I Had No Respect For Human Life | Ron Isherwood Part 1

do with you? Right? My mother? I said, put a gun and we had and blow my fucking head off. Ron.

yet the most loved guy in the world. Like everybody outside the house, oh, your dad's you know, such a lovely guy. And then my mother had ever broken ribs and black eyes, and so he's a really violent Do.

to prove I found through my own experience. I found that when I was like that was because I had low self worth, you know, but I was I ran on fear, so I always wanted to prove that I wasn't scared, you know. Like you know, I was always the one who has the least to lose has the most power. So if I don't care about me, there's nothing you can do to hurt me. And so, you know, my old man was, as I say, I've said this before, I spent a lot of his in prison, which I'm

not proud of, and am I ashamed of it. Shame is a pretty big word. Do I regret it? Yeah, Yeah, of course I regret it. Shame is a word that I think is wasted on things you can't change. You can't change your past. You can learn from it, and you can, hopefully, for me, teach others from your mistakes, and hopefully they can have enough humility to grab hold of that lesson. But from my experience, a lot of

young fellows can't learn by other mistakes. You know. We have to be able, we have to be a fool to become teachable, you know. And I believe my dad was maybe dropped on his head when he was a kid. I don't know, you know he was kicked in there by a horse because he was a buck jump rider and he was violently injured head injury. But his mum was even violent. My father's mother was violent. She just toold half a house and her handbag and go down

the pub, you know. And on I sat there on the broads, she started hitting people with her hand but half her house bricking it. Yeah. Yeah, Like it was like we moved out of a country town because my old man and his mum that would punched up all the cops like that was normal coppers. From the time I can remember the coppers with the enemy. You drive past, you go look at them eff and dogs, you know, spit out the window. And from the time I can remember, from the time, what area did you grow up in?

I grew up in a place called Fitzroy in Melbourn, which was slums when I was there, it was complete slums. At four years of age, my first memory is the copper is kicking bag in the front door in I mean it's handcuff, blood over and they beat the shit out of him and they searched the house, ripped the house to pieces. And I was four years of age. I was in bed with my mum, and when they came in the bedroom, I sat up and I went bang bang as a four year old kid. So that

was how entrenched the hatred was. And I had two sisters at that time, older sisters. One was a half sister, one was a full sister. Everybody was terrified. Everybody in the whole house lived in fear. And I didn't even really understand why. I didn't really understand you as a small child, you don't understand why, I said, my father beating up his brothers. Like my dad didn't drink alcohol either, so there was no excuse that he was a drunk. And he beat people up, mumy and just beat people up.

And when he beat them up, he wouldn't just knock them out. He'd break their ribs. He'd slowly break them down, you know, he punished them. He'd like to hurt you. He didn't want to I just want to beat you up. He just wanted to punish you and make an example of your And by the time I was eleven, my oldest sister had a child who she was at the time, she was seventeen, and she'd had this child out of nowhere,

and I didn't quite understand it. But not long after that, I started getting into a real lot of trouble, a real a lot of trouble. I'd got arrested by the police at twelve years of age for major breaking and you know, kids broke into a car, I didn't. I broke into a major shopping center those days, was Coal's. Yeah, yeah, and we had a crew. I always had a crew of kids, and we all broken and we style closed. This first time we had new clothes. Yeah, so you know,

we ate all the food and all that. But what the deal was with my family was if I broke into a factory and it had a safe or a vault, I come home and tell my dad him and his mates had go and cut the vault of the safe, and they'd reward me pats on the back ten shillings, you know, which was a potent shilling note those days.

You know, you'll give me a quid, you know, good kid, you know, And you go down the waterside workers paintings and doctors where he was, to the union rooms and all the kids, all the guys to be pat me on the back. Eyes Ronnie's kiddy. He set up that McDonald's joint for us. We don't want McDonald's was met Robertson's chocolate chocolate factory or Calvin's chips because we were up with slums, so it was all factories. So what I'd do, I'd started off breaking into the factories. They're

stealing the lead off the roofs. We're going sell the left of scrap. This is a eight nineteen years age. Then I realized there was more money watching the demolishers pulled the scrap off and put in the back of their truck. Then they'd go to the path and they would go pinch it off the back of the truck. That way, we didn't have to do the hard work. Now we just pinched off the truck. We'd put down a billy cart and we'd rolled home. Then Miami has made it take me down the scrap metal joint. We

get paid on the SAT Day. They pay the guys their money. So it was always a little bit of an entrepreneur when it came to that stuff. My father didn't believe in education, which is really sad. Now I love education. I love learning. I think the greatest gift we have is human being, is to learn. You know, that's why we misspased to be the superior animal, because we have the intelligence to learn. And he didn't believe in education.

