# From soccer mum to prisoner number 171435: Kerry Tucker Pt. 1

An episode of [I Catch Killers with Gary Jubelin](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1506667049), 5 Sep 2026, 53 min.

Audio: https://p.podderapp.com/2544644999/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/2fb3740d-3436-44af-8cc0-a91900716aa5/5bc8c2ed-b718-4f44-beb3-ac2a005246cc/e180235f-f2e2-4469-9edd-b4bc00f0fba4/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=786928c3-10c1-4cef-a7bf-ac2a005246d0

When suburban mum Kerry Tucker decided she should start hitting the gym, she didn’t expect to be arrested a month later. For more than six years, Kerry had stolen two million dollars from her employer. In this episode, Kerry takes us inside the first 24 hours inside a women’s maximum security prison as a ‘cleanskin’, where she was locked up with some of Australia’s most infamous female criminals. You can watch I Catch Killers on Youtube here. Follow I Catch Killers: Instagram: @icatchkillers Tiktok: @icatchkillerspodcast Facebook: @icatchkillers Email the show at icatchkillers@news.com.au See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: The public has had a long-held fascination with detectives. Detectives
[0:05] Speaker 1: see a side of life the average person is never
[0:08] Speaker 1: exposed to. I spent 34 years as a cop. For
[0:12] Speaker 1: 25 of those years, I was catching killers. That's what
[0:14] Speaker 1: I did for a living. I was a homicide detective.
[0:17] Speaker 1: I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead, I'm taking
[0:21] Speaker 1: the public into the world in which I operated. The
[0:24] Speaker 1: guests I talk to each week have amazing stories from
[0:26] Speaker 1: all sides of the law. The interviews are raw and honest,
[0:29] Speaker 1: just like the people I talk to. Some of the
[0:31] Speaker 1: content and language might be confronting. That's because no one
[0:34] Speaker 1: who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged. Join
[0:38] Speaker 1: me now as I take you into this world. It's
[0:47] Speaker 1: rare that you speak to a person who acknowledges prison
[0:49] Speaker 1: was probably the best thing that happened to them. But
[0:53] Speaker 1: today's guest, Kerry Tucker, a suburban mother of two who
[0:56] Speaker 1: was sentenced to seven years imprisonment for one of Victoria's
[1:00] Speaker 1: biggest white-collar crimes committed by a female, speaks about how
[1:04] Speaker 1: her darkest moment in her life became a turning point.
[1:07] Speaker 1: In this episode, she talks about her life and how
[1:10] Speaker 1: her experiences in a maximum security prison opened her eyes
[1:14] Speaker 1: up to the injustices of this world, and led her
[1:17] Speaker 1: towards advocacy for women's prisoners. I found Kerry's story quite inspirational,
[1:23] Speaker 1: and this is coming from a person who, as a
[1:24] Speaker 1: general rule, has a strong dislike for people who commit fraud.
[1:28] Speaker 1: Have a listen and see what you think. Kerry Tucker,
[1:33] Speaker 1: welcome to Eye Catch Killers. Oh, thank you.
[1:36] Speaker 2: It's a real pleasure to be here.
[1:37] Speaker 1: Just delving into your past. When you were a mother
[1:40] Speaker 1: of two and chasing the white picket fence, did you...
[1:45] Speaker 1: any stage envisage that you'd be on a true crime
[1:48] Speaker 1: podcast called I Catch Killers talking about your time in
[1:51] Speaker 1: a maximum security prison?
[1:53] Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely not. No, I always thought that there was
[1:57] Speaker 2: something different, something, you know, was going to happen. I
[2:00] Speaker 2: knew my marriage would end sooner or later, you know,
[2:04] Speaker 2: but I never, ever envisaged this. And particularly to, you know,
[2:07] Speaker 2: I was always into true crime, you know, all my life.
[2:10] Speaker 2: I just didn't realise I'd become part of it. I
[2:14] Speaker 2: read books about women that I ended up meeting in prison.
[2:17] Speaker 2: So it was incredibly surreal. I never, ever, ever pictured
[2:21] Speaker 2: myself being in prison, in trouble, let alone being imprisoned.
[2:26] Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, life certainly took a sharp turn into the
[2:32] Speaker 1: criminal world. I'd ask you this too, because I'd be
[2:35] Speaker 1: curious about that. You're into true crime, but did you
[2:39] Speaker 1: ever give much consideration to what goes on in prison?
[2:44] Speaker 1: You would have heard the term squarehead in prison, someone that's,
[2:47] Speaker 1: you know, Australia 180.
[2:49] Speaker 2: Yeah, I was it.
[2:50] Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I would imagine you didn't really consider what
[2:53] Speaker 1: happens in prison. You'd drive past prisons, you'd hear occasional
[2:57] Speaker 1: stories in the media about things that had happened in prisons.
[2:59] Speaker 1: Did you ever give any consideration to what goes on
[3:02] Speaker 1: in a prison?
[3:03] Speaker 2: No, and I didn't care. I used to drive down
[3:09] Speaker 2: East Link and I saw occasionally, it must have been
[3:12] Speaker 2: quite a while ago, the old prison that sat up
[3:15] Speaker 2: in Fairfield. And I'd see that and it just, it
[3:20] Speaker 2: completely unnerved me and it would unsettle me almost like
[3:23] Speaker 2: a premonition, you know, for the rest of the day
[3:25] Speaker 2: sort of thing. But I had no consideration. You know,
[3:28] Speaker 2: I come from the other side of the tracks. You know,
[3:30] Speaker 2: I had no experience with drugs nor had anyone in
[3:33] Speaker 2: my family. I just felt that prisoners were exactly where
[3:38] Speaker 2: they deserved to be, drug users. If you didn't want
[3:42] Speaker 2: to take drugs, then just stop. You know, I was very,
[3:45] Speaker 2: very judgmental, no idea about how a prison ran or
[3:50] Speaker 2: what went on or what I was concerned about was
[3:52] Speaker 2: that the bad guys were locked up.
[3:55] Speaker 1: It's interesting, and thanks for your honesty, because I think
[3:58] Speaker 1: that's how most people look at prisons, unless they have
[4:02] Speaker 1: some form of direct involvement in some capacity. And I
[4:07] Speaker 1: think if you spoke to the average person on the
[4:09] Speaker 1: street that hadn't been touched by a crime in their
[4:12] Speaker 1: family or even themselves, you'd look at prison and think, well,
[4:17] Speaker 1: who cares what goes in there? They're in there because
[4:20] Speaker 1: they're deemed not to be fit for society.
[4:22] Speaker 2: Exactly. You know, and that's why it's so important that
[4:25] Speaker 2: when somebody does exist and live, you know, within the
[4:29] Speaker 2: culture of prison and get to learn exactly what goes
[4:32] Speaker 2: on in there, you know, it's a big responsibility to
[4:36] Speaker 2: be able to correct the way the community thinks, because
[4:39] Speaker 2: I had that opinion myself. I certainly don't now.
[4:42] Speaker 1: No, well, life certainly changed for you. And I've had
[4:47] Speaker 1: the pleasure of reading your book, The Prisoner, which is
[4:50] Speaker 1: not the Let's not spoil the ending, but if someone
[4:53] Speaker 1: writes a memoir and it's called The Prisoner, one can
[4:56] Speaker 1: assume that you've... The clues in the title. Yeah, okay.
[5:02] Speaker 2: That wasn't my idea. I had a different name for
[5:05] Speaker 2: the book, but anyway. Okay.
[5:07] Speaker 1: Well, interesting on the cover of the book, The Prisoner,
[5:11] Speaker 1: how one woman's jail term was the making of her.
[5:14] Speaker 1: So it's, well, I think it's quite interesting. Perhaps... your
[5:19] Speaker 1: time in prison was the best thing that happened to
[5:21] Speaker 1: you in a strange sort of way.
[5:23] Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. You know, I agree with that 100%. I
[5:27] Speaker 2: was sort of just, you know, floating around. I'd just finished,
[5:31] Speaker 2: you know, my marriage was over, but I still had,
[5:34] Speaker 2: you know, the two girls. But I really didn't know
[5:37] Speaker 2: what was going to happen then. I had no idea
[5:39] Speaker 2: where my life was going to go. I thought that
[5:43] Speaker 2: I was pretty okay. When I got arrested, I went
[5:46] Speaker 2: and saw Paul Galbally and he said, look, a woman
[5:49] Speaker 2: of 40 doesn't just get up and do this. He
[5:51] Speaker 2: sent me to a forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Paul Brown, absolutely wonderful,
[5:57] Speaker 2: wonderful man. And he diagnosed me with disassociative identity disorder.
