The public has had a long held fascination with detectives. Detective see a side of life the average persons never exposed to. I spent thirty four years as a cop. For twenty five of those years I was catching killers. That's what I did for a living. I was a homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys staid, I'm taking the public.
Into the world in which I operated.
The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some of the content and language might be confronting. That's because no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged. Join me now as I take you into this world. Claud Robertson, Welcome back to I Catch Killers.
Thanks Gerry.
Now in part one, Claude, We've got a very interesting take on your life, and I've got to say it. I've just been thinking about the.
Chaos of your life, the chaos of your life.
When it goes down a path that you're dependent on drugs. You did seven years in prison, caught for different things, made a lot of stupid decisions.
Yep, likely.
And I look at it the way that your life is, the way we left you in and out the jail, in there and just not learning, still your addictions carrying through the prison system. I got to say, from my point of view, it looked like you're going down the one way straight. You're even going to end up dead or in prison for the rest of your life.
That's funny you say that, because that was a pivotal moment. I think. You know, we left the last time. My dad had died at Gold and I was up for a parole and I was going to Rainbow Lodge where on our work, and I remember that last six months coming up. I'd got my parole, I got the date, and I was getting in some inheritance. And the insanity was I thought this because through all that chaos, I still had believe that a big bag of money or
a big bag of dope would fix it all. And I thought this, and I was right, this was it.
I was going to get out, so the big bag of money, to get the big bag of dope or the big bag of money to invest wisely and become a citizen.
Yeah probably not, yeah, probably not invest wisely. You know, I think you know when I was coming out. You know what, I don't even think I thought about it that much. This is it.
I'm just I'm wondering when you've gone through that like you did three years in gold when you were sold of the prison officer in Cesnok, you're not having a good time in Golden Goblin's not a fun place.
It's a horrible place. Do you so you were what at this age you were thirty thirty six thirty six?
Do you have moments of reflection when you're sitting there, because you've got a lot of time to time to think when you're in prison, do you have moments and think, why has my life gone down this path? Not?
At that stay, I think I was so focused on that I was getting my inheritance, that this was going to change everything, and still in huge.
Change everything, as in give you access to drugs?
What was the change? Well, I think still then I was in a lot of denial and I still thought I could use manageably if I had enough access and I did it the right way.
Right, so I've got money, I can still have my drugs. I don't have to be a criminal, and I live all.
Not do crime. That I'm not desperate crime insane, So you know, I leave there and I end up at Rainbow Lodge, and you know, two weeks later, I and at this stage, I'm still on I think i'd reduce I was only seventy five meals of a methadone because they wouldn't let me on parole without still being on methodone. Two weeks after that, you know, I get my inheritance,
and five weeks later I'm back in prison. But that last day, you know, and I sat in the Estoria with my girlfriend at the time, and I just shot it all up on co in heroin, and I remember the insanity of going, you know, when it gets to thirty twenty ten, well stop, yeah, yeah, you're going down.
You know, we'll stop like well, you know. And what happened was I wake up the last day and it had all gone, and I was that crazy that I jumped a cab with her because I again I just thought, I need to get a shot of heroin to work out what I'm going to do, just insane. So I jump a cab. I go to the Leichhart Social Security Office where I'm registered at because I've been at Rainbow
Lodge and I'm that insane I believe that. I go up to the counter and I said to my girlfriend, I'll get a counter check because I'll tell them i'm on the run, which I was at this stage from parole, and they'll give it to me because otherwise I'm going to have to rob someone.
And like I thought, that was that's your logic, that was my logic.
And so I go up to the guy and you can still get counter checks in those days, and you know, he said no, and I just jumped the counter and you know, hit him and robbed him. And don't worry about prison. The Airport centerally know more about you than
fucking anyway. It was the most in and it camera like it was just so desperate, and I knew I was in trouble because as we were running out with this guy's will and phone my girlfriend, who unfortunately is still up the cross using said to me, you're fucking fucked, And I thought, well, I'm in trouble here because she's bad,
you know if she reckons. Yeah, so you know, I jump another two cabs and it's like a movie because we're going up Paramatta Road towards Kings Cross and all the vans are coming towards like can't And I get there and you know, I've got this phone and still I'm thinking, I just got to get a shot at Heroin to work out what I'm going to do, and pivotal, very pertle moment at a moment of clarity, spiritual awaiting, call it whatever you want. I saw the undercovers across
the road. My girlfriend goes, I think they've peggja. Something just overcame. I said, I can't do this anymore. I gave the wallet, the phone and kisser and said I'm going to give myself up. And I remember walking across the road and they're looking at me and I'm walking towards it, and you know, I don't know what they thought, but they're on, you know, And I said, oh, you're looking for me. They gave them my name and they're you know, And I was so defeated that he said,
I don't even need to carf your doing. I said, no, you know.
Is that that watershed name of is that.
One hundred percent? One hundred percent? You know? And they put me because at King's Cross they're not even cells there like docs, and I just remember them put me in there. And I just burst out crying and just thought, fuck that. Fuck that's over, you know now, And I just wanted to go back where there was no responsibility. In prison.
Yeah, well that's you can become institutionalized. Like I've said, had a lot of people say to me when I was in the cops that it's easier in there. Im fair, I know what I'm doing, I know people in there. I don't have to worry about where I'm going to get my next dollar's.
Well, i'd left, you know, that was it. You know, this was the moment I'd wait my whole life for, and again it just ended in this disaster. Okay.
So, and I'm really interested in what's going through your mind because I think people who have been listening to this podcast will really get a sense of how desperate and ridiculous the life of an addict is. Yeah, it's chaos. Yep, you're giving yourself up. Did you just think, Okay, this is going to be my life. Just send me back back to prison because you get your drugs in prison.
Oh yeah, yeah. I had access to drugs every single not that I use them every day, but there's access. You know, it's full of drugs. No, you know, I just I didn't know what I thought. I just knew I needed to be protected from myself, you know. And so I end up back at MRC, and I remember, it's embarrassing to even talk about it, and I'm going to the wing officer and saying, I want to see the AOD you know, the drug worker, you know, And he said to me about time Robert, and I was
quite offended. Yeah, you know, I'm the last to catch on always.
Well, yeah, with any addiction, I think the first step is you've got to want to give it up, isn't it. You within yourself have got one to stop it. So that's probably the first step you needed to take.
