March 3, 2025 • 68 mins
Ian Muldoon felt powerless as he fought for freedom after finding himself locked in a Cambodian prison. He survived, but the physical and emotional scars remain with him.
This episode contains mentions of suicide and sexual abuse, if you need support contact Lifeline on 131114.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Detective sy aside of life the average person is never
exposed to. I spent thirty four years as a cop.
For twenty five of those years I was catching killers.
That's what I did for a living. I was a
homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead,
I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.
(00:23):
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. Ian,
(00:45):
welcome back to part two. Thank you if I catch killers.
I'm digesting some of the things that you're saying. And
I look at you sit here, looking at you, and
we talked of off camera a little bit during the
break and how intimidating an environment that would have to be.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Yeah. Yeah, Like I said, words can't describe. It's very
hard to, you know, deal with everything.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
And I would imagine the emotional angst about what the
hell am I doing in here? When am I going
to get out? You just don't know how long this
nightmare is going to go on for.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
And now in jail you you had the fight, Yeah, plenty.
How many fights would you estimate your head?
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Ten?
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Maybe?
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Maybe? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Maybe? Well it was a few kind of scuffles, but
probably ten, probably good ones.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Were you a physical bloke before you went went there?
Were you?
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Oh? I mean I was waying what seventy eight kilos?
I'd done a little bit of boxing through my childhood
with a few fellas from the beaches and stuff. Yeah,
I wouldn't as a professional boxer though, Yeah, I mean,
you know, I can handle myself to a degree.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Okay, So you could invoke some aggression where you needed
to stand up for yourself.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
And I had, you know, I had a fair bit
of aggression because of my situation. You know, I could
draw on that.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Why are you so angry? Why are you so angry?
Just let it go. I honestly, mate, I don't know
how you survived. I'm sitting here and I'm looking at you.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Know.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
We've had people on that have committed crimes that they
know they're going to get if they get caught, they're
going to get lengthy sentences in foreign prisons and different things.
But we're talking at the worst. It's damaged to an
ATM machine. And I can tell you after me meeting you,
if I go across it whenever I'm overseas, be very
(02:52):
kind to ATM machines.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
I wouldn't be going to camba to you.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Okay, Well, look, we make light of a situation so
far from light, but I think sometimes you've got to
find that the brightness in the darkness or you can't survive.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yeah. Well I've had that from good advice for people,
that you've just got to move forward. And yeah, and
look again I said earlier, you either laugh or you cry,
and I've done me crying, and I'm in Sydney laughing,
but I'm not on the inside. It's just it's one
of those responses, isn't it like a nervous laugh or
(03:27):
you know.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
It's a way of dealing dealing with it. I want
you talked. You said to me that you mentioned in
part one that you saw eleven people die in the prison,
and there's one that you wrote about in detail, and
I just want to read that out and then ask
you some questions, questions about that, and you're describing this
(03:49):
particular death of an inmate. They handcuffed this tie guide
to the bars at the back of the cell or
because he was sick and needed to keep using the bathroom.
They then took it in turns, kicking the absolute shit
out of him. This must have lasted at least an
hour when they finally stopped and removed the handcuffs. This
guy was so scared to move, the just pissed and
(04:10):
shit himself in the back corner. The next morning he
had died. So we're talking here about witnessing someone being.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Beaten to death.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Yeah, do you know why he was being beaten.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Because he was using the bathroom too much, because he
had gastro right and couldn't get any help. And that's
why I was in the hospital. So that that's in
the hospital now.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
And that was a good part. That's where you paid
extra together.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
I paid one thousand US to get into the hospital.
So the room would only be full of thirty people. Yeah,
like there was only six people in the room all
the time, But then patients would come in and out right,
and so he'd come in because he'd had bad gastro
and just kept having to keep using the toilet. But
(05:00):
two of the guys worked at the hospital, so they
had our pair of handcuffs in the cell for that purpose.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
What was going through your mind watching this?
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Want? I wanted again, I wanted to stop it. I
couldn't believe what I was watching. It's very again, very confronting,
and you just you feel bad because the way that
someone would treat another human being, it's just it's beyond me,
(05:32):
you know, like I can't, I can't. I just I
just remember that him screaming as well, stop, you know,
and and they just taking turns and laughing like it
was some kind of evil game. You know. The more
he pleted, the more they builded him and kicked him.
(05:53):
I think it lasted longer than an hour, to be honest,
you know. And then they'd look at one another and go, oh,
look what I can do next, and kick him in
the ribs, and you know, another guy just slap him
across the face at one and like to make him flinch,
and you know they had Yeah, it was it was
pretty full on. And you know the next day the
(06:15):
guy's dead in the morning.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
And just laughing at while they're doing it.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it's a crazy, crazy place to be.
I just so many things, so many things I saw
that people should never see. Really, I could go on
(06:40):
and on. I mean, seriously, I know, and I've just did.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
There's so many things you can pull out, pull out
of what happened to you in prison. When you reach
it reached out to me. You wanted to tell the story.
You want people to understand the dangers and all that,
and yeah, let's not be naive when we think there's
there's justice and humanity in the world. Some places you
(07:06):
find yourself that's so far from it, are you? And
I checked with you before I raised this, but you
also detailed the account when you were gang raped one
of the times in the prison. I just get if
it's okay with you, and I'm going to read out
what you said there and then I'll let you comment
(07:27):
if you need to comment or feel feel to comment.
But I'm also mindful that since been released from prison
and coming back to Australia, that you're getting treatment for
the traumas and the things that you happen. So if
any point in time you want me to stop or
we change the subject, feel free. I was tipping some
(07:52):
water from the bucket over my head when five guys
stormed in. I tried my best fighting them off, hitting
one Cambodian in the throat and smashing another one's head
against the concrete wall, but there was too many of them.
Eventually they pinned me down to the filthy, wet floor,
two guys holding my hands and two guys holding my
feet while the fifth Cambadium raped me. My face was
(08:21):
pushed into the concrete. I was helpless to do anything.
Words can't describe what I was thinking. In the end,
I just tried to block everything out of my mind.
Nobody came to help me. I'll never forget how it
made me feel, and just one other aspect. And that
(08:43):
was the first of four times I was raped in prison.
Sitting here now writing this, I feel a sense of numbness.
Those men have taken something from me that can never
be returned. I just remember leaving the shower with my
backside bleeding, putting on my pants, and sitting on the
cell of the floor staring at the ground in shame.
(09:03):
Mm hm, I yeah, I don't know what to say
that what? What's how?
Speaker 2 (09:12):
How? Literally? How I wrote that down is how pretty
much happened. Now I felt, you know, you feel guilty.
I never asked for that, and the shame and that
just that I could still feel the wetness on my
face the bathroom floor, and still smell the smells of
(09:35):
the sewerage, and just having to pick myself up like
some used up piece of meat, put my pants on
and sit back in a corner, and life goes on.
You know, they just keep doing what they're doing. Nothing
gets said, nothing gets you get the occasional look, but
(09:56):
there's no there's no I.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
U okay, mate, there's there's.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Well it's almost like they look at you just like
I'm glad it wasn't me this time.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Yeah, yeah, that's what they've created in the environment like that.
It's well, when I say interesting, maybe not the right word,
but look at what humans can do to other other humans,
No wonder the world can be a fucked place at times. Yeah,
when you've got people that do that, and yeah, we've
(10:29):
talked about it, and you mentioned there you feel guilt
and shame. Mate, I say this to you. You've survived.
You survived, so you've got got it over them. The
low lives that do that to you.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Yeah, and that's that's why when I wrote that down,
I said, I could talk about the other ones, but
it doesn't really help me. Yeah, you know, I mean,
if you wanted to seriously talk about the other ones,
I would, but it doesn't help me. Just to know
about what you've just read out. It's pretty much the
(11:07):
same feelings with the others, apart from the one with
the guards, because I used to come in and just
drag people out they get drunk, come in and drag
a person out, take them to their quarters. Yeah, so
that that you know that, and that they're pretty horrific,
(11:28):
you know, I mean, they're all horrific, but you do
become a bit more numb to it. I'm still pretty
shook up because I haven't read this transcript back since
I wrote it, you know, pretty much. I had a
glanced over it today, but that's it. And yeah, to
hear it again just brings back all the memories, just
(11:51):
keep flooding back, you.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Know, powerful words and yeah, yeah, you're getting help for it.
You're saying that.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Yeah, it was funny. The Trump sexual trauma counselor said
to me, you know, when we wrote it all out
to send off to you and hopefully to the Human
Rights Commission as well, and things like that. That when
I was in the police station leading up to going
into the prison, I was talking in first person, and
(12:26):
then when I get into prison, I'm talking in third person.
And I didn't. I didn't. I'm not an author, you know,
or creative writer, you know. But she picked up on
that and she said, that's a sure sign of trauma.
Trauma and how you perceive, you know, how to deal
with things like you're stepping, you're removing yourself from stuff.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
And I guess that's you know, makes sense.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Yeah, you know. But the thing that really makes me
angry is that I never asked for any of this.
I never once, you know, like, I did nothing wrong.
Even if you've done something wrong, nothing like this should
ever happen to you. You know. It takes your dignity away.
(13:15):
You feel if you know, you feel, you feel so
much shame and so much guilt. Why couldn't have just
fought a bit harder? You just can't. There's five guys,
some of them can kick box, you know. They're not
all just little skinny Cambodians. There's guys in there doing
life they're never getting out, you know that they don't
(13:36):
care if they kill someone, because what are they going
to do, give them another twenty years on their sentence
not getting out anyways. It's one of those situations. And
there's so many of those guys in there, that's what
makes it a scary place too. And the guards aren't
do anything about it because they could kill a guard
and what's going to happen. They'll just they'll probably end
up getting killed themselves, but it doesn't matter to them,
(13:57):
you know. And there's so many of them in there
that are doing life.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Yeah, and you can't report it to the guards. As
you said, one of the rape situations involve the guards.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Yeah, yeah, I think I mentioned to you too. The
lady boys they got the worst. Yeah, you know, the
ones that were taking in well, whatever they were doing,
they're getting done for prostitution ties Cambodians all that. That
would be nightly and not just once a night, five
(14:30):
six seven, just depend on how many guards and how
many guards were drinking. They'd gamble, they'd drink, and then
they just go around.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
And just pluck prisoners out, pluck prisoners. It's disgusting, it is,
it is.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
And there's so many other things, you know, like that,
I could I want to say about different things like
if you don't bring them up, I want to, I
want to get them across.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Well, there's ten thousand prisoners in there, wasn't it.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
And another great point, it's built for four thousand. Four thousand,
that's how many is meant to be in that prison.
There's over ten thousand in there. So when I'm talking
about four hundred in a cell's it's four hundred. And
it's not a big cell. You know, people are squashed
up against the bars. You knows, there's one toilet or
(15:19):
maybe two if you're lucky. A shower where you've got
a bucket of green water that's got mosquito larvae and
you know, dangi fever and you're using that the shower.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
It's just the threat of diseases, every.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Disease, COVID, all the main in every std under the sun,
but all the main ones, some of the ones. I
don't think we've even got much in Australia anymore. You know,
guys with what's one where you cough up the blood tuberculosis,
I think that's it. Yeah, it's very it's very contagious
(15:58):
and then it's like, yeah, you start coughing and then
you're coughing up blood and that's you know, and that's
very contagious. And all these other things obviously scabies and
golden staff rife through everywhere. You know, I was covered
in it, Yeah, absolutely covered everywhere everywhere, and bedsaws from
laying on the ground on the concrete for too long,
(16:20):
like your hips, they start getting lumps in your hips
and either side.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
You know, you wrote in wrote in your transcript there
about the mattress that was up with all just the
wire and torture as in putting people electric uity people describe,
describe that what you saw there, Just to put.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
It briefly, there's six or eight cells. That's the hospital basically,
and then where they do the surgeries over here and
they administer their medications, their medications down the other end
was this room and it had a small room, smaller
than this and it just had a bed. But the
springs of the mattress in it, all the material and
(17:08):
that all gone all gone, yeah yeah, and you know,
and there's a few bars on it. Yeah, one can't
only think you know what was going on there?