I say, how much money you just give them? All wore the hats and the suits, and the tailor made clothes, handmade I teen shoes. Even me as a kid at twelve, fourteen, fifteen years of age, wore tailor made suits, handmade shoes. Oh yeah, oh yeah, full full. I'd go to the races with him. He was a gambler, that was his addiction. And if he was winning by about the third or fourth phrase, he filled my pockets up with money and he put me a taxi and semiam so he couldn't

punt the money any more. Money you know, because once I got out of there, once I got the cabbage, sent me home that game, and I'd give me a mom of the money. She'd put the money away. And the old man can only apart when he had left on him. But one week we'd be eaten, you know, good food. The next week we've eaten bread and ripping, which is the fat that the lard off off the meat.

Because he was a putter. And then by the time I got to about fourteen and fifteen, I was very obsessed with rifles guns, and i'd become adopted by send me adopted by a guy who owned a gun shop called Melbourne Firearms. His name was George Joseph and later on in life he would get arrested for the Donald McKay, the politician was a politician who got killed and disappeared over the marijuana growing down at Griffith. And it goes

right back to this whole mafia of Australia. And George was like he took me on like a steps done and taught me how to shoot, taught me how to pull weapons down and all that stuff. So I became a little bit of an asset in my father's friends because I could change barrels, I could change firing pins, and I could make what was that rifle into a different rifle, and I could load bullets, and I could do all that sort of stuff. And this is at

fourteen years of age. I could do that. And by the time I was sixteen, I was arrested with having a shoot over the police. To shoot over the coppers. So myself and three other guys we've done a break and enter. We used to do break and edit into what you'd call like a Harvey Norman store today, but it was a different store those days. We broke into the warehouse next door, cut a hole in the roof, in the wall. You know, the hard work. People think it's being a thief so easy at not it's hard work.

You know the other days when you did break it down to you you got in, you had a port of power, you jack the bricks over, you know, you cut the bricks out and you've got so many bricks out. Then you jack the bricks out to you got a whole big enough so you could fit the TV. So and you've got to remember the TV from jo Normous TV's and rental players weren't like they are today. So anyway, the cops came and we end up having someone had a gun started to shooting the cops. Cop was shot

at us two of my motes. One got shot in the mouth, one got shot with a shotgun, and I got all the oversprave of the shot on my back. So I was seventeen years of age sitting Pendridge as a seven year old kid, horrified, even though you don't show that, but you're horrified, you know. And I thought my mate was dead. The one that got shot in the mouth, I thought was dead. The other guy that got shot with the shotgun, he was okay. And there

was another guy that was with us. He decided that he'd tell the police about two other guys that I shot. Six months before, we'd had an altercation at my father's gambling casino and he had a game of It was going to sound horrible to listeners, it was true. He had a game of pool for a dollar. The guy said double nothing. He won. The guy said double on nothing, he won, and the guy said, piss off, idiot. And he came back to the mental said did you go

see I won three games? But he should where's the money? We're going to put on the pennies on the type game you see time in a piss off. I said, no, no, piss off and get the f and money. Long story short, they got downstairs, they have a fight and the guy and I hit the guy in the gun and said you don't get away, and he said, I know you're never going to come out and kill you and your family. That guy and his mate got shot that night walking down the street. So I got arrested for that too.

So I'm sitting at Pendridge at seventeen years and three months. I'll charged with five attempted murders, use a fire for prevent love mansion, the break enders, and steel as a seventeen year old kid. And I'm sitting in jail thinking, wow, this is this is it. I'm never going to get out of jail home. I will never ever get out of jail. And I was a pretty little boy, blonde hair, blue eyes.

He's getting all these messages and food and everything sent and the prison officers are coming across in here and you're a stand which you know, like that's from Charlie at C Division. I thank you, you know. So to me, jar wasn't scary, Yeah, wouldn't it be? It was you know people think Charles full of tigers and lions. It's not. It's not. It's not for a lot of today it's a lot worse because the drugs destroyed it. But and so what happened for me, Neil was while I was

in jail, the government in there. You remember I'm seven stone seven. I was a boxer. I was seven stone seven, so that's not very big. I don't know that is in kilos. It was tiny. And they put me on a drug called li like actual, which is a psych drug to control me that was the beginning of my addiction. Wow, So I'd never never take took a drug of my loss. The reason for that because they said I was violent.

