The public has had a long held fascination with detectives. Detective sy aside of life, the average person is never exposed her 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. Instead, 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 talked 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 today. I had a conversation with Irane muldoon Eran's life was pretty normal and so he went on a holiday to Cambodia to clear his head following relationship issues. But what occurred in the Cambodian bar in July twenty twenty three
changed his life in ways it's difficult to imagine. Ten days after that night, he was detained at non Penn Airport on his way home. That was the beginning of a nine month nightmare which still haunts him to this day, and spoke to me about the brutality of a third world prison system lacking humanity and where life is cheap. On his first night in prison, he saw a prisoner gang raped, and that was just a precursor for what was going to happen to him. He knows he was
lucky to survive. He was beaten countless times, stabbed and gang raped on several occasions. This is a truly frightening story about what can happen when you get caught up in a prison system in a foreign country and you're in a Cambodian prison for nine months for a relatively minor offense that at its most extreme it was vandalism of an ATM machine. You told me, during that nine
month period, you saw eleven people die in prison. You saw rapes, bashings, you were stabbed in an environment like that. Did you think you're going to survive?
No, not at all. No, every day you thought you know it could be your day. Yeah, it was pretty horrific.
So you wake up there and how am I going to get through the day?
And one day felt like a week or a month it was so full on.
Is that something you've ever experienced before? Have you ever been in prison or before? So this I'm just trying to get a sense of it. Just the average fellow that's gone on the holiday in Cambodia. Yeah, ended up ended up in prison.
Yeah. Yeah.
Basically did it change your view on humanity?
Yes? And what a great deal I saw things people did to other people that were in Uveine, The amount of cruelty I saw Barrick. Yeah, words can't really describe how how you know totally those people had such disregard for people's lives. Yeah, it was very confronting.
Okay. I don't normally give a content warning on the podcast called Eye Catch Killers. I think people are pretty well aware of the type of things we're going to discuss. But in the conversations I've had with you, and when you've told me about your experiences and what I've learnt about your experiences, I think it's probably appropriate upfront that I give a content warning here that what we're going
to be discussing is pretty heavy stuff. And what are you hoping to achieve by coming on the podcast and telling your story.
I just want people to be aware that you know, you can be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and it can quickly spiral into something that you just can't believe the amount of trauma it's caused me my family. Yeah. Yeah, I want people to be aware they're going to be very cautious about going to foreign countries, especially Southeast Asian countries in particular Cambodia.
Okay, Well, I think when people hear what you've got to say in your story, it's it's a wake up call for all of us to a degree that we take a lot of things for granted in this country. We haven't got it perfect with the justice system, but there is some justice that prevails. But you in the foreign land, foreign rules, and yeah, what's the norm here? Doesn't it doesn't apply over there?
No, I dare say it's a cake walk in comparison, to be honest.
Yeah, Well, hearing what you've you've told, I'd have to agree with you. Let's find out a little bit about Muldoon the person before we take you over to Cambaitia. Just describe yourself, how old are you and what was your life before this?
Fifty one? Grew up in beautiful Manly, you know, lived my life basically on the beach, surfing and hanging around with my friends and having a good good time, you know, and having grew up and went to a good school and had a good education, worked in hospitality for a while and worked in sales and marketing, and you know, then decided to want to become a forklift driver.
We've all got dreams.
Yeah, it's just you know, there was no stress there. It's good times and that's what you're doing. That was your occupation. When you say, people understand too. It was in twenty twenty three that you went on your holiday to Cambodia, but you were managing the fork driving or yeah. Yeah, I was working in a warehouse and you know, truck comes in, you loaded up, truck goes out. You know, it was pretty easy work and the money was good,
so it was good. You know, sales and marketing can be stressful at times with your targets and things like that. So it was just a good career change, you know.
Okay, I'm getting older and you were coming off the back of a relationship as well. Yeah.
Yeah, my relationship kind of fell apart, and that's why I went overseas just to try and give some space between the two of us and maybe reconcile later on down the track. Yeah.
Well you told me that you were at that point when you went overseas just a clear, clearly air on the back of the relationship breaking down, but you had hopes that it might rekindle some capacity. Yeah, and you had had a child with that women, Yeah, I did.
Yeah, young boy.
Okay, So we're getting a sense of it, and that's the way i'd probably describe you living a typical average life in Australia. Enjoy yourself. Yeah, had you had you been in trouble with the law before, just briefly, Yeah, what sort of stuff?