[6:03] Speaker 2: And he said, you know, that was formerly known as
[6:06] Speaker 2: multiple personality disorder. And He said, you know, on the
[6:10] Speaker 2: scale of like one to say Sybil, I was about
[6:14] Speaker 2: a six. I had personality states, you know, rescuer, self-destructive
[6:18] Speaker 2: and something else. And I had no idea that I
[6:24] Speaker 2: had a problem or a mental problem. And I got
[6:27] Speaker 2: to see him quite a lot. And in the end,
[6:29] Speaker 2: you know, he come in and he said, look, Kerry,
[6:31] Speaker 2: you've got a serious problem. And I looked at him
[6:34] Speaker 2: and said, I can see what you're doing. You know,
[6:36] Speaker 2: we've become friends. You know, you like me. You're just
[6:39] Speaker 2: going to say this so I can get a shorter sentence.
[6:42] Speaker 2: And he went, no, no. He said, you're really not
[6:45] Speaker 2: well and you need to get, you know, come to
[6:47] Speaker 2: grips with that. Right. And, you know, I sort of
[6:50] Speaker 2: still didn't. So then I was sort of arrested, I guess,
[6:55] Speaker 2: and went to prison. While I was in prison, you know,
[6:58] Speaker 2: I'd been in there two years before I went to
[7:00] Speaker 2: trial and Paul Brown came back out and said, you know,
[7:03] Speaker 2: on the scale of disassociative identity disorder, I didn't register
[7:07] Speaker 2: at all.
[7:08] Speaker 1: Right.
[7:08] Speaker 2: You know, I had no, you know, mental health, you know,
[7:13] Speaker 2: anything to do with that in prison. I just sort of.
[7:15] Speaker 2: became part of the community. So the community sort of
[7:19] Speaker 2: helped me heal in a lot of ways.
[7:22] Speaker 1: Well, my sense in our discussions and the research I've done,
[7:28] Speaker 1: to me it felt like you found yourself. Yeah. Prior
[7:33] Speaker 1: to that, you were living a lie. And I suppose
[7:36] Speaker 1: we put up front about the crimes that you're in
[7:38] Speaker 1: prison for because the police didn't just pluck you off
[7:41] Speaker 1: the street and throw you in jail. We don't do
[7:45] Speaker 1: those type of things. No, no. Tell us about the crimes,
[7:51] Speaker 1: what you were convicted of, because it's in that fraud category,
[7:57] Speaker 1: white-collar crime. People don't fully understand it and the ramifications.
[8:01] Speaker 1: Just tell us through how you got into committing the crimes,
[8:05] Speaker 1: because it was over an extended period of time, what
[8:09] Speaker 1: your motive was.
[8:11] Speaker 2: Look, it was over a period of six years, but
[8:13] Speaker 2: it was fraud. When I went to prison, it looked
[8:17] Speaker 2: like I was being charged with $ 500, 000 over six years.
[8:21] Speaker 2: By the time I went to trial, it was $ 1. 9
[8:23] Speaker 2: million that I was charged with. And, you know, when
[8:29] Speaker 2: I talk to you about it now, you know, it's
[8:32] Speaker 2: almost like a dream. I think to myself, how on
[8:34] Speaker 2: earth could I have got involved with something like that?
[8:36] Speaker 2: It just doesn't make sense to me. But when I
[8:39] Speaker 2: think of the motive and rationalisation that I had, if
[8:42] Speaker 2: I really touch on that memory, it's quite fierce. I
[8:47] Speaker 2: can still feel that I just had to do it,
[8:49] Speaker 2: you know, if you know what I mean. It's very
[8:51] Speaker 2: hard to describe. And the rationale was, you know, in
[8:55] Speaker 2: my mind there was a couple of different rationales, you know,
[9:01] Speaker 2: and one of them was, you know, I was in
[9:02] Speaker 2: a very unhappy marriage and, you know, I just didn't want–
[9:07] Speaker 2: anything to blow up during the day, so to speak.
[9:11] Speaker 2: So I made sure all the bills were, you know,
[9:13] Speaker 2: were done. My husband at the time didn't know anything
[9:16] Speaker 2: about this, you know. So it was just such a stressful,
[9:20] Speaker 2: obviously stressful time. And that sort of made me, well,
[9:23] Speaker 2: I had to do it. This is what I need
[9:24] Speaker 2: to do. Plus what was going on at the company
[9:28] Speaker 2: sort of thing, it made it very easy for me.
[9:31] Speaker 2: It became part of daily life. It became part of
[9:35] Speaker 2: my DNA. it became part of a normal day.
[9:38] Speaker 1: Just to get a sense of it, writing dud checks,
[9:41] Speaker 1: withdrawing money, creating false accounts, that type of fraud, was it?
[9:46] Speaker 2: Yeah, creating false accounts, false invoices, basic transfers from one
[9:51] Speaker 2: account to my account. There was nothing ingenious about any
[9:56] Speaker 2: of this. And it also needs to be said, you know,
[9:59] Speaker 2: I didn't have any extravagance. I didn't go on any holidays.
[10:03] Speaker 2: I still owed $ 13, 000 on my car. I still had
[10:06] Speaker 2: a house loan. You know, I didn't go on any holidays.
[10:10] Speaker 2: I didn't have designer clothes or anything like that. It
[10:14] Speaker 2: was just a way of living, regardless of how big
[10:19] Speaker 2: it was.
[10:20] Speaker 1: Right. Did you, at the time you were committing the crimes,
[10:24] Speaker 1: was it a sort of a Ponzi scheme aspect to
[10:26] Speaker 1: it that you thought, okay, well, I'll get some money
[10:29] Speaker 1: from here. I'll pay that money back. Did you have
[10:32] Speaker 1: to cover your tracks? Yeah.
[10:33] Speaker 2: No, I didn't. I was never investigated. There was no accounting.
[10:37] Speaker 2: There was no, I did have, in the end, there
[10:40] Speaker 2: was some audits towards the end and they didn't discover
[10:44] Speaker 2: anything either, even though it wasn't an ingenious thing, you know.
[10:48] Speaker 2: So it was wide open there to be checked. I'm
[10:51] Speaker 2: not saying that to be clever, but I wasn't suspicious,
[10:56] Speaker 2: I guess. I worked very hard at having this soccer
[11:00] Speaker 2: mum veneer, basically.
[11:03] Speaker 1: So you didn't turn up in the $ 200, 000 sports car
[11:06] Speaker 1: or extravagant overseas holidays?
[11:09] Speaker 2: Absolutely not. In fact, when I went to trial, Judge
[11:13] Speaker 2: Betty King said– said, well, you know, we don't know
[11:16] Speaker 2: where it's gone. She thought I had it stashed somewhere.
[11:18] Speaker 2: And she said, so she just divided the amount over
[11:21] Speaker 2: how many weeks and said that I'd spent $ 9, 000 a
[11:23] Speaker 2: week on makeup and $ 12, 000 a week, a week on
[11:29] Speaker 2: kitchen appliances. Now I've never enjoyed being in the kitchen.
[11:33] Speaker 2: So that was a bit of a laugh, but I was,
[11:36] Speaker 2: I was astounded that, you know, I don't think anyone
[11:38] Speaker 2: could spend $ 9, 000 a week on makeup or kitchen appliances.
[11:42] Speaker 2: But there you go.
[11:44] Speaker 1: So looking back at those crimes for six years, looking
[11:49] Speaker 1: back now, the person you are now, how do you
[11:52] Speaker 1: feel about the crimes and did it impact? Well, it
[11:55] Speaker 1: impacted on people close to you, but besides that, impact
[11:59] Speaker 1: on anyone where the money was being taken from? How
[12:03] Speaker 1: do you feel about that? Do you have remorse about that?
[12:06] Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. You know, I have remorse about that and
[12:10] Speaker 2: I have also other certain feelings, you know, in regards
[12:13] Speaker 2: to that as well. But absolutely. You know, one of
[12:15] Speaker 2: the reasons and my remorse shows in the sense that
[12:20] Speaker 2: I was remorseful. I was in court. I didn't appeal
[12:23] Speaker 2: my sentence. I very well could have. It was one
[12:25] Speaker 2: of the longest sentences for that amount in Victoria. So,
[12:30] Speaker 2: you know, I didn't appeal it. I stayed in maximum
[12:32] Speaker 2: security prison the entire sentence, the entire five years. I
[12:37] Speaker 2: didn't use legal aid. I used no community money whatsoever.
[12:40] Speaker 2: You know, I got my own barristers and my own
[12:44] Speaker 2: QCs and, you know, so therefore I felt that I
[12:47] Speaker 2: really had done my sentence well and that gave me
[12:50] Speaker 2: the ability to to move on, to be able to
[12:54] Speaker 2: move on as well. Yeah.
[12:56] Speaker 1: And look, I know the end to this story and
[12:59] Speaker 1: I want our listeners just to understand it, how it evolves.
[13:02] Speaker 1: And I certainly think you made amends as best you
[13:07] Speaker 1: could with being involved in that type of crime. I
[13:14] Speaker 1: ask you from a personal point of view, Did you always,
[13:17] Speaker 1: was it like a shadow hanging over your shoulder that
[13:21] Speaker 1: eventually you're going to get caught? Like at some stage
[13:24] Speaker 1: the cops are going to come knocking on your door
[13:26] Speaker 1: and go, hey, look at this.
