# From running the streets to begging for death: Gaz Wright Pt. 1

An episode of [I Catch Killers with Gary Jubelin](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1506667049), 6 Jun 2026, 58 min.

Audio: https://p.podderapp.com/2544644999/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/2fb3740d-3436-44af-8cc0-a91900716aa5/5bc8c2ed-b718-4f44-beb3-ac2a005246cc/13f456ff-7016-42fd-8650-b4600032c867/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=786928c3-10c1-4cef-a7bf-ac2a005246d0

The criminal underworld is a grubby place, it welcomes anyone willing to make bad choices. And Gaz Wright made plenty of them. In this episode of I Catch Killers, Gary sits down with Gaz, a former gang leader, drug dealer, and serious violent offender from Melbourne’s western suburbs, who served almost a decade in prison, and who once called the police on himself hoping they’d shoot him dead. Then, the karma he'd accumulated finally caught up with him in the most brutal way possible. Still, Gaz found a way forward. Subscribe to our new Youtube channel. 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.
[0:05] Speaker 1: Detective sy aside of life the average person is never
[0:08] Speaker 1: exposed to. I spent thirty four years as a cop.
[0:11] Speaker 1: For twenty five of those years I was catching killers.
[0:14] Speaker 1: That's what I did for a living. I was a
[0:16] Speaker 1: homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead,
[0:20] Speaker 1: I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.
[0:23] Speaker 1: The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories
[0:26] Speaker 1: from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
[0:28] Speaker 1: and honest, just like the people I talked to. Some
[0:31] Speaker 1: of the content and language might be confronting. That's because
[0:34] Speaker 1: no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged.
[0:38] Speaker 1: Join me now as I take you into this world.
[0:46] Speaker 1: The criminal underworld is a grubby place. It welcomes anyone
[0:50] Speaker 1: willing to make bad choices, and Gaz right made plenty
[0:53] Speaker 1: of them. For decades, Gas lived in a world where
[0:57] Speaker 1: violence was a currency and where survival in the most
[1:00] Speaker 1: dangerous person in the room. Gazz's criminal reasure may runs
[1:04] Speaker 1: deep assaults, drug dealing, kidnappings, even allegations of murder. Then
[1:10] Speaker 1: the karma he accumulated finally caught up with him in
[1:13] Speaker 1: the most brutal way possible. Still, Gaz found the way forward.
[1:17] Speaker 1: This is an ugly story about crime and its consequences,
[1:21] Speaker 1: and perhaps the content warning is appropriate given the subject matter.
[1:26] Speaker 1: Gary Gazz right, welcome to our Catch.
[1:28] Speaker 2: Killers, Gary Jubilin, Thank you now, I've heard of yours,
[1:33] Speaker 2: Gaz right, Gary right?
[1:34] Speaker 1: What do you prefer being referred to us? Okay?
[1:37] Speaker 2: I was using in trouble. When people call me Gary,
[1:40] Speaker 2: it's a little form.
[1:41] Speaker 1: What about yourself? Do you get Gary when you're in
[1:44] Speaker 1: the ship and it's a bit of a bit of
[1:46] Speaker 1: a funny name, now, Gary, isn't it fu? Gary? Yeah?
[1:50] Speaker 2: Have you got one or two? Us?
[1:51] Speaker 1: One? All right? Okay, Well we'll get over being Gary's
[1:56] Speaker 1: but you can be Gazz for Gazz for the episode.
[1:59] Speaker 1: Thank you now, I guess in prepping for the podcast,
[2:02] Speaker 1: and I've obviously heard about you and know about you,
[2:05] Speaker 1: and a few mutual friends have steered me in your direction.
[2:09] Speaker 2: Danny Glenn, if you shil Danny Shannon, Jeffrey Morgan, yeah,
[2:13] Speaker 2: close friends of mine.
[2:14] Speaker 1: Yeah, well I know him well too, and they all
[2:16] Speaker 1: speak highly.
[2:17] Speaker 2: Obviously doing good things in the community as well.
[2:19] Speaker 1: I love stories of redemption and they're classics for it.
[2:24] Speaker 1: But also giving people an understanding of what the world
[2:27] Speaker 1: of crime is like, because I think people are fascinated
[2:31] Speaker 1: by true crime, but it's almost looking at the surface
[2:35] Speaker 1: of it and glorifying it. You can see the cool
[2:37] Speaker 1: things that happened in the crime, but speaking to people
[2:41] Speaker 1: like you, I think it allows people to understand, well,
[2:44] Speaker 1: you know, it can be a bit messy in the
[2:47] Speaker 1: world of crime. I know part of your platform now
[2:51] Speaker 1: is trying to help people and steer them away from it,
[2:54] Speaker 1: and I think it's an important message.
[2:55] Speaker 2: And we're doing a good job too. Yeah, definitely doing
[2:58] Speaker 2: a good job at pushing a positive messages, we would say,
[3:01] Speaker 2: and helping others, you know, which is what it's all about,
[3:03] Speaker 2: because let's be honest, you know, you've got to start somewhere.
[3:05] Speaker 2: But some people get online and they said, I've been
[3:08] Speaker 2: here and I've done that, and you shouldn't do it. Yeah, Like,
[3:11] Speaker 2: that's great if people are going to listen, But what
[3:13] Speaker 2: else have you got to offer, you know? And I
[3:15] Speaker 2: think people like me, Danny Glenn and Morges, we're really
[3:18] Speaker 2: getting our hands dirty in the community in a positive way,
[3:20] Speaker 2: which I think is great.
[3:22] Speaker 1: And demonstrating that that's possible and can be done for
[3:25] Speaker 1: a time. I've also you've mentioned karma a lot in
[3:31] Speaker 1: interviews that you've done or when you're speaking to people.
[3:34] Speaker 1: Do you believe in karma? Hask come back to bite
[3:37] Speaker 1: you and got.
[3:38] Speaker 2: Me a beauty? Yeah, massive part of why I do
[3:42] Speaker 2: what I do today. Like, yeah, I don't. There's a
[3:46] Speaker 2: lot of ups and downs in my life. And then
[3:49] Speaker 2: and then the downs ended up out weighing the ups,
[3:52] Speaker 2: and I had to take accountability. You know, you create
[3:55] Speaker 2: your own reality, Like this is what we do. We
[3:58] Speaker 2: are in charge of our destiny, and life doesn't happen
[4:01] Speaker 2: to us, it happens for us. And when I woke
[4:03] Speaker 2: up to that, I was like, Okay, well this is
[4:05] Speaker 2: all meant to be. I'm only getting what I put out,
[4:09] Speaker 2: And so yeah, I thought, enough of being a bad guy,
[4:12] Speaker 2: let's let's start being a good guy.
[4:13] Speaker 1: Well, I think it's a good starting point. You've got
[4:15] Speaker 1: you've got the way that you can go through as
[4:17] Speaker 1: a victim. And there's a lot of people who've got
[4:19] Speaker 1: some shit starts to life, and you understand why they
[4:22] Speaker 1: fall into that path, but at some point in time,
[4:25] Speaker 1: to dig your way out. You really got to say, Okay,
[4:28] Speaker 1: well that shit happen, but yeah, I can take control
[4:32] Speaker 1: of my destiny.
[4:33] Speaker 2: It's all about owning your shit in it. I think
[4:34] Speaker 2: that's a big part of where while we're in the heill,
[4:37] Speaker 2: we would say in the healing space, you know, and
[4:39] Speaker 2: a big part of it is taking accountability, owning your ship,
[4:42] Speaker 2: having a hard long look in. Yeah, you know, addressing
[4:45] Speaker 2: shame and guilt. But then on the back of shame
[4:47] Speaker 2: and guilt is forgiveness. You know, no one wants to
[4:49] Speaker 2: walk around with their head down for the rest of
[4:51] Speaker 2: their life because of the things they've done wrong. So
[4:53] Speaker 2: you know, you need to find love in your heart
[4:55] Speaker 2: for yourself, which is very important, and forgive yourself and
[4:58] Speaker 2: then from there, you know, you can only go up.
[5:01] Speaker 1: I've heard people plenty of people have sat in that
[5:03] Speaker 1: chair where you are, or people I've come across in life,
[5:07] Speaker 1: and sometimes that forgiveness you've got to be able to
[5:10] Speaker 1: forgive yourself to And I would imagine the lifestyle that
[5:14] Speaker 1: you lived, the gangster lifestyle that you lived, there'd be
[5:18] Speaker 1: a lot that you're just going to go, Okay, well
[5:21] Speaker 1: that was the old me.
[5:23] Speaker 2: I'm different there, Yeah, I mean, I've forgiven people for
[5:26] Speaker 2: things they've done to me, and that's important. It's not like,
[5:31] Speaker 2: you know, I had to ring them and say I
[5:33] Speaker 2: forgive you, because let's be honest, you know, if we
[5:35] Speaker 2: can find forgiveness for people that have done wrong to us,
[5:39] Speaker 2: it's not always because they deserve it, you know, but
[5:41] Speaker 2: forgiving them for my peace is a no brainer. And
[5:45] Speaker 2: then obviously more important than that is forgiving self. You know,
[5:48] Speaker 2: we have to find love, because forgiveness is love, and
[5:51] Speaker 2: we have to find love for self before we find
[5:54] Speaker 2: love for anybody else, I think.
[5:55] Speaker 1: And forgiving others to find peace for yourself. I think
[5:58] Speaker 1: it's an interesting interest in concept.
[6:01] Speaker 2: And it's hard. Like there's people who have wrong, man,
[6:03] Speaker 2: I fucking hate them, But I've also learned that hang
[6:09] Speaker 2: on to that is just they're not sitting there thinking
[6:12] Speaker 2: about thinking about me.
[6:14] Speaker 1: I'm destroying myself. So I understand the forgiveness is for
[6:19] Speaker 1: bringing peace to yourself. We're going to talk talk about
[6:23] Speaker 1: your life and most importantly talk about what you're doing
[6:26] Speaker 1: and the direction your life is heading in now and
[6:29] Speaker 1: the good, positive stuff that you're doing. I just want
[6:32] Speaker 1: to give people a sense. But before we talk about
[6:34] Speaker 1: your childhood. There was one episode in your life that
[6:38] Speaker 1: was I think significant, but it gives people an understanding
[6:42] Speaker 1: of how low your life was. I've called it in
[6:46] Speaker 1: my notes suicide by cop, and you know the incident
[6:51] Speaker 1: I'm talking about, and we don't have to put it
[6:54] Speaker 1: in context what led up to it or what occurred
[6:57] Speaker 1: after it, but just tell us about that incident, because
[6:59] Speaker 1: I think people will get sceense of how dark the
[7:02] Speaker 1: world can be for people.
[7:04] Speaker 2: So I'd come home from prison trying to skim over there,
[7:07] Speaker 2: like you said before, and the after I come home
[7:09] Speaker 2: from prison with this mindset of I wanted to do
[7:12] Speaker 2: the right thing. I'd had enough. I had enough that
[7:15] Speaker 2: life I was about. I was moving into my mid thirties,
[7:18] Speaker 2: and you know, by that stage it had just been
[7:21] Speaker 2: I was an active criminal, served just over seven years
[7:24] Speaker 2: prison for obviously you know, crimes that I've been caught for.