That's the first step. The second step is I'm walking on doing laps in at MWRC. You know, I've been back in a couple of weeks. I've got a sweeper's job, I've got a one out with a TV full of cockroaches, and I've got nikes on and me and this other guy are hanging shit on this other guy because he's went and done lot volleys and there's a guy on the other side of him doing laps and that's I'm like thirty six, got nikes and greens on, thinking I'm
killing it. We're hanging shit because that's what you're doing jail. You have to hang shit on someone else to feel better about itself. And there's the next guy across from him, looked in his sixties, could have been younger, and I just I just had this moment where I looked past the guy in the dun lot Volleys and went, fuck, it's that's it. It's this is gonna Is this it?
You know?
Is this it?
I've heard people have spent a lot of time in prison when they come to the realization said when they see the older prisoners, and it's all exciting when you're a young gangster.
You know I'm going to make a mark. I'm a tough guy.
I'm doing this, and there was some glory to it, and you know you had the women, you had this, you had that. And then then they see the people that had been broken by the jail system and how sad it really is. You look a look at that old, old person. You're looking at that old person thinking, fuck, that could be me very soon.
One hundred percent. So I've breached my paroles. I'm in for a breach of parole and a new assault charge and you know, I think that's still from personal they caught they charged me with so but first of all, I don't even I don't worry even about the charge I got before the parole board. And I've seen the AOD worker and I'm like, fuck, I'm ready to change. I want to go rehab. And he writes a report and all that, and I go before the parole b
and the parole board because I met mac. So it's I'm in a booth like this and my lawyer and the parole border in the city and I've just got a phone to speak to my lawyer. I speak, you know, I want to go to who's aware of it? What you know? And I'm thinking, yeah, they're gonna they're gonna clap me, like insaying like and go oh about time, robo what a good man. He's finally decided, Yeah, it
comes on. He you know, my lawyer does his bit, you know, and they go away for like ninety seconds and come back and they just changed the parole laws there so it was automatic one year then for breaching for breaching automatic, So they came back and they just said, may you're not going anywhere. You fucking you've been out five six weeks. You're doing a year. We'll see you in a year. I just broke down cry and it saved me because the guard was he didn't know what
to do, so he didn't come and grab me. But I grabbed the phone again and my lawyer was still there, and like I just knew I just needed some and I said to him, mate, you've got to get it. You've got to get I need something. I need. Fuck, I can't do this again. I need something. I need it to be different. To this day, they still don't know what he said to them because it was off. The screen was off, you know, and you know because I was crying the guard and then the guard says
that they're going to come back on. They come back on the screen and they say to me, all right, you know you're lawyers, but you're going to still do a year in prison, but we're going to send you to do a rehab in jail called Nara Nara. And that was enough. Okay, that was I just thought, fuck, all right, that was hope.
You know, that was enough as a program they're going to put you on in prison.
They were saying, so the last six months because it went for six months, I think it did. So you do six months and then the last six months of this period and by that, you know. So as soon as I got that, you know, I speak to my line, plead guilty to the charge, you know, and they don't give me.
I don't know what they gave me eight months.
Or whatever it was. So you know, I wasn't going to do any more time. So what was you said?
Yes, that was enough? That is that really the turning point? Yeah? Is that your moment where you've gone, I'm going to make this work.
It is. But I'll tell you addiction such a strong thing because I then go to fifteen when they moved me to Long Bay because that's where the program was. So I'm at fifteen Wing, not where the program is, pre the program, and I'm using every day.
Even so, this is a great new model, claud that has pleaded with everyone, and there people are moving mountains to put in this program.
But as you just said before, I was broken. That was pathetic. So you know, the start shooting the wire
of the fence at Paramatta, you know, getting stabbed. Now I'm swiping, I'm swapping my white ox for Sarah Wall to take on top of my one hundred and fifty mils A methodone to fucking wipe me out every night and getting up every morning with my We used to have they would put a video on in the wing, you know, and your wake up a sh as a video and I'd have porridge a'll owed me that I can't remember making, and I go, oh fucking I'd see the guy I bought the cerracle off. I go, you know, fuck,
I'm not doing that again. At three o'clock, I'd be racing to his cell, thinking, fuck, I hope he hasn't sold him and ever you go, I know you're always coming back. Yeah, you know. And that was and that was changed. But I couldn't stop. And then you know, I got into Nara Noura, and then I made the first serious decision. I just went all right because I was on methadone. I've never been allowed to come off
methadone in jail because of the risk I posed. So they were going to reduce me from one hundred and fifty down to fifty before they.
And just explain for people. I think most people understand methadone, but explain the science behind.
That, so they give it to you as a blocker to stop you from using heroin. So it's the Germans invented, and actually because they couldn't get access to opium because the British rought India and Afghanistan in World War two. So they need it because you know, you needed it from all the wounded soldiers and stuff. So it's a long acting so you can you drink it once a day and it last twenty four hours and it takes
away the appetite for heroin. Or if I was on that high, you couldn't use any heroin, it wouldn't make any difference. So they started to reduce me. But that was when I the first serious and I believe this was the start of my recovery because I made it not to anyone else, no one to myself. In my cell, I went, or I'm just going to take my methodone as prescribed, nothing else. That's it, because that's I couldn't
come off it. I knew that I had to accept my circumstances, but I had to make a commitment, and I did that and I got through that program. I got down to fifty mils of methodone, and I couldn't get parole because my family lived in a state my parents were didn't because they changed the parole or so you needed a suitable address, so you had to do it an extra year and you needed a suit and I couldn't get a suitable address, which I'm so glad because the only place that I could go to And again,
you know, sliding door moment. You know, at that time, there was two places in the world that brought you off methadone. There was Who's in Sydney and there was
one in New York. And I was lucky. So you know, I got parole to Who's, which was on Cleveland Street, and I went back down to the methadone clinic that I used to go to and I had to walk down there, and you know, they took me to meetings of Narcotics Anonymous, and they you know, reduced me off heroin, you know, And but you know, it was there was pivotal moments there because it was there was about eighteen people in the house, I remember, but sitting out the
back one night and never one was winge. And at this stage, you know how shit it was, I thought it was the fucking best thing that had ever happened to me, And it's crazy. The food, because the food in jail shit, you know, and it's worse now than when I was in there, but it was because we could cook up the food. But I had three pellows and I know that sounds insane, but I spent half
of my time in prison. They will give you a pellow slip, but no pellow and you had to roll up your tracksuit pants to put it inside the pellow slip to sleep on.
