Return of the Postcard Bandit

Brendan James Abbott, alias the Postcard Bandit. The story of the Postcard Bandit is back in the zeitgeist because in recent weeks we've had a book republished and an updated book, new title, new look, new pictures, new chapters. It's been republished by major publisher Alan and Dumman, and not one, but two works of film. One is a drama series that's being screened on a streamer. It's called Run, and the other one is a most excellent two part docco

called The post Guard Bandit made by Warner Brothers. And there's a lot of raps, particularly on the docco. So clearly it's time to take another look at the life and crimes of Brendan Abbott, in case people forget who he was or a younger generation didn't know about him at all. Abbott was intelligent, resourceful, self reliant. He had technical flair sharpened by observation and a hunger to learn.

The kid from broad Meadows could have mastered any legitimate trade and built up a business that would have made him a wealthy man. But he didn't like Russell Cox and Ray Chuck and Billy the Texan Longley and all the rest of the Gunman in a line, all the way back to the Bushranger days of Ben Hall and Ned Kelly. Young Brendan Abbot took the wrong turn. Abbot turned sixty four this May. He's sitting in a high

security prison cell in Casurina Prison in Western Australia. If and when he leaves prison in twenty twenty eight, after serving a longer sentence than many murderers do, he'll hit retirement age with no more than a notoriety that comes with being one of the most prolific robbers and ingenious escape artists in Australian crime history. That is, of course, unless he has something stashed away which personally I doubt

because they never seem to. But if there's one crook who just might have worked out a way to game the system, it might be Brendan Abbot. In Australia, only the enigmatic and deadly Rustle Cox alias Maddog Cox matches or overshadows Abbot's deeds as a jail breaker and elusive fugitive, but it's unlikely that even Cox the Fox, rob more banks of more cash than Abbot did. Abbott was the one who became the shape shifting interstate raidar cattually but

inaccurately dubbed the postcard Bandit. Abbott is something like the legendary American bank robber and escaper Slick Willie Sutton, who entered folklore a bit like the nineteen thirties fugitive John Dillinger as the ultimate repeat offender. Assway kept robbing banks, Sutton allegedly retorted, because that's where the money is. It's a killer line that has entered the language, although Sutton insisted later that a New York crime reporter made it up,

which is entirely possible. Abbot pulled dozens of robberies, but the same as with Slick Willie and John Dillinger and others.

His exploits were polished in the retelling. Still, Abbot was credited with the biggest robberies in each of three states during the one thousand, nine hundred and forty eight days that he was on the run, a period of five years and four months, only slightly less time than World War II took, and a time in which maybe forty strikingly similar bank robberies went unsolved from Perth to Queensland.

Those five years outside the law don't include the six months that the young Abbot had spent on the loose after slipping out of a suburban police interview room in Perth in December nineteen eighty six. Those five years outside the lord also don't include the six months that the older Abbot spent on the run after staging a prison break in Queensland in nineteen ninety seven that made him public enemy number one for police, prison bosses and politicians

in the Sunshine State. It was a case of here one day, gone the next. The fact that he left a prison transfer form filled in in his empty cell the night that he went through the window didn't make

him popular with the authorities. Abbot's escape crew, there were four others with him, used smuggle diamond wire to cut bas through at the Sir David Longland Correctional Center outside Brisbane before a conspirator outside, a very young ex prisoner called Brendan Barreshon, threw bol cutters over the perimeter fence and shot up the armored perimeter guard vehicle with an

assault rifle that rather helped the escaper's cause. Abbot soon split these four fellow jail breakers, who were quickly caught through their own stupidity. One can you believe this? In a Footscray pub after starting a drunken brawl because a fellow drinker refused to believe he was an escapee. The resulting headline suggested that it was the gang with one brain. The only brain was Abbot, and he'd split from the bunch almost as soon as they got out of prison

in Queensland. But Abbot meanwhile did stick loyally to the nineteen year old Brendan Bereschon, the young guy who'd thrown in the bolt cutters and produced i think two or three guns and shot up the armored forbill drive that was patrolling the perimeter. Because without that they could never have got out, and Abbot did the right thing and sort of stuck with this rather loose kid. You can imagine he was rather less that he would do such a thing. He's out of jail, he's free. He could

