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A PERSONAL BEST EVERYDAY · Real Crime with Adam Shand

• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Real Crime with Adam Shand. I'm your host,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Adam Shand. This is part two of my interview with
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: former New South Wales inmate Kyle Madden. In part one,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Kyle is jailed for a home invasion and a non-fatal shooting.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: While on parole, he goes to France to join the
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: French Foreign Legion, but that doesn't last, and soon he's
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: back in Sydney where he spends two and a half
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: years on remand for a crime he didn't commit. Free again,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Kyle's offending escalates. It takes the loss of an unborn
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: child to finally help Kyle change his life.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: What happened?
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: Well, I got out. I think I was out for
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: about five months, okay? I started doing a bit more
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: bigger work than what I was doing and a bit
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: more riskier stuff. I made a couple of enemies and
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: then I'd had an argument with my mum. My mum
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: knew I had a shoddy and a couple of ounces
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: of rack and some stuff like that. And, man, I'd
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: had an argument with my mother and then she just,
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: they just called the cops on me, man.
• 1:23
  Speaker 4: And I've come home one day.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: Your mum gave you up?
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that was pretty hard, bro. You know, that was
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: pretty hard to deal with, man, when my parents gave
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: me up. And it wasn't like that they needed to
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: give me up because, look, I could understand back then
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: I was.
• 1:41
  Speaker 4: A bit crazy, man.
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: And maybe like my parents, look, they seen that I
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: did have a firearm and they did call the police
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: on me. And in retrospect, if I would have went
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: and shot someone and killed someone or shot someone and
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: hurt someone, like now I would be really regretting that.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Now, do you think– now, that's a good point because
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: in the frame of mind that you were in and
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: the things that you were doing, the associations, the enemies
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: you were making, maybe, Kyle, your mum did you a
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: favour by giving you up so you didn't take it
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: any further.
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: Look, you can look at it that way. And as
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: now I'm older, I do look at it in that
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: certain type of way. But there's another way to deal
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: with it too. Like they could have just got rid
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: of it. They could have spoke to me about it.
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: They could have said, listen, I don't want this.
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: In the house.
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: You need to get rid of it. Otherwise, we're going
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: to call the police on you. Like, I could have.
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: Do you know.
• 2:34
  Speaker 4: What I mean?
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: Me going to jail for another two and a half years,
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: then while I'm in there, okay, meeting worse and worse people.
• 2:43
  Speaker 4: So, like, that was hard for me to deal with.
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: I felt really betrayed. And then I felt really angry.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: I bet you did.
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: And angry.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: Really angry now.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: You were angry before this. Now you're really over the top.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: And now you're also thinking, well, here's my future. I'm
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: going back into jail again. This is my future. The
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: same people you'd left behind are waiting for you when
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: you come back.
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: Well, after I got betrayed by my family, I had
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: a sense of, like, who can I trust now?
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: I can't trust no one, you know.
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: And it really did do something to my confidence because
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: I felt like I really did feel like At some sense,
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: I knew I was responsible as well because, like, when
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: you're young like that, I'd grown up knowing how to fight,
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: like I knew how to fight really well. I'd had
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: professional fights when I was younger for MMA. Like, I
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: was a bit of a dangerous person without a weapon.
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: So my temperament, I'm on a bit of steroids, I'm
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: on a bit of tests.
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: Like, I'm training very hard.
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: Like, I'd go from zero to 100 really quick, you know. Like,
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: I could, look, I understand, like, I understand, but it just,
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: it did, it made me so angry, man. Like, I
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: had to deal with the feeling of being betrayed. Plus,
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: I'm locked up. I'm in jail. I had a missus
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: at that time. And then, like, things with her fell through, okay.
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: And then, so, like, I'm in jail. I've been betrayed
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: by the people that I most love, and I've got
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: no one.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: So in this case, you're very angry and you're getting
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: in a lot more conflict in jail and you're getting
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: a reputation for it as well.
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: So what was that stint like compared to the earlier ones?
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: Well, I'd made previous enemies with various islander networks in jail, okay?
• 4:43
  Speaker 4: So they had their own crews, okay?
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: There was about four islander crews and I was at
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: war with three of them. so I'd end up having
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: a fight with one Islander, okay, and then the next
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: day I'd come out, and then two of them would
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: try to get me, and then, like, you know, so
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: it was on, and then, then blades got pulled, people
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: ended up getting stabbed, I ended up getting stabbed, but
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: it didn't come, it didn't go through my clothes, like,
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: there were some pretty hectic times in there, man, you know, where, where, like,
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: if the screws weren't there to, like, Man, there were
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: some times in there where we're fighting and blades have
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: been pulled and there's three blokes on me. Lucky I'm
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: wearing about 10 pairs of clothes and I've got a
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: towel underneath and they're.
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: All stabbing me.
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: And I'm waiting, praying to get gas by the squad
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: to save my life, you know. Because one minute you're there,
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: it doesn't matter how many boys you got, you just
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: turn around and drop your guard for one second and
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: three big 120 kilo Islanders are running at you with
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: 15 centimetre blades, 20 centimetre blades.
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: And then they just start hacking you, bang, bang, bang,
• 5:45
  Speaker 4: in the middle of the pod. Like, you're like, what
• 5:47
  Speaker 4: do you do? You know what I mean?
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: You've got to try to survive. You've got to try
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: to get high. And then because I'm an Aussie, not
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: many of the Aussies would come and help you, especially
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: against the Islanders in there.
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: Like, the Aussies compared to the Islanders. Back in the day,
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: when I first started, we had a bit of a stronghold.