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
And the way, and in the hospital too, you're dealing
with people that are clearly have got severe mental health
issues that should be in care, real care, that are
going around and you know, bashing people, but then ten
seconds later wouldn't even know they've done it, you know.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Yeah, so.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
You know it's crazy.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
You got stabbed? Yeah, yeah, tell us about that incident
and what happened.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Well, I had an altercation because, like I said, there's
all these lane ways and nooks and cranny so there's
not a lot of cameras. It's not like no, no,
of course not. They only put him in the areas
where the people come in and see who fund. So
I had an alccasion with one guy and he's as
he's come up and ran or not ran, as just
(18:17):
kicked me in the arm like this nearly busted my
arm his mate.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Do you mind for show you this is a so
that for those listening to this podcasting, and just showed
me the stab wound where he was stabbed in the
chest and it hit his ribs. You can't see it
obviously if you're listening to this, but if you want
to see what we're talking about, you can view it
on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
No that's what sharpened up a piece of perspects pipe.
And just as so, the other guy's kicked me. He's
come up from underneath and got me. So there's two
on me. And then I didn't really because it got
jammed in between my ribs.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
So I'm quite fortunate that he well, you know what.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
I didn't get a vital organ.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Yeah, it got stuck in there and then I and
then I just kept going and then it kind of
dissipated and then I pulled it out. And there's no
way I was going to the hospital. No way it was.
It was. There was no doctors at the hospital, not one.
It was all prisoners doing procedures.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
So how did you treat yourself? Because that feeling, that womb? Yeah, significant,
significant word.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
I just I got, you know, some some guys. You know,
there was a Belgian guys, a Filipino guy. They was saying,
put this stuff on it, and they had some stuff. So,
you know, the foreigners all kind of stuck together.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
So there was that smidgen of humanity in there with
the foreigner foreigners. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Yeah, well it's almost like us against them, you know,
And that's how it was for quite some time. You know,
and and and one of the Nigerians even said that
to me. He said, how he approached me after he
known I've been raped and he goes, how you traveling right?
And I said I'm not good and he goes, mate,
just remember this, it's us against them.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
I think that was the first time I had the
first cigarette.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Yeah. And then I use them as currency because that's
what you do, you know, to get some food or something.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
So what was what was your lowest point in the
time that you're in prison?
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Ah? I mean, obviously the rapes, sexual assaults pretty hard
to deal with. You going to a pretty bad depression.
You don't want to talk to anyone. You get some
foreign guys, like there's a friend. I called him a
friend because a sign I could confide in. He'd come
up and go, mate, I know what's happened, and you
kind of you're trying and remove yourself from people, which
(20:43):
is a bad thing because then you go into a
dark place and then you start thinking, well, maybe I'll
just try and escape and they'll shoot me, you know,
or if you end up doing too if you start
doing some stuff that really puts there their naise out
of whack. They'll put you in this place. It's called
the dark Room for thirty days. It's just a dark
(21:03):
room with the most crazy people in there that they
you know, that aren't getting out, and they'll supply methanphetamine, whatever.
They don't care. It's like a zoo, you know, in
that room. There's no clocks, there's no nothing. Everything you
buy if you want a bottle of water, it's ten
times the price and I don't can to afford anything.
(21:24):
I know. If people look the Nigerian guy, Chicker, he
bought his way out of there. He was only in
there a couple of days, and he says, you're just
in a corner. You can't see anything, or you can
see people lighting lighters, smoking ice. It's completely black, you
know what I mean. And he said he was just
there's a guy jerking off next to him. He doesn't care,
(21:45):
you know, like he's going to get away from me.
But that's the least of his problems, you know.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
And just when I didn't think you could surprise me
anymore now, like mate, the dark room, Yeah, I'm just
trying to picture it, all these crazy people or whatever
in there in a pitch black room and you just
frown in there.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
No clock's known nothing, thirty days, sixty days, ninety days,
one hundred and twenty days, there's been God, there was
guys in there months and months.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Don't keep your sanity, you don't.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
That's the thing, that's what they want. That's how they
break you. You want to muck around real bad. They're
just chucking in there. You know, if you get caught
with something. It's such a corrupt place that they supply
all the drugs, the phones because people buy it off them.
Then they'll get an independent organization like the police from
(22:41):
the outside would come just out of the blue and
start raiding sections like oh, they're going through BLOCKAH today
and just going in there, and then they find a phone.
Who's this belonged to? It's that Chinese guy, beat the
crap out of him, give him another three years on
his sentence, and then the same guy two weeks later
selling him back that same phone or drugs or whatever
(23:04):
else it was. You know, moonshine. There was plenty of
everything going on in there, you know everything. Guys were
walking around with monkeys, with the real rich guys. There
was a guy walking around with like a spider monkey
pet monkey, pet monkey on his on his shoulder. There
was guys who had like massive bil constrictors in tanks.
There was lots of different birds and things like that
(23:27):
that people were allowed to have and keep because they
paid big money. Are paying like a thousand the vip
sells are paying ony twelve hundred US a month, and
they could get any luxury they wanted, you know, and
the guards would go in there and drink with them,
even the senior guards, you know, they would go in
(23:48):
and drink with them. You know, they'd have girls brought in.
They could have anything they wanted, you know. And those
guys weren't getting out. They knew it. So I was like, well,
I've got millions of dollars. I'm just gonna make the
best of it.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Yeah, did you have concerns when you're in there that, yeah,
you've got this minor charge that you're fighting that one
would hope you're not going to get years since to
Did you have concerns that you'd be laded up with
another charge or defend yourself and injure someone, or end
up charge and yeah, yeah, definitely for the rest of
(24:21):
your life.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Definitely. Well, my charge at one stage was three years.
Three years. That was going to be the charge for
damaging your beast of property. Yeah, you know, and you
know I fell in to protect my head and my
hand hit the glass like that. But I was all
over the shop because I've been drugged.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
And like I sit here, I wouldn't care if you
ran up and kicked the ATM or attacked it with
a baseball bat.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
Funnily enough, that's what they said in court when I
went to court. The first time they said to me
was I tried to steal the ATM machine, right, pick
it up.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
It weighs more than me. Well, you grew up around
the northern It was a spade of ATM robberies, maybe
maybe missing missing the point.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
And then I said to them, can you show me
the footage? Then they brought up the next time. I wasn't, Oh,
you're trying to attack it with an iron bar? Bring it?
Can you just remind me? Bring up the footage? Then
you what was something else? Oh? Look, Then they brought
out the photos. These were the best, the photos of
me with my hands on the buttons and stuff. And
I was like, yeah, that's because I'm trying to withdraw money,
you know.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Like you've got to you've got to touch.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
It, ye, or you got to touch the buttons as well.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Did you get a did you get a sense? It
was just what can we extore.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Out of you? They called the land of wonder? Yeah,
it should be called the land of extortion. Yeah, because
that's what they do, you know, from the top down. Now,
I'm not mucking around when I say that.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
That's yeah, like the fact that they had it released
in the paper straight away as this Peneus crime, the
Peneus crime that you've committed, and you still won the
round as a tourist, and don't change fly or make
any effort to.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
You know, if I'd have done something bad, the first
thing you'd be doing is getting to the border of
Thailand and getting across. Yeah, you know all that n
up all ouse. You know, you wouldn't be hanging around
checking out the sites.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
It doesn't doesn't quite quite add up. Now does the
money that the money that your ex partner was sending
to you, you've credited that we've saving your life. What
sort of figures are we talking about? How much this
whole experience earns. Excellent adventure in Cambaiti it.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Costs one hundred and twenty thousand US. Yeah, as my
pretty much all my mum's inheritance that she'd left when
she passed, right.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
And there's a shame, the shame and guilt attached to
that too. Yeah, you know, but my sister told me
one thing that was important. When I was feeling really
low about that, she said, look, if mum was still alive,
she would have paid that to get you out, you know.
But it was and the way they did it as well,
(27:07):
you know, the you're bribing everybody, you know, it's not
just one person.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Did I read it right? At one point in time,
when you could pay this much money and you'll be released,
This as the advice you're getting. But if you can't
pay that much money, you'll get charge with bribing a.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
No, No, it was. What it was was that they
sent a figure, their lawyers send a figure, save eight thousand.
I think it was the first time to fix a
piece of glass that might cost one hundred dollars to
fix eight thousand. So if we send eight thousand straight away,
they'd send it back when we want fifteen, send fifteen,
(27:46):
we want twenty five, and so on just kept on
going up. Yeah, So my initial charge would have I
would have been in there for three years. And then
I said to my lawyer, I said, we're not a
wealthy family. We kind of just keep for chucking money,
thrying money around. We're not rich. You know, we did
have extra money, but we weren't trying to tell her
(28:07):
that at this stage. And that that's another thing where
you you just you feel all your you just get
depleted again. It's you know, like it's like you're just
trying to you think you make an inroads and they
knock your back down. Lots of prisoners inside there said
you never leave Cambodia. You never ever leave Cambodia. And
(28:29):
that's so true. I didn't believe it until I actually
got out. How much harder it was just to get
out of the country.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Once I got there, they keep you.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Yeah. Yeah, and then you know you're not just bribing judges,
your bribe and guards, you drive bribe and everyone, you know,
just to you know, my lawyer was ringing my ex
partner saying we're going to need extra money for this,
and she was handing it over thinking that I was
verifying it because we couldn't always communicate. Yeah, and then
(29:02):
you know, the embassy would charge me money when they
brought money in for me. But the thing is, you say,
if you've got two hundred dollars US, the first couple
of times you come in that gate, they'd patch you
down and just take it.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Yeah, you know, I wondered that when you get money,
how you hang on to it? Where is it? Where's
the captain? You had said that when you got food
or water or that quite often you just drink it
all either all because it was going to get taken
off you anyway.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Yeah, Well, if you went back to the captain and
the captain goes, why and you buy the water off
me or cigarettes or food food here was a bit
easy going on with because they would kind of understand
that we couldn't eat their food.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Yeah, kinder mind.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
You they're farm and catfish and give them your maggot
ridden rice, you know, and grown a few vegetables that
were sprayed with toxins, you know, and it was growing
on top of the sewer. Yeah. And that's another thing
that the smell of the sewer was there the whole time.
Like it's the rainy season for example, that the place
(30:07):
just floods, you know, snakes everywhere place, floods, generators go out,
the fans stopped working, there's no light, don't you think
it starts kicking off? Then prisoners just fighting each other
in the dark. No one's going to know what's going on. Yeah,
it's crazy. Yeah, yeah, like the king Cobras women in.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Someone called it killed it like.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
A whip, like picked it like as a farmer, and
then they led the Cambodian go yeah, just picked up
on the towel and crack and then it was eating
that the next day. But they ate anything anything, they
get their hands on, dogs, everything.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Even when the negotiations got to the point like I'm
not even going to break down the court matter, like
and I've got all these emails here and I bore
them in. I was going to dissect some of them.
But their emails, communications and text messages and different things
between yourself, your partner, and the consular admin and the embassy.
(31:12):
What comes across in all of these is how desperate
the situation was. It was just frustration, and frustration is
felt in every page. And then yeah, it's all tied
it up. Ian's doing fine. We're working to get him out.
But it didn't seem to be any progress whatsoever, And
there was nothing that was Okay, you've got to get
to this if you plead guilty, or this is going
(31:34):
to happen. It was always ambiguous what was going to happen,
what the next thing was.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
We're bound by Cambodian law.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
Yeah, and you made the point too that when embassy
officials or a consular officer came out, there was always
a Cambodian with them the whole time, just making sure
that you're You never felt safe that you could tell
someone from the Australian console, this is what the ship
that's going down, because you've got someone there listening that.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
And also that she was watching her too, because then
she would because they go away and have conversations because
they don't want the prison to look bad, so they
lose funding. That funding goes to the trickles down from
the top CEO of the you know, the prison all
the way down or the general or what you want
(32:22):
call him, because that's how they run it like a
like an army.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
When no, I I think I'm not if. I often
wondered what cloud in Australian citizen has been arrested abroad,
But it just shows how limited it is depending on
where you've you've been apprehended.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Yeah, it's you know, getting out the worst. One of
the worst parts was when you when you get to
your last month, you have to go and take your
photos for inter pola. So they take photos of your tattoos,
they take your face obviously, and what you look like.
(33:04):
You got your name, you got your board up. But
that sends a signal to every other prisoner that you're
getting out, yeah, within a month. And if someone's in
there for twenty five years to life, they just want
to cause trouble for you because they want, you know,
to see you get more time. It's almost like a
(33:24):
jealousy thing too. If I can't get out, he.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Should should he's better than us.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Yeah, So I do avoid people like the plague for
that last month, which I managed to do. But I
think it was Chicker, the big Nigerian guy helping me there.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
He was putting the word or keeping an eye out.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Yeah. Yeah, he was really a good, good fella.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
But that must be so hard. Like here it is freedom,
it's dangled in front of you, but knowing that you're
at the higher risk at that point in time.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
Yeah, yeah, it was tough, very tough. After everything that
was going on, guy's still tried to fight and stuff.
