# The day my dad killed my mum: Ashton Kline Pt. 1

An episode of [I Catch Killers with Gary Jubelin](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1506667049), 17 Oct 2026, 58 min.

Audio: https://p.podderapp.com/2544644999/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/2fb3740d-3436-44af-8cc0-a91900716aa5/5bc8c2ed-b718-4f44-beb3-ac2a005246cc/feea4314-c37d-4006-a1b9-b4e3005092ec/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=786928c3-10c1-4cef-a7bf-ac2a005246d0

When Ashton Kline was 15, his mother Viola was murdered by his father. Ashton sits down with Gary Jubelin to share what led up to that day on the 27th of September, 2000, growing up walking on eggshells, the brief nine months of peace after his father left, and how in a single afternoon he had to step into an adult role to look after his chronically ill six year old brother Grant. He talks about the promise he made to his mum: "No matter what, I will always look after Grant". Building his own toolkit for recovery from trauma, and why sharing their story now gives purpose to his mum's loss. This is Ashton's story of survival, brotherhood, and responsibility beyond his years. Find out more about The Alannah & Madeline Foundation here. Find out more about What Ally Needs Now, a children's book created by Ashton and researchers at The University of Melbourne to help children navigate grief after fatal family violence here. If you or someone you know has experienced domestic, family or sexual violence, you can call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732, text 0458 737 732 or visit 1800respect.org.au for online chat and video call services. You can watch I Catch Killers on Youtube here. Follow I Catch Killers: Instagram: @icatchkillers Tiktok: @icatchkillerspodcast Facebook: @icatchkillers 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. When
[0:46] Speaker 1: Ashton Klein was just 15, his father murdered his mother, Viola.
[0:52] Speaker 2: Dowsing her in petrol... and setting her alight.
[0:54] Speaker 1: It was the culmination of years of domestic violence against Ashton,
[0:59] Speaker 1: his mum, and his six-year-old brother, Grant. Today, Ashton speaks
[1:04] Speaker 1: openly about what happened inside his family home and how
[1:08] Speaker 1: he turned this unimaginable trauma into a force for good.
[1:12] Speaker 1: This is a truly remarkable story, but I think a
[1:15] Speaker 1: content warning is appropriate in the circumstances.
[1:19] Speaker 2: Ashton Klein, welcome to I Catch Killers.
[1:22] Speaker 3: Thanks, Gary. It's a pleasure to be here.
[1:24] Speaker 1: Well, thank you for making the time. And I know
[1:27] Speaker 1: what we're talking about is very heavy and will dig
[1:32] Speaker 1: up a lot of emotions for you. But I think
[1:34] Speaker 1: there's a strong message, as we were saying the other day,
[1:36] Speaker 1: there's a strong message that comes out from it too.
[1:39] Speaker 1: So hopefully we can explore that. But I have seen
[1:44] Speaker 1: time and time again working in homicides where people have
[1:50] Speaker 1: experienced unimaginable trauma, how they find their feet afterwards. And
[1:54] Speaker 1: it always amazes me, like, how do you process what
[1:59] Speaker 1: you've been through in your life and still stand here and,
[2:01] Speaker 1: you know, before we started the podcast, we're sitting there
[2:05] Speaker 1: having a joke about things. How do you find the
[2:09] Speaker 1: happiness when you've experienced such darkness?
[2:11] Speaker 3: Yeah, look, it's a question I get asked a lot
[2:16] Speaker 3: and something that I sometimes struggle to answer with, but
[2:20] Speaker 3: the older I get, the more I kind of begin,
[2:23] Speaker 3: I think, to understand what the recipe was for me
[2:28] Speaker 3: for success in finding my feet, because I don't prescribe
[2:32] Speaker 3: to the notion that there is one-size-fits-all approach to recovery
[2:36] Speaker 3: from trauma, but I What I do kind of prescribe
[2:39] Speaker 3: to is that at times in life, you can find
[2:41] Speaker 3: a recipe that works for you. And that recipe needs
[2:44] Speaker 3: sometimes some adjustments and sometimes some fine tuning. And, you know,
[2:50] Speaker 3: a little bit of a pinch of salt here and
[2:52] Speaker 3: a little bit of sugar here and all the rest
[2:53] Speaker 3: of it to make it a little bit sweeter or salty.
[2:56] Speaker 3: And it's a constant kind of... Not a battle, but
[3:01] Speaker 3: a shift in that recipe and how you kind of
[3:04] Speaker 3: balance out the flavors, I guess, of life. So, you know,
[3:07] Speaker 3: at certain points in my life, trauma hits me unimaginably
[3:12] Speaker 3: without me even knowing. And I'll kind of go... all right,
[3:15] Speaker 3: I'm in one of those dark spaces again. What is
[3:18] Speaker 3: it that I have in my toolkit that I've built
[3:22] Speaker 3: over the last 25 years that I can kind of
[3:24] Speaker 3: pull out again and use in this moment? Is it
[3:26] Speaker 3: that I need to shut down completely for a day
[3:29] Speaker 3: and just clear the books and just have nothing happen?
[3:34] Speaker 3: Or is it that I need to tap into, you know,
[3:36] Speaker 3: a really good psychologist? You know, I've been working with
[3:39] Speaker 3: a psychologist now for a consistent psychologist for the last
[3:43] Speaker 3: seven years. And I don't think it's until kind of
[3:46] Speaker 3: the last two years that I've actually started to really
[3:48] Speaker 3: process some of the trauma that happened from my childhood.
[3:53] Speaker 3: I think it's also being, I liked, some people call
[3:56] Speaker 3: it obnoxious, but I like to think of it as
[3:59] Speaker 3: audaciously authentic. You know, you can't take yourself too seriously,
[4:05] Speaker 3: but also, you know, you just have to be you
[4:08] Speaker 3: and you have to kind of, acknowledge that you're going
[4:11] Speaker 3: to sit with this uncomfortable trauma for the rest of
[4:13] Speaker 3: your life. It's never going to go away. It gets
[4:18] Speaker 3: a little easier to sit with and hold, but it never,
[4:22] Speaker 3: ever goes away. And I think it's only when I've
[4:24] Speaker 3: tried to fight that feeling of the emotions and all
[4:29] Speaker 3: of the traumatic instances that have kind of occurred over
[4:31] Speaker 3: my life, when I've tried to fight that, that's when
[4:33] Speaker 3: I've been at my worst. And I think it's only
[4:36] Speaker 3: when I've kind of learned that, hey, I've really got
[4:39] Speaker 3: to learn how to hold this really difficult mass and
[4:42] Speaker 3: this really difficult pain in my life that I've kind
[4:45] Speaker 3: of then reached a point where I've gone, okay, I
[4:47] Speaker 3: can move forward and at least stand, you know. And
[4:51] Speaker 3: I think that's the only thing that works is you've
[4:55] Speaker 3: got to take it as it comes, acknowledge that no
[4:57] Speaker 3: two days are ever going to be the same and
[5:00] Speaker 3: you are continually going to be put back in that
[5:02] Speaker 3: place of being a six-year-old child or a 15-year-old child
[5:07] Speaker 3: that was traumatised consistently throughout your life. And it's never
[5:12] Speaker 3: going to leave you. So, I mean, no one size
[5:16] Speaker 3: fits all. There's no magic solution. There's no book. I've
[5:20] Speaker 3: tried to read them all. But there is a recipe
[5:27] Speaker 3: that works for me. And part of that is Holding
[5:31] Speaker 3: myself to account, but also acknowledging what I need and
[5:35] Speaker 3: putting my needs first. Not easy for someone who comes
[5:39] Speaker 3: from a domestic violence background. So, you know, but the
[5:46] Speaker 3: key in learning to put yourself first and your needs
[5:49] Speaker 3: first is really important, I think.
[5:51] Speaker 1: Well, just in that answer that it shows how much
[5:55] Speaker 1: thought has gone into it, how you're dealing with your situation.
[5:59] Speaker 1: And I like what you say about a toolbox or
[6:02] Speaker 1: a toolkit, that something that works for you. I think
[6:05] Speaker 1: that's a good way of describing the thing that might
[6:08] Speaker 1: work for you, might not necessarily work for someone else.