[7:28] Speaker 2: You beat it a really big case. I sat in
[7:31] Speaker 2: front of the courts. You know, I would have been
[7:32] Speaker 2: lucky to get fifteen if I was found guilty beat
[7:35] Speaker 2: that had to serve a little time on a lesser charge.
[7:37] Speaker 2: Come home and was like, well, I'm not doing this anymore.
[7:40] Speaker 2: You know, what is your career choice, This is stuff done.
[7:42] Speaker 2: And there wasn't much, you know, there was a lot
[7:44] Speaker 2: of drug activity, but I wasn't a user, so I didn't.
[7:47] Speaker 2: I was the guy in the area that sold drugs
[7:49] Speaker 2: that didn't take it. And yeah, and I had this
[7:52] Speaker 2: mindset of I want to turn my life around and
[7:55] Speaker 2: got a good girl, as we would say, from that life,
[7:58] Speaker 2: a straight girl, a couple of kids. You know, we
[8:01] Speaker 2: were taking the kids to school and you know, getting
[8:05] Speaker 2: dinners done by six and I was in bed by
[8:07] Speaker 2: ten thirty and all the normal stuff. And I wasn't
[8:09] Speaker 2: used to this normal life, living like a citizen, living
[8:12] Speaker 2: like it's yeah civilian, yeah, literally, and it was totally
[8:15] Speaker 2: new to me, like I'd never ever done it. From
[8:17] Speaker 2: the time I was a teenager, I was living, as
[8:20] Speaker 2: we would say, free, doing whatever I want, whatever I want,
[8:23] Speaker 2: whenever I wanted. And it didn't work out too well.
[8:27] Speaker 2: You know, there was some resistance along the way, and
[8:30] Speaker 2: I had to learn the hard way. But anyway, so
[8:32] Speaker 2: I just pushed through. And little did I know that
[8:35] Speaker 2: I had so much baggage from that old life. It
[8:37] Speaker 2: was just I was suppressing, suppressing, suppressing, suppressing and one day,
[8:42] Speaker 2: it just exploded. It just exploded. One morning. I woke
[8:45] Speaker 2: up in tears, didn't know what was happening. Within fifteen
[8:49] Speaker 2: minutes of that, you know, I tried to hang myself
[8:52] Speaker 2: out the back under the bogola, and yeah, it was
[8:57] Speaker 2: just it all happened really quick and actually was not successful.
[9:03] Speaker 2: I hit the ground. I'm sitting on my bum and
[9:06] Speaker 2: I'm looking around and at that time, leaving that old
[9:08] Speaker 2: life behind and the trying this new life. I can
[9:11] Speaker 2: remember leading up to that morning in my head and
[9:13] Speaker 2: I couldn't say anything. I couldn't talk to anybody about
[9:15] Speaker 2: the way I felt. But in my head, I kept thinking,
[9:18] Speaker 2: I can't do this, and I'll be honest exactly what
[9:20] Speaker 2: was going through me. I can't do this straighthead shit.
[9:22] Speaker 2: That's what every day, three or four times a day,
[9:25] Speaker 2: it dawned on me. I can't do this straight ahead shit.
[9:27] Speaker 2: But then I just keep pushing through, and I decided
[9:29] Speaker 2: I'm not going to hurt anybody. I'm going to sell drugs.
[9:31] Speaker 2: I'm going to try and be a good guy. And
[9:33] Speaker 2: I was trying and just consumeing. Obviously, I feel like
[9:37] Speaker 2: we suppressed, we suppressed, we suppressed the emotions are always
[9:40] Speaker 2: going to come to the surface, and when they do,
[9:42] Speaker 2: they explode. We have no control over them. And you know,
[9:45] Speaker 2: we verbally or physically hurt someone around us. Even worse
[9:48] Speaker 2: than that, we verbally or physically hurt our loved ones.
[9:50] Speaker 1: So can I just at that particular point in time,
[9:53] Speaker 1: just getting the sense of your mindset and your emotional stability.
[9:57] Speaker 1: At that point you're trying to live the straight life,
[10:01] Speaker 1: You've still got inclination being drawn back to the life
[10:04] Speaker 1: that you knew because it's an easier life for you,
[10:07] Speaker 1: or it's a life that you knew. You're struggling with
[10:09] Speaker 1: the straight life, and that was the type of emotions
[10:12] Speaker 1: you're going through, because the straight life can be hard
[10:15] Speaker 1: to like doing the right thing and I love.
[10:18] Speaker 2: It, people now I love it. I wouldn't going back
[10:22] Speaker 2: to that old life. I get anxiety just thinking about it. Yeah,
[10:25] Speaker 2: But the transition from that old life to where I
[10:28] Speaker 2: am today, there was this bit in the middle that was, Yeah,
[10:32] Speaker 2: it was really really hard, and people that have never
[10:35] Speaker 2: lived an active criminal career path whatever you want to
[10:38] Speaker 2: call it, probably wouldn't understand. But if I was to
[10:42] Speaker 2: say to someone that was a civilian listen. We're going
[10:45] Speaker 2: to run around in cars that aren't registered in our name.
[10:48] Speaker 2: We're going to have houses that aren't registered around our name.
[10:50] Speaker 2: We're going to carry guns, we're going to push drugs.
[10:52] Speaker 2: If another team comes our way, we're gonna have to
[10:54] Speaker 2: go to war with them at any stage. If we
[10:56] Speaker 2: slip up the police can get us, we could do years. Also,
[11:00] Speaker 2: if another team gets a leg up on us, we
[11:02] Speaker 2: might be dead. This is what we're going to do,
[11:04] Speaker 2: and this is how we live. It's easy money, it's
[11:06] Speaker 2: fast money. We're going to live in the fast lane.
[11:07] Speaker 2: We live day to day, and this is what we're
[11:08] Speaker 2: going to have an anxiety attack, Well, it was exactly
[11:11] Speaker 2: the same for me when you said you're going to
[11:14] Speaker 2: get up at seven in the morning, you're gonna be
[11:15] Speaker 2: in bed by ten thirty. You're going to main thing
[11:18] Speaker 2: is probably gonna worry about it, taking the bins out
[11:20] Speaker 2: and make sure the lawn's mode. You know, like all
[11:22] Speaker 2: that is just consumed me. It seems like it doesn't.
[11:24] Speaker 2: When I even hear myself say it doesn't seem stressful.
[11:27] Speaker 2: I suppose it to be like a rock star lifestyle.
[11:29] Speaker 2: And then someone's told now you're just going to live
[11:31] Speaker 2: and everyday life you're gonna have to make sure the
[11:32] Speaker 2: bills are paid to be like well.
[11:34] Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you know, it's a different type of pressure.
[11:36] Speaker 1: But the gangster life soul that you describe be high anxiety, like, yeah,
[11:41] Speaker 1: you enjoy it the highs, but the lowers can be
[11:43] Speaker 1: at any moment, it's all people like my ex mates
[11:47] Speaker 1: could be kicking the door in and that's see you
[11:50] Speaker 1: for the next twenty years exactly. So. But the time
[11:54] Speaker 1: that you got that lower, that sort of the mindset
[11:57] Speaker 1: you're in where you got that low that you actually
[11:59] Speaker 1: call the cops on yourself.
[12:01] Speaker 2: Yeah, So I fell down on me bum and I
[12:04] Speaker 2: was looking around and at that time, I can remember
[12:06] Speaker 2: feeling really hopeless. I thought what was going through my
[12:08] Speaker 2: head was you can't even take yourself out, you know,
[12:10] Speaker 2: like it was just because there was obviously ego. Ego
[12:14] Speaker 2: was you know, I was trying to suppress that. But
[12:17] Speaker 2: where something special We can do this, don't you know
[12:19] Speaker 2: who I am? You know all that mentality, And you
[12:23] Speaker 2: know that's how I always thought I sat on a
[12:25] Speaker 2: throne in my area. You know, it wasn't the joke
[12:27] Speaker 2: on me because it was you know, real downtime, and
[12:31] Speaker 2: so I'm sitting on my bum, I'm looking at my thought.
[12:33] Speaker 2: You know, you can't even take yourself out. You know.
[12:35] Speaker 2: I felt worthless. I really did. Couldn't even succeed at
[12:39] Speaker 2: that let alone, you know, live a nine to five,
[12:42] Speaker 2: and so I from being really emotional. I got up
[12:45] Speaker 2: that morning, within like fifteen twenty minutes of being up,
[12:47] Speaker 2: crying tears of streaming. Anxiety has gone through the roof.
[12:51] Speaker 2: So I can't do this. I'm tapping out. Tried what
[12:53] Speaker 2: I tried didn't work, and then sat on my bum,
[12:56] Speaker 2: felt really down and worthless. From there it went to
[12:58] Speaker 2: anger and I went you think I'm a goose like
[13:01] Speaker 2: you know, That's why I started that mentality. You think
[13:03] Speaker 2: I'm a dickhead, and and I thought, I'll show everybody
[13:07] Speaker 2: in my mentality at that stage, tunnel vision was well
[13:10] Speaker 2: all end up on the front page, shot by police.
[13:13] Speaker 2: That's the easiest way out, and it's all finished like
[13:17] Speaker 2: a gangster, you know. That was my mentality at that time.
[13:20] Speaker 2: And I've gone out for bang. It's my last laugh,
[13:22] Speaker 2: my last crack of the whip, my last rah, you know.
[13:25] Speaker 1: And people will be talking talking about you're going you
[13:28] Speaker 1: went out guns blaze.
[13:29] Speaker 2: That was my mentality. So I thought, yep, and I
[13:31] Speaker 2: grabbed the police. You grab the phone. I rang the
[13:33] Speaker 2: local police station and I said, it's right, you know,
[13:37] Speaker 2: I said, I'm living this address. I'm a SVO. Was
[13:40] Speaker 2: a serious file and offender. I said, you want to
[13:42] Speaker 2: get here, I'm going to I'm going to hurt someone.
[13:44] Speaker 2: There was no one in the house. It was just me.
[13:47] Speaker 2: This has gone the work, kids have gone school, and yeah,
[13:51] Speaker 2: and the lady on the phone, so who was a
[13:53] Speaker 2: lady obviously on the desk the police stop, she and
[13:56] Speaker 2: excuse me. I said, you fucking heard what I said.
[13:58] Speaker 2: So I'm only saying it once and hang up the phone.
[14:00] Speaker 2: So give him a dress, my name all that, and thought,
[14:03] Speaker 2: now I'm gonna win. They come ou. I'm gonna grab
[14:04] Speaker 2: a knife, I'm gonna run out the front ba back.