So I seen it so little luxuries those and they call me claude.
You know. I usually heard me at Parliament. You know. I started my speech three five nine two three seven my MIN number.
Yeah, yeah you did, and you made a point and I understood the point, but I think it hit people pretty hard. That's your identification when you're in prison, you're mid number.
And that's mine for life. No one will no one else will ever get that number. You know, as I said there, I don't remember my childhood phone number, but my MIN number. And I haven't been in for seventeen years because in prison you can't do anything without that. In the moment, you know, that's what you become, that number. So it's very dehumanizing. So yeah, so I was at and I was on parole, and I was that rehabing parole.
It said to me, I had to do six months in who And I remember before going there, I had an argument with one of the staff at Nara Nura, one of many along the way, you know, and I'm like, fuck, I've just done all this time. It was fucking six months and I didn't know but he was a recovering addict too, and he just he said, you're a fucking idiot, CLRD, You're a fucking idiot. You'll do two years for a fifty dollar shot at heroin, but you won't do six
months to change your life. And I didn't have an answer.
When he breaks it down like that, it's a pretty hard thing to come back again.
Fuck. I just grabbed my tail and walked out. And it was one of those many moments that rehab I went into. You know, they got me down to the last mill of methadone and I'm like, you know, I remember going up and seending the coordinator and going, fuck, I don't need to do it. I can jump off now, you know. And again, pivotal moment. He didn't say to me, no, you've got to take it. These are the rules. He asked me a question, He said, tell me what's happened
every other time you've come off methadone? And I went, fuck, I've used Tehran every time. And he said, mate, we've brought hundreds of people off methodone they've never used again. Another moment of humility.
Okay, all these little moments. And it's interesting you say humility, but it's almost acceptance of how low you've hit. And you've got to start listening to people because your path is not going to see you clear.
Look it. You know, people go, what happened? What changed? You know? And you know they want you to say I had this spiritual fucking did what I was told for the first time in my life, simple as that that's the only thing that changed. And I just was at this point where as you heard like, you know, the decisions I'd made for the last twenty five years were fucking terrible. Yeah, oh, you got no argument, you
know what I mean? And I just thought like, there's nothing these people can do to harm me more than I harm myself. And then you know that guy, you know, he said six months to change your life. He was right. That guy who said, you know, stay on the method in one more week. I've never had methodone again. I've never used the drug since I followed his path. So I started to not only listen to what people see, because I'm a very practical person, like your shit doesn't change.
I'm not in want like I needed. I want to get better. And it started to get better, you know, And you know, my life started to get better. And you know that rehab that I complained about going to for six months and parole is really clear. You leave one day for any reason before your six months, you're doing your bop. And I think I had twenty months left or eighteen, okay, so you needed to be that. Yeah, they know, they knew. They were really strict, like you weren't, you know what I mean?
And I think I get a sense with a lot of addicts when they come and try to pull the wool over people's eyes or whatever. It's people like you, like you've become and the like the people that did this to you, the ones that have been there, done that know all the bullshit that comes out of your mouth, because bullshit just comes out of the people's mouths when they're addicted to drugs.
How do you know when a junkies line, you know, their lips move. Yeah, I've heard that before. That's so true. You know it is true, and you know and you believe it. The other thing that happened in that that started to happen in that Nara and Nura program that was pivotal, and is what I talk about now is I've never ever, ever seen anyone punished out of her behavior. Don't stop it, why the behavior is in place. The only way I've seen people change what happening in Nara
and Nora was the guards. We had to call each other by our first names.
Okay, that's interesting, and let's take take the conversation there because you know, quite often prison is about rules. You break the rules, you get punished. That what you're saying is that with this Nara that it wasn't about punishment. No, it wasn't.
It was about helping you along the path. Yeah, it was so different. You know that the guards would tell me that you know, when they went to because they volunteered to work in there, that they would scratch the other guards would scratch their cars, let their ties down. You know, some of them would have to stop eating in the cafeteria because they would spit in their burgers.
They were being ostracized, whether you being you're soft on these crims.
Yep, yep, yep. And that program's the most successful program ever run in New South Wales and then they closed it in twenty ten.
Right, I think that's something you're beating on about in one of your talks.
Well, I spoke at the closing and I think the Deputy Commissioner was there and that's the last time I opened a speech with my min number was there and I thought that speech at Parliament House was the same gravity.
So that you're saying that it was one of the most successful programs, yep.
The most It was shut down when twenty ten. Why why do you think that they said it was too expensive?
Okay, which is and it brings us right back to where we started at the start with about the fiscal side of keeping the keeping the person in cus Well.
It's insane, you know, as I spoke about in Parliament, the police budget in New South Wales for the current financial year is five point two billion dollars and the corrective services budget is two point one b and so seven point three billion dollars. The whole budget for housing and homeless in New South Wales for the current year is seven hundred and eighty million.
That's pretty startling when you break it down that.
You know, like it's and people it's insane. You know, it really does come down to that. You know, when you in prison someone for a year and I'm sorry, and this may upset people, but prison offers no value to the community. Now I'm not soft on crime. There is people that fucking should never get out. We still let them out. You know, if the guys in prison got to them, you know, they wouldn't go and be there.
I know what you're saying, and prisoners i've spoken to about prison reform, all acknowledged is some people that shouldn't get out. Not a society need to be protecting mate.
I was at the dentist at Golden when they brought in Ivan Malatt you know from super Max in the orange suit, you know, and made the play and in goldwhen you didn't speak to the guards after he left because there was a chill in the air.
Yeah, I actually saw him down in Golden and.
I don't know if evils, but fuck, I don't know, you know, what I mean. And you know in Golden you know, I was in there with Glover, the Granny murderer, and you know that yard. I think that there was forty blakes and then that killed sixty five people. And I look back now and think, funk, I was just a kid from the suburb smoking pot. How the fuck? How do you get there? How am I? Why am I? Even? Yeah? It was you know when I look back, that there was you know, the change took a while, but it
really was. You know, I thought, these people just kill people for killing people, like that's rights.
And I think the message gets lost. And I think when we've had Mindy Story speaking to she's been on the podcast and a lot of people saw the pushback. Well, you're trying to help prisoners, and they're not distinguishing between the Ivan Malats or the Claude Robertson's. It's just they're
all prisoners. This is how they should be treated. What you're saying, with this lived experience and now seven llion years out, seventillion years clean, seventeen years doing good work for society, you're saying, we've got to change the system. We've got to look at things differently, break it down there. A lot of people listen to the podcast. What messaging do.