Childhood stuff, childhood stupidity.
We've all done that, I suppose have had you ever done any time in prison or juvenile detention centers or whatever, So it all been in custody is something completely foreign to Yeah, okay, I just wanted to establish that because it's the world that you stepped into. Must have been so confronting on that many different levels. So tell us about the trip to Cambaity. What was the plan's dreams and aspirations flying over the Camba there.
Well, I wasn't meant to go there I was meant to go vit Nam and my partners partner at the time, she was in Bali and said she wasn't ready to, you know, see me yet. And then you know, I always wanted to go and see Ankle White and she's said the same thing. When't you going to do that?
The temples in camp? Yeah?
Yeah, in San rep So I decided that, you know, I'd changed my ticket.
Okay, that was a great decision.
Yeah, it was one of my best.
So how long was the holiday planned? For?
Sixteen? Eighteen days? I was therefore I had a thirty day visa, but I was only there for eighteen.
Days, okay, So, and I think it was on the from memory tenth of July twenty twenty three, which was two days into your trip. Yeah, yep, okay, And tell me about what happened on the night the genesis of what dictated the rest of your life, or at least the next twelve months of your life. You went out for a drink.
Yeah, well, it wasn't planning on going out for a drink. It was just I went into a bar just literally one hundred meters down from my hotel. Is this in the capital city, Yeah, pen and I went down there ordered a beer, and honestly, my first biggest mistake was there was a cow bell there, and if you ring the cowbell, you buy a beer for everybody in the pubs are very cheap, but you know, so I was happy to do that, but I think in doing that, there's a couple of blokes there that have clocked me
going rich foreigner. And then I had one Jack Daniels and coke. Second mistake was to leave that on the table and go to the bathroom. I came back and I had a few more SIPs out of that and then basically got a really bad migraine headache, which and I don't get migraines. I don't think I've ever had any or one maybe you know, and then blurred vision.
I was unsteady on my feet. I went to pay for the you know, the bar tab and because it'd only just gotten there, I was still trying to negotiate what moneys and what and American dollars and things into Kmai reel and the owner she said, oh, you don't have enough, but there's an ATM just down there, a couple of doors down.
What time of night was that.
It's a while ago. Now, it's not that late, you know. Again, just two drinks and then so I by the time I walked down that to that atm, it was like I'd been drinking all night. And then two guys followed me out of the bar. I walked into the ATM and I tried to put my card in about three or four times, and by that stage I was so incoherent and fell forward and with one hand protected my face and the other hand just cracked the glass on
the ATM. And then walked out of there, and those two fellas followed me to my hotel room, which was literally another you know, fifty yards down the road or fifty meters down the road. I walked in there and they stopped, and then I got myself for I don't know whether I got myself up to the room or someone helped me up to the room, but I woke up the next day very groggy, still unsteady on my feet,
you know, that bit of a brain fog. But I still remembered something about the bar and owing money at the bar.
You hadn't paid for the drinks, hadn't paid for the drinks.
Yeah, yeah, So I actually got money out of the safe, walked past where the incident happened, the Smile mart there and to the bar and paid the bar lady, and then yeah, that was it. Nothing else was said.
Okay, so the smile mart you're talking about it, it's like the convenience stores where they've got the ATM. Yeah, that's like you see, I've got some fotos here that I think were in the time of Times, the local paper, and I'm just looking at it as a podcast, but describing it. I can see on one of the shots they've got the phatoh of you looking into the ATM machine, and then they've got a picture of the damage to
the glass of the ATM. Yeah, and that's your sort of recollection of what happened on the on the night from the photose. Yeah, just obviously obviously. Yeah, and okay, so what we're talking here is a damaged ATM machine, And I just want to understand because yeah, what followed on from this, trying to get a sense of the actions that we're taking against you. You went back to
the bar the following day. Yep, you paid the money, You've got money from the from the safe at your hotel, and then then what did you do?
I just I spent another couple of days there and then we I went up to bat and Bong and then from Bat I spent five days in bat and Bong. It's about six hours. Oh no, not that long. It's about a three hour drive maybe just in a car that picked me up from the hotel, and then from there I got a boat ride up to soon Reap.
Okay, yeah, you just continued on your holiday.
Yeah yeah, there was no no, nothing said by the owner of the bar, nothing said by the people who owned the smile mart. There was nothing.