[14:08] Speaker 2: So in that time, I'm pacing around and trying to
[14:12] Speaker 2: you know, And I can remember it was almost like
[14:14] Speaker 2: sitting off. I could see myself like going through the motions,
[14:18] Speaker 2: and I can remember, like, you know, thinking, well, what
[14:20] Speaker 2: are you doing? Like this is huge, Like you backed
[14:23] Speaker 2: yourself into a corner. This is going to be a
[14:25] Speaker 2: really bad day, but the emotions are taken over. Like
[14:28] Speaker 2: the ball was rolling, there was no stopping me. But
[14:31] Speaker 2: I can remember thinking, what what are you doing? But
[14:34] Speaker 2: had already done. What was going to happen right now? Yeah,
[14:38] Speaker 2: when they get here, I'll run out the front and
[14:40] Speaker 2: that's it, and the roll. Within a couple of minutes
[14:43] Speaker 2: of hopping off the phone and geeing myself up and
[14:47] Speaker 2: waiting to, you know, for them to be out the front,
[14:49] Speaker 2: I heard the roller door on the garage, go up
[14:51] Speaker 2: to the house, had a look, and it was my
[14:54] Speaker 2: girlfriend and she's come in. Obviously I've backed a knife,
[15:01] Speaker 2: and she's like, are you okay? I'm so, I'm fine.
[15:03] Speaker 2: And I couldn't tell her how I was feeling leading
[15:05] Speaker 2: up to any of this, you know, it was my
[15:06] Speaker 2: own dirty little secret, what was going on in my head.
[15:09] Speaker 2: And she's like, what's the matter. I said, nothing the matter,
[15:12] Speaker 2: nothing the matter. So I just can't. I've had enough.
[15:14] Speaker 2: I just can't do this. She's like, what are you
[15:15] Speaker 2: talking about? Like you're a right, Like you don't seem right,
[15:18] Speaker 2: and so she sort of followed me around for the
[15:20] Speaker 2: next few minutes, probably about five minutes or so, and
[15:23] Speaker 2: talked to me. I said, I can't just leave me alone.
[15:25] Speaker 2: I'll be all right, you know. And I remember thinking
[15:27] Speaker 2: my head, I'm in shit now because this has gone
[15:29] Speaker 2: from suicide by cop to a hostage situation. You're digging, oh,
[15:34] Speaker 2: I thought, you know. And next minute I've heard a
[15:38] Speaker 2: bit of ruckus out the front and I've peeled the
[15:40] Speaker 2: curtains back, had a look and it's obviously police everywhere,
[15:43] Speaker 2: tactical gear, you know, the right van in the driveway.
[15:46] Speaker 2: And I started coaching me and go right, evacuate all
[15:49] Speaker 2: the stuff, hands up, all the usual, and I said, well,
[15:53] Speaker 2: I turned around. I said, well that's it now. I said,
[15:55] Speaker 2: there's nothing I can do. She goes and when she looked,
[15:57] Speaker 2: she had a look. She's like, what have you done?
[16:00] Speaker 2: The first thing she said because she knew my old life,
[16:02] Speaker 2: but she you know, she knew what I've been up to,
[16:04] Speaker 2: but she never seen that side of me. And what
[16:07] Speaker 2: have you done? Now?
[16:08] Speaker 1: You know?
[16:09] Speaker 2: What have you gone and done? And she looked probably
[16:10] Speaker 2: looked like to her massive the community because she's not Yeah,
[16:15] Speaker 2: And I said, well, I called him on myself. She said,
[16:20] Speaker 2: what do you mean you called him on yourself? And
[16:22] Speaker 2: I said, I can't do this. I said, I'm going
[16:24] Speaker 2: out the front and they can. They can do me
[16:27] Speaker 2: on the spot. I'm done. And then she saw that
[16:30] Speaker 2: went why she got what was happening. Yeah, she dropped
[16:34] Speaker 2: to her knees and she grabbed my hands and she said,
[16:36] Speaker 2: I love you. Start crying. She said, you can't do this,
[16:40] Speaker 2: you know, she said, I can't have you hurt yourself.
[16:42] Speaker 2: I can't see you hurt. I love you, blah blah.
[16:44] Speaker 2: And you know, obviously that was my I was. Now
[16:47] Speaker 2: I look back on it, that whole morning was cry
[16:49] Speaker 2: for help. I just didn't know how to ask for help.
[16:51] Speaker 2: And I didn't know what was happening. You know, my
[16:53] Speaker 2: emotions had exploded. And and when she said that to me,
[16:58] Speaker 2: it give me a reason to get out, give me
[17:00] Speaker 2: an avenue. Now I don't Now I've got an excuse
[17:03] Speaker 2: not to do what I was going to do.
[17:04] Speaker 1: Yeah, see where you're coming from, be of.
[17:07] Speaker 2: Love conquering evil, you know, a bit of light conquering dark.
[17:10] Speaker 2: And and so I've said, all right, I'm going to
[17:12] Speaker 2: just go out and surrender through the knife, open the
[17:17] Speaker 2: front door. Obviously, they get on the ground as the
[17:20] Speaker 2: usual tax of operations. As you know, down there. We
[17:24] Speaker 2: call the mesogeez. They a cable tied me, you know,
[17:28] Speaker 2: three me on the front line, cleared the house obviously
[17:31] Speaker 2: here and go through and got to clear each bedroom.
[17:34] Speaker 2: It goes quiet, and it's like get down, get down, please, police, police,
[17:36] Speaker 2: And then it goes quiet again. Get down, polase, please please.
[17:39] Speaker 2: They're clearing the house, making sure there's no one else
[17:41] Speaker 2: in there, and then they hand me over to dectives.
[17:44] Speaker 2: Once they've cleared the house. The detective they hand me
[17:47] Speaker 2: over to I'd known him for twenty years and he'd
[17:52] Speaker 2: broken my balls like it was cat and mouse. You know,
[17:54] Speaker 2: I was an active criminal in the area. He knew
[17:56] Speaker 2: me since I was a street kid on a pushbike
[17:58] Speaker 2: that grew up into it, you know, one of the
[18:01] Speaker 2: as we'd say from my area shot caller, you know.
[18:04] Speaker 2: And as I got older, you know, I was more good,
[18:08] Speaker 2: better at what I did. It was harder for him
[18:09] Speaker 2: to catch me. And it was really become a clap mouse.
[18:12] Speaker 2: I wasn't gonna get caught, you know, slacking, and and
[18:16] Speaker 2: he said to me, you know, and I remember there
[18:18] Speaker 2: been times he kicked my ass, you know, he'd they'd
[18:22] Speaker 2: even be honest, they'd even rob me. You know, like,
[18:24] Speaker 2: all right, we can't get you, we've got nothing. But
[18:26] Speaker 2: you think this ten grand we found your car, we're
[18:28] Speaker 2: going to stitch up for that. We'll just pocket it,
[18:30] Speaker 2: you know, and all the usual and so like you know,
[18:33] Speaker 2: let's you fight fire with fire, don't you. And and anyway,
[18:37] Speaker 2: he put me to the side and he said to me,
[18:39] Speaker 2: he goes to you know, his off side, as he said,
[18:43] Speaker 2: put his handcuffs in the front. And he gets because
[18:44] Speaker 2: they have to take cables off, cable ties off and
[18:47] Speaker 2: put the handcuffs. He goes, put some handcuffs on, put
[18:49] Speaker 2: him in the front, put him, put his handcuffs in
[18:51] Speaker 2: the front and loosen them up. And I was just
[18:53] Speaker 2: like this never hurt him usually that tired as possible,
[18:57] Speaker 2: passed to the back of my head. And and then
[19:00] Speaker 2: he's done that. And then he said to my girlfriend,
[19:03] Speaker 2: grab him a cigarette. And so I know something there's
[19:06] Speaker 2: a shift here. He's never spoke to me like this.
[19:08] Speaker 2: Something's going on. It's been a big morning. And he
[19:11] Speaker 2: pulls me to the side of hand cuffs in the front,
[19:13] Speaker 2: you know, they loosened up. I'm having a cigarette. And
[19:15] Speaker 2: he pulls me aside and he's just one on one,
[19:17] Speaker 2: it's just me and him. He goes, Listen, we're going
[19:18] Speaker 2: to drop the bad guy and good guy act today.
[19:21] Speaker 2: He goes, Gary, you're not right in the head. He goes,
[19:24] Speaker 2: I've known you since you were a kid. Who goes,
[19:26] Speaker 2: you're not. He goes, you're not. Okay, so fucking fine,
[19:28] Speaker 2: you know, because no, you're not. He goes, how do
[19:32] Speaker 2: you feel about me not taking you to prison today?
[19:35] Speaker 2: And we take you to hospital? And yeah, man, I
[19:39] Speaker 2: mean it hit me like a ton of bricks. When
[19:40] Speaker 2: the enemy, you know, shows compassion, it just lands different.
[19:45] Speaker 2: Like we were literally we hated each other.
[19:47] Speaker 1: Yeah, I can imagine the relationship with the head.
[19:49] Speaker 2: Yeah. And when he showed and let's be honest, it
[19:52] Speaker 2: felt like he was showing me a bit of love.
[19:54] Speaker 2: He cared, and so that that rocked me. And I said,
[19:57] Speaker 2: well okay. Then he goes, because I think you need
[19:59] Speaker 2: to be checked out. And and then he finished it
[20:00] Speaker 2: with he goes. He goes, I've seen some ship in
[20:04] Speaker 2: my time. He goes, I can only imagine what you've seen.
[20:08] Speaker 2: He goes, I've spoke to someone. He goes, I take
[20:10] Speaker 2: a pill in the morning. Yeah, he goes, how about
[20:12] Speaker 2: we go get your head checked out? And I said,
[20:15] Speaker 2: all right, let's do that. Then it was the first
[20:18] Speaker 2: time I'd accepted help. You know. Well, a long story,
[20:23] Speaker 2: short funny bit is I end up they put me
[20:25] Speaker 2: in an ambulance, take me to hospital, do the Mental Health
[20:28] Speaker 2: Act and all this stuff, and I'm in the back
[20:31] Speaker 2: and I've got to like, you know, one pick, you know,
[20:33] Speaker 2: just fresh outed academy escorting me, and I've said to
[20:37] Speaker 2: them it was a guy and of girl. And I've
[20:38] Speaker 2: said to them, so, what what was your line of defense?
[20:40] Speaker 2: What did you just have lined up for me? And
[20:42] Speaker 2: they said, oh, you're in trouble, Gary. I said, what
[20:44] Speaker 2: was the prog? How were you going to run it?
[20:47] Speaker 2: And they said, well, no one wants to speak to
[20:50] Speaker 2: you apart from special Operations, so the only ones to
[20:52] Speaker 2: communicate with you negotiate with you. And then from there
[20:56] Speaker 2: there was going to they were going to send the
[20:57] Speaker 2: dogs in first, and if you got past the die,
[21:00] Speaker 2: then they were going to send non lethal round so
[21:02] Speaker 2: obviously being background rubber bullets. And then after that the
[21:04] Speaker 2: third line was lethal's And then I sort of chuckled
[21:08] Speaker 2: to myself because there was no way I was getting
[21:09] Speaker 2: what I wanted. I would have got bitten by.
[21:11] Speaker 1: The first dog and scrabb they're scary, those dogs.
[21:13] Speaker 2: Yeah, I was streamed like a bitch, so it wasn't
[21:15] Speaker 2: even happening going down the way I thought it was,
[21:17] Speaker 2: you know, well.