You want to go? You know, and I'm a very pragmatic so the pure economics don't make sense, you know what I mean? Seven point three billion dollars and that doesn't even take anto the courts. If you had the courts and all that in New South Wales alone, probably ten billion dollars a year. We've got a housing crisis, you know what I mean. You know, the Minister was winging about the other day because you know, the government
they wanted an extra billion dollars over two years. We could take half a billion from that tomorrow and build as many houses as we needed. You know, people don't understand. And it's our explayers. So we don't need any more money. We need to spend it differently. And the thing is why I say jail isn't of value to the communities
because and I've spoken at events. You know, I spoke at an event up in Maribra, North queenslanda while, you know, probably eight years ago, and you know, there was the parents of their daughter had been murdered by the husband and domestic violence, and there was a sister. Her sister had been murdered by the boyfriend, and she was a prison guard at the prison where the boyfriend was now incarcerated,
you know. And I spoke up there at the time with the manager of the Rainbow Lodge, who was one of the few men trained in men's at a PhD or a Masters in men's change behavior. And people think, you know, like, if I do crime related to drugs when I go to jail, they made me to do drug courses. No, they didn't. Don't make you do anything if if people and you know, at the bad writer
is seeing. When I was talking a couple of years ago, a lady asked me this question either but the prison populations increase because they're locking up all these people on a vohs. And I said, I've been in prison with them, and I said to you, you know what happens. They're in there with all the other guys on AVOs, getting more angry, more violent, and then they come out and their next victim is oblivious to their history. So we're actually making them worse because they're not they don't have
to do anything, Okay. So I think that my experience when I've spoken to the community, they're shocked because they just blindly believe that there was an expectation that if you commit this crime, that when we incarcerate you, that you're being offered or made to address or at least look at. And that's not the reality.
Okay, So breaking down what you're saying, So I haven't misunderstood that someone goes in for a crime of violence. You assume if someone just repeatedly goes back in the prison because of violent actions, that when they're in print and maybe there'll be someone there trying to address that.
That makes sense, doesn't it?
Like if someone, let's break it down, domestic violence at such a topical subject, domestic violent offenders go in there, you'd like to think something's being corrected in what causes them to do that, rather than they've just been put away cranky and as you said, sit there and get quite angry and then come out, Well I'm back out, Now, what are you going.
To do to me?
Drug addicts, like, how many people are in there with the drug addictions that commit crimes to support their drug addictions commit crimes because of the stupidity is you're demonstrated that your mind plays when you're addicted to drugs. Are they being treated for their drug problem? Are they they getting help? They go into the core of the problem that's for them in the prison. Now, when we break
it down like that, I'm with you. I think most people will assume, well, a system that's spending that much money, what are we invest in that. What you're saying here with your T shirt that says jail is failing? Yep, what you're saying here is it's not working.
It's not. You just need to look at the numbers and these are box are government numbers. You know, the average prison sentence in New South Wales is eight months. Eight months is the average sentence. So they're not ivan malats, you know what I mean and anyone at the moment, there's about twelve and a half thousand people in prison today in New South Wales. Yet nineteen thousand people will cycle through every year. Ten thousand of those will go to homelessness.
Right go from prison to homelessness. Will break those figures down again, because.
That's true, there's twelve about twelve and a half thousand people in prison in prison today in New South Wales. This year about nineteen thousand people will cycle through those twelve and nine thousand beds and then ten thousand of that nineteen thousand will be released to homelessness. So I don't know.
I'm not, you know, a social commentator, but you have people in jail and release them to homelessness. I'm thinking there's probably good reason why these people are recycling back into prison.
And not only were really and I know this because I've met with Minister Jackson, the minister, and had this conversation and you know, with her, you know they're being dumped by corrections on her the homeless you know, So the ministry with two point one billion dollars is dumping the inmates because once they come out of prison, not my responsibility, onto the homelessness budget, which has seven hundred and eighty million dollars, and she is burning through money
because they give them three nights tenory accommodation and these shith hostels in the city but are just crack dans. Yeah, and like it's insane.
I've always had concerns about that because if they walk out the prison gate, we've all got the image of the person, yeah see you back here next week, and walk out the gates and to lift to their own devices. It's not that far from the truth.
It's not, it's not. You know, we're filming a four corners documentary about our service at the moment, you know, and you know one of the men who's going to be the pivotal of that. You know, they filmed him as he lodge. This is the Rainbow Lodge. So they filmed him coming out of Coomba Prison a few weeks ago, and he's been through Rainbow before, and you know, they stopped and had to McDonald and had to chat with him, you know, and the journalists asked him the question, you know,
what would be the perfect on our own? He would say that I never leave Rainbow Lodge. Yeah, okay, you know, because that's the other thing. So he came through us previously and we housed him in a support in a semi independence. He got a unit, but it was miles away. It was down near La Peru's miles from US, no public transport. He got so isolated, you know, it was so sad. When we went back into the house, he hadn't even said his furniture up and he just used drugs and gone to prison.
Yeah that is at set, I don't you know. We can all be tough guys and go, well, we go back where he deserves it. It's just said, if you isolate people, and if.
You met this guy, he's like someone's grandfather. Yeah, you know, like you know, yes, you know he breaks into people's houses, but you know, he generally tries not to hurt anyone. And you know, he he takes drugs because he's in pain.
Because I think one of the things that people need to understand about the people that end up in prison, and this is why society and the community needs to take responsibility for my experience is that ninety eight percent of the guys that come through my service have been removed from their as children put into a government service, whether they then being sexually abused, and you know we're
talking rape, they've been raped as children. You know, I have one guy, an Aboriginal guy who told them most horrific story, gets taken off his mum, sent to you know, an orphanage that's run by a church. The priest starts raping him. His younger brother, who's a couple of years younger, comes, So this kid, he's eight years older, he gets an agreement, he negotiates with the priest that you can rape me and I won't tell anyone as long as you don't
rape my brother. It breaks your heart, doesn't he I'm nearly crying talking about it. He then, you know, the trauma that is so much that he starts acting out, So they send him off to Minda, and the priest starts raping the brother until he grows up starts acting out, and then they send him off to Minda. Then they both end up in jaw and the brother kills himself. You know, so what this is?