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: Like, there was a bit of a strong boys, but
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: then after that, Man, unless you're in a jail with
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: a couple of spawned solo Aussie boys, none of them
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: are coming to help you, which is a bit sad, man. Like,
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: you know, so it makes them a target inside, you know?
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you were a target and you were lucky
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: to survive all that. So you finished that two years.
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: And you come out again and you're probably thinking once again,
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: what's ahead for me?
• 6:29
  Speaker 4: Well, yeah, like I'd come out and I was hanging
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: out with fucking.
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: I was hanging out with a couple of boys that
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: they made an underbelly show about. Anyway, and so I
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: was hanging out with them, and then I was going
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: to Maryland to see my crew at that time, which
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: I don't want to say who I was with, okay?
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: So I'm hanging out with these people, all right? And
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: then I'm going to the area to hang out with
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: probably the most feared crew in the country, okay? And
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: then I'm going and speaking to them, and the cops
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: are watching me, and they're thinking, who's this person that's
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: running in between these two people? okay, and then, yeah,
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: it was just boom, and I couldn't shake the police, like,
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: does not matter what you do, you can't shake these coppers,
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: I mean, like, they are on you, like, flies on shit, and, like,
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: when you think that you're not being recorded, you're being recorded, like,
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: when you think, oh, you're alone, and you think, I'd
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: drive out somewhere, and I'd see a car sitting there,
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: how did these guys find me, man, like, I haven't
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: got a phone, I've just got an encrypted device, you know,
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: I'm And, man, like it started to get to me.
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: So then I started to use my own product, yeah.
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: I started to chop in to the drugs because I
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: could not deal with being newly released into society. So
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: I'm in society, okay. I was living at Bondi at
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: the time. I was living at Quest where Alan Meridian
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: got shot at. I was in Bondi. I was living
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: right in the same place. Okay, my mate, we had
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: another unit in World Towers, and so we were going
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: in between then, and I was in the city, and
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: I was just like.
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: I had this pending feeling of I'm always being watched.
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: And maybe it was a mixture of the drugs, and
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: I'm thinking, some of my drama's going to come back
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: on me. So I started chopping in, and I started
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: chopping into, like, I was smoking ice and fucking snorting
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: coke and whatever else, pills I was taking, okay? And
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: then I started.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: And you had plenty of money. You had plenty of money.
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: You're running, you're living in a nice apartment.
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: Because I hadn't spent so much time outside, I would go,
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: I'd make a lot of money real.
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: Quick, but I would spend it really quick.
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: When I got out of jail that time, I did
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: not care about anything. I didn't think I was going,
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: I did not give two rats asses about my own life.
• 8:52
  Speaker 4: All right. Like I'm smoking meth. I'm taking drugs. I'm
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: in the city.
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: I'm fucking, no one being investigated by the police. OK,
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: but my self-confidence is shot. OK, because my parents had
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: given me up and the jail I'd done, I felt betrayed.
• 9:09
  Speaker 4: I couldn't trust anyone.
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: I was dealing with those issues that I had with
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: the drugs, which were making a lot of my problems worse.
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: My paranoia got really, really bad.
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: OK, to the point where like it was almost unbearable
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: to be around. And then the stress got so much
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: like and then when I start taking drugs, I'd start
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: going to a psychosis. And then I'd end up going
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: into a psychosis and I'd start tripping out and.
• 9:33
  Speaker 4: It was just not a bad, it was not a
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: good mixture.
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: I ended up having to go to the psych ward
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: a couple of times because I'd just fried myself out
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: a little bit. So I'd fucking, I'd fried myself out
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: a little bit and I'd been out for a while then.
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: And I was taking that much drugs, okay, that like
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: I had to keep selling because at that time, and
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: it was during COVID time, the prices of everything were
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: through the roof. So I had to make at least
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: a couple of thousand dollars a week to support the
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: drugs I was taking. So I'd put my shoulder in
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: this snowball effect of I was getting more paranoid my
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: actions were becoming more outrageous and violent okay so like
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: and I knew I was being watched and I knew
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: like because I would get pulled over I had like
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: an FPO, a WPO. I still didn't know if I
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: had that terrorism act on me, okay? And I would
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: get pulled over and the cops wouldn't even go through
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: the car. And I'm thinking, man, like I'm like hanging
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: out with all these people, all right? And I'm not
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: getting searched. I'm thinking there's something wrong here. So it
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: was making me more paranoid, okay? And when you're under
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: an investigation, a big investigation, usually the cops won't push
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: too hard on you if you get pulled over or something.
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: because they don't want to freak you out or make you,
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: you know, go into, you pull back on your criminal activities.
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: So they'll just make you think like everything's all right,
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: you won't get searched.
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: And I was well aware of that. So it made
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: me even more paranoid.
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: So after I started fully really self-destructing and damaging myself,
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: I ended up knowing.
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: That I needed help.
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: So I checked myself in, I went to the hospital.
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: I said to them, listen, like I'm not well, like
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: I'm hearing things, I'm seeing things, I'm in a full
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: drug-induced psychosis, so I need to go to the psych
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: ward for a couple of weeks. I was always well
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: aware that when I got too bad, okay, like I was,
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: from me shooting that girl, okay, by accident when I
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: was younger, I knew the consequences and I knew the
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: repercussions of hurting innocent people, okay? So lucky I had
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: the small little bit of intelligence that I had back
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: then to know that my head wasn't right And that
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: my thinking process, okay, was all distorted. And the information
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: I was receiving in my head was corrupted because I'd
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: been on methamphetamine and other various drugs. And I knew
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: that it wasn't safe for me. And, like, imagine, okay,
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: so it got that bad where I was taking drugs
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: where I'd walk up to someone, I think I'd see
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: someone I'd know, and I'd walk up.
