The public has had a long held fascination with detectives. Detective see 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 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. Welcome back to part two of my chat with Glenn Fisher. If you listen to part one, you would have heard
Glenn talk about the horrific childhood he had experienced. If you thought Glenn's life must have got better from there, you're in for a shock, because in part two he talks about it and it certainly didn't got a lot worse. Addicted to heroin for thirty five years prison sentences, the betrayal by the only two people he trusted enough to love, and his attempts to take his own life, plus a
whole lot more. But Glenn also talks about how he turned his life around, how he got justice against his abuses, how he gave evidence at four court matters to get his abuses convicted, giving evidence at two royal commissions, and how he is now giving back to society. Glenn's story is as dark as it is inspirational. Have a listen, and I think it might just put in perspective how lucky the majority of us are. Glenn Fisher, Welcome back, Part two. I'm going to apologize, and I probably don't
have to. You've told me it's all right to talk about things, but I'm taking in some dark places. So yeah, I apologize up front, but I think and I agree, I believe you agree with it. It's important to talk about the things that you've experienced because there's a lot of people out there that wouldn't have the courage is probably not the right word, but for whatever reason, don't feel comfortable in coming forward and talking about the type of things that you talk about.
There's a lot of stigma and shame around abuse, you know. And I know for myself as just think, how did I let somebody do that to me? You know, And that's probably what sits with a lot of people, you know. But I think if I write in my book, this isn't a mean story, this is a wee story. Yeah, this is a story about a lot of children who went through this and were abused. I've just one that to live to tell.
You know. That's the insidious part about child sexual abuse, isn't it That leaves the victim so traumatized and they're even blaming themselves. But that's part of the manipulation they do that for the people that are up braying on these kids know that they can get away with things because that's what they leave the kids with.
They come across like they're doing you a favor, you know, like, oh, you need money to get on. I can help you out, you know, just for this cost, you know, and you'd like a hanging out and with drawn, can you give me the money first year?
Yeah?
Okay, And you know you can get doing your favor, you know, And they're not you know, and you've been programmed that way prior, you know.
I love the fact that you're talking about this and it's almost like an avenging angel coming in. And these people that have been involved in this, they must have people like you talking. They'd be thinking shit. But when am I going to get that knock on the door and when I'm going to be called into account? I hope? So. Yeah, So I have a lot of sleepless nights, absolutely, because
the lives that they destroyed. Just before we take you back in the dark stuff, just to give you a sense, give our listeners a sense of how far are you coming? I think it's in the day. I'll say you're heading down to Canberra. By the time people listen to this podcast, you will have spoken on the steps of Parliament House downing Canberra. What's that about?
So it's called Zero Suicide. A friend of mine, Paul, runs it every year and it gets us to come down and speak. We lay out twenty five hundred and twenty five shoes this year to represent and every life lost to suicide. And I've been asked all over the country to speak at different events and I'm making meeting up with Malcolm Roberts on the day before. He wants me to go on a podcast with him as well.
Share my story and and then I'll be speaking out the front of Parliament with a lot of other creators, a lot of influencers to try and you know, show people just we need to stop this in its tracks. You know, we need a men's minister. That's what we're pushing for, is to get a men's minister to deal with men's mental health and our situational distress.
Yeah, talk on that a little bit more. Why you think specifically for men.
Well, because eight out of every nine that have died is a male. You know, that's the problem. The leading cause of death in our country between the age of fifteen and thirty five is suicide. You know, that's catastrophe.
You know.
The only thing that's measuring near it now is dementia. You know, and that's only just a recent state that I read the other day. But you know, we're losing, like I said, somebody every three hours. Why this podcast has happened, We've lost someone. It's terrifying. And as a father, as a grandfather, that terrifies me. You know, I'd hate my kids to think that that's an.
Option and it's not a simple fix. But to talk about things like that, I think helps it. There are people who have been in that lower step that I want to talk or can talk about it. There are places where people can talk about.
And specifically with men. I mean women are quite good at talking with each other about things that are going on. Us men we've been like to swallow it and say nothing, you know, and that's how we roll.
I'm laughing because I know what you're saying. And I just know you hang out with a mate and their wife knows more about people's lives and your mate. What did you talk about? We just said good day, We talked about the football, We did this, we did how you go on good? Yeah, like I dare say, you know, we'd pass each other in the street. There are you going good? Mate? How are you good? And that's that's the depth of it. So good on you for working in that space, in that space to the one thing.
And I know how sensitive you are to it because you've told me on a number of occasions. And we talked about the girl that you found in the cross and you fell in love with her, and that was basically your first girlfriend and world looked a little bit brighter in the dark world that you were living in because of her. Do you want to tell us about her? Is it aka if I use the name Linda Kirby, Yeah, something with the start of it. That's just beautiful to
start off with. So her family were going through her stuff just recently, about a year ago, and when they were going through their stuff, they found a photo and on the back it said Linda loves Glen Fisher. And they're like, who is this Glen Fisher? So they google Gleen Fisher and you know, everything comes up and it's my book. They buy my book. They opened up the book and on the very first page it says, dedicated to Linda Marie Kirby. I've now been in touch with them.
I have this relationship with them and other kids who have died in across his family too. Well. I get a chill down my spine when you just teld that that's beautiful, wasn't it?
It is feutiful? And I sat with them and one of them just passed just in the last two weeks. But the other I met the mum and the niece and the brother and you know, and they all of the ones that reach out to me. I was so worried about sharing the story of other kids and they said, no, and you've humanized my daughter. You've brought it to life.
Wow. Yeah, tell us about Linda and tell us about your relationship. Yeah.
So we first met, as I said, we were side both side, like we were just two big kids, you know, we were little kids and were running around with She was kind of like the leader of the girls. I was kind of like the leader of the boys. And I wasn't the leader because I was tough. I was a leader because I didn't shut up. That's why I was the leader. That's kind of how we rolled.
You know.
But she started some older boys came in from town hall in different areas and she started using heroin and so I ended up checking up with this other girl. I'm a breakdan. So I used to break dance on the street. I was quite good.
Actually, I've never had a breakdancer on the high catch killer right cameras roll.
The other day on TikTok and someone said that's a for sure, that's a I was.
Like a compliment. Yeah, yeah, that's a great compliment.
But what ends up happening is I go to South Australia to go into a dance competition. They reckon this this group's the best dancers in Adelaide, and I know they're not right in my I'm a good dance and I know it, so I'm going up there to prove it. So I head off up to South Australia and We're going this dance competition. I create a little group called the Megazoids. I had by us, sorry Insydney, we had a group called the Megazoids. Mega means many, zoids mean
street people. But up there we made one called the Electrical Connection, right, and we we practice all these routines to go in this competition.
We win.
We actually win the competition. As I'm coming out of the competition, I'm walking down the stairs. One of the kids from the refuge, Jean Chapman, who just also recently died, is at the bottom of the steps and I'm walking down. I sorrdly, you see this bra did you see us? And he's looking really somber and he goes, Linda's dead, sorry, And I was like what And I grabbed him, thro him against the wall and like John could have picked me up and tossed me, but he just he just cleaned.