[21:19] Speaker 1: A couple of things, and I just wanted to bring
[21:21] Speaker 1: that out early in the in the podcast. Yeah, yeah,
[21:24] Speaker 1: this is how low it can go, and there's highs
[21:27] Speaker 1: and lowers and we'll talk our way through. But I
[21:29] Speaker 1: think it's also good and it shows humanity. And I'm
[21:32] Speaker 1: sure you draw on that down the track that here's
[21:35] Speaker 1: your arch ende me the cop that's been chasing you
[21:37] Speaker 1: for twenty years in that cat and mouse game and saying, hey, mate,
[21:41] Speaker 1: you need help. This is not the time to kick you.
[21:45] Speaker 1: This is the time to help you.
[21:47] Speaker 2: And I suppose you know, you probably like hear hearing
[21:50] Speaker 2: me say this, And you know, I can see this
[21:51] Speaker 2: now that I've got a lot of growth. You know,
[21:53] Speaker 2: we're all humans, Yeah, you know, even a criminal or
[21:57] Speaker 2: a guy with the badge. At the end of the day,
[22:00] Speaker 2: we're all. No one's born bad. Yeah, you know, no
[22:02] Speaker 2: one's born bad. It's just our experiences in life to
[22:06] Speaker 2: mold us. Into who we are, you know, and that
[22:08] Speaker 2: was in a time where I was in a bad
[22:10] Speaker 2: place and he could see that.
[22:11] Speaker 1: Well, yeah, and I know the life got worse for
[22:14] Speaker 1: you after that. It wasn't the sort of the watershed moment,
[22:17] Speaker 1: the terms everything round, yeah, exactly, in the same regards.
[22:20] Speaker 1: It could have gone a lot worse. If they turned
[22:22] Speaker 1: up there and went hard at you and put the
[22:24] Speaker 1: boot in and all that, you would have come out
[22:26] Speaker 1: more angry and okay, well maybe you become a worse person.
[22:30] Speaker 2: It was a it was a very ironic, you know,
[22:33] Speaker 2: moment in my life. I mean the synchronicities, you know,
[22:37] Speaker 2: like I could have went either way, and you know,
[22:39] Speaker 2: when the enemy showed compassion, it yeah, just landed. And
[22:44] Speaker 2: I suppose you know, I wouldn't I wouldn't go as
[22:46] Speaker 2: far as thanking him for where I am today because
[22:49] Speaker 2: I've had to put in the hard work. But it
[22:51] Speaker 2: was definitely it was a big point in my life
[22:53] Speaker 2: because it could have went either way.
[22:54] Speaker 1: Yeah, and so it is a seed in your brain
[22:56] Speaker 1: and you think, okay, well I've seen that before someone's
[22:59] Speaker 1: actually done it. For Let's let's talk about your your upbringing.
[23:04] Speaker 1: Where'd you grow up on Melton, yep, which is compared
[23:08] Speaker 1: to what saw the suburbs are we.
[23:10] Speaker 2: Looking in the lower so it's out the western suburbs,
[23:13] Speaker 2: it's out the west of the city in Melbourne, and
[23:16] Speaker 2: it's it's lower housing. So you know, you want a
[23:19] Speaker 2: cheapest house out the west, you'll go out towards Meltin.
[23:22] Speaker 2: You'll go the lowest prices on housing, which therefore bring
[23:27] Speaker 2: the rif raff. You know, you got a lot of
[23:28] Speaker 2: single mothers. You know, drug abuse, you know, domestic violence,
[23:32] Speaker 2: all the things, and so yeah, it is a nice
[23:34] Speaker 2: little community. You know, there's good things happening in every community,
[23:37] Speaker 2: but there's also you know the undertone and in Melton,
[23:40] Speaker 2: if you want to get in trouble, there's definitely plenty
[23:42] Speaker 2: of spaces to get in trouble. And so yeah, I
[23:45] Speaker 2: mean that's where it all started. Mum's a really good person.
[23:48] Speaker 2: Mums worked. So mum was a nurse. She worked for
[23:51] Speaker 2: forty years with terminally ill kids, so you know, like
[23:54] Speaker 2: the Which Foundation, well at the Royal Children's Hospital, you know,
[23:58] Speaker 2: cistic vibrosis are the keemo all those sort of kids.
[24:02] Speaker 2: They usually don't see her over the day of a teenager.
[24:05] Speaker 1: About a tough gig living hospital.
[24:07] Speaker 2: You know, Mum I can remember coming home and she'd
[24:10] Speaker 2: look after kids for years on end. She's today passed away.
[24:14] Speaker 2: You know, that's that was her job. So she's a
[24:16] Speaker 2: good member of the community. But if I can, you know,
[24:19] Speaker 2: take mum's flowers away for any reason, and I don't
[24:22] Speaker 2: blame her, but maybe she had a bad choicing.
[24:25] Speaker 1: Men.
[24:26] Speaker 2: You know, our dads weren't good role models. When you
[24:29] Speaker 2: say our dads, three boys, different fathers, yep, different dads.
[24:33] Speaker 2: You know we're big gap apart. Mum tried three times
[24:36] Speaker 2: to get it right, so we're all seven years apart.
[24:39] Speaker 2: So Mum tried with me, I'm the oldest. Seven years later,
[24:42] Speaker 2: she tried again for another man. Seven years they tried
[24:44] Speaker 2: again for another man. I'd only see my mom ever
[24:46] Speaker 2: with those three men. You know. It wasn't like she
[24:49] Speaker 2: had guys coming in out.
[24:50] Speaker 1: Of the house.
[24:51] Speaker 2: But yeah, she just her dad's didn't show up the
[24:54] Speaker 2: way they should have. And at a young age, I
[24:57] Speaker 2: didn't know that, you know, you need the village to
[25:00] Speaker 2: raid your family.
[25:01] Speaker 1: I didn't.
[25:01] Speaker 2: I didn't understand that it was just a kid. I'd
[25:03] Speaker 2: seen one worker ass off and you know, twenty bucks
[25:06] Speaker 2: was ten bucks for ham sand, which is for schooling.
[25:08] Speaker 2: The other ten bucks was petrol. And then we're broke again.
[25:10] Speaker 2: So you know, I didn't understand that. You know, you
[25:13] Speaker 2: need you know, a family needs sport.
[25:15] Speaker 1: Did you have any role models, like whether your.
[25:19] Speaker 2: Father or my dad was my best mate? So he wasn't.
[25:22] Speaker 2: He wasn't like dad never told me what to do,
[25:25] Speaker 2: never yelled at me, never smacked me. He never told
[25:27] Speaker 2: me what I could and couldn't do. He'd just say, listen,
[25:30] Speaker 2: you've got to work out life for yourself. My dad
[25:31] Speaker 2: was an alcoholic, Okay, so he was a good man.
[25:35] Speaker 2: But you know I didn't I suppose I didn't get
[25:38] Speaker 2: to see what a child needs from their far.
[25:41] Speaker 1: Just a segue there about the father raising kids and
[25:45] Speaker 1: all that. I say it to the people, and I
[25:48] Speaker 1: like to think this is how I learned. I learned
[25:51] Speaker 1: from my father. Your kids don't want their best mate
[25:55] Speaker 1: to be their parent, They want to fucking parents. Yeah,
[25:58] Speaker 1: and I see a lot of people make the mistake.
[26:00] Speaker 1: And yeah, sometimes when when my son was growing up
[26:04] Speaker 1: and my daughter, I was jealous of the relationships other
[26:06] Speaker 1: parents seem to have with their kids because they were
[26:09] Speaker 1: their best mates. But I think the thing that a
[26:12] Speaker 1: child needs most is a parent, a bit of set
[26:15] Speaker 1: set the parameters, set the boundaries, and keep people pointed
[26:18] Speaker 1: in the right direction ndred percent.
[26:20] Speaker 2: And I understand when my dad was coming from because
[26:22] Speaker 2: I'd heard him say there's method to his madness. He
[26:24] Speaker 2: liked to micromanage, so in his head, you know, he
[26:28] Speaker 2: was like, if I'm his best mate, I'll find out
[26:30] Speaker 2: what's not finding out and logic there, yeah, and like okay,
[26:34] Speaker 2: And there was times he used that into his you know,
[26:37] Speaker 2: he played that into his hand. I remember once he
[26:40] Speaker 2: you know, we had an episode and and and some
[26:43] Speaker 2: shit went down. Anyway, I had a bunch of guns
[26:44] Speaker 2: at my house first thing in the morning. And that
[26:47] Speaker 2: shouldn't be like that. They should be gone before daylight,
[26:50] Speaker 2: you know, in case we get a visit. And but
[26:52] Speaker 2: it's just happened that there was a bag of guns there,
[26:55] Speaker 2: and Dad come over and being my best mate, said,
[26:58] Speaker 2: oh shit, you know, he what I got. You know,
[27:01] Speaker 2: I caught a couple of pistols, and he was like,
[27:03] Speaker 2: oh Jesus, beit of trouble if you get caught with them.
[27:06] Speaker 2: I watched him sort of scratching his head over the
[27:08] Speaker 2: next twenty minutes having to think about it, and he goes,
[27:10] Speaker 2: how about he caught because Dad was a drinker, he
[27:12] Speaker 2: didn't drive, so he didn't have a license, so he
[27:15] Speaker 2: caught the train up. He goes, how about he I
[27:17] Speaker 2: was waiting for a mate to come pick him up,
[27:19] Speaker 2: he couldn't make it till lunch time, blah blah blah.
[27:21] Speaker 2: And he goes, how about I grab them. He goes,
[27:22] Speaker 2: I'll just be another civilian on the train, backpack, you know.
[27:26] Speaker 2: He goes, I'll take him my house. He goes, and
[27:27] Speaker 2: when you need them, you come and get them. And
[27:30] Speaker 2: I said, yeah, sweet dad, you know, so like he
[27:32] Speaker 2: palmed him off to him, and he shipped him over
[27:34] Speaker 2: to the other side of the city and they were
[27:35] Speaker 2: safe there, and they sticked him there for a few months.
[27:37] Speaker 2: But and I suppose that's Dad's way of protecting trying,
[27:41] Speaker 2: you know, yeah, probably not probably not as as yeah,
[27:46] Speaker 2: as clean cut as you would expect he was. He was.
[27:50] Speaker 1: That was all love. No one no one gets it,
[27:52] Speaker 1: no one gets it perfect. So yeah, it's we try
[27:56] Speaker 1: all different ways. But I just make the observation that
[27:59] Speaker 1: I think it's him that kids want that they want
[28:02] Speaker 1: that restriction, so they want those things. So you don't
[28:05] Speaker 1: know at the time. You hate the parent at the time,
[28:07] Speaker 1: but that's probably the way to get what attracted you
[28:10] Speaker 1: the life of life of crime, Like, was it people
[28:12] Speaker 1: you're hanging around with or people you looked up to?