[13:29] Speaker 2: Yeah, well, towards the end, yes, it was very obvious.
[13:33] Speaker 2: Probably about the last eight months, I guess, it was
[13:36] Speaker 2: very obvious and it was a shadow, you know, and
[13:39] Speaker 2: in the end I knew that the police were involved,
[13:42] Speaker 2: you know, one of the police family members of the
[13:46] Speaker 2: people out of the company had kept me informed. They didn't,
[13:49] Speaker 2: they sort of felt that it was fair that I
[13:51] Speaker 2: at least knew what was coming. And, you know, they
[13:54] Speaker 2: had opinions about different things and whatever. So I was
[13:57] Speaker 2: well aware. That was a really difficult time sitting and waiting,
[14:01] Speaker 2: you know, for them to pounce. So, and there's always
[14:05] Speaker 2: that thought, always with white collar, there's always that thought
[14:09] Speaker 2: that you're going to pay it back. somehow or other.
[14:11] Speaker 2: So it wasn't, when you're talking about the Ponzi scheme before,
[14:14] Speaker 2: it's a similar sort of thing, but you have nowhere
[14:18] Speaker 2: else to bring the money in from, but you might
[14:21] Speaker 2: win Tats Lotto. That was a real thought. Why can't
[14:25] Speaker 2: it be me that wins Tats Lotto? So there's always
[14:28] Speaker 2: that thought, certainly that I was going to pay back
[14:31] Speaker 2: what I took. Yeah.
[14:33] Speaker 1: Yeah. It's interesting because I haven't had a great deal
[14:36] Speaker 1: of experience with fraud matters in my policing career, but
[14:40] Speaker 1: in the limited experience I did have, quite often it
[14:43] Speaker 1: was always at the end of it being caught, but
[14:46] Speaker 1: it's almost like there's a gambling gene in there. Like,
[14:50] Speaker 1: I'll just roll the dice here. I'll get away with this. Okay,
[14:53] Speaker 1: I might be able to pay that money back, but
[14:55] Speaker 1: I need another big score. And I just see people
[14:58] Speaker 1: go down a rabbit hole chasing.
[14:59] Speaker 2: Again, You know, not to sound evasive or anything, but
[15:06] Speaker 2: there are reasons, there are a lot of reasons why
[15:08] Speaker 2: I didn't think that I would get caught. I didn't
[15:10] Speaker 2: think it was a gamble, you know. So for those reasons,
[15:14] Speaker 2: I didn't have that sort of over, you know, in
[15:18] Speaker 2: my face every day because there was, yeah.
[15:21] Speaker 1: But there was a time when you knew it was
[15:25] Speaker 1: up and you decided you were going to start going
[15:28] Speaker 1: to the gym and preparing yourself for jail.
[15:30] Speaker 2: Yes.
[15:33] Speaker 1: I had a laugh with you about this because it
[15:35] Speaker 1: just makes me think of that movie Get Square. Will
[15:43] Speaker 1: Ferrell and Kevin Hart, where Will Ferrell, and it was
[15:47] Speaker 1: a fraud matter where he realised he's going to go
[15:49] Speaker 1: to jail, so he hired Kevin Hart to toughen him
[15:52] Speaker 1: up before he went to prison. Tell us about your
[15:55] Speaker 1: getting Hart.
[15:56] Speaker 2: Well, thanks for that comparison. I would have preferred a
[15:59] Speaker 2: Shawshank Redemption or something comparison, but I'll go with that.
[16:03] Speaker 1: It's very close.
[16:05] Speaker 2: I knew Paul Galbally when I first went and saw
[16:07] Speaker 2: him said at the time, you're looking at two years,
[16:09] Speaker 2: you know.
[16:10] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[16:10] Speaker 2: And so the first thing I did was went back
[16:12] Speaker 2: into Hillsborough and thought, I've got to get into shape,
[16:15] Speaker 2: you know, because, you know, if I get into a fight,
[16:18] Speaker 2: I've got to be able to defend myself. There's probably
[16:21] Speaker 2: big girls there. I need some muscles. You know, I
[16:23] Speaker 2: went to the gym every day. I swam probably five,
[16:27] Speaker 2: ten kilometres every day. and lifted weights. I did everything
[16:32] Speaker 2: I possibly could so I was big and tough and
[16:35] Speaker 2: ready for whatever prison brought, you know. It was just
[16:39] Speaker 2: pointless but that was my thought process.
[16:45] Speaker 1: I would imagine, and I think a lot of us
[16:46] Speaker 1: have probably had that thought, what would you do if
[16:48] Speaker 1: you went to prison? And you think you want to
[16:50] Speaker 1: go in in the best shape possibly you can. But
[16:54] Speaker 1: I thought it was funny, and I might be laughing
[16:57] Speaker 1: at you more so than with you. But anyway, you've
[17:01] Speaker 1: got to try. Tell us the day of the reckoning
[17:05] Speaker 1: when the police turned up. Talk us through that because
[17:08] Speaker 1: I think this is a cautionary tale to people too.
[17:12] Speaker 1: There's a full-on redemption story that you got, and we'll
[17:15] Speaker 1: cover that in more detail, obviously. But when people think
[17:19] Speaker 1: they can't find themselves in jail, tell the story because
[17:23] Speaker 1: I want it as a wake-up to people that think
[17:26] Speaker 1: life is always fair, but it's not.
[17:29] Speaker 2: It's, you know, and when I talk about my arrest,
[17:33] Speaker 2: I do so with complete honesty and with respect to
[17:36] Speaker 2: all of the police that were involved there at the time.
[17:38] Speaker 2: They had a job to do, but I was at
[17:40] Speaker 2: the gym. They'd had me under surveillance for two weeks,
[17:43] Speaker 2: which was to me just a waste of resources. I
[17:46] Speaker 2: wasn't going anywhere. I had a three and a five,
[17:48] Speaker 2: a five and a six-year-old at home. I wasn't going anywhere.
[17:53] Speaker 2: I wasn't a violent offender. So I went to the
[17:56] Speaker 2: gym each morning and I got to the gym and
[17:58] Speaker 2: I was halfway through a spin class. And next minute,
[18:04] Speaker 2: there's about three squad cars pull up and I could
[18:07] Speaker 2: see out the window and I thought, oh, here we go.
[18:08] Speaker 1: This is it.
[18:09] Speaker 2: And he walked in. There's about four of them walked in,
[18:13] Speaker 2: three males and a female. He came over and he said,
[18:16] Speaker 2: are you Kerry Tucker? And I said, yes, I am.
[18:18] Speaker 2: And he'd gotten to know one of the women out
[18:22] Speaker 2: at the company involved and was very sympathetic to her,
[18:28] Speaker 2: and rightfully so, and very had me in his sights.
[18:31] Speaker 2: You know, I was obviously the mastermind, so on and
[18:34] Speaker 2: so forth. So he handcuffed me and took me back
[18:37] Speaker 2: to the Lilydale police station. And firstly, I was going
[18:41] Speaker 2: to sing like a bird anyway. You know, it was over.
[18:44] Speaker 2: And so I said, yeah, I'll confess. I hadn't even
[18:47] Speaker 2: been charged. I hadn't even been interviewed. So then he
[18:49] Speaker 2: put me straight back in the car, took me down
[18:51] Speaker 2: back to Hillswood to my house. There would have been
[18:55] Speaker 2: six to eight cars blocking the street, police cars and
[18:58] Speaker 2: a huge truck. And they were taking furniture and everything
[19:02] Speaker 2: out of the house. They were just gutting it. They
[19:04] Speaker 2: gutted the place. And, you know, I remember standing in
[19:07] Speaker 2: there and I thought, well, this is awkward. There's so
[19:09] Speaker 2: many police here. I said, this is awkward.
[19:11] Speaker 1: Good way of putting it.
[19:12] Speaker 2: I thought this is awkward. So I said, you know,
[19:15] Speaker 2: would anyone like a cup of tea? And they just
[19:16] Speaker 2: looked at me as if to go, you know, no.
[19:20] Speaker 2: So I said, okay, I'm thinking this is awkward. So
[19:22] Speaker 2: I said, I'm just going to pop off to the toilet.
[19:24] Speaker 2: And the female officer looked at me and said, not
[19:26] Speaker 2: without me, you're not. And I was like, oh, no.
[19:29] Speaker 2: That's when I realised, one of the first times I
[19:31] Speaker 2: realised my life was out of control. And, you know,
[19:36] Speaker 2: so they gutted the place. And then there's another knock
[19:39] Speaker 2: at the door and the guy, he said he was
[19:41] Speaker 2: from the Piranha Task Force and all I could think
[19:44] Speaker 2: of was Underworld, Yeah.
[19:47] Speaker 1: They were investigating the organised crime killings in the gangland
[19:52] Speaker 1: wars in Melbourne. Yeah.
[19:53] Speaker 2: And, of course, I knew that so I was like, oh, shit,
[19:56] Speaker 2: I'm in real trouble here. What do they think I've done?