I'm serious, Linda's dead and fucking ripped my heart out, mew. I just sat down on the spot and I was like, fucking kidding me. What had happened is for the heroine two bolts had asked a young girl to find a girl, a kid, you know, fifteen year old just turned sixteen year old girl. She went with them, They gave the heroin, she dropped. They didn't know what to do. They were caught, convicted, got twenty years jail. Then they went before Judge Elden
and on appeal got it dismissed. Altogether, it's because of her. I've written my book. It's because of her. I do everything I do today. But that's why I went up to that abuse when I was just Linda just died and I walk up and I was like, you you I'm going I'm going to hold you responsible.
That's when you told me.
That's when I told him. There it was like I just got I had to hit Shike back from South Australia. What happened was I was doing dancing and I had nun chuckers on me. I had them down my legs, you know, he was carrying them down there and I got pulled over by the police in gold and they arrested me back then. Nunchuckers is the same as carrying a firearm. It's a section thirteen A nine a preces nine. Yeah, so I got I kept in the cells for two
weeks while her funeral was on side. I missed her funeral and but I end up hit choking back to the cross and sadly, Gary, that's where I actually become a heroin addict. You know, I was like at that point, I U speed coke. I not I sorry trips pot drink, but I'd never put a needle been in the hand that was taking the next step I did. I wanted to know what it was. And the sad thing was that because of all my trauma, it was like my head never stopped. It was like I had all these
flashbacks in my head and visions. And the sad reality for me was when I picked up her on it was like my body realigned. It was just like that's the answer, which was a lie because people don't understand that that you chase that for the rest of your life trying to get that realignment. You spend more time in withdrawals and hanging out and chasing the dragon and money than you ever do actually start trying to.
Get you back to feeling okay, and that's what you're chasing.
And then withdrawals, it was manifested. Those feelings were exasperated. It was even worse. So I get all these flashbacks and trauma and it was horrible. But I never coped with her, and she was the first. I mean, I watched the many kids die, you know, another girl, bam bam. There's so many of them, Sharon Tracy. There's a lot.
It's just such a waste of life, isn't it.
Especially her. She was so vivacious, bubbly, she was talented, she was smart, she was a leader, she was just everything beautiful, you know. And yeah, her life.
Two that were convicted did was it just the sentencing reduced.
Or was completely dismissed. Yeah, but I only found these out as an adult.
And we don't know what's gone on with the court matter. But when you're talking about justice yelled them.
Yeah he's a pedophile.
Yeah, well that's that's been widely reported.
Yeah it's a non fact.
Yeah.
Yeah, ended up taking his life at the wood draw Commission suicided.
Yeah, my understanding after the investigators spoke to him a couple of times, and then he ended up committee suicide. Yeah, following that, And that's that's scary, isn't that the person in the position of that power.
Yeah, absolutely, I mean and not only that, I mean he's a compromise judge. The police also knew that he was compromised the ones that work corupt in the Cross, so they were able to take advantage of that as well.
Well. I read somewhere that they were charges against him or he was arrested and charges weren't laid whatever, So there was an assumption that he was given a pass or led off.
Yeah, it's well known on the street that he was given a pass. And he's not alone there. There was a lot of them. Like I said, they used to hold it over them, you know, photos or you know, whatever it was that they had on them, and it allowed you know, like there was high profile men coming to King's Cross and buying children. It was like it was like going to a coffee shop and buying a cup of coffee. You know, they just come down and be able to purchase a kid.
What the discussing, Well, do you concern them? We can't mention names because you and I end up in court, and I don't want to go back to court. And I don't think you want to go to court.
I'm done with the court.
But do you feel at risk because you are speaking up?
I did for years. I had a lot of fear around it. I have more fear around to people I loved and me, you know, putting them in any kind of danger. But I got in my head, I thought I cannot not speak. They're all dead, Gary one, Bay one. I've watched them die and the last one just recently, Marlene, she had They're all dying a liver disease or suicide
or alcoholism or addiction overdoses. And I just thought, you know, each one of these to reach out to me, and so I just love you, and you're so brave taken these guys to court. You know, we're proud of you, behind you, And I just thought I have to talk. You know, I need people to know, people like Linda, Marlene, you know Bam Bam existed, you know my brother, you know all these different people. You know, it's like I have to speak.
Yeah, you got to some law points in your in your life, and they're addicted to heroin for a long time, and I think you're still on the edge. Quite a few times. We've just your heroin use. But you made some over the attempts to take your own life. What what was a lead up to that?
So the first one was for seven years, I was using on the streets, dropping all the time. I made like thirteen overdoses in a period of two years because I started taking pills. But I ended up meeting a woman and you know, we got engaged. I'm gonna have a baby, Shindy. She was pregnant. We just had a little baby, and you know, and I loved this woman, I really did. And then I got kicked off the methadone program for violence, for fighting and it's the second
time I've been kicked off for violent, violent stuff. And then when I stayed on the street for two weeks, and when I came back, my brother was at my house with my partner and I was like, oh, hello, and I pick up the baby, and you know, it's all normal, normal. I end up finding it these two events sleeping together. You know, she ends up telling he
ends up telling me. And at the moment, I've just been kicked off one hundred and twenty meals of meth today, I've got a heroin habit, I'm homeless, I've just lost my partner. The only three people I love in the world is my brother, my fiance, and my little girl. And I'm sitting outside of a church and I don't know how I got myself to this point, but I'm sitting there listening to the music, and something about Christian music has always suve me gary out the way it
just does. And I'm sitting there and the music stops, and all of a sudden, in my head just talking to me, and I'm going, I'm rocking back and forth flight this and I'm saying, this is my fucking point. What's the fucking point? What is the point of this fucking world? Everybody's a piece of shit, you know. And I just kept saying it over and over and over. And I walk into the church and my intention was to get a cup of tea that they've got, maybe
this biscuits or something I can drink or eat. And I walk inside and there's no one there, and there's this big cross there with like a sheet with all like someone's been spraying on something like paint or something on it. And I look at it and I actually get the sheet and I put it around my neck and I start praying, you know, like I don't know there's a God or not, but if you're there, hear my story, man, and I start praying to God, and
then I just step off. And as I go to step off, some my man just comes straight through and grabs me and lifts me up and stop the actual drop bit of me dropping. And he sat down with me, and he was a priest and he started talking to me about God. And I'll screaming at him, brother, and I'm like, don't tell me about fucking God. Bro, you know, just God. You know I'm angry. You know I'm angry. And he gives me a poem. It's called Footprints. And I read that poem and I just fucking broke down
in tears. Mate. It just made me cry. And I thought, because I believe there's something out there, a God, but I don't believe in religion or church as you know, because it just seems to be the catalyst for everything evil from from what I grew up with you. And but that was the first time. But what ends up happening is it turns into an arm robbery. I go into stayed the next day, I go to see him and he said, I stayed there night. Sorry. And the next morning he says to me, I said, I got
to go, Bro. I said, I'm a heroin addict and I'm fucking in bad withdrawals. I've got to go, you know. I tell him that.
So this is the dude that save you?
Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. And what happened is he says to me, what about I'll give you fifty bucks for that help. I said absolutely, you know, and like as an addict, it's like I'm better, I'm not because I know. I said, it's subconscient, right, And then I suddenly he says to me, no, I can't do it. My religion faith won't allow me to give you that money or whatever it is, you know. And so just to clarify it back, there was two men there, and it was actually another man who stopped me for falling.
It was right.
It came in and there, yes, built the relationship with Then what happens is I pick up a button knife and I put it to my neck and I hold it to my neck and I said, you don't fucking get it, bro, I don't want to be here, and then I threw it on the ground, right, that's it. I just threw it on the ground and he said, look, Lynn, let me drive you to the cross. And he drove me to the cross and I had a bag of clothing with me. He gave me the fifty dollars and
he said, can I pray for you? And I said, okay, you know, and then he went to touch me. I said, just don't touch me. You can pray for me, Please don't touch me. I don't like being touched. So he prays for me. He said, how about you leave your clothes with me and you can come back the next day and get them and we'll wash them. I said, I wash them for you, and you can't come back
and get them. Two weeks that's passed, and I'm passing through that area and I knock on the door and he goes, come in, come in, come in, welcome in. And so we go in and have a cup of coffee, and all of a sudden, about fifty he goes, can I've got to go and do something. I'll come back. He's gone and ring the police. I didn't know this, and then two minutes later the police turn up, knock knock knock, and they arrest me and they charged me with the mar money with menace. Right then what happens
is King's Cross Police. So I ended up getting put into jail for eleven months in MRC. But King's Cross Police learn of it and they change the charge and turn it to armed robbery.
So robbery, So breaking that down to mean money with menace was the first one. Yeah, so that's okay. The robbery. It takes it to another level a completely the weapon that you're threatening someone to rob them.
Yeah, that's right. And so I ended up getting Supreme Court bail to Odyssey House, but I didn't make it. So what happens is pretty funny. My girl, the one that sat with my brother, she's at the court and as we're leaving, I said, i'll see you in ten minutes at the station. She's, what are you talking about? They're escorting you out to Odissey House. I said, I'll see you at the station in ten minutes. We getting the bars, all of these guys that have been Supreme
Court bail outdid us the house. And I'm sitting here a window and I'm skinny, little and attic, and it's about that much space, you know, to get out this window. And I look at into the guy and it starts like I'm oh, I know this, stay over there, and I'm pointing all this stuff they've sort of engraced in whatever it was I pointed to, and then Bush I ship out the window, gone, I'm at the station. And the sad part to this story is so I went up to her and I said, you got any money?
She goes, yeah, should I'll give you fifty bucks or you can come with me and my daughter, I said. I looked at her and I thought, you betrayed me, mate, TU give me the fifty And I still kind of well, I don't now because I've had a beautiful After that, I mooved on it, but for that point in time, I felt sad. But I end up escaping and staying on the streets for ages, you know, using and stuff until I eventually get caught. So the police used to
see me, right. I remember walking down the main street of the Cross and they're walking up eating an ice cream and they look up and they see me and I run towards them and I run down through this arcade and down Chapman Steps in the Cross and they're chasing after me, and I'm fast and they get to the top of the sets and I'm like, come on, come on. And I'm playing this game with them for about a week. Every time they see me, they're chasing me. They can't get an injury. I'm trying to help out.
And then what happened is one day I score and I gave to this place. And so the day before I'm having a shot on a staircase and all of a sudden, someone must have come up from behind and hit me with a bottle. Because I'm laid out on the ground with blood coming out of my head. I think someone didn't like me using in the air, so it's come up from behind and on whack with a
big goourney bottle. The next day, I go back to the same spot, but a different little part of it, right where no one can see me, and I'm shooting up but you can't get out of where I'm at. Suddenly those three detectives walk in and they're like, god A, Glenn, the fuck okay, you got me. I still my arm as they're doing it. I pushed it in. I thought, I'm not at least I'm going to have my whack before I go. You know what, actually I say they
saved my life. They wouldn't like the irony of that, But putting me in jail they was not their intent at all. They wanted to get me, silenced me, to get me off the street, but me going to jail. It's sad to say this, but I actually enjoyed being in jail.
I've read and about that's your your view on it, talk us through it.
For the seven years prior to that, I'd slept in bloody parks, in the pouring rain. I'd slept in back alleys. I've been using every day. I was always looking over my shoulder for somebody I've robbed, ripped off all the police. You know, I was just tired. By the time I got to jail. I had three meals a day, I had a roof over my head. I had one hundred mates. Because I wasn't that tough guy in jail, I just got on with everyone. I was the friendly guy. Everyone just got a case.
So you were staking your piece of ground in prison.
That's right, Yeah, I didn't. That wasn't my role.
People didn't see you as a threat threat.
No, you know, everyone called me stretch. I was playing football one day and someone says, are you long, fellow, big fella, Stretch, give me the ball. And then from that day everyone called me stretch and it's a stretch, and it was like but they always said, he comes fucking stretch again with the bluey. I was always I used to run all the competitions in jail, touched football, whatever it was, you know. So that's how that knew me.
I got my school certificate in jail. So one of the things that I did was I thought, right, this is my chance to learn to read and write. So I bought all these books. The only books I could get was I got the Bible, a book called seventy Times seven, and The Cross and the Switchblade. So they're the three books that I read to try and get
more articulate and to learn words. Then I started to do my CGE General Certificate of Education, which is Equivalency DISCOL Certificate, which I did, and I got all these other things, did computer courses front end later first aid I spent my whole time in prison learning.
That's when the system works, isn't it. I suppose you're unique in that your start to life was so shit prison looks better option luxury. How long's this been going on? That's but yeah, that is the system working. It doesn't work for everyone but someone that's in there. And credit to you, Credit to the system for allowing you to do it. But you've taken that opportunity.
But it also taught me anger and hate. It also taught me that respect equals violence, that if someone's disrespectful to me, that that's met with violence. So it there's good and the bad. And I saw a lot of people come in to jail that stories not like mine. You know, they come in and they do these ones and they try and bounce around like a tough guy, and that gets sorted really fast.
And yeah, you know, how long did you do? So?
I did eleven months on raman and then two years eight months was my sentence. So I did two years eight months.
And that's when you literally like, we haven't even talked about your education, but you had enough going on in your life early schooling. Did you do much schooling or no?
So I did the only years I can remember. I was bounced around so much that only years four, five, and six and seven I did. I did half a year seven in a high school in Erina, and then I got put into Derek. Halfway through that, I started year eight and then I ran away. About three weeks into it, somebody punched my brother and I attacked him in the principal's office. I literally attacked him in the principal's office. And so I ran away that time as well,
and I was institutionalized again. But yeah, I didn't do much schooling at all, and even when I was there, I was so messed up with my trauma and the kids bullying and like they I've actually joined one of the pages to the scrool I went to, and I've had so many people reach out to me and said, I Glenned, we'd had it only know and you know, like it hurts me saying it because it felt such a nice, needed moment. And I said to them, look, you could never have known what was going on in
my life. You just couldn't, you know. But they knew I lived in the oldest house that I always smelt, like, you're right, So I had I wet the bed really bad. We didn't have hot water as a kid. We had an urn, and we didn't have a public toilet, proper toilet. We had one that was empty back then, and so everyone sort of knew me as the stinky, poor kid, you know, and it is cruel, but kids don't know, you know.
