beyond the things that we believe
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: are our realities, that we're so attached to. All they
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: are is like a tattoo to skin deep. It's not
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: your personality. You can start again. Ron's living proof of that.
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: So if you want to report a crime, please call
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: crime Stoppers one, don't hundred, triple three, triple zero. Maybe
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: you don't trust the compers, I understand that you can
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: always write to me at Adam shanned Writer at gmail
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: dot com and I will treat your information with confidentiality
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: and respect. I want to thank you for listening to
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: this interview today. This has been Adam Shanfer Real Crime
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: talked to you again soon. Thanks for listening to this
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: episode and supporting this story. Independent storytelling that shapes the
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: world is what pod shape really cares about. Right now,
• 53:03
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• 53:06
  Speaker 1: other True Crimes, and they're completely engaged. More than ten
• 53:09
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• 53:12
  Speaker 1: thought about advertising your business in a podcast, there's a
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: link to reach out in the show notes, or head
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: to podshape dot com to book a free call.