Latest / Real Crime with Adam Shand / The Corrections Officer and the Prisoner | Peter and Belinda Bates

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The Corrections Officer and the Prisoner | Peter and Belinda Bates · Real Crime with Adam Shand

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Apote production.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Real Crime with Adam Shand. I'm your host,
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Adam Shand. In my career, I've been lucky enough to
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: meet many people on their journeys towards making a positive
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: impact in life. I'm always grateful to watch and support
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: their progress, because for every good outcome, there are dozens
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: of stories where good intentions go bad and the darkness wins.
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: Experts warn childhood exposure to family violence dramatically increases the
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: risk of future offending.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: So I celebrate success when people overcome that darkness. Peter
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Bates is one such individual. Born into a family steeped
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: in traumatic family violence, Peter grew up believing that violence
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: was the answer to his problems and that only drugs
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: could quell the rage in his heart.
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: Heroin addiction continues to devastate families with early exposure linked
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: to long term criminal offending.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: This cycle had a predictable outcome, a fourteen and a
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: half year prison sentence for manslaughter. Unfortunately, Peter cannot bring
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: back the life he took, but he has reclaimed his
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: own and put it to good use, mentoring young men
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: to protect and nurture the women in their lives.
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: New grassroots initiatives encourage men to take responsibility and challenge
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: violent behavior.
• 1:34
  Speaker 4: Peter's journey is also a love story.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: In jail, he met Belinda, a corrections officer who is
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: now his wife.
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: An unlikely partnership forged inside prison walls, now focused on
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: helping others avoid the same fate.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: Now, it's a great pleasure to welcome Peter and Belinda
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: to the real Crime Studio.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: Good eight, goody mateks having.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: Us absolute pleasure. There's so much to cover here. Let's
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: start off by asking what are the games you're doing?
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: What's that all about?
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Okay? So, currently we have the Lighthouse, which is our
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: online community that we've set up for women in domestic
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: violence and coercive control situations. It's a private community where
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Blender holds the space, and we're getting trauma support workers
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: in there and trauma survivors and just so the community
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: can prop each other up, so women's only in place. Also,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: I'm doing some talks with the construction industry and I'm
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: going to be talking to fire fight workers just about
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: domestic violence and alcohol and drugs and the young guys.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Just trying to help young men make better decisions, you know,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: I've made up a heap of digital resources around high
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: conflict men and just helping men understand what they're feeling
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: because a lot of the times they were never modeled
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: good behavior, so they don't know how to show good
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: behavior out with women and with their children. So judge
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: and man, we're not having to go at anyone. We
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: just want to show you that there's a different way.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: And I don't want no man to have to walk
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: a path that I've gone down and go through what
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: I've gone down. Change is hard, but anyone can make it.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: You know, change is really hard, And I think I
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: really applaud what you're doing and you're an unlikely but
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: quite successful team. Belinda tell us why this is working
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: and what the partnerships all about.
• 3:30
  Speaker 5: Well, I think that with Peter, he has had a
• 3:33
  Speaker 5: traumatic life and then having to live most of his
• 3:38
  Speaker 5: adult life in jail has taught him something that you
• 3:41
  Speaker 5: can't really be taught because it's not a nice place
• 3:44
  Speaker 5: to be as I've seen those walls. But what I
• 3:47
  Speaker 5: found in Peter was that I worked in a drug
• 3:49
  Speaker 5: intervention unit and he was one of the mentors that
• 3:52
  Speaker 5: would come up to the unit and to help a
• 3:55
  Speaker 5: lot of the men that were in there that had
• 3:57
  Speaker 5: drug and our coohol problems, and just seeing him mental
• 4:01
  Speaker 5: those men through trying to keep them out of jail.
• 4:06
  Speaker 5: It was a big thing, especially when he's serving a
• 4:08
  Speaker 5: lot of time so and then now on the outside
• 4:12
  Speaker 5: world giving back to the community too, and just seeing
• 4:15
  Speaker 5: what his mother went through to as when he was
• 4:18
  Speaker 5: a child, to seeing that there's a lot of women
• 4:21
  Speaker 5: out there that are trapped in the same kind of
• 4:24
  Speaker 5: living arrangements and he's really just been a voice for them,
• 4:28
  Speaker 5: I think, And it's really courageous of him to be
• 4:30
  Speaker 5: able to speak outwards obviously, starting from these platforms that
• 4:35
  Speaker 5: we're using, and he's just building that through just you know,
• 4:40
  Speaker 5: like what experience he's had, because he's walked all of
• 4:42
  Speaker 5: this himself, like being incarcerated, being you know, into drugs
• 4:48
  Speaker 5: as well, and the addiction part of it, and then
• 4:51
  Speaker 5: you know, just the redemption of it all, I guess,
• 4:54
  Speaker 5: and then he's just giving back to the community and
• 4:58
  Speaker 5: I just really applause him for it because it's not
• 4:59
  Speaker 5: an easy thing to do and to watch what he's
• 5:02
  Speaker 5: been through.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: Now that's right, and I think I'm right saying that
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: you also had experience of coercion and controlling your life
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: as well. I did.
• 5:10
  Speaker 5: Yes, my last relationship was I met him when I
• 5:14
  Speaker 5: was about fourteen years old, so it was very young
• 5:17
  Speaker 5: and engage at eighteen, married at twenty one, had our
• 5:21
  Speaker 5: first child at twenty three, and wasn't until I was
• 5:23
  Speaker 5: in my early thirties that I noticed a bit of
• 5:27
  Speaker 5: a pattern happening. I just thought it was normal, and
• 5:30
  Speaker 5: you know, walking on eggshells, you know, said, you know,
• 5:32
  Speaker 5: why are you dressed up?