[19:58] Speaker 2: And it took him a little while to let me
[20:01] Speaker 2: know that there was a financial side of the Piranha
[20:05] Speaker 2: Task Force and they were investigating it.
[20:08] Speaker 1: I just wanted to up front about the crimes you
[20:11] Speaker 1: committed and we'll talk about the process from there, what
[20:14] Speaker 1: happened after that. One thing that sort of reflect on
[20:19] Speaker 1: the fact you were doing a spin class preparing for jail,
[20:22] Speaker 1: maybe not have been the right thing. You probably should
[20:24] Speaker 1: have been in the weight room. But anyway, that's a personal.
[20:28] Speaker 2: I'd probably finished with the weights, Gary. I was winding down.
[20:31] Speaker 1: Oh, okay. All right. Tell us a little bit about you,
[20:35] Speaker 1: the child, your childhood that you grew up in.
[20:38] Speaker 2: I was born in Sydney but we moved around a
[20:40] Speaker 2: fair bit, you know, from Sydney to Tassie to Leighton
[20:44] Speaker 2: in New South Wales to Robbenvale to Mildura. And, you know,
[20:48] Speaker 2: I don't think that was a very happy childhood. And
[20:51] Speaker 2: to be honest, I don't have a lot of memory
[20:53] Speaker 2: from a little girl to the age of about eight.
[20:57] Speaker 2: You know, my father died when I was 13 and,
[21:01] Speaker 2: you know, my mother couldn't cope with his death. I
[21:05] Speaker 2: didn't understand it at the time because I was 13. Yeah.
[21:09] Speaker 2: And all of my older siblings had been married and
[21:12] Speaker 2: moved away. They were out of the house, so to speak,
[21:14] Speaker 2: and I had a younger brother. My mother was very concerned,
[21:17] Speaker 2: you know, about him. So I was sort of just
[21:19] Speaker 2: wandering around looking for the next wall to run into,
[21:23] Speaker 2: you know.
[21:24] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[21:25] Speaker 2: And the other thing too is, you know, and so
[21:28] Speaker 2: I was in her way. I was headstrong. I've always
[21:31] Speaker 2: been sort of a little bit rebellious. I had no...
[21:35] Speaker 2: guidelines from, from any family, uh, as in, as in
[21:39] Speaker 2: parental guidelines, you know, there was, so, so I was
[21:42] Speaker 2: sort of just left to find my own way. Um, and, And,
[21:47] Speaker 2: you know, that brought on a lot of different issues
[21:49] Speaker 2: and a lot of trauma for me. But at the time,
[21:51] Speaker 2: and right up until I had to start talking about
[21:55] Speaker 2: it when I was writing the book, you know, you
[21:57] Speaker 2: don't realise that you've had a traumatic life because you just,
[22:00] Speaker 2: that's just how you do. You just get on and
[22:03] Speaker 2: just keep going. You know, you've got no time to
[22:06] Speaker 2: reflect or no scale to reflect when you're a teenager
[22:10] Speaker 2: and things are happening to you. So you just keep
[22:13] Speaker 2: moving on, not realising that you damaged every little you know,
[22:17] Speaker 2: each time along the way. So I didn't want to
[22:20] Speaker 2: include anything in my, in my past in my book.
[22:22] Speaker 2: I don't, I've never felt a victim. I'm certainly not
[22:25] Speaker 2: a victim, but it was said to have made it
[22:29] Speaker 2: more personable about, you know, where I came from.
[22:32] Speaker 1: Well, I, it gave me more of an understanding who
[22:35] Speaker 1: you are and, and, backstory, but clarify that you're certainly
[22:40] Speaker 1: not putting your hand up as a victim and not
[22:43] Speaker 1: blaming aspects that happened to you. But you had my
[22:46] Speaker 1: reading of it, you had some very traumatic things happen
[22:49] Speaker 1: to you in your childhood, teenage years, leading up to
[22:54] Speaker 1: early adulthood. If you're comfortable, are you prepared to talk
[22:59] Speaker 1: about some of those things? Yeah.
[23:02] Speaker 2: Yeah, look, you know, when I was very, very young,
[23:05] Speaker 2: I was engaged to a, and that's what you did
[23:08] Speaker 2: in the country in the, you know, in the 80s.
[23:10] Speaker 2: You know, I was engaged to a young man and
[23:12] Speaker 2: got pregnant. My father had just died. And, of course,
[23:15] Speaker 2: in a small town, the local doctor there was one
[23:18] Speaker 2: of my dad's best friends. So I went to him
[23:22] Speaker 2: and he was just horrible. He just said, well, I
[23:25] Speaker 2: hope you're happy with yourself. I hope you're proud. you know,
[23:28] Speaker 2: your father would be rolling in his grave, you know, blah, blah, blah.
[23:30] Speaker 2: And he's picked up the phone and rang my mother.
[23:33] Speaker 2: And they talked, you know, they said, you've got to
[23:35] Speaker 2: come down to the hospital, you know, because you're very young,
[23:38] Speaker 2: they've just got to make sure that everything's okay, you know,
[23:40] Speaker 2: with a young pregnancy and all that sort of stuff.
[23:42] Speaker 2: No discussions had taken place about whether I was going
[23:45] Speaker 2: to keep it or what, you know, it was just a,
[23:47] Speaker 2: but it was all in the pretense of making sure
[23:49] Speaker 2: that I was healthy and whatever else. And, you know,
[23:52] Speaker 2: so I was put under anesthetic and woke up, I
[23:55] Speaker 2: don't know, hours later and was told that they'd taken
[23:59] Speaker 2: the baby. So my resentment for my mother set in then.
[24:04] Speaker 2: I felt absolutely traumatised. You know, the father of the
[24:09] Speaker 2: baby didn't even know, you know, and I wouldn't probably
[24:13] Speaker 2: have kept it. I was too young.
[24:15] Speaker 1: How old were you at the time?
[24:17] Speaker 2: Fifteen, I think, sixteen.
[24:19] Speaker 1: Okay, so from going to the doctor... and confirming that
[24:24] Speaker 1: you're pregnant to being put under general anaesthetic and having
[24:28] Speaker 1: the baby taken within 24 hours or that day?
[24:32] Speaker 2: Oh, six hours, within six hours. So, you know, and
[24:36] Speaker 2: a lot of these things, a lot of the things,
[24:39] Speaker 2: that started my resentment for my mother because then, of course,
[24:42] Speaker 2: it was done in such a bad way that I
[24:45] Speaker 2: hemorrhaged and had a lot of internal problems. It had
[24:48] Speaker 2: become quite a big thing. And in writing these things...
[24:52] Speaker 2: You know, I was told to sit down and have
[24:55] Speaker 2: a good think about different things that had happened and
[24:57] Speaker 2: so I did. But I also spoke to some of
[24:59] Speaker 2: my sisters about, because they were aware of it, about
[25:03] Speaker 2: me writing about this sort of stuff because they had
[25:06] Speaker 2: different relationships with our mother, you know, and I didn't.
[25:11] Speaker 2: So I didn't want to offend them but they also
[25:14] Speaker 2: realised that this was my story, you know. And, look, yeah,
[25:19] Speaker 2: she couldn't cope with Dad's loss. She'd become... an alcoholic
[25:22] Speaker 2: and I mean, you know, in every sense of the word.
[25:24] Speaker 2: So I was, I was just in her way. Um, and,
[25:27] Speaker 2: and she made it obvious that I was in her way. So,
[25:30] Speaker 2: you know, there was another instance where, you know, um,
[25:34] Speaker 2: you know, I, I was, um, having dinner at one
[25:37] Speaker 2: of our friend's places and, um, they said, we'll come
[25:40] Speaker 2: and pick the young son up from football. And it
[25:42] Speaker 2: was down past the footy oval. And I noticed as
[25:45] Speaker 2: we drove closer, I noticed a bag in the back
[25:48] Speaker 2: seat and, um, You know, I was wondering what was
[25:52] Speaker 2: going on. We drove straight past the Oval and straight
[25:55] Speaker 2: and kept driving for about six hours into a little
[25:59] Speaker 2: small town in the middle of Victoria, you know, and
[26:02] Speaker 2: it was about midnight and, you know, this friend, this
[26:05] Speaker 2: family friend, you know, he wouldn't talk to me for
[26:08] Speaker 2: the whole trip and just pulled up at the front
[26:10] Speaker 2: of a roadhouse. It was about midnight and handed me
[26:13] Speaker 2: over to two fellows, you know, I couldn't understand and
[26:18] Speaker 2: I was told it was to have a job, you know,
[26:21] Speaker 2: working in one of the restaurants and all that sort
[26:23] Speaker 2: of stuff. And it wasn't until, I don't know, maybe
[26:27] Speaker 2: six months later, and I was basically held captive there.
[26:30] Speaker 2: I escaped through a bathroom window, you know.
[26:33] Speaker 1: Held captive to work? There wasn't abuse there?