I just I don't know, we got difused pretty quickly.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
You tried to step away from it.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Yeah, Well there's occasions where you had to just kind
of hurt something pretty quickly. Doo. Yeah, you know, honestly
make it so that no one's you know, he just
fell over, yeah, or something like that.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Unbelievable. When did you actually find out that you got
a date and that you were being released from prison?
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Well, that's an interesting story in itself. They used to
the guards used to tell me I was getting out tomorrow,
paperwork's coming tomorrow, just to play with it, play with
my emotions. And that went on for a few weeks,
and then it finally came. I can't remember what time was,
early afternoon. And then they all, as I wrote in
(34:50):
the transcripts, they all stood there with their hands out
like as if I wanted money, as if that they'd
done me a favor, thanks.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
For thanks for looking after you that.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
And then on the way out, every guard on the
way out as well. So yeah, and then and then
I find out, you know, I was told told time
and time again. Once you get out of prison, you're
going home. Yeah, and then I find out that I've
(35:26):
got to spend another three months there. Explain that, well,
I was told by the Australian embassy over in Cambodia.
But once I got out, i'd be released. I received
my passport back and my luggage back to the point
where I actually went to the courthouse and paid two
hundred dollars US to get that in process. And then
(35:50):
my lawyer was even too worried to come and see me.
She rang me and said, oh, you know, I said, well,
what's happening with the courts? When do we get my
past back? I want to go. I've got my family
to go and see. I've got my boy to go
and see. You know, when I'm going home. You know,
there's a couple of days, a couple of days, and
just kept on going like that. So what's going on?
(36:13):
And she goes buy law Cambodian law. They've got three
months to the right of the right of an appeal.
So I roped all these people work. How can you
appeal that? You know?
Speaker 1 (36:26):
And then because so you had the remaining Cambadia for
three months after being released from prison because they might
or might not appeal lodging the pill.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
And they still have my passport and my all my
luggage at court, so I'm still walking around and then
pretty much the same clause as I had on when
I left prison, which is filthy.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
And I would imagine if you, if you did anything wrong,
you would have been straight.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
Straight in prison. That was the scary thing. But I
went straight out of it because I was still at
that stage well at that STAF. I just moved into
the apartment straight across the road from the Strain Embassy.
So I've run down there and gone knocked in there
and said, what's this about? You told me I was
(37:13):
going home. They knew the law, they knew that there
was three months I had to stay longer, but they
told me differently. Otherwise why would they do that? I
don't know, but you know, that's something that I'd like
to discuss further with the right people, because them saying
that to me, you know, and then saying again I
(37:33):
were bound by Cambodian law. The only thing they ever
did for me was mere stat deck, which they are
very they weren't very keen on doing that. I asked
them for other things to say, No, we can't do that,
you know, ask them to write a letter to the
courts to get more stuff ret leased. Oh, we can't
do that. It's the courts, it's Cambodian law, you know.
(37:55):
And I was so paranoid at that stage that just
going to get a knock any time, you know, I
didn't want to go outside, but then I felt unsafe inside.
And then you'd see police officers, you hear sirens, you'd
hear bangings, you know, you hear a banging door, and
you can just remind you of a jail door closing,
you know, the closing. Yeah, triggers, heaps of triggers.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
How did you eventually get your passport back?
Speaker 2 (38:22):
We finally, the lawyer finally got it back.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
And then.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
Pretty much after that was when I laughed, because you're thinking, Okay,
I've got my passport and got my luggage. By this stage,
I'd moved out of that apartment. So we get to
immigration and I've got my passport, I've got my luggage.
(38:48):
I go into immigration and he looks at the paperwork
and he says, you've overstayed your visa by X amount
of months. I said, I understand that I'm I've been
in jail. He's the paperwork for them, you know. And
he goes and then there's an extra three months your law, Cambodian.
Speaker 1 (39:09):
Law, you know where you I wasn't allowed to love, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
I wasn't allowed to leave. And then he just he
sits down and he's talking to her, the solicitor and
lawyer talking to her. They've come up with this agreement
that I should be paying. I think it was either
fifteen or twenty US dollars for every day i'd overstayed
my versa. So that quiet, and then he goes look forget,
(39:37):
and they're talking nothing. I can't understand what they're saying.
And then he goes, look, how about we square this
up five thousand US. I just looked at him and
I said, mate, I don't have any money. Yeah, and
then he kind of he kind of understood a little
bit and the body language, and then they've started going again,
(40:01):
and then he's gone down to twenty five hundred, and
I said, listen, I told you I don't have any money.
And then he started getting angry and he says, well,
I want receipts. You show me where you spend all
this money I said, well, you know, I just started
naming names, you know who didn't get a bribe. Basically
(40:23):
it was there. It was you know, everyone got a bribe,
you know. So and then he just couldn't handle any
more of it and he just get out, get out.
So and I think that was the last time I
saw my solicitor too. I'm pretty sure that was the
last communication I had with her ever. But I'm still
(40:43):
stuck in Cambodia. Like I said, Cambodia is it keeps
you there? You can't get out, you know, it traps
you there. So then the next time I'm speaking to
the embassy again, saying listen, deport me, deport me. I
want out. They're going, well, this is before I'd got
(41:04):
my passport back. They were saying, we can't deport you.
We know where your passport is. It's in the courts.
I'm saying, We'll just get me a new passport. Can't
you just do that? Can't I just sneak over the border?
Can't I do any of this stuff? They said, we
don't advise it. Have you get caught, You're going back
to jail. And I'm glad I didn't. Yeah, but in
the same taken when I heard that I had to
(41:24):
stay another three months. That was one of the times
that nearly broke me and I nearly took my own life. Yeah,
I was looking for places to jump. I found myself
in a state where I was checking door handles of
the top floor of the apartment building to see if
I'll get on the rooftop. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
And you think that the culmination of it, you just
had nothing.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
Left, nothing left in the tank, nothing left mentally. You
know I was done.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
Yeah. Yeah, you've broken.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
Broken, but very much so broken.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
Man.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
I've sat in front of my trauma counselor and broken
down many times, and that's one of the terms of used.
I just feel like a broken person. I feel like
sometimes I feel like I it would be better if
I wasn't around, you know, because I just I don't
know what I can give. I know I've got to offer.
(42:18):
She reminds me, I've got a lot to give an offer,
and it keeps me going.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
And then you know, you're getting advice from experts, So
take what I say with a grain of salt. But
there's total respect there too. What you've got through a
lot of people wouldn't have got through and you talk
about shame and disappointment of all these different things. Mate,
you survived something that I reckon ninety percent of people
wouldn't survive.
Speaker 2 (42:45):
Well, it blows my mind. I lost my mum. Yeah,
my relationship broke down and then I end up in
that position.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
One of those three can knock people around pretty baily,
and I got all three of them. But my mum
died in front of me.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
I was doing CPR and my mum with the mobile
phone with a loud speaker on with the lady counting
in to do the compressions until the ambulance drivers got there.
You know this, This, this is how it unfolded. There
was that, and the relationship came to breaking down, and
then I went on this holiday and ended up in
(43:20):
a campbadi in prison and not in the space of
a long time.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
Okay, so you're dealing with dealing with so much.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
Well, yeah, I don't. I don't know how I've done it.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
But again, you're doing it one step at the time. Yeah,
keep moving forward.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
I mean I had beatings too where I couldn't count
and come my guard. Because you're doing prison counts, you
come up with a big set of old keys, you know,
and just smash it in.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
The back of the head.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
Yeah, I can't even remember. I try to forget. Yeah
I used to be able to count to ten, but yeah,
you just do that, you know, things like that at all.
But yeah, getting back on. So I then went to
the embassy again and said, listen, this is what's going on.
(44:10):
They're trying to this is wrong. You told me three
more months I had to stay here. I did the
three months, and now they're trying to tell me that
I've got to pay, you know, because I've overstayed my visa.
This is wrong. What are you going to do about it?
And it got to the point where I had to
physically go down there myself, go into that office and say, listen,
(44:32):
there are no receipts. I want to be deported. I
wanted to be deported now. And I just I was
at that point where I didn't care what happened anymore.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
You get to a point where, yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
Reckless, abandon if you want to call it, where you're
screaming at the top of your lungs. People are in
there just going what's going on here? I want to
be fucking deported. I want to be deported right now,
because the immigration office is literally just across a road
from the international airport. Two guys come in with guns right,
(45:06):
grab me, pulled me out, which was probably a good thing.
Pull me out. Say down there, it's the police station.
You go down there and you tell them what you're saying, okay,
because there they look after the people who get who
are getting deported, and they've got to stay in that
cell for a month. So I get down there or
fight up and then something clicks in me and I'm like,
(45:27):
I just got to remain calm. Now. I got out
of that situation when I didn't think I was.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
It sounds like you're very lucky, lucky.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
Yeah, very lucky. That guy could have just gone right,
police take him. But he sent me to a police station.
But it's also to do with immigration and stuff as well.
So anyway, I've gone down and seen him. I've told him, look,
I've showed him the paper I had all the paperwork
there as well. That's something I couldn't understand. So he
(45:54):
and he could speak fairly decent English, this one guy, right,
But I was upset. I was physically shaking. I was crying,
and he's looking at me, and like, when you're that emotional,
he'd start saying stuff to me, and I'd start cutting
him off, and he'd say, listen, do you want me
to help you or not? You know, you want me
(46:16):
to help you or not, he said, because usually i'd
put you in that seal. You be in that seal
for a month before you get deported. And that's the
last thing I needed. So anyways, and then he's got
my passport, which I was shitting myself about because the
last time someone had my passport I was ended up
back I was in prison, right, they didn't give it back.
(46:37):
He's got that. He's put me up against the wall
with a sign, you know, with the you know, I
don't even know what it. Yeah, like I was back
at the start in the airport, you know, with all
the pictures of all the deals and stuff on stuck
up the back, making me look like I was a
drug dealer or something.
Speaker 1 (46:57):
You know that with a freak. Yeah, it did.
Speaker 2 (47:00):
But when I wrote about it, I said I had
to trust him, even though every part of me said don't.
I just he had literally he had my life in
his hands. At that stage. I was so powerless, so
so powerless that if he'd taken it one direction, then
(47:23):
he could have said, oh, yeah, he's caught a scene
down there. Give him another six months or a year
or whatever, sort him out, you know. But then there
was all these other guys, and they're all asking me
questions where you're from, what you're doing, why you're in prison.
You know, some of them could talk a bit of English.
I guess it goes with immigration, you know, they must
(47:44):
have to know a little bit more English to understand,
like they can speak to Indians and so forth, because
they all speak English as well. And there was an
Indian bloke in funnily enough, in the detention center there,
while waiting to get out and so and then he goes, right,
what I need from you? How quickly can you get
a plane ticket? I said, I can get it tomorrow.
(48:05):
He was right. And then he gave me an email address,
and he said, and I lied and said that the
embassy sent me down here. I do, mate. But that
was the other thing. If if he caught onto that
the game was up, and you know, the embassy said
to come down here to speak to you, you.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
Know about this, I'd put it in the little after.
Speaker 2 (48:28):
Going yeah, after going up being up there, you know,
and then just sending me down. So obviously there was
no communication through that those two different entities or whatever.
I don't know. Well maybe that's what happened later with
the car, the card or better retribution for that. But
so anyways, I said, I can get it tomorrow and
(48:49):
get I can get a letter from the embassy, which
I did. It's just say, you know, well they photo
copied the because he says email it to me, and
I didn't want to do that. I said, no, mate,
I'll do you one better. I'll get a photo copy
of the flights. I'll hand it to you. I'll get
three copies, one for me, one for you, and one
for the embassy. And so I get down there, and
(49:09):
I get down there as early as possible because traffic's
bad and stuff like that, and with my luggage, with
my passport, and things just weren't seeming right, you know.
And you know, you meant to be on a flight,
an international flight. Was it three hours before you meant
to be at the the two hours to go? And
(49:32):
I'm asking, ah, you know, it's do we need to
get going across the road there? And then yeah, they're
all getting dressed up in their military outfits, like those
headhind chows at the prison. They're all in their black
They look like they're a car key with all their
medals and their black shiny shoes and the black bround. Yeah.
(49:54):
Then they're very proud, you know. And then he there's
a police car there, one that we're going in, and
he put your hand on there, like to get in,
and he just slams the door straight on it. Bang
there you go out. Yeah, that's a spiral fracture. Yeah,
the other fingers got in there as well, but that
(50:16):
one got the brun of it. Blood everywhere, blood everywhere.