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: To them and their face would change.
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: So then I was like, whoa.
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: Okay, so when I knew that, like, I knew, like,
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: I could, think that I could see an enemy and
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: I could go and unload on them and be the
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: wrong person and I thought like I could never live
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: with myself if I killed an innocent person like that's
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: like these things that are happening now in the news
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: man like where these young fellas are going and they're
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: shooting and killing innocent people like man it's something like
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: if I can like how can I say look I
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: almost done it when I was younger okay because they
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: were standing next to each other when I let off
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: the shots and like I was probably still not in
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: the right mind. I was taking, I think I was
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: smoking marijuana and taking Xanax back then. But my progression
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: in drug use had got a lot worse than now,
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: but I still had the respect and the conscious, still
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: conscious of my actions and my thought process.
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: Do you know what I mean?
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: To know that, okay, these drugs are really starting to
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: really screw around in my head. I'm in a really
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: bad environment at the moment where something really bad can
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: really happen in like that, you know, like, Like, for example,
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: like in the news the other day, okay, there's a
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: couple of 18-year-olds in a unit with a 14-year-old kid
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: and a gun's been let off and the little kid's died, okay?
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: So, look, when you're in that.
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: Environment, when there's firearms around and then plus you're a
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: bit hot-headed or you add methamphetamine to that equation, it's
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: a recipe for disaster, man. Yep.
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: Yep. And sure enough.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: You were headed back to jail. What was the trigger
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: for that next stint?
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: Well, okay, so what had happened to me is so
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: I'd self-destructed outside, okay, because I didn't know how to
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: be outside. And I was outside this time for about 15,
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: 16 months, which is previous to this, me now, which
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: was the longest while I was out, which was a
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: bit weird for me because I'd been doing so much
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: illegal activities in that time. And I'd been taking so
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: much drugs and done everything else like to a fuller extreme, okay, which.
• 14:20
  Speaker 4: Like it was surprising for me.
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: But me being on the drugs probably saved me a
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: little bit too because towards the end I was getting
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: bad on the drugs and these other people knew it.
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: That were doing other various criminal activities.
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: And so they wouldn't want to engage with me, which
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: in turn, when I look back at it now, I
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: think it was a godsend because I would have, At
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: that time, my attitudes towards decision-making were not good, okay?
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: And I could have done.
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: Some wrong things, some bad things that I would have
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: regretted now, okay? Because a lot was going on. People
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: were dying everywhere. It was just a bad thing, man,
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: you know? And I look back now and look, I
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: was on the drugs, but it kept me away from
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: these full high-scale illegal activities that would have got me
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: a lot. Got me a lot of prison time or
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: I could have hurt someone.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: Well, I don't think you'd be here now, Kyle.
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: No.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: As you say, recipe for disaster.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: You're hot-headed, hypervigilant, you're paranoid, you're angry, you're involved with
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: some upscale crooks doing upscale things.
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: Mate, your life expectancy would have been zero.
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: I didn't expect to live, yeah.
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: So, like, when you're caught up in that thing and
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: I'd lost so many people, I'd just seen them, like,
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: I was putting on the news, man, people just dying.
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: I knew every single week. And you're just like, well,
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: when am I next, you know? And so I was
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: broken inside, didn't trust no one. I didn't really give
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: an F about myself. And so me not caring about myself, okay,
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: made me become really destructive, okay?
• 15:59
  Speaker 4: And so.
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: I'd gone back to, I ended up going back to
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: my mum's house, which I was at my mum's, and
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: I had an AVO between me and my mother from
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: her previously giving me up for the firearm, okay, because
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: there's guns in the house.
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: They put an AVO, which she caught him and said, listen,
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: I'm scared.
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: My son's got a gun, okay? So she was scared.
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: They put an AVO on. And I went back to
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: my mum's, and my mum had seen me. That, I
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: was really fucking, I told my mum, listen, I just
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: need to sleep, okay?
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: Like, I'm not well.
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: Just let me sleep. And look, at this time, I
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: had money with me. Me and my dad had not
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: seen eye to eye. I asked him to send me
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: to rehab. I said, here, I'll pay for it. Because
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: at the time, I couldn't get on the phone and
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: call him and book myself in. I didn't have too
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: much identification and all this kind of stuff.
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: My whole life was just a mess. It was falling apart.
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: And it was due to my own fault of self-destruction.
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: And fucking me mum died. I said to my mum,
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: please don't call the cops on me. I said, listen,
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: I just want to sleep. Anyway, so I've fallen asleep.
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: She's thinking that the best thing for me is to
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: go into the psych ward. But she rings the coppers
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: instead of ringing the nurse.
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: And so the coppers come running in. I wake up.
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: Coppers are coming running.
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: In the house. They're screaming.
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: So I hit, boom, I whack one of the coppers.
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: They fall down. I hit the other copper. He's down
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: and then Like, I'm in a lot of trouble now, okay?
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you are.
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so I'm in a lot.
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: Of trouble now, and I think I had an ounce of,
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: I think I got done for an ounce of methamphetamine
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: I had in.
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: My pocket, okay?