And you know, don't get me wrong, if there's some sort of pedophile in there was going to come and say, hey, son, came Iria. You know, I'd probably hurt them. Yeah, you know, and I think anyone in their right mind would hurt them. And so they put me on like actual to control me and to stop me from being a menace. So I was pested. I was a Pesti'm seventy year old kid. I'm trying to show the world that I'm a tough guy. My father. How long?

found not guilty of this. They lost the evidence to that the gods that pointed me out the line out said no, that's not the guy, they said, And then the prosecution is, why did you say that was the guy? Because the policeman told he said it was that guy, and the magistrate's look going to cross and go like this is this is just a joke. And I just missed the charges. But I still got thirty six months to serve as a juvenile. But I got out of jail,

and what happened was I'd become a drug addict. I didn't know that there's no as information about drug addiction. So nineteen seventy four I started injecting heroin and the whole world changed. The gangsters didn't want to know about me because you're a junkie, your liability. We'd moved to Sydney. Did you hide it first or did you not know

I hit it at first? It's quite sad in retrospect, I got because you lose so much weight on heroin, you know, and all of a sudden, you know, I was just super fick because I was always super fit guy, you know, and I love fighting. I like fighting. I actually like boxing, I really enjoyed. To me, it's a sport, it's a it's an art. And and I like getting if you if you enjoy this because you're good at it. Now it's a ship golf and loves playing golf, you

know what I mean. So I really enjoyed boxing, and I enjoyed fighting, and I got really skinny. And I remember the guys up here a bell Maine at the water side, they put on a turn theysed to call it a barrel where they put on a party and they'd all donate money because I thought I had stomach cancer because I lost so much weight, and they said, what's wrong with Then I said, I've got stomach cancer. So these guys went and put on this this doing you know, got you know, maybe fifteen our of bucks.

There's a lot of money in the early seventies, and give it to me to donate to me to help me get me through and bat some more smack, you know. So you know, it's quite sad. And then when they found out I was just like basically I was banned from the underworld, from the from the gangster side of the underworld. But as we know, in the seventies, especially in the late seventies, the drug the drug world had

taken over the underworld. And the guys that kicked me out of the drug out of the underworld seen me driving a new Dudet Felcon. You know, the good looking girl the apartment in town. It's like, what's going on with him? You know, And it's like, I'm selling heroin. I was a heroin addicts'. Of course what you do is you you buy heroines, so you know, and in the seventies you bought heroin for five hundred dollars a half an ounce, and that's on that's in Australia. Overseas.

I paid thripns for it, you know, you paid pennies for it over there. And it all came all all the heroines came out of Asia. It didn't come out of anywhere else. Those days came out of Malaysia. And you come out of plays that you know, it was the only brown rocket wasn't white, and it was just

a different world. But you'd come to someone's house and there'd be some brown rocks sitting there, and there'd be some white powder sitting there there, some hatshit on the table, no one was robbing each other and it was a different you know, you turn up, you put some hass on the table and some Buddhist nicks and you make a few joints. You'd listen to a bit of music and it was quite a The rolling stage was singing about brown sugar, Area Clapton singing about cocaine. You know,

everyone's blue reads, singing about heroin. You're put spiking to my vein. Things aren't quite the same it was. It was normal, was trendy. There's no more drugs squad. There's noses and drugs buy those days. That's were called customers agents. They hear from Pimont. They'd come and raid your house and half the time they wouldn't even pincher. They throw the dope down the toilet and to piss off, you know, because it wasn't nasty. It wasn't It wasn't the way

it became, you know. But I went in and out of prison all just I was never pinched for dope. They loaded me up once, the cops loaded me up in the seventies and this is where I found out Melbourne was different from Sydney. All the coppers up here are on the take in Melbourne. They weren't like that. The copp Has just got your in Bassa. They'd have to bash you in your confession. If you didn't confess,

your record of interview wasn't allowed in court. So there's no such thing as verbal So if you just stack staunch half the time, you'd never get found guilty down there because there was no verbal And so I got arrested up here and the cops verbaled me, and then the lawyers came to me and said, oh, you know, just plead guilty and we'll get you a fine. You know,

it wasn't the only drugonvictionion I ever had. And then they said you got to give the coppers five hundred and I was like, oh, you know, so I gave them five hundred. Well, the next week the copers were back on the door in a different squad. We want money. And that's when I realized that you can't pay them. You can't pay them because once you pay them, they

own you. And I just really lost myself in drug addiction, into the drug world, into King's Cross because they ended up up the Cross and did you sell it?