Speaker 1 (50:21):
So just he told you to put your hand there,
and then deliberately.
Speaker 2 (50:24):
Yeah yeah, but as I was getting in, so he's
strategically done it. But he's just gone bushka. And there
was no accident because then the cane came out. He
started caning me and another guy started caning me like
with a piece of you know that you get in
the school for massive Well, it's all over my back,
you know. Yeah, And I think one of the ways
(50:48):
that it was disguised is because I was covered in
say any other things, scabies and golden staff you.
Speaker 1 (50:54):
Know, and then you look at picture of hell oh mate,
and I got, I got.
Speaker 2 (51:01):
I got to you know. It was a half an
hour before we went over there and they marched me
in luggage. I didn't think, you know, there was there
was two things concerning me when I picked my luggage
up from the court because it'd been there a long
long time, that they might have signed something into it.
I had presents for my son and stepdaughter and all
(51:23):
this at the time, right, they were all taken all.
The only thing they didn't take was the sea and
reaped t shirt with a picture of ank or what
on it, because that would be bad for them to do.
You know.
Speaker 1 (51:37):
But I think they've got karma coming at them in
some way.
Speaker 2 (51:40):
Yeah, well they just yeah, well, I don't know that
that's they used religion when they want to know, with
the Buddhism, I thought Buddhas would meant to be peaceful.
And I said to one, I copt a beating for
that too. Bordha's watching you, Ba's watching you. Yeah, got
a bashing for trying to save someone his life as well,
(52:00):
you know, performing CPR on them. They said, let him die.
I was screaming out for the guards. They never come,
so yeah, and then my thingers bleeding everywhere. He's put
a bit of tape around it, tissue and a bit
of tape. Put me on the plane and it felt
(52:23):
like an eternity sitting on that tarmac. I just thought
they were going to come back walking back on which
they could have done, because it's almost like they're the
military the police over there. They've got the same power
pretty much. You know, the King of Cambardia doesn't really
do anything. It's the Prime minister who's got all the power.
(52:43):
And anyways, but we talk off when I get to Thailand,
and thankfully they had a hospital in the airport which
they could clean it up because I was worried about disease,
and you know, they're just the fact that the stuff
in the air it just breeds back to aia, you know,
very quickly. And they fixed that up and then I
(53:04):
got but I was stuck in Thai airport for twenty hours,
still walking around in my ratty old clothes, you know,
because everything in the bag that wasn't stolen was filthy.
Speaker 1 (53:15):
You know, I'd been there over a year, but I
could imagine from what you've come from, it was probably luxury.
Speaker 2 (53:22):
I was going into you know where you can go
and use the testers doing that because I was stinking,
and I was filthy, you know, and bit my feet
were filthy. I had a pair of radiold thongs on.
I landed in Sydney Airport and it was freezing, absolutely
freezing out A short, short pair of pair of shorts,
(53:42):
T shirt and thongs on.
Speaker 1 (53:44):
Who was here to meet you?
Speaker 2 (53:45):
No one I had to get from. Then I had
to get the plane up to the Gold Coast right.
And the funny story is that because I didn't drank
in such a long long time, these old rock and
rollers get on at Sydney right and wearing their sunglasses
and long scraggly hair. And then this guy gets on
(54:05):
with the aviators and the long curly hair. I can
smell him coming from the front of the plane. I
can smell the whiskey on him, a cigarette. It was
Dave Gleason now screaming jets and so I had him
sitting somewhere close to me in a Titans footy player
sitting directly across from me. I think it might have
been four and actually, and then when I got off
(54:27):
the plane, I always promised myself this. I got off
the plane. I literally went down. I was at the
back getting off the back, down the stairs and kissed
the ground. And he's looked at me and gone, what's
going on there? Said, mate, don't even ask. Just got up,
got into the airport waiting for my luggage, and I
saw Max Partner and you could see the look on
(54:49):
her face. She hugged me, but you could see the
look on her face. She couldn't believe how much weight
I'd lost. I was skin and bone and I was covered.
I'm surprised you wanted to argue. I was down to
forty forty five kes, something really gaunt in the face,
(55:10):
rib sticking out everywhere, and it took me a long
time to get any appetite back. You know, I couldn't eat.
Speaker 1 (55:17):
How your health you would have got your health checked out?
Speaker 2 (55:22):
I had to how you scrub up with any I
had every every blood test done for every STD all
come back negative, thankfully. I had a lot of general
towards and things like that. I had to get burnt off,
and then you know, the scabies and stuff that and
(55:42):
the Golden Staff was pretty bad. Like it took a
long time with tablets, ointments that you weren't just putting
dab and it was everywhere and for weeks or some well,
my face only took My face took the longest to
clear up. I don't know why, but it was maybe
a good month and a half before I've seen any results.
(56:04):
Was that bad, you know, And just the weight as well,
Like it was scary and I just couldn't eat. And
but you know, it's not just because it's over. It's
never over.
Speaker 1 (56:21):
No, you're describing the physical repairing of yourself, but I
imagine there's a mental and emotional scarring there.
Speaker 2 (56:29):
I just I can't work at the moment at all.
Everything triggers my traumas everything. I can't have people sitting
behind me. I've always I can see people out of
the corners of my eyes, you know, I always always
can see constantly worried about noises. It just triggers anxiety
(56:53):
as well, triggers trauma, you know, just so many different things,
like I can't sleep at night. The nightmares are some
of the worst things I've ever had in my life,
Like the especially you know, reoccurring nightmares, the rape. For example,
when I was saying to you before about you know,
(57:16):
I've never felt a sensation in a dream before, or
a smell. I can still feel that cold damp floor
on the side of my face when my head was
pushed down into the concrete while I was being attacked
sexually assaulted. The smell of the sewer, looking at the
filthy cook like crevice of a white wall, you know,
(57:41):
picturing that like just trying to, like I said, trying
to not think about what was happening to me. But
those it's almost like a still shot. But but in
a movie, like shots of a movie, it's not good.
(58:02):
It's not good, and it's going to take a long
time to get right.
Speaker 1 (58:05):
What the type of services are available to well.
Speaker 2 (58:09):
I see a psychiatrist every fortnight, and I see a
sexual trauma counselor every week. But you know, look, when
I first got back to after I spent the first week,
how long have you been back now it's about six
and a half months, I think. But when I first
got back to every service and it was very hard
(58:31):
to because you know, they deal a lot of people
coming out of prison in Australia, but they don't deal
a lot of people coming from overseas, and so they
just didn't know how to deal with me, and put
me to someone else. And you can't understand. My trauma
levels are so high, My anxiety levels are so high
that it's going in one ear coming out the other.
(58:52):
I'll go and see these people. I must have met
thirty or twenty people, all different abbreviated PhDs, this that
the other you know. Couldn't remember half of them. I
was writing them down, still couldn't remember. I was getting bombarded.
But they just moved me on and moved me on,
and moved me on and moved me on to another agency.
Couldn't deal with it. Then I got to like housing
(59:13):
places to sort out some temporar accommodation. They asked me
the wrong question, so I fell through the cracks there.
One of the ladies from safe Haven said are very
poignant things. She said, It's like you've just been plucked
from Mars and been chuck straight back on Earth. You're
just an alien, you know how you're dealing with all this,
like everything your sensory overload from coming from you everywhere,
(59:39):
And then and then some temporary accommodation is not ideal
and you stay there and it just triggers trauma. Because
of other people there that have got other issues themselves,
you know. So it's not been easy. I've been living
in my car at times. You know, it's not good. No, So,
(01:00:00):
you know I think today, I mean, there's so much
much more we could discuss about things. But I really
want people to understand be very cautious when you go overseas.
You might not be. You might be just crossing a
road and someone runs a map ed into your leg
(01:00:21):
and goes you were drunk, calls the police up, you
get arrested. That's how there was people in the Canvadian
prison that they were set up. You know, they just
flee them for money because they're European or whatever. Just
be very mindful about that. And I don't think that
because you're an Australian citizen that there's someone there to
(01:00:42):
help you either. Yeah, we're not.
Speaker 1 (01:00:44):
We're not eve, aren't we. Yeah, Like I think of
all the third world countries I've traveled in, the stupid
stuff you do when you're traveling, or the risks you take.
Speaker 2 (01:00:54):
Yeah, But most importantly, I hope it puts a real
strong light on the fact that you could, you know,
you could be in any situation and end up in prison.
That's what happened to me. I did nothing wrong, and
I I've had one hell of a hell of a time.
Speaker 1 (01:01:15):
You know, it's such such an important message. And when
their mutual friend got in contact with me and told
me a little bit about your story and then started
breathing documents, yeah you had it just blew me away.
And yeah, obviously here on my catch Killers, we have
people who have done a lot of time in prison
(01:01:36):
for a variety of crimes. But this is I think
this is an example of how something so innocuous can
turn into just change your life. But I also want
to make the point that your courage for you to
come out and talk about this, because I can see
how sometimes it might be your inclination. I just want
(01:01:57):
to walk away from it. I don't want to know
about They want to try and forget it. But my
way of viewing the way that you're approaching this, you're
taking it on, acknowledge that, not letting it break you,
and you're moving forward. And I keep coming back to
it because I'm just thinking, and I think anyone that's
listened to this podcast would be wondering how would I
(01:02:18):
react in that situation? That you found yourself in. Would
I survive? I don't know, Like that was a hardcore
where you found yourself in.
Speaker 2 (01:02:27):
It's funny how you know you can find resilience in
the places that you don't know where you've got them,
you know. I just again, there was times where I
didn't think I was going to make it, to be honest,
I had to think about my son, you know, he's
the one. And if it wasn't for my partner ex partner,
(01:02:48):
you know, sending that money. I mean, there's many factors
that kept me alive, yeah, you know, but they were
the two main ones. She saved my life. You know,
I'm forever, eternally grateful for her for that.
Speaker 1 (01:03:00):
Yeah. Well, you talked about another Aussie bloke that was
over there, and he had a long sentence and you
don't know what's happened to him, No, And I don't.
Speaker 2 (01:03:11):
See that the Australian embassy would be able to do
anything to help him there. Yeah, and I'd be very
surprised whether he's still alive or not. Yeah, it's you
just if you've got no money, you've got no chance.
And that's that's just that's the bottom.
Speaker 1 (01:03:28):
Line, you know.
Speaker 2 (01:03:30):
And if you get sick, you die. You're constantly battling
those things, you know, like I just can't get sick.
Speaker 1 (01:03:37):
You know, like it's tiptoeing through it. Mindfild it is.
Speaker 2 (01:03:40):
And then you've got people coming at you, want to
attack you, rape ya, kill you, pedophiles all around as well.
Like I didn't even touch on those kind of guys
I met, ye, mate, there's some of the stuff that
they did the young kids. But this guy came into
the cell on the very first day that he got
into prison, tried to commit suicide, jumped on off the roof,
(01:04:05):
climbed up on the roof and jumped on the razor. Y.
His name was Stephan from Switzerland. So I was in
the hospital at this time. So he's been stitched up
like he's you know, but he stayed in our room.
Now before when I was telling you about those two
guys who worked at the hospital, they also got the
charge sheets, so they could tell when I walked in there.
(01:04:26):
They get like, oh, you're the at M guy.
Speaker 1 (01:04:28):
Okay, So they get fed to them.
Speaker 2 (01:04:31):
Because they can't speak very decent English or you know,
English very well. I was almost like the conduit between
Stephan and because he could speak five languages. This guy
and all the pedophiles always had the same thing as well.
They'd all blame the angio. The angios of people come
in and say, listen, you're you're in trouble, you know.
(01:04:56):
So I've been read what this guy has done. He
had so he was with this woman who had six
kids to six different fellas. She's a nice addict Cambodian woman.
He's living with her. He's prostituting these children out to
men were coming to the house. I think the oldest
(01:05:18):
was ten, you know what I mean, And the youngest
was four boys and girls, you know. And I'm having
to sit there and try and speak to this guy.
And you know, as you know of the podcast I
mentioned many times, we've got a son and he was
four at the time, and just and they very what
(01:05:40):
I learned about the pedophiles in the time that I
spent with him in prison. As the master manipulators, they'll
turn everything back on you. They deflect all the time,
they deflect. I'll turn the conversation to something else, like
the angio was a perfect example. Ah. They they've been
trying to catch me. It's the corruption and this and
(01:06:01):
that and the other and you know, sure I might
go on, but with that something like that, you know,
where yeah, things like that, and having to deal with
those guys that goal was in my cell for you know.