[6:12] Speaker 1: The other thing, and this is just my observation, looking
[6:15] Speaker 1: at people dealing with the trauma is that it gets
[6:19] Speaker 1: to a point where they realize they're entitled to enjoy
[6:22] Speaker 1: something in life. I've seen people at the worst possible
[6:26] Speaker 1: situations in their life when there's a knock on the
[6:28] Speaker 1: door and a loved one's been murdered. And I'm sure
[6:32] Speaker 1: at that point in time, they can't even envisage ever
[6:35] Speaker 1: smiling again or laughing. What I've seen over the years is,
[6:40] Speaker 1: and I watch it, I observe it, that people that
[6:44] Speaker 1: have been affected by severe trauma, the type of thing
[6:47] Speaker 1: that homicide creates, you see gradually it breaking down where
[6:52] Speaker 1: they allow themselves the opportunity to find some joy in
[6:55] Speaker 1: life and find a little bit of lightness there. I
[6:57] Speaker 1: think that's a stepping stone.
[7:00] Speaker 3: And I think, look, you're absolutely right. One of the
[7:03] Speaker 3: biggest things for me has been rebuilding my self-worth and
[7:08] Speaker 3: gaining a sense of self-identity. Because one of the things
[7:12] Speaker 3: that I grew up with was, one, you had to
[7:15] Speaker 3: tiptoe on eggshells around dad and mum. was always so
[7:21] Speaker 3: busy worrying about protecting us that she never had time
[7:26] Speaker 3: to give us. She gave us a lot of love,
[7:28] Speaker 3: but she never had the time or energy to actually
[7:31] Speaker 3: invest in us as well. So I grew up thinking
[7:34] Speaker 3: that I wasn't good enough. that I had a lot
[7:37] Speaker 3: of shame around the things that I witnessed and wasn't
[7:41] Speaker 3: able to protect my mum from. I had a lot
[7:44] Speaker 3: of shame around my own kind of actions in those
[7:49] Speaker 3: moments and how I responded as a five, six-year-old. And
[7:54] Speaker 3: what that did is it degraded over time my sense
[7:57] Speaker 3: of worth. Add to that I had a father who
[7:59] Speaker 3: continually told me that I wasn't good enough and that
[8:02] Speaker 3: I wasn't a man. And that I would never be
[8:05] Speaker 3: a man. So when you grow up in an environment
[8:07] Speaker 3: like that, that really challenges the fact that you're even
[8:11] Speaker 3: worthy of being a human being. It is really hard
[8:15] Speaker 3: to grapple with the fact that you're actually entitled to
[8:17] Speaker 3: be and live a normal life, you know, and to
[8:20] Speaker 3: be a human being in this world. That takes a
[8:22] Speaker 3: lot of work to build back and a lot of
[8:25] Speaker 3: intentional and deliberate work. And I think that's kind of
[8:30] Speaker 3: the key is that when you decide that you want
[8:32] Speaker 3: to change or break the cycle, it has to be intentional.
[8:35] Speaker 3: It has to be deliberate.
[8:37] Speaker 1: I'd like to think, and maybe there wasn't, but was
[8:40] Speaker 1: there any good memories from your childhood? And just put
[8:42] Speaker 1: it in perspective, you were 15 at the time that
[8:45] Speaker 1: your mother was murdered by your father.
[8:47] Speaker 2: You had a six-year-old brother.
[8:50] Speaker 1: Was there any good memories that you can take away
[8:52] Speaker 1: from your childhood?
[8:54] Speaker 3: Yeah, look, again, it's taken a long time to bring
[8:59] Speaker 3: those through. And I've had to really kind of... siphon
[9:06] Speaker 3: through the... Because prominently, when you experience domestic violence and
[9:12] Speaker 3: domestic homicide, what happens is those memories take precedence in
[9:17] Speaker 3: your mind. So they're at the forefront, right? So you think, well, okay,
[9:20] Speaker 3: I can remember my father kind of dragging my mother
[9:22] Speaker 3: down or coming home drunk and feeling that someone had
[9:26] Speaker 3: been in the house and then spontaneously just erupting into
[9:30] Speaker 3: a violent rage and dragging my mother by the throat
[9:33] Speaker 3: down a dirt driveway. um and then coming back into
[9:37] Speaker 3: the house and holding a knife to my throat um
[9:39] Speaker 3: you know at the age of five um I can
[9:42] Speaker 3: remember clutching a teenage mutant ninja turtle under the bed
[9:46] Speaker 3: wanting protection from my father you know thinking that um
[9:50] Speaker 3: some magical way the teenage mutant ninja turtle Donatello was
[9:53] Speaker 3: going to protect me but I vividly remember that. So,
[9:56] Speaker 3: you know, those memories, they sit at the forefront because
[10:01] Speaker 3: they're kind of the biggest things, you know, especially as
[10:04] Speaker 3: a child, you're forming all these kind of memories and
[10:06] Speaker 3: so forth. But I have some really beautiful memories of,
[10:11] Speaker 3: you know, spending time with my mum. I have some
[10:14] Speaker 3: beautiful times, even spending time with my dad. You know,
[10:18] Speaker 3: I've had to, as I say, sift through the bad
[10:22] Speaker 3: to get to some of the good luck. And there's
[10:25] Speaker 3: even a separation of the moments. Like one of the
[10:28] Speaker 3: things my dad did with me, he used to take
[10:30] Speaker 3: me on the, he was a truck driver, used to
[10:33] Speaker 3: take me on the trucks with him. I would love
[10:35] Speaker 3: being in the truck and being on the road and
[10:37] Speaker 3: getting the CB radio and kind of speaking to all
[10:40] Speaker 3: the truckies and stuff like that. But then we would
[10:42] Speaker 3: pull up into a truck stop and he would sexually
[10:45] Speaker 3: assault me. you know, and that, so I've had to separate, well, okay,
[10:52] Speaker 3: one minute we're driving along the Hume Highway talking to
[10:54] Speaker 3: truckies about, you know, the meat wagons heading south, you know,
[10:57] Speaker 3: that's how they refer to ambulances and so forth. And
[11:01] Speaker 3: then the next minute I'm being sexually assaulted with pornography
[11:04] Speaker 3: in the cab of the truck and so forth, you know,
[11:06] Speaker 3: like it, but in order to kind of gain some
[11:12] Speaker 3: value from my childhood and some kind of value from
[11:15] Speaker 3: my parental, you know, figure of my father, I've had
[11:18] Speaker 3: to kind of spray those are saying, well, okay, he
[11:20] Speaker 3: was still the dad that took me with him on
[11:22] Speaker 3: the truck, you know, he's, he's, you know, and he
[11:25] Speaker 3: still let me play with that CB radio and all
[11:28] Speaker 3: the rest of it. So just to grapple with something that,
[11:32] Speaker 3: to grasp, you know, some kind of tangible relationship and
[11:35] Speaker 3: to believe that, inherently he loved me, you know, because
[11:40] Speaker 3: ultimately what we're all seeking in life is, is, is love. And, and,
[11:43] Speaker 3: you know, um, that's, that's really hard to grapple with
[11:45] Speaker 3: when someone treats you like that.
[11:47] Speaker 2: Wow.
[11:49] Speaker 1: Um, yeah, it's just, uh, the things that you experience
[11:53] Speaker 1: and the way that you're processing it just sort of blow, uh, well,
[11:56] Speaker 1: it blows me away. Let's, uh, let's talk a bit
[11:59] Speaker 1: about your, your mum, uh, the, the type of person
[12:02] Speaker 1: your mum was. Cause, uh, she was, uh, killed in
[12:05] Speaker 1: the most violent of ways at the hands of your father.
[12:09] Speaker 1: But tell us a bit about your mum, because to me,
[12:12] Speaker 1: my observation and in the discussions that we've had and
[12:16] Speaker 1: the research that I've looked at, she was an exceptional lady.
[12:20] Speaker 3: She really was. I mean, not only for just enduring
[12:24] Speaker 3: the violence that she did for the sake of us children.
[12:27] Speaker 3: I mean, that in itself was for 20 years to
[12:32] Speaker 3: endure the violence and tolerate it because she knew that
[12:36] Speaker 3: she couldn't financially support us children. That in itself, I think,
[12:42] Speaker 3: is a phenomenal thing to recognise, her character, the strength
[12:47] Speaker 3: of her character in enduring all of that. But I
[12:49] Speaker 3: like to think that, I mean... I kind of curse
[12:54] Speaker 3: her because she gave me curls. I straighten my hair
[12:56] Speaker 3: every day as a result of the curls that she
[12:58] Speaker 3: gave me.
[12:58] Speaker 1: Ashton, I respect you, but have a look at my head.
[13:02] Speaker 3: We've all got things we've got to deal with. We've
[13:06] Speaker 3: all got things, right? So every morning I stand in
[13:09] Speaker 3: the mirror and I curse her because she gave me
[13:11] Speaker 3: her curls. But some of the best things, the relational
[13:15] Speaker 3: aspects that I have with people, the things that she
[13:19] Speaker 3: taught me about love, about kindness, about being sincere, about
[13:24] Speaker 3: being authentic and genuine, they all come from her. And
[13:30] Speaker 3: the strength to continue, I believe, came from her as
[13:33] Speaker 3: well because she You know, no matter how many times
[13:37] Speaker 3: she got beaten, she was raped so many times in
[13:41] Speaker 3: front of me that I lost count. My father used
[13:45] Speaker 3: to kind of, he would have this power thing where
[13:48] Speaker 3: he would come home in a drunk rage and he
[13:51] Speaker 3: would say to me, I'm going to make you a man.