And I can see why you get the emotional where the kids probably gave you a hard time at school of reaching out and apologizing.
There, Yeah, and I respect that, you know, like you know, someone says, you know that I should have done better, and I wished I did. And there was a couple that I that kind of knew what. They didn't know the extual side of it, but they knew that I was being subjected to extreme violence, you know, like it was visible. I had one story I as a kid, is I had to get up to go to school one day and I'm sitting at the bus stop my
eyes like black, like really bad. And I get on the bus and the bus driver said, what happened to you? I said, I hit my head on the side of the corner of the door. He said, you do that a lot. Anyway, he drives about one hundred meters and stops at the front of my dad's house and then he walks up to the front door and I couldn't hear it. And this is a guy's about seventy years old and Clary right mag Man Bank, and you could see him, he's so animated. And I'm sitting in the
bus like, what's going on? You know, because my dad teaches karate like he's a mushler, you know, he's a violent man. And but yeah, he gets back in the bus and he goes heter not be doing that again. I'll be knocking on the door every day and he's talking all the way to Still it is the only time in my life anyone stood up for me as a kid. And yeah, and then I ran away. I didn't come home.
But he stood up for you.
Now.
But I can see the smile on your face coming when you talking about that, because you wouldn't have had anyone fighting you.
No, that's right. And that's the thing that I think that really strikes me with my stories. I didn't know where to turn, and the system that was supposed to protect me failed me and repeatedly failed me. And it's it's the systemic failures. My story are so many.
Just you know, when you talk about the docs file and all that, and twenty two times you've been taken from your home by the time you're seven, or something very ridiculous. Hello, there's a pattern for me there. I don't know the breakdown of the system.
And you had that with my medical records of the amount of times that I present to Mount Drew at hospital, nor sit in the hospital all these different hospitals. You know, I got stitches in my ankles, stitched in my fingers, I've got scars all over me made.
When you were taken to the hospital with your carpet burns and your fingers, your fingers cut off, and the mum's obviously irrational screaming at screaming at the doctor. That would have been the moments that could have Yeah, if someone stepped in, that's when the difference could have been mate.
Yeah, there are so many moments that I look back when I read through my files where I think that so many people could have done something and nobody did nothing. And that angers me more than the people who hurt me, because I'll never be that guy, Gary, even if it hurts or cost me my life. If as someone hurting a child, bro, I can tell you right now I'm stepping in and I feel every person should you know, I.
Think you're right. Yeah, if we can't protect it's a mark of society if we can't protect the vulnerable, and the most vulnerable are kids. That's right, absolutely, Okay, so prison, you've got an education, or if you've learned to read, you start to appreciate the finer things. You got some skills, Yep, when you left prison, did you have a game plan of where your life was going to.
So when I got out, they wanted me to get a job and a place to live. I don't even have a family mate. Am I going to do that? So I met some Christians and they gave me a job as a carpenter ap preentice carpentry, and I live with them. But when I got out, the woman tried to come on to me. She was like seventy two year old. She walked up behind me one day and I just come out of the gym. She's got a hands all avery. I'm like, fuck this man, I'm out of you.
You know. Christian lady, Christian Lady's Christian.
It was very un Christian. Yeah, But the problem was that my addiction, Gary was doing push ups for me waiting outside, although I never used the entire time I was in prison.
And that prove me again explain that one I like the same just explained.
Well, what I mean is that I hadn't been treated. And that's the part of our system that does fail us that we put people into a time warp and know they're still a heroin atic. You know, I'm a long believer that we should move away from punitive and move towards rehabilitation when it comes to drug related offenses. Now, when it comes to offense against children women, you know, they said, I think that's a different story, bro. But when we're talking about people who recidi is keep going
back and back again because of drug addiction. They come in, they clean, they get themselves all good, then they walk out the door, bang they use again, and many of them drop or die or homeless.
Well, you talk like, when you release from prison, want to get you a job, want you to do this, find the home and all that. You don't get much when you released from prison. You haven't got the CV that's going to get you get your job. So there is I think a fair enough thing a responsibility or it just makes sense that when you're released from prison, there's a pathway.
That you can absolutely I think one of the things that I talk about often is I would like to see levels. So when you go into prison, I could say to you, listen, mate, you can do your four years jail in jail, or you can do four levels. Level one is we do anger management, narcotics, anonymous, we learn educations and we work our way through all these things so by the time someone comes out they're better
equipped to live a life. I mean someone like me, that would have been ideal if somebody had taught me about my addiction, someone taught me a little bit about my trauma and my anger management, those kind of things, given me an education, and then at the end you do a bit of job release and get you an actual place and set you up. You know, I think that would have been a lot better than me trying to defend for myself. And that's what it basically is.
Well, the high rate of recidivism, not just in New South Wales but across the country I speak, speaks of the fact that we haven't quite got it right. But yeah, giving something to work towards. And I know when I was doing the series Breaking Badness, there was a lot of people I saw in jail that were on lengthy sentences and you could see if I had the authority, and I'm not a bleeding heart or softy, I would
sign the paperwork to let them out. They had clearly learned their lessons and they wanted to get back out and contribute to society. But we're going to keep them in there for another extended period of time, and who knows what they're going to be when they get out.
I think what the viewer needs to understand, or Australia needs to understand, is that there's a difference between a sick person who needs to be weighing well as opposed to a bad person who needs to be made good.
Yeah, you know.
And I think when comes to a sick person needing to be made well and heroin addict in addiction, if we look at those sort of programs away from punitive and move towards rehabilitation, I think that could work. Whereas with the bad people, I think, like there's some grubs broking, you know, they need to be in prison.
I think and put in perspective like in prison and talk in prison, a large percentage of the prisoners that prick should never be released. Yeah, absolutely, like they know bad people, but scaring jail. It's the smaller percentage of the people that are in prison are the ones that can't turn around to their life around. Ken Marslow said, I've said a lot on the podcast, but I think it's a good way of looking at it. You've probably got thirty percent that have made the decision they're going
to be criminals. They're going to they're going to try and score a dollar, and the price they pay, they're going to get the cents that might be twenty thirty percent. Then you've got the sixty percent probably sitting there that have made a mistake. They're not bad people. It might have been circumstances like like yourself, and they found themselves in prisons. They're the ones that you can change. And then the ten or fifteen percent, the real bad bastards, well, we can't can't help them.
And the way the system set up now is that those fifty percent that are good to survive end up doing some of the messenis things in prison, you know, And I've seen that happen. I've seen good men come to prison and join into groups and the next minute they're shaving people or doing all sorts of stuff just to survive, you know.
And that's that's the thing, isn't it survival?
Yeah, that's right. It changes men. I know the first time I got out of prison, you might have read it my book. I got into a punch on because I've been taught respect equals violence. Someone wouldn't shake my hand, and the next minute I'm punching like I literally he's behind the door and I'm kicking the door in. And the barman come over and said, mate, you got a choice. You can get attacks and go home. I can bring the police and you go back to Jaga. And I took the option to go home.