• 5:33
  Speaker 6: Why are you wearing your tean? For you look pathetic?
• 5:36
  Speaker 5: And it just made you feel like you go in
• 5:38
  Speaker 5: woods and you just start to believe it. And just
• 5:41
  Speaker 5: seeing the way that he would speak to the kids,
• 5:43
  Speaker 5: and he was an alcoholic himself.
• 5:46
  Speaker 6: I think he had bipolar.
• 5:48
  Speaker 5: But yeah, it's just it's an awful situation, and a
• 5:50
  Speaker 5: lot of women think that it's okay, like it's just normal,
• 5:54
  Speaker 5: and you make excuses for that partner. And like I
• 5:56
  Speaker 5: never had any violence, as in, you know, being hit
• 5:59
  Speaker 5: or anything like.
• 6:00
  Speaker 6: That, but it's certainly an eye opener.
• 6:03
  Speaker 5: And I didn't realize that I was actually in that
• 6:05
  Speaker 5: sort of environment until I actually worked in the jail
• 6:08
  Speaker 5: and it opened up my eyes then to see.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, I mean working in the jail is
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: a story in itself. We could have your own podcast
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: talking about that. We could How did you find your
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: way into that environment because it's not for everyone.
• 6:21
  Speaker 6: It's not.
• 6:22
  Speaker 5: So maybe it's in my blood. My father was a
• 6:24
  Speaker 5: correctional officer at the Old Boggera.
• 6:27
  Speaker 6: Jail when I was a very young child, and I
• 6:30
  Speaker 6: think I was like my early thirties. I just I
• 6:32
  Speaker 6: don't know.
• 6:32
  Speaker 5: I just decided that, you know what, I want to
• 6:34
  Speaker 5: do this, So I applied, I got.
• 6:37
  Speaker 6: In, I did the training and whole.
• 6:40
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's a lot to take in, and I guess
• 6:42
  Speaker 5: that's what it is. I just, you know, always had
• 6:44
  Speaker 5: that intention of feeling, like, you know, looking at those
• 6:47
  Speaker 5: sort of behaviors and correcting and so forth.
• 6:50
  Speaker 6: So yeah, that's so I ended up and here I
• 6:53
  Speaker 6: am today.
• 6:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: It's not unusual for inmates and correctional offices to form relationships.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: It's generally frowned upon, and it can lead to some
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: pretty ordinary outcomes. You took a very ethical stance in
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: your relationship with Peter. First of all, what did you
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: see in him that made it worth taking that risk
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: of what you did and having a relationship.
• 7:18
  Speaker 5: Look, I didn't go work in a jail to find
• 7:21
  Speaker 5: my true love. It's not something that way go around
• 7:24
  Speaker 5: and discuss with people. It's something that I've kept very
• 7:27
  Speaker 5: private to myself. But I guess, like Peter was never
• 7:30
  Speaker 5: the type of man that I would even go for.
• 7:32
  Speaker 5: So it was a bit deeper than that I think
• 7:34
  Speaker 5: when we first met, because, like I said, I worked
• 7:37
  Speaker 5: in a drug intervention unit, so being an officer in
• 7:40
  Speaker 5: one of those units is a little bit more demanding.
• 7:43
  Speaker 5: He was one of the mentors that would come up
• 7:45
  Speaker 5: from the village where he lived into the unit where
• 7:48
  Speaker 5: I looked after the men there, and we had counselors
• 7:52
  Speaker 5: come in, we had social workers, etc.
• 7:54
  Speaker 6: Coming in there.
• 7:55
  Speaker 5: So it was really a big thing to try and
• 7:57
  Speaker 5: help a lot of these men. And because a lot
• 8:00
  Speaker 5: of them felt uncomfortable coming to me because I do
• 8:03
  Speaker 5: a lot of case notes, Peter would report to me. Well,
• 8:06
  Speaker 5: he was one of them that would report to me
• 8:08
  Speaker 5: on the ones that didn't feel comfortable talking and let
• 8:11
  Speaker 5: me know, you know, information about them that I could
• 8:13
  Speaker 5: write up their case notes. So I guess that I'd
• 8:16
  Speaker 5: just seen and Peter had a connection with him just
• 8:19
  Speaker 5: due to the way I felt about genuinely caring about
• 8:22
  Speaker 5: trying to help these men stop coming in and out
• 8:26
  Speaker 5: and having this type of behavior and to correct it,
• 8:29
  Speaker 5: I guess, and yeah, I think that's where the connection
• 8:31
  Speaker 5: did start.
• 8:33
  Speaker 6: But you know, one thing led to another.
• 8:36
  Speaker 5: He was transferred out, and I felt that I had
• 8:39
  Speaker 5: feelings for him, which I didn't even know what they were.
• 8:42
  Speaker 5: But once he left, I soon left the job and
• 8:46
  Speaker 5: took it upon myself to write to him to see
• 8:49
  Speaker 5: if there was anything really there.
• 8:50
  Speaker 6: So that's how it started.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: I remember talking to Chopper Read and his first wife
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: about jail. Well she wasn't a corrections officer, but she
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: was visiting Chopper in jail, and she said when she
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: visited him in jail, it was like seeing a Shetland
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: pony behind the glass outside of jail, she realized he
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: was a lion. It's a difficult transition from that confined
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: space where there are no drugs and alcohol. Well, there
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: are actually drugs. Go it's another story, but you can
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: avoid them. How difficult was it to make that transition
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: from a largely intellectual relationship in jail to an actual
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: one outside.