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: And so when I went to court, I went down
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: the Mental Health Act way, and look, I got a
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: really good result, which started my war with the police
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: officers over this, and the police were not happy with
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: me getting from hitting two police officers, only getting six
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: months in jail with an ounce or I think maybe
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: it was half an ounce of methamphetamine at the time.
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: So I've just assaulted two coppers and only got six
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: months in jail. They weren't too happy about that, man.
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: So when I went to jail this time, I had
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: a girl I was talking to and she told me
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: she loved me.
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: So I thought, like, you know, I.
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: Might try this, which was, well, in retrospect, I thought,
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: because I don't think I was in the right frame
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: of mind to be entering a relationship, but I was
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: at that time, like, I was just going to jail.
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: My parents had given me up for a second time.
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: I didn't have really anyone, you know, so I latched
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: onto this relationship. And so I was in a relationship
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: with her, which was just really toxic, man, you know,
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: really not... Like, there's some relationships that you should be
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: in and there's some relationships that you shouldn't be in,
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: and that's one of the relationships I shouldn't have been.
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: In, OK? At that time, I still wasn't in.
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: as emotionally disciplined as I am now, I wasn't disciplined.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: Maybe not fit for human consumption at that time.
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah, a bit like that.
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: So like I'd been so damaged from my childhood, yeah,
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: then had to deal with it myself and I didn't
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: understand why I was the way I was, okay, and
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: then I've gone to jail, been damaged from years in
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: jail and full on, Years of being on guard because
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: when you're in jail, okay, and you've got dramas or
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: you know that you've got dramas, when you put on
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: those shoes to come out that cell every morning, the
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: stress level on you thinking, fire out today, I've got
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: dramas with these blokes, is it going to kick off today?
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: Am I going to have to stab this bloke? Am
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: I going to get more time in jail? Or is
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: he going to die? And am I never going to
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: get out of jail? So you've got a permanent stress
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: hold over you. OK, of these dramas and these issues,
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: then you've got a girlfriend outside, you've got her to
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: worry about. If you've got kids, it'll be 10 times worse,
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: you know. So there's all those mitigating factors.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: And it's even as simple as you go to ring
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: your girl she doesn't pick up yeah 100 you.
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: Don't know what's going on in there and like what's
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: happening to usually like birds of a feather flock together
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: you know if you're on drugs usually in missus is
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: on drugs you know and you know what you do
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: when you're on drugs and Like, a relationship cannot function
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: if one of the persons in the relationship is on drugs.
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: It just cannot. It's like saying, like, you want to
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: put three teaspoons of mud in your water, but you
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: want to drink clean water.
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: It doesn't happen. Do you know? It's a bit of
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: an analogy. It just doesn't.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: That's very wise.
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: You know what I mean?
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: I think that's a very wise position born of experience.
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: Well, like, I've been through all these toxic relationships, yeah, okay,
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: I didn't know why I was choosing these toxic relationships,
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: but now that I'm older, I do, because of the
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: environment and the subconscious that was instilled in me when
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: I was younger, okay, which I'm used to chaos.
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: So if I didn't have the chaos in my.
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: Life, I'd self-destruct and cause it, you know? And so
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: that's now that I'm older and I've, because I just
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: got sick of going through these same cycles.
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: Okay, so I dealt with all this heartache and all
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: this pain and everything.
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: And so I had to delve into myself and fix
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: inside myself so I could reflect it outside.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: Right, so do you want to talk about your relationship
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: with this woman and what happened?
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: Because I know it was a defining moment in your life.
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, okay, so I've gone out with this female, okay,
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: that I've known since I was young, all right?
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: Grew up in the next street to me.
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: I thought, you know, everything was going to be okay,
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: but Look, eventually she ended up getting pregnant and I
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: lost my son full term. And so from that, I
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: was in jail at the time. I'd lost my son.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, what's that like? Just stop for a minute.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: For anyone losing a child in any circumstance, it's a
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: traumatic experience. Your partner had gone full term with your
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: son while you were in jail. And then you discover
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: that she's lost the baby while you're in jail.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: I can't imagine what that would be like.
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: Look, it was the hardest thing I've ever been through
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: in my life. Nothing in my life was going to
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: be harder than me losing my child. But it took
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: the death of my child for me to sit down
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: and realise I wasn't there for when my grandmother passed away.
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: I wasn't there for when This person passed away. I
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: wasn't there for that when this person passed away. Now
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: I'm not there for when my only firstborn child, all right,
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: has died and the only time he, in this short
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: time that he had on this earth, all right, needed
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: me and I wasn't there. And I thought, what is
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: all this for? Okay, like I thought, what have I,
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: and it made me really reflect, man. I sat there
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: and I looked upon my actions and the man I
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: was and I thought, What is it all for? What
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: is all this being staunch and carrying guns and all
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: that if I wasn't staunch enough to be there for
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: my son when he passed away?
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: I thought, what is it? This is all for nothing, bro.
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: I thought it's all off. Like, this is just.
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: And, like, I got down on my hands and knees
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: and I just prayed to God, bro, because the pain
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: was that incredible. I didn't know how I was going
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: to get through it as a man, as a human, as...
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: I just didn't, like... I'm not going to get into
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: it too much because... there's no words that can accurately
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: describe the pain and just absolute pain that I went through.
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: There's no words. I can't tell you.
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: I think you've described it.
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: I think you've described it very, very well.
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: You don't have to put words to it.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: I think everyone listening can understand where you're at and
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: why it's a turning point.
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: And, you know, you were kind of a dog to yourself.
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: You let yourself down.
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: And I come to this realisation, you know, like even
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: though I wasn't there, Okay, whatever happened with my son,
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: we won't talk about that, but.