[26:36] Speaker 2: No, there wasn't. But I wasn't allowed to do anything,
[26:39] Speaker 2: to talk to anyone. I had to clean their house,
[26:42] Speaker 2: clean their restaurant, look after the kids. You know, I was...
[26:45] Speaker 2: Pretty much a.
[26:45] Speaker 1: Bit of a slave, yeah.
[26:47] Speaker 2: And, you know, when I found out that, you know,
[26:50] Speaker 2: my mother had organised it, you know, that was it,
[26:53] Speaker 2: you know, for me. And so I sort of just
[26:56] Speaker 2: wandered around then from going to Melbourne to back to,
[27:00] Speaker 2: you know, Mildura. But each time I went back, my
[27:05] Speaker 2: mum's condition was so much more worse, you know. So,
[27:09] Speaker 2: you know, I wasn't, I remember going to a seance
[27:11] Speaker 2: once with my daughters and, The woman, the clairvoyant who I,
[27:16] Speaker 2: you know, I didn't really... believe at the time she
[27:18] Speaker 2: turned around and she said oh there's a woman coming
[27:20] Speaker 2: through that says you are really difficult to love and
[27:22] Speaker 2: I went oh hello mum she's she's obviously how you
[27:27] Speaker 2: going she's obviously turned up you know.
[27:32] Speaker 1: Well like the things that you're describing there and I
[27:34] Speaker 1: I like the fact that you're not walking around with
[27:37] Speaker 1: yeah a victim badge saying this is why I've done
[27:40] Speaker 1: this this is no you're not you're not buying into
[27:43] Speaker 1: that but you're acknowledging that yeah at does have an impact.
[27:47] Speaker 1: The two situations you've outlined there are traumatic, informative views.
[27:51] Speaker 2: Exactly, yeah. And I didn't relate to that until I
[27:56] Speaker 2: was writing the book. That was when I sat back
[27:58] Speaker 2: and thought, oh, maybe it wasn't that great. But prior
[28:01] Speaker 2: to that, I gave it no thought. I think it
[28:04] Speaker 2: led more into bad decisions around relationships rather than having
[28:10] Speaker 2: anything to contribute to the crime.
[28:12] Speaker 1: Okay. Now, at the time that you got arrested at
[28:17] Speaker 1: the gym doing your cycle class, you were married to
[28:22] Speaker 1: two children, two daughters, three and five or three and
[28:26] Speaker 1: six at the time?
[28:27] Speaker 2: Yeah, five and six.
[28:29] Speaker 1: I think, and the point that I like to make
[28:31] Speaker 1: and get this across to people, when you're taken into custody,
[28:34] Speaker 1: it's not a nice place to be. So if you
[28:37] Speaker 1: have lost control of your life, it's basically you're in custody,
[28:40] Speaker 1: you've got someone else telling you what to do, when
[28:43] Speaker 1: you can eat, when you can go to the bathroom, yeah,
[28:46] Speaker 1: virtually full control on you. When you were arrested, did
[28:51] Speaker 1: you get bail at any stage or were you in
[28:53] Speaker 1: custody throughout?
[28:55] Speaker 2: We decided that we wouldn't go for bail. Well, firstly,
[28:59] Speaker 2: he made a point of arresting me at 5 o'clock
[29:03] Speaker 2: on a Friday. So there was no chance.
[29:05] Speaker 1: You were in custody over the weekend.
[29:07] Speaker 2: Yeah, over the weekend sort of thing. So I was
[29:11] Speaker 2: in the Ringwood house. police holding cells for one night
[29:14] Speaker 2: and then I was taken across to the Moorabbin police
[29:17] Speaker 2: holding cells. And I remember sitting in the back of
[29:20] Speaker 2: a divvy van. That was my real experience. And I
[29:23] Speaker 2: could hear the coppers talking about the thing in the back,
[29:25] Speaker 2: you know. There was no seatbelts or anything like that.
[29:28] Speaker 2: They were just driving at breakneck speed. And then I
[29:31] Speaker 2: went to the Moorabbin police holding cells. And that was
[29:35] Speaker 2: probably one of the scariest things. You know, I remember
[29:38] Speaker 2: I was standing there and this detective's turned around and gone, well,
[29:42] Speaker 2: you know, I'm going home but you're not. And I
[29:44] Speaker 2: was like, oh, that's cute. That's, you know. Anyway, I'm
[29:47] Speaker 2: standing and then he goes, see you, and I'm just
[29:49] Speaker 2: standing in the corridor. And another copper comes out of
[29:52] Speaker 2: nowhere and goes, prisoner coming through. And I actually went
[29:56] Speaker 2: up to him and said, look, you know, don't leave
[29:59] Speaker 2: me standing here if there's a prisoner coming through. And
[30:02] Speaker 2: he looked at me and he said, that's you, dickhead.
[30:04] Speaker 2: I was like, I sat there and I thought, oh, God,
[30:08] Speaker 2: I felt so humiliated. Get used to it. And then
[30:13] Speaker 2: out come a couple of women with the first strip search,
[30:16] Speaker 2: you know, which was absolutely delightful. But, you know, you
[30:21] Speaker 2: get used to that as well.
[30:22] Speaker 1: But first up, like tell us through that because that's
[30:25] Speaker 1: traumatic for people.
[30:27] Speaker 2: It, you know, I was very compliant. Right from the
[30:30] Speaker 2: word go, I wasn't going to, it wasn't my nature.
[30:33] Speaker 2: Unless I'm backed into a corner, you know, it wasn't,
[30:36] Speaker 2: I was at their mercy and I was quite happy
[30:38] Speaker 2: to have them telling me what to do. But the
[30:40] Speaker 2: strip search, again, they didn't tell me what was going
[30:42] Speaker 2: to happen, how I had to do it, you know.
[30:46] Speaker 2: At the time I had my period, you know, and
[30:49] Speaker 2: I'd said, you know, can I, you know, get some,
[30:51] Speaker 2: you know, get some assistance with this? And they said, no.
[30:54] Speaker 2: They had the blue rubber gloves on. I didn't know
[30:56] Speaker 2: whether they were going to do, you know, an internal.
[30:59] Speaker 2: I had no idea. It was absolutely frightening. And then
[31:03] Speaker 2: at the end they just turned around and said, you know,
[31:05] Speaker 2: part your cheeks and all that sort of stuff. And
[31:08] Speaker 2: there becomes a little dance involved really and then just
[31:11] Speaker 2: get dressed again. And then I was just thrown into
[31:13] Speaker 2: a cell.
[31:15] Speaker 1: Tell us about that, your first 24 hours in the cell.
[31:18] Speaker 2: Okay. I was standing there sort of thinking and I
[31:22] Speaker 2: was saying to this person, you know, I had absolute terror.
[31:26] Speaker 2: I could hear women in the cell. It was a
[31:28] Speaker 2: really big cell and there's about five little cells off
[31:32] Speaker 2: it and it was just all concrete and I could
[31:34] Speaker 2: hear them screaming, who's that? Look at that, you know,
[31:37] Speaker 2: sort of thing. And I said to them, oh, could
[31:39] Speaker 2: I go into another cell please? You know, I had
[31:43] Speaker 2: no idea and they just laughed at me. I had
[31:46] Speaker 2: my little pillow and my blanket and they threw me
[31:48] Speaker 2: into the cell with these women. And I thought, my God,
[31:52] Speaker 2: this is unbelievable. I was nearly crying. I was so frightened.
[31:58] Speaker 2: And one of the women came up to me and said,
[32:01] Speaker 2: and I'll never forget it. She said, my name's Leah
[32:04] Speaker 2: and you're going to be fine. And I just sort
[32:06] Speaker 2: of looked at her and I said, oh, thank you.
[32:07] Speaker 2: And she said, yeah. She said, and that's Christy over there,
[32:11] Speaker 2: you know. She said, we're all heroin addicts. And I
[32:14] Speaker 2: just gasped for air. I was like, oh, my God, I'm.
[32:18] Speaker 2: I'm in the same place as a real-life heroin addict,
[32:21] Speaker 2: you know.
[32:21] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
[32:22] Speaker 2: I was so naive. And it was brutal in the
[32:25] Speaker 2: sense of how the police treated them. It needs to
[32:28] Speaker 2: be said I was treated very well by them except
[32:31] Speaker 2: for a female police officer, one female police officer, but
[32:35] Speaker 2: I was treated very well. I was also a church
[32:37] Speaker 2: mouse in the corner. The rest of the girls in
[32:39] Speaker 2: the cells were, you know, they were withdrawing from drugs
[32:43] Speaker 2: and they were treated dreadfully. I know it's a thankless job.
[32:48] Speaker 2: for the police getting abused and whatever else, but they
[32:51] Speaker 2: could have stopped it right from the word go by
[32:54] Speaker 2: just being a little bit more sensitive. um, to, to
[32:58] Speaker 2: the thing. And I was just sitting there watching the
[33:00] Speaker 2: whole thing and I'm understanding both sides thinking if I
[33:04] Speaker 2: was a copper, this would be pissing me off. But I'm,
[33:06] Speaker 2: I'm with the women that are so kind to me.