• 9:26
  Speaker 5: Look to begin with, when I first started to visit
• 9:29
  Speaker 5: him because I think he still had like four years
• 9:31
  Speaker 5: to go. There was nothing really like in concrete there
• 9:35
  Speaker 5: because I didn't really know him, he didn't really know me.
• 9:38
  Speaker 5: It was just about more of a communication connection.
• 9:41
  Speaker 6: Of course, we.
• 9:42
  Speaker 5: Obviously were attracted to each other. That goes without saying.
• 9:44
  Speaker 5: But the communication connection we had I felt outlast at
• 9:49
  Speaker 5: anything that you could possibly have on the outside, and
• 9:53
  Speaker 5: I think that in my life at that point, I
• 9:56
  Speaker 5: needed that type of connection rather than any other being,
• 10:00
  Speaker 5: you know, out in the real world you'd probably you know,
• 10:03
  Speaker 5: a sexual relationship, having that love and commitment of seeing
• 10:06
  Speaker 5: that person every time touch everything.
• 10:10
  Speaker 6: I did not experience that with Peter.
• 10:12
  Speaker 5: It was more, like I said, a communication getting to
• 10:15
  Speaker 5: know a person a lot deeper than a lot of
• 10:17
  Speaker 5: people would. And I guess then transitioning that from that
• 10:21
  Speaker 5: to the outside was easier than what I thought. Peter
• 10:26
  Speaker 5: grabbed onto life like I was shocked. He just walked
• 10:29
  Speaker 5: out like he had been already out here for several years.
• 10:32
  Speaker 6: It was unbelievable to see, but he pushed on.
• 10:35
  Speaker 5: And I think that our connection because of how deep
• 10:38
  Speaker 5: it was and how a lot of people out here
• 10:41
  Speaker 5: in the world don't get to grab onto that to
• 10:44
  Speaker 5: begin with is what helped us get through.
• 10:47
  Speaker 6: Our eleven years marriage now.
• 10:50
  Speaker 5: So yeah, it's really difficult to explain because it's hard
• 10:53
  Speaker 5: to explain, but that's how we feel and every day,
• 10:57
  Speaker 5: even today, it's kind of like we still just want
• 11:00
  Speaker 5: to be around each other and to see each other
• 11:02
  Speaker 5: and talk and we.
• 11:03
  Speaker 6: Talk a lot.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: Wow, a marriage after eleven years, you still want to
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: see each other. That's a miracle, mate, fantastic.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: I just want to say, we got to build a
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: foundation that most relationships don't get, and that was communication
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: and letters. For four years, that's all we had. We
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: had ten minute phone calls and we had letters, and
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: we had an hour visit once a week. And I think,
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: as hard as it was at the time, that was
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: a sort of fire that forged our relationship because we
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: we had that solid foundation and that's what's got us
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: through all these years now, you know.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: So Yeah, listen, some people do find love in jail.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: It's not always the most natural kind and it's not
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: someone you want to bring home generally. I reckon you
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: were lucky to find Blindagre.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: Oh mate, Yeah, more than lucky, mate, Yeah, definitely, But
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: you make your own luck. You make your own luck
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: to you, mate. We found each other at a time
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: where I'd made big change in my life and Blinda
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: had had a big change in her life, and we
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: both sort of we're heading in the same direction with life.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: And though I was in prison still we still had
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: the same sort of goals and hopes for the future,
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: and we stuck by each other for the next four years.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: We went through hell over those four years, but we
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: stuck by each other and paid dividends for us.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: Now, you know, it's bloody inspirational. Now, I wouldn't call
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: you a career criminal. You didn't choose crime. You were
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: a product of trauma in your family home which led
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: you down a certain path. Tell me about that background.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: The stories you've told on Instagram. When I first saw
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: your story were harrowing about what you faced in the
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: home while your father persecuted and he raised your mother
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: over a long period.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's a piece of shit, mate, alcoholic, insecure man.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: As a kid, I thought he was the most dangerous,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: scariest man I've ever met, you know. And then I
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: went to prison, And it wasn't until I become a
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: man myself I realized he was the weakest man I'd
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: ever come across in my life. But some of the
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: things he did to us basically torture made. He had
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: padlocks on the fridge, he had padlocks on the pantry.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: You eat when he said you could eat, and he'd
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: give us all sorts of beatings. He'd send us to
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: the park to pick the stick that he was going
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: to flog us with. So me and my brother would
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: go out of the park and walk around for an
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: hour picking and trying to figure out which stick we
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: go on to take back that he can flog us
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: with your tooth in and it's going to cut you out.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: Do you think it's going to fucking break bones? So
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: just the mental games on ten year old kids, and
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: that my mother repeatedly tried to leave him, But her
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: first real attempt, she packed some bags and he disappeared,
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: or she'd packed the bags and he'd come back up.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: He disappeared, and she was in the hallway with the bags,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: and I was in in the hallway and he's come
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: back upstairs. He's got a twenty letter drummer petrol and
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: he started frowing it all around the house. And then
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: he's frowning it all over the top of me, and
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: he pulled out his lighter and he said, you're still
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: going to leave and give it a flick. And she submitted. Mate,
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: she submitted. And that's what I talk about in some
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: of my videos, like especially Hannah Clark May she didn't submit,
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: she run, But my mother had to submit to not
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: have that happen to and so many women, like we've
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: got legally hundreds and hundreds of messages in our inbox
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: from women that are still trapped in these sort of situations.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: Now me and billing to say this that these are
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: just the ones that are brave enough to reach out
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: and the ones that can reach out, because I knew
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: my mother wouldn't have been able to reach out back then.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: So yeah, often these situations get normalized where silence reigns.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: In that situation where you were doused with petrol and
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: almost became the sacrificial lamb in your parents' marriage. Once
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: your mother submitted, it was never mentioned again.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: Never, Mate. I got told to have a shower as
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: a kid. They threw me in the shower, sent me
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: to bed, and I remember waking up in the morning
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: and coming out in the carpet all in the hallway
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: being ripped out. I went out to the kitchen and
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: they were sitting at the kitchen table drinking a coffee,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: laughing and giggling. And I got my school bag and
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: went to school and I was never spoken about again,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: and probably still to this day, Mate, there'd be no
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: carpet in that place from that night.
