Latest / Real Crime with Adam Shand / Inside Australia’s Most Dramatic Airport Robbery | Stephen Barci

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Inside Australia’s Most Dramatic Airport Robbery | Stephen Barci · Real Crime with Adam Shand

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Appoja Production. Welcome to Real Crime with Adam Shand. I'm
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: your host, Adam Shand. If you like our content, please
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: subscribe and like the podcast for more independent crime journalism. Today,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: I'm taking you back to one of Australia's most dramatic
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: armed robberies. On July twenty eighth, nineteen ninety two, three
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  Speaker 1: bandits robbed the Anset freight terminal at Melbourne's Tallamarine Airport.
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  Speaker 1: Police say a man was shot dead during an armed
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  Speaker 1: robbery at the Anset air Freight terminal at Melbourne Airport.
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  Speaker 1: The priors was more than one million dollars that was
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  Speaker 1: bound for regional banks. The robbers were three highly experienced crooks.
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  Speaker 1: Normie Lee had been one of the great bookie robbers
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  Speaker 1: who'd taken millions from the Victoria Racing Club. In nineteen
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  Speaker 1: seventy six, millions of dollars were stolen from Victoria's major
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  Speaker 1: bookmakers in a robbery that stunnedials. He was the only
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  Speaker 1: one to face trial and was acquitted. Stephen Asling, the
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  Speaker 1: getaway driver, went on to infamy as the killer of
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  Speaker 1: Graham the Munster kinnebre In December two thousand and three,
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  Speaker 1: contract killer Stephen John Asling, who murdered on the orders
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  Speaker 1: of Carl Williams, has been sentenced to life in prison.
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  Speaker 1: The third member of the team was Stephen Barchie, a
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  Speaker 1: seasoned armed robber who with Normi Lee, did the crucial
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  Speaker 1: planning of the raid. Victoria Police confirmed that more than
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  Speaker 1: fifty officers, including specialist.
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  Speaker 2: Units, were involved in a pre planned operation around the
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  Speaker 2: Front terminal.
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  Speaker 1: The robbers did not know that the police were onto them,
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  Speaker 1: and more than fifty officers were laying in wait, including
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  Speaker 1: the Special Operations Group. The crooks got the money, but
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  Speaker 1: they didn't get away.
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  Speaker 3: One offender is dead, another seriously wounded, and a third
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  Speaker 3: is in custody.
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  Speaker 1: Norman Lee was shot dead and Barchie was grievously wounded
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  Speaker 1: while Asling was apprehended as he tried to flee the scene.
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  Speaker 1: Stephen Barchie did seven years jail for the crime and
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  Speaker 1: has never spoken until today. Part of his motivation to
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: speak is to clear Normal Lee's name. Recent media reports
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: have suggested that Lee was also the abductor and rapist
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  Speaker 1: of children, known in Victoria as Mister Kruele. The Mister
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  Speaker 1: Cruel investigation remains one of Victoria's most disturbing unsolved cases
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  Speaker 1: for my research. I think this is highly unlikely, but
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  Speaker 1: Barchie wants to set the record straight about the man
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  Speaker 1: he called his best friend, Steve Mate. Thanks for shedding
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: to me for real crime. I know you're a bit
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  Speaker 1: nervous because you've never done this before.
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  Speaker 4: I've never spoken about this before publicly at all, just
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: in court cases.
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  Speaker 1: I think it's a reason we are doing this today,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: and I think it's partly prompted by your love and
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: friendship of Norm normally. And of course we'll talk about
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: the events of nine ninety two July and you were
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Normal at the airport there. We'll get into that, but
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  Speaker 1: I'd also want to just kick off by talking about
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: what's been said about Norm in recent times. And I'll
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: just recap quickly. We had Ron Dall's from a homicide detective,
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: spoke to Andrew Rule, the Herald Sun journalist and podcaster.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: And Ron recounted a conversation he had with Alfred Gay,
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: who was allegedly a coward of Norms. You're shaking your
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: head and I think it's yeah, I know that's not true, right,
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: So we'll get through that. And the story was that
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Norm had a fetish about schoolgirls and school girl uniforms
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: and so forth, and that he was mister Cruel effectively.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's just ridiculous, you know, very hurtful, hurtful for
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: his kids, his wife.
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  Speaker 1: It just was not true because you were with him
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  Speaker 1: through this period.
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  Speaker 4: I was with him, yes, through that period from lee
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  Speaker 4: early eighties, so from about nineteen eighty two onwards, I
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: was pretty close to and I spent a lot.
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  Speaker 1: Of time with him.
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  Speaker 4: I'd often just go past one of his factories and
• 4:16
  Speaker 4: spend some time with him, just have a coffee with
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: him and just talk and have a laugh. But I
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  Speaker 4: did spend a lot of time with him, and he
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  Speaker 4: definitely was not mister cruel.
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  Speaker 1: So yeah, because that's a pretty heinous sallegation because he's
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  Speaker 1: not around to defend himself. And that's part of the
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  Speaker 1: reason why this has sort of got any legs at
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  Speaker 1: all is that the attacks allegedly stopped around the time
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  Speaker 1: that Norm was killed at the airport. Yes, so that's
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  Speaker 1: one of the reasons it stops now. And I've done
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  Speaker 1: the work then, I've gone up to Elfham there to
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  Speaker 1: where the Leeds lived at that time, and I've told
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  Speaker 1: you about this where the people across the road were
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  Speaker 1: told by police at the time that Norm had possibly
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  Speaker 1: been involved in a robbery. There was jewelry found by
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  Speaker 1: the river near there and so forth stashed away, and
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  Speaker 1: so they were told, listen, we think your neighbors are crook.
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  Speaker 1: Can you keep an eye on him? And there were
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  Speaker 1: gigs this whole they logged everything, or on ittles or
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: anybody else went to see them, and I think that
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  Speaker 1: makes it very unlikely.
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  Speaker 4: They're just going on what is Alfie Gay said, that's it,
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  Speaker 4: you know, But I look, I don't know. I don't
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  Speaker 4: know whether the cop is telling the truth. I don't
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  Speaker 4: know if he's telling the truth there, whether he's made
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: it up or you know, maybe.
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  Speaker 1: He did speak to this Alfie Gay.
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  Speaker 4: And maybe he did say these things, but that I
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  Speaker 4: can't prove of this proved.
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  Speaker 1: So that's true. I mean, I would take it at
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: place value that it'll's had the conversation. But again, Alfi
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  Speaker 1: Gay is dead. Also, he died a cancer not that
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: long afterwards, so there's no way of checking any of this,
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: but none of it. All you can go on is
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  Speaker 1: your relationship with Norm and the person.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, like you know, he was just such a beautiful man, honest,
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  Speaker 4: his friends were everything to him, and he'd never speak
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  Speaker 4: out of school to his friends. It was they were
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  Speaker 4: everything to him. And he was so kind and generous.
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  Speaker 4: And that's a side that the public aren't aware of
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  Speaker 4: with Norm that he was just such his beautiful man.
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  Speaker 4: And I miss him every day. Every day I'll think
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: about him.
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  Speaker 1: And even police that I've done in that era, had
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  Speaker 1: a lot of respect for him. I mean as much
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  Speaker 1: as you know. Obviously on the opposite sides of the law.
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  Speaker 1: That's true the law, But I didn't respect for him
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  Speaker 1: because he was very staunch, absolutely staunch. Apparently been involved
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  Speaker 1: in the book he robbery, but he never told anybody,
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: never told me.
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  Speaker 4: Did you ask him? I did ask him. I didn't
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  Speaker 4: get an answer. So, but I did say to him
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  Speaker 4: the morning that we were going out for the airport caper,
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  Speaker 4: I said to him, listen, if we pull this off,
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  Speaker 4: you've got to do one thing for him.
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  Speaker 1: And he said, what's that.
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  Speaker 4: I said, You've got to tell me the truth how
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  Speaker 4: much money was involved.
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  Speaker 1: In that thing?
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  Speaker 4: And he just laughed, didn't say anything. He just laughed
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  Speaker 4: and he had a really lovely laugh giggle. So it
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  Speaker 4: was great really an old school crew. Oh yeah, definitely,
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  Speaker 4: would never talk out of school, would never do anything
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  Speaker 4: like that. And you can tell when he was taken
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  Speaker 4: away with the safe, Apparently they were questioning him about
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  Speaker 4: the safe, and he wouldn't answer them, which they there
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  Speaker 4: safe that wash in one of his factories. He made
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: them cut it open and there was nothing in there,
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  Speaker 4: And he could have said that from the start, but
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  Speaker 4: he wouldn't even say that, so he didn't answer any
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: of the questions.
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  Speaker 1: One of the other big myths about Norm was the
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: dim sim factory. Yeah, and the cops used to joke
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: that Les Kane was murdered by Ray Chuck Bennett's team, right,
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  Speaker 1: and they'd put leeds through the machines at Norm's factory.
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  Speaker 1: Do you think there's any truth in that?
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  Speaker 4: No, No, I mean, that's all stuff that's made up.
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  Speaker 4: But yeah, there are people out there that probably believe that.
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  Speaker 1: You know, it makes for a story, doesn't it, of course.
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  Speaker 1: And that's the thing about I think over the years,
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  Speaker 1: I've spoken to a lot of people from your side
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  Speaker 1: of the law, and they really speak and they have
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  Speaker 1: to put up with all the sort of the police
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  Speaker 1: generated narratives and myths about their lives. So it's great
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  Speaker 1: to talk to you about what really happened. You've got
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: nothing to gain from this other than to represent your
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: friend Norm and his memory. And I think I'm also
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  Speaker 1: very pleased that you're doing this on behalf of his family.
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  Speaker 1: I've talked to his family quite extensively, and they were
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: very hurt by the mister Cruel allegations.
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  Speaker 4: Children were absolutely devastated, and in particular this thing about
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  Speaker 4: this Alfie case, it leads to a said that its arm,
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: it was a cross dresser, and all this other stuff.
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  Speaker 4: It was just very hurtful for his children, and they
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  Speaker 4: still haven't got over it.
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  Speaker 1: No, And I think they put a lot of time
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  Speaker 1: into trying to prove that Alfie Gay was mister Cruel.
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  Speaker 1: And we've already talked about this, the fact that there
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  Speaker 1: wasn't one mister Crule anyway. I think there were several too.