I've heard a lot of people say that when they get out of the prison because they're so used to walking around, bridged up, ready to go at the moments know this, and then the gates to the prison are open, and then walking down the street and someone disrespects you, maybe yeah, accidentally bumping in or not shaking your hand, and you're so conditioned that you've got to react, and it's on again.
I made a video just recently about justice for that gas. Right when I was telling you about we're walking together and we bump into each other and we're bad. You won't have a crack. You know, we do this full long thing and then we go literally little, and we go backwards, and then we do it again and I'm so sorry, bro, and he so sorry. One of the things I teach a lot of people to do now is when I call it monkey mantello. Two men walk down the street and they I bought each other and
they just keep doing it. So someone said what what? And it starts when somebod's that to me, I smile and I go hi, mate, And ninety nine percent of the time they smile straight back because what I've done is I said you're safe. I'm safe, nothing to fear here, bro, and then we carry on.
Well, you can the few It's interesting, you can the few situations I speak to young fellas and they go, well, you know, sometimes you've got to punch on some times you've got to do this. And I use the example of bumping into each other at the bar. If someone's and we've all been there, someone's taken a dislike, had too much to drink or whatever and looking at you and they've got the shits with you, yeah, for whatever
the reason is. And they might look at you and whether you're looking at mate, and I give people this too. If you said that to me, I'd go, sorry, mate, I'm just having a bad day, and you can walk away from it. You can diffuse it absoutely. We know we can, but it's that that instinct we have. Fuck this, I'm going to escalate it and take it up. But you can walk away from the situations, can't you.
Absolutely. I look, I work on the streets, and I've had people scream in your face and yell at me and all sorts of stuff. And now I'm able to one of the things I can do. Now, I'm better discernment. Great word. I sort of look at them and I think, what actually is going on for you? I can see them fasad, but what's actually going on underneath? And more often than not, at something trauma, it's a defense mechanism because they're actually afraid. And so I just sort of
stepped back and I'm just continually being kind. And I've had there's been times, Gary, I've had somebody in my face. I'm like and then I've had to walk away and come back and say hey, and like come from another and.
Well, you know, you can control how many times have you looked back and gone and it might get physical. It might get physical, but you look back and I could have handled it a little bit differently.
Yeah, like that.
And so if you can stop and think before you react, react, Yeah, respond, don't react. But that's the thing when the prisons are set up that you have got to be ready to go at the moment. It's not some respects everything. And I can understand why bloke's coming out of there are just and it's it's not just about the bloat that's fucked up again and ends up back in prison. There's more victims in someone's someone's been hurt.
I would say that people don't stand tall to stand up, which means you don't walk around on this. But if someone puts it on you, you go straight back. And it's not about winning or losing. It's about face, you know, That's all it's about. In respect. I'm you know back then, I loved being in it. When it was time to get out, I was afraid to get out, but I couldn't live that world.
Now talk us through that, because that's interesting.
Well, so for the last three months, you know, they come up, you know, your times wearing out. I'm now at a farm in oberon I've got a job. I'm working in education. Everyone's be made. I played football, chess every day. I got my own slot.
You know.
It's like I'm in my own room, you know, And but then suddenly I'm getting out. I remember feeling like for three months I ran a marathon, and to read that in the book, I came first iron and actually ran a marathon like I was. I just loved being in there. But when I got out, it was time to getting closer and closer to get out. I was getting this really bad anxiety. I was like, I don't know what I'm going to do where you know, how
am I going to do this? Like I've never my everything in my life's been violent and you know all this stuff. I don't know how to survive in the world. I've never really maintained work or any of those things. I don't know what that looks like. And and because of that, I didn't take long for me to find myself back into that scene.
You know.
It was only because in nineteen ninety six I met someone and we'd had a little boy that the Woodraw Commission knocked on my door, and you know what they did, Like I know, they didn't mean it, but they still did it. I was sitting in my loungery with my partner at the time and bangman bang on the door, Kings Cross Police, like straight away, my heart stopped right because it's King Tross. Straight away I opened up. There's two women and a man. They are dressed in black
and all in black clothing. Hi aware from the Woodraw Commission, You've been identified by multiple people as a victim of sex crimes in your time in the Cross in front of my partner, right in front of my partner. A little bit, it could have had a lot differently, And because I'd never told that part of my story to my partner, and so that was the first thing. I wasn't quite ready when they came forward, but I did. I put two men away through that case.
I suppose you wouldn't have been trusting too.
I didn't make King Tross Police. That in itself was an alarm bell for me, you know. And what's this Woodraw Commission you speak of, you know? And I tell them and stuff, and I gave some stuff half away, but not really all the everything. It wasn't until the next Rayal Commission into institutional abuse, where they took my full story.
You put two people away.
Yes, So in the Woodraw Commission, I put away a guy named Paul Chapman Jones, he was a counselor at the refuge, and a guy named Ken Foggery. He was the head of O'Brien Glass or I worked for O'Brien glass, sorry, and used to sit outside the park all the day. He's the one that raped me that time. I was telling you about that one that was quite violent.
And was that just by providing a statement or did you do well?
So a lot of other people had come forward as well in those particular two, including someone close to me, and so I spoke up as well, and I went to court against the both gave evidence that in the first case against Paul Chapman Jones. When we were at court, they broke for lunch and I was sitting out in my lunch and I looked up at the table and he's come up, like literally approached me in the inter room and he's gone, Glenn. He said, look, I'm really sorry for what I did to you when you were
a little boy, and he mentioned another victim. And he went back to court and played guilty, but he was charged by multiple charges. He got eighteen months, right, eighteen months sentence. Then the other one he pled not guilty and fought it all the way through, got found guilty. He also got eighteen months. And I was like, at the end of that, mate, I'd just gone through all this, going around, the drive, around the hearings, you know, the
whole thing. Because the problem with my cases was I was subjected to the time governing abuse, which meant that I was subjected to the laws of when my abuse occurred, which meant I had to be at every hearing every man, you know, everything, had to be at every fucking thing. And it was hard.
Man. How did you find that? And were you're still using heroin?
So I'd been clean and then what happened was because I was living in Leftgo, I had to catch the train every day to the Downy Center and I was making a detour ry the cross getting on and then I was sitting in court like this every day, like Onniqord, you know, just smash because I couldn't process it.
Man.
It was the way that the solicitors for them would treat me. You know that. It's like it's changed now, but back then they could say just about anything they wanted to, you know, and like trying to make it all my fault.
Just how long you've been using heroin for you just yea, yeah you went.
To arm robbery, didn't you? And you know, and like are you gay?
You know?
You know, you know, did you get an erection? You know I would have you got an erection? You must have enjoyed it, you know, like the things that they.
Say, is that how they literally what.
They said to me? You know, did you get it aroused? You know, did you get an erection? Did you did you like it? You know? You went to Paul twice? So therefore you know, like and it's it's just fat.
So they can put that spin on it, and yeah, balance out with the fact that you're a kid at the time and being taken. Yeah.