just get a job or go surfing or something. But no, he has to get guns and break five dangerous men out of jail. It would seem to be a fairly rash thing to do, so Abbot sticks with him. But it turns out that Abbot's concept of honor among thieves was probably a mistake. Abbott might have stayed in Smoke on the loose indefinitely. He could even have used one of his many forged identities to escape overseas, because he'd done that before. He'd gone for holidays overseas with fake

passports and stuff. He was very good. But the reckless and feckless Brendan Barreshon started a shootout with unsuspecting police at box Hill while trying to score heroine. That is box Hill in Melbourne. Now the fugitive pair at this stage had set up safe house in Fitzroy. They managed to rent a property in Fitzroy for six months or something. It was in not a suburban street with nosy neighbors. It was sort of in a busy place, in a

bit of light industrial. So it was the perfect spot for them to be because escapers like Abbott know that the worst place to try and live is in a quiet suburban street, because the neighbors are always nosy and they always wonder what you're up to, and watch what you're driving, and watch when you come home and all that sort of stuff. It was far better to rent a place in the inner burbs next door to a laundromat or whatever it might be. But Berechon developed a

taste for heroin. He went out to box Hill foolishly to score heroin from Vietnamese dealers. And while he was there with a pistol in his bum bag, you know, a couple of uniform coppers that were just local coppers asked he who he was and all the rest of it, as they did with people buying drugs, and he panicked. He pulled out his pistol and he shot one of the police. The policeman survived, but he shot him in

the legs. It wasn't good after that. Abbott was suddenly on the back foot because Suddenly these wanted men aren't just wanted in the abstract. They actually wanted in Melbourne for shooting at police. Very bad move, and it was only a matter of time before the police would grab them both in Darwin. And they did that because they were able to follow the clues that the clumsy young Bereshon and his new striper girlfriend Michelle left everywhere they went.

Bereshon not only developed a taste for heroin, but he got extremely keen on a strip called Michelle, who he thought should travel with them, which was a bit of a mixed blessing. It did turn two people into three people, which is good, but it did have its downside because you know, she would tend to bring up friends or whatever it might be. So in the end, Brendan Abbott was brought undone by others, as he eventually had been during his five year bank robbery campaign back in the

nineteen nineties. That was when he nailed the tactic of dropping in through the roof to surprise bank staff just before opening time, when cash draws were full and customers hadn't yet come inside. The first of many times Abbot used that technique was in the Belmont branch of the Commonwealth Bank in Perth way back in May nineteen eighty seven, in his first iteration as an arm robber. That was

around the time of his twenty fifth birthday. Apart from the novel entry via the Ceiling, the robbery stood out because one of the bank tellers was the tough West Coast Eagles player Carl Langdon. He had the really bottle blonde hair and he's very tough guy. And there he was in the bank in a shirt that Abbot ridly killed rather gently later for being pink. He said, bloody Carl Langdon was there in a pink shirt, which he

found quite amusing. I don't think Carl Langdon found it amusing because he ended up with a pistol in his face. The Belmont job the Commonwealth Bank in Belmont in Perth in nineteen eighty seven. It ran to more than one hundred and twelve thousand dollars that Abbot and a co offender got away with. It was a state record bank haul. Within weeks. This is back in the eighties. He was

arrested at Perth Airport returning from the north of the state. Oddly, Abbot noted later the thirty two thousand dollars cash and he'd left in a bag in a vehicle in port Headland had shrunk to sixteen thousand dollars by the time a prosecutor raised it in the trial that ended up convicting him and landing him in the notorious from Mantle Prison for his first serious sentence. Remarkably, a detective on the case had mentioned it to a port Headland local.