Well, see stories like that, I think everyone just takes a black and white attitude on things. When you hear stories like that, You've got to have some humanity for what's happening here.
You do, And like all I hear the same story. And why I say that is because what we did as a community is we let these children down and to not take responsibility for we then criminalize their trauma response behavior and send them to boys homes. And you know that you dealt with the killers that it went through all the boys hearts. They are a breathing ground. Yeah.
And I've also with the recent times of what we've done here in time that I've spent in prison doing that podcast series, got an appreciation of the amount of people that A person that's a good friend of the podcast, Russell Manster who sadly passed away. He made the point that the amount of you want to reduce crime, look at the trauma, these trauma, these people have suffered, been victims of child sexual abuse, and how that plays out in the future.
All of them, you know, all of them that come across across my desk. You know, I think I think I said it at at Parliament House. You know, seventy eight point I think seventy eight point one percent of the men that come through us had engagement in the juvenile justice system. And I was saying that because they just changed the bail laws and because there's two things that the governments do.
You talk about the baile laws, because there's a lot of anger in Parliament.
Well it's ridiculous because disproportionately going to affect First nations people and at the moment, you know, my service we're not a first nation's only service, but ninety eight percent of the people in my service are First nation because we've got a lot of funding to work with them. You know, they make up thirty percent of the prison population in New South Wales, but three percent of the general population think of those figures like yeah, and it's disproportionate.
Even scarier, we incarcerate them at the highest So First Nations people in New South Wales are incarcerated per hundred thousand at the greatest rate in the world, four times what African Americans are incarcerated, the second most incarcerated people in the world. It's nothing to be proud of. Well, not only we should be as I said in part, we should be disgusted, like we've got a labor government federally and a labor government state. They were telling us that,
you know, let's vote for a voice. Then they're bringing in laws they're going to dispropose affect First Nations.
How do you see the bar laws doing that having that effect.
I was having this debate with my friend last night as an ex policeman. You may have it differently. The insanity and it's like the decisions I made. The insanity of government is you don't ask the police how to stop crime. The police solve crime, that's their job, and you don't ask corrections how to stop people coming to jail.
It's not their job. Their job is to keep people in jail, and New South Wales do that really well, like I said it, because you know Parliament, the Deputy Commissioner was there and I'm not one of these you know, fucking clothes. All the prisons defund the police. It's ridiculous. You know, I've worked with the police really closely in
some of my jobs. And you know, as I said to that, and I looked at the Deputy Commissioner, I said, you know, we're in prison and a guy, so you're having to go and deal with mental health because we don't have a social worker at the hospital and you're not trained for it. And put all this unreal expectation on our police officers and and on our prison guards. That's not their job. And we do the same with
our school teachers, you know. And my thing is we do that because we waste all this money in prison in people. Because I think about it, if you take it right back, because I believe there should be a five year moratorium in New South Wales'm building any new prisons if we are seriously serious about doing it different. We don't need any more prisons. Get rid of all the private prisons. That's the other thing people don't realize
Australia incarcerates more people. So twenty five percent of our prison population are incarcerating private prisons, highest in the world. The US is second in seventeen percent.
I don't know anyone that speaks favorably of the principle of privatizing prisons, running a prison for a profit. The people that are in the prisons, I've never heard a good thing said about private highest prisons.
Look, I think they just jumped on the wagon the same as the right wing wagon, you know, when they sold telecom and all those things, and said that the you know, government bureaucuracy, you know, is it costs us money, it's not efficient. And I think they just jumped on the back of that and said that we can run prisons more efficiently. But what we call them correction center, so that the idea is we're correcting them. But who runs a business for profit that puts yourself out of business?
Yeah, well if her correction is private, you know, and do their job, well, they won't have a business.
Yeah. Like So it's so insane. And what we've seen in New South Wales and around the country when we're with the more private prisons, all the bail laws have come so.
In new can I just bring you back on that point to the bar laws? So the new bar laws. When we were at Parliament was there was a lot of huffing and puffing going on about specifically, why do you think that's not going to be a good thing. You said that police shouldn't be saying how to stop.
C Well, you know, the police have two things, more reasons to arrest people and harsher bail. Like they're the two tools you have as a really as a police officer, more reasons to stop and arrest someone and more reasons to not let them out on bail.
So if I'm silver cop, there's claud You're you're annoying me, you're out, you're doing something, You've broken the window or whatever, I'm going to arrest you. We're going to refuse. Refuse Barlin an extreme and unlikely extreme. But you're you're saying that something that, well, it makes it easier for us police if people are in jail, because then we don't have to look for them. So I acknowledge what you're saying, like police shouldn't be involved in that it is easier.
But I have real life experience of this so my previous job, I managed to use service over the Northern Beaches and I met with the I think he was the coman crime commander. Yeah, for the Northern Beach. I love amazing guy. I think, you know, solution focused whatever it takes, and community solutions, not like so I've had
lots of good ones. So there was at this stage and people did know people when it's the Northern Beaches, but the highest uptake of people in juvenile detention or prison in New South Wales or from the Northern Beaches, you know. So and there was lots of these kids, you know. So I met with him and said, you know, this is a problem. What can we do? And he said to me, you know, on any Saturday night on the Northern Beaches at anyone time, I got five cars babysitting.
Because people don't realize, he said it as soon as I become have an interaction with a child under sixteen, I become speaking of and I can't let them go until I hand them over to a responsible person. So he said, you know, I've got eight cars on the beaches and five of them you know, so real crimes, you know, the things that we want police to come to they can't get to them because of these kids.
So you know, we came up with this scene called Beach Reach where we went out with we had a car with youth workers and they would call us up and go, we've got these kids. Would ring mum, you know, because the other thing we found was, you know, they said to us, he ring mum and dad and on the northern beaches they're smashed so they can't come and
pick up little Johnny, you know. So they were able to the police, could you know, ring the parents and go, hey, tell them money's here the youth workers and I tell you and this is why I say that police don't solve crime. Because he was I can't think of his name out a Greek name, but he said to me, he said, I know the moment I put a child in a car, even to take them home to their parents, I changed their relationship to the police instantly forever.
And I just went, wow, okay, well he's thinking, you know what I mean.
So he said, if I can have you guys who not only take them home so I don't have to put them in a police car, you know, then we have a therapeutic conversation. We can go, oh, what's going on because while you're out, something's going on at Hount, you know, and give them a card. And from that guru that we went into chrome a high school, you know, and we would say, look, where do you go high school? We're here on a Tuesday. You just tell the teacher and we'll call you out in class no one or
no you know. So there is solutions. And because he knew that if we stop these kids now, we're working with these kids now, he's not dealing with them in five years when they're committing much more serious crimes.