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: I still blame myself for everything, okay?
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: Even the things that I couldn't control, I still blame
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: myself because I was in jail and I wasn't there,
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: even though.
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: Look, really it's not my fault, okay?
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: I still take responsibility and I still have to acknowledge that, look,
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: I was wrong for being in jail and not being
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: there and I'll take responsibility and I'll take all responsibility
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: for my wrongdoings, you know?
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: And for me, acknowledging that.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: And honestly, Kyle, that's what was missing in this whole
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: journey up until this moment. You weren't taking responsibility. You
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: were going from one disaster to the next. You were
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: finding reasons and excuses not to change, even though you
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: knew you could change. You were in Adelaide, you were working.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: You were doing good things for yourself. You had different
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: chances at different times. But at this moment, which is
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: absolutely the darkest, most depths of pain.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: you find some strength. Where does that strength come from
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: at that moment?
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: Okay. So at this point in time, I'm just wrecked. Okay.
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: I found out he passed away through a friend that
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: the mother blocked me.
• 25:21
  Speaker 4: I don't know. Like she spat out, man. Okay.
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: And two weeks after I'd stopped talking to her and
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: I haven't spoken to her since. It was very bleak, mate.
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: Like it was very dark, man. Okay. So the day
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: after he passed away, I tried to call her. My
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: number was blocked. So I'm, um, I thought, like, you know,
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: at that time I'm thinking, I'm dying inside, I don't
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: know how she's.
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: Feeling, you know what I mean?
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: Like, I'm thinking, like, I don't know, like, I've just
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: got to try to be there for her, okay?
• 25:50
  Speaker 4: As best I can over a telephone.
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: Which, like, you know, which I'll take responsibility for that,
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: you know? Like, I wasn't there, which I have to
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: live with the rest of my life and this is
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: why I changed my life because I was on my
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: hands and knees the day after and I thought, you know, like,
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: At the time, I was religious, but I believed, but
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: I didn't know for sure if there was a God
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: at that time. I was still a bit arm and arm.
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: I got down on my hands and knees, and I'm
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: telling you, man, I was in a dark place, and
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: I just prayed. I said, God, I said, mate, I
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: don't know if you're a man up there sitting on
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: the throne. I don't know if you're energy. I don't
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: know what you are. I said, but, mate, if you're there,
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: I said, look, I need help, man. I said, look,
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: I don't know you. as a human, like as a man,
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: how I'm going to get through this, how I'm going
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: to survive this, because I can't fathom the amount of pain.
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: And I think being in jail, being there at that time,
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: I couldn't see any other way now, me looking back
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: at it, if I was outside, that I maybe could
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: have survived this. I think that I had to be
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: in that environment, in that cell, away from every other factors,
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: away from drugs, away from everything So I could really
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: delve into myself and deal with this because no one's
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: written a rule book on how to lose your first
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: child while you're locked up in prison.
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: Do you know what I mean?
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: So, like, I had to navigate this whole thing by myself.
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: I called my dad. My dad heard that it was
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: me and he hung up.
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: So I realised that day that, you know what, I'm
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: on my own. No one's coming.
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: No one's going to fix this. No one's going to
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: help me. or anything like that. And I thought, you
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: know what? Me being in jail is a horrible thing,
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: you know, while my son's dying. And I thought, I'm
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: going to make sure that no one can ever say
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: that I was a bad father after this.
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: Okay, no worries. I did the wrong thing by not
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: being there. And I accept that. All right.
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: No one can ever put a punishment bigger than what
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: I've put on myself for.
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: Not being there.
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: That's what happened.
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: So, like, even though it wasn't my fault, all right,
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: I still got to accept responsibility for not being there.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: So you made that decision.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: You began to plan for a future that wasn't going
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: back to crime, not going back to jail.
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: After I had that self-reflection on how I was going
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: to get through this and how I was going to
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: make sure that I honour my son in the right way,
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: the second day I was outside after he passed away
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: and Like, I was just doing push-ups and chin-ups.
• 28:38
  Speaker 4: Like, I just had to keep training, man, you know?
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: And that's maybe, you know, I'd come out twice a
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: day and I'd train and I'd just stay in my cell,
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: you know? Like, I'd wake up in the night time, yeah,
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: and my eyes were all swollen and my face was
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: all wet because I'd been crying in my sleep, you
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: know what I mean?
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: Because I'd been, you're just that shattered, you know? You're
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: even dreaming tears. So, still now... I don't know how
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: I survived it.
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: I still think there was some divine intervention because I
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: still don't know how I survived it. Then when I
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: went to court, okay, so before I went to court,
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: I started changing everything. I stopped taking everyone's numbers down.
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: Like I had a black book. I used to take
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: everyone's numbers down that you'd meet up with outside and
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: you'd talk to them. I stopped taking people's numbers down.
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: I stopped talking about criminal stuff. I was doing laps
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: with the boys and I would just talk about what
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: I was going to.
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: Do for work when I got out. and like i'd.
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: Come out of my cell and this is when i
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: realized like okay so i just lost my child yeah
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: but then i'm dealing with it inside and i haven't
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: told too many people and then i'm just watching the
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: whole world go go on in front of me boys
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: are chasing to get drugs boys are over here talking
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: about stuff other boys are doing laps And I'm like,
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: everyone's life continuing and no one's going through what I'm
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: feeling through. Everyone's worried about their own shit. And I'm like,
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: that's when I knew, like, no one's going to fix
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: this but me, you know what I mean? Like, no
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: one's going to be able to change anything but me.