And because he had money, they left him alone, you know.
And then he started manipulating people in the cell, because
(01:06:22):
there was always six or seven people that were regulars
in that cell, me included, and he started manipulating you know, people,
and you know, like yeah, and then as soon as
he got better, the first thing he did was signed
up with this American guy who had been doing whatever
he'd been doing to just terrific stuff.
Speaker 1 (01:06:47):
There's levels of yeah that just keep stooping down in
a prison, prison like that. Well, yeah, and as you've
told me, and then all the conversations we've had, there
so many stories, and I've only drawn on a small
part of it. The document we've been referring to as
(01:07:08):
a narrative that you wrote down. I read it and
I was blown away. And as I said to you,
I was reading another book and prep for a guest
coming on the podcast, and this was sent to me
by a mutual friend, and I started reading and I
didn't put it down because I just it was just
so heavy in what's there? So an amazing story, and
(01:07:31):
I've just got to say in finishing up, Yeah, I
don't think you should feel shame. I think you should
be proud of the fact that you survived the situation
that most people wouldn't.
Speaker 2 (01:07:40):
Thank you, Gary, I appreciate that. Really.
Speaker 1 (01:07:42):
All the best, all the best for the future. It
was a good future.
Speaker 2 (01:07:45):
Thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:07:47):
Cheers.
The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Detective sy aside of life the average person is never
exposed to. I spent thirty four years as a cop.
For twenty five of those years I was catching killers.
That's what I did for a living. I was a
homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead,
I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.
(00:23):
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. Ian,
(00:45):
welcome back to part two. Thank you if I catch killers.
I'm digesting some of the things that you're saying. And
I look at you sit here, looking at you, and
we talked of off camera a little bit during the
break and how intimidating an environment that would have to be.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Yeah. Yeah, Like I said, words can't describe. It's very
hard to, you know, deal with everything.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
And I would imagine the emotional angst about what the
hell am I doing in here? When am I going
to get out? You just don't know how long this
nightmare is going to go on for.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
And now in jail you you had the fight, Yeah, plenty.
How many fights would you estimate your head?
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Ten?
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Maybe?
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Maybe? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Maybe? Well it was a few kind of scuffles, but
probably ten, probably good ones.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Were you a physical bloke before you went went there?
Were you?
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Oh? I mean I was waying what seventy eight kilos?
I'd done a little bit of boxing through my childhood
with a few fellas from the beaches and stuff. Yeah,
I wouldn't as a professional boxer though, Yeah, I mean,
you know, I can handle myself to a degree.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Okay, So you could invoke some aggression where you needed
to stand up for yourself.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
And I had, you know, I had a fair bit
of aggression because of my situation. You know, I could
draw on that.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Why are you so angry? Why are you so angry?
Just let it go. I honestly, mate, I don't know
how you survived. I'm sitting here and I'm looking at you.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Know.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
We've had people on that have committed crimes that they
know they're going to get if they get caught, they're
going to get lengthy sentences in foreign prisons and different things.
But we're talking at the worst. It's damaged to an
ATM machine. And I can tell you after me meeting you,
if I go across it whenever I'm overseas, be very
(02:52):
kind to ATM machines.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
I wouldn't be going to camba to you.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Okay, Well, look, we make light of a situation so
far from light, but I think sometimes you've got to
find that the brightness in the darkness or you can't survive.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yeah. Well I've had that from good advice for people,
that you've just got to move forward. And yeah, and
look again I said earlier, you either laugh or you cry,
and I've done me crying, and I'm in Sydney laughing,
but I'm not on the inside. It's just it's one
of those responses, isn't it like a nervous laugh or
(03:27):
you know.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
It's a way of dealing dealing with it. I want
you talked. You said to me that you mentioned in
part one that you saw eleven people die in the prison,
and there's one that you wrote about in detail, and
I just want to read that out and then ask
you some questions, questions about that, and you're describing this
(03:49):
particular death of an inmate. They handcuffed this tie guide
to the bars at the back of the cell or
because he was sick and needed to keep using the bathroom.
They then took it in turns, kicking the absolute shit
out of him. This must have lasted at least an
hour when they finally stopped and removed the handcuffs. This
guy was so scared to move, the just pissed and
(04:10):
shit himself in the back corner. The next morning he
had died. So we're talking here about witnessing someone being.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Beaten to death.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Yeah, do you know why he was being beaten.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Because he was using the bathroom too much, because he
had gastro right and couldn't get any help. And that's
why I was in the hospital. So that that's in
the hospital now.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
And that was a good part. That's where you paid
extra together.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
I paid one thousand US to get into the hospital.
So the room would only be full of thirty people. Yeah,
like there was only six people in the room all
the time, But then patients would come in and out right,
and so he'd come in because he'd had bad gastro
and just kept having to keep using the toilet. But
(05:00):
two of the guys worked at the hospital, so they
had our pair of handcuffs in the cell for that purpose.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
What was going through your mind watching this?
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Want? I wanted again, I wanted to stop it. I
couldn't believe what I was watching. It's very again, very confronting,
and you just you feel bad because the way that
someone would treat another human being, it's just it's beyond me,
(05:32):
you know, like I can't, I can't. I just I
just remember that him screaming as well, stop, you know,
and and they just taking turns and laughing like it
was some kind of evil game. You know. The more
he pleted, the more they builded him and kicked him.
(05:53):
I think it lasted longer than an hour, to be honest,
you know. And then they'd look at one another and go, oh,
look what I can do next, and kick him in
the ribs, and you know, another guy just slap him
across the face at one and like to make him flinch,
and you know they had Yeah, it was it was
pretty full on. And you know the next day the
(06:15):
guy's dead in the morning.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
And just laughing at while they're doing it.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it's a crazy, crazy place to be.
I just so many things, so many things I saw
that people should never see. Really, I could go on
(06:40):
and on. I mean, seriously, I know, and I've just did.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
There's so many things you can pull out, pull out
of what happened to you in prison. When you reach
it reached out to me. You wanted to tell the story.
You want people to understand the dangers and all that,
and yeah, let's not be naive when we think there's
there's justice and humanity in the world. Some places you
(07:06):
find yourself that's so far from it, are you? And
I checked with you before I raised this, but you
also detailed the account when you were gang raped one
of the times in the prison. I just get if
it's okay with you, and I'm going to read out
what you said there and then I'll let you comment
(07:27):
if you need to comment or feel feel to comment.
But I'm also mindful that since been released from prison
and coming back to Australia, that you're getting treatment for
the traumas and the things that you happen. So if
any point in time you want me to stop or
we change the subject, feel free. I was tipping some
(07:52):
water from the bucket over my head when five guys
stormed in. I tried my best fighting them off, hitting
one Cambodian in the throat and smashing another one's head
against the concrete wall, but there was too many of them.
Eventually they pinned me down to the filthy, wet floor,
two guys holding my hands and two guys holding my
feet while the fifth Cambadium raped me. My face was
(08:21):
pushed into the concrete. I was helpless to do anything.
Words can't describe what I was thinking. In the end,
I just tried to block everything out of my mind.
Nobody came to help me. I'll never forget how it
made me feel, and just one other aspect. And that
(08:43):
was the first of four times I was raped in prison.
Sitting here now writing this, I feel a sense of numbness.
Those men have taken something from me that can never
be returned. I just remember leaving the shower with my
backside bleeding, putting on my pants, and sitting on the
cell of the floor staring at the ground in shame.
(09:03):
Mm hm, I yeah, I don't know what to say
that what? What's how?
Speaker 2 (09:12):
How? Literally? How I wrote that down is how pretty
much happened. Now I felt, you know, you feel guilty.
I never asked for that, and the shame and that
just that I could still feel the wetness on my
face the bathroom floor, and still smell the smells of
(09:35):
the sewerage, and just having to pick myself up like
some used up piece of meat, put my pants on
and sit back in a corner, and life goes on.
You know, they just keep doing what they're doing. Nothing
gets said, nothing gets you get the occasional look, but
(09:56):
there's no there's no I.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
U okay, mate, there's there's.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Well it's almost like they look at you just like
I'm glad it wasn't me this time.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Yeah, yeah, that's what they've created in the environment like that.
It's well, when I say interesting, maybe not the right word,
but look at what humans can do to other other humans,
No wonder the world can be a fucked place at times. Yeah,
when you've got people that do that, and yeah, we've
(10:29):
talked about it, and you mentioned there you feel guilt
and shame. Mate, I say this to you. You've survived.
You survived, so you've got got it over them. The
low lives that do that to you.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Yeah, and that's that's why when I wrote that down,
I said, I could talk about the other ones, but
it doesn't really help me. Yeah, you know, I mean,
if you wanted to seriously talk about the other ones,
I would, but it doesn't help me. Just to know
about what you've just read out. It's pretty much the
(11:07):
same feelings with the others, apart from the one with
the guards, because I used to come in and just
drag people out they get drunk, come in and drag
a person out, take them to their quarters. Yeah, so
that that you know that, and that they're pretty horrific,
(11:28):
you know, I mean, they're all horrific, but you do
become a bit more numb to it. I'm still pretty
shook up because I haven't read this transcript back since
I wrote it, you know, pretty much. I had a
glanced over it today, but that's it. And yeah, to
hear it again just brings back all the memories, just
(11:51):
keep flooding back, you.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Know, powerful words and yeah, yeah, you're getting help for it.
You're saying that.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Yeah, it was funny. The Trump sexual trauma counselor said
to me, you know, when we wrote it all out
to send off to you and hopefully to the Human
Rights Commission as well, and things like that. That when
I was in the police station leading up to going
into the prison, I was talking in first person, and
(12:26):
then when I get into prison, I'm talking in third person.
And I didn't. I didn't. I'm not an author, you know,
or creative writer, you know. But she picked up on
that and she said, that's a sure sign of trauma.
Trauma and how you perceive, you know, how to deal
with things like you're stepping, you're removing yourself from stuff.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
And I guess that's you know, makes sense.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Yeah, you know. But the thing that really makes me
angry is that I never asked for any of this.
I never once, you know, like, I did nothing wrong.
Even if you've done something wrong, nothing like this should
ever happen to you. You know. It takes your dignity away.
(13:15):
You feel if you know, you feel, you feel so
much shame and so much guilt. Why couldn't have just
fought a bit harder? You just can't. There's five guys,
some of them can kick box, you know. They're not
all just little skinny Cambodians. There's guys in there doing
life they're never getting out, you know that they don't
(13:36):
care if they kill someone, because what are they going
to do, give them another twenty years on their sentence
not getting out anyways. It's one of those situations. And
there's so many of those guys in there, that's what
makes it a scary place too. And the guards aren't
do anything about it because they could kill a guard
and what's going to happen. They'll just they'll probably end
up getting killed themselves, but it doesn't matter to them,
(13:57):
you know. And there's so many of them in there
that are doing life.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Yeah, and you can't report it to the guards. As
you said, one of the rape situations involve the guards.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Yeah, yeah, I think I mentioned to you too. The
lady boys they got the worst. Yeah, you know, the
ones that were taking in well, whatever they were doing,
they're getting done for prostitution ties Cambodians all that. That
would be nightly and not just once a night, five
(14:30):
six seven, just depend on how many guards and how
many guards were drinking. They'd gamble, they'd drink, and then
they just go around.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
And just pluck prisoners out, pluck prisoners. It's disgusting, it is,
it is.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
And there's so many other things, you know, like that,
I could I want to say about different things like
if you don't bring them up, I want to, I
want to get them across.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Well, there's ten thousand prisoners in there, wasn't it.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
And another great point, it's built for four thousand. Four thousand,
that's how many is meant to be in that prison.
There's over ten thousand in there. So when I'm talking
about four hundred in a cell's it's four hundred. And
it's not a big cell. You know, people are squashed
up against the bars. You knows, there's one toilet or
(15:19):
maybe two if you're lucky. A shower where you've got
a bucket of green water that's got mosquito larvae and
you know, dangi fever and you're using that the shower.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
It's just the threat of diseases, every.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Disease, COVID, all the main in every std under the sun,
but all the main ones, some of the ones. I
don't think we've even got much in Australia anymore. You know,
guys with what's one where you cough up the blood tuberculosis,
I think that's it. Yeah, it's very it's very contagious
(15:58):
and then it's like, yeah, you start coughing and then
you're coughing up blood and that's you know, and that's
very contagious. And all these other things obviously scabies and
golden staff rife through everywhere. You know, I was covered
in it, Yeah, absolutely covered everywhere everywhere, and bedsaws from
laying on the ground on the concrete for too long,
(16:20):
like your hips, they start getting lumps in your hips
and either side.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
You know, you wrote in wrote in your transcript there
about the mattress that was up with all just the
wire and torture as in putting people electric uity people describe,
describe that what you saw there, Just to put.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
It briefly, there's six or eight cells. That's the hospital basically,
and then where they do the surgeries over here and
they administer their medications, their medications down the other end
was this room and it had a small room, smaller
than this and it just had a bed. But the
springs of the mattress in it, all the material and
(17:08):
that all gone all gone, yeah yeah, and you know,
and there's a few bars on it. Yeah, one can't
only think you know what was going on there?