Well, all the things that you're raising sort of I'll say, thinking out of the square to a degree. It's not that just okay, this happens, and just pushing against each other the whole time. It's thinking, if it's not working, why aren't we changing it back to.
Your T shirt? Jailing's failing.
Yeah, if the idea of putting people into jail correctional center, as you say, it's a correctional center, so your behavior is going to be corrected and then when you come out into society, you're going to integrate.
Back into society better.
All the bad things about the prison system that I hear from you, and when I talk to Mindy, that's not what it's doing. And the high rate of recidivism, it's ridiculous across the country.
Within two years, most people back in prison. And they're not all bad. You know. We've just been funded by the Paul Ramsey Foundation to take how Wallamus First Nation's programs into John Maroney Prison. And you know, Jason Hodges is the governor out there, and he thinks outside the box. You know, he's got all these guys on remand you know, and he's got ramand d V romand addictions, Romanda aggressions,
you know. And I was at a meeting with him a little while about a couple of months ago, when we're finalizing what we were going to do, and he said, you know, we've had the first person on remand go back before the judge. And because we'd offered them a different solution and programs, the judge didn't have to send into prison. He could sentence a person to.
Re yet, because when they're on romand they traditionally don't get access, they don't get access to anything. That's something that I hadn't even thought about, but one ex prisoner raised it or some discussion on having I think it was here that when you're on remand, and you can be on remand for a very long time, you know, the court system is not in the rush. You could be there for years and you don't have access to all these things.
Well, you know the scary thing is, you know today this twelve and a half thousand people in prison. Today, five thousand of them are on romand forty percent of the population in prison. I didn't realize there's no presumption of innocence. That's a fallacy because when we brought in the private prisons, we had to change the bail laws because we needed to keep them in business. And that's what's happened. And we as a society we have figures. Pass me again, you keep hitting me for these figures
on process. Today there is about twelve five hundred people in prison and about five thousand of days are on RAN. I think it's thirty nine point three percent of the people in prison in your South Wales the wrong remarks and not found guilty of which.
I wouldn't have thought that naively. I wouldn't have thought that. Then I've been even brought it written down right, you've got the notes. Okay, well it's proof.
No, no, this is available data to the governments everyone.
I'm not making that except what you're saying, but I'm saying from a CoP's point of view, career cop. I never thought about it, like I thought it would have been a much smaller percentage onen.
Remark when I and it's changed now because you've got you know, John Maroney and people like justin hostage. So you know, as I said, with the police, you know, corrections is the same. There's some good people trying to do things different and you know to allow us, you know, and that's taken the Deputy Commissioner lose Grant's approval too. So there is people.
Look, I was I did that breaking badness in mcquarie Correctional Center. I was blown away by what I saw there, Like good people in corrective services trying to make a difference.
No, there is, but you know you're talking about your yeah energy.
Yeah, there's a culture that you're trying to change, and.
It's really difficult. You know, you can highly unionize and it's an old school thing, but there is, you know, and where Rainbow with our Aboriginal partners, you know, Gammarata in digital Resources in wimpitture to be able to the chance to go out there and run this, and you know, I had an amazing experience. I took Ivan Clark, who
runs our Healing the Warrior program from Wimpitcher. We took out some guys who are going to run out there, all ex criminals, all Aboriginal, and you know, we went out to the jail and we came in and like, because you have ideas, Like I have an idea, and I thought, this is the environment I've met Jason that we're running some programs. You know, a lot of the Wellemer guys out there. I knew that thirty percent of
the people in John Moroni or Aboriginal, you know. I thought this is the place, you know, and I thought if we it was actually the DPP through the wallhemer program was the one who said to me because he met Ivan and the programs and started to see the impact, and he said, oh, this would be great. Jail like the guy, they should be doing this before they even come for bail. You know how they didn't get make sense. Yeah, so you know, but I had this idea, but you
don't know what's going to work. And then I took them out there to tour the jail and to be shown around and make the impact. Like the guys, you know, the conversations they had because three hours we toured the jail for you know, three hours, and I remember I Evan said to me, you know, three hours and we sat down with Jason Hodges, the governor out there for half an hour, and you know, we had to go and have lunch because the guys were so like I had.
You know, one guy, Paul Bird, who spent twenty years, twenty five years, and Jay was in tears and you know, and you can't bull as you said, you can't bullshit these guys. These guys are tough guys. But you know, Paul Bird's been like me nearly seventeen years. You know, all these guys. You know Ivan his story, you know he was taken from his mother, institutionalized raped, you know.
Now he's one of the foremost speakers on Aboriginal men's change programs and his thing is and this goes back to why I say, especially with the prevalence of the conversations around domestic violence, women can't fix men and where's a community you need to accept that. And it's very difficult and doing it like it's.
And people will shout you down for that, going, oh, well, maybe women should be the ones fixing men. But I understand what you're saying.
Do we want justice or do we want revenge? That's the question I asked. Obviously justice is, of course, because if we want revenge, we end up with two lots of trauma. And as we've talked about those people, you know, very few I don't know, it'd be less than half a percent of people in prison in Australia don't get released.
So we you know, they're all coming out, and that's that's that's the point that I know when I was talking about what they were doing in Macquarie and I was I was sort of thinking, Okay, people are going to push back on a pushback on this, so we're getting soft. They're in jail for a reason, they've done something bad. They're in there for a reason making break rocks and bread. Who cares their prisoners? And I was worried that what I was am I going soft? I've
been out of the cops. Am I looking at this through the wrong lens? I spoke to Ken Marslew, whose son.
Was murdered and.
A terrible situation robbery out of pizza hut and his son was shot and killed. He was working there. Ken was angry. Ken was angry when it happened. The people were responsible for it were caught, and he was pushing, let's get tough on crime, blah blah blah. He's changed his tune now. And I'm sure you've crossed paths with him over the years. He's a good friend of Mindy's.
And I spoke to him.
I said, Ken, your thought on it, your thoughts like you have the right to be angry. You are your son has been murdered. You've felt the full pain of what crime can do to a family. And he said, I was angry. I was angry, and I'm still angry today. But I'm not going to let the angers destroy me. And I say this, Gary, I say this, but if people are saying, well, you're just getting soft on crime.