[13:53] Speaker 3: And he would make me watch him rape my mother
[13:56] Speaker 3: in front of me as a five, six-year-old. Yeah. Um,
[14:00] Speaker 3: and you know, the amount of times that, that she
[14:02] Speaker 3: endured that in itself, just, just gives so much strength
[14:06] Speaker 3: to her character and, and speaks volumes. You know, the,
[14:09] Speaker 3: the funny thing is we grew up in a really
[14:10] Speaker 3: poor situation. Like we live kind of week to week.
[14:15] Speaker 3: My mum, she had this beautiful honesty about her where
[14:20] Speaker 3: people trusted her inherently, you know, and, um, I remember
[14:25] Speaker 3: they separated nine months before her murder and dad took
[14:29] Speaker 3: all the power tools, you know, the whippersnapper, the lawnmower,
[14:33] Speaker 3: all the rest of it that was his stuff. And
[14:38] Speaker 3: I was kind of then responsible for the lawns and
[14:40] Speaker 3: so forth. To make my job easier, she got a
[14:43] Speaker 3: brand new whippersnapper on credit, you know, just walked into
[14:47] Speaker 3: the shop and said, look, you know, I can't afford this.
[14:49] Speaker 3: We really need it. And the guys just said, yeah, look,
[14:52] Speaker 3: give us 20 bucks a week and pay this off.
[14:55] Speaker 3: I remember that because when she was murdered, The shop
[15:00] Speaker 3: contacted us and said, look, you don't have to– she's
[15:03] Speaker 3: only paid $ 120 or something so far, and she was
[15:06] Speaker 3: paying it off on a fortnightly basis, but you're welcome
[15:09] Speaker 3: to keep it, you know. And I just– What came
[15:13] Speaker 3: through for that and what I've kind of learned from
[15:15] Speaker 3: that is she had this kind of trustworthiness about her
[15:19] Speaker 3: that just kind of shone through without you even knowing.
[15:22] Speaker 3: So the fact that, you know, she could walk into
[15:24] Speaker 3: a Husqvarna shop and say, look, I need a whippersnapper.
[15:29] Speaker 3: And then them to say, look, you know, take the
[15:32] Speaker 3: $ 400 whippersnapper and pay it off at $ 20 a week.
[15:35] Speaker 3: just really represented her character. And I think the trust
[15:39] Speaker 3: that she had in the community, she was friendly with everyone,
[15:45] Speaker 3: loved everyone. When that nine months, that nine month period
[15:49] Speaker 3: where they separated, she kind of found a real purpose
[15:55] Speaker 3: in herself and started to rebuild her own self-worth in
[15:58] Speaker 3: a way. She started inviting people around to the house
[16:01] Speaker 3: and she had some female friends that she wasn't allowed
[16:03] Speaker 3: to hang around with or have around when dad was around.
[16:08] Speaker 3: And that was just really beautiful to see. She really
[16:11] Speaker 3: blossomed during that period and really flourished. And I think
[16:14] Speaker 3: that's ultimately what culminated in her death at the hands
[16:19] Speaker 3: of my father.
[16:20] Speaker 1: Well, Yeah, there's so many platitudes that you could say
[16:24] Speaker 1: about your mum. I think the most remarkable thing is
[16:29] Speaker 1: how you've turned out and that you go into the
[16:34] Speaker 1: melting pot of you're raised by your mother and father.
[16:37] Speaker 1: I'm not saying that your father taught you a lot
[16:40] Speaker 1: of values, but something's come through. And so we attribute
[16:43] Speaker 1: that to your mum. And I'm sure she's very proud
[16:47] Speaker 1: of you, what you've become, the man that you've become now.
[16:52] Speaker 3: And I think, Gary, one of the things for me
[16:55] Speaker 3: is I've always tried to, and it's one of the
[16:57] Speaker 3: things I had great difficulty in foster care or growing
[17:00] Speaker 3: up in foster care, because I've always tried to instill
[17:04] Speaker 3: in both Grant and I and keep in Grant and
[17:07] Speaker 3: I an element of mum alive. And it's why we
[17:10] Speaker 3: didn't fit in foster care and why we had so
[17:11] Speaker 3: many challenges in foster care. is that we weren't moldable
[17:16] Speaker 3: really because I was trying to retain some of the
[17:19] Speaker 3: values and some of the real kind of grip onto,
[17:23] Speaker 3: I guess, in a tangible way, some of the attributes
[17:26] Speaker 3: of my mum during that foster care. And it made
[17:29] Speaker 3: it really difficult for foster carers because they just wanted
[17:32] Speaker 3: us to fit into their family and kind of just be,
[17:35] Speaker 3: you know, and here I am going, no, no, no,
[17:37] Speaker 3: that's not what our mum would do. I want to
[17:38] Speaker 3: do it this way.
[17:40] Speaker 2: I can imagine there would have been some conflict.
[17:45] Speaker 1: Your mother and father's upbringing, did that play a part
[17:48] Speaker 1: in the people they became?
[17:50] Speaker 3: The older I get and the more I understand about
[17:52] Speaker 3: my mother and father's history, the more I understand how
[17:55] Speaker 3: the dynamics of their relationship, you know, kind of came
[17:58] Speaker 3: to be. So my mother and father were both from
[18:02] Speaker 3: large families. My mother from a family of 16 children.
[18:06] Speaker 3: And so this is the 1951 mum was born. So,
[18:09] Speaker 3: you know, the 50s and 60s.
[18:10] Speaker 2: Yep.
[18:15] Speaker 3: Mum from a family of 16, dad from a family
[18:18] Speaker 3: of 15. Both really kind of poor, you know, circumstances,
[18:24] Speaker 3: impoverished circumstances. Both ended up losing siblings and at times
[18:30] Speaker 3: themselves being put into what I can only describe as
[18:34] Speaker 3: kind of homes, I guess, so children's homes and care.
[18:37] Speaker 3: And And my father in particular. So my mother, well,
[18:44] Speaker 3: my mother experienced domestic violence and rape from her father.
[18:49] Speaker 3: So had a sexual assault background with her father. And,
[18:56] Speaker 3: you know, my father then went in, or when he
[18:59] Speaker 3: was growing up, went into many boys' homes and was
[19:01] Speaker 3: sexually assaulted as well and was the victim of uh
[19:06] Speaker 3: violence in those homes and i mean you know in
[19:08] Speaker 3: the 60s i guess.
[19:09] Speaker 1: Yeah just and everyone turned turned a blind eye to
[19:13] Speaker 1: it and uh yeah.
[19:15] Speaker 3: Exactly yeah so he kind of grew up a fairly
[19:18] Speaker 3: rough childhood my mother also um but but she kind
[19:22] Speaker 3: of pulled her life together i guess that's probably where
[19:24] Speaker 3: i get my strength to be honest is that she
[19:26] Speaker 3: kind of pulled her life together she got a job
[19:28] Speaker 3: waitressing uh the age of 15 and started to build
[19:32] Speaker 3: a life and that's when she met my father um Um,
[19:35] Speaker 3: she was married at the age of 17, uh, and, uh,
[19:40] Speaker 3: and they kind of, uh, got married as a result
[19:43] Speaker 3: of that. And the, the older I get and the
[19:46] Speaker 3: more reading I do and the more research I do
[19:48] Speaker 3: into domestic and family violence and sexual assault and rape
[19:53] Speaker 3: and all of those really big kind of phenomenas and crimes,
[19:59] Speaker 3: the more I understand that the dynamics of the people
[20:01] Speaker 3: that come together really fuels quite a lot of that.
[20:05] Speaker 3: Not to say that it's anyone's fault, but the backgrounds
[20:09] Speaker 3: of the people that come together in those kind of
[20:12] Speaker 3: relationships feeds kind of a symbiosis, you know, in a
[20:16] Speaker 3: way that, My father, you know, coming from a really
[20:20] Speaker 3: angry kind of background of having been abused in a
[20:23] Speaker 3: boy's home and lost his power and so forth, really fought.