the guy got out of jail. He come to visit me, and he's dead now, the good guy, and he had a mate with him. He said, can you give I made a shot? You know, he just got out of the nick And you know I'm not I'm not a really friendly person. Fuck you know. Anyway, there's a little bit of brown staying on the spoon. I squared a bit back in there, misseduff for him and he odeed foot. It must be a week, you know, it must be

really weak person can do on that little bit. But my times have become so high because I was using so much dopa. You know, even though I didn't even realize it, I become heroin. You've built a very big tolance very quickly. That's why it's such a horrible drug. Not as bad as ice, but you know, such a horrible drug. Heroin is a physical drug. You know, you get stoned, you fall asleep, You set fire to your pillow,

you set feel like by to your mattress. Where the new drugs these days they set fire to your brain. They cooked their brain. Humans. I'm fried. You know, you never heard that term in the open days. We just all fell asleep, just fell asleep, you know we did. We just fell asleep, mate, you know, I fell asleep. And then in nine eighty one, I was I just got out of jail, and I've met a good guy in there. His name was Warrelin Frenchy Roger Rogerson killed him. Well,

French and I mates. We trained together. We trained and I was telling French you about drug deal and you know how much money because French was you to stick up some stick up, said gone, there's no money's deck up and this is where the money is. You know. We trained every single day and we're super fit, and you know, we're mates. And there's the worst part of our drug addiction. And I got out of jail a French.

You'd been out about five months. He started working for Eddie Smith, started selling gift for Eddie and so I get the French. He hears I'm out. He comes and sees me, Mate, give you half an hounce and give you a start, you know, thanks brother, you know, and he turned up, you know, six days later, I'm short. I've used most of it. He's like, what happened? I said, mate, it just gives another half and I'll get, you know. The week later, I'm short. And he said, mate, who

the fuck are you? Where's my mate? Where's Ronnie? Where's my mate from jail? You know, the bloat that was staunch loyal? Where's he gone? And he did. He said to me, there's a funny joke. We said, joke, but he said, we said, but I'm gonna have to put one in your leg or something. So I can't just keep letting you rob me. He said, everyone's going to rob me. But that's what a dish had done to me. I could no longer be reliable, consistent, you know, I

couldn't do anything. Man, if it come time to get a shot or save your life, you were dead because the drugs just took everything. That's why I hated them so much. That's why I hate them today. I hate what drugs can do to good people. What it does to a scumbag is terrible, because scum bag just goes to another level. But even people with good morals and good luck, you know, good principles, once they get on the gear, we lose that stuff, you know. You know.

I didn't tell on people, and I didn't rob me family, but I robbed everybody else, you know, and I robbed everybody. I didn't care who it was. I didn't care if it was a saffron. I didn't care who it was if someone had dope, and I didn't care who it belonged to. I robbed them because if I was going to be sick, what are you going to do? Kill me? If you kill me, what are you going to do? Put me out of my misery? Because that was my attitude. Sometimes I just to wish you would kill me. I

escaped from prison in seventy seven. I got recaptured the cross. Like I was going. I went a long way. How would you find an escape? Being a cross like? You know, it's true story and I got to escape?

I was fucked. You can imagine, you know, you're swimming against the tide. I'm doing back straight side striking, and I'm going back the other way, back towards the island. Nothing. Oh no, I had a bag full of clothes. In those days, I stroked segrest so I had a glad garbage bag type. You saw me wait for the bell rounding way so I could swim and turned. So the bag has spinry and I had a few joints before I went. So every now and again in the bag and hit me on the leg and that's that. Joints

pretty renowned for sharks try to ship me. You know, it's quite comic when you think about how insane I was to think that I could swim up. So I actually thought I was gonna be able to swim off the island going the cross rob some dealers come back, swim back to the island, and the screws wouldn't know I was gone.

the chemist, who's a square up. I thought, yeah, okay, I'll get square up. So I went back and I stole the safe and I've got the or the gear.

the top of this empty house. You know, I know you're out there, you fucking guns come and get me. You know, there's no one out there, and it's completely insane. And I jumped your taxi's poor taxi driver. I'd got to glebe. I jumped in the taxi, I go, takes me to King's Cross and as we're coming out Williams Street, my brain said he's a copper. It's going to cover cop of the taxi driver. And I had a knife for me bag and I grabbed the cop I grabbed the texture and I said, pull over you. I know

you're a copper. Your ass wipe, you know, And I jumped out of the cabin. I start running up Wair Street, up the back where the train is used to the lane. Yet yeah, so I start running up that lane because I knew the closes your bar. Then they used to have a doorway there before they were the gate there went up on the roof. Don't know why. By this time I've lost the shoe. I jumped the fence of the church, put us tomatoes break through, steak through my leg so I got my legs split open. I got

my shoe. I'm running and I jumped through the back door. You know the back door, Well that used to be call the black Cat. It was a gay bar. I ran straight through the glass window. Glass went everywhere, and I ran from they were sitting, They're like ah, And I ran to the front and before they had the back engine where the low tell is. I climbed up the pole and I climbed into the roof, and I thought I was going to get away, but you know,