If we're reducing crime, we're reducing victims. And agree the moment he said that, I'm thinking, yeah, Well, sometimes the simplest solution is the most obvious, and that's what he's saying. We're not getting soft on crime, We're getting smart. On crime and if you want to protect victims, reduce crime and you protect victims.
So one hundreds I couldn't agree. No, And that's why I say, do you want justice or do you want revenge? Yeah? You know, because I think we get them mixed up because you know, do you want to punish? And don't get me wrong, you know, victims of crime have every right, you know, and I imagine you know, the families the victims of crime, you know, have every right to be angry,
to have all the normal human emotions. We're not saying that, you know, but do they you know, if you're and this is what I said to these people, you know, up in Mareva. I said, you know, your daughter's been murdered. There's nothing we can do to bring her back. But do you want that person to be released and put another family through what you have gone through? Or do you want to have a system where that person is held accountable but they're also supported to heal from their
trauma and to address their behaviors. So at least when they get out, we're given ourselves, the community, a much better chance that they're not going to perpetrate onto the next victim.
Yeah, And it's hard. It's hard to think through that. But when you break it down, you strip all the emotion away and all that it is the right thing to do.
I think it is. You know, I was reading this singing a little while ago. You know the the safest communities have the least amount of police. Yeah, well, you know what I mean. It makes and I remember a while ago.
Heard some informed police, some senior police, say well, we can't arrest our way out of the situation. No. I like that attitude because sometimes the pub talking it will put more police when stayed elections.
I was in the cops.
I used to hate it when there was a law and order issue and what they'd say, well, we're going to increase the police. And I look, they announced before the election, we've increased five hundred new police. Nothing about the quality of the five hundred that they've signed up. We'll just give you numbers and then may cause problems for the rest of their career until they retire for some bizarre reason. That's not the way to reduce crime. I always thought I said this throughout my police career,
and people thought it was a little bit strange. When yeah, because people think a cop they're going to come up to me go, yeah, let's get more police, and I go, I would be putting the money. If we want to reduce crime into education, I thought that was the way to go.
Well can you you know I started on it before. Can you imagine? You know, the average class now is twenty six twenty eight. If you reduced the spend on crime, on police and prisons, and you put that into education and the teacher's got twenty kids, you know, those kids that get more one on one, they don't slip through. They can get if we catch them there, you know, we can change the whole trajectory of And I'll tell
you this. So I did some quick mathematics. So you know, twenty years engaged in the criminal justice system ire at five million. That's the cost to the community that I cost five million, you know to send someone to treatments about twenty four thousand dollars. And you know, I'm laughing because when you break it down like that, wall, No, it's insane. The only you know, I say to people, the only bed I can guarantee you is a prison bed.
I can't guarantee you tonight, are betting a mental health hospital. I can't even guarantee you a betting a hospital. I can't guarantee you a better at a domestic violence refuge. That's where we should be able to, isn't it? The systems upside down? The only bed and again, and this is why, you know, I think it's easy for people to blame the police and corrections. The politicians make the laws that those two institutions implement.
Yeah, at the end of the day, I think there needs to be accountability.
And there isn't you know, they just go, oh, you know, it's the police. So we've got all this sort of stuff. But as you said, like you know, the war on drugs doesn't work, and now we've got a war on domestic violence, and it's like, have we not you know you heard how stupid I was. Yeah, it's you know that the insanity is doing the same thing and thinking we're going to get a different outcome, and we're doing you know, I say to people.
And like the war on domestic violence, and it's a complex one, that it's an emotional one, that it's scary what's happened, and we see the results of it. Yep, But let's break you down what we're saying here choosing their words carefully. Okay, we're going to get tough on domestic violence. You're you're at home, you say something, the cops are going to come and lock you up. They're going to get more powers for domestic violence. Lock you up, you get put in the cell. You're an angry person.
Nothing to address what's caused the anger. You're just getting more and more angry. And then you get let out.
And have you changed? No, you haven't changed.
You're just angry.
So let's address the problem. And there's no we've taken away the discretionary power of our police and our court. You know, I was on the board at Rainbow Lodge for eight years and I sat on there with a great man. He's no longer here, Judge Joe Moore. And you know he said to me, you know two proud things, claud You know I'm the most appealed judge in the
district Court. He said, I'm proud of that. And he said the new South Wales Crime Act clearly states that in prisonment is the last option, not the first, okay, And so held on to that. Yeah, And he also said to me, as a judge, he said, you know The problem is with mandatory sentencing. He says, when the guy comes to me first time, he needs to go to jail. When he comes the second time, he needs but the third time, I go, ah, I can't send him to rehab because he's three times he's mandatory got
to go to jail. I lose the disc you know, he said, I've spent my life practicing in learning law, like I'm a judge there.
You know.
We put them in these positions because they're trusted, so we need to give them the discretionary power to make the decisions. I look, I agree with you.
I never and a career as a policeman locking people up. I never liked that mandatory sentencing. No, to me, it didn't fit because every crime I did there was some different factor.
There's a nuance. Yeah, we work with people whether they're good or bad. Yeah, that's right.
But the mandatory sentence that never I always and I know the pub test is people going, yeah, of course they should get ten years electioneering.
Yeah, it's not based on evidence or and it doesn't help anyone, you know. So that two things with the police. When I was doing that thing on the Northern Beaches, I watched you know, and don't get me wrong, like anything, there's bad police, but I watched these police officers stabbed on the body camp footage at Central Station and as I was watching it, I'm going I would have shot the guy three times. And the officer didn't and he
got that thankfully didn't die. But you know what I thought, fucking like you know, and it's that thing you hear the bad stuff, but you don't hear the good stuff. I'll tell you a great story. So one of the things we do is we transport Aboriginal people from treatment centers around New South Wales from custody to treatment center and we deal with our Aboriginal peer workers on that.