[20:26] Speaker 3: And I could see it right through my childhood, really
[20:29] Speaker 3: fought for a sense of power and belonging. And my
[20:32] Speaker 3: mother felt a sense of control in being a victim,
[20:37] Speaker 3: you know, in a way that kind of allowed for
[20:41] Speaker 3: her to... Attempt to control my father's behavior for so long,
[20:47] Speaker 3: you know, that that her sense of kind of control
[20:51] Speaker 3: was being in an uncontrollable environment. And I think that's
[20:54] Speaker 3: true for a lot of victims that that they've kind
[20:58] Speaker 3: of grown up or they've had experiences with domestic and
[21:01] Speaker 3: family violence really. You know, kind of chaotic environments that
[21:07] Speaker 3: you have to walk on eggshells with and their sense
[21:09] Speaker 3: of control comes from a sense that they may be
[21:12] Speaker 3: able to change that person or they may be able
[21:14] Speaker 3: to control the next situation that occurs. And I think
[21:18] Speaker 3: that's what brings a lot of perpetrators with a lot
[21:21] Speaker 3: of victims together in this. And, you know, I mean,
[21:25] Speaker 3: I'm not an expert. It's just what I've learned, you know,
[21:28] Speaker 3: and what I've seen.
[21:29] Speaker 1: Well, it's very complex what you're talking about. But anecdotally,
[21:34] Speaker 1: I'd say that you're on the money. Quite often you
[21:37] Speaker 1: see someone that's grown up in, you know, as a
[21:41] Speaker 1: child in a domestic violence relationship, end up in that
[21:45] Speaker 1: same environment as an adult. So I'm sure it plays
[21:49] Speaker 1: a part. And that type of trauma, that type of
[21:53] Speaker 1: environment has an impact. As you described right at the start,
[21:59] Speaker 1: you carry that with you the whole way through your life.
[22:01] Speaker 3: I spend a lot of my adult life thinking to myself,
[22:05] Speaker 3: just whatever you do, don't be your father. you know,
[22:09] Speaker 3: it's constantly there. The voice is there. And I can't imagine,
[22:13] Speaker 3: I have constraint, I have understanding, but I have more importantly,
[22:18] Speaker 3: a curiosity about it. And I'm willing to explore that.
[22:23] Speaker 3: For someone like my father, who was not in tune
[22:27] Speaker 3: with it, was not willing to engage with it, um,
[22:30] Speaker 3: and not willing to explore it with a curious, I mean,
[22:32] Speaker 3: words like curiosity were not even around, you know, in the,
[22:35] Speaker 3: you know, can you imagine someone sitting in the seventies
[22:37] Speaker 3: and saying, now let's, let's be curious about your childhood here. Uh,
[22:41] Speaker 3: you know, like it just, it, I wasn't around, but
[22:44] Speaker 3: it didn't, it didn't exist. I'm sure that the level
[22:46] Speaker 3: of therapy and psychotherapy that is available now, um, But
[22:52] Speaker 3: through that lens of curiosity, I've been able to kind
[22:54] Speaker 3: of go, okay, well, what is it that I'm feeling
[22:56] Speaker 3: right now? And why is it that I'm feeling like that?
[22:58] Speaker 3: And where does that come from? And I can sit
[23:02] Speaker 3: with it, you know, uncomfortably sit with it, but still
[23:05] Speaker 3: sit with it. And I think that's important. You know,
[23:07] Speaker 3: I don't... I don't kind of break out into anger
[23:09] Speaker 3: or anything like that. And I think that's really important to,
[23:12] Speaker 3: to kind of, um, for me to, to kind of
[23:15] Speaker 3: understand and for me to kind of grow from that
[23:18] Speaker 3: and go, this is breaking the cycle, you know, being
[23:21] Speaker 3: curious about it and understanding it and understanding the driving
[23:23] Speaker 3: points is the, is the breaking the cycle for me.
[23:27] Speaker 2: Well, it allows that emotional regulation that, uh, yeah, is
[23:31] Speaker 2: so important, uh, in, in dealing with, uh, situations.
[23:35] Speaker 1: And, uh, I think the fact that two men like
[23:38] Speaker 1: us are sitting here talking about this now, probably 20
[23:42] Speaker 1: years ago we wouldn't be having this conversation.
[23:45] Speaker 2: People would be going, what are these two people talking about?
[23:48] Speaker 1: But, yeah, the complexities of it and the cycle that continues,
[23:53] Speaker 1: it is so complex. Your brother, Grant, he came into
[23:59] Speaker 1: your world. I picked up on something that you're a
[24:03] Speaker 1: little bit jealous that someone came in and took your–
[24:06] Speaker 1: Took your attention away?
[24:07] Speaker 3: Took my top spot, mate, yeah.
[24:08] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
[24:09] Speaker 3: Well, and I think, you know, that kind of comes
[24:11] Speaker 3: from the fact that there wasn't much attention to go around,
[24:15] Speaker 3: you know. So there was dad who was preoccupied with
[24:23] Speaker 3: sleeping with other women and, you know, violently assaulting my
[24:27] Speaker 3: mum and me and there wasn't much love around. You know,
[24:32] Speaker 3: mum was, as I say, tiptoeing on eggshells and then
[24:35] Speaker 3: The way that they attempted to resolve their conflict was
[24:39] Speaker 3: to have another child. And, you know, I think, yeah,
[24:45] Speaker 3: there was definitely some jealousy there. And particularly because Grant
[24:50] Speaker 3: has end-stage kidney disease. He developed it when he was
[24:54] Speaker 3: 18 months old. So he's... level of attention, uh, the
[24:59] Speaker 3: required attention when he was a child, there was a
[25:02] Speaker 3: lot of focus on him and his healthcare needs. Um,
[25:05] Speaker 3: so then there was, uh, you know, as I've come
[25:07] Speaker 3: to understand it, you know, there was, there was Ashton, um, at,
[25:11] Speaker 3: at kind of 15, uh, you know, kind of going, well, where's,
[25:15] Speaker 3: where am I in this zoo? You know, like, uh,
[25:17] Speaker 3: where do I sit and where's my attention? So, so
[25:20] Speaker 3: I did a But I kind of demanded my mum's attention,
[25:28] Speaker 3: you know, on a few occasions and things like that.
[25:31] Speaker 3: demanded the most expensive of things that were not affordable
[25:35] Speaker 3: and all the rest of it. I just did the
[25:37] Speaker 3: typical kind of teenage, you know, selfishness thing or the,
[25:41] Speaker 3: I think from probably about 12 or so, I can
[25:43] Speaker 3: kind of remember that kind of behavior. You know, I
[25:47] Speaker 3: want the best of everything because I don't get any attention.
[25:51] Speaker 3: Look at, woe is me, you know, and there's Grant,
[25:54] Speaker 3: there's Grant suffering with kidney disease, you know. But, Lo
[25:58] Speaker 3: and behold, Grant's the best thing that's ever happened to
[26:02] Speaker 3: me in terms of my life. And, you know, you
[26:04] Speaker 3: asked me earlier what I think the thing is that's
[26:08] Speaker 3: gotten me through. And to be honest, it's our brotherhood.
[26:12] Speaker 1: That's another layer of this story that I think will
[26:16] Speaker 1: just blow people away and probably bring tears to people's eyes,
[26:20] Speaker 1: the love and the bond that you two have got.
[26:23] Speaker 1: When you say the kidney disease, is this severely impacted
[26:28] Speaker 1: on the way he could live his life? Do you
[26:30] Speaker 1: want it for people who are not familiar with the disease,
[26:32] Speaker 1: the type of thing?
[26:33] Speaker 3: So interestingly, my father's wish to donate a kidney ultimately
[26:42] Speaker 3: resulted in my mother's murder. So they were.
[26:47] Speaker 3: Grant was five at the time and he developed kidney
[26:52] Speaker 3: disease at the age of 18 months old, was born
[26:54] Speaker 3: with it, but it progressed to end stage kidney disease
[26:56] Speaker 3: at the age of kind of 18 months old where
[26:58] Speaker 3: he was symptomatic. He was about to commence peritoneal dialysis,
[27:05] Speaker 3: which is a form of renal replacement therapy. His kidneys
[27:09] Speaker 3: were insufficiently functioning. My mother and father were tested as donors,
[27:15] Speaker 3: and my mother was the preferred donor because my father
[27:18] Speaker 3: had a cyst on his kidneys. And he remained adamant
[27:23] Speaker 3: that he should be the one to donate a kidney
[27:27] Speaker 3: to Grant as his right as a father and his
[27:32] Speaker 3: duty as a father. And so the fact that my
[27:37] Speaker 3: mother was the preferred donor, his argument in court was
[27:42] Speaker 3: that he wanted to donate a kidney to Grant and
[27:46] Speaker 3: she was preventing him from doing that. which is pretty
[27:50] Speaker 3: bloody hard to hear and pretty hard for Grant to
[27:54] Speaker 3: grapple with as well. I can't imagine what that's like.