[33:08] Speaker 2: And I'm thinking, this is just, this is just wrong.
[33:11] Speaker 2: Like you guys could have fixed this. You know, you've,
[33:13] Speaker 2: so I'm just watching this whole thing unravel thinking, okay,
[33:17] Speaker 2: this is, this is great. If this is what my
[33:19] Speaker 2: life is going to be for five years, I, you know,
[33:22] Speaker 2: or two years is what I thought.
[33:24] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[33:25] Speaker 2: I'm not going to be able to handle this, you know,
[33:27] Speaker 2: people coming in and out all the time and having
[33:30] Speaker 2: all these issues. But it was a very, very, very
[33:33] Speaker 2: good start for me. I was there for nearly a
[33:35] Speaker 2: month because the maximum security prison for women fills up
[33:40] Speaker 2: usually every May and every December, fills up with women,
[33:43] Speaker 2: no beds. It's cold and Christmas, you know, it's cold.
[33:47] Speaker 1: Okay, yep, makes sense.
[33:48] Speaker 2: And, yeah.
[33:49] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[33:50] Speaker 2: So the only way we could get out to the
[33:52] Speaker 2: prison in order of arrival at the cells was when
[33:55] Speaker 2: someone was released from prison. So there was about eight
[33:59] Speaker 2: of us in there. So by the time it got
[34:00] Speaker 2: through to me, it was nearly a month in there.
[34:05] Speaker 2: But I must say it was incredibly difficult, but it
[34:10] Speaker 2: put me in very good stead for when I arrived
[34:12] Speaker 2: at the prison because I was able to sort of
[34:15] Speaker 2: befriend all of these women who were old school crims.
[34:19] Speaker 1: How did you, because I would imagine the moment you
[34:21] Speaker 1: walk in to an environment like that, and I can
[34:25] Speaker 1: picture the environment, that they're going to smell you a
[34:27] Speaker 1: mile away that you're a straighty 180 in their world.
[34:32] Speaker 1: And there is that inclination to take advantage or manipulate
[34:36] Speaker 1: the situation. Did you find that or did you find
[34:39] Speaker 1: a different response? You're all in this together. We're not
[34:42] Speaker 1: going to take advantage.
[34:44] Speaker 2: I found a different response. I was amazed and thankful,
[34:48] Speaker 2: so thankful. I was amazed. The first thing they said
[34:51] Speaker 2: to me when I walked in was, have you got
[34:53] Speaker 2: any smokes? And I didn't know about the– hey, women
[34:58] Speaker 2: used to bank their smokes vaginally. I had no idea.
[35:03] Speaker 2: So I had smokes in my property. So I actually
[35:05] Speaker 2: turned around and said, yeah, I've got a whole packet.
[35:07] Speaker 2: And they were– I was their best friend straight away
[35:10] Speaker 2: and they said, well, get them out. And I said, well,
[35:11] Speaker 2: they're in the property. Just ask the policeman. They thought
[35:16] Speaker 2: I had them banked and they just looked at me
[35:19] Speaker 2: and said, oh, Christ, she's a clean skin. She's a
[35:21] Speaker 2: square head. And they sort of just dismissed me in
[35:24] Speaker 2: a way of having any involvement in anything until it
[35:29] Speaker 2: got so bad there that they were dishing up frozen
[35:32] Speaker 2: meat you know, for lunch, frozen hamburgers for lunch. It
[35:36] Speaker 2: was taking all of our, you know, when they cleaned
[35:39] Speaker 2: the place out, they would use a fire hose and
[35:42] Speaker 2: just fire hose the entire concrete. So it was the
[35:44] Speaker 2: middle of May. We weren't allowed to wear shoes, you know,
[35:48] Speaker 2: it was just incredibly dreadful and there was no need
[35:52] Speaker 2: for that. So I was starting to find my feet
[35:55] Speaker 2: and my temper after about two or three weeks because
[36:00] Speaker 2: the other thing too is that You know, as much
[36:03] Speaker 2: as I was frightened, once I realised I was very
[36:06] Speaker 2: quick at being able to read the room and read
[36:09] Speaker 2: their nature, their behaviour, and I could work around that.
[36:13] Speaker 2: But essentially they were just very, very kind to me,
[36:16] Speaker 2: but they were being treated really, really badly. And, you know,
[36:20] Speaker 2: I thought there was no need for that. one of
[36:22] Speaker 2: the female coppers turned on me and I sort of thought, well,
[36:26] Speaker 2: I'll show the rest of the crims that I can
[36:28] Speaker 2: be like them.
[36:30] Speaker 1: Yeah, okay. Tell the sister.
[36:33] Speaker 2: I'm just like them, you know, I'll fit in really
[36:36] Speaker 2: well and she's, She came in and, you know, and
[36:38] Speaker 2: I said to her, she took all of our cups,
[36:41] Speaker 2: our drinking cups, and I stood there. I thought, now's
[36:43] Speaker 2: my chance. So I stood up and said, you know,
[36:46] Speaker 2: were you born a bitch or do you really have
[36:49] Speaker 2: to work at it? Because to me it seems to
[36:50] Speaker 2: come really naturally. And I just looked around at all
[36:52] Speaker 2: my new friends and gave them a smirk and a smile, thought,
[36:56] Speaker 2: here I go, I'm on the way. And she just
[36:59] Speaker 2: got me and locked me down for about eight hours
[37:01] Speaker 2: in this tiny little cell. And I wasn't so– they
[37:04] Speaker 2: came up to me, all the creams come up to
[37:06] Speaker 2: me later and went, yeah, that wasn't wise, Kerry.
[37:10] Speaker 1: You thought you were being clever and look what I
[37:13] Speaker 1: can do and then the ramifications flowed from there. Yeah.
[37:17] Speaker 2: I thought two weeks in the cells with them, by
[37:19] Speaker 2: now I could start acting like them, but I sort
[37:21] Speaker 2: of gave that up.
[37:23] Speaker 1: With the food, you got behind your first bit of
[37:29] Speaker 1: prison protests and advocacy to– sort the food situation. Tell
[37:33] Speaker 1: us that story.
[37:34] Speaker 2: I did. It was really, really bad. And the crims were,
[37:39] Speaker 2: you know, the girls, they were just beside themselves. And
[37:44] Speaker 2: it was a really dangerous situation, to tell you the truth.
[37:47] Speaker 2: And one of the girls turned around and said, you know,
[37:51] Speaker 2: we should be able to tell the ombudsman this, you know.
[37:53] Speaker 2: I had no idea who the ombudsman was. And they're
[37:56] Speaker 2: standing there going, you know, screaming at the officers going,
[38:00] Speaker 2: we're going to tell the fucking ombudsman and we're going
[38:02] Speaker 2: to slit your throat and all that sort of stuff.
[38:03] Speaker 2: And I said, oh, maybe not. I said, I went
[38:07] Speaker 2: up to the girls. They said they were going to
[38:08] Speaker 2: write the letter and I said. I could probably help
[38:11] Speaker 2: with this. I used to write letters all the time.
[38:14] Speaker 2: And they said, right. And they all gathered around me
[38:16] Speaker 2: this little concrete desk. I got a pen and I
[38:20] Speaker 2: got a pencil, sorry, and a piece of paper from
[38:22] Speaker 2: one of the policemen. And they laughed at me because
[38:24] Speaker 2: they were sort of like, yeah, we'll give it to
[38:26] Speaker 2: you and play along, but you're never going to be
[38:27] Speaker 2: able to get it out. So I'm sitting there and
[38:30] Speaker 2: I said, look, I tell you what, you tell me
[38:32] Speaker 2: what you want to write and I'll just write it.
[38:36] Speaker 2: And I can't remember exactly what it was, but she's like, okay, fine.
[38:40] Speaker 2: I want this to go to the head fucking person
[38:43] Speaker 2: at the fucking ombudsman fucking office. And I've gone, dear sir,
[38:47] Speaker 2: for the attention of the ombudsman. And I've gone, and
[38:51] Speaker 2: I've sit there and gone, yep, right. And she said,
[38:54] Speaker 2: tell them we're going to fucking write. We're going to
[38:56] Speaker 2: take the lid off this fucking place. And I've gone,
[38:59] Speaker 2: recurrent concerns of incidences that we have here with, you know,
[39:05] Speaker 2: issues that we have. tell them, she said, because if
[39:08] Speaker 2: they don't come out here, we're going to slit their
[39:09] Speaker 2: fucking throats. And I said, they're all cunt dogs. And
[39:13] Speaker 2: I went, and it is escalating to the point where
[39:16] Speaker 2: we are needing assistance. And we're right there. She said,
[39:21] Speaker 2: and tell them if they don't come out, we'll fucking
[39:23] Speaker 2: kill them too. And I just went, sincerely yours. And
[39:26] Speaker 2: they're going, right, you got all that? And I went,
[39:31] Speaker 2: sure did, yep. And they've gone and they settled down completely.