I don't want to give credit to a pedophile, but I will say that Paul Jones noticed what was happening in the court and I could see he was distressed by my distress, strangely enough, and he did, like I said, come up and apologize to me. And he's the only one that has and I do believe there was a genuine remorse and that man, but he still did what he did, right, you know, so that yeah, he apologized and that meant something to me. But the other one
was quite coarse. And I've actually had people reach out to me at different stages about him like that are friends of his, you know, Like same with Simon. He works in the privacy sector. I had all these people saying you cannot speak online and talk about him until he's been convicted that because you know, but then I also someone else that reached in the privacy sector, and so He'm glad. I just want you to know that we're not all work in that area like that, you know.
And I said, but the three guys that would really give me a hard time on Twitter messaging me the minute he got convicted, block block block orfully the block block block, because I was so ready to go, well what now?
What what now? Yeah, Hey, guys, it's Gary Jubilan here. Want they get more out of VI Catch Killers, then you should head over to our new video feed on Spotify where you can watch every episode of VI Catch Killers. Just search for I Catch Killers video in your Spotify app and start watching today. How does it feel face him down in court?
Well, with Simon was the biggest one.
Yeah, tell us about that, because that was a long, longer process process.
In twenty sixteen they put out a red notice for Simon Davis. But I named him in the Woodrow Commission in ninety six I named him in my statement in twenty twelve and in the wood Rock in the Royal Commission instit institutional abuse. They allowed him to leave the country even though multiple people had spoken about him as the primary abuser. And he ends up going to London and then he gets catches win that this warrants come
out right, so he flees to the Netherlands. So he's learned that if you go to certain places in Europe that they have statute of limitations and that you can use the statute of limitation laws to negate crimes in this country, which is frick and insane.
It should be you would think it would relate to the country where the offense committed.
Absolutely. So what happens is there's four people who have made charges against Simon Davies and eighteen charges against him. Time he leaves the Netherlands, two of those victims have no longer got charges against him. I had thirteen against him turned into three, but I'll never forget the police. This is where for me, police change right, the sex clamed squad from Paramatta, Nick Sprows. I'll say his name, Beca is a beautiful man. He used to ring me
every day. Hey, I played rugby league super coach. That is fantasy sport. I run podcasts for it, right, He bring about and goes, oh, Glenn, I'm doing my football side. You know who do you reckon? I should pick? And we just talked for an hour about footy or BBL. Right, But what he was doing was building a rapport. He was building a trust and he said to me one day, this says Glenn, I promise you. I know it's taking nearly a decade, he says, but I will fucking get him.
And then of course COVID come in that made it even more difficult. And I'll never forget. The haard Man has kind of upset me again. He ran me from the airport from the Netherlands and he goes, hey, Glenn, how are you doing? I said good? Maybe he goes this and I just want to warn you that all over the news tonight, Simon Davey's been arrested. We got him, you know, And I just remember Garry, I said on the lounge with so bad depression. After all them court cases,
I didn't move, I wasn't showering, I wasn't eating. I just sat there. I didn't know how to survive. I was literally on methadone, but I wasn't using drugs. I didn't know where to fit in. And I just kept thinking, they're never going to get him, They're never going to get him. And finally the time that he rang me up and he said, Glenn, I've got him, I felt like I was able to breathe again. But then when I went to court, the coward wouldn't come to court. He wanted to do it on the screen and he
would not look across. But he caught up at the end and he made this big letter trying to you know, I'm so sorry I'll let you down as a leader. And Jim and de clant to come up to me and she said, Glenn, I come up with exact words, but it's like you're one of the most bravest people I've ever seen speak, you know. She said, you are so articulate, and she said you are so better than that man. And I really appreciate those words at that
minute from Dimni and deb Night. They're just some really lovely people out there.
Yeah, well, I think people do understand. And I know both the people you just mentioned, and they understand what you've been through. Yeah, yeah, we read that, we hear about it in the paper. But unless you sit down and actually speak to someone that have a full appreciation of what they've been through, it's just sort of gets lost in the news headlines, doesn't it.
You know, when I told my story to the police, I remember them, the two police I'm talking about, they got their arms folded like this and they're listening to my crum sitting there, but they're sort of listening, and you could see that they were like, this is a good story, bro, and it's a lot you know, it doesn't make it and I'm trying to cut your fingers off, okay, and yeah, and this happened and that okay, you could see it. Yeah, they went away six weeks. They were gone, right,
and I thought, well that's that. Then then they turned back and it was almost like they're excited. Those mean, we've been all around the country. We've spoken to so many kids from the cross and every single one Parrot of what you said. So what we want you to do is wear a wire. And I was like, are you're fucking kidding me? I'm not wearing a wire. But I did, and I'm glad I did because I got him. You know, that's the other one, Grant Morrow, So I ended up getting him as well.
You went and wore a war and met.
With Yeah, it's crazy. So they asked me.
First, how do you feel. That's a lot of pressure.
I was scared, and I know scared the right word. It was like everything that had been taught to me that growing up was that still that crim side of me.
It's on half laughing and you got to you've got to see some light and samrries. But I just know that I krim were a wire.
Yeah, I'm a snitch, you know. And then that's when the police said to me, like, it's a different rule and so online as well. It's a different rule when it comes to those who abuse children, Glenn, And that's when I had that conversation with him about, you know,
saying that everyone there after abuses. And now the funny thing was I put this wire on right, And then he had to drop his car off somewhere so they knew he was going to walk a path, right, But as I came out to where I'm coming up this way, I'm going to walk down that way, there's all roadwork in the three and so I think, fuck, I've got to rush past the roadwork so that they confined. So
I did, I thought it. So I got past all the road works so that I met him at the corner and I walked past, and I sort of tapped hi, my dad as I kept walking past, and went Glenn, is that little Glenn? And I'm like, oh, hi, Graham, how trying to be nice and stuff. And they gave me a phone as well, So for a specific phone, I gave him the phone numb. He didn't contact me for two weeks. Then one night he rang me up
drunk and just bang, he just blurted and blurted. As soon as they hung out, I got a call straight from the police. And this was late at night. Glenn. We got him and they say, can you organize a rendezvous? So what they did was they organized it so that I introduced him to a pedophile he thought was a pedophile. And this pedophile had a boy that was with his parents, and we needed to get him back from his parents' own So when I introduced Grant to this pedophile, he
walks in. First, he slides a photo across the right, and I opened, there's two naked boys on the stomach at the refuge, right, And soon as I grab that, I slid it to the detective. Then I realized what I was doing, and I slid it straight back and just folded up and sat there. And that's when he said that thing. He said, He didn't It's like I wasn't even there. He is so engrossed with this guy.
He thought it was a pedophile. They're just interactive and he's gone, yeah, and we targeted pretty pubis and kids that come from broken homes, and this is how we went about it. And he's given the game man and I was sitting there thinking, and the police said to me later on, I walked out, I need a cigarette. I needed to because I was angry at that stagment.
I can imagine.
But they rang me straight away. You're okay, you know. They were like, like I said, I saw a different face. And he said to me, going, I don't see myself as like a copper, he said, I see myself as an investigator investigating child crime. But can I just say this, what a fucking kind of a job, so to swear, but imagine being in that position, having to watch videos or hear the replays of those stories over and over, then go home to your children. How do you do that?