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: And I had to really delve inside. And I was like,
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: what's wrong with you, man? You're doing something wrong here. Like,
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: you spent all your 20s in jail and now you're
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: ready to spend your 30s in jail. You've And I
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: had done a big, big reflection on my life. Like,
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: what have I become?
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: Do you know what I mean?
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: Like, what have I become? Like, I've become a failure.
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: I'm like, look at this. And then, like, I'm like,
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: I don't fucking really have, I don't really have anything
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: from my life but pain.
• 30:57
  Speaker 4: I was like, all I've done.
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: These last 15 years 14 years is causing myself pain.
• 31:04
  Speaker 4: That's all I've done.
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: And I've destroyed every relationship that I've had due to
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: my own actions. And I thought, bro, you're the problem, mate.
• 31:16
  Speaker 4: You know what I mean?
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: Even if it's not your fault, Kyle, take responsibility because
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: of your previous track record and you putting yourself in
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: that position.
• 31:27
  Speaker 4: You know what I mean? Yeah.
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: So you get out of that stint and your heart
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: has changed now, but it's still a massive uphill battle
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: to get a new life and to greet each day.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: And one thing that attracted me to our conversation when
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: you contacted me, and I'm glad you did, was that
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: you came upon this idea of trying to do your
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: personal best every day.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: Take it one day at a time.
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: How important was that?
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: Well, I live my life by sayings, yeah? So there's
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: great philosophers like Marcus Aurelius. I love his quotes, okay?
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: If you go out every day and you try your
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: personal best, okay, every day you try to beat your
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: previous day, you're.
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: Only going to have forward momentum in your life.
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: And I focus my work ethic, the person who I was,
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: everything around that saying, every aspect of my life, I said,
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: I'm going to try my personal best. So I'm going
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: to beat myself every single day because my whole life,
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: my only true enemy was myself. So I'd been battling
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: myself my whole life. And then I chose to battle
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: myself but in a positive aspect. So every day now
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: I'm battling myself in a positive aspect to beat myself
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: in my positive forward momentum. okay of whatever it is
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: gaming skills at work working harder than i did the
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: day before studying a bit longer than i did so
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: like now like i'm working i operate i operate five
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: civil machines i'm doing my recruiters and consultants course so
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: i can have a recruiter and consultant firm and get
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: blokes out there on the job sites i can start
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: making money open my own business and um so and
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: That's what was a driving factor before I got out.
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: I said, you know what?
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: I'm going to become an experienced excavator operator. I'm going
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: to buy excavators and get the machines. And so I've
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: headed in that direction, and every day I've been moving
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: towards my goals. And I try to beat my personal best,
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: which is my best previously.
• 33:44
  Speaker 4: So I up my game, and yeah.
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: I think that's great. It's now been, what, nearly two
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: years now? Since you've been free?
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: It's been exactly two years.
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: And how do you reflect on, I guess at the beginning,
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: you're thinking you're in the dark. You just got to
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: keep moving towards something. But do you start to see
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: glimmers of light, glimmers of hope that what you're doing
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: is accumulating?
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: You're starting to build some confidence that you can do this?
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: Well, I am a stubborn person at heart. okay and
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: I believe if I wasn't a stubborn person okay I
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: wouldn't have ever tried to give up drugs I wouldn't
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: have ever ever got to succeed at giving them up
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't have ever become something of the person.
• 34:27
  Speaker 4: That I am now and the man that I have with.
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: My morals and all that kind of and my positive
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: aspect that people I'm telling my story so people that
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: are down and out that have been through all this
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: crap that I've been through they have been given up
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: by their family they have abandonment issues, trust issues, all
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: these issues, the trauma from jail, which is a big thing,
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: which even now, right now, I still have to deal with.
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: The normal person doesn't have to deal with that, but
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: we still have to deal with these issues. But it's
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: not up to anybody else to fix it. It's up
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: to you and it's up to me to fix myself.
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: Regardless of if my parents brought me into an environment
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: which was that toxic, which it's been very detrimental to me.
• 35:17
  Speaker 4: And even if it is the sole cause of me
• 35:20
  Speaker 4: doing the 12.
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: And a half years in jail, I still can't look
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: at it like that. I still have to accept responsibility
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: that it's been done to me, that it's my job
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: to fix it.
• 35:29
  Speaker 4: It's up to me.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: And that realisation that you had when your son died
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: that you are alone and you are the master of
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: whatever destiny awaits you and you're putting that to a
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: positive aspect, as you say.
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: How does the future look now for you, Carl?
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: Okay, so when I first got out, I was still
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: grieving about my son. It had only been five months
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: since he'd passed away. Okay, I got let out straight
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: from court.
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: They let me out. I didn't really have much.
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: Like I've got out and I've created this life that
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: I have for myself now.
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: Okay, I've created for myself from nothing. Like I had nothing.
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: Okay, so I'm going to confidently say it took me
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: at least a year before I started to feel comfortable
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: to go to work and to be at work and
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: to not have an anxiety of am I going to
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: encounter a situation again where I'm going to freak out today,
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: you know what I mean, where it's going to be
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: super challenging for me and I'm going to be overly
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: frustrated and want.
• 36:33
  Speaker 4: To walk off or even if I had an argument.
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: So, like, the first couple of months when I got out,
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: I had a bit of a road rage with one
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: of these other blokes, okay, and this bloke got out
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: of the car like he was acting like he had
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: a gun and this and that.
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: I'm thinking, man, get in the car, you're embarrassing yourself,
• 36:49
  Speaker 4: you know, and he's yelling at me.