[27:59] Speaker 3: But ultimately, mum's murder resulted in burns to 99% of
[28:05] Speaker 3: her body. She died on that day, the 27th of
[28:09] Speaker 3: September 2000, and that resulted in Grant then enduring a
[28:14] Speaker 3: life of dialysis. He's had two cadaveric donors, two donations
[28:20] Speaker 3: from cadaveric donors. Both kidneys that he's received have failed,
[28:25] Speaker 3: and he's now... 33 years old, having lived almost 25
[28:32] Speaker 3: years on dialysis now and will be for the remainder
[28:37] Speaker 3: of his life now as a result of that.
[28:40] Speaker 1: Well, it adds to the complexity of what's gone on
[28:45] Speaker 1: in the family. And when you're talking about the donation
[28:48] Speaker 1: and your father, It's that, I don't know. I don't
[28:52] Speaker 1: know him, but I know the type and what you've described.
[28:55] Speaker 1: It's that macho bullshit.
[28:56] Speaker 2: I'm the man. I'll supply the kidney. Just ridiculous.
[29:00] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[29:02] Speaker 1: There was a happy period in your life, that nine
[29:05] Speaker 1: months where you moved out from the family home, but
[29:10] Speaker 1: that was on the back of your father threatening your
[29:13] Speaker 1: life with a knife. Tell us about that incident and
[29:16] Speaker 1: then what that resulted in.
[29:19] Speaker 3: The most bizarre of evenings that evening, as I said,
[29:25] Speaker 3: we didn't have the most luxurious of homes. In fact,
[29:27] Speaker 3: our home was infested with cockroaches, so I'd often find
[29:30] Speaker 3: them in my room. My dad had been out that day.
[29:37] Speaker 3: He'd had a few drinks, but ultimately, whenever we were
[29:41] Speaker 3: in the home, we kind of had to keep our
[29:43] Speaker 3: voice down. He complained of migraines all the time and
[29:46] Speaker 3: hearing things and all the rest of it. And so
[29:48] Speaker 3: we were always told to be quiet. Um, I, I
[29:53] Speaker 3: was about nine o'clock at night and, uh, I remember
[29:56] Speaker 3: seeing a cockroach in my room and I thought, all right,
[29:58] Speaker 3: I'm going to get, I'm going to get this sucker.
[29:59] Speaker 3: And I, I, as I walked to the cupboard to
[30:01] Speaker 3: get the fly spray out of my room to the
[30:03] Speaker 3: kitchen cupboard to get the fly spray, I just muttered, um,
[30:07] Speaker 3: I'm going to kill you, you bastard. And suddenly I
[30:11] Speaker 3: was thrown up against a wall without me knowing from behind.
[30:14] Speaker 3: My father came from behind, grabbed me, spun me around,
[30:18] Speaker 3: put his hands around my neck, pushed me up against
[30:20] Speaker 3: a wall and then grabbed a knife out and threatened
[30:25] Speaker 3: to kill me. And he'd obviously in his mind thought
[30:30] Speaker 3: that I was saying to him, I'm going to kill you,
[30:32] Speaker 3: you bastard. I don't really understand what had happened, but
[30:36] Speaker 3: in his mind... you know, here's this kind of 15
[30:40] Speaker 3: year old guy who, uh, you know, has taken his
[30:43] Speaker 3: beatings all his life and suddenly he's going to revolt
[30:46] Speaker 3: against him. I didn't, you know, I don't know how
[30:48] Speaker 3: that kind of came up in his mind, but anyway,
[30:50] Speaker 3: that resulted in probably the bravest act my mum's ever
[30:54] Speaker 3: kind of committed really. And that, that is that she
[30:57] Speaker 3: finally made the decision to, um, go through the court system,
[31:01] Speaker 3: get a restraining order against my father. Um, he, he
[31:05] Speaker 3: never returned to our home, our rented home. And, um,
[31:09] Speaker 3: He moved a few streets away and he had a
[31:12] Speaker 3: kind of restraining order of 200 metres or whatever it was.
[31:16] Speaker 3: But we had a really, I can just remember returning
[31:21] Speaker 3: from the police station and and him not being there
[31:25] Speaker 3: and just a sense of calm, you know, like, like
[31:29] Speaker 3: we just experienced this traumatic night and I'd been to
[31:32] Speaker 3: the police station all night and they're taking photographs and
[31:34] Speaker 3: all the rest of it, you know, but, um, the calm,
[31:38] Speaker 3: it was just like, we could talk at a volume
[31:41] Speaker 3: that wasn't, you know, going to set someone off. Um,
[31:44] Speaker 3: you know, we could, that whole nine month period that
[31:47] Speaker 3: we had from kind of January right through to September
[31:52] Speaker 3: in 2000, there were no eggshells, you know, I could,
[31:56] Speaker 3: I could play, play, you know, cars with Grant and
[32:00] Speaker 3: the lounge and make as much noise as we wanted.
[32:03] Speaker 3: And there wasn't a kind of an upheaval of the
[32:06] Speaker 3: whole house and there wasn't walls being smashed in the
[32:08] Speaker 3: middle of the night. And, and, all sorts of things.
[32:10] Speaker 3: You know, we'd kind of wake up some nights at
[32:13] Speaker 3: 2am and suddenly there was a fist going through the wall,
[32:16] Speaker 3: you know, like we'd been waking up with that just
[32:18] Speaker 3: because he decided he wanted to get some anger out,
[32:21] Speaker 3: you know, or we'd hear mum screaming because she was
[32:24] Speaker 3: being raped, you know, in the middle of the night.
[32:27] Speaker 3: So all of that, you know, I don't know if
[32:29] Speaker 3: you can imagine kind of growing up in that environment,
[32:31] Speaker 3: but you're literally just tiptoeing on eggshells. And then suddenly
[32:34] Speaker 3: when all that's gone, wow, the pressure valve just releases
[32:38] Speaker 3: and you're like, oh my God. This is what calm is.
[32:42] Speaker 1: And I could imagine how intoxicating that was to you,
[32:46] Speaker 1: having peace in a household, because that's how a household works.
[32:50] Speaker 2: Should be.
[32:50] Speaker 1: And it was something that was completely foreign to you.
[32:53] Speaker 1: So I can imagine that it would have been like
[32:55] Speaker 1: a breath of fresh air coming through. Yeah.
[32:57] Speaker 3: I mean, you know, for nine months, with that said,
[33:01] Speaker 3: the house was as calm as it had ever been.
[33:03] Speaker 3: We were laughing. We were joking. You know, we even
[33:06] Speaker 3: got away at a five-day holiday. You know, unknown. Holidays
[33:10] Speaker 3: were absolutely unknown to us unless they involved us. some
[33:14] Speaker 3: kind of weird plot uh around my father you know
[33:17] Speaker 3: kind of he went up to Queensland one time with
[33:20] Speaker 3: us and said oh yeah I've got everything organized we
[33:21] Speaker 3: arrived and we we slept on the beach because we
[33:23] Speaker 3: had no no accommodation nothing you know like um so
[33:29] Speaker 3: family holidays were just totally unknown to us we got
[33:32] Speaker 3: away on a houseboat for for five nights and I
[33:36] Speaker 3: remember one of the funniest memories I have of my
[33:38] Speaker 3: mum is she was absolutely shit scared of the rocking
[33:42] Speaker 3: of boats. And it was only on the Murray River,
[33:44] Speaker 3: you know, no kind of ocean. You don't take a
[33:46] Speaker 3: houseboat in the ocean, obviously. But, you know, a speedboat
[33:49] Speaker 3: would go past and she'd grab her suitcase, pack it,
[33:53] Speaker 3: lay down on the floor with her suitcase packed because
[33:57] Speaker 3: the boat was rocking, you know. And I thought, I'm
[34:00] Speaker 3: not sure how that's going to save you. But, geez,
[34:02] Speaker 3: it was funny.
[34:03] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[34:05] Speaker 3: So she was she's absolutely but she she pushed herself
[34:09] Speaker 3: out of her comfort zone like she was so uncomfortable
[34:11] Speaker 3: on that on that holiday but because she was in
[34:14] Speaker 3: a strange environment um and she just left a man
[34:18] Speaker 3: after 20 years of being beaten and raped and all
[34:20] Speaker 3: the rest of it but you know she was willing
[34:23] Speaker 3: to do that for us kids to give us a
[34:24] Speaker 3: memory that was kind of tangible and i think When
[34:28] Speaker 3: she passed, one of the things I thought is, thank
[34:31] Speaker 3: God we got that time. You know, thank God we
[34:35] Speaker 3: had that five days away of just blissful. You know,
[34:39] Speaker 3: five days in 15 years is, you know, it's not much,
[34:43] Speaker 3: but gosh, it meant the world to us.