So did you have any thoughts at what happened that the ATM machine was going to come back to buy it?
No, because I I initially I was just protecting myself and then when hand hit, I didn't think anything of it because I was that, you know, like like I don't know, under duress, I guess.
Okay, so you've carried on your holidays. I think you said another ten or thirteen days or something like that.
Another ten days.
I think it was already had your flights pre booked, so' on the flight that you're intending to your book with your holidays. So you didn't change your flights or try to flee the.
Country or no, no, no, not at all. They said that though I was trying to flee the country.
But this was pre booked, yeah flights and the flight that you were scheduled to recatch.
Yeah, back to Australia or back to Thailand first and Australia.
Okay, I'm probably I'm falling in the cop made here and I'm just thinking, okay, well, there was no effort to flee the crime scene. You're not trying to escape. No, okay. You go to the airport at which airport was.
It, Well they've got a new one now, but it was the International Airport.
At Sanri, Okay. And what happened there.
I put my luggage on that went onto the plane. I walked through to customs and they handed over my passport and then the customs agent said, oh, you've got a black mark against you your name, a black flag. And I was like, what do you mean. He's saying, oh,
we just have to wait here for a minute. From that, I was escorted to the immigration office and they'd taken my passport and I was sitting there not knowing what was going on, you know, and there was all these customs agents and immigration people in the room with me
and asking me all these questions. And then the only time I've ever seen the footage from the Smile Mart was one police officer there had it on his phone, and then when that was meant to be brought up in court, that had disappeared, and that clearly showed the two guys on the outside, the two dark figures on the outside of the Smile Mart.
Okay, so you're in there, when is that when you realize what you were being detained for. Did you realize it was to do with the ATM machine?
They said, yeah, that i'd I damaged the ATM machine. Yeah.
And did you speak the local language? No, not at all, So this was communicated to you by someone.
Yeah, there were in Pidgin English because I don't I don't speak Kamai, you know.
So when did you When did you realize this was something unusual? Did you have concerns you were going to miss your flight?
Well, they said if I missed my flight, they pay for another one. But then they told me that there was four police officers driving up from a non pen that's a six hour drive. And then when they start taking photos of me, with a board behind me, with all the drug busts and you know, cocaine and ecstasy and things like that. I knew from then on in it was going to be tough, tough for me.
Yeah, it wasn't going to be just easy to get you out of there.
No, no, So.
What happened then? You put in? Were you put in the custody or you are allowed to leave the police station or no?
No? So they basically once once I was there, I was asking for my passport back. I don't understand what's going on. You know, I want to speak to this train embassy. They wouldn't let me do that. They'd have my phone, they'd taken everything from me. And then they you know, they we waited and I just kept on asking questions and they just kept on either saying they don't understand, or wait for the police officers to come from soon, sorry to fromm pen.
Okay, so you're sitting there, Are you in a cell?
No? No, I'm in the customs and the immigration office there, yeah, in the Indie.
Airport at the airport. Yeah, what happened after that?
Okay? So then when the policeolice officers come, they handcuffed me and saying that this case needs to be you need to go back to Pen to do this case. Now. I was handcuffed and led through a packed airport with families and kids, with guys with machine guns, immigration officers, cups, custom agents, you name it, like as if I was some kind of drug baron or terrorists. And I could see people pointing, going what's going on here, you know?
And they said to me, don't make a scene. And then they put me into the full drive police car and drove me back down to Pen to the police station. There.
Six hour drive.
Yeah, no food, no water and nothing.
Okay. This was on the twenty twenty.
Third of the same day I was flying out.
Okay, third of July two thousand and twenty three. You get to the police station, what happened.
I'm just put in a cell straight away. Anytime I requested to speak to Mike's partner, Austrain embassy, anybody, we don't have internet connection or we don't understand what you're saying. It was only the next day, I think, or or the day after when then they drug tested me for pretty much every drug which was a negative result. And I was talking to the police captain there through a translator. But he was getting me just like which happened many
times whilst being incarcerated. Over there forms that were written in coom I where I and had to thumb print in read ink and sign my name, not knowing what I was signing whatsoever.