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: But I could see from my situation from when I
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: was younger, if someone was going to, acted like they
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: had a gun and he's trying to show me that
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: he's acting like he's got a gun he doesn't have
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: a gun he would have just shot me so i
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: had a i dealt with that situation before and.
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: I knew if i get out and i hit this
• 37:08
  Speaker 4: bloke yeah i'm gonna be.
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: In trouble doesn't matter my record whatever they're gonna come
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: they're gonna throw me in jail and i thought i'm
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: not gonna put myself in this position i can't just.
• 37:17
  Speaker 4: Keep driving me you're embarrassing yourself Like, go, okay? But before,
• 37:21
  Speaker 4: I wouldn't have done that.
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: If someone had done that to me, I would have
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: jumped down and would have bashed him in the middle
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: of the street straight away.
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: You know what I mean?
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: I know you would have.
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: Straight away, there and then, I would have just bashed
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: him and ripped him out of his car. But you
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: can't do that. You can't do that. In normal society,
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: you can't do that. And so I had to teach
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: myself by observing other people outside.
• 37:46
  Speaker 4: I had to teach myself. And that's what is hard
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: for other people that get out of jail. They're not
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: this emotionally intelligent.
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: They're not this psychologically intelligent about themselves that they know
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: that they have to go out and obtain these skills
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: and teach them themselves. I had to find a certain
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: way that I learned, yeah, and had to go out
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: and find the way that I learned effectively and had
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: to teach myself, if you can understand that. So it's
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: like I didn't know these skills were right, okay, and
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: because of the way I am and how my brain is,
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: There's a certain type of way you need to speak
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: or certain type of words for me to actually fully
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: grasp your concept. Okay, so then I have to put
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: it into my words so I fully understand it in
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: my head so I'm comfortable with understanding what you're saying. Yeah,
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: so that's, yeah, like at least a year before I
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: felt comfortable talking to someone and feeling like they understood
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: what I was saying and didn't feel like that I
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: was weird or, or the way I was speaking, you know,
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: was incorrect.
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: And as you go through these changes and get a
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: little more insight, more emotional intelligence, as you call it,
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: do you feel like you're closing the door forever on
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: the past, locking it?
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: Is that how it feels?
• 39:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: Look, okay, so now I've progressed a lot in my career,
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: even though, look, man, if I chose anything else or
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: I chose politics, I chose civil construction and operating civil
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: construction machines, so like massive moxies, excavators, dumpers, rollers. I
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: can drive trucks. I can drive water carts, like all
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: those kinds of machines, and I've still got, I think,
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: three more machines to master. But like there's so much
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: that i need to learn in civil construction that like
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: before i can open my own business in civil construction
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: or or civil excavation or excavation i need like at
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: least another five years on the job man you know
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: what i mean just Like for me to fully understand everything,
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: it's just there's so much for me to learn. So
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: in my spare time, I'm doing other courses and I'm
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: doing everything like that and that's formatting.
• 39:59
  Speaker 4: So the reason I'm doing a bit.
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: Of content as well, okay, and the reason I'm doing
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: the content was when I first got out, I asked Parole,
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: what programs have you got for me to help me
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: deinstitutionalize myself?
• 40:15
  Speaker 4: I said, can you help me write a CV, like
• 40:17
  Speaker 4: a resume?
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 40:18
  Speaker 4: And they just looked at me and they said, no, no,
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: we've got nothing like that. I said, well, how am I? Like,
• 40:23
  Speaker 4: these are guys of the governing body around me.
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: These guys should be showing me or should at least
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: have a program to show me how to live out here.
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: You know that my problem is that I'm institutionalized. I said,
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: and when I got out, I had an ankle bracelet
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: as well, okay? And I was just like, they're monitoring
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: me where I'm going. And it was so much stress.
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: And I was asking them, listen, have you got anything?
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: They don't have anything. Okay, because it's just a– no
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: one understands that I could sit here and talk for
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: hours about how it's a massive moneymaker crime in this country.
• 40:53
  Speaker 4: But, like, that's for another day. But, yeah, you know, like–
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: All those skills.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: And I think what you're coming to is what a
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: lot of men have to grapple with.
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: It's maturing. It's becoming a fully-fledged man.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: And I think being in jail that long, I've met
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: a lot of people who get to about age 40
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: and go– I've spent 15, 20 years of my life
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: in jail.
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: Is this my life?
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: And now you've got something else which is a much
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: broader horizon. Who knows what you can achieve? And I
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: love the fact that you approached me to talk about
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: this because I think in some ways having this discussion
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: is part of putting the past to rest.
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: It's an essential part of putting the past to rest,
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: you know what I mean? So like when I had
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: to cut ties, okay, with that person who I used
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: to be, And the man I am now, okay, so
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: I had to change everything.
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: Even my family, I had to get away from because
• 41:49
  Speaker 4: it was toxic for me.
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: I had to change every friendship that I had, all right,
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: unless it didn't involve any criminal activity and it was beneficial.
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: I had to be a bit selfish in the way
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: that I chose my friends where, okay, I needed to
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: make sure that these blokes were going to be, it
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: sounds bad in a way, but these blokes would be
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: able to contribute to my success.
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: Which I had to be selfish and say the people
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: that I'm going to.
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: Surround myself with are going to all help me contribute
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: to my success, okay, whether it was me observing them
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: and learning skills from them, whether they were helping me
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: out for something, which, look, I haven't had any help.
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: I've done everything by myself. I've got one bloke that's helped.