Look, it's a very hard area of criminal investigation and sadly, and I think we're recognizing it more now, but they're always under resourced. Yeah, relatively, Junius. Sometimes you've got some of the more experienced ones that can stay on, but quite often inexperienced police officers and doing that. And yeah, people say, give q thos to investigating homicides unless you're after a serial killer or gangland. Yeah, the crimes happen, you're trying to find the person that it's done it,
which there's pressure there. But with child sex abuse, you know, if you don't catch this preck other kids are going to be there's a lot of responsibility. And I think, yeah, it's great that you're talking talking some up because I would imagine your your starting point is you don't like cops from what you've experienced in the in the early years, So for you to talk talk it up, and I get the sense you see the cops that you're talking about,
the good ones, they actually cared. And what the difference that makes too, It doesn't.
I think one thing that I've learned, you know, there's good people and there's bad people. And that's in every sector of wherever anything flows, you know, whether it be in the tax department or we're in the police department, or in crime world. You know, I mean even the crim world. There's good people and there's people that are just really bad, inherently bad people. You know, there's a difference. And I have seen a different face to policing, you know.
And I appreciate the way that they were so gentle through it because I was really struggling, and I really was, and and I almost suicided again, Like I guess I should tell you that, So I twice. So the first time was I took a heber. I went to a heroin dealer and I said how much you got? He said, I've got found of bucksworth. I said, I want the lot. I said, I'm out of you. I literally told him
I'm going to kill myself. And I walked up to this church and I took the whole lot, stood nothing walked down the main street, lit go, walked into a path, got a glass of water, went banged and hit the deck. So luckily I was in the safe place to be here.
But that says something about the dealer too, doesn't You're telling him I'm out of here. Well that's that's not good, mate. You probably shouldn't do that. But here.
I won't say his name, but the irony is he actually overdosed about it a year later himself, which is sad, but you know, I guess he saw it from that's money to his own habit.
So that's the way. Look, he's dealing with his own own demons.
And then there was a third time, and the last one is a pretty I went to rehab. Before I went to rehab, what happened was, I'd been speeding on the gas for about a week and I'm fucking in another world and I just sat there again. I got that thought process, so I just don't want to be here, and I just kept looking around, thinking around. I thought there is nothing in this world, and there was, but I didn't realize that I want to be here for So I went down to the cliff of the tumba right,
and I stand. I'm scared to deaf of heights, right, But I stand back from this cliff and I'm actually getting my carriage and I'm going to run and I'm going to jump. Where I was actually going to jump was actually a fence, and then there's another drop down but I didn't know that. But all of a sudden, as I'm about to go, I hear a voice and this guy says, hey, bro, And I look over and he goes, you know that people don't always die when they go over there, right, And I'm like, what you go?
Sometimes they land at the bottom and all broken pieces and they've got to take hours to get them out.
It was a smart, smart fellow that makes you think, doesn't it.
And I was like, fuck a. My mind's already convoluted from seven days. I'm not sleeping pretty much, you know. I mean, I'm like, and I'm thought that'd be pucking my luck. I'll land on a tree and fucking break everything on the way down and sit at the bottom, and aren't thought fuck it. And then the funniest part of the story, right was I thought that he rang the police. So on the way back, every light, everything I'm ducking in under cars.
All the way, getting your breakdownce and work there.
And then what happened was the next morning a rehab bring me and said you've got a space in Caroliica in Canberra, which was the start of the change of my life. But while I was in Camber in rehab cant, I didn't know I had thyroid cancer and I had two other nahors on my back as well.
You thought you were just getting rock and getting super fit, and look at me, I'm stripped down, lean me.
I thought I was buff bro. And they called me into the office one day and they said, mate, can you get your stand on the scales? Mate? And she said you're six foot two and you weigh sixty six kilos. I said, okay, you said, I think something's not righty. They took me in. There's only two types of actual cancer. It's called atypical pattern and forliquda amphipedia. I had them both. I had five nodules and that was rage and I was very unwell. And I also had hepatitis C and
I had two melanamers on my back. Yeah, so they had to and you can't treat thyroid and lither together, so they had to take a risk. They did that, did my radiation, all that treatment, then they put me through a new trial perhaps, so you got rid of that, and they cut the two things out of my back as well.
So you went through the full full thing, full thing. Yeah, and okay, and you're still smiling.
I'm still smiling.
There's a quote I meant to say it in the first part of the podcast. I like it, and I'm not sure if you invented it. You probably probably didn't, but i've heard you use it. Is it don't let the past rob you of your future. Yeah, that's a that's a really I highlighted that because it's a really powerful thing to say it because so many people have. Yeah, you've had all these kicks in the guts, Like just when you think you're getting through, getting getting new shit together,
cancer comes in the place another one. But you're still standing. Yeah, and you're now doing doing some good stuff.
Yeah. Well that's right. I turned. I started to its started off on TikTok. My daughter asked me to do a dance on TikTok. When you do a dance to me, Dad, No, this time, I may have a wait. I haven't showered in probably weeks, like being honest, not eating properly. I'm really not well. And she says, when you do a dance to me, TikTok dag. So so my money don't talk to jiggle jiggles. So my job was the jigle jiggle, you know. And then there're a bit of my rap dancing,
you know. And then anyway, she's challenged me almost like you know, you're an old man, mate, no one's going to watch you on TikTok. I was like, okay, well, challenge accepted. So I went on and I read the back of my book. I got to about thirty thousand views and about a thousand followers.
Street credibility with your daughter, then yeah.
Yeah, that's right. She thinks I'm famous. Now about a hundred you know, it's a lot more, but she's But anyway, that's how it started out. And then what actually happened was I shared a couple of parts of my journey on TikTok and stuff, and people started reaching out to me, you know, and they were people from the past, you know, and they were like, bro, you know you need to speak.
You know, you're articulate, you speak honestly. You know, you're not afraid, you know, because all of us are and are for different various reasons, whether it be family related, you know, there's old reasons. Yeah, and and it just grew into something and then that goes right. I was telling you about his an incredible story of his own. You know, he's big drug deal, all this stuff in by the me to Melbourne, and he sat me down. He said, bro, you've got a hell of a story.
And he said, you know, you can really change hearts and souls, you know, if you just get your shit together. But I was still on some box of tone at the time, and I thought, fuck this, I'm going to get off it. And then when I was coming back from Melbourne, it was midnight and I caught the train. Bag don't even catch training in Melbourne. It's a fucking lot of tripment. But any way I did, and I
got off the train. I saw all these homeless people at Central Station, where literally I used to sleep at one point in my life, and I thought, this is bullshit. Man, nothing's changed, you know. I thought, you know, I'm just going to I had seventy bucks, it's all I had to my name. I said, I'm going to spend this seventy bucks on these people and get to know their story. And I started doing that and I just kept backing up, backing up, backing up. And now it's going into an org.
You know, like I'm running this shit. I've got a whole lot of volunteers at work with me now. And you know, we hand out swags, we had out sleeping bags, we hand out toiletries, we had out. But the biggest thing about it, Gary, it's not about the things that we give people. What it is is about connection. I'm trying to make people understand that, you know, show them that there's hope.
You know.