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
And the way, and in the hospital too, you're dealing
with people that are clearly have got severe mental health
issues that should be in care, real care, that are
going around and you know, bashing people, but then ten
seconds later wouldn't even know they've done it, you know.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Yeah, so.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
You know it's crazy.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
You got stabbed? Yeah, yeah, tell us about that incident
and what happened.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Well, I had an altercation because, like I said, there's
all these lane ways and nooks and cranny so there's
not a lot of cameras. It's not like no, no,
of course not. They only put him in the areas
where the people come in and see who fund. So
I had an alccasion with one guy and he's as
he's come up and ran or not ran, as just
(18:17):
kicked me in the arm like this nearly busted my
arm his mate.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Do you mind for show you this is a so
that for those listening to this podcasting, and just showed
me the stab wound where he was stabbed in the
chest and it hit his ribs. You can't see it
obviously if you're listening to this, but if you want
to see what we're talking about, you can view it
on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
No that's what sharpened up a piece of perspects pipe.
And just as so, the other guy's kicked me. He's
come up from underneath and got me. So there's two
on me. And then I didn't really because it got
jammed in between my ribs.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
So I'm quite fortunate that he well, you know what.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
I didn't get a vital organ.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Yeah, it got stuck in there and then I and
then I just kept going and then it kind of
dissipated and then I pulled it out. And there's no
way I was going to the hospital. No way it was.
It was. There was no doctors at the hospital, not one.
It was all prisoners doing procedures.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
So how did you treat yourself? Because that feeling, that womb? Yeah, significant,
significant word.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
I just I got, you know, some some guys. You know,
there was a Belgian guys, a Filipino guy. They was saying,
put this stuff on it, and they had some stuff. So,
you know, the foreigners all kind of stuck together.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
So there was that smidgen of humanity in there with
the foreigner foreigners. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Yeah, well it's almost like us against them, you know,
And that's how it was for quite some time. You know,
and and and one of the Nigerians even said that
to me. He said, how he approached me after he
known I've been raped and he goes, how you traveling right?
And I said I'm not good and he goes, mate,
just remember this, it's us against them.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
I think that was the first time I had the
first cigarette.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Yeah. And then I use them as currency because that's
what you do, you know, to get some food or something.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
So what was what was your lowest point in the
time that you're in prison?
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Ah? I mean, obviously the rapes, sexual assaults pretty hard
to deal with. You going to a pretty bad depression.
You don't want to talk to anyone. You get some
foreign guys, like there's a friend. I called him a
friend because a sign I could confide in. He'd come
up and go, mate, I know what's happened, and you
kind of you're trying and remove yourself from people, which
(20:43):
is a bad thing because then you go into a
dark place and then you start thinking, well, maybe I'll
just try and escape and they'll shoot me, you know,
or if you end up doing too if you start
doing some stuff that really puts there their naise out
of whack. They'll put you in this place. It's called
the dark Room for thirty days. It's just a dark
(21:03):
room with the most crazy people in there that they
you know, that aren't getting out, and they'll supply methanphetamine, whatever.
They don't care. It's like a zoo, you know, in
that room. There's no clocks, there's no nothing. Everything you
buy if you want a bottle of water, it's ten
times the price and I don't can to afford anything.
(21:24):
I know. If people look the Nigerian guy, Chicker, he
bought his way out of there. He was only in
there a couple of days, and he says, you're just
in a corner. You can't see anything, or you can
see people lighting lighters, smoking ice. It's completely black, you
know what I mean. And he said he was just
there's a guy jerking off next to him. He doesn't care,
(21:45):
you know, like he's going to get away from me.
But that's the least of his problems, you know.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
And just when I didn't think you could surprise me
anymore now, like mate, the dark room, Yeah, I'm just
trying to picture it, all these crazy people or whatever
in there in a pitch black room and you just
frown in there.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
No clock's known nothing, thirty days, sixty days, ninety days,
one hundred and twenty days, there's been God, there was
guys in there months and months.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Don't keep your sanity, you don't.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
That's the thing, that's what they want. That's how they
break you. You want to muck around real bad. They're
just chucking in there. You know, if you get caught
with something. It's such a corrupt place that they supply
all the drugs, the phones because people buy it off them.
Then they'll get an independent organization like the police from
(22:41):
the outside would come just out of the blue and
start raiding sections like oh, they're going through BLOCKAH today
and just going in there, and then they find a phone.
Who's this belonged to? It's that Chinese guy, beat the
crap out of him, give him another three years on
his sentence, and then the same guy two weeks later
selling him back that same phone or drugs or whatever
(23:04):
else it was. You know, moonshine. There was plenty of
everything going on in there, you know everything. Guys were
walking around with monkeys, with the real rich guys. There
was a guy walking around with like a spider monkey
pet monkey, pet monkey on his on his shoulder. There
was guys who had like massive bil constrictors in tanks.
There was lots of different birds and things like that
(23:27):
that people were allowed to have and keep because they
paid big money. Are paying like a thousand the vip
sells are paying ony twelve hundred US a month, and
they could get any luxury they wanted, you know, and
the guards would go in there and drink with them,
even the senior guards, you know, they would go in
(23:48):
and drink with them. You know, they'd have girls brought in.
They could have anything they wanted, you know. And those
guys weren't getting out. They knew it. So I was like, well,
I've got millions of dollars. I'm just gonna make the
best of it.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Yeah, did you have concerns when you're in there that, yeah,
you've got this minor charge that you're fighting that one
would hope you're not going to get years since to
Did you have concerns that you'd be laded up with
another charge or defend yourself and injure someone, or end
up charge and yeah, yeah, definitely for the rest of
(24:21):
your life.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Definitely. Well, my charge at one stage was three years.
Three years. That was going to be the charge for
damaging your beast of property. Yeah, you know, and you
know I fell in to protect my head and my
hand hit the glass like that. But I was all
over the shop because I've been drugged.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
And like I sit here, I wouldn't care if you
ran up and kicked the ATM or attacked it with
a baseball bat.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
Funnily enough, that's what they said in court when I
went to court. The first time they said to me
was I tried to steal the ATM machine, right, pick
it up.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
It weighs more than me. Well, you grew up around
the northern It was a spade of ATM robberies, maybe
maybe missing missing the point.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
And then I said to them, can you show me
the footage? Then they brought up the next time. I wasn't, Oh,
you're trying to attack it with an iron bar? Bring it?
Can you just remind me? Bring up the footage? Then
you what was something else? Oh? Look, Then they brought
out the photos. These were the best, the photos of
me with my hands on the buttons and stuff. And
I was like, yeah, that's because I'm trying to withdraw money,
you know.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Like you've got to you've got to touch.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
It, ye, or you got to touch the buttons as well.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Did you get a did you get a sense? It
was just what can we extore.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Out of you? They called the land of wonder? Yeah,
it should be called the land of extortion. Yeah, because
that's what they do, you know, from the top down. Now,
I'm not mucking around when I say that.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
That's yeah, like the fact that they had it released
in the paper straight away as this Peneus crime, the
Peneus crime that you've committed, and you still won the
round as a tourist, and don't change fly or make
any effort to.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
You know, if I'd have done something bad, the first
thing you'd be doing is getting to the border of
Thailand and getting across. Yeah, you know all that n
up all ouse. You know, you wouldn't be hanging around
checking out the sites.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
It doesn't doesn't quite quite add up. Now does the
money that the money that your ex partner was sending
to you, you've credited that we've saving your life. What
sort of figures are we talking about? How much this
whole experience earns. Excellent adventure in Cambaiti it.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Costs one hundred and twenty thousand US. Yeah, as my
pretty much all my mum's inheritance that she'd left when
she passed, right.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
And there's a shame, the shame and guilt attached to
that too. Yeah, you know, but my sister told me
one thing that was important. When I was feeling really
low about that, she said, look, if mum was still alive,
she would have paid that to get you out, you know.
But it was and the way they did it as well,
(27:07):
you know, the you're bribing everybody, you know, it's not
just one person.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Did I read it right? At one point in time,
when you could pay this much money and you'll be released,
This as the advice you're getting. But if you can't
pay that much money, you'll get charge with bribing a.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
No, No, it was. What it was was that they
sent a figure, their lawyers send a figure, save eight thousand.
I think it was the first time to fix a
piece of glass that might cost one hundred dollars to
fix eight thousand. So if we send eight thousand straight away,
they'd send it back when we want fifteen, send fifteen,
(27:46):
we want twenty five, and so on just kept on
going up. Yeah, So my initial charge would have I
would have been in there for three years. And then
I said to my lawyer, I said, we're not a
wealthy family. We kind of just keep for chucking money,
thrying money around. We're not rich. You know, we did
have extra money, but we weren't trying to tell her
(28:07):
that at this stage. And that that's another thing where
you you just you feel all your you just get
depleted again. It's you know, like it's like you're just
trying to you think you make an inroads and they
knock your back down. Lots of prisoners inside there said
you never leave Cambodia. You never ever leave Cambodia. And
(28:29):
that's so true. I didn't believe it until I actually
got out. How much harder it was just to get
out of the country.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Once I got there, they keep you.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Yeah. Yeah, and then you know you're not just bribing judges,
your bribe and guards, you drive bribe and everyone, you know,
just to you know, my lawyer was ringing my ex
partner saying we're going to need extra money for this,
and she was handing it over thinking that I was
verifying it because we couldn't always communicate. Yeah, and then
(29:02):
you know, the embassy would charge me money when they
brought money in for me. But the thing is, you say,
if you've got two hundred dollars US, the first couple
of times you come in that gate, they'd patch you
down and just take it.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Yeah, you know, I wondered that when you get money,
how you hang on to it? Where is it? Where's
the captain? You had said that when you got food
or water or that quite often you just drink it
all either all because it was going to get taken
off you anyway.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Yeah, Well, if you went back to the captain and
the captain goes, why and you buy the water off
me or cigarettes or food food here was a bit
easy going on with because they would kind of understand
that we couldn't eat their food.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Yeah, kinder mind.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
You they're farm and catfish and give them your maggot
ridden rice, you know, and grown a few vegetables that
were sprayed with toxins, you know, and it was growing
on top of the sewer. Yeah. And that's another thing
that the smell of the sewer was there the whole time.
Like it's the rainy season for example, that the place
(30:07):
just floods, you know, snakes everywhere place, floods, generators go out,
the fans stopped working, there's no light, don't you think
it starts kicking off? Then prisoners just fighting each other
in the dark. No one's going to know what's going on. Yeah,
it's crazy. Yeah, yeah, like the king Cobras women in.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Someone called it killed it like.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
A whip, like picked it like as a farmer, and
then they led the Cambodian go yeah, just picked up
on the towel and crack and then it was eating
that the next day. But they ate anything anything, they
get their hands on, dogs, everything.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Even when the negotiations got to the point like I'm
not even going to break down the court matter, like
and I've got all these emails here and I bore
them in. I was going to dissect some of them.
But their emails, communications and text messages and different things
between yourself, your partner, and the consular admin and the embassy.
(31:12):
What comes across in all of these is how desperate
the situation was. It was just frustration, and frustration is
felt in every page. And then yeah, it's all tied
it up. Ian's doing fine. We're working to get him out.
But it didn't seem to be any progress whatsoever, And
there was nothing that was Okay, you've got to get
to this if you plead guilty, or this is going
(31:34):
to happen. It was always ambiguous what was going to happen,
what the next thing was.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
We're bound by Cambodian law.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
Yeah, and you made the point too that when embassy
officials or a consular officer came out, there was always
a Cambodian with them the whole time, just making sure
that you're You never felt safe that you could tell
someone from the Australian console, this is what the ship
that's going down, because you've got someone there listening that.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
And also that she was watching her too, because then
she would because they go away and have conversations because
they don't want the prison to look bad, so they
lose funding. That funding goes to the trickles down from
the top CEO of the you know, the prison all
the way down or the general or what you want
(32:22):
call him, because that's how they run it like a
like an army.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
When no, I I think I'm not if. I often
wondered what cloud in Australian citizen has been arrested abroad,
But it just shows how limited it is depending on
where you've you've been apprehended.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Yeah, it's you know, getting out the worst. One of
the worst parts was when you when you get to
your last month, you have to go and take your
photos for inter pola. So they take photos of your tattoos,
they take your face obviously, and what you look like.