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: You know what's happened to your parents.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: Mate, they're still a ger over forty some years.
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: You know, are you in contact with them?
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: No?
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: No, no, do you want to.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: Be No, not at all.
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: Surely you'd want to express your feelings about what you
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: w I have.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: Mate, I have, and he wanted. I was on parole
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: when I come over of prison, and he wanted to
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: call the place, and because I called him out over it,
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: you know, he wanted to call the place and make
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: stories up to get my parole revoked. And that's the
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: sort of mean he is, mate, That's the sort of
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: meant A lot of these men are where they go
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: from zero to extreme when they're cornered. You know, they're tough.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: They're tough men behind doors with their women and children,
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: but when they're confronted by a man, they turn the
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: water so and that's what he did. He turned the
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: water and he's it's just that's the story of his life.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: Mane Well, I hope you're listening, Peter's father, and you
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: should man up, even at this late stage and make
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: amends for this, because you should be proud of your son.
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: Proud of your son. So listen.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: Your path from that day was drugs, truancy, no school.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: Your life was pretty much destroyed.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: It was mate, that was just one event, Mate, that
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: one with the patrol like, that's just one that stands out.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: There was a thousand more like that. But unfortunately, mate,
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: as a young kid, I also had issues at school
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: with a teacher which I couldn't go to school and
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: get protected because I was going to school and a
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: male teacher was doing things that male teachers shouldn't be doing.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: So I had nowhere to run as a kid, so
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: I run to the streets. By thirteen, I was shooting
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: up heroin and then my life just spiled. For the
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: next twenty odd years, I was just heroin and crime
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: and turned into a eighteen year prison term which I
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: saved fourteen and a half of And so these things
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: that men old to do to go through someone's life
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: and I don't think people realize that what sort of
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: impact these moments have.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: Right, And one of your favorite sayings is your past
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: explains who you are, It doesn't excuse it. Yeah, let's
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: deal with that traumatic moment when you're nineteen. I believe
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: where that terrible crime occurred, what happened.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: Okay, So when I was around seventeen eighteen, I'd met
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: a girl. She got pregnant and we had a daughter.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: She was three months premature. She ended up a Brisbane
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: Martin Mother's hospital tensive care for three months, had tubes
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: and everything coming out of it. You know, I was
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: still years and drugs at the time. I was working
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: British labor and that whole situation was a lot of
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: stress on too. Because we're kids. We couldn't even aduld
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: ourself lettle at our own child. So we ended up
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: breaking up. And I'd got a call from her a
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: couple of weeks after we'd broken up, and she'd said
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: that she'd just been slapped up the side of the
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: head by a bloke. A car drove passed and they
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: yelled something out to her and she mouthed back off
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: at him, and the cars pulled up and they've jumped
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: out and one of the Boks have slapped up the
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: side of the head. Me being and me at the time,
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: I went straight out there. She's seen where the car went,
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: and I jumped the fence of the house and I
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: run straight in the house and unfortunately one of the
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: men that were in the house during the old occasion,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: he's fallen over and his head hit the tiles and
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: it fractured the bone in the back of his skull
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: and he passed away within thirty seconds. So I originally
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: got charged with murder for that, I got sent. I
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: had two trials for it. First one was a mistrial
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: sec control. Two weeks in I pled guilty to manslaughter.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: The deal with the prosecution was that, and my embarrassor
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: at the time organized that if you played guilty and
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: you're not to this, you'll get between eight and twelve years.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: So I did. Comes in same day the judge said
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: that I should have been tried as a murderer. Therefore
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: he's going to send me as a murderer, and then
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: he gave me life for manslaughter. And then maybe eighteen
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: months after that, they went to the High Court of
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: Australia at pairs and they overturned it from life to
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: an eighteen year sentence.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: Because fourteen and a half years is a life sentence
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: to most people. And your life was an absolute rock
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: bottom at that time, no family support.
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: You're in there.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: You're not a crook, You're a victim in many ways,
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: and there you are. What was your feeling at that time?
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: What did your future look like?
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: Oh, mate, I was nineteen years old and then getting
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: a eighteen year sentence to try and comprehend that, like
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: the life i'd lived again, that I had to live
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: in prison. So at that stage I thought, I think
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: I was going to be thirty four or something. I
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: worked out by the time I got out, and I thought, fuck,
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: I now I'm going to die. Not long after that,
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: I'm nearly It's for a time and age as a kid,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: you know, but I absolutely thought my life was all
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: over it. But I just I just got in the training, mate,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: I got healthy and forgot about the world. And for
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: the next decade, I just buckled down and taught myself
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: how to read, how to read, and educated myself could
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: put myself for school in there. And then it was
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: around ten years end that I'm at.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: Blenda because Belinda. As a corrections officer, you've seen people
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: come into the system with these very heavy sentences where
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: hope is crushed, there is no future, They become institutionalized.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: What's your experience with seeing how people adapt to that reality?