[28:15] Speaker 2: And at what age did you get you know, mid nineties,
[28:18] Speaker 2: I was like fifteen fourteen, fifteen sixteen, So in the
[28:21] Speaker 2: mid nineties, you know, the whole hip hop thing was big. Yeah, cars,
[28:24] Speaker 2: listen to the Two Pac and Biggie and you Snoop
[28:26] Speaker 2: Dog and all that sort of stuff.
[28:27] Speaker 1: So you're going to be a gangster. Oh that was
[28:29] Speaker 1: pretty cool.
[28:30] Speaker 2: It's appealing. It was the girls and the drugs and
[28:32] Speaker 2: the gangs, and so there was that, and then obviously
[28:35] Speaker 2: the movies I was watching, you know, all the movie
[28:37] Speaker 2: scar Face and all the stuff as the tangent did
[28:39] Speaker 2: I mean I was a little I was a high
[28:41] Speaker 2: stimulant little kid. So I can remember being as young
[28:43] Speaker 2: as five six years old and kids jumping puddles and
[28:48] Speaker 2: climbing trees, and I get pretty bored with it, right yeah,
[28:51] Speaker 2: And so I grab a bottle and smash it on
[28:54] Speaker 2: a drain, get a little buzz you know, it's as
[28:56] Speaker 2: bad as bad as it got. But then you know
[28:58] Speaker 2: my environment, you know, Mum working her us off and
[29:02] Speaker 2: you know, you know, not having a role model in
[29:05] Speaker 2: the home, not having money in the home. When I
[29:08] Speaker 2: stepped out into the streets, you know, as a teenager,
[29:12] Speaker 2: I'll be honest. You know, the kids with the nikes
[29:14] Speaker 2: and the gold chains and the lowered vehicles, you know,
[29:17] Speaker 2: they looked appealing.
[29:18] Speaker 1: They were the ones you're looking up to that looked
[29:20] Speaker 1: really cool.
[29:22] Speaker 2: It looked like, you know, I can remember being in
[29:23] Speaker 2: high school and the teacher's going, so what do you
[29:25] Speaker 2: want to be when you grow up? And I'd say, miss,
[29:27] Speaker 2: I'm going to run my area. What does your career choice?
[29:31] Speaker 1: You know, And they look at it and like you're
[29:34] Speaker 1: talking and just I think our listeners understand, but run
[29:36] Speaker 1: your area. It wasn't sort of you don't want to
[29:38] Speaker 1: be the local mayor. You want to be the local
[29:40] Speaker 1: gangster running the corners and there in the streets.
[29:43] Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought that was cool.
[29:46] Speaker 1: So okay, where did you start stepping in the crime? When?
[29:51] Speaker 1: When did you cost the line?
[29:52] Speaker 2: You know, before I had hear on me balls, I
[29:55] Speaker 2: was robbing stuff. Yeah, I was getting out there and ceilings.
[29:59] Speaker 2: Started off, yeah, fleecing cars and stealing cars, and then
[30:03] Speaker 2: it went onto you know, backyard sheds. Then it went
[30:06] Speaker 2: onto houses and then went onto shops.
[30:08] Speaker 1: You know.
[30:09] Speaker 2: You know, by about fifteen sixteen, we were doing smashing grabs,
[30:12] Speaker 2: and then that moved on to roof jobs. So we
[30:14] Speaker 2: were shimmering down coming to the roof into the storeroom
[30:18] Speaker 2: so we wouldn't set off alarms, shimming everything back up. Yeah,
[30:21] Speaker 2: that was That was me teenage years through high school.
[30:24] Speaker 2: And then I went to juvie. How was that experience
[30:28] Speaker 2: for I slid through the cracks. I actually got to
[30:32] Speaker 2: see someone in there that I'd known from another area.
[30:35] Speaker 2: We'd done some things together. It was a cousin, so
[30:38] Speaker 2: a friend of mine's cousin, and he was pretty a
[30:41] Speaker 2: bit of a heavy hit her in the juv scene.
[30:43] Speaker 2: So as soon as I didn't recognize him when he
[30:45] Speaker 2: first spotted me because he put on so much weight
[30:48] Speaker 2: as people do in prison, and he goes, remember me,
[30:52] Speaker 2: we go in some shitty and he goes on Rara's cousin.
[30:54] Speaker 2: I was like, oh, here you going, bro, you know,
[30:56] Speaker 2: because you're sweet in here, and they pretty much ran me. Yeah,
[31:01] Speaker 2: and so like I was just pulled under his wing,
[31:03] Speaker 2: which I was only a little guy. I've always been short.
[31:06] Speaker 2: Yeah you know, so yeah that was handy, give me time,
[31:09] Speaker 2: pretty easy to be honest. You know, always cigarettes and
[31:12] Speaker 2: you know, hanging around with the cool kids, and you know,
[31:14] Speaker 2: at the cool table. There's like always like in jail,
[31:17] Speaker 2: this hierarchy. So I lucked out there in a sense.
[31:20] Speaker 2: I had no trouble come my way because of people
[31:22] Speaker 2: I knew. And then yeah, I got out of Juvie
[31:26] Speaker 2: and and I had the mentality is I'm okay, I'm
[31:29] Speaker 2: over Robin. Straight away I was like, I'm over robbing shit,
[31:32] Speaker 2: Like this is this is shit? Because yeah, every second
[31:34] Speaker 2: weekend the police are catching us were stolen goods. Like
[31:37] Speaker 2: we thought we were organized, but you know, we're a
[31:38] Speaker 2: bunch of kids on pushbikes stealing cars, you know, Robin,
[31:42] Speaker 2: anything that wasn't tied down. And yeah, I thought, well,
[31:45] Speaker 2: what am I going to do now? And so I
[31:47] Speaker 2: approached the old kids, and I remember them approaching me
[31:50] Speaker 2: pretty much at the same time. It was like a
[31:51] Speaker 2: no brainer. They were the old guys are twenty one,
[31:54] Speaker 2: twenty two three.
[31:55] Speaker 1: How were you?
[31:56] Speaker 2: I would have been fifteen going on to sixteen. Yeah
[31:58] Speaker 2: about that, yeah around there, maybe even just turned sixteen
[32:02] Speaker 2: and said listen, I want to start pushing weight. You know.
[32:05] Speaker 2: They said, not a problem. So then the tick bill
[32:07] Speaker 2: comes in. They give you a bunch of staff and
[32:10] Speaker 2: they put you on the bill and you to sell that,
[32:13] Speaker 2: take you a little bit off the top and take
[32:14] Speaker 2: them back their money. And that's how it started. What
[32:17] Speaker 2: drugs were you That was weed and that time it
[32:20] Speaker 2: was acid, ecstasy, speed. There was no ice or heroin around.
[32:25] Speaker 2: The Mountain police did a really good job at keeping
[32:28] Speaker 2: heroin out of our town, so you had to go
[32:30] Speaker 2: to the next town's down, which was Sunshine Foots, Grace
[32:33] Speaker 2: and Auburns and yeah, because there was you couldn't score
[32:36] Speaker 2: heroin in Moultain. It was like that for years on end.
[32:39] Speaker 2: So the police really were adamant on not letting any
[32:42] Speaker 2: people set up shop with heroin in Mountain. Ice hadn't
[32:46] Speaker 2: made it on the scene. We're probably a bit of
[32:48] Speaker 2: a lower end of community to be on the coke.
[32:51] Speaker 2: So it was more of the party stuff. It's the
[32:53] Speaker 2: weekend prescriptions as we call them, you know, the acid, ecstasy,
[32:58] Speaker 2: bit of weed and some speed. Yeah, so you've seen
[33:01] Speaker 2: was big then. The techno scene was big in the
[33:03] Speaker 2: mid nineties. Yeah, so it was.
[33:05] Speaker 1: I had the market there. Looking back and you and
[33:08] Speaker 1: we'll talk about it as we progress through your life
[33:11] Speaker 1: and you became addicted to drugs and you hit hit
[33:15] Speaker 1: the bottom as a junkie, you know the dangers. I'm
[33:20] Speaker 1: not asking you now how you feel about selling the drugs.
[33:23] Speaker 1: I just want to get a sense of did you
[33:25] Speaker 1: care at that stage? Did you like.
[33:29] Speaker 2: Honest you know, what is the life of crime or
[33:33] Speaker 2: the streets or gangs or you know, drugs or whatever
[33:36] Speaker 2: you want to talk talk about on that level? You know,
[33:39] Speaker 2: just crime and criminals in general. It's powered by greed. Yeah,
[33:44] Speaker 2: it's all about money, you know. You know in Sydney's
[33:46] Speaker 2: you've got knocks happening all over the joint. You know,
[33:48] Speaker 2: those guys dirty on a dollar. Yeah, they're no one
[33:52] Speaker 2: special and they're just getting paid to do someone else's
[33:55] Speaker 2: dirty work.
[33:55] Speaker 1: So you're you're not at the time thinking I shouldn't
[33:59] Speaker 1: be doing this. You you're just held by greed and
[34:02] Speaker 1: intoxicated by power to would that be part of it?
[34:05] Speaker 2: Because it is power? Yeah, hundred I can see it.
[34:09] Speaker 2: I can see how it is now and that's exactly
[34:10] Speaker 2: what it was driven.
[34:11] Speaker 1: By me, and just we'll let people know that. Where
[34:15] Speaker 1: you're talking about b I'm asking you what were the
[34:17] Speaker 1: good points about it from your point of view? But
[34:20] Speaker 1: you're looking back now and knowing that it's a putrid
[34:23] Speaker 1: world the world, but you don't want to be.
[34:25] Speaker 2: In feel fear. But I had to go through trials
[34:27] Speaker 2: and tribulations, you know, like I had to go ups
[34:29] Speaker 2: and downs to realize that. Yeah, and I definitely have
[34:32] Speaker 2: a whole different view on that life now I look
[34:35] Speaker 2: through a totally different lens. You generally doesn't interest me
[34:38] Speaker 2: enough feel sorry for anybody that it does.
[34:40] Speaker 1: Well, that's why I think people would have been there
[34:43] Speaker 1: and speaking out. It's an important message to get out.
[34:46] Speaker 1: It's not glorifying crime. You want to find out what
[34:48] Speaker 1: crime is, Like this is this is what crime is.
[34:51] Speaker 1: You're five minutes of fame and happiness is Yeah.
[34:56] Speaker 2: Can I add too? Yeah, I hadn't seen no one work,
[34:59] Speaker 2: you know, and the rewards from from going to work
[35:02] Speaker 2: every day, you know, of the week. So that played
[35:05] Speaker 2: a big part. Now I know what I know. Now,
[35:07] Speaker 2: I'm a young kid. Why would I go get a
[35:09] Speaker 2: job when mum was broke. It made no sense to me,
[35:13] Speaker 2: you know what I mean, she worked her ass off
[35:15] Speaker 2: for what we had. You know, we had a house
[35:18] Speaker 2: roof over her head, and we had shoes on her feet,
[35:20] Speaker 2: and there was dinner on the table. But you know,
[35:22] Speaker 2: the other kids with a nice motorbike actually the fresh shoes.
[35:25] Speaker 2: And you know, I didn't understand that it was because
[35:27] Speaker 2: both parents were going to work. You know, we just
[35:29] Speaker 2: had Mum had three boys. One wage. It's not enough
[35:32] Speaker 2: and and so like, yeah, I know what molded me.