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  Speaker 1: So the whole thing is based on a false foundation
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  Speaker 1: that you can find one person and so that was
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  Speaker 1: him anyway. So I think we can put that one
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  Speaker 1: to bed, frankly, and I'm pleased that you can do
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  Speaker 1: that because no one else has ever done it. No
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: one's ever stepped forward to speak for norm N.
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  Speaker 4: And I hadn't intended until you approached me, and I
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  Speaker 4: thought about and thought, you know what, I've got to
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  Speaker 4: do this because no one else has ever done it
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  Speaker 4: for him, and he was such a good person, and
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  Speaker 4: I just needed to tell everybody how great he was.
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  Speaker 1: You know, he really was a nice guy.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, So it's not all this stuff that's written in
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  Speaker 4: the papers and that it's all said to sell newspapers.
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  Speaker 1: And to be fair through the police eyes. Obviously, you
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: guys weren't loved by the police. No, And I think
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  Speaker 1: also I'd like to deal today with the trauma that
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: you've carried from that day at the airport, well and yourself,
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: because it's easier to say, well, you put yourself in
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: that space. It was your bad decision and your series
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: of decisions to put you there, but still nonetheless dealing
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: with the trauma of being shot like that, seeing your
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: mate die in the stream.
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  Speaker 4: Shot there basically beside me. So and he was airborne
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: there for a little bit. He went down on his
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: face and then they've turned him over apparently because I
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: just looked at the corner of my eye and I
• 10:25
  Speaker 4: could see his feet and they were up.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was just I knew.
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  Speaker 4: That he was gone, and you know, I never asked
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: the cops anything about it. And I was awake from
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: that moment until I got into the hospital and obviously
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: into the surgery because I just remember these really bright
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: lights above me and that's when I went out to it.
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: But up until that I was wide awake. You know,
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: I was talking to the ambulance guy. I was just
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: saying him, look, and you just tell my wife and
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: my daughter that I love them, you know, if I
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: don't make that. They were really nice, the ambulance guys,
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: and I got to see them later at the Corn's
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: court and I was able to We asked the coroner
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  Speaker 4: if I could have a few minutes with him to
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: thank them, and I did. No, just two really good guys.
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  Speaker 4: So they helped save me. So because I wasn't in good.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: Shape that day. We'll get to how that happened. I'm
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: glad you brought that up, just to set the scene,
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: I guess if you like. But let's roll back to
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: when you first met norm the steps that led to
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  Speaker 1: that day at the airport.
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  Speaker 4: How did you first culminated in the ninety two?
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, how did you first meet We.
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  Speaker 4: Had mutual friends back then. I just can't mention any names,
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  Speaker 4: but yeah, we had mutual friends, and I got to
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: name really really well, and I really liked him a lot.
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: I liked him more than the guy that ended up
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: introducing me to him. So yeah, I had a little
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: bit to do with Norm back then. So it was
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: just fantastic meeting him. He's just such a nice guy, and.
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  Speaker 1: It come with that big reputation he'd been part of
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  Speaker 1: that crew Ray, Chuck Bennett, Laurie Prendergast.
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  Speaker 4: I never mentioned anything to him like that until the morning.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: As I said earlier, but you would have been in
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: awe of him, because I think in criminal circles that job,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: the Great Bookie Robbery, was one of those great big
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: jobs you know you grew up. I was in awe
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: of him, that's true.
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  Speaker 4: But as I've got to know him all that, I
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: just he was an equal, you know.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: And he had a double life, didn't he Because he
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: was running his factories, the dim Sims. He was always
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: working all the time. It was just working.
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  Speaker 4: He created these machines for the dim Sims and the
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: Chica rolls like a big conveyor system and it would
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: pick them out, cook them the whole thing from start
• 12:42
  Speaker 4: to finish, and box them up and they'd be ready
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: for freezing. So he ended up selling one of those
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: machines to a company in Singapore. I think that was
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: in the early mid nineteen eighty two eighty three. So,
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: but yeah, he was always working.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: It was hard working. So you do wonder why a
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: blake like that is obviously a gifted businessman, hard worker,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: why did he go to crime? Do you think?
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: You know, Ray Chuck was his best friend and together
• 13:08
  Speaker 4: they just with the other guys, they just came across
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: this this robbery and they pulled it off. But it
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: brought a lot of grief too. You know a lot
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: of people that most of them are dead now, not
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: all of them, but most of them.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the background, of course, that's right.
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: There two or three of them that are still alive.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: That's all we can say about that. Yeah, yeah, And
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: I've tried over the years to get the people. Dennis
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: Fatty Smith was I think one of the drivers or
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: something in the job.
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: And I well that's what they've said, I think in
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: one of the different books, and they did he was
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: a driver, Dy Smith.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: I tried to find him and I heard he was
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: dead that I told he wasn't dead. He was in
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: a nursing home in Keilo. He had his leg taken off.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: I think he was as well him a few times, yeah.
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: Before and after the amputation, because he led.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: And he was so happy to see people because he
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: felt like he was forgotten. So he would have really
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: appreciated you going there. So the background obviously the book
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: You Robber of nineteen six and they pulled it off
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: and was god knows how much money, A lot of money.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: No one's really sure what the number was because the
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: bookies were so secretive about how much money they had there.
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: I think it was more than what the papers have said.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: I'm sure. But then the Cane Gang, Brian and Lez
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: and their team backed by a couple of coppers, I
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: would suggest, decided that they were They were informers, definitely,
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: and I know that because Brian Francis Murphy, my mentor
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: dead as well ex police officer told me that they
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: were like that. Yeah, so you had the Cane Gang
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: was trying to toe cut ray Chuck's gang, and of
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: course they back up and they killed Les Kane.
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: And someone lost an ear I think in a fight.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 14:46
  Speaker 4: Pub they found out that they were going to come
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: back at them over this incident in the pub. That's
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: what I think. They just got him first and that's it.
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: That was the end of lez.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and they never found his body. And that was again,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: that was the rumor that he went through Norm's dimsem machine.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: You've got arlok. I mean, yeah, it's just ridiculous. I've
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: had another version that took him up to a wood
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: chipper up in the country somewhere, and that's where he
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: was disposed of. And why do you have to I mean,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: there's plenty of places to get rid of a body.
• 15:15
  Speaker 4: This thing going into the water somewhere. You have gone
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: into the dirt. Yeah, No one really.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: Knows because this leads ultimately to ray Check Bennett's murder
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: inside the city court only seventy nine I believe, and
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: that was how some police that you you know, well,
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: I think something he knew. Yeah, definitely, And people want
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: to read my book The Skull you can. Brian Murphy,
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: he certainly had knowledge of it. Yeah, whether he was
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: integral with the planning, I don't know. But the shooter,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: which was more than likely Brian Kane, he knew the
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: layout of the city court and the backstairs and the
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: whole thing. And get to the car park and someone
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: had loosened off of a fence so if you get through.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: And also Murphy told me how Brian cand parked his
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: car up near the shrine and then caught a tram there,
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: picked up his car, and he went to the home
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: of a police officer, stayed there and I know that game.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: I won't say it, but he's still alive. And then
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: he ends up getting a light plane over to Adelaide
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: or something story like that to get out of the way,
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: to get out of the way. And this is all organized,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: you know. So they definitely have the strength with them.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: So all that background is there. But they got him too,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: didn't they. That's right, So you've met norm after all
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: this has gone on. What was he doing? Was he
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: doing any sort of criminal activity that you aware when
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: you were in large years?
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: No, he was just working, that's true. You just he'd
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: get up in the morning, he'd go to work. Sometimes
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: he'd be there till seven, eight, nine o'clock at night,
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: you know, just working.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: On all this stuff.
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: And his wife used to help out too often went
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: to the factory that was in Kensington, the one that
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: his father first started, and she was always working there,
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: boxing them gyms and doing all sorts of things. So yeah,
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: but they were just a working family. And in those
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: years you were doing a few robberies of your own.
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: What were you up to back then? Just lots of
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: different things. Like as a kid, I sort of got
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: involved in some safes.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: How did you learn to do that?
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: I was in prison with the guy Birdie kid. Yeah,
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: I'm pretty sure it was him, and he showed I
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: was in prison with him, and he showed me just
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: pen and paper had to do it. So I'm pretty
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: sure it was him, Birdy kid.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: And what was the method that you were taught? Just
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: to cut the square with?
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: They to cut the square, cut a link there at
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: the locking bar, blow a hole in the lots left
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: at the locking bar, and just dragged it across.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: It's pretty simple.
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: Everyone that did say to use the same method for
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: years until they got smarter and the construction of them
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: and stuff started putting chemicals in there and.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: Stuff that wasn't pleasant to smell. Yeah, right, So how
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: any safesty? Not that many? Not that many? Yeah, not
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: that many, fair enough? And these were pubs and clubs
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: or what were the sort of targets.
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: Just different areas, they're different businesses and stuff. I mean,
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: you never got the amount of money that you did
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: look out of an arrollalry for example. But you know
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: some of the money was okay because it.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: Was certainly the age of the arm robbers, wasn't it.
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: But yeah, there was a crackers to the tank men,
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: that's right.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: So you're a bit of an all because people had
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: a speciality back in those days. Either you're a tank
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: man or you're a gunny or a counter jumper. A
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: bit of everything, yeah, a bit more around us. Yeah,
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: a little bit of everything.
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: And that culminated of course in Yeah you my life
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: and Norm lost his life.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: Correct. But you'd also teamed up with Stephen John Asling
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: before this. How did you meet Steve?
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: Got introduced to him in a pub of all places.
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: He was just there having a beer and a friend
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: of mine at the time introduced me to him. That's
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: how the friendship grew. And of course he went on
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: to bigger and greater things that I don't particularly agree with,
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: and I'm not happy about that.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: You're talking about the murder of Graham Kinnerbrough. Yeah, in
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: two thousand and three. Yeah, that was unnecessary. I think,
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: very unnecessary, and it did set off one of the
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: bloodiest periods in Victoria's history. I was there and thereabouts
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: all through that period, and it was it was frightening,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: you know what was going on, and that people would
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: have got involved, someone like Graham. We'll get to that,
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: but prior to this, Steve Asling was full of dash.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: People did rate him, coppers rated him. He was the
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: He was a happy guy, lucky guy. He was funny,
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: telling jokes all the time. But I think that when
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: he got involved with different substances, I think that's what
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: changed him. It can it just changed his personality. And
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: then I lost touch with him.