there's been this destruction the whole way. But the coppers weren't even chasing me. The copper started to chasing me when the guy across the road from the Cloisi bar rang the pleasure, said some manic. It just climbed through his window with one shoe on, bleeding and ran across and joyed through the front of the back door. So it was all. It was all in hallucination. Yeah, I was in psychosis. I was completely man. Anyway, the coppers got on the roof. I heard it on say, Sae,

sare the blood everywhere here? Because I climbed under the awning and all the blood was just running down the corrugated iron. And they just lifted up and pulled me out. And the copper's name is Grace, Detective Grace. I'll never forget. I had known it for years. And he pulled me out and they put me downstairs, and they had me on the ground out in front of the hotel, and he said to me, what are we going to do

with you? And I swell my mother. I said, put a gun on me, had and blow my fucking head off. That's what I wanted, That's what I said it. And I said, so put a gun in my head and blow my fucking head off. Put me out of my misery. And they took me straight at the Saint Vincent's Hospital and stitched up on my leg and took me back in, charged with escape and all that stuff. But I honestly, and the next morning the front page of the Telegraph was rogue animal recaptured and I sort of took that

personal for years, I thought, but then I look back. No, right, that's pretty right, because you know that's what I'd gone to. I'd gone to that level of being a rogue animal.

I had no respect for human life. I had no respect for my own life, no consideration for my family, and you know mom My mom was a piece of I didn't care about any But you know, I had a little sister and by that's why I had a son who I had deserted, and all that stuff that's really important to me today had gone away, and I was in As I said in nineteen eighty one, when French I'd go to jail and French he said to me,

I'm going to shoot you. And I was laughing. He was laughing about it, and he said to me, he's a true story. And I've said this before, and he said, I'm going to knock Neddie. I don't know if you ever met Neddie. I don't like Neddie. I've I never liked him. That's just me personally. We never liked each other. We walked past each other for a hundred years and went ned ron nod of the head. That's all there was. Wow, that was the conversation because there was a guy called

Bobby Chapman. He probably wasn't around when you were around here. He was a bad, bad guy. Him and Neddie got pinched together a hundred years ago on a rape charge. And I don't like rapists anyway, so you know, it was a conflict of my belief system, and so I always knew that ned was no good. And then French he said to me this particular morning, he said, I'm going to knock Neddie and I said, stop it. Don't tell me. I don't want to hear about it. I said,

if you're going to do it, don't tell anybody. That's because if he gets wind of it, he'll get your knocked. Just don't tell me. You don't tell anybody. If you want to do it, just do it. A week and a half later, I got pinched. I'm in jail. Frenchhi gets knocked, you know, Roger Robson and Neddie got him down.

Neddie padded him down, said French's unarmed. Those place. The French was going to pay me, tell me to argue twenty grand and he took twenty round, knocked him and took his chain, and he's watching his ring off and murdered him. And I don't care what anyone says about that. That's the truth, you know, that's the truth that's coming from the guy that got knocked. You know, I know

what was going on. And so I was in jail and I shipped myself because another guy came into jail and he said, a couple of days after you got pinched, he said, I got grabbed by Roger, and he's looking for you. I said, what he's looking for you? He wants he wants you. And when Roger's looking for you those days, he didn't show off somewhere you went missing. You didn't know either way you went missing, you know,

I mean, he's just like a path. And the Maid of mind said to me, said, go to rehab because I can't. I can't get out of jail, I can't escape. I'm miss I'm escaped, but they're not going to let me into any way escape. And I went to my first rehab in nineteen eighty one, and that's where my recovery began. I didn't get clean fand then I stayed clean for a year, and then I mucked around and I stayed clean for ten months a year, and then thirty months and then I haven't had a drink since

nineteen eighty two. Last time I had a drink was in I've got it out of the rehab for one day and a bloke said to me. I asked, you know you got to have on problem. I haven't got an helphol problem. So I had a couple of beers with him, and then I took a couple of pills and I need some money, so I went to do an armed robbery in Canberra. It was and I fucking stole a car, crashed the car because I'm drinking. I'm

on the pills and on the drink. The police car came in accident quad casts, a big orange transit van. I stole that. I've made out like I mean, mates in the car. He's stuck in the bush. Know where I've crashed. The car never left the motor running because its not a police cars and I fucking just jumped to the seat and I stole that, you know. So that was the last tiay I to drink nine eighty two. And the last time I took a drug was a third of March nineteen eighty six. So I stopped using

all drugs. But I never got out of the criminal world. That was the hardest thing to get out of because that's what I'd burned my whole life. I didn't I'd never been anything else. I didn't know anything else. Now, most people that get off drugs will get off whatever their additions are, go back to what they used to do before they become a drug addict. See, most people become drug addicts because you know, if something you know, they become criminals because they're drug addicts. I wasn't like

that for me. I was a criminal. Then I became a drug addict, so I had nothing to go back to. I didn't really have a trade. My trade was crime, you know, And I went back into the world and try to be mister normal. It's really hard to be normals if you talk.