He said something like, I bet you didn't realize that there was thirty two grand in that ute and the bull terrier tied up next to it would have lectured to death. Wasn't a problem. However, by the time the case got the court later it had mysteriously halved. Amazing shrinking money Abbot learnt from that job. He learned that you couldn't necessarily trust investigators. The getaway driver for that robbery, Peter Levenz, informed his way to a nine month minimum

and Abbot's longtime girl friend, Jackie Laud. This was a girl that he'd known since they were teenagers. She also cut a sweet deal that left her ex lover Abbot facing a twelve year sentence in the stinking stone cells of the notorious Fermantle Prison. Was a very bad old place. It was very old and was sort of a throwback to the convict era. Abbot's answer to that, to a twelve year sentence was to get a job in the

prison taylor's shop, the tailoring shop. He was a quick learner and he befriended the nice taylor who was in charge, and he worked out that if he got some blue material, which he was able to get, he could fabricate blue overalls that looked very much like the prison officer's uniforms, which was very useful. This was a prop that allowed him to lead a late night escape across the prison

rooftops on November twenty fourth, nineteen eighty nine. That feat started the Abbot legend, part of which was the assertion that he deliberately taunted police by sending postcards to them while on the run. Now, it's a great story, the postcard story, and it's given rise to the name of our documentary that's out now, and it's rise to the title of the reissued book, which originally called The Australian Outlaw or Australian Outlaw, now retitled The Postcard Bandit. It's

become part of the Australian language. But sadly the postcard story was a fabrication based on the fact that police found a role of film left in a car by Abbot and he's fellow Fremantle escaper Aaron Reynolds, And when the police developed that role of film they saw a frame one frame of Reynolds standing outside a West Australian Country police station. So the two scully wags on the run, the fugitives. Abbot's got Reynolds to stand outside the I

think dwelling up. It's a town over there in the wet belt, stand there and he took a photo of him. They left the role of film in the car and the copas got the film later and developed it. So that's how it sort of started. There were other holiday snaps of the fugitive pair, but they weren't sent to the police or sent to anybody. These snaps they took when they took a tour bus. The two escapees very wisely, because Abbot was smart. They posed as tourists and they

bought tickets on a tour bus. They didn't go to see the penguins at Phillip Island, but they went to Oolaroo and all those sort of good things, and they peld up with a male Japanese tourist. So you had these two Aussies in sunglasses and hats, happy chappies with a very friendly Japanese tourist, and they traveled as a threesome. And that of course didn't make them look like desperate robbers on the run. They just looked like, you know,

suburban boys having a week off in the bus tour. However, when these pictures were eventually found by the police in some other raid whenever they were subsequently developed and the police leaked them to a magazine later on that cynically and dishonestly mischaracterized them as postcards. They never were postcards. They were just holiday snaps which weren't even developed by

the crooks. The police had developed them and they were used in that way, And it was really a fabrication done with the cooperation of the police to draw attention to these guys. Not that really matters, I do so as the police armed Roberson fugitives the truth but anyway, Abbot's exploits were always going to be aired given his sheer audacity, but the credit for telling the true story behind the legend belongs to a journalist and author now

known as Abe Madison. More than twenty years ago, when the then young writer or reporter was using his adoptive name Derek Pedley, he gained Abbot's trust and built contacts among Abbot's family members, friends and former lovers. After his first book, No Fixed Address, he wrote a more detailed and compelling account of Abbot's life, which was published in two thousand and six, twenty years ago as Australian Outlaw. This was followed by a mini series starring the late

Tom Long as Abbot. It was not a bad series, pretty watchable. Tom Long the nice young actor that really was well known through Sea Change and other things and the dish. He didn't really look like Abbot as such, but he did have a rather friendly face which helped.

And the music, the signature music in that series was the great Australian crawl song don't be so reckless or reckless brackets don't be so and the key line in that is throw down your guns, don't be so reckless, and that would be used over and over in that series.