That's what I'm trying to show people is I'm living proof that you can come out the other end, that today's addict could be tomorrow's advocate. And we are. We're changing the minds. And it's three pronged. For me, It's not just about helping those on the street. It's about making Australia aware that when you walk past someone on the street and you step around them or you call them a name, that could be someone's mother, brother, sister, annie, uncle,
is somebody somebody right. But more importantly, mental health is a epidemic on the street. It's absolutely heinous. There's this misnomer that everyone on the street to heroin, addict or alcoholic, and that's not true. I mean there's a percentage that, but there's also a huge percentage that are there. Because they closed all the institutions as you know, back in around twenty fourteen fifteen for mental health and just release them onto the street.
It has created the problems and people that find themselves our the home and showing that little bit of connection you call it connection connection there. But yeah, little things like that can make can make the world a difference.
That's right, and that's what we do now. And I've surrounded myself. One of the smartest things that I've done is I've surrounded myself with people who can do the things I cannot. You know, I don't have the education everyone else. It's what I do do well is connect. I can see, I get And the other thing is I don't. I always get down and sit with people and I'll spend whatever time it is with them, and I like they come up and hug me, Hey, bro, I love you. It's so beautiful the way I've built
this relationships. But what's happened is by the people that I've got with me now because I've built this rapport, they instantly trust the people that I surround myself with. And I've got an Ai n I've got a woman that's going to university also from the Cross, so another history of our own. There's a whole lot of people you know that are now just incredible, incredible.
That lived experience. What's it called?
And how can people I've called the leg Up Project and so you.
Can how can people follow it or see what.
I actually have a Facebook page called the leg Up Project on Facebook, or you can follow my socials. We're about to create a web page, so we'll have a web page as well soon. I've got a podcast as you know. Of course, it's into the Cross on YouTube that I've just started because I tried. One of the problems is all the money from my book has been how I financed this up to now. So what I'm trying to do is trying to make a way where I'm able to fund it for not me doing it,
you know. So I've created a YouTube page so that if I can monetize it, I can use that to do what I do on the streets because I give it So last two Christmases in a row, I gave out one eight hundred worth of gift cards the year before last and last year I gave out twenty eight hundred. I addressing is the drink this year. And on Christmas Day and Christmas Eve, Christmas Eve, I go with the
church they give out presents. And then on Christmas Day, I just what I do is I ask Australia just send me a Christmas card, write a beautiful little message in it, and just stick at ten on the gift card inside and I'll hand that out on the street and I go live, so people get to literally watch me do it.
Good on you. Wow, let's give the book of promo pass over here you follow up to the camera. Can people get the book?
So it's several ways. It's called Predator's Paradise. So most people message me they want to get it directly from me, but you can get it on Amazon, Kindle, book tape or all the places. But now it's on all twenty four platforms of audio. I've actually had Channel seven do it for me and make it. The only one that's not out on is Audible, but it will be in
the next week. It's just that the picture. They didn't accept my picture, so we had to put a different picture there for the actual book, and we've now called it King's Cross a Predator's Paradise for audible.
Okay, well, you've heard just a snippet of Glenn's story today, and the book goes into a lot more detail and there's so much, so much, I say, fascinating them. I'm not sure if that's the right word. That's just really if you want to understand someone's life that didn't start off the right way, but you've come through it, it's an inspiration.
Yeah, I have come out the other end. And one of the main reasons, like I said, I don't talk about my family, but that is the catalyst. The main reason for me is I don't want to see history repeat and it was repeating. I'm telling you, that's where it was going. And after rehab, you know, one of the best things rehabbed in for me was it made me realize that I didn't know shit. You know, I thought I knew a lot, like everything I knew was wrong.
And that's pretty much what I had to start from scratch and rehab and start to learn about owning my shit. You know, start to own my behavior and start to change myself from the core. And I've done that. But the biggest catalyst for me was understanding the undercurrent to my addiction was trauma. And once I started to realize I've actually got PTSD, I have ADHD and all the other fucking leaders of the alphabet.
Probably I could just keep having.
But you know, the main one being PTSD. I don't think my trauma will ever fully go away, but I have better tools now to manage it.
And that's that's the thing. It's not going to go away itself. That's all in the past. It's always there. But you've got the tools. Yeah, and I would imagine the work that you're doing, and yeah, it would be bringing a good random act of kindness, which you're doing frequently.
It's good to this absolutely, and the following that I have on social media, it's not just there. Like so many people reach out to me and share with me, you know they're suffering. I get so many mums and dad reached out about their child there, you know, the parent, whatever it is. You know, like shed one last story with you, because this is really one that I really touched my soul. I was walking into a post office and a woman come out with two little kids and
she said, oh, you glenn off TikTok. I said, yes I am. She goes, please give you a hug, and then she started hugging me and she was almost sobbing, and I was like it was a little bit creepy at first. I'm like, what's going on here? And then she lets me go and she goes. Four weeks ago and my husband is an alcoholic, had a violin thro and stuff like the house. He hits me all the time.
So we've split and left him. But before we left, my daughter grabbed one of your videos press play and put it in front of him and said watch that, then walked out the door. He rang her up about two weeks later and confessed to his own history. Right he's now. I think it's seven months nearly eight months sober in a rehab.
There's a lot to people have got to own, haven't they. That's a starter time and that example you just provided. They're like, yeah, wow, what you're making a difference. Yeah, and making a difference. That must feel good.
It does feel good, you know, Like I was. I was going to say I was a part of the problem. I was the fucking problem. I'm telling you, I was the problem.
Yeah, you know.
And now I want to be a part of the solution. And I know that's cliche, but it's legit what I want to do. I want to use whatever time I've got left on this earth to I feel like my whole life Gary has been gives me the experience to do what I do. You know, that's the one good thing that's come from all that trauma is that I'm able to empathize recognize what someone else is going through. I'm able to step back and instead of seeing the
facade of someone, I see the heart of someone. Yeah, you know, And and that makes me able to connect on a level a lot of people can't.
And and the courage to talk out like you've yeah talked out about because that's that and that's why the things that happened to you were allowed to happen because people didn't talk about it.
That's right.
Yeah, Stigma, it's powerful stuff.
Yeah.
Well, well, I am glad we've got you on I catch killers and you've got a lot of people that keep hitting me over the head with it going. You've got to get it, get him on get him on. Yeah ye, but yeah it's great and sitting down and chatting with you and just full credit to you, mate, I seriously say this. I was inspired by the way you've got through all the shit that was thrown at you and you've come out the other side and you're doing some really good work and you've made me reflect
on what said. When you walk past people laying on the road, the people that haven't got a home for the time being, and.
Bonus is free, Gary, it takes a minute to stop and say, hey mate, my name's Gary.
How are you doing? You know?
Could I buy you a coffee? You know? And the coffee's token is the it's the actual connection, you know, just say I see you, bro, you know, because you know, I know. When I was on the street, people used to walk past me. I felt like I was invisible, or if I wasn't invisible, people would say the most enous and horrible things to me, and I go home to your mother or and they didn't realize that wasn't
an option for me. I didn't have that option. And we don't know what someone's going through until we know, you know.
Not good good way to finish all the best for the future and stay in touch.
Absolutely cheers, absolutely thanks Gary,