• 20:04
  Speaker 4: I got out him ninety nine and he can get
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: out three years later, and by then I'd moved away
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: from Melbourne. I was living in Talk at the time,
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: pretty nice, quiet lifestyle and that's the way I wanted it,
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: and that's why I still lived today.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: He was only out a matter of months before he
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: got involved in that with the co accuds. Well two
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: thousand and two, he would have got out. And Graham
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: died in December two thousand and three, three. Yeah, it
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: wasn't long and his accomplished Terry Green. He died shortly
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: after that. No one's quite sure what happened. We can
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: get this whole other story. We can range off in
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: all different directions. But you started doing a few robberies
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: with Steve though, I think back in the eighties, back
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: in the old days.
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it wasn't till the late eighties that I'm at Steve,
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: so probably only just worked together for about.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: Three four years. I think much quite success believe that period.
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there's good money around at the time. There were
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: a lot of different cruise operating in that era. A
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: lot of them went on to do really horrible things.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: You're talking about Victor Pierce and Gary Abdullah, Mark Belatano
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: at Flemington Crue.
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: Yes, Fleming and Crue, but they're either cruise around two
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: at the time. I just don't want to really say
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: who they are.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: But yeah, and the robbery squad was diabolical. It was
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: a war on.
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: I was a little bit worried at the time, but
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: I just relaxed, stayed at home and I started off
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: for business. Just worked pretty hard for a few years,
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: so I kept right out of the limelight. You know
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: what I did after hours or other days.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: You know, just to get a bit extra money. Because
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: people that I've met over the years, whether they'll be
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: shoplifters or robbers or kinds of cooks, really there's a
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: certain amount of adrenaline and a thrill that goes with
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: running into a bank or wherever it is.
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: You definitely get a highway.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: It's only later in life that I've thought about the victims.
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: What I put some of those people through was just tolerable.
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: But at the time you don't think about these things.
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: You just think about the money side of it. So, yeah,
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: there was a lot of money around in the old days.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: Do you remember any victims in particular, any jobs that
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: you did that you would stick out to you that
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: you think, jeez, I'd like to go back and say
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: sorry or something like that. Yeah.
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: Well, obviously the guards from the n ninety Robbie that
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: I got convicted for.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: What was that one?
• 22:37
  Speaker 4: It was the Brambles in Port Melbourne, pointed graandle thereabouts,
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: and yeah, a lot to have spoken to them, just apologize.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: So what happened on that day?
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: They used to stop for breakfast in a little cafe
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: in Port Melbourne. We knew about all this, of course,
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: we were told about it and insider and what we did.
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: We just run in there and took them out and
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: put them in the van and I drive the truck off.
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: Steve was in the back, yeah, and we're tying up
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: the guards, you know, taping them up, and then we
• 23:12
  Speaker 4: just drove to a deserted warehouse in Swallow Street, Port Melbourne,
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: and we left the van there.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: We just emptied it.
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: Out into the car we had, and then we only
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: drove maybe two three four kilometers to another house, dropped
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: all the money, and then we didn't go near it
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: for about another week. So yeah, that's how that came about.
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: But those guards, they would have been terrified.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: We tried to keep it as calm as possibly. You
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: just it's so hard to do that because the adrenaline
• 23:42
  Speaker 4: is really pumping, really hard. And I nearly rolled the
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: truck going around the corner because I had n't driven
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: one before and it's a pretty big truck, and it
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: went up sideways around the corner and I very nearly
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: rolled it over. So it's quite funny.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: Actually, he was thinking back, you're high on adrenaline and
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: you're rushing away from the scene.
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: And yeah, because I had to drive down that main
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: road around the corner from the cafe and we had
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: to turn left up this side street to get to
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: Swallow Street, and that's where I did the left turn,
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: and I did it a bit too fast, so thankfully
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: I didn't roll it over right.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: We got the money and fok back in nineteen ninety
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: was it was a big good money. Did you spend
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: it all? What happens money? Yeah?
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: Just when overseas, just you do. You don't respect it
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: because it comes. It doesn't come easy, but it comes
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: in large amounts usually and you're just really spending it,
• 24:42
  Speaker 4: helping people giving it away.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: I did quite a bit of that easy come, easy
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: go or not. It was come. It was buddy dangerous,
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: easy come, easy go. You won't have a seas for it,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: didn't you.
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I went overseas several times.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: I think you were going to settle in Greece were
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: you're not in this buit. Yeah.
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: I wanted a little beach bar on costs. It's called
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: Magazine Bar. Yeah. I planned on living there, but then
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: my wife at the time didn't like Greece. She couldn't
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: live there a day longer and she said, that's it,
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: I'm going back to Australia. I missed my family and
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: I just walked out of the bar and left it
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: to the guy that I was.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: In partnership with a Greek guy.
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: And then yeah, came back to Australia and then of
• 25:26
  Speaker 4: course I got arrested trying to go on a holiday
• 25:29
  Speaker 4: with another girl. I was off to Fiji for a month.
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: I think it was. I think I paid up for
• 25:34
  Speaker 4: a better month, as you do when you've got all
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: this money.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: I think they are any I think you told me
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: that that wife she ended up getting with a Greek
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: bloke and going back there, did she not? Yes? Yeah,
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: and lived there. Ironic, isn't it? Yeah? It is. It
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: is ironic because your life would have been different had
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: you just stayed there. And he's a really nice guy though.
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: I just probably wasn't ready to settle down at that
• 25:54
  Speaker 4: stage because of what I was involved in, money and
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: going out all the time.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: You were a bit addicted to that lifestyle, yeah, I was.
• 26:03
  Speaker 4: You get addicted to the money, and when you haven't
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: got it, you tend to take a bit more of
• 26:08
  Speaker 4: a chance. But yeah, definitely the money. You do, you
• 26:11
  Speaker 4: become addicted to having money. I remember when I was young,
• 26:16
  Speaker 4: twelve or forteen years of age, I used to work
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: at all the sporting events at the MCG and I
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: used to make good money back then. Yeah, and I
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: always seemed to have money. I worked at all those
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: events and other events. But yeah, I made good money
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: back then. So there was some weekends. I think I
• 26:34
  Speaker 4: was making like sixty dollars back then. I think that
• 26:36
  Speaker 4: was more than the average wage. So I was buying
• 26:40
  Speaker 4: all the great runners and you know, all the good
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: footy equipment.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: I had it all.
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: Funny thing, my father chopped up my boots because I
• 26:48
  Speaker 4: came home one day on Saturday night and I was
• 26:52
  Speaker 4: quite drunk and it was pretty late, and then I
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: got up in the morning and go and get ready
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: for the footy and he'd left them on boots on
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: a chopping block in the yard and he actually chopped
• 27:04
  Speaker 4: them in half each one with an axe.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: He wasn't a fool. You had a difficult relationship with him. Yes,
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: he abused you physically psychologically. Yeah. Yeah.
• 27:15
  Speaker 4: I used to get Bachelor of the time, buy him
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: and hurt buy him.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: And it was you. You were singled out for it
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: wasn't your brother.
• 27:23
  Speaker 4: No, you never put a hand on my brother, never
• 27:25
  Speaker 4: never touched my brother, probably never even raised his voice
• 27:28
  Speaker 4: to him. But with me, it was just I was
• 27:31
  Speaker 4: the brunt of all his aggression and his anger, and
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: he used to hurt me a.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: Couple of times.
• 27:37
  Speaker 4: He probably tried to hurt Mum and I got involved there,
• 27:41
  Speaker 4: and one time I put him in hospital for a
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: whole week. And I was just that up pissed off
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: with him and upset and angry that I knew he
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: was going to do something to mum.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: I just you know, I just let it all out.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: Difficult childhood. And I'm not going to say this is
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: an excuse, because there's no excuse for these things, but
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: I think in the context to understand the background that
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: people have coming into crime. And you were also a
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: champion schoolboy athlete. You're a good student, but you went
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: to Thomas's Clifton Hill right Brothers, Christian Brothers Christian Brothers School,
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: and you were beaten up there as well. Yeah, I mean.
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: Getting flapped in the face. All the students then used
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: to get it, you know, it was only the ass
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: lookers that didn't get what they used to call the cuts, yeah,
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: the strap and they used to use the feather duster
• 28:27
  Speaker 4: as well across your butt.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: It used to hurt.
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: And the cuts weren't that good either, Like you'd normally
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: get six three on each hand and they go halfway
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: up your arm, so they were quite long straps. I
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: won't say their name because they're probably still alive now,
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: but they were real assholes.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think it was institutionalized violence. And there was
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: a lot more. I mean, you didn't you weren't sexually abear, No,
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: A lot of people were.
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: The violence with them is just shocking. Yeah, And I
• 28:58
  Speaker 4: went with their marks all the time. The god that
• 29:00
  Speaker 4: used to sit in front of me, he was a
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: really quiet kid. It was really good, but he used
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: to get slapped at least a couple of times a
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: week and I couldn't understand what he was doing wrong
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: because he sat right in front of me. I said
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: to him one day, if he ever raises his hand
• 29:14
  Speaker 4: to me, I'm going to hurt him, and he said, nah, no, no,
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: you won't know, you won't.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: Well I did.
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: I jumped up and slapped him, got rid of the desk,
• 29:23
  Speaker 4: through it.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: And through a window or something. Yeah, yeah, so I
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: guess these experiences what happened with your dad, the school experiences,
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: other things. You grew up with a bit of a
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: chip on your shoulder. Do you think a divince of
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: authority or yeah, that could you could say that.
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: But to be copying shit like that at home too
• 29:41
  Speaker 4: from my father and then going to school and watching
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: all his other violence and everything really affected me. I
• 29:48
  Speaker 4: really felt for some of the kids that they used
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: to slap around. And I will say his name, his
• 29:52
  Speaker 4: brother English is the one that slapped me and hit me.
• 29:55
  Speaker 4: He was just an absolute asshole.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: He's probably dead by now. No, I don't think he is.
• 30:00
  Speaker 4: I look him up on the internet about three or
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: four years ago and he was still alive. What would
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: you want to say to him if I heard him,
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: I just a lot to give him another slap across
• 30:10
  Speaker 4: the face. Probably wouldn't say anything to him. I love
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: to give him another good slap across around the head.
• 30:15
  Speaker 4: It's just an asshole with the do he treated students.
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: And they meant to be Christian brothers. You know that
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: they were ultra violent, and there was three or four
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: of them was pretty bad do the same thing. One
• 30:29
  Speaker 4: was famous for the cuts, one had to feather dust,
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: one used his hands, what brother English did to me.