(33:04):
You got your name, you got your board up. But
that sends a signal to every other prisoner that you're
getting out, yeah, within a month. And if someone's in
there for twenty five years to life, they just want
to cause trouble for you because they want, you know,
to see you get more time. It's almost like a
(33:24):
jealousy thing too. If I can't get out, he.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Should should he's better than us.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Yeah, So I do avoid people like the plague for
that last month, which I managed to do. But I
think it was Chicker, the big Nigerian guy helping me there.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
He was putting the word or keeping an eye out.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Yeah. Yeah, he was really a good, good fella.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
But that must be so hard. Like here it is freedom,
it's dangled in front of you, but knowing that you're
at the higher risk at that point in time.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
Yeah, yeah, it was tough, very tough. After everything that
was going on, guy's still tried to fight and stuff.
I just I don't know, we got difused pretty quickly.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
You tried to step away from it.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Yeah, Well there's occasions where you had to just kind
of hurt something pretty quickly. Doo. Yeah, you know, honestly
make it so that no one's you know, he just
fell over, yeah, or something like that.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Unbelievable. When did you actually find out that you got
a date and that you were being released from prison?
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Well, that's an interesting story in itself. They used to
the guards used to tell me I was getting out tomorrow,
paperwork's coming tomorrow, just to play with it, play with
my emotions. And that went on for a few weeks,
and then it finally came. I can't remember what time was,
early afternoon. And then they all, as I wrote in
(34:50):
the transcripts, they all stood there with their hands out
like as if I wanted money, as if that they'd
done me a favor, thanks.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
For thanks for looking after you that.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
And then on the way out, every guard on the
way out as well. So yeah, and then and then
I find out, you know, I was told told time
and time again. Once you get out of prison, you're
going home. Yeah, and then I find out that I've
(35:26):
got to spend another three months there. Explain that, well,
I was told by the Australian embassy over in Cambodia.
But once I got out, i'd be released. I received
my passport back and my luggage back to the point
where I actually went to the courthouse and paid two
hundred dollars US to get that in process. And then
(35:50):
my lawyer was even too worried to come and see me.
She rang me and said, oh, you know, I said, well,
what's happening with the courts? When do we get my
past back? I want to go. I've got my family
to go and see. I've got my boy to go
and see. You know, when I'm going home. You know,
there's a couple of days, a couple of days, and
just kept on going like that. So what's going on?
(36:13):
And she goes buy law Cambodian law. They've got three
months to the right of the right of an appeal.
So I roped all these people work. How can you
appeal that? You know?
Speaker 1 (36:26):
And then because so you had the remaining Cambadia for
three months after being released from prison because they might
or might not appeal lodging the pill.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
And they still have my passport and my all my
luggage at court, so I'm still walking around and then
pretty much the same clause as I had on when
I left prison, which is filthy.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
And I would imagine if you, if you did anything wrong,
you would have been straight.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
Straight in prison. That was the scary thing. But I
went straight out of it because I was still at
that stage well at that STAF. I just moved into
the apartment straight across the road from the Strain Embassy.
So I've run down there and gone knocked in there
and said, what's this about? You told me I was
(37:13):
going home. They knew the law, they knew that there
was three months I had to stay longer, but they
told me differently. Otherwise why would they do that? I
don't know, but you know, that's something that I'd like
to discuss further with the right people, because them saying
that to me, you know, and then saying again I
(37:33):
were bound by Cambodian law. The only thing they ever
did for me was mere stat deck, which they are
very they weren't very keen on doing that. I asked
them for other things to say, No, we can't do that,
you know, ask them to write a letter to the
courts to get more stuff ret leased. Oh, we can't
do that. It's the courts, it's Cambodian law, you know.
(37:55):
And I was so paranoid at that stage that just
going to get a knock any time, you know, I
didn't want to go outside, but then I felt unsafe inside.
And then you'd see police officers, you hear sirens, you'd
hear bangings, you know, you hear a banging door, and
you can just remind you of a jail door closing,
you know, the closing. Yeah, triggers, heaps of triggers.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
How did you eventually get your passport back?
Speaker 2 (38:22):
We finally, the lawyer finally got it back.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
And then.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
Pretty much after that was when I laughed, because you're thinking, Okay,
I've got my passport and got my luggage. By this stage,
I'd moved out of that apartment. So we get to
immigration and I've got my passport, I've got my luggage.
(38:48):
I go into immigration and he looks at the paperwork
and he says, you've overstayed your visa by X amount
of months. I said, I understand that I'm I've been
in jail. He's the paperwork for them, you know. And
he goes and then there's an extra three months your law, Cambodian.
Speaker 1 (39:09):
Law, you know where you I wasn't allowed to love, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
I wasn't allowed to leave. And then he just he
sits down and he's talking to her, the solicitor and
lawyer talking to her. They've come up with this agreement
that I should be paying. I think it was either
fifteen or twenty US dollars for every day i'd overstayed
my versa. So that quiet, and then he goes look forget,
(39:37):
and they're talking nothing. I can't understand what they're saying.
And then he goes, look, how about we square this
up five thousand US. I just looked at him and
I said, mate, I don't have any money. Yeah, and
then he kind of he kind of understood a little
bit and the body language, and then they've started going again,
(40:01):
and then he's gone down to twenty five hundred, and
I said, listen, I told you I don't have any money.
And then he started getting angry and he says, well,
I want receipts. You show me where you spend all
this money I said, well, you know, I just started
naming names, you know who didn't get a bribe. Basically
(40:23):
it was there. It was you know, everyone got a bribe,
you know. So and then he just couldn't handle any
more of it and he just get out, get out.
So and I think that was the last time I
saw my solicitor too. I'm pretty sure that was the
last communication I had with her ever. But I'm still
(40:43):
stuck in Cambodia. Like I said, Cambodia is it keeps
you there? You can't get out, you know, it traps
you there. So then the next time I'm speaking to
the embassy again, saying listen, deport me, deport me. I
want out. They're going, well, this is before I'd got
(41:04):
my passport back. They were saying, we can't deport you.
We know where your passport is. It's in the courts.
I'm saying, We'll just get me a new passport. Can't
you just do that? Can't I just sneak over the border?
Can't I do any of this stuff? They said, we
don't advise it. Have you get caught, You're going back
to jail. And I'm glad I didn't. Yeah, but in
the same taken when I heard that I had to
(41:24):
stay another three months. That was one of the times
that nearly broke me and I nearly took my own life. Yeah,
I was looking for places to jump. I found myself
in a state where I was checking door handles of
the top floor of the apartment building to see if
I'll get on the rooftop. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
And you think that the culmination of it, you just
had nothing.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
Left, nothing left in the tank, nothing left mentally. You
know I was done.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
Yeah. Yeah, you've broken.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
Broken, but very much so broken.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
Man.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
I've sat in front of my trauma counselor and broken
down many times, and that's one of the terms of used.
I just feel like a broken person. I feel like
sometimes I feel like I it would be better if
I wasn't around, you know, because I just I don't
know what I can give. I know I've got to offer.
(42:18):
She reminds me, I've got a lot to give an offer,
and it keeps me going.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
And then you know, you're getting advice from experts, So
take what I say with a grain of salt. But
there's total respect there too. What you've got through a
lot of people wouldn't have got through and you talk
about shame and disappointment of all these different things. Mate,
you survived something that I reckon ninety percent of people
wouldn't survive.
Speaker 2 (42:45):
Well, it blows my mind. I lost my mum. Yeah,
my relationship broke down and then I end up in
that position.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
One of those three can knock people around pretty baily,
and I got all three of them. But my mum
died in front of me.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
I was doing CPR and my mum with the mobile
phone with a loud speaker on with the lady counting
in to do the compressions until the ambulance drivers got there.
You know this, This, this is how it unfolded. There
was that, and the relationship came to breaking down, and
then I went on this holiday and ended up in
(43:20):
a campbadi in prison and not in the space of
a long time.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
Okay, so you're dealing with dealing with so much.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
Well, yeah, I don't. I don't know how I've done it.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
But again, you're doing it one step at the time. Yeah,
keep moving forward.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
I mean I had beatings too where I couldn't count
and come my guard. Because you're doing prison counts, you
come up with a big set of old keys, you know,
and just smash it in.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
The back of the head.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
Yeah, I can't even remember. I try to forget. Yeah
I used to be able to count to ten, but yeah,
you just do that, you know, things like that at all.
But yeah, getting back on. So I then went to
the embassy again and said, listen, this is what's going on.
(44:10):
They're trying to this is wrong. You told me three
more months I had to stay here. I did the
three months, and now they're trying to tell me that
I've got to pay, you know, because I've overstayed my visa.
This is wrong. What are you going to do about it?
And it got to the point where I had to
physically go down there myself, go into that office and say, listen,
(44:32):
there are no receipts. I want to be deported. I
wanted to be deported now. And I just I was
at that point where I didn't care what happened anymore.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
You get to a point where, yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
Reckless, abandon if you want to call it, where you're
screaming at the top of your lungs. People are in
there just going what's going on here? I want to
be fucking deported. I want to be deported right now,
because the immigration office is literally just across a road
from the international airport. Two guys come in with guns right,
(45:06):
grab me, pulled me out, which was probably a good thing.
Pull me out. Say down there, it's the police station.
You go down there and you tell them what you're saying, okay,
because there they look after the people who get who
are getting deported, and they've got to stay in that
cell for a month. So I get down there or
fight up and then something clicks in me and I'm like,
(45:27):
I just got to remain calm. Now. I got out
of that situation when I didn't think I was.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
It sounds like you're very lucky, lucky.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
Yeah, very lucky. That guy could have just gone right,
police take him. But he sent me to a police station.
But it's also to do with immigration and stuff as well.
So anyway, I've gone down and seen him. I've told him, look,
I've showed him the paper I had all the paperwork
there as well. That's something I couldn't understand. So he
(45:54):
and he could speak fairly decent English, this one guy, right,
But I was upset. I was physically shaking. I was crying,
and he's looking at me, and like, when you're that emotional,
he'd start saying stuff to me, and I'd start cutting
him off, and he'd say, listen, do you want me
to help you or not? You know, you want me
(46:16):
to help you or not, he said, because usually i'd
put you in that seal. You be in that seal
for a month before you get deported. And that's the
last thing I needed. So anyways, and then he's got
my passport, which I was shitting myself about because the
last time someone had my passport I was ended up
back I was in prison, right, they didn't give it back.
(46:37):
He's got that. He's put me up against the wall
with a sign, you know, with the you know, I
don't even know what it. Yeah, like I was back
at the start in the airport, you know, with all
the pictures of all the deals and stuff on stuck
up the back, making me look like I was a
drug dealer or something.
Speaker 1 (46:57):
You know that with a freak. Yeah, it did.
Speaker 2 (47:00):
But when I wrote about it, I said I had
to trust him, even though every part of me said don't.
I just he had literally he had my life in
his hands. At that stage. I was so powerless, so
so powerless that if he'd taken it one direction, then
(47:23):
he could have said, oh, yeah, he's caught a scene
down there. Give him another six months or a year
or whatever, sort him out, you know. But then there
was all these other guys, and they're all asking me
questions where you're from, what you're doing, why you're in prison.
You know, some of them could talk a bit of English.
I guess it goes with immigration, you know, they must
(47:44):
have to know a little bit more English to understand,
like they can speak to Indians and so forth, because
they all speak English as well. And there was an
Indian bloke in funnily enough, in the detention center there,
while waiting to get out and so and then he goes, right,
what I need from you? How quickly can you get
a plane ticket? I said, I can get it tomorrow.
(48:05):
He was right. And then he gave me an email address,
and he said, and I lied and said that the
embassy sent me down here. I do, mate. But that
was the other thing. If if he caught onto that
the game was up, and you know, the embassy said
to come down here to speak to you, you.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
Know about this, I'd put it in the little after.
Speaker 2 (48:28):
Going yeah, after going up being up there, you know,
and then just sending me down. So obviously there was
no communication through that those two different entities or whatever.