[35:35] Speaker 2: It was if we had to have money in the home,
[35:37] Speaker 2: it might have been a whole Maybe I would be
[35:39] Speaker 2: dope box for a living. Maybe I would have did
[35:41] Speaker 2: combat sports for a living. Maybe I would have went
[35:42] Speaker 2: to the military. I know it would have been something
[35:45] Speaker 2: that was high paced. You know, it definitely would need
[35:48] Speaker 2: a little adrenaline dump. But you know, being a drug
[35:50] Speaker 2: dealer and an active gang member in my community made
[35:53] Speaker 2: plenty of sense.
[35:55] Speaker 1: I've heard a lot and I've heard a lot of
[35:58] Speaker 1: people say that that they and see another pathway out
[36:01] Speaker 1: and the role models and that. Do you think anyone
[36:04] Speaker 1: could have made the difference. If there's one person that
[36:07] Speaker 1: could have made the difference at any stages in your
[36:10] Speaker 1: life as you're progressing in the that world.
[36:12] Speaker 2: Good question, you know what, I'll be honest, I actually
[36:17] Speaker 2: don't think there was anybody. And the reason being I
[36:20] Speaker 2: believe where I am today is his fate. I believe,
[36:24] Speaker 2: you know, I had to go through all that in life.
[36:26] Speaker 2: That was what I had to go through to set
[36:29] Speaker 2: me up to where I am today. You know, we're
[36:31] Speaker 2: doing big things in the community. Man, we are helping
[36:34] Speaker 2: thousands and thousands of people on a very high level.
[36:37] Speaker 2: This is this is on a world level, Like we
[36:39] Speaker 2: are leading the way in our space in the world,
[36:42] Speaker 2: not just in Australia. And so like I think I
[36:45] Speaker 2: needed to get the tools to set me up to
[36:48] Speaker 2: where I am today, and that was all part of it.
[36:51] Speaker 2: You know, my journey was part of it, and it
[36:53] Speaker 2: was dark. It was very dark. There was some dark days.
[36:56] Speaker 2: Would I change it, No, not because I'm proud of it,
[37:00] Speaker 2: because it built me into the man I am today.
[37:02] Speaker 1: I can understand that sometimes life is about about the journey. Yeah,
[37:07] Speaker 1: it would have been an easier journey if you took
[37:09] Speaker 1: a different path.
[37:10] Speaker 2: Yea, it wouldn't be sittne here now, I don't think you.
[37:13] Speaker 1: Might have been sitting here. I might have been sitting there.
[37:15] Speaker 1: Who knows well as a confusing place I reckon ten
[37:19] Speaker 1: years ago, neither of us would have thought would be
[37:20] Speaker 1: sitting here like this, not you. I'd be talking and
[37:23] Speaker 1: you'd be going no comment, yeah, or just staring back
[37:26] Speaker 1: at me. That would walk out and fuck you, and
[37:32] Speaker 1: you'd be mothering under under it. Yeah, but anyway, it's
[37:35] Speaker 1: not nice things to say about you. I'm sure. I'm
[37:38] Speaker 1: sure we would have been a different, different environment. And
[37:41] Speaker 1: you're free to leave at any time you want. Is
[37:43] Speaker 1: another thing that would that Yeah, okay, the crimes that
[37:48] Speaker 1: started to escalate your career started to escalate you. I'd
[37:52] Speaker 1: describe you, you achieve your goal from school, you were
[37:56] Speaker 1: starting to run your area and things done.
[38:00] Speaker 2: At the age of about eighteen, I stopped taking drugs,
[38:02] Speaker 2: which was a key component into you know, stepping into
[38:07] Speaker 2: a leadership role. Sounds funny when you're a kid in
[38:09] Speaker 2: the streets running a market, you know, But like I
[38:12] Speaker 2: watched everybody else and they were, you know, getting high
[38:14] Speaker 2: off their own supply, and I thought, how do I
[38:17] Speaker 2: be better? And yeah, so I knocked everything on the
[38:21] Speaker 2: head I mean as a kid, you know, Goblin Echy's
[38:23] Speaker 2: and it's not a speed and smoking bongs and all
[38:26] Speaker 2: the stuff. About the age of it would have been
[38:28] Speaker 2: around eighteen or nineteen. I said, enough's enough, so I
[38:31] Speaker 2: quit taking everything so I could be more serious at
[38:34] Speaker 2: what I did.
[38:35] Speaker 1: May evaded to further your life of crime.
[38:38] Speaker 2: Yes, and then obviously then everything gets serious real quick
[38:42] Speaker 2: because now I get to profit on everything, you know,
[38:45] Speaker 2: instead of you know, I'm putting a little bit of side.
[38:47] Speaker 2: And then ended up getting high off that, and and yeah,
[38:50] Speaker 2: and then so you know the competition. You know, they're
[38:53] Speaker 2: going out on the weekends and getting high and I'm not.
[38:57] Speaker 2: I'm going to work business and you're literally yeah and yeah.
[39:01] Speaker 2: So I know it was about it was about mid twenties.
[39:04] Speaker 2: Caught a case.
[39:06] Speaker 1: When I called the case of investigation was coming after.
[39:10] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, got on to me. It was a bit
[39:12] Speaker 2: of cat and mouse. Prior to that, you know, I
[39:14] Speaker 2: always lived by the rule never leave anything at home
[39:16] Speaker 2: under the roof, you know, so never talk on phones.
[39:20] Speaker 2: Got caught with phone intercepts. It's ironic, but I wasn't
[39:22] Speaker 2: one to talk on phones, but ended up getting cornered
[39:25] Speaker 2: through the phone, and yeah, so never, you know, always
[39:29] Speaker 2: in the car, made sure there was a tissue box
[39:31] Speaker 2: in the car, and always touched the gear. The bags
[39:34] Speaker 2: of gear with the tissues never left fingerprints. And DNA
[39:37] Speaker 2: wasn't that big back then. Was starting to come in
[39:39] Speaker 2: in the early two thousands and yeah, so it would
[39:42] Speaker 2: have been about two thousand and five. I caught a pinch.
[39:46] Speaker 2: So I was supplying a bouncer from a couple of
[39:48] Speaker 2: towns away. He was supplying the clubs. They moved to undercover.
[39:53] Speaker 2: So the police officers sent in as undercovers two girls
[39:58] Speaker 2: and sent him into the club scene to clean up
[40:02] Speaker 2: the drugs that we get hovering around the drugs around
[40:05] Speaker 2: the club scene, and they watched him do a transaction
[40:09] Speaker 2: out the front of one of the clubs into a car,
[40:11] Speaker 2: so they locked in on him, Yeah, and narried. Over
[40:15] Speaker 2: the next six or seven weeks, they narrowed me down
[40:18] Speaker 2: as his supplier. You know. Like I said, I didn't
[40:22] Speaker 2: talk on the phone, but he used to ring me
[40:23] Speaker 2: and say, oh, I've run out, can you come and
[40:25] Speaker 2: see me. I'd usually load him up to get him
[40:27] Speaker 2: through the weekend. He'd bring me on a satur Day afternoon.
[40:30] Speaker 2: He said, fuck, big night last night, can you come
[40:33] Speaker 2: and see me? So I'd head up there and load
[40:36] Speaker 2: him up for the next couple of nights, and yeah,
[40:39] Speaker 2: there's valence. And you know, they were wearing wires and
[40:42] Speaker 2: they had the phone calls and they were buying off him.
[40:45] Speaker 2: So over the I think six or seven week period,
[40:47] Speaker 2: they bought seven thousand green bits of issues. They bought
[40:51] Speaker 2: a killoff speed and two pounds of drink.
[40:53] Speaker 1: Well that's a fair bit.
[40:55] Speaker 2: Yeah, and then they narrowed me down is his supplier.
[40:57] Speaker 2: And back then we got done with between dates. Remember
[41:00] Speaker 2: the between gates. They'd say, they go, all right, so
[41:02] Speaker 2: you know August, Yeah, in eight weeks, you've sold this amount.
[41:06] Speaker 2: We're going to break it up and call it one
[41:08] Speaker 2: hundred pills every whatever it is, you know. And at
[41:11] Speaker 2: that time we didn't know about between dates. It was
[41:13] Speaker 2: very early and no one really set a precedence for it,
[41:15] Speaker 2: and so we thought it sounded good. But you know,
[41:19] Speaker 2: it sounded better that you know, got to break it down,
[41:22] Speaker 2: better than one large commercial quantity the MR. And so yeah,
[41:25] Speaker 2: all the politics that goes on in court and I
[41:27] Speaker 2: ended up taking a plea. I was gone. You know,
[41:29] Speaker 2: there was no jury in the land that was going
[41:31] Speaker 2: to find me not guilty, and so ended up taking
[41:33] Speaker 2: a plea. I got a five with a three right,
[41:36] Speaker 2: five on top with the three on the bottom. I
[41:38] Speaker 2: ended up doing all right twelve months later on appeal
[41:40] Speaker 2: not six off the top, six off the bottom, which
[41:42] Speaker 2: was good.
[41:42] Speaker 1: Okay, how was your prison time? Yeah?
[41:45] Speaker 2: So you know I was like they say, man, it
[41:49] Speaker 2: was my apprenticeship was over. Now, you know that in
[41:53] Speaker 2: that life, you're always trying to prove something to yourself
[41:55] Speaker 2: and others, you know, And when I got to prison,
[41:57] Speaker 2: there was now, now's the big test, you know, as
[42:00] Speaker 2: the real test. Am I What I thought?
[42:02] Speaker 1: I was?
[42:03] Speaker 2: You know, am I? You know? Am I going to
[42:05] Speaker 2: make it through this and then come out the other side.
[42:08] Speaker 2: And to be honest, you know, when I got pinched,
[42:12] Speaker 2: I was driving around hundred thousand dollars BMW's and Mercedes.
[42:15] Speaker 2: I had hair salon, you know, Gainesville furniture, all the stuff,
[42:19] Speaker 2: you know, thump and gold chains, all the stuff that
[42:22] Speaker 2: comes with that life. And so when I hit the yards,
[42:24] Speaker 2: you know, I realized that I could talk to talk.
[42:28] Speaker 2: You know. It was you know, I'm cutting laps with
[42:30] Speaker 2: bank robbers. You know importers, hit men, big drug dealers,
[42:35] Speaker 2: gang leaders, and I can hold my own. I know
[42:38] Speaker 2: how to speak to weight and how to speak guns.
[42:41] Speaker 2: You know. I was actually a little heavy hitter from
[42:44] Speaker 2: my area, you know, so, and that was a boost
[42:46] Speaker 2: to my ego. I was like, yeah, and you know
[42:50] Speaker 2: I was in the know. So you know, there's a
[42:52] Speaker 2: hierarchy there. Obviously wasn't, you know, the biggest guy in
[42:56] Speaker 2: the yard, that's for sure, but definitely far from the
[42:58] Speaker 2: littlest either as well. You know, so you know, people's
[43:02] Speaker 2: their stature is on their crime and how much they
[43:06] Speaker 2: earn outside, and you know who they know, and you
[43:09] Speaker 2: know what they're capable of, and so you know, yeah,
[43:12] Speaker 2: I mean I fell into a position where I thought,
[43:14] Speaker 2: you know, fucking I'm not bad at what I do,
[43:17] Speaker 2: so I'll be honest, scary, That's exactly what happened.