[34:46] Speaker 1: As a 15-year-old boy, did you think, okay– happy days
[34:51] Speaker 1: from here on like did you think that the courts
[34:55] Speaker 1: now that we've got because you would think the police
[34:57] Speaker 1: sit up there the courts and okay we've got that
[35:00] Speaker 1: in everything's going to be fine now we're safe did.
[35:03] Speaker 3: You did you i thought mum had the support she
[35:06] Speaker 3: needed yeah i thought she had the support that she
[35:09] Speaker 3: needed to to turn things around and to really give
[35:13] Speaker 3: us uh not not give us but but to support
[35:17] Speaker 3: us in um a life moving forward you know and
[35:20] Speaker 3: i thought I thought, right, it's Grant, mum and I now.
[35:23] Speaker 3: We are a unit and we're a really solid unit.
[35:27] Speaker 3: We've got each other's backs and we're going to be safe.
[35:29] Speaker 3: We're going to be safe. We've got this restraining order
[35:32] Speaker 3: that's in place. You know, he can't come around. Mind you,
[35:37] Speaker 3: we'd wake up and he'd be outside the window, you know,
[35:40] Speaker 3: at 3am in the morning, you know, kind of, you know,
[35:43] Speaker 3: looking at us and peering in and just haunting us almost. So,
[35:48] Speaker 3: you know, and the police were called a number of
[35:50] Speaker 3: times and all the rest of it. He constantly called
[35:54] Speaker 3: the house to make sure that we were home, you know.
[35:57] Speaker 3: And ultimately, I guess, yeah, I genuinely thought things were
[36:04] Speaker 3: going to be different. Yeah. You know, I genuinely thought
[36:07] Speaker 3: things were going to be different.
[36:09] Speaker 1: We'll talk about domestic violence in general in part two
[36:14] Speaker 1: and those red flags that you've just talked about and
[36:17] Speaker 1: the indicators that something bad was going to happen. I
[36:19] Speaker 1: think we're becoming more aware to the situations, but we'll
[36:23] Speaker 1: talk about that later in the podcast. But in regards,
[36:28] Speaker 1: how did it escalate to the point, and I know
[36:30] Speaker 1: you've reliving a horror situation, but can you tell us
[36:34] Speaker 1: about the day that your mum was murdered by your
[36:38] Speaker 1: dad and what happened on the day?
[36:41] Speaker 3: Look, I've tried to forget, but unfortunately I cannot. So
[36:47] Speaker 3: it's one of those things, you know, I mean, even
[36:49] Speaker 3: when you said, when I said earlier, it's a pleasure
[36:53] Speaker 3: to be here, I thought, well, actually it's not, you know,
[36:55] Speaker 3: I've been through this horrible thing. But it's a a
[37:00] Speaker 3: very vivid memory for me. I specifically remember we, mum
[37:05] Speaker 3: had made a new friend, uh, in the community. So this, uh,
[37:08] Speaker 3: he was an older guy. I think he was maybe
[37:10] Speaker 3: about 70 or so. And, and mum was, um, 48
[37:14] Speaker 3: at the time. Um, but, uh, but this guy she'd met, uh,
[37:19] Speaker 3: because he was doing some window repairs at our house
[37:21] Speaker 3: on the rental. And, um, And he– I was really excited.
[37:25] Speaker 3: Mum didn't drive, and so we had no vehicle. We had–
[37:30] Speaker 3: you know, Dad was the only one that kind of
[37:32] Speaker 3: drove and took the car, obviously. So we– all my
[37:35] Speaker 3: friends are kind of going places, you know, every weekend
[37:38] Speaker 3: and having a lovely life and– We were kind of
[37:43] Speaker 3: stuck at home, I guess. So 27th of September 2000,
[37:48] Speaker 3: we're planning to go to Beechworth, actually, with mum's new friend, Alan, who...
[37:55] Speaker 3: Lovely guy, and we kind of planned this for a
[37:57] Speaker 3: couple of weeks. We planned it around Grant's treatment and
[38:00] Speaker 3: all the rest of it. And I was just really
[38:03] Speaker 3: looking forward to being in a car and getting out
[38:05] Speaker 3: of the town, to be honest, Clarebrum. And I thought, oh,
[38:08] Speaker 3: I've never been to Beechworth. It really just, you know,
[38:10] Speaker 3: nice to go somewhere else. So we're planning that. A
[38:15] Speaker 3: few weeks kind of before that, Dad starts kind of calling,
[38:18] Speaker 3: saying he really needs to see Grant on this particular
[38:21] Speaker 3: day and that there's– a whole bunch of toys that
[38:27] Speaker 3: kind of mum needs to come and sort out at
[38:30] Speaker 3: his caravan. And I remember kind of mum, you know, saying, oh, look,
[38:38] Speaker 3: I'll just keep the peace and I'll just go around
[38:40] Speaker 3: there and do it. You know, I'll do it in
[38:41] Speaker 3: the morning. We'll get it done in the morning. I'll
[38:43] Speaker 3: be quick, come back. Alan will be here about 10
[38:46] Speaker 3: o'clock and then we'll go. And I remember pleading with her,
[38:51] Speaker 3: just don't give in to him. Just, you know, don't
[38:54] Speaker 3: do it. No, no, no. She said, look, it's easier
[38:57] Speaker 3: if I just keep the peace and make it work.
[39:00] Speaker 3: And I'll take Grant around and you'll see Grant and
[39:03] Speaker 3: he'll be happier that way and he'll stop calling. and
[39:06] Speaker 3: uh so she walked out at 8 a.m and i
[39:10] Speaker 3: i just remember kind of you know one last beg
[39:13] Speaker 3: of please don't go you know i really kind of
[39:16] Speaker 3: don't want you to go and and i remember watching
[39:19] Speaker 3: her and grant walk down the street um and uh
[39:26] Speaker 3: the next thing i know about an hour later um
[39:30] Speaker 3: i had a knock on the door uh from one
[39:32] Speaker 3: of the patient services assistants and and grant was with
[39:36] Speaker 3: her And she looked at me and she said, there's
[39:39] Speaker 3: been an accident. You've got to come to the hospital.
[39:43] Speaker 3: And Grant looked at me and he said, I tried, Ash.
[39:46] Speaker 3: I really tried. And I said, you tried what? And
[39:51] Speaker 3: I just gave him a massive hug. And he said,
[39:53] Speaker 3: I really tried to save her. And, you know, he's
[39:58] Speaker 3: only six at this time. And the patient services assistant
[40:03] Speaker 3: said to me, come down to the hospital, you know,
[40:05] Speaker 3: just get whatever you need and then come to the hospital.
[40:08] Speaker 3: And there's been an accident. So we got in the
[40:10] Speaker 3: car and Grant just kept saying, I tried. I really tried.
[40:14] Speaker 3: And I couldn't work out kind of what it was
[40:19] Speaker 3: and what had happened. And anyway, we We got to
[40:23] Speaker 3: the hospital and there was a whole lot of commotion
[40:26] Speaker 3: around the hospital. Kyabrum's a town of 6,000, not many
[40:30] Speaker 3: people there, a whole lot of ambulances there, the police
[40:33] Speaker 3: were there and I thought, what's going on here? And
[40:40] Speaker 3: got there and the doctor came out and said, your
[40:42] Speaker 3: mum's been severely burnt and her chances of survival are
[40:49] Speaker 3: not good and she likely won't make it. And so
[40:53] Speaker 3: that's really all that I knew at that time. You know, Grant... Grant,
[41:01] Speaker 3: I think, was... Look, he is the strongest human being
[41:05] Speaker 3: that I've ever met in my life, to be honest.
[41:08] Speaker 3: And as a six-year-old, I cannot even begin to imagine
[41:13] Speaker 3: how he kept it together that day.
[41:15] Speaker 2: He was.
[41:18] Speaker 3: more rational than any adult I've ever met in a
[41:20] Speaker 3: traumatic situation. And in my time as an ICU nurse
[41:25] Speaker 3: and all the rest of it, I've met a lot
[41:27] Speaker 3: of adults who experienced trauma. And he was the most
[41:33] Speaker 3: together human being that I've ever met in such a circumstance.
[41:38] Speaker 3: He told me that he was in playing cars. He
[41:43] Speaker 3: heard a loud bang and then some shouting and some screaming.
[41:48] Speaker 3: And then Dad came in through the back door, grabbed him,
[41:54] Speaker 3: put him in the car and then tried to drive off.