• 20:51
  Speaker 5: Oh, most of them don't, because, well even officers don't,
• 20:55
  Speaker 5: because even though we get to go in there, we
• 20:57
  Speaker 5: get to go home, the reality of living in that
• 21:00
  Speaker 5: space day after day, twenty four hours a day. For
• 21:05
  Speaker 5: like with Peter, fourteen years is a very very long time,
• 21:09
  Speaker 5: and most people would think, like, how can you mind
• 21:14
  Speaker 5: adapt to that? And like Peter said, the best thing
• 21:17
  Speaker 5: to do is just to cut out the reality and
• 21:20
  Speaker 5: not have visitors, not have that support because people on
• 21:24
  Speaker 5: the outside have got to get on with their lives.
• 21:26
  Speaker 5: And I think that's a really good thing that a
• 21:28
  Speaker 5: person can do that because they have absolutely no one.
• 21:32
  Speaker 5: So I guess that myself, I felt that I was
• 21:35
  Speaker 5: a little bit different as an offsete, a little bit
• 21:37
  Speaker 5: more of obviously a caring side, you know, being a
• 21:39
  Speaker 5: mother as well.
• 21:40
  Speaker 6: So I guess that's.
• 21:41
  Speaker 5: Why they put me into a drug intervention unit with
• 21:43
  Speaker 5: the counselors, and that it's just like more or less
• 21:46
  Speaker 5: treated me a little bit more like humans because a
• 21:49
  Speaker 5: lot of the officers don't.
• 21:50
  Speaker 6: They don't care. They're in there for a reason, it's
• 21:52
  Speaker 6: their fault, blah blah blah. But I guess that my
• 21:55
  Speaker 6: way of thinking was, you know, to give a little like,
• 21:59
  Speaker 6: give a bit of heart. It's just it's not hard.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: Like.
• 22:01
  Speaker 6: They're still human beings.
• 22:03
  Speaker 5: Yes, they've made mistakes, they are the price every single day, and.
• 22:08
  Speaker 6: Some of them have support, some of them don't like it.
• 22:10
  Speaker 5: It is just about correcting behaviors for me, and to
• 22:13
  Speaker 5: help any way possible to get in people from the outside,
• 22:16
  Speaker 5: to help them to see that there is a life
• 22:18
  Speaker 5: after here and you can do it, you know, So
• 22:21
  Speaker 5: just giving them that humanity back again.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: Right, Because Peter Belinda wasn't the only officer who saw
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: potentially in you. You're in solitary. Another officer decided to
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: give you an encyclopedia one volume and it included astronomy, planets,
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: the cosmos, and suddenly you were able to transport yourself
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: to a place far away from that damp, dark hole
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: that you were in.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Mate, that's the turning point for me as a kid. Initially,
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: the first part of my sounds, I was a shitthead,
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: constantly in trouble and flight and drugs, so constantly in solitary.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: So this particular time, I've been down there three or
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: four weeks and here's one of the older fellows, old
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: Boggle Roads grow. He banged on the window and that
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: he's opened the slot, and he just said, you look
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: like you need this, because I'd been countingans and following
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: the shadows up the wall all day and just nothing
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: in those solitary cells. So he passed me in the encyclopedia. Mate.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: It had pictures of all the planets and stuff. And
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: that was the moment. Mate. I couldn't read and I
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: couldn't write, but I was just meds my eyes and
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: captivated by that, and I started sounding the words out.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: And I ended up taking that book, that encyclopedia back
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: with me and I got a whold of a dictionary.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: And that's what I did. I just spent my days
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: just just learning how to read. And before long I
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: was devera on a couple of novels a week. And
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: that moment was the moment they changed my life, you know,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: And I just focused on educating myself after.
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: That, And tell me, as a bit of a book
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: nerd myself. Which were the authors that you started to
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: get into?
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, mate, I read all the stoics, mate, Bryce Courtney,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: wilbur Smith. Bryce Courtney was probably one of the first
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: ones I started doing. Jeffrey Archer, everyone, Matthew Royley, the
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: Australia for Dan Brown. Wilbersmith made It's Off to Africa
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: every day with him on a different adventure, you know.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, and when you in jail, this really matters
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: because listen, jail's supposed to be about rehabilitation. But one
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: thing with your background, I don't think you'd ever been habilitated.
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: You had to learn what it was to be a man,
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: to get a new worldview. How did that be into
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: shape for you?
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: That's true what you said, mate. I guess what I
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: did in prison is in a way, I was fortunate
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: that I was a young bloke at the time that
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: I went in, because I thought I got to look
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: up to a lot of the men that were in there,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: and they were bad men, but they still a lot
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: of them still had good morals, you know, they still
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: they may have done stupid things Rob Banks or et cetera,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: but a lot of them took me under their wings,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: and I learned what it was to be a man.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: For me, it went with my training as well. Mate.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: I just take the bits and pieces from people that
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: I fought, worked and just built my own structure. And
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: that's where I'm allowed to see my old man for
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: what he really was. You know, like I said to
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: you at the start that when I was a kiddle,
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: I thought he was the toughest, most dangerous man, but
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: by the end of it, he truly was the fucking
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: weakest man I've ever saying.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you can keep saying that. By the way, I
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: hope he's listening because a lot of people in jail.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: I've heard this myself from people who write to me.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: They say, when I get out, I'll do this. When
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: I get out, I'll do that. Everything's going to change.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: But the reality is they don't. As you said in
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: one of your Instagram posts, they come back in with
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: less teeth, more scars, less hope in life.