Right, you sent me some of those documents and I went through them and I see that red thumb print. That's what you're talking about. Okay, So you've been detained, You've kept at the airport until the police come up for me driving all the way up six hours and you're driving back six hours, so we're looking at sort
of twenty four hours you're being in custody. Yeah, that's right at that point in time, because and I think and part of the basis of you coming on the podcast, you wanted to warm people of the dangers of certain situations you can find yourself in a foreign country. I would assume that in Australian citizen the rest, you'd be able to make a phone call and you'd be onder the embassy straight away, or at least be able to make a phone call home. But you weren't provided with that, not at all.
That was the scariest thing that.
You like you could just disappear one hundred percent.
That's my point. I was there for three days before I got any contact with anyone outside. You know, if I'd have died in that cell, I would have been just buried somewhere.
It looks like, and I'm mainly basing this on the fact that part of the research I did, I found that newspaper article, and that newspaper article was published on the twenty four to seven, so that's that's a day after. So while you're in there, you haven't made any calls to anyone that's in the paper with photos of you, and the way they just described that, And I won't read the whole article out, but it just finished off with the suspect is currently being questioned by competent authorities
to proceed with the procedure. There might be a little bit lost in translation there, but it looks like they're skoeting about or promoting the fact that they've arrested you. And then photos of the damaged atm the in the paper. Boy, not not a good situation. And if I'm sitting here smiling, it's just I'm thinking potentially could happen to anyone situation like that.
I'm smiling too, but you either laugh with you cry and I've done my crying. Yeah, it's it's that's yeah, it's it's such a hard that that that's when you know you're in trouble, you know.
So three days or three days in the police station, you haven't spoken to anyone. What was the accommodation like food, like cells, like.
Just a floor with bars around it, with a toilet, no food, one bottle of water. I was I was using a loaf of bread that they gave me, an uncut loaf of bread as my pillow because I was laying on like a floor that just rock hard floor.
And was anyone explaining what was going to happen to you?
No, No, not at all.
Not at all, because I can only only imagine that the frustration that being caught up in a situation like that, and you'd feel I think, so helpless.
Yeah, powerless as well. Yeah, you just it's one of those things. Yeah, you can't fathom, you know, because that you know, And I found out later that some of them could speak English in the police station, they just chose not to, particularly one guy when he he knew where I was going, and he told me where I was headed. There was a wry smile on his on his face.
When you knew he knew you were going to the prison.
Yeah, yeah, So I mean I went to court a couple of times prior to going to prison too.
What what happened in the in the court appearances?
Okay, so then you'll be taken underground and it'd just be sell after sell, And that must have been There must have been about fifty sixty seventy people in a cell, squashed up against the bars, all trying to get some lad to help them out, most of them Cambodians. There was a few foreigners, but most of them Cambodians. And the heat down there, it was like it was pretty hot,
you know. And then you go upstairs, speak to the judge, no translator, and you go back downstairs, go back into the cell, and they pick you up, take you back into the police station. That happened a couple of times. And then the same guy had the right smile on his face, said to me, goes, well, we're not a detention center. And then he was the one who drove me down to the prison.
Okay, so how many days after your arrest was this?
I think it's it's hard to remember, but I think it's about three for five days maybe, Yeah.
And had you had any communication with any representative from the Australian Embassy or your family at that time?
I'd spoken to my ex partner once and then I informed her at getting contact with the Australian Embassy as soon as possible. And I'm in a pretty bad.
Spot, okay. And so that was your point of contact your your ex partner, Yeah, okay, not not in a good situation. And I'm just trying to imagine you'd be screaming from the rooftops within your head, but I would imagine that's pretty intimidating in an environment.
Like that that's just a police station.
Okay.
Yeah, you know that was that you start to think about the enormity about what's going to happen or what's going on. There's a lot of thoughts that go around in your in your head that you know, something mentioned before about if you've watched these shows on TV, thinking.
Oh, you would a broad time, you wouldn't want.
To be you wouldn't be in that, wouldn't want to be in that situation. And here I am. It was surreal.
Food water at the time you're in the police station.
Just a bottle of water. I had a little bit of money. There was one night he hit the bloke went out and got me some a duck egg and some rice. But I had to buy him. I gave him the money and didn't give me anything back.
That was the currency of the detention. Okay, the prison, and I apologize up from what we're going to talk about, because I know your experience in prison was I think it best described as horrific. You've considered it, and you want to talk about what occurred in the prison. So describe the prison to me. When you were taken to the prison.