[41:59] Speaker 3: He'd forgotten the keys. So Grant saw through the gap
[42:03] Speaker 3: of a steel fence that Mum was running around the
[42:07] Speaker 3: backyard in a ball of fire. And so Grant had
[42:13] Speaker 3: the power to open the car door and try to
[42:19] Speaker 3: reach her with a garden hose through the locked steel fence.
[42:25] Speaker 3: And he said to me, I kept calling her to
[42:27] Speaker 3: come closer because I couldn't get through the gate ash.
[42:31] Speaker 3: I cried.
[42:33] Speaker 1: I can't even imagine what you're talking about there. So
[42:37] Speaker 1: you've got Grant at six years of age, seeing his
[42:41] Speaker 1: mum crying um, running around in a ball of flame
[42:44] Speaker 1: and he's trying to hose it down through a small
[42:47] Speaker 1: hole in a steel fence with a, uh, a garden
[42:51] Speaker 1: hose and asking her to come closer.
[42:53] Speaker 2: Like I just, it's horrific.
[42:56] Speaker 3: Uh, you know, and then, uh, the, the notion that
[43:00] Speaker 3: he felt he needs to apologize to, to me, to,
[43:04] Speaker 3: to say, I just couldn't save her, you know? Um,
[43:07] Speaker 3: and then, and then he recounted for me, um, He said, oh,
[43:14] Speaker 3: I called the police and I called the ambulance and
[43:17] Speaker 3: I called the fire brigade.
[43:18] Speaker 2: What a little hero.
[43:21] Speaker 3: I said, mate, I cannot even believe that. The little
[43:25] Speaker 3: funny side story to this that really kind of represents
[43:30] Speaker 3: our brotherhood, I guess, is Grant and I, you know,
[43:34] Speaker 3: in the nine months that Dad had been gone, Grant
[43:38] Speaker 3: was really obsessed with security firms and he was really
[43:41] Speaker 3: interested in setting up a security company at the age
[43:46] Speaker 3: of six. So we created a fictitious security company and
[43:51] Speaker 3: he came up with the name Albano Security Company. Um, and, uh,
[43:55] Speaker 3: and I even had for his April birthday of 2000,
[43:58] Speaker 3: I had him, um, shirts and a cap made. Um,
[44:02] Speaker 3: and I had me one made as well that had
[44:04] Speaker 3: Albano security and our phone number on it and, uh,
[44:07] Speaker 3: all the rest of it. So we walked around the house,
[44:09] Speaker 3: kind of, I was the managing director and he was
[44:11] Speaker 3: the CEO, um, um and uh it was really cool
[44:15] Speaker 3: the the funny thing was we had this um so
[44:19] Speaker 3: so being a 15 year old i wanted the latest
[44:21] Speaker 3: technology obviously and um and i the latest technology at
[44:25] Speaker 3: that time was a philips savvy believe it or not
[44:28] Speaker 3: a philips savvy mobile phone um they don't even make
[44:31] Speaker 3: phones anymore i'm sure philips but anyway i don't even
[44:33] Speaker 3: know if the company exists but I had one of
[44:35] Speaker 3: those really bulky leather cases on it, you know, that
[44:38] Speaker 3: were cool back in the day. Yeah, you know. Sure,
[44:42] Speaker 3: you're familiar with those, Gary. Not today. But you used
[44:46] Speaker 3: to clip it to your belt, add a belt clip
[44:48] Speaker 3: on it. Anyway, that morning, as they were leaving, I
[44:51] Speaker 3: said to Grant, here, take the Albano's phone. It was
[44:55] Speaker 3: our primary kind of phone service. So I said, take
[44:59] Speaker 3: the Albano's phone, and if you need me, I'm here. Right. So...
[45:04] Speaker 3: he had this, he proudly kind of strutted down the
[45:07] Speaker 3: street as he left with this Salbano security, uh, phone
[45:10] Speaker 3: on his, on his, um, tracky decks that were too,
[45:13] Speaker 3: too loose and they were falling down the phone, but
[45:16] Speaker 3: he held it so, so proudly. I still vividly remember
[45:19] Speaker 3: that memory, but, um, he, um, he managed to call
[45:23] Speaker 3: triple zero on that phone. Um, and, uh, I listened to,
[45:29] Speaker 3: during the Supreme Court hearing, I listened to the recording
[45:32] Speaker 3: of that triple zero call. That was probably the hardest
[45:37] Speaker 3: thing that I've ever listened to, to be honest. So
[45:40] Speaker 3: he called the triple zero operator. And at the age
[45:43] Speaker 3: of six, he had to spell out Kyabrum for the
[45:49] Speaker 3: operator and the street name. And then answer the question,
[45:55] Speaker 3: what service do you require for a six year old,
[45:59] Speaker 3: for a six year old who then says to the operator,
[46:03] Speaker 3: all of them, my mother is on fire.
[46:05] Speaker 2: Wow.
[46:06] Speaker 3: And, and that then gets the help that she needs.
[46:11] Speaker 3: So he, he's telling me, I'm really sorry, but, but
[46:15] Speaker 3: I did manage to get help, you know, and I just,
[46:20] Speaker 3: I just break down at that point. Um, But it's
[46:25] Speaker 3: just phenomenal, the heroism, the capacity, the strength and the
[46:32] Speaker 3: courage to fight my father, who's also burnt because when
[46:36] Speaker 3: he doused my mum in petrol and closed the door
[46:40] Speaker 3: and then threw a match in, he's got burns that
[46:45] Speaker 3: he self-inflicted. So Grant talked about in the Supreme Court
[46:49] Speaker 3: hearing that the smell of burning flesh on my father
[46:54] Speaker 3: as he grabbed him and moved through the house and
[46:57] Speaker 3: threw him in the car. I just can't even fathom
[47:03] Speaker 3: how my brother managed to, my brother, and I say
[47:07] Speaker 3: that so proudly, managed to do all of that in
[47:11] Speaker 3: that moment. Most adults would not even have the capacity
[47:15] Speaker 3: in that moment to do that whilst they're being restrained,
[47:18] Speaker 3: you know, by someone.
[47:20] Speaker 2: Well, a little hero.
[47:22] Speaker 3: Absolutely. Absolutely. He deserves the absolute best life that anyone
[47:30] Speaker 3: could have. And unfortunately, he's been robbed of that by
[47:34] Speaker 3: my father.
[47:36] Speaker 1: You've described the situation there. You go down to the hospital.
[47:41] Speaker 1: You're trying to process what's going on. I would imagine
[47:44] Speaker 1: the trauma that you've seen conditions you to a certain degree,
[47:47] Speaker 1: but this has been taken to another level. What happened
[47:51] Speaker 1: when you got to the hospital? Did you have people
[47:55] Speaker 1: you could rely on?
[47:56] Speaker 3: So mum's friend, Alan, who was driving us to Beechworth
[48:02] Speaker 3: that day, Kaibam's a pretty small town. He got wind
[48:07] Speaker 3: that there was an accident, obviously, and that it involved mum, Viola.
[48:13] Speaker 3: And he comes down to the hospital and the hospital says, look,
[48:18] Speaker 3: it's unlikely that your mum will survive. However, because we
[48:24] Speaker 3: are a regional hospital, we're going to send her, we're
[48:27] Speaker 3: going to airlift her to the Alfred, the major centre
[48:31] Speaker 3: for burns. And they do that. And so Alan says, right,
[48:38] Speaker 3: do you want to go? And we hightail it to
[48:42] Speaker 3: Paran from Kyabrum, which is at that time the New
[48:46] Speaker 3: Hume Highway and Bypass wasn't there, so a three-hour drive
[48:51] Speaker 3: to walk into the Alfred Hospital, a fairly– I can
[48:56] Speaker 3: remember walking in there going– boy from the country. What
[49:01] Speaker 3: is this place? This city, I have no idea where
[49:05] Speaker 3: I am and what I'm doing. And I can't even
[49:09] Speaker 3: think of my name right now. And we stop at
[49:11] Speaker 3: the information desk and we ask about mum. And this
[49:15] Speaker 3: this I remember that the vivid look that comes over
[49:17] Speaker 3: the person's uh face and she says she's in ICU
[49:24] Speaker 3: we get to ICU and uh I'm screaming I just
[49:28] Speaker 3: want to see mum and Grant's screaming where's where's our
[49:30] Speaker 3: mum and uh and this nurse and this doctor kind
[49:34] Speaker 3: of gets us and says coming you've got to come
[49:36] Speaker 3: into this room We go, no, no, no, we just
[49:40] Speaker 3: want to see mum. And they say, you can't right now,
[49:45] Speaker 3: but come into this room. And then they sit us
[49:48] Speaker 3: down and they say to us, unfortunately, your mum has
[49:51] Speaker 3: passed away. And I then say to them, I don't
[49:59] Speaker 3: believe you. I don't believe you. Let me see her.