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: It's just a madhouse. Really, it happened to all that stuff.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: No shouldn't. It's been. It's being examined in detail now
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: in commissions of inquiry, various court cases and things. There's
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: so many cases. You know. I've met a few crooks
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: over the years who are now stepping up for compensation
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: payments when from what happened to them, sexual stuff in Tarana,
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: in Catholic boys' schools and so and so forth. You know,
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: I think we're going to understand the context of people's
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: offending a bit better. I'm not going to use it
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: as an excuse. And I listen to and you aren't.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: Might I any listener who thinks you're making that as
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: an excuse, You're not. You know, I think that's really important.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: I'm trying understand more about you as a person and
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: how these things.
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: What I'm trying to detail is how I used to
• 31:15
  Speaker 4: copy it at home and then I'll go to school
• 31:17
  Speaker 4: and see all this other violence, and eventually it happened
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: to me.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: So yeah, it wasn't nice. So you didn't grow up
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: with that sense of security that a lot of kids
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: would have.
• 31:27
  Speaker 4: Generally, going to school should be a fun thing.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: You've started to trade as a draftsman, Yeah.
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: The draftsmen there for quite a few years, so mechanical
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: services draftsmen. So I could still be doing that today.
• 31:42
  Speaker 4: You know, if I hadn't have chosen this other path.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: Why did I choose the path? Do you think? Just money?
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: Just money? Just the money?
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: You know, once you've had it, you always send to
• 31:54
  Speaker 4: want it again, and you spend it so easily that
• 31:57
  Speaker 4: you know you need to go out and get it
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: again because it doesn't last very long.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: Was not amount of money, you know, you can spend
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: it in a few months. I've heard that many times.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: People couldn't believe. And I've done a lot of work
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: on the Kangaroo Gang. The shop lift just went to
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: Britain and they were stealing millions every year and they
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: would have nothing, they would have nothing, you know, but
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: by the end of the day often they'd have spent
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: all their money. It's incredible, you know. So that's a
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: real addiction. And the adrenaline like.
• 32:22
  Speaker 4: Life and restaurants and all the stuff that they did
• 32:24
  Speaker 4: was all pretty good.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: And they brought some color and movement to a very
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: dour England of those days, you know. And the people
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: I've met, even the coppers like them. Actually they had
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: respects to them because they didn't hurt anybody. It didn't
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: hear anyone.
• 32:36
  Speaker 4: It was sleight of hand. It was done.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And you know, finally they talk about Dash has
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: one good yarn. There was Arthur Delaney and the fibber,
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: Jack Warren, who was the legend here was Melbourne guy,
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: but one of my ex partners. It got so easy
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: robbing all these stores in London that they decided to
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: have a competition one day and that everyone would see
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: what they could steal in one day and come back
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: by the evening and everyone was stolen and all kinds
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: of things, you know, jewels and furs and the rest
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: of it. Ring and Arthur Delaney and the fibber were
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: late back. And finally they roll it around the corner
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: in a great big removal van and they jump out
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: and in these uniforms, you know, and the truck was
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: full of a whole stately country home and contents, the
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: whole thing, right, and they say, how the hell this happened?
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: And and Arthur says, listen, we stole the uniforms, they
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: gave us the truck. There's a sort of people that
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: you were.
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: Growing up with and you know on the tail end
• 33:30
  Speaker 4: of it all, yeah, I read about them. Oh some
• 33:34
  Speaker 4: good guys and girls.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: That's some admiration for them, I must say, or even
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: know their books.
• 33:38
  Speaker 4: You know, there was this like a second generation of
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: them too. There was I've got to know a couple
• 33:43
  Speaker 4: of them pretty well.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: They loved it, they did, and they certainly understood that
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: what you talk about, the addiction to the money and
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: the lifestyle. Very few ended up with anything. Very few.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: The best one was probably we Jimmy Lloyd, who I
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: think he still had the first farthing ever stole and
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: he put it all away and his kids went to
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: the university and their professionals. You know, he didn't want
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: his kids to go through what he did. So you
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: come back from from Greece and you get pinched.
• 34:13
  Speaker 4: Pinched a few months later, so I was actually going
• 34:16
  Speaker 4: on the holiday to Fiji, and I said to them,
• 34:20
  Speaker 4: like when they got me to the airport, I said,
• 34:22
  Speaker 4: you could have waited till I come back.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: You knew I'd be back. They just laughed. So you
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: get jail for that. What happened?
• 34:30
  Speaker 4: This is nineteen ninety Yeah, Yeah, I end up doing
• 34:32
  Speaker 4: fourteen months. Not long after that, I did fourteen months
• 34:36
  Speaker 4: helping out some friends try and recover some money. I
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: was sort of documented with the cops and all that stuff,
• 34:42
  Speaker 4: and then I got out in late ninety one, and
• 34:48
  Speaker 4: of course the airport Robbie was in July of two.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: And how did the first come up? How did that
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: first come on your radar? Steve had been drinking in.
• 34:57
  Speaker 4: A hotel in South Melbourne and a couple of their
• 35:01
  Speaker 4: guards used to frequent there drink there, and he started
• 35:06
  Speaker 4: talking to one of the guards who was a younger guy,
• 35:09
  Speaker 4: and he told Steve all about this robbery, you know,
• 35:13
  Speaker 4: and had to do it and all the money that
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: was involved, And of course Steve's ears pricked up, and
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: he came and told me about it. Then over the
• 35:21
  Speaker 4: space of a few months we went and looked at
• 35:23
  Speaker 4: it quite readily, and I think it was May third,
• 35:27
  Speaker 4: nineteen ninety that we got that one. So it was
• 35:30
  Speaker 4: good money.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: That was the the Brambles. Yeah, but after you've come
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: out of jail and the airport job comes up, how
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: did the airport job first come up?
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: I think through Steve again, like one of the guards
• 35:43
  Speaker 4: again gave us some inside knowledge of this money that
• 35:48
  Speaker 4: used to be dropped off at the airport, put on
• 35:50
  Speaker 4: a plane go to Mordua.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: We thought it might have been like six or eight million.
• 35:55
  Speaker 4: We were actually the money was only about I think
• 35:59
  Speaker 4: one point two million, and that was a bit of
• 36:01
  Speaker 4: a shock as we expected a lot.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: More because this was money that was being taken out
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: build Drew to go in ATMs. I believe, well, I
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: don't know about that, but it was.
• 36:08
  Speaker 4: I know it was put on a plane and taken
• 36:11
  Speaker 4: them more durer for banks.
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: That's all I knew. And what I understand this was
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: where if people know Melbourne Airport, this is where terminal
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: four is today alongside the other two terminal the anset
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: right terminal and paint the picture.
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: What was the security The guards that actually dropped the
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: money off weren't allowed to be armed outside of the
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: truck with some federal matter, So they got out of
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: this armor truck with no guns on their hips and
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: they just walked in these bags and money that we
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: thought would have been millions, but it turned out about
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: one point two million I think.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: It was, But I think the trick with the amount
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: of money there was that was going to ATMs, and
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: therefore there had to be a lot of smaller denominations
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: in there. Uh huh, So you might have had more notes,
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: but a smaller total.
• 36:58
  Speaker 4: Quite a bit of weight in one of the bags.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was probably that bad, right, so, And I
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: think that's what you didn't know was that it wasn't
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: gonna be as big as your thought, and dragging these
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: bags away was going to be a challenge physically.
• 37:11
  Speaker 4: We'd be able to pick up these bags and just
• 37:13
  Speaker 4: run to the back of the van and throw them
• 37:14
  Speaker 4: in the van and off we'd go.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: And how many times had you been out there to
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: sort of check out what happened?
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: I think about six or eight weeks they're about. We'd
• 37:23
  Speaker 4: go out there and just watch it and work out
• 37:25
  Speaker 4: what time they arrived. And they're always pretty accurate too
• 37:30
  Speaker 4: with their timing and all that stuff. So on the
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: day they're about ten or fifteen minutes late normally, did
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: they get there maybe just after one point thirty, right,
• 37:39
  Speaker 4: And to paint the picture.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: There was no cameras back in those days, and I
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: think so you could you could surveil the place from
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: where from the car park or something. Yeah, we've normal
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: used to.
• 37:48
  Speaker 4: I mean it's documented in court stuff. Normally used to
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: walk around with a clipboard. Sometimes he'd wear a suit,
• 37:54
  Speaker 4: sometimes he didn't, And I'd be the same.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: You know, we wouldn't stand together.
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: We'd just go off and our separate waves and then
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: meet up somewhere else back at the car. We never
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: saw anything about police been there, Like, we had no
• 38:07
  Speaker 4: idea that we were being watched. In the phone intercepts
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: that apparently they could pick up that Steve did a
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: lot of talking on the phone too much, but never
• 38:19
  Speaker 4: discussed the actual target. But they knew we were up
• 38:22
  Speaker 4: to something and they just kept watching this and they
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: knew what we were doing. They should have stopped it beforehand.
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: Even the kins and RMS dance just seemed to Hevy.
• 38:33
  Speaker 4: She gave them a bit of a cook the police,
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: like what in your wreston when you had all this
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: information and it would have saved all this drama. Norm
• 38:42
  Speaker 4: wouldn't be dead and you know all these witnesses and
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: that wouldn't have been put in fear And was normal.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: The leader or was it you're all doing in particular roles? No?
• 38:53
  Speaker 4: None, wasn't the leader. I actually went and saw Norm
• 38:56
  Speaker 4: about it. There was another guy that was involved and
• 38:59
  Speaker 4: he bailed out in the end. He got scared and
• 39:02
  Speaker 4: I thought, shit, you know, then it was actually me
• 39:04
  Speaker 4: and I went there to ask Norm if he was interested,
• 39:08
  Speaker 4: and he said, look, you know, we'll go out and
• 39:09
  Speaker 4: have a look at it and we'll take it from there.
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: And then of course he's dead now. So yeah, I
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: understand you feel pretty guilty. I know you do, but
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: I mean I guess Normal was the same issues as
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: you did. He love the money, he loved the excitement,
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: and he was a very conservative, risk averse sort of person.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: It sounds funny for an arm robber, but the way
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: he would approach things was very methodical.
• 39:30
  Speaker 4: He didn't go out and spend money like I did.
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: It was just really quiet and worked and this day
• 39:36
  Speaker 4: happened and it was the end of it.
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: So yeah, So I believe there was another robbery beforehand
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: where a firearm was acquiet. Is that correct?
• 39:47
  Speaker 4: Yes? And there was a Mackers about a week before,
• 39:51
  Speaker 4: that's right, Yeah, McDonald's about a week before the airport one.