[39:35] Speaker 2: They'd been heard and they settled down. And bugger me
[39:37] Speaker 2: if there was a copper out there and his name
[39:40] Speaker 2: just come to me from nowhere. His name was Mr McInerney,
[39:43] Speaker 2: I think, and he was lovely. So I snuck up
[39:46] Speaker 2: to him one day and said, I've got a letter here.
[39:48] Speaker 2: I've got to send it to the ombudsman or something.
[39:51] Speaker 2: And he said, I'll do it for you. And I thought, no,
[39:53] Speaker 2: he won't. Anyway, so I said to the girls, it's gone.
[39:57] Speaker 2: And he actually came back a couple of hours later
[39:59] Speaker 2: and said, I faxed it. And I said, oh, great,
[40:01] Speaker 2: not a problem. Next day the ombudsman comes out.
[40:03] Speaker 1: Wow.
[40:04] Speaker 2: Yeah, and she interviewed all the women. They're sitting there going, yeah,
[40:08] Speaker 2: fucking motherfuckers and whatever else. She interviews me and I've
[40:12] Speaker 2: walked in and gone, oh, hello, lovely to meet you.
[40:14] Speaker 2: And she said, you're the one that wrote the letter.
[40:18] Speaker 2: I went, oh, it's a bit of a giveaway there,
[40:20] Speaker 2: was it? And then she turned around and she said,
[40:23] Speaker 2: which one is the, which officer is it that is
[40:26] Speaker 2: doing the most harm? And the door behind me had
[40:29] Speaker 2: a square window, you know, and I turned around and
[40:32] Speaker 2: she's got her ugly face sitting there and I turned
[40:34] Speaker 2: around and I said, her, it's absolutely her. She's just,
[40:36] Speaker 2: and I'm pointing at the window. She knew. And she,
[40:39] Speaker 2: and I thought, ah, gotcha. And then the officer thanked
[40:43] Speaker 2: me and said, I'll follow your journey through this, through
[40:46] Speaker 2: the system. I'd like to see how you go. And
[40:48] Speaker 2: I said, well, thank you, blah, blah, blah. And, um,
[40:52] Speaker 2: After she left about 15 minutes later along come that
[40:55] Speaker 2: copper again and locked me down for another eight hours
[40:58] Speaker 2: because it was the same one. So that didn't work out.
[41:01] Speaker 2: I was still finding my feet.
[41:04] Speaker 1: With your creative translation, well, I don't know how else
[41:11] Speaker 1: to describe it, but that gave you some in a
[41:14] Speaker 1: strange way. I would imagine the girls in the cell
[41:18] Speaker 1: when they've seen what you've actually written, they would have
[41:20] Speaker 1: thought you as gold.
[41:22] Speaker 2: Yeah, well, they didn't see what I'd written because I
[41:25] Speaker 2: didn't want to insult them.
[41:26] Speaker 1: Ah, okay, yep.
[41:28] Speaker 2: So I just sort of said, oh, I just jumbled
[41:30] Speaker 2: up a few words, but I've got your point. I've
[41:32] Speaker 2: got exactly what you wanted to say to the motherfuckers.
[41:37] Speaker 2: So we sort of went from there. But by the
[41:39] Speaker 2: time I got out, and they were amazed that I've
[41:43] Speaker 2: sent this letter. I've decided I'd write the letter. I've
[41:46] Speaker 2: sent the letter. They knew that it wasn't about me
[41:48] Speaker 2: because I wasn't withdrawing. They weren't holding medication from me.
[41:51] Speaker 2: I wasn't on any. So they knew that I was
[41:53] Speaker 2: doing it for them. And then the ombudsman comes out,
[41:56] Speaker 2: interviewed them, so they just felt heard and seen and,
[42:00] Speaker 2: you know. So by the time I got to the prison,
[42:02] Speaker 2: I had eight really good friends and they were telling everybody,
[42:06] Speaker 2: you know, yeah, get a load of this one, you know,
[42:08] Speaker 2: she's really good. So it sort of paved my way,
[42:12] Speaker 2: as you would say.
[42:13] Speaker 1: Well, you found your feet and you didn't have to
[42:17] Speaker 1: fight your way even with your hardcore training leading up to–
[42:21] Speaker 1: My muscles. With your muscles. But it was your– Your
[42:25] Speaker 1: ability to read the room and your sharp tongue and
[42:30] Speaker 1: the fact that you've come in there and this is,
[42:32] Speaker 1: I think, and it certainly came out in your book,
[42:34] Speaker 1: you started to understand the trauma associated with people that
[42:38] Speaker 1: are locked up and you didn't put yourself in that category,
[42:41] Speaker 1: but you found yourself in with that group and you
[42:44] Speaker 1: saw how these people, they're not used to getting anyone
[42:47] Speaker 1: sticking up for them. No, no. They're used to just
[42:50] Speaker 1: getting one kick after the other and that sort of
[42:53] Speaker 1: shapes their attitudes.
[42:55] Speaker 2: They were absolutely amazed that I would even take the time,
[42:58] Speaker 2: you know, to do that. And that gave me a
[43:01] Speaker 2: really good understanding. And, you know, again, it needs to
[43:04] Speaker 2: be said, these heroin addicts that I was so judgmental
[43:07] Speaker 2: of before I got there were so kind to me.
[43:10] Speaker 2: you know, making sure that I was okay and that,
[43:13] Speaker 2: you know, it's not as bad as it seems. It
[43:15] Speaker 2: looks pretty bad, you know, but when we get out
[43:18] Speaker 2: to the prison it'll be better and they paved my way.
[43:21] Speaker 2: And I had a really deep understanding of how really
[43:25] Speaker 2: good people can end up, you know, in situations like
[43:29] Speaker 2: this where no one gives a shit. They're at the
[43:31] Speaker 2: bottom of the pile. even in the criminal scale and
[43:35] Speaker 2: even out of prison, but certainly in the cells. They're
[43:38] Speaker 2: at the bottom of the pile. No one gives a shit.
[43:40] Speaker 1: I've heard so many in different jurisdictions, as in states,
[43:44] Speaker 1: talk about, and I know from New South Wales, the
[43:46] Speaker 1: police custody, the holding cells at police headquarters and that.
[43:51] Speaker 1: All the crooks talk about that as the worst place
[43:54] Speaker 1: to be. Oh, dreadful. Because police are not corrective services officers.
[44:00] Speaker 1: They're probably resenting being there. It's a horrible environment. No,
[44:04] Speaker 1: it's usually below a police station, no light, no natural light, no,
[44:09] Speaker 1: not facilities. And yeah, it's a, it's a difficult place
[44:13] Speaker 1: and I've heard them just call it squalid. Yeah.
[44:16] Speaker 2: It's dreadful. It's, you know, and, and, You know, the
[44:19] Speaker 2: culture is, as we know, with the cops and the crims,
[44:22] Speaker 2: you know, that's that culture will always be there. So
[44:26] Speaker 2: if the police are in power sort of thing, they
[44:28] Speaker 2: can do, you know, they used to withhold the girls' medication.
[44:31] Speaker 2: You know, there was just, they'd say they were going
[44:33] Speaker 2: to take them out for, you know, a smoke, you know,
[44:36] Speaker 2: and they wouldn't. You know, they'd light up and have
[44:40] Speaker 2: a barbecue right beside the vent where we were. you know,
[44:43] Speaker 2: and you could hear them joking. So they were quite,
[44:46] Speaker 2: you know, they were having fun and games with it. And, yeah,
[44:48] Speaker 2: I could see that it was a thankless job.
[44:51] Speaker 1: Because there's so much misery and anger, resentment, everything in
[44:56] Speaker 1: that whole environment because this is where people go when
[44:59] Speaker 1: they're just first arrested. So they're staring down lengthy sentences.
[45:03] Speaker 1: They're missing their loved ones. They're not getting their hit
[45:06] Speaker 1: of drugs if they're coming down off drugs. So many
[45:11] Speaker 1: things that are going on.
[45:13] Speaker 2: It makes it worse, you know, I spent about six
[45:17] Speaker 2: hours at the Melbourne Custody Centre, which is renowned to
[45:21] Speaker 2: be the most brutal place because it's manned by coppers,
[45:24] Speaker 2: and I'll say this unconditionally, by coppers that obviously have
[45:28] Speaker 2: the lowest IQ and antisocial behaviour, certainly when I was there.
[45:32] Speaker 2: No one wants to work there, no one wants to
[45:33] Speaker 2: be there. You know, and when I was there, it
[45:36] Speaker 2: was about six hours, they terrorised us. I could hear
[45:40] Speaker 2: them belting the crap out of a guy down in
[45:42] Speaker 2: the cell, you know, down the corridor. I thought they
[45:44] Speaker 2: were going to come to us next, you know. And
[45:46] Speaker 2: the problem with it is that it's totally unsupervised. You know,
[45:49] Speaker 2: it's dark, it's underground sort of thing. It's totally unsupervised.