[43:19] Speaker 1: So it didn't slow you down at all.
[43:21] Speaker 2: You thought, Okay, I was planning on making moves as
[43:23] Speaker 2: soon as I got out. Okay, Yeah, there was no
[43:26] Speaker 2: backward stat because now I and you get more connects
[43:29] Speaker 2: in prison. No, I just want to pick Ice is
[43:31] Speaker 2: starting to make its way on the scene. There's big
[43:34] Speaker 2: money in that, you know, all the stuff. And when
[43:36] Speaker 2: I got out, man, I picked up that day straight
[43:39] Speaker 2: back into it, right, Yeah, there wasn't it sounds crazy,
[43:42] Speaker 2: don't it? Well, but I got out at what twenty eight?
[43:45] Speaker 2: I got out at twenty eight? Yeah, twenty eight sounds crazy.
[43:48] Speaker 2: But some people look at the jail time all that's
[43:51] Speaker 2: a price you pay.
[43:52] Speaker 1: And when it's occupational hazard, and when you're talking about
[43:55] Speaker 1: the gold chains, the expensive cars, the hairdressing salon and
[43:58] Speaker 1: all that you were.
[44:00] Speaker 2: And strippers and I and all the things.
[44:02] Speaker 1: You're living off the grid too, weren't you, Like, you're not.
[44:05] Speaker 2: There's no bank account, you're not paying. Yeah, it's just
[44:08] Speaker 2: it's cash and yeah, easy coming out at the good times. Yeah,
[44:12] Speaker 2: and that all seems seems fun. Yeah, you know, parking
[44:15] Speaker 2: your car valet at the casino and going in and
[44:17] Speaker 2: dropping a few thousand dollars on the tables. Yeah yeah,
[44:20] Speaker 2: kid from the area from you know, I felt like
[44:23] Speaker 2: this is this is it? Man, look at me. Go,
[44:26] Speaker 2: wasn't the joke on me? Because it all comes down.
[44:27] Speaker 1: Crash, Well, it comes down a big time on you.
[44:30] Speaker 1: So you're out. You hit the streets again. You've got
[44:33] Speaker 1: a couple of the cases that are coming after you,
[44:36] Speaker 1: and I'm assuming this is when you've got out again.
[44:40] Speaker 2: Kidnappings, yeah, kidnappings, Yeah, alleged kidnappings.
[44:43] Speaker 1: Okay, well you were quited at court on it. But
[44:46] Speaker 1: when you're involved in the drug world, there's a lot
[44:49] Speaker 1: of kidnappings that go on that the reporter aren't reported,
[44:51] Speaker 1: and all sorts of ships that go down. And you're
[44:54] Speaker 1: even suspected of a murder that.
[44:57] Speaker 2: That's a technical one. Yeah, that's yeah, it's never interviewed.
[45:01] Speaker 1: Yeah, and look, I'll clarify that because I don't want
[45:04] Speaker 1: to sell you out on that. It was a person
[45:07] Speaker 1: that you're associated. We've died in the fire, and the
[45:10] Speaker 1: police looked at.
[45:10] Speaker 2: It, young Blake, he's only eighteen years old.
[45:13] Speaker 1: Looked at it and stepped up.
[45:15] Speaker 2: Was definitely a suspect.
[45:16] Speaker 1: Yeah, suspect because they weren't sure whether it was a
[45:19] Speaker 1: murder or a misadventure. But I think the current a
[45:23] Speaker 1: real the fire as an accident.
[45:26] Speaker 2: I mean they got my phone, my phone pinned far
[45:29] Speaker 2: far away from the incident, and yeah, like they obviously
[45:33] Speaker 2: did their homework. I mean someone's died. I'm sure they
[45:36] Speaker 2: give it all the resources they.
[45:37] Speaker 1: Had and look I think the way that we'll deal
[45:42] Speaker 1: with this or talk about this. There was charges that
[45:44] Speaker 1: you were or charged, but you be at court. I'm
[45:47] Speaker 1: sure there's other things you've done that you haven't been charged.
[45:51] Speaker 2: So ironically you say that so to cut you off.
[45:53] Speaker 2: But you know, when I sat in front of the courts,
[45:55] Speaker 2: and you know, there was things brought up that I
[45:57] Speaker 2: had nothing to do with. And then I always found
[45:59] Speaker 2: in this and you know, I quitted on the kidnappings,
[46:03] Speaker 2: and I was looking at a very long time if
[46:04] Speaker 2: I was found guilty. You know, I never once winged
[46:07] Speaker 2: about the position I was in. And I'll be honest,
[46:09] Speaker 2: because what about all the stuff I got away with.
[46:12] Speaker 2: I'll probably fifty years to be honest, you know. And
[46:16] Speaker 2: and so I took it on my chin, you know,
[46:19] Speaker 2: I copped it. And at that stage when I was
[46:21] Speaker 2: sitting in the courts, you know, looking at down the
[46:23] Speaker 2: barrel at a very long time. You know, I lost
[46:28] Speaker 2: two mates, you know, due to that, one from drug addiction.
[46:32] Speaker 2: He indeed, another one committed suicide before we got the
[46:35] Speaker 2: word in.
[46:35] Speaker 1: For a little of the pressure coming on with the trial.
[46:38] Speaker 2: He killed himself in the cells. Yeah, man, it was
[46:42] Speaker 2: a hard, hard time, and I really that's where I
[46:44] Speaker 2: sat and thought, and you know, in a split second,
[46:46] Speaker 2: it was a light bulb moment. I thought, what a
[46:48] Speaker 2: fucking shit career choice. You know, I'm in my mid thirties,
[46:52] Speaker 2: you know, and I'm looking at the rest of my
[46:55] Speaker 2: life in prison. You know, if I got them lucky
[46:57] Speaker 2: to get out of from fifty if not sixty, And
[47:00] Speaker 2: I thought, fucking man, what have I gone and done? Like,
[47:02] Speaker 2: there was no amount of like we talked about before,
[47:04] Speaker 2: the chains, the cars, the girls, all the shit that
[47:07] Speaker 2: comes with it, there was no amount of that that
[47:11] Speaker 2: was going to outweigh me doing fifteen to twenty five
[47:14] Speaker 2: years in prison. Like it's just that, no matter who
[47:16] Speaker 2: you are, when you get a whack like that, it's shit.
[47:20] Speaker 2: Your life's just gone to shit, you know. And so
[47:22] Speaker 2: like I was sitting there thinking fuck, and and I
[47:27] Speaker 2: was found innocent. Now I'm not stupid enough, you know,
[47:29] Speaker 2: to go back to that life after that. Yeah, that
[47:32] Speaker 2: was the three with the five, the three years on
[47:34] Speaker 2: the bottom with five on the top. That wasn't enough
[47:36] Speaker 2: to deter me. But looking at fifteen to twenty five,
[47:39] Speaker 2: I was done.
[47:40] Speaker 1: Yeah, do your calculations. Fuck, I'm going to be fifty
[47:42] Speaker 1: when I get out or yeah. So in sequence of events,
[47:47] Speaker 1: when did you start using drugs? Was this?
[47:49] Speaker 2: Was that pretty much after the attempted suicide put the
[47:52] Speaker 2: death by cop?
[47:53] Speaker 1: Okay, so this is before your last four in the
[47:57] Speaker 1: world of crime. Was at the point where you had
[48:00] Speaker 1: the charges for the kidnappings? Yeah?
[48:02] Speaker 2: So yeah, but did you do I haven't made an
[48:03] Speaker 2: illegal doll an illegal dollar since that trial.
[48:07] Speaker 1: Right, Okay, you were in prison at the time. They
[48:09] Speaker 1: would have been ba refused.
[48:11] Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I was reminded for eight months, end up
[48:14] Speaker 2: getting bail, fought my cases from outside, and then when
[48:18] Speaker 2: trial come I got done on it. There was a
[48:20] Speaker 2: bunch of different cases, a bunch of kidnappings, and then
[48:23] Speaker 2: there was also a fight. We went to someone's house
[48:26] Speaker 2: looking for another gang member and he jumped the back fence.
[48:29] Speaker 2: His parents come out the front and his parents end
[48:32] Speaker 2: up getting it. So, yeah, his dad ended up getting
[48:36] Speaker 2: been and then they were civilians.
[48:37] Speaker 1: You know, how do you feel about that the person?
[48:42] Speaker 2: How I feel now or.
[48:43] Speaker 1: How I felt that, How you feel now?
[48:45] Speaker 2: I think how I feel now? Yeah, civilians don't deserve that, mate.
[48:50] Speaker 2: You know that we've got to keep it in the
[48:51] Speaker 2: streets when we were about them streets. It should have
[48:53] Speaker 2: been kept in the streets. My mentality back then was
[48:56] Speaker 2: if we can't get you, we'll get your family. Now
[48:59] Speaker 2: I think that and now that happened to my mother,
[49:02] Speaker 2: you know what I mean? Well, like that's that's your
[49:05] Speaker 2: worst nightmare, you know. Yeah, man, that's definitely I did.
[49:10] Speaker 2: There's definitely some shame and guilt for that. Let's be honest.
[49:13] Speaker 1: Well, there should be where we talk talk karma. That
[49:18] Speaker 1: might be how it kicked in with you because you
[49:22] Speaker 1: went from a period of time where you're the you're
[49:25] Speaker 1: the man, you got the gold bling, you've got the women,
[49:28] Speaker 1: you've got the money, you've gone in the prison, but
[49:32] Speaker 1: you've started using and then you became you slipped down
[49:36] Speaker 1: the pecking order because you became the abviict and that
[49:38] Speaker 1: didn't go well for you. Did it?
[49:40] Speaker 2: No, no at all.
[49:41] Speaker 1: So some of the stuff there because yeah.
[49:44] Speaker 2: I ended up doing that little bit time. I got
[49:47] Speaker 2: thirty three months and I ended up pulling my parole.
[49:50] Speaker 2: I said, bang the parole. I just went straight release.
[49:52] Speaker 2: So I did. I got twenty on the bottom, twenty
[49:54] Speaker 2: months on the bottom with thirteen months on top, and
[49:56] Speaker 2: I ended up doing the whole thirty three, but I
[49:58] Speaker 2: got the eight months fromand as well, and anyway, so
[50:00] Speaker 2: I did twenty five or whatever it was. Twenty five
[50:02] Speaker 2: months got out. That was that stage in life where
[50:06] Speaker 2: now I'm free, I've left a life of crime behind.
[50:09] Speaker 2: I'm over it. I'm got to start doing the right thing.
[50:12] Speaker 2: And that's when that morning I woke up had the
[50:14] Speaker 2: episode with the sogs, and then you know, they went
[50:19] Speaker 2: I sat and did some work with me mental you know,
[50:23] Speaker 2: the mental health system did their work. They identified the problem.