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: And people are going to say, oh, you know McDonald's,
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: but apparently we.
• 39:58
  Speaker 4: Were missed about two hundred and fifty thousand because there
• 40:00
  Speaker 4: was a long weekend and there's about two hudred and
• 40:03
  Speaker 4: fifty thousand in the safe. I said to Steve as
• 40:06
  Speaker 4: a joke, I said, why didn't you get them to
• 40:09
  Speaker 4: open the other safe?
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: What happened?
• 40:12
  Speaker 4: He goes, mate, I didn't think. He said they opened
• 40:14
  Speaker 4: the bottom safe is there? And I thought that was it.
• 40:17
  Speaker 4: I said, you know, there was two hundred and fifty
• 40:18
  Speaker 4: grand in that top safe.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: So we just laughed, and I think you got the
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: You got a thirty eight there guns thirty eight I think,
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: and that was the gun that you used at the airport.
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: I believe, because there was quite an arsenal you put
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: together for that airport job. What were the firearms and
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: why did you have.
• 40:35
  Speaker 4: Long arms seven point six y two, a little machine
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: gun basically just handguns, and then these other two long
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: arms that would have been used to immobilize any car
• 40:48
  Speaker 4: that folded us or chased us, you know, like the
• 40:52
  Speaker 4: police wanted everyone to believe that it was to shoot the
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: police and all that stuff. It wasn't for any of that.
• 40:57
  Speaker 4: It was just if someone followed us, you disabled the
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: car and then you continue on your marry.
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: Away because you'd also chosen a particular kind of egal
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: with these sort of thoughts in mind. What was it
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: panel van? Yeah, with opening doors, the two doors at
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: the back that opened up, which would have allowed you
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: to if you were being pursued. I think there was
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: a tripod there as well. No, there's no trip but
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: that's still the myth.
• 41:19
  Speaker 4: Good.
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, tripod. There was a lot of stuff in
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: the papers was wrong to shell papers and stories correct.
• 41:25
  Speaker 4: You know you're quite honest with what you write.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm as good as my sources. I've got a
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: lot of respect for you to thank you. I appreciate that,
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: and this is this is why we're sitting here, no
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: respect for you, the journey you've made, the regrets, in
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: the honesty that you're telling this story with. I really
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: do appreciate that. This is I think.
• 41:43
  Speaker 4: Everything I've said, like you know, I would have liked
• 41:46
  Speaker 4: my life to be different.
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I'm sure it wasn't. And that's it. Since
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: I've got.
• 41:51
  Speaker 4: Released in ninety nine, I've tried to really just be
• 41:55
  Speaker 4: a good person.
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: So you've got the van and you've also got other
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: getaway cars. I think there was quite an elaborate plan
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: there was. They didn't know about half of it.
• 42:03
  Speaker 4: What we were going to do there, We're going to
• 42:06
  Speaker 4: take the van to a little disused factory not far away.
• 42:09
  Speaker 4: I think it was about three or four kilometers from
• 42:11
  Speaker 4: the extra airport in Airport West. Yeah, and what we'd
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: done the police didn'tn't even know about this still to
• 42:18
  Speaker 4: this day. We'd cut the bars on one of the windows,
• 42:22
  Speaker 4: got in there, prepared the door so that it was
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: easy to pull up with the chain, but we bent
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: the bars back on the window so you couldn't even tell. Well,
• 42:31
  Speaker 4: they didn't even know about this, and what we're going
• 42:33
  Speaker 4: to do. We're going to just go one was going
• 42:35
  Speaker 4: to go through the window, open the door, put the
• 42:38
  Speaker 4: van in there and close were all up.
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: That would have been it.
• 42:41
  Speaker 4: So we probably would have left it there for a
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: little while and gone back probably later that night, and
• 42:47
  Speaker 4: just collected the money.
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: What was the plan from there, Well, we'll probably go
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: to Queensland.
• 42:52
  Speaker 4: So I think Norm had an eye on a boat
• 42:55
  Speaker 4: did he really liked, And I said, well, we'll pitch
• 42:57
  Speaker 4: in and buy it together. You know, I wouldn't mind
• 42:59
  Speaker 4: lifting on a little boat for a while up in
• 43:01
  Speaker 4: Queen's Land. So that was the plan anyway, just something
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: we discussed. It wasn't anything real concrete.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: Well sure, because I think that you're thinking you're going
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: to get five million or something you'd be thinking. I
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: believe also the police did hear somebody on one of
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: the phone taps. I think I was singing where in
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: the money? Where in the money?
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: That was me singing that. Yeah, it was me saying
• 43:23
  Speaker 4: that when that was in the lead up. I think
• 43:25
  Speaker 4: now it was the Port Melbourne robbery. That's where that
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: came out of it, because I was driving the brambles
• 43:32
  Speaker 4: truck and I did. I did start singing that. I
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: don't know why. It just came to me and I
• 43:38
  Speaker 4: started singing, We're in the money, We're in the money,
• 43:42
  Speaker 4: and we were for.
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: A little while. How did they pick that up? What
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: was the probably the guards or oh the guards heard it? Okay, yeah, right,
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: So it was not an electronic surveillance or anything, okay,
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: because that's the other story I head that it was
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: over electronic surveillance. But again these are the facts. So
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: you're in the money, you got You've got some money,
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: but not as much money as you should have had
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: from that Port Melbourne, well, at least the McDonald's either McDonald's.
• 44:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think he came out with about three thousand
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: because I waited outside with the security guard and mobilized
• 44:14
  Speaker 4: him and he's got him to sit in the car
• 44:15
  Speaker 4: and just relax.
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: And then of course there was all these.
• 44:18
  Speaker 4: Staff that had finished work and I didn't realize it
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: was about eighteen or twenty kids, and you know, I
• 44:23
  Speaker 4: really regret that they were probably terrified.
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: So here's this guy with this wig, look like some
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: lunatic because part of the I'm going to say the theater,
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: but the dramatic effect of these things was to strike
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: him with a fear and get people to cooperate with
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: what you wanted to.
• 44:44
  Speaker 4: With the identification in particular, you could do little things
• 44:48
  Speaker 4: like that, like with a bright orange wig, and that
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: maybe all the people would think about, but I never
• 44:54
  Speaker 4: think about the other side of it.
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: How scared these poor kids would have been, you know.
• 44:58
  Speaker 4: And they all look like they are now in because
• 45:01
  Speaker 4: they're all school kids.
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I still feel this today. I feel guilty
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: about all that. So yeah, fair enough, it's down time
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: to do the robbery. Where did you meet What was
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: the lead up on the day.
• 45:14
  Speaker 4: We had a safe house, and we thought it was
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: a safe house. We didn't know that everything had been
• 45:19
  Speaker 4: told to the police about who was there and what
• 45:23
  Speaker 4: we were going to do. And apparently they were in
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: the house opposite the safe house what we thought was
• 45:29
  Speaker 4: a safe house, and they were watching everything we did,
• 45:31
  Speaker 4: comings and goings. And I think they've got the residents
• 45:35
  Speaker 4: and moved them out, put them somewhere else, and they
• 45:37
  Speaker 4: stayed in his house. The police the surveillance ones. Anyway,
• 45:42
  Speaker 4: do you.
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: Think someone gave you up? Yeah? Do you know who?
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: Look, things have been said in that Corn's inquest. I
• 45:49
  Speaker 4: don't know how to say he's dead. There were two brothers.
• 45:52
  Speaker 4: That's the way it was brought up in the coroner's
• 45:55
  Speaker 4: court by one of the embarristers, and I agreed. I said, yeah,
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: I said there were two brothers, and I said one
• 46:02
  Speaker 4: of them is a dog, and I believe that he
• 46:05
  Speaker 4: was the one that gave the information to the police,
• 46:10
  Speaker 4: which then from there they worked back and they found
• 46:13
  Speaker 4: that it was one of the security guards, David Lapworth.
• 46:16
  Speaker 4: I think his name was Paul Baker. So I mean,
• 46:19
  Speaker 4: if that bloke's dead, can you say his name then? Moran, Jason,
• 46:24
  Speaker 4: Jason Moran, Yeah, gave you up? Do you think, yes, dog, Yeah,
• 46:29
  Speaker 4: that's the way they operated. You know. I even had
• 46:31
  Speaker 4: one of their family members have said things to me
• 46:35
  Speaker 4: like you'd be surprised how they operate, and I said
• 46:39
  Speaker 4: to her, I said, nah, I wouldn't be surprised. I
• 46:41
  Speaker 4: know how they worked because.
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: They were deep in with the police at the time,
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: and that this is valuable information because the story has
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: always been that the weapons were supplied by the Moran brothers,
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: Mark and Jason. No, no, no, no, that's not true.
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: But there were some bulletproof vests. I think that you
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: discussed with them.
• 46:59
  Speaker 4: He kept bringing up my house, Jason wanting these vests returned.
• 47:04
  Speaker 4: I thought that I bought them because he owed me
• 47:07
  Speaker 4: money and all that when he died.
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: How much you are you only fifteen grand So Jason
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: gives you up? I think so. Yeah. And then from
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: that moment on.
• 47:18
  Speaker 4: Police will deny it, everyone will deny it, but you know,
• 47:21
  Speaker 4: everyone sort of knows thews since his death, or how
• 47:25
  Speaker 4: he operated and how they operated as a family.
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: Well, I certainly didn't get any good wraps. As you know,
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: I was talking to Carl Williams saw that period after
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: he hit Jason murdered and also Market died as well.
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: And the picture that he painted was a family that
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: was operating largely out of corrupt police contacts.
• 47:46
  Speaker 4: And getting chemicals a link from them. Yeah that was
• 47:48
  Speaker 4: a secret.
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: So yeah, and that was that was Sergeant Wayne Strawn
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: of the drug squad. He ended up doing a long
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: lagging as a result. Was too okay, as you're planning
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: this big job, the cops are following you every move
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: and you've had a chance to see the evidence. It
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: must have been quite sort of shocking when you think
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: then you were exactly what you're about to do.
• 48:08
  Speaker 4: And I had my motorbike too then like to keep
• 48:10
  Speaker 4: up me with the motorbike. I couldn't believe it like
• 48:13
  Speaker 4: they did. I didn't know. They had to probably had
• 48:15
  Speaker 4: a transponder on it, as did all the other vehicles
• 48:18
  Speaker 4: and stuff, so I knew where we were going, you
• 48:21
  Speaker 4: know what time everything, because they had the house across
• 48:24
  Speaker 4: the road. It a sort of moved out of my
• 48:27
  Speaker 4: home or olds living to stay in a safe house.