You so, yeah, we've got the Penno. Those days, I was driving a white trans am and Chevy Kamara convertible like any one in Australia, Like we're next on the number plates and Johnny just say, mate, you know, put your Everyone have to move their carry out so I can come and park in the lane right at the tunnel. You know, I just park there. You and of course I gave it.

Don't even go there because I won't accept that. Couldn't I know, because I know because I know what was going on up there. I was part of it. I was after hearing in that in that world, and he wasn't he was, you know, he was a really loyal, trusted human being that whatever he did, he did and that was his business. But he didn't do my business. He didn't, Mate, he really didn't, you know. And I say that a lot of people, and people try to say, you know, you're involved with John to say, mate, it

wasn't that. Don't go near there. Don't even fucking insinuate that. Anybody else you can talk about, but don't go down that road with that one. Because our relationship was based on a mutual respect for each other. He would have known what I did because of associates. He never ever spoke about it to me, and I never spoke about it to him. You know. It was something that was like, had nothing to do with it, you know, and I do. I have had this conversation for many years with people

to try to say, mate, what's your mouth? What's your mouth? Unless you've got something to put in front of me, wa'sch your mouth? Don't say that unless you can put it down and say I was there. Don't say that because it's not fucking true. You can talk about any of the other the brother you can talk about anything else, but that young fellow. No, don't bring that up with me, you know, because I actually knew George, and you know, I go back a long way because I'm an old bastard.

Like it didn't care. You know, I really can't care. Yeah, because to me, it was like I'm not involved in that world anymore, under the heroin world, blah blah blah. But I still knew most of the guys that were running the coke in the country. You know, most of the guys I knew were still bringing the coke in, you know, because a lot of people thought coke as a party drug. And I laughed when when will sail I got arrested with it, he got a rest with a party drug. When I got arrested with it, I

got to rest with the narcotic. So where it transitions from a party drug too, depends on your surname, apparently exactly. You know. You know, I laughed because I've got eighteen years. It's a fucking big sentence for conspiracy for twelve kilos. It's a big lag in eighteen years, I've read that at the time, it was a massive lagon and there was no gear got in the country, no coke got in the country. It was conspiracy, so there's no dope got in the country. And I lost a lot of money.

They took all my went through me through the proceeds of crimes actor. But there was no process from that crime, you know, but it was it was just I'm not a victim. I'm not a victim. I'm not poor, ron, you know, I got to have a lot of stuff. So, you know, I think when you talk on the karma, I believe in karma. When I talk in the karma, will I'm okay today? I believe I'm waiting front. I believe not that I'm going to ever commit another crime,

because I mean that my whole heart. I mean that as much as I say I've never used drugs again, you know, I have that much commitment to being a straight I like being straight.

are not really criminals. They've got no how can I say they didn't do their apprenticeship, they didn't do their apprenticeship, they didn't do the hard yards, and they get all this money. Next thing, they're putting hits on each other. That was unheard of. That was unheard of. Fucking you don't lag your friends, you don't rob your friends, you don't route your friend's girlfriends. You know, there was this there was a code of ethics that was sort of unbreakable.

Now that doesn't seem to be any code of ethics. You know, And the drugs changed, Don't get me wrong, the drugs changed. I'm horror because I still work with drug and alcoholic I help people know, I have been helping people a long time. Even when I went see when I went back into and got arrested in two thousand and two, I was still doing other stuff. I've run legal businesses for a long time, and I've got out of the scene and I came back and I

shouldn't have. And you know what, maybe that was meant to be. Maybe it was maybe it was my calma being paid back. Maybe it was just the rocket ship. I needed to change my thinking because I always thought that it was okay, it was okay, I'm not harming anybody. Now it's just a bit of coke. Who cares, you know? And that was honestly, that was honestly my attitude.