[50:06] Speaker 3: I cannot believe. that I said, see you in an
[50:11] Speaker 3: hour to my mother this morning at 8am. And suddenly
[50:17] Speaker 3: we're in Paran at the Alfred Hospital and you're telling
[50:20] Speaker 3: me that my mother is dead. Let me see her.
[50:22] Speaker 3: And they said, we wouldn't advise that. And I say
[50:28] Speaker 3: to them, if you don't let me see my mother,
[50:30] Speaker 3: I'm going to scream and kick and do all of
[50:34] Speaker 3: the things that a 15-year-old would do. And they asked me,
[50:37] Speaker 3: are you sure? and say, I am not going to
[50:42] Speaker 3: believe that she is dead until you show me her.
[50:47] Speaker 3: So they have a little discussion outside the room, and
[50:50] Speaker 3: then they say, only you, not Grant.
[50:53] Speaker 1: So you're standing there, you've demanded to see your mother's body,
[50:59] Speaker 1: and they've taken you into a room, and you've pulled
[51:03] Speaker 1: the curtain back.
[51:07] Speaker 3: Yeah, and... And as I kind of visualize that space
[51:13] Speaker 3: right now, I can remember the overpowering smell of burnt flesh,
[51:19] Speaker 3: what I now know as burnt flesh. And I look at,
[51:24] Speaker 3: I move to the head of the bed. And I
[51:33] Speaker 3: see my mother who has burns to 99% of her body.
[51:38] Speaker 3: She's unrecognizable. They're telling me that it's my mother. And
[51:47] Speaker 3: I can vividly remember at that point acknowledging that my
[51:53] Speaker 3: mum was gone. Just saying to myself, this is it.
[52:02] Speaker 3: And then I look at her and I say to her,
[52:04] Speaker 3: no matter what, I will always look after Grant. And
[52:12] Speaker 3: then I try to grab her hand and hold her
[52:16] Speaker 3: hand and realise that her body's covered in gasoline and
[52:23] Speaker 3: all sorts of fluids and all the rest of it.
[52:25] Speaker 3: But I just whisper one more time, no matter what,
[52:29] Speaker 3: I'll always look after Grant. And then I'm ushered away
[52:33] Speaker 3: by nurses and doctors who then close the curtain and
[52:40] Speaker 3: put us into a little room, Grant and I, and Alan,
[52:45] Speaker 3: who was there at the time. And we sit there
[52:50] Speaker 3: in silence. And I'm just holding Grant at that stage.
[52:55] Speaker 3: Grant and I are just holding each other and.
[53:01] Speaker 3: He turns to me and says, I really tried, Ash.
[53:04] Speaker 3: I really tried. And, you know, I just, I can't
[53:09] Speaker 3: imagine what's going through his mind at that point. I mean,
[53:12] Speaker 3: what was going through mine was how are we going
[53:15] Speaker 3: to get through this? And what I had to do
[53:19] Speaker 3: in that moment or what I felt I had to
[53:20] Speaker 3: do was swiftly pack my grief away and say, Grant
[53:29] Speaker 3: needs looking after. I've made a promise to mum and
[53:34] Speaker 3: I'm now in charge of looking after Grant. So that's
[53:37] Speaker 3: my responsibility now. And I've got that lifelong. So what
[53:43] Speaker 3: happens now is what medications does Grant need? um it's
[53:49] Speaker 3: dinner time by now um and he's due he's due
[53:53] Speaker 3: his caltrate tablets is what i say because i know
[53:56] Speaker 3: that every night and with every meal he needs caltrate
[53:58] Speaker 3: tablets uh to bind his bloody phosphate and that's what
[54:02] Speaker 3: i'm thinking in that room is where are his medications
[54:08] Speaker 3: did i bring them yes i remember i brought them
[54:11] Speaker 3: i remember i got them okay we can do this
[54:14] Speaker 3: Let's get his medications out. Grant, are these the right medications?
[54:18] Speaker 3: Is this what mum normally gives you? And I was
[54:21] Speaker 3: thrown into that practical kind of element of caring almost
[54:25] Speaker 3: immediately because for me, that's all that I knew. Survival
[54:31] Speaker 3: was moving forward and keeping shit together, you know. I
[54:36] Speaker 3: had a responsibility and that was the only thing that
[54:39] Speaker 3: got me up off that couch in that tiny little
[54:41] Speaker 3: room at the Alfred Hospital was the fact that I
[54:43] Speaker 3: had Grant.
[54:44] Speaker 1: Well, yeah, you're 15 too. Like it's, you're talking with
[54:50] Speaker 1: the wisdom of a person, an adult person that's lived
[54:54] Speaker 1: their whole life, but you're 15 and you had to,
[54:57] Speaker 1: all of a sudden your childhood was gone. If you
[55:00] Speaker 1: even had a childhood, but your childhood was gone at
[55:03] Speaker 1: that stage. And all of a sudden you took on
[55:05] Speaker 1: all the responsibilities of an adult.
[55:07] Speaker 2: So yeah.
[55:09] Speaker 1: And I've said it once, I think I'll say it
[55:12] Speaker 1: many times, your mum would be so proud of who
[55:15] Speaker 1: you are and how you dealt.
[55:18] Speaker 2: With such a horrific situation.
[55:21] Speaker 1: The way you described it, and I apologise for having
[55:26] Speaker 1: you relive those memories, but for people to understand what
[55:30] Speaker 1: domestic violence is about and the impact of domestic violence,
[55:34] Speaker 1: they need to hear the story from people like yourself
[55:38] Speaker 1: that have seen it.
[55:39] Speaker 2: And understand it.
[55:40] Speaker 3: And you know what, Gary? Sharing mum's story and our story,
[55:47] Speaker 3: it gives purpose to mum's murder. Because if someone can
[55:53] Speaker 3: learn something from the actions or whatever it might be,
[55:58] Speaker 3: the behaviours, the understanding of the dynamics in their relationship,
[56:03] Speaker 3: or if I can give something back through mum's murder...
[56:09] Speaker 3: it means that she wasn't murdered in vain, you know.
[56:12] Speaker 3: And I think that's the important part. I don't talk
[56:16] Speaker 3: today to, you know, ask for any pity or anything
[56:21] Speaker 3: like that. What I do is I share mum's story,
[56:23] Speaker 3: our journey, so that her memory lives on and that
[56:27] Speaker 3: she wasn't murdered for nothing. Not that anyone should be,
[56:32] Speaker 3: but just so that her memory continues to live on
[56:36] Speaker 3: and that people can grow from that.
[56:38] Speaker 1: By hearing your story, so many lessons can be learned,
[56:42] Speaker 1: understanding the impact indicators. We're going to talk heavily about
[56:48] Speaker 1: that in part two, but we've got to prevent these
[56:52] Speaker 1: type of things happening. I think we'll take a break
[56:56] Speaker 1: for part one. We haven't touched on the fact that
[57:01] Speaker 1: you're dealing with the trauma that you've just described, and
[57:04] Speaker 1: then the realisation that this wasn't an accident. It was
[57:08] Speaker 1: in fact a murder and your father was responsible for
[57:10] Speaker 1: the murder. So in terms of a life being turned
[57:13] Speaker 1: upside down, I don't know how it could have become
[57:17] Speaker 1: more complex or complicated for you. But I'm also going
[57:22] Speaker 1: to say this, Ashton, you blow me away, the way
[57:27] Speaker 1: that you articulate what you've been through. And I know
[57:30] Speaker 1: what you're doing now. And yeah, I've Find inspiration from
[57:34] Speaker 1: people like you. And I don't say that lightly. We
[57:36] Speaker 1: have a lot of people that come through on the podcast.
[57:40] Speaker 1: But yeah, you're exceptional. And your description of what Grant
[57:46] Speaker 1: did as a six-year-old too.
[57:48] Speaker 2: Where's his... citizen of the year medal like it's uh look.
[57:52] Speaker 3: Yeah absolutely he uh he he was nominated for for
[57:56] Speaker 3: young young australian of the year and and uh you
[57:59] Speaker 3: know he should have bloody got it to be honest.
[58:01] Speaker 1: What you and grant have been through is just no
[58:04] Speaker 1: one should have to go through it but uh the
[58:07] Speaker 1: way you've both reacted is.
[58:08] Speaker 2: A testament to your mum so yeah just full
[58:11] Speaker 1: Credit to you thanks gary anyway let's let's have a
[58:14] Speaker 1: break and we'll see you back for uh part two
[58:17] Speaker 1: shortly Thank you.

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