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: And you saw that cycle.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, mate, when I get out usually becomes the Epaitah
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: carved into their gravestone or someday. I actually did a
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: video about this the other day. It's I'm gonna when
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: I get out and someday I'll do this, but usually
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: those words are the last words they have on their lips,
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: you know, And for me, I just wasn't going to
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: do that, mate. I just everything that blokes that have
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: done a long time or in and out of prison
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: it's said not to do. I just did the opposite.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: I just attacked life. And we brought a house within
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: a couple of years of me being home, and we
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: built a million dollar bricclaimed business that fell over at COVID,
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: But we just attacked it full on, you know, Like
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: you choose how you feel made, like you choose if
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: you want to be institutionalized, or you choose if you
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: want to be a victim of what's happened to you,
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: or it's a choice. So it's not always easy not
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: being a victim, you know, but you still have that choice.
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: So well, I'm going to challenge on this because a
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: lot of men find that very difficult. They say it's
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: easier said than done, and that, you know, words are cheap.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: But when they get back out into the real world
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: and the same co order shitheads is waiting for them,
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: the same drugs, the same lack of opportunity, the same prejudice,
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: against people who've spent long time in jail. But I'm
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: sure Blinda's got something to say about this. But how
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: do you insulate yourself from that, from the negative feelings
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: that overwhelm so many men.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: Well, that's pretty fucking simple, mate. You don't go back
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: to the same bunch of fucking idiots that you went
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: to jar with. You know, you make the decision to
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: whether you change. You don't go back to that same area.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: You change who you hang around, You change your route
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: to work or wherever you're going. You just if your
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: fared income, your fired income, you know you would do
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: what you have to do. You know what it is
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: that's bringing you down if you keep makings he goes,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: oh when it got out and it's all the same
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: boys were there, and we'll fuck them off. It's no
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: one else's fault. You make the choice, you've got the choices.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: You make the decisions on what you do with yourself.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: Right now, Belinda, there must have been times when he
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: got down on himself, doubted himself, with the moments where
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: you had to pull out the metaphorical baton and say
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: he stay on the straight and narrow.
• 27:48
  Speaker 5: Look, there was times where I knew the type of
• 27:52
  Speaker 5: man Peter is, and I knew that even though he
• 27:57
  Speaker 5: would get down and dark about things, I would just
• 28:00
  Speaker 5: be there beside him, supporting him, holding the line, because
• 28:05
  Speaker 5: I knew that he would come back because look at
• 28:07
  Speaker 5: what he's achieved already in such a shitty life that
• 28:11
  Speaker 5: he's had so far, what he's created himself.
• 28:14
  Speaker 6: He's made the choices.
• 28:16
  Speaker 5: For me to tell him what to do or I
• 28:20
  Speaker 5: don't think that's the right thing to do. I think
• 28:22
  Speaker 5: that we all adults and we need to make our
• 28:24
  Speaker 5: own choices. And you know what they always say with
• 28:27
  Speaker 5: making your bed and then lying in it. So I
• 28:29
  Speaker 5: knew that he would make the right decisions because of
• 28:33
  Speaker 5: the man that I fell in love with to begin with,
• 28:35
  Speaker 5: how different he was and how he saw life, and
• 28:38
  Speaker 5: that there is life to be lived and if you
• 28:41
  Speaker 5: want to live it and you want it to be
• 28:43
  Speaker 5: a good one, then you need to make the right choices.
• 28:45
  Speaker 5: And he has and I'm glad I stayed beside him.
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: Have there been moments of doubt for you as well?
• 28:51
  Speaker 6: Oh, look, I'm not going to lie.
• 28:53
  Speaker 5: Yes, there was there was times where I thought, is
• 28:56
  Speaker 5: this how.
• 28:56
  Speaker 6: Our life's going to be?
• 28:58
  Speaker 5: Like you know, because when Peter did relapse, it was
• 29:01
  Speaker 5: very difficult for me because I hadn't been in that
• 29:05
  Speaker 5: sort of environment before, but had the experience obviously from
• 29:08
  Speaker 5: working in corrections. But I love him very deeply, and
• 29:12
  Speaker 5: I knew that man that I fell in love with
• 29:14
  Speaker 5: is still there and that he just needs to find
• 29:17
  Speaker 5: his way himself. And he did, and I just stood
• 29:22
  Speaker 5: beside him as a woman should if they feel that
• 29:25
  Speaker 5: strongly about their partner.
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Peter.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: So many people relapse in life to negative behaviors. The
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: scar tissue was deep and strong and hard to change.