[45:52] Speaker 2: You can't have any visitors there. You can't have Salvation Army.
[45:55] Speaker 2: There's no oversight whatsoever. And if you, and again, I
[46:00] Speaker 2: was only there probably about six hours. It traumatised the
[46:03] Speaker 2: hell out of me. You know, I was frightened. I
[46:06] Speaker 2: was vigilant. And I think that's where my vigilant, I
[46:09] Speaker 2: was listening at the walls for their for their footsteps,
[46:12] Speaker 2: you know, to see whether they were coming to us.
[46:14] Speaker 2: So it is, it's the holding cells where there's no
[46:18] Speaker 2: oversight that anyone can be treated anyway.
[46:20] Speaker 1: I can't say with a great deal of certainty in
[46:23] Speaker 1: regards to Victoria. I know in New South Wales there
[46:27] Speaker 1: is now, because we're talking, yeah, a couple of decades ago,
[46:30] Speaker 1: there is that oversight coming in now that understanding that
[46:35] Speaker 1: there was a problem there. The plea of guilty, like,
[46:40] Speaker 1: We've talked about it a little bit at the start,
[46:43] Speaker 1: but you decided that I'm going to take ownership, I'm
[46:47] Speaker 1: going to get the plea, and I've got to just
[46:50] Speaker 1: knuckle down and serve the time. Talk us through the
[46:53] Speaker 1: mindset of deciding to plead guilty, besides the fact that
[46:56] Speaker 1: you were guilty, because a lot of people don't. But
[47:03] Speaker 1: a lot of people will contest it, and they might
[47:05] Speaker 1: be the matter for whatever reason. But you made a
[47:09] Speaker 1: decision to plead guilty and I don't know, and this
[47:14] Speaker 1: is my observation, I could be wrong, but I think
[47:16] Speaker 1: that helps to a degree in your case that you
[47:20] Speaker 1: take an ownership and, okay, acknowledge my mistakes and this
[47:24] Speaker 1: is a step forward. Is that how you looked at it?
[47:27] Speaker 2: Yeah, and I had, look, for the first year that
[47:30] Speaker 2: I was sort of in there, I was, you know,
[47:33] Speaker 2: I was reasonably angry. I was angry about a whole
[47:37] Speaker 2: lot of things but mainly about, you know, with myself.
[47:40] Speaker 2: I had a lot of guidance from Paul Galbally. I'd
[47:43] Speaker 2: sit and say I don't want, initially it was sort
[47:45] Speaker 2: of like I'll plead guilty for what I took, you know.
[47:52] Speaker 2: And so, you know, we sort of, he said to me,
[47:53] Speaker 2: this couldn't have happened without you, Kerry. So, you know,
[47:58] Speaker 2: so I accepted that and sort of then just decided, right,
[48:01] Speaker 2: this is where I am, this is where I need
[48:03] Speaker 2: to be. I was also becoming very important in the prison.
[48:08] Speaker 2: You know, I developed sort of, so I felt quite
[48:11] Speaker 2: safe to be able to just sit there and let
[48:14] Speaker 2: it settle in, you're guilty, plead guilty, you know, do
[48:18] Speaker 2: the right thing. I was never going to look like
[48:20] Speaker 2: a sook. You know, I couldn't bear that. So I
[48:24] Speaker 2: pleaded guilty and just took whatever the judge gave me.
[48:27] Speaker 2: I was already, I expected about two and a half years,
[48:31] Speaker 2: three years. She doubled that. I didn't sort of expect that,
[48:34] Speaker 2: but I was already halfway through my sentence by the
[48:37] Speaker 2: time I was sentenced. So And once I'd done that,
[48:41] Speaker 2: it really released me to be able to just become
[48:44] Speaker 2: an integral part of the prison DNA. Every bit is
[48:50] Speaker 2: one of the women there, if not worse. So you
[48:53] Speaker 2: don't judge anymore. So it made me take control of
[48:56] Speaker 2: my sentence.
[48:57] Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting. There's a quote from yourself, and this
[49:02] Speaker 1: will give a sort of insight into the way you
[49:05] Speaker 1: were going to approach your imprisonment. And I'll get you
[49:08] Speaker 1: to talk to it after I read it out. I
[49:11] Speaker 1: went from being a suburban mother of two to being
[49:13] Speaker 1: prisoner number 171435. My life as I knew it was
[49:15] Speaker 1: completely gone. I thought my life was over. I had
[49:21] Speaker 1: the choice to give in to the shame and fall
[49:24] Speaker 1: into a deep, dark abyss of failure that I had created.
[49:28] Speaker 1: Or I could fight back, and I choose to fight.
[49:31] Speaker 1: I owe it to my girls. That my reading of that,
[49:35] Speaker 1: that sort of encapsulates what you were just talking about,
[49:38] Speaker 1: but can you expand on, uh, on your, your thought
[49:40] Speaker 1: process there and the reference to your girls?
[49:43] Speaker 2: Um, you know, there's a, there's a time in one
[49:46] Speaker 2: time during the, the whole thing where that still sits
[49:50] Speaker 2: with me, you know, they came to visit one Sunday and, um,
[49:55] Speaker 2: you know, they cried the whole time and, And when
[49:57] Speaker 2: they were leaving, you know, what it looked like to
[50:01] Speaker 2: them was two big police officers, but it was two
[50:03] Speaker 2: corrections officers were walking them out, you know. And they're
[50:07] Speaker 2: looking back at me just screaming, come with us, mummy,
[50:10] Speaker 2: why aren't you coming with us? You know, it gets
[50:14] Speaker 2: me right to, you know, today, this sort of thing.
[50:18] Speaker 2: And I looked, it ripped a hole in my soul.
[50:22] Speaker 2: And I looked at them and I thought, You know,
[50:25] Speaker 2: there's nothing harder than seeing that and knowing that you
[50:28] Speaker 2: are totally to blame for what they're feeling. And that
[50:32] Speaker 2: made me decide that everything I did from that point
[50:35] Speaker 2: on would be to make them proud. And I knew
[50:39] Speaker 2: I was going to have to go through a lot
[50:41] Speaker 2: for that, but I didn't want to get home and
[50:43] Speaker 2: have them being embarrassed to walk down the side, you know,
[50:47] Speaker 2: the pavement with me. I didn't want them to be
[50:49] Speaker 2: worried that people are going to go, look, that's her
[50:52] Speaker 2: or whatever. You know, I had... I knew to make
[50:54] Speaker 2: them proud that I had to do everything in my
[50:59] Speaker 2: sentence and outside of my sentence that was twice as
[51:02] Speaker 2: big as what my crime was. I had to overshadow
[51:05] Speaker 2: that to have my girls say, you know, mum, we're
[51:09] Speaker 2: so proud of you. And that fuelled my determination. That
[51:13] Speaker 2: day in the visit centre nearly destroyed me because, you know,
[51:17] Speaker 2: I could have easily just given in. You know, let
[51:21] Speaker 2: my defences down, started crying, which I hadn't sort of
[51:24] Speaker 2: done before. But I knew that if I started crying,
[51:26] Speaker 2: I quite possibly wouldn't be able to stop.
[51:28] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[51:29] Speaker 2: So I knew I couldn't give in to the vulnerability
[51:32] Speaker 2: and I just toughened the shit up. I leant on
[51:36] Speaker 2: my muscles and decided that, you know, I was just
[51:41] Speaker 2: going to change things, you know.
[51:43] Speaker 1: Well, let's take a break here. When we get back
[51:48] Speaker 1: into part two, we're going to talk about your prison
[51:51] Speaker 1: experiences and some funny stories, sad stories, and the realization
[51:56] Speaker 1: of what you discovered, not just about yourself, but about
[51:59] Speaker 1: the prison system when you're in there. And then the
[52:02] Speaker 1: amazing way you've turned your life around. And we love
[52:06] Speaker 1: stories of redemption on I Catch Killers and, uh, you know,
[52:09] Speaker 1: we get the look in, into the dark side and
[52:11] Speaker 1: then someone's turned their life around. But, uh, Your story
[52:15] Speaker 1: is quite inspirational in what you've achieved since you've got
[52:19] Speaker 1: out of prison. I think people will be fascinated by it.
[52:22] Speaker 2: Oh, thank you.
[52:23] Speaker 1: And, yeah, just a content heads up that I didn't
[52:28] Speaker 1: realise this until a little bit more research, that the
[52:32] Speaker 1: women's prison show, Wentworth, you had a big part to
[52:36] Speaker 1: play in that and the main character, Bea Smith, was
[52:39] Speaker 1: based in Series 1 basically from your prison stories. Yep.
[52:44] Speaker 2: Absolutely, yeah.
[52:46] Speaker 1: Well, who would have thought? I know. Who would have thought?
[52:51] Speaker 1: We're going to talk about all that back in part two.
[52:54] Speaker 1: Let's have a break and we'll get back shortly.

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