So one of my Aboriginal peer workers who's lived experience, good old Raymond Salad, who finished his parole just the other day. He did the Welcome to country at Parliament. So he's transporting this guy from I think he was going from Kemsi Mid Northcote prison to Iran, a haven outside Wolgat forty k fifty k's out of whild but he hits a wild pig. There's no reception out there. The guides on Supreme Court Baale has to be at this treatment center. He knows because it's his country, he's
been out there. He goes, fuck, I've got to ring the police. No one else is coming in the middle of nowhere. He rings. What they gets put through the sergeant at WOLGA tells in the situation, they send a car out, they pick him up. He explains, you know, this guy's like six hours out of jail. Shouldn't instagram, and Raymond's going nonah like this like when they come, they're coming to help. They don't worry. This is you know, and they the sergeant organized, they picked him up and
they drove them to that rehab. So he got to that rehab within his bail and that that that action changes the view or you know, I don't I shouldn't say this, but I will. Raymond called me the other day, I don't know the van our workban had run out. He had five guys. He was one day off finish in his parole. He had five six Aboriginal man in a brand new car. I'm sorry, but there is racial profile. There wasn't this time. So it came up and you know,
the cameras read the number plates that came up. There was no regio. He pulled Raymond over. Raymond explained what he was doing, and he said, I'll ring my boss and I spoke to him and I don't know where, and he didn't find us or anything. And I was
able to get on within fifteen minutes and get it registered. Now, I don't know whether he made a conscious decision or not, but those guys in that car, their experience of policing isn't that you know, it's the same as the guy who come and picked up the guys, you know at the pig. Yeah, but the impact they have, like the guys come back and they're talking about, oh he didn't he was a cool cop. Well he saw you know, Raymond said, this is what we're doing. The car's registered here.
And you know, I didn't have that conversation, but I imagine he went, fuck, this is I need to do the right thing. That's a discretionary. Yeah, a good policing.
You need discretionary. If you don't, the problems can go bad. Look, I'm conscious of the time. We are running out of time. I'm really enjoying the discussion. I just want you to give me a quick rundown on Rainbow Lodge because you're a manager there and they've been doing good work and good work for a long time.
So yep, perhaps so Rainbow Lodge, it's this is our sixtieth year. So we are now the longest continuous running halfway house in the world. There was one in Canada, unfortunately he didn't survive COVID, so we've run. We've been open twenty four hours a day for sixty years. So
we work with men leaving a term of incarceration. Currently we have we're partnered in a program called the Wallamullist Trial in the district called a New South Wales is like a circle sentencing type thing where because most of the diversionary programs have been in the lower court, so this is the first one for more serious district offenses. And this is another you know, Justice Jaya had this
vision because this is another thing. Our laws have got more punitive, so these guys are being charged in indictable so they don't ever get a chance for merit drug court, you know what I mean. So we're part of that. So you know, we've got some two beds there, so we have eight beds funded and there's some figures here. This I'm the largest provider of post incarceration support for men in New South Wales. And I have eight beds for thirty two places for the nineteen thousand people leaving.
It's not much, is it.
No?
No, And I have another two beds funded by the Paul Ramsey Foundation for First Nations men engaged in the Wallomer program and they funded.
Us, and this is a place where they get released from prison they can go.
They come and we run programs and drug and alcohol living skills. In the last year and a half, you know, we've gone so three years ago we were at forty percent First Nations. Last year we were sixty eight. Currently we're ninety seven point one. Because of the programs, we've been able to use this funding to bring Ivan clark in and Gamma Rada, people like Raymond, you know, lived experienced guys. You know, one of the guys who's come through the well and my list now does peer work.
So when we go and pick up the Wallemer guys and transport and there's an Aboriginal.
Guy who's on it, and how much difference that makes.
You the pride in him, so you know, rainbow, you know, but we need half a dozen rainbows you know, and there's you know, as Mindy said, you know, I think in her report there's a list of one hundred services doing great work. So you know, if there's anything I have to say is the money we spend now is wasted. We don't need any more data, research or anything. We know what works, we know what doesn't work. What we need, as I said in Parliament, is the political will to implement it.
Okay, that's that's a very important message, isn't it It is I've got all the research has been.
Done, we know what the solution is. Yeah, we don't need any more committees, no more raw commissions. You know, we actually need the political will to go. We're not going to build any more prisons, as I said at Parliament for five years, We're going to divert that funding into diversionary programs pre and post and as I said in parliament, if in five years it doesn't work, lock them up, and you know, I'll go and do something else.
Well what what a novel idea crack down on law and order and go down that path instead of increasing jails, increasing police and making mandatory sentencing. Look at it a little bit differently, Yeah, if it hasn't worked. Let's change it.
And clear thing because I never answered your question about the new bail laws because I don't think what people understand. So that the new bail laws were based on some of the rural communities a rise in crime, but they were specific to breaking enters and car theft.
Okay, so it's going to catch a certain yeah, but we know.
And this is the outrage, that it's going to disproportionately affect First Nations because they make up about eighty percent of the juvenile country town especially in the country towns and in the juvenile centers. And we know that the evidence tells us that putting people into custody, as I said, seventy eight point one percent of the men in my service, we're all in the juvenile justice system. We know it's the apprenticeship and sets them up for a lifetime of
our our incarceration. But it's like and it's politics for re election. It's it's politics of fear. The premiere made that this isn't based on fear because a part of the community was outraised and it was on you know, a current affair or you know one of those shock jocks who you want to talk about the fear and all that, but it doesn't make any sense. It doesn't It doesn't solve the problem.
It's a shame we can't look at it as bipartisan And yeah, it would make sense here, we're all on board this.
Do we want safer communities? It is a community. And you know you've been in the police and you know the decent police I speak to go. You know, we can't arrest our way out of drugs or domestic Like it's a community solution.
Yeah, and I like it when police look at it that way. There's other other ways of dealing with things. Look, I just want to say thanks so much for what you've done. Congratulation on how you've turned your life around. Like, yeah, I sit here and laugh at some of your life decisions in let's call it part part one. Yeah, yeah, they are very concerning Part one. Who's some of the decisions you make? But I think you've articulated very well
on what happens when you get in the system. You become a drug addict, you become dependent, you make stupid decisions. But what I find most interesting about our chat is the way that you're looking at solutions to problems problems that affect all of us. It's always in our face, Laura, and all the crime. Everything's in our face about that money, homelessness,
that type of thing. And you're looking at solutions. And I just like to sum up the bit as well that you're saying, we don't need to review this again, we don't need more committees, we don't need that.
We know what the solution is. Let's have the balls to do it exactly. Yeah, yeah, okay, good pleasure. Thanks, thanks very much. Well. Claude's an interesting character.
It really gave an insight into what goes through the mind of an attic and the chaos of his life, the decisions that he was making. Look, he comes across as a nice person, but he's just making ridiculous decisions and how driven he was because of his drug addiction. I think some of the points he's made are very worthwhile.