[50:27] Speaker 2: There was no solution. The solution was going to be medication.
[50:31] Speaker 2: I was medicated from a young age, you know, from
[50:34] Speaker 2: being a troubled kid. You know, they're from medication. I
[50:37] Speaker 2: wasn't a fan of it. I never liked to feel
[50:39] Speaker 2: not myself. That was the option. It was like, let's
[50:42] Speaker 2: get you on the meds and they just want to
[50:43] Speaker 2: numb me. You know, at that stage, they don't want
[50:45] Speaker 2: to they don't want to heal me. They're not to
[50:48] Speaker 2: fix me or for me to find my true self.
[50:51] Speaker 2: They're just going to suppress everything with medication. So I
[50:55] Speaker 2: went to the streets. And the ironic thing is that
[50:57] Speaker 2: maybe I should have took their meds. It would have
[50:59] Speaker 2: been maybe a a lot of version, maybe not. But
[51:02] Speaker 2: so I went back to the streets and all I
[51:03] Speaker 2: could do was really, you know, self medicate. And I
[51:08] Speaker 2: can remember thinking, you know, I've got no reason not
[51:11] Speaker 2: to get high anymore. I had no drive. I'd retire
[51:14] Speaker 2: it from that life, and so I started to consume drugs.
[51:19] Speaker 1: There's an irony there isn't there. You've gone from the
[51:21] Speaker 1: drug dealer to the drug addict.
[51:24] Speaker 2: And I'd become a really like Gary when I see
[51:28] Speaker 2: drug addict. You know, I wasn't going out and storting
[51:30] Speaker 2: bags of coke and going to the clubs. I was
[51:33] Speaker 2: literally unwashed, you know, starving. I've been wearing the same
[51:37] Speaker 2: shoes for two years, you know. And I was any
[51:41] Speaker 2: drug I get my hands on. I was consuming. I
[51:43] Speaker 2: had an nice habit, a heroin habit, GHB, weed, alcohol,
[51:49] Speaker 2: description pills, anything I could get my hands on, really,
[51:53] Speaker 2: and it was the lowest, darkest time in my life.
[51:55] Speaker 2: But as we've talked about it at the stark karma
[51:57] Speaker 2: got me at best. And you know what, I wouldn't
[52:00] Speaker 2: age it for the world because it was the death
[52:01] Speaker 2: of my ego. It was a massive shot to my ego.
[52:07] Speaker 2: You know, I was sitting in trap houses. You know,
[52:09] Speaker 2: they'd have a couple of couches in them and TV
[52:12] Speaker 2: on the wall, she little bed in the bedroom, and
[52:15] Speaker 2: I was sitting in these houses and just consuming drugs
[52:18] Speaker 2: over and over and over again, surrounding myself with people
[52:22] Speaker 2: that you know, I would have I didn't even I
[52:25] Speaker 2: never had contact with these people because the people that
[52:28] Speaker 2: are running my drugs for me, you know, would have
[52:30] Speaker 2: to pass it three times down for it to catch
[52:32] Speaker 2: these you know, people that are buying one little speck
[52:35] Speaker 2: of gear to get them through the day. And so
[52:38] Speaker 2: like our next minute'm rubbing shoulders with these people, you know.
[52:41] Speaker 1: And the way and look, everyone's got the story and
[52:44] Speaker 1: there's a reason there.
[52:45] Speaker 2: So I deserved it. But yeah, yeah, well yeah, I
[52:49] Speaker 2: think that's why I started off with karma. Sometimes it
[52:53] Speaker 2: comes around because I believe in karma too, that yeah,
[52:57] Speaker 2: it can come back to back, come back to But
[53:00] Speaker 2: I suppose, and you know, we've all heard the term
[53:03] Speaker 2: the low life junkies and the bottom dwellers, and yeah,
[53:07] Speaker 2: I say that with the rest and I had no
[53:08] Speaker 2: compassion for them. Yeah I do now.
[53:11] Speaker 1: And that's why I'm clarifying here, I know a lot
[53:14] Speaker 1: of people, people that you wouldn't expect for whatever reason,
[53:17] Speaker 1: can find themselves there. But the you that was, you know,
[53:22] Speaker 1: the alpha gangster in the area is now hanging out
[53:25] Speaker 1: with the people that are getting fed with the bread
[53:27] Speaker 1: crumbs and are just addicted.
[53:30] Speaker 2: That one of them with all the.
[53:31] Speaker 1: Horrors that come with addiction and living a life like that.
[53:34] Speaker 2: And then you had, you know, my old that old life.
[53:37] Speaker 2: I used to have a lot of enemies from the
[53:39] Speaker 2: from the old life of being an active gang member
[53:41] Speaker 2: and a drug dealer. You know. You know, there's a
[53:44] Speaker 2: lot of people we stood on their toes because they
[53:48] Speaker 2: were in our area and they didn't do as they
[53:50] Speaker 2: were told. That's that was the mentality. Guess what they
[53:53] Speaker 2: come back to haunt me, didn't they? You know, the
[53:56] Speaker 2: art of war is kick an enemy where they're down,
[53:59] Speaker 2: you know, attack them at it there weakest. Well I
[54:00] Speaker 2: was at my weakest, so you know, two shape for them,
[54:03] Speaker 2: well played, you know, but multiple drive bys on locations
[54:06] Speaker 2: I was staying at, you know, stabbed. It was just
[54:10] Speaker 2: it was relentless, you know, and all I had was
[54:13] Speaker 2: my own two feet. I didn't have no boys anymore.
[54:15] Speaker 2: I had nothing offerendody.
[54:16] Speaker 1: Tell us about the stabbing. What happened there?
[54:19] Speaker 2: Yeah, I got to fight, and yeah I got hit
[54:23] Speaker 2: with with a steak knife. They actually left the steak
[54:28] Speaker 2: knife in my ribs, so when I look, I had
[54:31] Speaker 2: no T shirt on, so when I look down, all
[54:33] Speaker 2: I could see was the handle sticking under my ribs. Yeah, man,
[54:37] Speaker 2: this was this is the life I was living, you know.
[54:39] Speaker 2: That's where I got to you know, I was getting
[54:41] Speaker 2: stabbed up by people that that once upon a time
[54:44] Speaker 2: probably would have respected. You know, my word had weight.
[54:47] Speaker 2: They had no weight anymore, you know, and it was
[54:52] Speaker 2: time to get me back, payback, retribution for things that
[54:54] Speaker 2: you're done to them. Of course, Yeah, of course it was. Yeah,
[54:58] Speaker 2: that's what it was all about. It was all about them,
[55:00] Speaker 2: getting them getting hold of me and square enough and
[55:06] Speaker 2: the perfect time was why I was thinking high on drugs.
[55:09] Speaker 2: I didn't have a dollar to my name, had no respect,
[55:11] Speaker 2: no power, I had no friends, didn't even have a
[55:13] Speaker 2: car to get in you know.
[55:15] Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think this is a lesson for everyone too,
[55:19] Speaker 1: because when you're flying high with your running your criminal,
[55:22] Speaker 1: criminal group, everyone wants to be your friend. They can
[55:25] Speaker 1: get on if they hang out with you and yeah,
[55:28] Speaker 1: you're the meaning to be seen with and all that.
[55:31] Speaker 1: How quickly they abandon you when things are not going well.
[55:34] Speaker 1: So it's a wake up in life, isn't it? Who
[55:37] Speaker 1: your friends are. You've got plenty of friends when life's
[55:39] Speaker 1: going good for you.
[55:41] Speaker 2: But that life is, man, it's a treacherous life, you know,
[55:44] Speaker 2: like it's it's two people in that life. They call
[55:48] Speaker 2: your brothers, you know, all the rest of it. But
[55:51] Speaker 2: when you know your brother will put one in the
[55:54] Speaker 2: back of your head for the right price, you know,
[55:56] Speaker 2: like it happens over and over again. You know, Yeah,
[55:59] Speaker 2: you make you spent your whole life with back to
[56:02] Speaker 2: back and next minute they turn on you in the
[56:04] Speaker 2: police station.
[56:05] Speaker 1: Well you know, it's just this is what that life is.
[56:08] Speaker 2: Or lay up with your girl, you know, like it
[56:10] Speaker 2: just happens over and over again, because it's a dog
[56:12] Speaker 2: eat dog world, you know. So there's there's no amongst thieves.
[56:17] Speaker 1: Well there's the code that people say they live by,
[56:21] Speaker 1: but I can say, looking from a police point of view,
[56:23] Speaker 1: the amount of people that were supposedly staunched that weren't
[56:27] Speaker 1: because it was self serving to what they needed.
[56:30] Speaker 2: You're out for yourself.
[56:31] Speaker 1: Well that's what that's what it comes down to. But
[56:35] Speaker 1: it's an I. But your learners life goes through.
[56:39] Speaker 2: Yeah, and if they haven't worked it out yet, they will, Yeah,
[56:42] Speaker 2: well they will, you know.
[56:44] Speaker 1: I thought, Yeah, I had people in the police were
[56:46] Speaker 1: rock solid with me, and you could have heard echoes
[56:51] Speaker 1: when the police came after me.
[56:53] Speaker 2: That I was saying, you really see who your true
[56:55] Speaker 2: friends are when she hits the fandom.
[56:56] Speaker 1: Yeah, and the ones that stand up means so much.
[57:00] Speaker 1: They're friends for life. The others that just disappear because
[57:03] Speaker 1: it doesn't benefit them by being associated. But well, look,
[57:08] Speaker 1: we've taken into a dark place for the first first
[57:11] Speaker 1: part of the podcast, but I can assure people that
[57:13] Speaker 1: when we get back, there is a there is light
[57:16] Speaker 1: at the end the end of the tunnel. I appreciate
[57:18] Speaker 1: how open and hoymous you've been and the stuff that
[57:22] Speaker 1: you're doing now is having an impact and just the
[57:26] Speaker 1: way that we haven't even got your turn in your
[57:28] Speaker 1: life around. But I want you to tell us how
[57:31] Speaker 1: you turned your life around, because yeah, you've let's just
[57:35] Speaker 1: look at your situation. Done time in jail, addicted to
[57:38] Speaker 1: addicted to drugs, big time. You got no, you've got
[57:42] Speaker 1: no history as far as society is concerned. You've never
[57:44] Speaker 1: had a license, no bank accounts. Yeah so yeah at
[57:50] Speaker 1: a low point. That's pretty low. But we're going to
[57:52] Speaker 1: talk in part to how you turn your life around,
[57:55] Speaker 1: so I encourage people to listen to that. So this
[57:59] Speaker 1: is a good This is the bit I like to
[58:00] Speaker 1: talk about.
[58:01] Speaker 2: You know, this is my true passion.
[58:03] Speaker 1: Yeah. Well I can see it just on your face
[58:05] Speaker 1: that you're lighting up there the other ship that we've
[58:08] Speaker 1: been talking about. Yeah, yeah, did that. Did that. But
[58:11] Speaker 1: we're going to talk about the good stuff after so
[58:13] Speaker 1: they'll be back in pup to Cheese.

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