Okay, so you when he dropped me off in a in the police car. You walk in, it's like these big gates, huge gates. When those gates open, it's like you've walked into a medieval town. There's lane ways, there's you know, and the smell hits you. That's the first thing. And the heat, because as soon as you go in with the other prisoners that are going in, they shut those big gates and then you come to a set
of tables. They take everything that they want off you, and then they strip you down they chuck this powder on you. They give you an orange pair of pants and an orange shirt. And I was walking around bare
feet for about a week and a half. And then I remember walking through and I was the only foreigner at this time, walking through with all the other Cambodians and just you know, there's guys with rickshaws that they'd made inside the prison full of rubbish and they're poking, poking it with metal spikes to see if there's no
one in there trying to escape. There's you know, there's animals around, and there's things, you know, like rats and things, and just people looking at your pointing and they're all smiling, you know, and they've got this blank look on their face, Nahna. And that was quite daunting. But you got to understand too, this prison, the walls are that high that no air
gets in there. There's there's uh, you know, police officers in towers with rifles, you know, and it's like like they're in sections blocks and then all these lane ways that run through these blocks like a maze. Almost where you'd stay, you know, that'd be one block here, so a block and B block and so on, but all these other lane ways and to get to other areas and to the phones, to the one shop that they had, or to the park. They had a park there. We can go into that a bit later.
So that first, let's break it down to the first twenty four hours. You go in there. You're processed as in strip naked.
It's almost de lausd.
I guess, you throw the white powder all over you and whatever. Then you get dumped in a cell.
Well, you get dumped into their three cells, and there's about fifty people in one cell, and it's probably twice the size of this room.
Okay, so we're talking roughly three meters by three meters in this room.
Yeah, yeah, and a little toilet at the back. And that's just they put you in those ones first to see if you've got anything like COVID, what have you, and then then they'll take you out. I think it was I'll shave your head. Then I think it's the second day they shaped everyone's head was shaped, Yeah, for the head lice and stuff like that. The second night I was there because I was so hypersensitive and my anxiety levels were jacked through the roof. I couldn't sleep. I didn't sleep for days.
I couldn't need a strange blake if you could just lay down the.
Sleep oh, you know, like I found. I found a bit of wall and that was the second night, was the first time I seen a young bloke get raped.
Yeah, that's yeah, this is just touching on the brutality of it. You wrote that in the document you prepared, and just so if I referred to the document that was part of it. It was almost cathartic for you to write down.
And that's not about me.
That's about yeah, guy, I saw the first time you saw someone raped. I'm talking the document as such, but putting down your thoughts about your experiences. But this is where you what you've just raised about the first time that you experienced someone being raped in prison. I'll just just read it out and then get you to reflect on it and comment on it after that. On the second night was the first time I saw my first rape.
It was about one in the morning. I heard this young boy in the shower with two other bigger Cambadians. He was screaming. It's a sound that stays with me for days. I didn't want to fall asleep in case it was me. Next after they had finished with him, he laid in the shower for hours, crying. People would use the toilets still pissing and shitting right where he was laying. This was the first taste of how inhumane life was in prison. Things were a lot worse after this.
So seeing something like that talk me through the experience.
Of it's just so confronting. I've never seen anything like that, you know. Ah, It's still why it troubles me now because as soon as we read that, as soon as I start thinking about that, I can see it so clearly in my mind. And he was screaming, you know, and it's like all the other prisoners just turned the blind eye, you know. And then and then you know, for him to be laying there, people going to the bathroom just while he was still there crying, and and
the bathroom is filthy. You wouldn't lay down on that floor, you know. You try and avoid it as much as you can. It's it's it's disgusting, you know. And you know, no one seemed to blink an eyelid, just all bad an eyelid.
You know, do guards step in, No, not at all.
No, they just they're probably drinking somewhere, you know. Yeah, there's always a captain of each room as well, who runs the room. Yeah, and he always turns a blind eye usually unless he's unless he's losing money over something, because you know he'll he'll sell the cigarettes in there and and whatever else he can get his hand. And so if you came in with a bottle of water and you didn't buy it from him, you'd take it
from you. So but yeah, that that the second night was it was just like I've got myself into.
Here, and you had no option to raise it or call out, or there's no one you could call out.
That was the toughest thing is to watch something like that happen in front of you and not be able to do anything because you fear that you were next. And and you know, it's concerning to me because I would be one of those people.
That would, you know, like help someone step in.
Yeah, but you just can't. And again it still troubles me to hear I can still hear those screams.