You know, I'd gone to jail as a seven year old kid, given drugs and basically traded a drug addict and lived in a system that was completely broken that the ship people got rewarded like pedophiles, kid touches would get into the best jobs, they'd be in, the best prisoners and all this stuff. The guys that was out there trying to in the early days, man, I was trying to eat. I was trying to fucking eat. You know. I used to steal food on my way to school

to eat. Now, well that poor we had to steal. My sister is to steal fruit from the old it and fruit shops so we had something because we go to school with no food. So I started stealing to eat. I don't understand when I see rich kids drug dealing, I don't understand it. I understand it. But they're doing because they want to be the man and all that sort of shit. That's what it is. You know. I did enjoy it, you know when I got to the

position where I could park anywhere. My accountant said to me one year, many many years ago, parking tickets on a tax deduction. But I just used to park on footpaths phone to go to that cafe, in that restaurant, I just park on the footpath, no respect. Just you know, your head so far up your ass that you think it is and everywhere you go. You know, you got the girls, You've got the you know, and you've also got the time to train every day. You eat right,

you train right, You look right, you're dressed right. You're wearing the juror you know it used to be. No. I've been in the jury industry for forty years, so now I was wearing Roylexes prodicurefully before anyone even knew what they were, you know. I mean I was always for the best jewelry and the nicest clothes, and it had that that swagger that we'd call it, you know, because I just make my money. Really, I work hard. Man, I'm seventy and I still work hard. Now. I have

three companies. I work my ass off, and all our companies are helping people. That's what I'm doing now. My My whole thing today, Niel is to give, you know, and Russell say, I just make sure I give a little more than I take you and we'll touch on Russell. Now that's my saying. That's actually my saying. You know Russell's Yeah, it was a good thief. You know, he's a good thief. He stopped everything. You know, God, he wasn't a good stick up, but he was a good thief.

I've never seen anyone who piss frey stick up he's ever done. You know. He's so funny, and you know, I miss him. I miss him. Towards the end when he was just before he died, I was having.

I've got this year, like coming up from Melbourne. I I'll catch up with you on Friday night at the convention. You're sweet to say somewhere else because my brother's day, because usually I just land. He didither pick him upt the airport or the coups that we left the concierge and let the cuss apartment. You know, that was the relationship. I just go there and his car was downstairs. I just take his car. What do you know? That was?

You know? But in the last three months six months, he started to get this really incredible self destructive come back, and you start to and he started to talk ship on his note and started to talk about jail again. What what do you want to talk about jail? Yeah, I'm not proud of being in jail. That just meant I was fucking wasn't good at what I did. People want to talk about how long they didn't jail. When people asked me, I go like, I really don't want

to remember. I don't know. People ask you know, how long are you do in jail? And I say, mate, one day was too long, one day was too long. I don't think what's the best jail you ever been in, I said, I've never been a good jail. When that asked me, I can always answer the worst jail. What was that up here? That's the worst jail. When you think I can't stop using drugs, I can't stop. I've only ever thought about killing myself once in my whole life.

And all the time that I've been arrested, and all the time I've been in really serious charges and had some serious ship going down with people are trying to kill me and all that stuff, I've never thought about topping myself in nine anyone. When I got cleaned the first time and I left, I so I got drunk and got I got arrested them and I was in the cells. There's a camera. I was pinched at bell Connon and I thought that was my first attempt at recovery. And I thought I can't get clean and I can't

keep using. And it was a real turning point. I thought, if this is what my life is, I'm going to kill myself. And a girl that I left the rehab with coming this is a true story, come and visit me on the Saturday. I got two tuning points while she come and visited on the Saturday and said to me, I'm pregnant. I was going to kill myself the Saturday afternoon.

I donly planned it. I was going to hang myself on this Sat the avenue because Sat Day was when the screw was at there the slackest and they watched the footy, and I was going to hang myself on the Saturday afternoon. She came in the Saturday morning and told me she was pregnant. I didn't know that. I endorsed forty three years of age from that. That saved my life in nineteen eighty five when I relapsed. This

is this is the craziest story. I real left in nineoin eighty five and my kids were three years of age, and she wasn't letting me see them, which is thank god. I'm glad she didn't let me see them. Because you know, I was on the heroin and I was and I was on methadone and I had a dream. This is the craziest thing that's ever happened in my whole life. I had a dream. This is a true story. I dreamt that I died. And because you know, I must be our doctors or whatever I dreamt, I'm going up.