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: Me out, okay, and he's the bloke that's got all
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: the cars and he does the drags and he builds
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: and stuff like that. He's a very good friend of
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: mine and he's been very good to me. But I
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: pride myself in in trying to navigate any issue I
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: have by myself so I know no one can ever, ever, ever,
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: ever take anything away from me or put me in
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: a hard time where I can't navigate out of it.
• 42:59
  Speaker 4: You know what I mean? Yeah.
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I do, Kyle.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: Mate, just in closing, you've been that young guy who's
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: been involved in juvenile crime, graduated to adult crime. There's
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: a lot of it going around at the moment, a
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: lot of death a lot of terrible things taking place,
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: the communities in uproar. What is your perception of what's
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: going on with our youth, particularly in Sydney, around this
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: crime issue?
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: It has to start in the household, okay, and then
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: with their surrounding themselves outside the household. So if they're
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: in an area, so you know, the housing commission district areas, okay,
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: where all the young youth are predominantly. In those areas,
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: those housing commissions, you'll get a lot of thieves, okay, where,
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: you know, in my area, mate, there wasn't too many
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: people that I knew that would go on and steal
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: and that was all bizzo.
• 43:52
  Speaker 4: And gun crime and all that.
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: So it's whatever area you're associated with, that's what's going
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: to format your attitudes towards decision-making when you're a youngster.
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: So the parents need to really stay on them, bro.
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: They need to really see and really know their children.
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: And I think if it's not the parents' fault how
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: their child come out, whose fault is it? So who
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: do you blame, okay? Do you blame the child, all right?
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: So why some children that grow up in the exact
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: same street as some murderers, why do they become doctors
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: and doctors?
• 44:29
  Speaker 4: These guys are in supermax for the rest of their lives.
• 44:32
  Speaker 4: Do you know what I mean?
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: So you've got to understand, okay, what was going on
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: in that bloke's life, but then there is the 1%
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: or 5% that break through that, you know, they can
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: understand themselves at a young age and identify that's a
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: way that they don't want to go, okay? Like, you
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: get some smart kids, but a lot of them learn
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: from their elders, all right?
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: So if they've got older boys in the area that
• 44:57
  Speaker 4: teach them the wrong thing, all.
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: Right, that's where it's, and they've got older cousins, and
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: they gravitate towards that, if you don't chop it early, like,
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: even if that means, you know, moving your family, okay,
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: to another area, so your children can't mix with those people, okay,
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: that might save your child's life, like, you have to
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: really actually be really involved in their lives, you know, like,
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: because it's coming down to the parents, all right, so
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: And that's what it is.
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: It's coming down to the parents.
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: I agree with you.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: We come from very different backgrounds, mate, but I thoroughly
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: agree with you. You know, show me the boy, I'll
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: show you the man and the surroundings they come from. Kyle, mate,
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: I want to finish by saying I really wish you
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: all the very best in your reinvention because I think
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: if you can do it, others can. I'm sure there
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: are people listening today who've been in the same situation
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: or are still going through the same situation. So, Kyle,
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: let your experience be their guide. I want to thank
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: you for sharing your story. It's been very painful. You've
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: done it for the first time here on Real Crime
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: with Adam Shan, so I'm very grateful to you.
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: Thanks, mate.
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: No worries. Thanks, Adam.
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: You know what I thought was funny?
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: When I said to you how you'd found me, you said, oh,
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: you used to watch me on television doing all the
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: crime shows and things.
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: I'm thinking, I hope I wasn't a bad influence.
• 46:11
  Speaker 4: No.
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: No way, mate.
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: I used to love watching your shows when I was younger.
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: I used to watch them all the time and that's
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: why I contacted you so I can tell the story
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: that Like the life, it's only going to bring these
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: youngsters pain, bro.
• 46:26
  Speaker 4: Like if I can say anything to these youngsters.
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: All right, okay, yeah, all right, maybe right now you're
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: not thinking, you're thinking I don't care, but you know what?
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: When you're like 30 years old and you're 10 years
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: or 35 years old and you're 10 years into a
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: 30-year sentence, yeah, all right, and you're thinking far out,
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: I hate these people that I have to come out
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: and see every day, far out, I wish I could,
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: You know, watch my nieces and nephews or my kids
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: grow up. Because I'll tell you right now, these blokes
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: that are living overseas that have still got their family
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: in Australia that are on the run, yeah, if one
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: of their kids gets sick and they're in hospital and
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: they're dying, they will give up all their money to come.
• 47:08
  Speaker 4: And to see their family, bro. You know what I mean?
• 47:10
  Speaker 4: So at the end of the day, is.
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: It worth it for yourself to be put in a
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: position like that?
• 47:15
  Speaker 4: The money's not worth it.
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah. All right, Kyle. Thanks, mate. Really appreciate that.
• 47:20
  Speaker 4: Too easy, mate.
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: Good on you.
• 47:21
  Speaker 4: Thanks, pal. Good luck. Thank you.
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: That was Kyle Madden with his story of redemption. I'd
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: like more of these, so please get in touch if
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: you'd like to share your experiences. You can email me
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: on adamshandwriter at gmail.com. If you want to report a crime,
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: please call Crime Stoppers on 1-800-333-000. You can also follow
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: me and subscribe on Facebook for more independent crime journalism.
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: This is Adam Shan for Real Crime. Thanks for listening.
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to this episode and supporting this story.
• 48:00
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• 48:03
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• 48:06
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• 48:10
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• 48:13
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• 48:16
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• 48:19
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