I Yeah, I don't think you should be too hard on yourself. You found yourself in an impossible situation, and I don't know anyone would step in in that. When humanity is stripped away, that way, you've got to look after yourself.
Yeah, yeah, but you weren't brought up that way. You know, you're brought up to look after your fellow man. You're a human being, you know. It's I don't know if the words deplorable, but it's words can't describe what happened in that prison. I just it's tough.
Yeah, I can imagine. When was the first time you got to speak to a representative of a consul, assistant or officer or someone from the embassy.
Oh, that's a good question. It would have been weeks, maybe two weeks, maybe three weeks. I think, like I'm not one hundred percent sure on that that's it, because I got moved around as well, and it was hard to get to see them unless they they like, I couldn't call them at that stage. I couldn't ask anyone to get them to come. They'd have to make a decision to come and see me. They were aware that I was in prison because of my ex partner telling
informing them. But I think it might have been two weeks, two to three weeks, I think before I saw a person from the embassy.
Did that seeing someone from the embassy, did you think Okay, here is this situation is going to be resolved and I'm going to be out of here.
Was that your initial hopes or yeah, of course you think, okay, well, I've done nothing wrong. Surely they can understand that and see that, and let's get me out of here. You know, I've seen enough already.
And you would be put in your mind from here local laws and all that and justice and fair play and thinking how the hell have I ended up in here?
I would imagine, yeah, yeah, if that had happened in your down at your local area, you'd probably just get a bill for the Well, I don't know, I've never done it.
The short title of the offense over here would be malicious damage to property like vandalism. That's the extent of it. And in my police career, I've never seen or it's very rare to see anyone held in custody over an offence.
I was drugged too. It wasn't like I was going out to destroy an ATM.
I'm just trying to get a sense, and I think everyone would because, as you said, people talk about it like it's a movie. It's something like you see on TV. You can't imagine that you'd be caught up in that environment. But yeah, three weeks. The first three weeks we talked about the first twenty four hours. What was your day to day? How did you survive?
I just I don't know. It was first of all, there was no room to strut around, no room at all in those cells for the first few days. They're that packed full of people.
What are we talking? How many? How many people?
I think, like I said, about fifty or so people. It was a very small room, maybe more because people would just keep coming in and it gets so full they'd have to move them to the next cell. But you're only there and those cells for two or three days, and then you get moved to somewhere bigger. I just kept my back to the wall and kept my eye on everyone. I didn't sleep for those days at all.
First three days, I think I didn't. I didn't eat.
Someone gave me a bottle of water and that lasted year a few days.
Too, okay. And it didn't eat is there was no opportunity to eat, or you just couldn't stomach the food that was being served up.
They didn't They didn't really serve too much food, just some rice and stuff. And I was just at that stage. I don't think it was a decision not to eat. I just couldn't. And in those cells too, you don't get let out. You're in there twenty four hours. There's no going out and having to walk around. So you're basically sitting up against the wall for twenty four hours a day.
Was there room to lay down sleep, No, not a nut cell.
No, not at all.
Not enough room for everyone that lay down.
No, you're doing well if you've got a water lean up against. People areling on top of each other, They've got there cuddling each other. You know, there's all sorts going on.
Okay, three days in there, can it get any worse? Where? Okay? Where do they move you too?
Okay? So that I went into K three. So this building is basically it looks like a big chicken coop, so K one, K two, K three, K four and an aluminium roof, one fan in each, big pots where they cook on the floor with the rice and the boiling water. And there's four hundred in a cell, four hundred in each the heat in there, like.
What are we talking the size of the self for four hundred people to be in there, let's picture an Olympic sized swimming pool. Let's say a quarter of an Olympic sized swimming pool. Four hundred people.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and they're renting out the captain in there is renting out the wall space. So that was forty dollars American a month to lean up against a wall. And then you got the only fresh water that they had. That was your VIP.
And did you have money in there? Did you have cash in there? Not at that time, no, So you had nothing to do but bother with No. That's why I wasn't eaten as well, was anyone in there any foreigners or anyone that spoke English?