• 48:31
  Speaker 4: You get pretty stressed and all that before you go
• 48:33
  Speaker 4: out to work. If you've become very utable and argumentative,
• 48:37
  Speaker 4: and you know it's just the build up before you
• 48:41
  Speaker 4: go and do something like that is high octane.
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the details. I mean, you were wearing boiler suits,
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: I believe, but you also had other clothes underneath.
• 48:52
  Speaker 4: Now I had a jacket, yeah, and pants, but yeah, no,
• 48:58
  Speaker 4: there was nothing like underneath to change into or anything.
• 49:01
  Speaker 4: It was just a blue zip up jacket. And we
• 49:03
  Speaker 4: all had the same jackets. Something we tried to do
• 49:06
  Speaker 4: to all be the same, have the same clothing, you know,
• 49:10
  Speaker 4: because then they'll get mixed up with the heights and
• 49:13
  Speaker 4: this and that.
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: So that was the idea behind all that. And you've
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: gone with the Michael Jackson masks. I believe whose choice
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: was his mind?
• 49:23
  Speaker 4: Norman and I had to Michael Jackson and I got
• 49:25
  Speaker 4: Steve the Madonna mask. He wasn't happy about that. He
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: was not happy about that. I think he died it
• 49:32
  Speaker 4: later on or but that's how it was. To Michael
• 49:37
  Speaker 4: Jackson's I couldn't get a third one.
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: He was driving. He was the driver. He was the driver. Yeah,
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: so took off. It's on. How do you pick the day?
• 49:48
  Speaker 4: We know what day it's going to be there, and
• 49:50
  Speaker 4: we know roughly what time they're going to be there,
• 49:52
  Speaker 4: so you get there a little bit earlier.
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: And we just parked the van. I can't remember what steved.
• 49:58
  Speaker 4: Maybe you got out and went for a little walk
• 49:59
  Speaker 4: for a while, just had to look around, and then
• 50:03
  Speaker 4: got back in the van, and it was getting closer
• 50:05
  Speaker 4: to the time it was ready for the goat.
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: Then the van arrived and that was it.
• 50:10
  Speaker 4: They drove in and we waited for them to remove
• 50:14
  Speaker 4: these big red bags full of money and go into
• 50:17
  Speaker 4: the office. And that's when Steve hit the reverse and
• 50:21
  Speaker 4: pulled up right at the because we knew they weren't armed,
• 50:24
  Speaker 4: and pulled up right near the stairs, and Norman and
• 50:27
  Speaker 4: I ran up the stairs and ran inside and grabbed
• 50:29
  Speaker 4: the bags especially could, and that was it.
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: We took them down. And what was the scene inside
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: the terminal, It was.
• 50:36
  Speaker 4: Well, there were a couple of staff members, but I
• 50:39
  Speaker 4: don't think they believed what was happening. I think even
• 50:41
  Speaker 4: in their statements they said they thought it was a
• 50:44
  Speaker 4: movie or some series enactment. But yeah, and the two
• 50:48
  Speaker 4: guards were sort of shot. So we just grabbed the
• 50:51
  Speaker 4: money and ran out of there. But it was all
• 50:53
  Speaker 4: pretty quiet in there, and the bags were heavy.
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: The bag.
• 50:56
  Speaker 4: One bag in particular was really heavy. I'd say they'd big,
• 50:59
  Speaker 4: the one with all the lighter bills. When I grabbed it,
• 51:02
  Speaker 4: that's on. When I grabbed I was like, you there's
• 51:05
  Speaker 4: some money in here, because I could barely lift it up.
• 51:08
  Speaker 4: So I was dragging it back to the van, Norman
• 51:12
  Speaker 4: throwing the other two bags in, I think, and then
• 51:14
  Speaker 4: he helped me with my bag, and then I spun
• 51:17
  Speaker 4: around as Norman's already just inside the van, and I
• 51:20
  Speaker 4: turned around and sat on the.
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: Edge of the door.
• 51:24
  Speaker 4: Doors were still open at that stage. But Steve took
• 51:28
  Speaker 4: off too quickly, you know, instead of taking off gently
• 51:31
  Speaker 4: and just getting into it, he just hit the gas
• 51:34
  Speaker 4: and Norman and I were trying to hang on. But
• 51:37
  Speaker 4: then we came tumbling out the back of the van
• 51:39
  Speaker 4: and one of the bags ended up coming out with us,
• 51:42
  Speaker 4: and that's when it all happened.
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: It all just went to shit. So you know, I
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: got shot. We'll get through that. But just one point though,
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: before you get there, like you've left the doors open,
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: because back to the earlier plan about anyone following you,
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: So the idea was to have the doors open, sid
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: have you come. We were going to pull the doors closed.
• 52:02
  Speaker 4: I guess you could see through the back windows had
• 52:05
  Speaker 4: little scratches where we hadn't painted them all out. We
• 52:08
  Speaker 4: left little lines that we could watch out the back.
• 52:11
  Speaker 4: And if only one had been follow us, yeah, we
• 52:13
  Speaker 4: just would have kicked the door open and disabled that car, right,
• 52:17
  Speaker 4: that would have been it.
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: But Steve's taken off. Do you think Steve had already
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: seen police converging by this point, No, he didn't know.
• 52:24
  Speaker 4: About them until he just hit the corner and went
• 52:28
  Speaker 4: to turn out. That was from the car park of
• 52:30
  Speaker 4: the Ansett depot. It's calle, a big car park, and
• 52:34
  Speaker 4: he went screaming around that corner, and that's of course
• 52:36
  Speaker 4: where Norman and I fell out, and we were actually
• 52:39
  Speaker 4: chasing the van.
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: Screaming stop, stop, stop, and then bammed.
• 52:45
  Speaker 4: I didn't even see the white van come in because
• 52:48
  Speaker 4: their doors are all on droulics, so you know they're
• 52:51
  Speaker 4: all bang open straight away because.
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: The cops, the SOOG Special Operations Group had like a
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: plumbers van. Nothing And where did they come from?
• 53:00
  Speaker 4: Well, I don't know where they came from, but any evidence,
• 53:04
  Speaker 4: I think they were parked like about fifty meters away
• 53:07
  Speaker 4: and then started to move up slowly when they knew
• 53:09
  Speaker 4: it was happening, and it all just went to shit.
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: So so you're out on the road chasing after the van,
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: just still in the car park.
• 53:19
  Speaker 4: Norm got shot he was still in the car park,
• 53:22
  Speaker 4: and I got shot just inside the car park. So
• 53:26
  Speaker 4: I think that Norm actually jumped out of the van
• 53:29
  Speaker 4: to help.
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: Me because he needed you to get out with him
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: as well. He wasn't gonna leave you behind. No, I
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: never would have done that. So from here we have
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: to sort of rely on evidence that was given in
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: coroner's courts and so forth. That Norm is standing in
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: the car park, as you say, he's got his magnum
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: three fifty seven magnum.
• 53:49
  Speaker 4: And.
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: George Hatley directs him to throw the weapon down. He
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: goes to put the weapon down, then he brings it up,
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: and then George open fire and another officer or two
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: I think, open fire, and he's killed instantly.
• 54:04
  Speaker 4: That's if you want to I believe the police version
• 54:06
  Speaker 4: of events, which I don't think is true. Well, you
• 54:09
  Speaker 4: were there, so yeah, but I didn't see that part
• 54:11
  Speaker 4: of it.
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: But I knew that something was going on.
• 54:14
  Speaker 4: I could just at the corner of my eye, and
• 54:16
  Speaker 4: then I heard all these blasts, and then of course
• 54:19
  Speaker 4: I felt them, so I knew what was happening.
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: Then you're aware that Norm's gone down, Yeah, I don't know.
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: I had this feeling.
• 54:26
  Speaker 4: I knew he was gone, you know, because I could
• 54:29
  Speaker 4: just see I was laying on the ground, and I
• 54:32
  Speaker 4: wasn't talking to the barsards that were leaning over me
• 54:34
  Speaker 4: in saying this fucking horrible shit to me, the soggies. Yeah,
• 54:38
  Speaker 4: I just glanced out the corner of my eye on
• 54:41
  Speaker 4: the right side of me, and I could see Norm's feet.
• 54:44
  Speaker 4: They were up in the air, so apparently he'd landed
• 54:48
  Speaker 4: on his face and then they spun him over.
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: I suppose checked for other weapons or whatever they did
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: so he couldn't have anything. Let's take a step back,
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: because of course Norm was shot first.
• 54:59
  Speaker 4: Then I think it was simultaneous. I don't think it
• 55:01
  Speaker 4: was the first. So let's talk about when you were
• 55:05
  Speaker 4: what happened. Well, I felt straight away this blast in
• 55:10
  Speaker 4: my shoulder. I'm shit that it's quite a bit, and
• 55:15
  Speaker 4: it was all happening so quickly, like there was no
• 55:18
  Speaker 4: waiting for They say that they called out stop, stop stopping. Yeah,
• 55:22
  Speaker 4: they might have done that while I was shooting you know,
• 55:25
  Speaker 4: as they do. There's soggy is that's what they do.
• 55:27
  Speaker 4: They killed people if they have to. You got one
• 55:31
  Speaker 4: shot off, no, that's what they say. But I don't
• 55:34
  Speaker 4: think I did. I mean, that could have easily been
• 55:37
  Speaker 4: I don't know how that came about. There was one
• 55:40
  Speaker 4: bullet in my revolver that yeah, had been discharged.
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: So I still don't know to this day what happened.
• 55:47
  Speaker 4: They seem to think that I had it in my
• 55:48
  Speaker 4: hand and then when I was being shot, I've pulled
• 55:52
  Speaker 4: the trigger as a reflex, But I don't believe that.
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: So because it was reported the next day actually in
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: the paper of the Age, that you would fire a
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: shot into the ground. Yeah, so you were shooting at them.
• 56:04
  Speaker 4: I don't even believe shot went into the ground either,
• 56:07
  Speaker 4: because when I came out at the back of that van,
• 56:09
  Speaker 4: I didn't have a gun in me. So you know
• 56:12
  Speaker 4: all the stories they did about this and Norm and
• 56:15
  Speaker 4: me and we had guns and we pointed at.
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: Him at all bullshit, And you didn't have a gun.
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: I didn't have a gun on me. Now where was
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: the gun? I don't know.