That was very effective. Now full disclosure, because we're very ethical here at Life and Crimes Ay that is Andrew Rule edited and published that two thousand and six version of Australian Outlaw, and it's an updated version of that book which was relaunched recently in recent weeks by Alan and Aman the publishers, under the title the inevitable title The Postcard Bandit. Now, this new look book takes in later aspects of Abbot's life and crimes and subsequent prison

sentences and escapes. It coincides with the release of the new drama series named Run and a two hour documentary, which of course is also called The Postcard Bandit. So regardless of that bang of fabrication, it is now part of the language. That's it. The book, the updated book and the films. The documentary and the drama mark a return to the spotlight for the long term prisoner now cooling his heels in Cajuna Prison, contemplating and exciting but

ultimately wasted life. It's been a big year for his biographer Pedley alias Madison, who has charted the Abbott story so meticulously across more than two decades, in fact, close to quarter of a century really. Of course, listeners with long memories will recall that we spoke with Abe Madison alias Dek Pedley back in twenty twenty three in an episode we called the Postcard Bandit and Me And some of these stories we've been over before, but some we haven't.

So there you go now. The journal now known as Abe Madison, was born in May nineteen seventy two, exactly ten years after Brendan Abbott. There are other similarities apart from being born in May. His mother, that is Abe Madison's mother, like Abbot's mother, Thelma, had fallen pregnant as an unmarried teenager. But whereas Abbot barely sixteen, married Brian Abbott and had five children in quick succession, of which

Brendan was the third. Perth girl Joy Madison had no choice but to give up the baby that she called Abraham, and that baby was subsequently raised as Derek Pedley by a kindly couple who lived in country western Australia. When young Derrick as he was called then found out the truth about his origins at the age of fifteen, it

rocked him profoundly. The boy was energetic and creative, and he later forged a successful career as a reporter, but behind the facat he presented the world, he drank heavily and he ate far too much, and he did that to ease the sort of psychic pain that he felt. It's not uncommon with adopted boys particularly. I think he's a tall man, and as a troubled youngster in his twenties, he reached weights of up to one hundred and thirty kilograms because he used to drink bourbon for breakfast, the

beer for lunch and so on. He did a lot of drinking and he smoked a lot of weed. He told me the other day that for years he doesn't think he was not stoned at work, and yet he managed to function somehow. Ape Madison, the artist formerly known as Derek Pedley, would eventually tell his own story in his moving memoir Crazy Bastard, but that came much later,

just a few years ago. His first books were, of course, about Brendan Abbott, and the updated version, launched the other day, traces the postcard bandit story from Broadmeadows in the nineteen sixties to Perth Maximum Security Prison in the twenty twenties and everything in between. Its part non fiction thriller, part biography,

and part morality tale. It underlines the fact that jails are full of damaged people doomed to be there by circumstances of birth and upbringing, but that among them are a few who strayed from what otherwise might have been successful lives in the legitimate world. Brendan James Abbott was an earmark from birth to a life of crime. To a large extent, he chose that path instead of using the intelligence he was born with to succeed in some

other way. His early choices landed him in prison. Then he doubled down and compounded his mistake by using his brain to break out of jail, a move guaranteeing that he would inevitably be hunted down when he ran out of hiding places. His success as a robber an escaper ensured his failure as a man, as a father, as a brother, and as a son. In the end, Brendan Abbott's life has been wasted, spent sentence to more years inside than anyone not actually convicted of murder. For the

rest of us. Of course, it makes a good tale, which is why it's been told before, and he's been told again on the page and on the screen. There's a PostScript to this story that's just come up. His fellow escaper, Brendan Beershon, the man who shot the policeman at Boux Hill all those years ago, the man who was on the run with Abbott and over the two

most wanted men in the country for months. Apparently he didn't want to attract attention when this book was relaunched recently and he kept a low prof But I understand that he's involved heavily in running a Melbourne chym nasum, which is interesting. So somewhere out there in the Burbs, if you're going to a gym, you might see a fairly hard looking, lean, fit looking bloke and wonder if there's something vaguely familiar about his name. It's Brendan Berrishon,

jail breaker, robber, gunman and cop shooter. Not a cop killer, just a cop shooter and probably a reform character with let's hope thanks for listening. Life and Crimes is a Sunday Herald Sun production for True Crime Australia. Our producer is Johnty Burton. For my columns, features and more, go to herold'sun dot com dot Au forward slash Andrew Rule one word For advertising inquiries. Go to news podcasts sold

at news dot com dot au. That is all one word news podcasts sold And if you want further information about this episode, links are in the description.