In my cell K three, there was an Indian guy and a Nigerian guy, but they kind of kept themselves. The Nigerian guy, admittedly, when I first walked in, he's come over here, and I sat with him because there's you know, three hundred and ninety odd Cambodians all looking at you going through your stuff. I'll take that, I'll grab this, you know. And yeah, and the heat, like
the heat in there was unbearable. It was like, I don't know, shaking hands with the devil, like it's what eight thirty nine o'clock in the morning, it's pushing forty degrees and then humidity is up past ninety percent. You when you wake, you're awake. You can't move when you sit up, and that's it. You sit and cross legged. There's a bloke he cross legged, grind front of a cross legged guy here cross legged. When you're sleeping, you're
sleeping like sardines, like literally sardines. Yeah. And for me, unfortunately I got put over where those pots were taken.
Off the cooking pot.
Yeah, so I was on that floor there, which was even hotter. But you're just sweating profusely the whole time. And you know, obviously for me not understanding the language, you know, you don't know what they're saying.
How long did you spend in those selves?
Three months, maybe a bit more than three months, just over just.
Under Did they let you out at any time?
Yeah, yeah, that you got that was the two hours one hour, so you're in twenty one hours. But it was like it was you just go downstairs and that was it. It was a basketball court, no basketball, but just like a tennis court size area for people to you know, walk around and.
Did you just keep to yourself or did you communicate with anyone?
I tried to communicate with the Nigerian guy because he could speak a bit of Kamai. So he was the one who first got me out the gate to get to the phones. First time. He could say enough to the guard to get me out to get to speak to someone on the phone, you know.
So okay, Now, when that consular assistant turned up, what did they offer you or what did they.
Well, they just said they were trying to do everything they can.
Did they give you any hope?
Yeah, they did it. First they said, well, you know, we're doing everything we can. You know, we haven't really done anything wrong. We should be able to get you out of here. And looking back in it and our okay, all right, And then they would they would leave a little hands so open a bit of two paste and it looked like it had been taken from a motel room, like tiny you know, the tiny ones that you get.
That was your care package.
Yeah. Yeah, one time I got chocolate and then that was stopped.
Did you did you tell them about your concerns with the violence and all that?
Yeah, yeah, of course, and then the conditions and things like that. I mentioned that at numerous times to them.
Your general health in an environment like that, you're describing living in an unhygienic sauna with food that, yeah, wouldn't be the normal food for your stomach. How are you your surviving health wise?
I just started deteriorating. My skin was getting worse and worse. I was losing weight rapidly. You just feel nauseous all the time. He's mentally fatigued. Like I said before, a day feels like a week or a month in there, because you just you're constantly so hyper vigilant. Your anxiety is so high, and you're just constantly looking around to see what's coming at you. And it's coming at you all the time. It's not coming from someone over here.
It's coming from someone trying to do shifting on you. Over here. Someone's trying to steal something, someone's trying to get something. And that does you know you're in And you start seeing yourself going in a depression because of your situation quite early on, you know, or you go into yourself and you'd see it with other foreigners as well, or you're seen it in Cambodians too, to be fair, you just see people get worse and worse, and it makes the mill. There were some tough times in K three.
Yeah, and that depression and you're giving up, giving up hope. Were you at the point where, yeah, not being there was a better option?
Yes, Yeah. The only thing that kept me going was my son. If it wasn't for him, I dare say, well, and my ex partner send him money. If she didn't send that money, I wouldn't be talking in our Gary. Yeah, that's one hundred percent. Yeah. If you don't have money in that prison, your dead is dillan jup.
Yeah. How old was your son at the time?
Fo?
So that sort of kept you kept you alive?
Yeah?
Yeah, where did your some think you were in the twelve months or so you're away?
He was told, And when I spoke to him, I just told him I was. I was stuck in it as he put an arrowport, you know, and being four, you know, but he was Yeah, he just wondered where I was. And when I was coming home, I was like, I'm still stuck here, mate, but I'll be home soon. So that's basically what I could tell him. And you know, I mean I had my fiftieth birthday in there, Christmas as well and all that other stuff.
Okay, that's a different type of fiftieth birthday. Yeah, did you celebrate?
No, No, not at all. And the bad thing about it was I was on the phone talking to her saying, oh, the lawyer's saying I'm going to be out before my fiftieth birthday and that didn't happen. And then she's like, oh, there was a bit of a stuff up in the paperwork. Look, you're going to be getting out at Christmas time. So I'm there telling my son and my ex partner, I'll behave for Christmas. I can see the sun. You know, it's gonna be great. Comes to you know, Christmas time
doesn't happen. His birthdays on January ten, I was I'll be there for his birthday. Doesn't happen. It just isn't. Set Back after setback, and that just that just makes you feel horrible and you really it really knocks you about that kind of stuff. And they do that, they grind you down. They grind you down. Like I don't know if I mentioned you mentioned to you when we're speaking before, but they used to play this music every.