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: And often the impressions people give to you a negative
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: tell us about when you relapse and why you didn't
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: stay in that negative state.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: I relapsed twenty and eight eight for a brief period.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: This was after we'd built out, Like I said, we
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: brought a home. We both just worked. All we did
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: is worked and just got stuck right into life. I
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: had fifteen staff working for me. I even had a
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: few blocks from jail. We'd given jobs as laborers and
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: they're doing good, you know. And COVID hit and it overnight.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: It happened to everyone, like it happened to everyone. But
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: the world fell over and I had too much time
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: on my hands, and with me idle hands breeds mischief
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: and from one thing to another. I started to get
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: really down on myself because I wasn't performing like I
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: thought I would. You know, I thought I was letting
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: Blenda down. I thought I was letting my daughter down.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: And then I relapsed, mate, and that took off really
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: quick for me. I spiraled. I was using fucking insane
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: amounts of gear straight away, heroin n I was using math,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: and I got to a point where within a few months,
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: I was sitting in my garage at three o'clock in
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: the morning with a rope in my hand because I
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: just I just come to the end of line. I
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: thought I cannot go on. I just felt like I'd
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: let my family down. Like many men do, you know,
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: we get to a point where we think we need
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: to be the protectors and we can't ask for help.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: And I was sitting in the garage, mate, with peace
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: rope my hand, and our staffy, boy Staffy come over
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: and he sat between my legs and he put his
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: head back into my chest, and it was almost like
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: he said not to go you know, Yeah, that's that
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: stopped me. That night and he died two weeks later.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: That boy and I made a promise to him then
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: and there that i'd stop using, and I did. I
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: stopped using, and I reached out. I asked for help.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: That's another thing I want to talk to men about,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: is it's okay to ask for help. Sometimes we don't
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: have all the answers, you know. I thought I had
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: all the answers, Like I know more about drug rear
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: balitation than most counselors, though, made I sat, I sat
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: in all the circles were them, I've said to in
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: some of the videos. I could quote the textbooks better
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: than them. But once it got hold of me, I
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: was in trouble, you know. And I reached out to
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: drug Arm and I started working with them, and then
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: we kicked it back on track. And yeah, I've been
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: pumping sands.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: Blenda's looking at you, saying, if you go back, son,
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: you're finished.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: I reckon, of course, of course, mate, Well she I
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: wouldn't do that, mate. I am so fortunate to have her.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: I am so fortunate to have Belinda. She's just so
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: patient and so understanding and just ad a good human being, mate.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: And sometimes it's hard for a man like me who's
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: come from a place where I've come from too for
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: a woman to see the worth, you know, and she
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: just did from the get gos. If it wasn't for her,
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't be half the man that I'd become. I'm very, very.
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: Fortunate, Belinda. He's full of humility and insight. But do
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: you think he's forgiven himself for the places he put
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: himself in?
• 32:50
  Speaker 5: I think of recent times, yes, because I think that
• 32:53
  Speaker 5: this has been really great medicine for himself with what
• 32:58
  Speaker 5: he's started to do here, with trying to get out
• 33:01
  Speaker 5: to all the men and women about the patterns and
• 33:04
  Speaker 5: then troll and the choices. I think that this has
• 33:09
  Speaker 5: been absolute great medicine for him to help himself and
• 33:14
  Speaker 5: to help others who are in need.
• 33:16
  Speaker 6: It's just been, like I can see it.
• 33:18
  Speaker 5: It's like he's this like bright star, like he's finally
• 33:21
  Speaker 5: come through.
• 33:23
  Speaker 6: Peter just needed to see that.
• 33:24
  Speaker 5: There is another life out there that you can live
• 33:27
  Speaker 5: and it can be okay, even though, like he might say,
• 33:31
  Speaker 5: half is gone now, but he still thinks he's going
• 33:33
  Speaker 5: to live to like two hundred or something, So.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: He's still for forty seven.
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: Mate. That's just young, don't give it. Give you got
• 33:43
  Speaker 4: plenty of time.
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: But brother, I've got to tell you, I'm sure people
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: listening are thinking, if someone like Peter with his background
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: can make those changes, pull his life out out of
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: the dumpster and find purpose, why can't I. What's your
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: message to men and women? I guess who were in
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: the sort of spaces you're talking about, mate.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: And anyone? Like I said, it's easy to be a
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: victim of your past. It truly is. And I've got
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: I've still people from when I was a kid around
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: in my life that are victims and have never gotten
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: out of the hole. But to be a victim, you
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: are you were letting whoever perpetrated that crime or whatever
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: they've done to you. You're letting them live in your
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: head for rent free, you know. So every time you
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: think about them, every time you be a victim, you're
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: letting them still get a victory over you. So you
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: need to get to a point where you go, fuck it,
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: no one's going to save me but me, and you've
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: got to pull your socks up and you've got to
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: just start walking forward, you know, Like it's hard, made
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: it's hard to not go poor me you know, but
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: I don't know. It's a good feeling being able to
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: hold your chin up mate, not be a victim.
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: You know, yeah, and you talk about doing it yourself,
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: but you've also had the love of a good woman.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: I help you.
• 35:02
  Speaker 4: Definitely good, Blinda.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: What's your advice to women who are in this coercion
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: and control situations? A lot of it is not violence,
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: it's not being slept. It's often just silence, being e
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: raised and then being you say, as a sexual object
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: when a man wants to have his way. What's your advice?
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: And I guess what are the sort of things you're
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: shaping for the people you're talking to?