• 56:23
  Speaker 4: It could have been in the back of the van,
• 56:25
  Speaker 4: could have been thrown out the back of the van
• 56:27
  Speaker 4: when you.
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: Fell out too quick, and so you get shot how
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: many times five with shotgun rounds solid blood. I think
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: the first was a solid and the rest were sjs.
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: What's an SG for about.
• 56:41
  Speaker 4: Nine balls inside it about the size of a thirty
• 56:45
  Speaker 4: eight caliber each of the balls and the SS and
• 56:48
  Speaker 4: the first one I think was a solid one that
• 56:50
  Speaker 4: hit me in the shoulder, But I could be wrong.
• 56:52
  Speaker 4: It could have been a memory plays tricks now, But yeah,
• 56:56
  Speaker 4: I remember getting shot first in the shoulder, and then
• 57:00
  Speaker 4: I didn't know what was happening because it went.
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: So fast, like you bang, bang, bang, bang bang, and.
• 57:05
  Speaker 4: That was the end of it, like it had been
• 57:07
  Speaker 4: shot all across the back end of the back end
• 57:09
  Speaker 4: of my shoulder, you know. And they say that I
• 57:12
  Speaker 4: turned and pointed out a gun at them or did
• 57:15
  Speaker 4: a shot, Like how do I get all these shots
• 57:17
  Speaker 4: in the back of me if I'm facing them?
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: You know, all my holes are in my back.
• 57:25
  Speaker 4: So I've got the one from the shoulder that came
• 57:27
  Speaker 4: in on about forty five. The grand all they worked
• 57:29
  Speaker 4: out and it blew my left shoulder out, but the
• 57:32
  Speaker 4: other one just tore across my back and into my back, and.
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: You had a tattoo on that left shoulder.
• 57:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I've got to tell it was good luck with
• 57:41
  Speaker 4: them and now with the cards, all this left is luck.
• 57:47
  Speaker 4: So the good has gone and the luck has just remained.
• 57:51
  Speaker 4: I think the surgeon might have had something to do
• 57:53
  Speaker 4: with that, so, because he did say something to me
• 57:56
  Speaker 4: later on the lader down the road about the tattoo
• 58:00
  Speaker 4: when he was looking at it.
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: One of my many hospital visits. Because Damien, here was
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: the shooter in your case, and he fired five shots.
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: He still had three shots left in his magazine. I understand.
• 58:17
  Speaker 4: No, his shotgun, there were five bullets. There's nothing left
• 58:23
  Speaker 4: like he shot it five times. And what he said
• 58:25
  Speaker 4: was that he remembers the first three, but he doesn't
• 58:28
  Speaker 4: remember the other two where he shot them.
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: So that's his story, so that I know where they
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: they went them in my back. What a moment, and
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: you remember everything, don't you know? It was a frenzy
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: and there was everything.
• 58:44
  Speaker 4: I remember when I was on the ground. You know
• 58:46
  Speaker 4: what they were saying to me, leaning over me, and
• 58:50
  Speaker 4: I just shit about out of a fucking field.
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: Dog. That was the main cruster that they were all
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: at me. It has a fucking field has a fucking field.
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: Then one of them said some other stuff about my
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: wife and maybe my daughter too.
• 59:03
  Speaker 4: I can't remember exactly, but yeah, they said there have
• 59:06
  Speaker 4: some pretty horrible things to me.
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: So and I was way in the van. But what
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: I did, I just blocked them out.
• 59:12
  Speaker 4: I thought, if I'm going to say I, I have
• 59:13
  Speaker 4: to just focus on my breathing because I was having
• 59:16
  Speaker 4: trouble breathing at that stage. Every time I took a
• 59:19
  Speaker 4: breath that it was gurgling, but it's in my lungs,
• 59:22
  Speaker 4: and I just focused on my breathing, little short.
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: Breasts in and out.
• 59:26
  Speaker 4: One of them had put a bandage into my left shoulder,
• 59:31
  Speaker 4: and I thought, shit, he's put a band he's going
• 59:33
  Speaker 4: to bandage it for me, and then he hit me
• 59:34
  Speaker 4: with his knee. I can laugh about it now, Yeah,
• 59:38
  Speaker 4: but he sunk his knee and my shoulder, so thank you.
• 59:44
  Speaker 4: And you've lost most of that shoulder. Yeah, I don't
• 59:47
  Speaker 4: have much of the shoulder less. It's only about ten
• 59:48
  Speaker 4: percent of adulthood that's left. So that's the only thing
• 59:52
  Speaker 4: really holding the arm on. There's no head of the
• 59:55
  Speaker 4: humans has gone. Yeah, the whole joint is gone.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: So said down to about the middle of my arm.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: What are the lasting injuries do you have from that moment?
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 4: Just well, I can't move the certain things I can't
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 4: do with the left arm, and the right arm gets
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 4: a bit sore sometimes too, from all the bullets that
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 4: because a lot of the bullets came out through my
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 4: into my back, through my lung and then went out
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 4: into my arm pitch and out out the side of
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 4: my arm pits. So there's quite a lot of bullets
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 4: still in me. Yeah, that's how that all went down.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: So your ping when you go through.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 4: At the airport, everyone always says that does that happened?
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 4: It doesn't happen. So I've got a lot of other
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 4: steel in me. So different surgeries must have been touch
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 4: and go. They must have thought that you.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, they were being I'll die. You can just
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: tell able what they were saying.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 4: And even in the van, Kuros got in the ambulance
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 4: with me. I mean, he denies all this ship, but
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 4: I know he was asking me questions, and the main
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 4: question was who was a friend with you?
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: It's still there. Who was your friend? Who was your friend?
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: I didn't answer him, referring to norm to normal I
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: didn't know it was normal.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 4: No, of course they did. But he just kept wanting
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 4: me to talk, and obviously had to talk to him.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 4: So and that was curis curis.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: One are the cops. Meanwhile, Steve Asling thinks he's going
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: to get away, but they got an out of cordon.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 4: He got around the corner and they hit him head
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 4: on with a full wheel drive and made a big
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 4: mess with the van.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: So he survived that. I believe he hit his mouth
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: on the steering will lost teeth and all. No cushion
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: that happened, No isn't okay, So he wasn't too bad.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 4: No, you think he had a bit of blood around
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 4: his mouth, but that was about it. He just kept
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 4: going and then they mounted the embankment in the middle
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 4: of the road and came up and just got him
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 4: head on. So I don't even think he would have
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 4: realized that they were coming. It would have happened really quick.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 4: So a lot of people say that, you know, he
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 4: shouldn't have done this, he shouldn't have driven off and
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 4: all that, But you know, I'd say to anybody in
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 4: that situation, you know, you really think you'd do that
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 4: and not drive off. Of course, you would not me,
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 4: he said to me. I was driving off because I
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 4: wanted to get the money out of there, and I said, good,
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 4: he's still had two bags of money in the back. Yeah,
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 4: there would have been a bit of money in there.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 4: But then of course that ended pretty quickly. And then
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 4: you're in custody. Well, you're in hospital for long period,
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 4: I'd imagine. Yeah, I was in the hospital, was only
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 4: in there for about eleven weeks. And then the guy escaped.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 4: You've got a gun into the ward somehow stuck up
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 4: the security guards and exited Bingey.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: Well, christ Christopher Binns badness when he yeah, badness.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah, when he escaped from the ward. So I think
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 4: it's up on the seventh floor. But he was in
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 4: a pretty bad way, like he really died, so I'm
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 4: surprised he was even walking.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: So he's very determined. Christopher Bins, Yeah, I've had a
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: long correspondence with him.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 4: We ended before he came out of the last time,
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 4: and he got he's the best escape artist that I've
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 4: ever read about.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: It was pretty good at it.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 4: If you look at all the documentary stuff, it's unbelievable.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 4: Every prison he went to here, you just came in
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 4: in New South Wales. I think he got out of
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 4: there too, one of them.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: And so you end up you have to go through
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: the whole coronial process and your own trial.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 4: And you it wasn't really a trial because we end
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 4: up pleading because I mean, they had everything we could
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 4: afford it, but then for what you know, they probably
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 4: would have double the sentence. So the only thing we
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 4: could really do is just plead to it and just
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 4: hope that we can get too long, you know. And
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 4: we originally we were both sentenced to fifteen years with
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 4: a tenure minimum, and then on appealed because of all
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 4: my injuries and what I was going through at a time,
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 4: because they only died a couple of times, even after
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 4: the shooting. When I was back in Penridge Hospital, they
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 4: had to rush me in and I only died one
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 4: night there, and he was touching for a lot of
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 4: the time.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: And you ended up doing I think seven years. I
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: did seven years.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 4: I've got three off on the appeal because of all
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 4: this stuff I'd have to deal with later in life,
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 4: and they said my life would never be the same.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 4: And my em barrister at the time went pretty hard.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 4: He was brilliant Stephen, Sheheriff's He's made him sure. He
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 4: sat there and he read everything, all my medical documents.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 4: He read him out loud because he wanted them on
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 4: the file, not just hand it over. So he stood there,
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 4: actually read every one of my medical scenes. It was
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 4: brilliant Stephen. He's dead now, Yeah, very well wasted. Yeah
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 4: did the job for you.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: Nice guy, you know. Yeah, he got me three years
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: off and you're dealing with the grief of losing norm
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: and also that feeling you mentioned before of regret that
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: you got him involved in this. Yeah. Yeah, I do
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: feel that.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 4: I mean, at the time, I didn't want them to
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 4: see it, not the coppers and the people in court.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 4: I didn't want anybody to know how bad it was
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 4: hurting me. But yeah, I just felt so. I felt
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 4: it like it's my fault because I asked him to
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 4: come along. He was such a nice guy to him.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 4: To lose him, you know, I lost a really good
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 4: friend and it really hurt and it still hurts me today.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 4: There aren't many days where I don't think about it.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 4: You know, some little thing my job in my memory
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 4: and I think about it.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's when I first started to see you on
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: social media and I noticed that you always post something
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: on the anniversary of the airport job. Yeah, and it's
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: always about Norm. It's the worst day of my life
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: every year. Yeah, so you do you stretch? Now. The
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: s OG officer who shot you, Damien here, he was
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: concerned that when you got out you might want to
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: back up on him, and that was the talk. And
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: this has got to the press even and it's a bull. Yeah.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 4: I think it is too seeing you know now, you
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 4: know if I do something lot that lot, really when
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 4: months was enough my lesson that time, We're going to
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 4: back up again and do it.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: Because you decided to change your life at that point,
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: didn't you.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah, mainly just look, Norman's death really affected me, really
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 4: really did. And from that day on, I just thought, Fuck,
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 4: you know, there's more to life than this. I'm just
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 4: going to change. I'm not going to be that person anymore.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 4: I'm going to try and be a good person and
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 4: live a good life. Yeah, which I've done. You know,
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 4: I've stayed out of bother since my release in ninety nine,
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 4: so I didn't have anything to do with Steve no one.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: I just moved down to talk Key and that that
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: was it, So, yeah, good on you. But just you're
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: in a bar though one night, Yeah, and you see
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: Damien here. Yeah, that's right. What happened. I was there
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: with a girl.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 4: There's a little bar and Troy and we'd gone there.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 4: I watched the footy. I think it was an interstate game.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 4: But yeah, I was just standing having a beer and
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 4: I think we both.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: Turned at the same time.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 4: I don't think he saw me before this instant, and
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 4: we just locked eyes like I knew who he was
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 4: straight away because I knew him from Court Corn's Court.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: I've seen him, and he obviously knew who I was.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 4: And we just stat there and stared at each other
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 4: like I couldn't believe it, Like fuck, is that really him?