Morning wake up.
Yeah. It was in Kamai and it was some kind of brainwashing. Guys were screaming going stop this, stop this, stop this, you know, like foreigners, and it would start at four in the morning and wouldn't stop till you were let out of yourselves. And that was every morning, and it was breaking people mentally. I mean, I know I've jumped around a little bit there, but yeah, yeah, well again going back to K three, they were scary times.
Did you find was there any time where you felt a piece or was it just twenty four to seven.
No, there was never a peaceful moment. Maybe a couple of times in the park with the other foreigners, because the foreigners kind of who could get to the park kind of stuck together, and a lot of them are hard done by and a lot of them are cash cows, so they've got no chance of kind of getting out because they just keep taking money from them and run it like a business.
Sorry, no, I hear what you're saying. And yeah, it might seem bizarre that we're looking at that way or discussing it, but the way you explained to me, if they're getting money from you, everyone wants a piece of the money you've got because you're the rich foreigner. The longer. They keep you in there. Everyone everyone benefits.
And you're spending money at the shops and you're bribing every police officer and guard to get through and do another section every time.
You know, yeah, you said that. It was in what you wrote down to get from one yard to another. It was basically you had the handover cash.
Yeah, fifty thousand reel, which is twelve dollars fifty American. Yeah, you just put it in his pocket. Some guards sometimes they'd take a couple of cigarettes and a bottle of water, depending on how their day was going. But a lot of them they just hate the money. And if you give them twenty thousand reals they get angry at you because it wasn't enough.
You know what was the attitude of the guards?
Oh brutality again that stone face. Look, I had to say this, but evil, a look of evil and cruelty. And they have you know, they don't get paid a lot of money, but they've got a bit of power, so they really flex that. You know that power. And you've got to understand too. Some of the senior guys there, the top guys, the ex Khmer rouge, and if you know anything about them, life means nothing to them.
Well, I hear what you're saying. I hadn't considered that. But the brutality of the takeover and what occurred in that country, and you're looking at people that experienced that, So there's a level of brutality that we couldn't even comprehend. It was almost like a genocide that was going on there.
Well, there was prisoners in there who were running military what would you call the military operations that were Khmer Rouge guys running the prison. You know, was mister pla ex Khmer Rouge and mate, you didn't even want to look at this guy the wrong way, Like when they came past those more soenior guys. You had to get down on your knees and bow, you know, otherwise I couldn't imagine what problems you would have.
Well, look, we're gonna we'll finish here for part one. And trust me when I say this, we've only just touched on the surface. But I just and we're going to talk about you know, we're talking about you've been gang raped, We're talking about you've been stabbed, brutalities, watching someone being bash to death, all the things that you've
encountered during your experience. But I just wanted to get first up talking to you now, just get a sense of who you were, who you were before you went in there, and how you survived, because what we're talking about here it's just terrific.
Yeah. Yeah, I've just I've always been pretty resilient. I mean, my childhood wasn't the best. You know, my father wasn't a great father. Yeah, so I think from a young age I learned to deal with that kind of side of things. But I'm not that kind of person, you know, So to be thrown into that, I just had to keep telling myself, we can get through this, we can get through this. It was almost like a mantra. Some days I'd be walking up and down the yard just
to try and keep fit. When I got moved to the hospital because it was a bit more room, you could go to the park. Just I'm getting out soon, I'm getting out soon, I'm going to see my son. I just repeat it over and over in my head. Yeah, and that to kind of block out all the noise and stuff for a while, at least for an hour or so, you know, And I just keep walking up and down, up and down, almost like a cage animal. But but I was doing it because I wanted to
stay relatively healthy. Just yeah, if you're doing something, they kind of leave you alone. Sometimes other times they wouldn't.
But if you just you know, look like you got purpose.
Yeah. Yeah, there's a you know, a couple of Chinese blaces exercising too, and you know a few others as well. Yeah, you know, like they were kind of a line occasionally.
Yeah. Okay, well, thanks An, we'll take a break and when we come back to part two, we'll delve deeper into it and how you actually got out of the prison as well, which is even that was complicated. Yeah, you've got a flogging on the way to the airport. Yeah, okay, we'll be back soon.