I'm floating somewhere. I'm going somewhere and I know I'm dead. I'm going somewhere and I'm going like, fuck, I've got to talk me through this day up. And you know I got there. There was a guy there, Rode Beard. Didn't introduce yourself, you know, you just said to me, Ahi, right, I remember the fear, And I said, listen, you know everyone I shot was a gangster, as our fucking people that were trying to shoot us, you know. And I was justifying I said everything I've ever done, you know,

most of the places I robbed were institutions. And he's just smiling the whole time. I'm wrapping off all this stuff, you know, trying to put my defense tohead and he smiled, and he just looked at me and he said, you don't get it, do you. I just remember the coldness. He said, you committed the greatest sin knowing to man, and I think I'm not. I'm fucked. He said, you wasted the gift of life. And I just fucking went bang. I haven't had a drug since. Wow, So that what

I did, I'd wasted the gift of life. That was the greatest crime we can commit as human beings, waste the gift that we've been given, whoever your higher power is, whoever that gave us this what we have. The greatest sin we can commit is not to respect that gift and not to carry that gift forward. I really believe that today. My whole job is today based around helping other people trying not to make the same mistake I made.

And if you make the same mistakes, get up, get on with it, you know, because I made I did fuck up. Don't get me wrong. I fuck When I went back to jail in two thousand and two. I hadn't mean to jail since eighty two. It's twenty years. The system had change. Its just thing called subi tech, you know, subox saying they're all using this shit drug called suboxie two dollars tablet nicely, you know, because I'm a pretty outspoken sort of person. You know, I'm not

a tough guy. Made, but I don't really find fucking about anybody, you know, because what are you gonna do? What are you gonna do? You're gonna kill me. You're not going to be first to try it, probably gonna be the last. But and now I used to say what you got three period and your don Colliane, you're

fucking idiot and they used to hate it. You know, you're fucking sixteen dollars of the pills you want around look like a gangster now, fucking you've got your missus wringing and give into the jail with a fucking three month old kid out there. That's not gangster. You know what gangster is putting food on the table, being having for fucking nighttime to pucked up your kids in the bed and listen and read a book. So do you

want to know what a gangster isn't? Because my whole world had changed, my whole beliefs changes, Like all my life, I believed I was a gangster. What I was was a scared little boy. I was a scared little boy. And fearful people are the most dangerous. The scareder you are, the more dangerous you are, the less self worth you have, the less you have to lose, the less you have to lose. It's the less you care. And I say it about every relationship. The one who cares the least

has the most power, you know. And I didn't care. I wanted to die. I wanted you to kill me because you put me out of my misery because I was living such hell, and my hell was in my head. And so I don't have that hell, you know, because today I realize that everything I do is my choice. Whether I feel good or airs my choice. You can't make me feel anything. You can't make me feel anything. You really can't. You know, you can't make me feel anything. What I choose to do is what you do to

me is how I feel. No one can, my wife can leave me. I'll be heartbroken, but I'll get over human nature. We are human beings first, We're men. Second, and I'm an addict. Third. For many years, I just thought I was an addict. I'm not just an addict. When I was talking to my brother today is a guy I usually grew up, not real brothers. But we've been together for forty five years, and we're both playing. We're both successful in our lives, both the beautiful families.

You know. I'm laying his seven million dollar waterfront mansion. This morning, we're having said he's having to smoke. I don't smoke. He's having a smoke and I went bagging each other and he said, you know, fucking forty five years ago, we were steal on TV's in Bondou Beach. He said, you know, the choices we made them were really bad. He said, the choices we make today are pretty good. He said, what changed? I said, maybe we grew up? He said, said you're still a fucking kid.

When because I act pretty stupid sometimes, he said, I'll tell you what change made. He said, we start to like ourselves. He said, we start to like ourselves. You know, he's been clean longer than me. He's actually one who used to come up the cross and say to me all the time he had enough when I relapsed in eighty five and he was devastated. His only guy I used with that got clean. He'd come up in his states when he had the New States, when all that,

you know, and he pull up. He had enough yet, mate, You say see you next week. He drive away. Then some junk you'd run down the back street of Caller Street or somewhere you may have that flash cars up the fucking main street looking for you. And I go up there and you say ye had enough yet, mate, and go no, you say, you drive away. Then he said he's done. The six weeks train. He come out in the six week he said, you had nothing to do.

He said, get your tell you to detox. Yeah, I mean for six weeks you backed up every week you had enough? Yet brother, Wow, say no, you say see you ladda. You never tried to force it on me never, you know. And they're the things that kept me alive. They are the things that I grew up in his mom's house. Mum's ninety eight. That's one of those. I come down this weekend too. When you said this week and I said, yeah, it gave me excuse to come down and see your mom. She's ninety eight. His father

worked two jobs. And I start to learn what being your father was, what being a son was, what being a brother was. Then I learned how to be a dad because I love my kids. I really I've a nine year old and five year old. You know, I remarried. My wife's a couple of months younger than me. And yeah, when I say it all the time, it's hard being a trophy husband, it's really you know, Like, mate, you know, I'm blessed. I really am blessed, and I believe it's because of what I do, not what I've done.