• 35:26
  Speaker 5: Well, from my own experience, look, when you are young
• 35:30
  Speaker 5: and you're in a relationship like I was. I was
• 35:32
  Speaker 5: very young when I first got married and had children,
• 35:35
  Speaker 5: when you can see that things are different and a
• 35:39
  Speaker 5: woman really does well, most women really can feel it
• 35:42
  Speaker 5: in the gut. Even though you might have absolute love
• 35:45
  Speaker 5: for this person, if they're treating you that way, that
• 35:49
  Speaker 5: is not a relationship. It's definitely not a relationship, and
• 35:52
  Speaker 5: that you need to get away from it, like you
• 35:55
  Speaker 5: just need to and you need to be selfish because
• 35:59
  Speaker 5: I know that with myself. My children were young, and
• 36:02
  Speaker 5: I just kept thinking that my children, Like, where am
• 36:05
  Speaker 5: I going to go? What about my children? They're so young,
• 36:07
  Speaker 5: They're going to hate me for it? And being like
• 36:10
  Speaker 5: a victim, as Peter says, myself, until I got to
• 36:13
  Speaker 5: a time that I was just sick the hell of it,
• 36:15
  Speaker 5: and I just wake up one day and I was
• 36:18
  Speaker 5: sick a f and groundhog day, and I when I
• 36:21
  Speaker 5: am going, I've had enough. I am a person, I
• 36:24
  Speaker 5: am not the child in this relationship, and no one
• 36:27
  Speaker 5: can tell me what to do. And everyone deserves love, right,
• 36:30
  Speaker 5: So that's not love. That is not love.
• 36:33
  Speaker 6: When a man puts you down or tells you that
• 36:36
  Speaker 6: you know and you.
• 36:36
  Speaker 5: Start to feel that hopeless, helpless feeling, it's just not
• 36:40
  Speaker 5: it's not fair, and you become you become tense, and
• 36:44
  Speaker 5: you go inside yourself and you feel like you're just worthless.
• 36:47
  Speaker 5: That is not how anybody in this world should ever feel.
• 36:52
  Speaker 5: And it just sickens me that children are even feeling
• 36:55
  Speaker 5: this way as well. And sometimes we have to be
• 36:57
  Speaker 5: selfish and we need to move from that situation and
• 37:02
  Speaker 5: make it better for yourself before you can make anything
• 37:05
  Speaker 5: else better. And that's what I did. It might have
• 37:08
  Speaker 5: taken me a long time, but again me getting my
• 37:12
  Speaker 5: voice out there too, just to see that women that
• 37:15
  Speaker 5: can talk to me, that they can see that they're
• 37:17
  Speaker 5: in that situation. And look, I'm not going to say
• 37:20
  Speaker 5: it's easy, because it is hard. Like there was times
• 37:22
  Speaker 5: when I left that I wanted to go back becaus
• 37:24
  Speaker 5: I would have made it easier. But I am so
• 37:26
  Speaker 5: glad that I made that decision because I now can
• 37:29
  Speaker 5: see that my daughter, who's now twenty four, is such
• 37:34
  Speaker 5: a strong individual, and I know that if I would
• 37:37
  Speaker 5: have stayed, she would not be that person today. So
• 37:40
  Speaker 5: I feel that even though at the time I was
• 37:42
  Speaker 5: worried about my children, and I went through a lot
• 37:45
  Speaker 5: with my children, but at the end of the day,
• 37:46
  Speaker 5: look at her now, how strong she is as a woman. Yeah,
• 37:50
  Speaker 5: I think that women should really be mindful of their situations.
• 37:55
  Speaker 6: Yeah, if they're feeling that way, get the hell.
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: Out right and Peter, it could be said that living
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: a life of purpose and success is the greatest revenge
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: you could ever have against your father who tried to
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: blot you out, tried to blot your mother out.
• 38:09
  Speaker 4: How do you feel about It's perverse?
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: I know to say this, but the fact that your
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: experiences had been the making of you my friend.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: Honestly, mate, I don't really care what he thinks now.
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: I got past all that. There was a time where
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: I wanted him to see me and go, look what
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: he's done, you know, But now he gets no time
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: in my head. No more, Mate, he gets no time
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: in my head. It's about for me. It's just about
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: trying to make a difference, you know, trying to give back.
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: I did something pretty shit when I was a kid,
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: and I hate I hate that I did that, and
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: I hate that a family lost lost a son because
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: of me. But I feel that I have been to hell, mate,
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: and it would be irresponsible of me to not bring
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: a mate back with me and try and help with
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: few other people get out of get out of some
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: of their situations, and maybe not experience what I've had
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: to go through.
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: I think you've been through the sweets and sours of
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: life to get that's how you learn. I think there's
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: big times ahead, there's insight, there's humility, there's a pair
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: of people who want to help those in needs. So
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: I salute you, and I thank you for your time today.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: Thank you very much.
• 39:16
  Speaker 6: Thank you, Edain.
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: It's Peter and Belinda Bates. It's quite an extraordinary story,
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: and I think there's plenty of people out there who
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: are just in the same situation as Peter found himself in,
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: and Belinda as well. There are men out there who
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: don't even know what they're doing is coercion and control.
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: They're going down the same path, which is a terrible outcome.
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: It begins with love and ends up with control and
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: nastiness and violence.
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: And who needs that in life.
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: I'm going to put the resources that Peter's creating in
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: some links in the show notes. I'd like you to
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: access those. But if you're in a dangerous situation with
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: your partner, it's up to you to make a change.
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: You can call crime Stoppers one hundred, triple three, triple zero,
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: call your mum, call somebody, do something, and men, honestly,
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: you might be getting away with it. The circle is
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: going to close on you eventually. It's time you changed
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: your ways. I'd like to hear from other people who
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: are in this situation, either as victims or perpetrators. Let's
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: have some honesty, let's have some insight. And I think
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: what we've heard today is a great example of the
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: chains that is possible where people have insight and determination.
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: If you'd like to contact me, please Adam Shannder writer
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: at gmail dot com. This has been Adam shann for
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: Real Crime. Thank you for listening.
• 40:42
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• 40:46
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• 40:48
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• 40:50
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• 40:52
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• 40:56
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• 40:59
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• 41:02
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• 41:05
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