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: Like yeah, and it was. It came over.
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 4: It was worried here that I was going to back
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 4: up and try and hurt him or something like that.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 4: But I ended up having a beer or two with him.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: I don't like him.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 4: I still dislike him, but you know, I would never
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 4: do anything towards him or to any other cop. You know,
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 4: I did what I did and did I've copped.
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: It on the chin. What was the discussion. I'm curious
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: though I can't really remember.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 4: Now, I've often thought about it and thought, what the
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 4: fuck did we talk about? Like, I don't think it
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 4: was about the actual job. I think we're just talking
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 4: about what he was doing, what I was doing, stuff
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 4: like that. Because he came back to the house too.
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 4: The girl I was with it asking him back, you
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 4: want to come back and have a beer and okay,
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 4: because he didn't have a car, so I thought we
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 4: were going to just take him home, but he ended
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 4: up back at this girl's house and he was a
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 4: bit concerned. Then every time I went to the gar upstairs,
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 4: and because the bedroom was upstairs, he'd say to this
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 4: girl looking like, okay, you know, here's everything okay here?
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 4: And she said, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're okay. He's not
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 4: going to do anything.
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: He never would. You didn't have a firearm on the root,
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: on me, on you, no, no, nothing, So so what
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: an amazing saying there you are with the bloke that
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: shot you. Yeah, I know.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 4: And then a couple of months later, maybe a few
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 4: months later, I bumped into him again in High Street,
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 4: northol by another incident just in fuck and how And
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 4: I know that within about ten or fifty minutes. Another
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 4: one of the Soggis that ride, a fair headed guy,
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 4: his partner, and I know he actually got told off
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 4: by the boss of the Soggi's hair.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: Why do you have a beer with him?
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 4: What's that all about? You shouldn't have done that. And
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 4: I think he got into trouble over that. You know,
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 4: that's just the way we're panned out.
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: So, and how did you feel about having that personal
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: encounter with him?
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 4: It was hard, you know, I'm not going to say
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 4: it was these It was pretty hard. So there were
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 4: certain things I liked to have said to him. And
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 4: what would you have said to him? Yeah, a lot
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 4: to talk to him about what happened that day and
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 4: without all the bullshit lies and all the rest of it,
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 4: and all the bullshit statements that they made, and talk
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 4: about you know what happened.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: And why do you just keep shooting me? You know
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: you hit me once? Why do you keep doing it?
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 4: That's about probably what I like, you know, because there
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 4: was no threat to anybody, you know, I wasn't armed.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 4: I got hit in the shoulder and I ended up
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 4: on one knee in my hand on the ground in
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 4: that position, and he just kept shooting at me. I thought, shit,
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 4: if I don't do something, he's just going to keep
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 4: going and going. Like so I moved over and spun
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 4: around on my back and hit the ground because then
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 4: I thought, shit, you know, well he should stop now,
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 4: and he did so.
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: But there were five I believe he was directed to
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: stop shooting. Yeah, I don't know about that. I didn't
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: hear anything like that.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 4: So all I could hear was the things that were
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 4: staying to me, you know, like I said earlier about
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 4: the words I were using and stuff.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: But I can't say that's true or not true. So
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: you know, it could have happened. You know, So you
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: had this odd encounter with the man who shot you,
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: and yeah, how did you part? He left and that
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: was it. There was no hugs or kisses or anything
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: like that.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 4: So, yeah, he left, and he actually jogged home because
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 4: I think he was living in even at the time. Yeah,
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 4: he actually wanted to jog home right from where his
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 4: girl's house was in Thornbury.
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: It was a decent little job, probably about ten k's
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: and he's looking over his shoulder thinking you'll be running
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: after him with a firearm or something. Maybe, Yeah, because
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: I think this is an important point, because I guess
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: this still comes up in the media from time to time,
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: that you've got some sort of vendetta vendetta or you
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: back up, and I know that's not true. I can
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: have hi spent the time in May. I can't do something.
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 4: We've done it by now, wood Night's been how many years,
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 4: in ninety nine, It's been.
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: A long time. It's a generation that we've got bumped
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: into him.
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, because I'm still in contact with Norm's
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 4: kids and they're beautiful kids. Yeah, what was said about
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 4: him was this disgusting Yeah, and wrong and wrong.
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: I can say that's wrong. Yeah it was not, mister cruel.
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: I can't guarantee and that again, it's because the attacks
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: on these girls stopped around the time that Norman was killed,
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: that this gets some sort of currency. But I don't
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: think it's any currency at all. But no, tell me,
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: how's life been since then? Since I got out, since
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: you got out? And you know you've changed your life.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: And yeah, I moved down to talk for quite a
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: few years.
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 4: I was working down there with a builder for a
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 4: little while. Then the injuries started to really play out
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 4: and I couldn't too much back then, so Eventually I
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 4: moved back to Melbourne and I was living with at
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 4: this girl's house, and yeah, that were good days. I
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 4: was just taking it easier. I don't see anybody, like,
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 4: no one. I just walked away from everything, so because
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 4: I had no interest in being that person again, to.
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: The extent where Steve Aslin goes to jail for the
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: murder of Braham Kinnerbrough and you thought about visiting him, Yeah,
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: but I just can't.
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 4: I don't think it would be a wise move, you know,
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 4: like I don't know, I don't think i'd have anything
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 4: nice to say to him about it. So it's probably
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 4: better I don't go. Because you know, Grain was a
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 4: nice boat. Whatever happened, Yeah, whatever happens happened now, so
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 4: I didn't agree with it.
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: Right, So you stayed out of all this business, which
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: is a credit to you. I mean, you've done your time.
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: You can't do more than the time they give you.
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 4: I nearly he nearly got me killed, Steve, because he
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 4: was going around using my name the pastard. Later on
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 4: I found out that there were four men that had
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 4: come down and stayed.
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: At tour Key and with a view to putting me off.
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 4: So my friend told me that like later on, you know,
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 4: a few months after the event and all that, I go,
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 4: can you tell me straight away? Like and when you
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 4: told me I did, I found the goosebumps up and
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 4: now my body is just like I could just feel it.
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: You know that what he was saying was true.
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 4: They planned on killing me air thinking that I was
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 4: the one that was with Steve, which you know is
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 4: well document.
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: I wasn't at the time when Graham Kinneber was murdered
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: in December two thousand and three.
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, because he was using my name. He thought
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 4: it was funny, but it nearly got me killed. So
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 4: he ran into a friend of mine and said his
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 4: name was Steve Barchie. She's the daughter of a good woman. Really, well,
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 4: you're a lovely lady. She said, look, you're not step
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 4: but Steve.
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: But and then he came.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 4: He told her the truth for you, Steve Aslin and
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 4: blah blah blah. But she never liked him, so maybe
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 4: she saw something in him.
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: I don't know. So you're well away from all that now, yeah,
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: which is good. And you're raising another child. Yeah, I've
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: got a boy. How's he going?
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah, he's going good?
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: Is at school.
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah, he's under sixteen, he's still like a boy. I
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 4: love him the death.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 4: That's part of the reason I don't want to get
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 4: involved with anything, because you know, I'd hate him see
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 4: anything like that or lives through one of the raids
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 4: or anything that I'm not getting involved in anything.
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: It's a wise decision. Yeah.
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 4: And he's changed my life too, Like everything has come
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 4: together at the right time. I think how s that well,
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 4: like my son getting remarrying and yeah, just I think
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 4: it all came together at the right time and helped
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 4: make me who I am today. You know, I just
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 4: don't not interested in any of that bullshit anymore. Have
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 4: you found peace in your life? Yeah, I think I've
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 4: found peace. I still carry a lot of guilt about
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 4: normal and that'll be with me till the day I die.
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 4: So because I just loved him, So I can't bring
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 4: him back and anything, but I'll just be a good
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 4: person live my life that way.
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: I don't know how a song wh I've got a
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: nearly seventy so you've still got luck on your shoulder.
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: Maybe it might not be good, but it's still got
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: luck hopefully. Yeah, because you're the first person I've ever
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: seen speak up for normally. I think that's important. I
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: think it's been valuable for you to do that. Yeah,
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: I feel good about it. I know you were nervous
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: by doing this. I know you canceled a couple of
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: times and I cracked the shit and so forth. But
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: I think I'm glad we got to do this. And
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: I knew I was going to do it. Then I
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: changed my mind.
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 4: I started to get a little bit worried about with
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 4: my son and all that, and then and I thought,
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 4: now I've got nothing to hold.
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: Look, I'm not doing anything. That was Stephen Barchie, retired
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: robber and a man who managed to change his life.
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: There's always an opportunity for redemption, and I'm glad to
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: have told Stephen's story so others might see the possibility
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: of peace beyond a life of crime. And having spoken
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: to Stephen, I'm more sure than ever that normal LYE
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: was not mister cruel and police should be looking elsewhere.
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: But that's a story for another day. If you have
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: a story this year with me, please write to me
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: at Adam Shann writer at gmail dot com. If you
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: want to report a crime, please call Crime Stoppers on
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: one eight hundred, triple three, Triple zero. This has been
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: Adam Shan for Real Crime. Thanks for listening, Thanks for
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: listening to this episode and supporting this story. Independent storytelling
• 1:17:35
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• 1:17:37
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• 1:17:40
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