I don't know. Well maybe that's what happened later with
the car, the card or better retribution for that. But
so anyways, I said, I can get it tomorrow and
(48:49):
get I can get a letter from the embassy, which
I did. It's just say, you know, well they photo
copied the because he says email it to me, and
I didn't want to do that. I said, no, mate,
I'll do you one better. I'll get a photo copy
of the flights. I'll hand it to you. I'll get
three copies, one for me, one for you, and one
for the embassy. And so I get down there, and
(49:09):
I get down there as early as possible because traffic's
bad and stuff like that, and with my luggage, with
my passport, and things just weren't seeming right, you know.
And you know, you meant to be on a flight,
an international flight. Was it three hours before you meant
to be at the the two hours to go? And
(49:32):
I'm asking, ah, you know, it's do we need to
get going across the road there? And then yeah, they're
all getting dressed up in their military outfits, like those
headhind chows at the prison. They're all in their black
They look like they're a car key with all their
medals and their black shiny shoes and the black bround. Yeah.
(49:54):
Then they're very proud, you know. And then he there's
a police car there, one that we're going in, and
he put your hand on there, like to get in,
and he just slams the door straight on it. Bang
there you go out. Yeah, that's a spiral fracture. Yeah,
the other fingers got in there as well, but that
(50:16):
one got the brun of it. Blood everywhere, blood everywhere.
Speaker 1 (50:21):
So just he told you to put your hand there,
and then deliberately.
Speaker 2 (50:24):
Yeah yeah, but as I was getting in, so he's
strategically done it. But he's just gone bushka. And there
was no accident because then the cane came out. He
started caning me and another guy started caning me like
with a piece of you know that you get in
the school for massive Well, it's all over my back,
you know. Yeah, And I think one of the ways
(50:48):
that it was disguised is because I was covered in
say any other things, scabies and golden staff you.
Speaker 1 (50:54):
Know, and then you look at picture of hell oh mate,
and I got, I got.
Speaker 2 (51:01):
I got to you know. It was a half an
hour before we went over there and they marched me
in luggage. I didn't think, you know, there was there
was two things concerning me when I picked my luggage
up from the court because it'd been there a long
long time, that they might have signed something into it.
I had presents for my son and stepdaughter and all
(51:23):
this at the time, right, they were all taken all.
The only thing they didn't take was the sea and
reaped t shirt with a picture of ank or what
on it, because that would be bad for them to do.
You know.
Speaker 1 (51:37):
But I think they've got karma coming at them in
some way.
Speaker 2 (51:40):
Yeah, well they just yeah, well, I don't know that
that's they used religion when they want to know, with
the Buddhism, I thought Buddhas would meant to be peaceful.
And I said to one, I copt a beating for
that too. Bordha's watching you, Ba's watching you. Yeah, got
a bashing for trying to save someone his life as well,
(52:00):
you know, performing CPR on them. They said, let him die.
I was screaming out for the guards. They never come,
so yeah, and then my thingers bleeding everywhere. He's put
a bit of tape around it, tissue and a bit
of tape. Put me on the plane and it felt
(52:23):
like an eternity sitting on that tarmac. I just thought
they were going to come back walking back on which
they could have done, because it's almost like they're the
military the police over there. They've got the same power
pretty much. You know, the King of Cambardia doesn't really
do anything. It's the Prime minister who's got all the power.
(52:43):
And anyways, but we talk off when I get to Thailand,
and thankfully they had a hospital in the airport which
they could clean it up because I was worried about disease,
and you know, they're just the fact that the stuff
in the air it just breeds back to aia, you know,
very quickly. And they fixed that up and then I
(53:04):
got but I was stuck in Thai airport for twenty hours,
still walking around in my ratty old clothes, you know,
because everything in the bag that wasn't stolen was filthy.
Speaker 1 (53:15):
You know, I'd been there over a year, but I
could imagine from what you've come from, it was probably luxury.
Speaker 2 (53:22):
I was going into you know where you can go
and use the testers doing that because I was stinking,
and I was filthy, you know, and bit my feet
were filthy. I had a pair of radiold thongs on.
I landed in Sydney Airport and it was freezing, absolutely
freezing out A short, short pair of pair of shorts,
(53:42):
T shirt and thongs on.
Speaker 1 (53:44):
Who was here to meet you?
Speaker 2 (53:45):
No one I had to get from. Then I had
to get the plane up to the Gold Coast right.
And the funny story is that because I didn't drank
in such a long long time, these old rock and
rollers get on at Sydney right and wearing their sunglasses
and long scraggly hair. And then this guy gets on
(54:05):
with the aviators and the long curly hair. I can
smell him coming from the front of the plane. I
can smell the whiskey on him, a cigarette. It was
Dave Gleason now screaming jets and so I had him
sitting somewhere close to me in a Titans footy player
sitting directly across from me. I think it might have
been four and actually, and then when I got off
(54:27):
the plane, I always promised myself this. I got off
the plane. I literally went down. I was at the
back getting off the back, down the stairs and kissed
the ground. And he's looked at me and gone, what's
going on there? Said, mate, don't even ask. Just got up,
got into the airport waiting for my luggage, and I
saw Max Partner and you could see the look on
(54:49):
her face. She hugged me, but you could see the
look on her face. She couldn't believe how much weight
I'd lost. I was skin and bone and I was covered.
I'm surprised you wanted to argue. I was down to
forty forty five kes, something really gaunt in the face,
(55:10):
rib sticking out everywhere, and it took me a long
time to get any appetite back. You know, I couldn't eat.
Speaker 1 (55:17):
How your health you would have got your health checked out?
Speaker 2 (55:22):
I had to how you scrub up with any I
had every every blood test done for every STD all
come back negative, thankfully. I had a lot of general
towards and things like that. I had to get burnt off,
and then you know, the scabies and stuff that and
(55:42):
the Golden Staff was pretty bad. Like it took a
long time with tablets, ointments that you weren't just putting
dab and it was everywhere and for weeks or some well,
my face only took My face took the longest to
clear up. I don't know why, but it was maybe
a good month and a half before I've seen any results.
(56:04):
Was that bad, you know, And just the weight as well,
Like it was scary and I just couldn't eat. And
but you know, it's not just because it's over. It's
never over.
Speaker 1 (56:21):
No, you're describing the physical repairing of yourself, but I
imagine there's a mental and emotional scarring there.
Speaker 2 (56:29):
I just I can't work at the moment at all.
Everything triggers my traumas everything. I can't have people sitting
behind me. I've always I can see people out of
the corners of my eyes, you know, I always always
can see constantly worried about noises. It just triggers anxiety
(56:53):
as well, triggers trauma, you know, just so many different things,
like I can't sleep at night. The nightmares are some
of the worst things I've ever had in my life,
Like the especially you know, reoccurring nightmares, the rape. For example,
when I was saying to you before about you know,
(57:16):
I've never felt a sensation in a dream before, or
a smell. I can still feel that cold damp floor
on the side of my face when my head was
pushed down into the concrete while I was being attacked
sexually assaulted. The smell of the sewer, looking at the
filthy cook like crevice of a white wall, you know,
(57:41):
picturing that like just trying to, like I said, trying
to not think about what was happening to me. But
those it's almost like a still shot. But but in
a movie, like shots of a movie, it's not good.
(58:02):
It's not good, and it's going to take a long
time to get right.
Speaker 1 (58:05):
What the type of services are available to well.
Speaker 2 (58:09):
I see a psychiatrist every fortnight, and I see a
sexual trauma counselor every week. But you know, look, when
I first got back to after I spent the first week,
how long have you been back now it's about six
and a half months, I think. But when I first
got back to every service and it was very hard
(58:31):
to because you know, they deal a lot of people
coming out of prison in Australia, but they don't deal
a lot of people coming from overseas, and so they
just didn't know how to deal with me, and put
me to someone else. And you can't understand. My trauma
levels are so high, My anxiety levels are so high
that it's going in one ear coming out the other.
(58:52):
I'll go and see these people. I must have met
thirty or twenty people, all different abbreviated PhDs, this that
the other you know. Couldn't remember half of them. I
was writing them down, still couldn't remember. I was getting bombarded.
But they just moved me on and moved me on,
and moved me on and moved me on to another agency.
Couldn't deal with it. Then I got to like housing
(59:13):
places to sort out some temporar accommodation. They asked me
the wrong question, so I fell through the cracks there.
One of the ladies from safe Haven said are very
poignant things. She said, It's like you've just been plucked
from Mars and been chuck straight back on Earth. You're
just an alien, you know how you're dealing with all this,
like everything your sensory overload from coming from you everywhere,
(59:39):
And then and then some temporary accommodation is not ideal
and you stay there and it just triggers trauma. Because
of other people there that have got other issues themselves,
you know. So it's not been easy. I've been living
in my car at times. You know, it's not good. No, So,
(01:00:00):
you know I think today, I mean, there's so much
much more we could discuss about things. But I really
want people to understand be very cautious when you go overseas.
You might not be. You might be just crossing a
road and someone runs a map ed into your leg
(01:00:21):
and goes you were drunk, calls the police up, you
get arrested. That's how there was people in the Canvadian
prison that they were set up. You know, they just
flee them for money because they're European or whatever. Just
be very mindful about that. And I don't think that
because you're an Australian citizen that there's someone there to
(01:00:42):
help you either. Yeah, we're not.
Speaker 1 (01:00:44):
We're not eve, aren't we. Yeah, Like I think of
all the third world countries I've traveled in, the stupid
stuff you do when you're traveling, or the risks you take.
Speaker 2 (01:00:54):
Yeah, But most importantly, I hope it puts a real
strong light on the fact that you could, you know,
you could be in any situation and end up in prison.
That's what happened to me. I did nothing wrong, and
I I've had one hell of a hell of a time.
Speaker 1 (01:01:15):
You know, it's such such an important message. And when
their mutual friend got in contact with me and told
me a little bit about your story and then started
breathing documents, yeah you had it just blew me away.
And yeah, obviously here on my catch Killers, we have
people who have done a lot of time in prison
(01:01:36):
for a variety of crimes. But this is I think
this is an example of how something so innocuous can
turn into just change your life. But I also want
to make the point that your courage for you to
come out and talk about this, because I can see
how sometimes it might be your inclination. I just want
(01:01:57):
to walk away from it. I don't want to know
about They want to try and forget it. But my
way of viewing the way that you're approaching this, you're
taking it on, acknowledge that, not letting it break you,
and you're moving forward. And I keep coming back to
it because I'm just thinking, and I think anyone that's
listened to this podcast would be wondering how would I
(01:02:18):
react in that situation? That you found yourself in. Would
I survive? I don't know, Like that was a hardcore
where you found yourself in.
Speaker 2 (01:02:27):
It's funny how you know you can find resilience in
the places that you don't know where you've got them,
you know. I just again, there was times where I
didn't think I was going to make it, to be honest,
I had to think about my son, you know, he's
the one. And if it wasn't for my partner ex partner,
(01:02:48):
you know, sending that money. I mean, there's many factors
that kept me alive, yeah, you know, but they were
the two main ones. She saved my life. You know,
I'm forever, eternally grateful for her for that.
Speaker 1 (01:03:00):
Yeah. Well, you talked about another Aussie bloke that was
over there, and he had a long sentence and you
don't know what's happened to him, No, And I don't.
Speaker 2 (01:03:11):
See that the Australian embassy would be able to do
anything to help him there. Yeah, and I'd be very
surprised whether he's still alive or not. Yeah, it's you
just if you've got no money, you've got no chance.
And that's that's just that's the bottom.
Speaker 1 (01:03:28):
Line, you know.
Speaker 2 (01:03:30):
And if you get sick, you die. You're constantly battling
those things, you know, like I just can't get sick.
Speaker 1 (01:03:37):
You know, like it's tiptoeing through it. Mindfild it is.
Speaker 2 (01:03:40):
And then you've got people coming at you, want to
attack you, rape ya, kill you, pedophiles all around as well.
Like I didn't even touch on those kind of guys
I met, ye, mate, there's some of the stuff that
they did the young kids. But this guy came into
the cell on the very first day that he got
into prison, tried to commit suicide, jumped on off the roof,
(01:04:05):
climbed up on the roof and jumped on the razor. Y.
His name was Stephan from Switzerland. So I was in
the hospital at this time. So he's been stitched up
like he's you know, but he stayed in our room.
Now before when I was telling you about those two
guys who worked at the hospital, they also got the
charge sheets, so they could tell when I walked in there.
(01:04:26):
They get like, oh, you're the at M guy.
Speaker 1 (01:04:28):
Okay, So they get fed to them.
Speaker 2 (01:04:31):
Because they can't speak very decent English or you know,
English very well. I was almost like the conduit between
Stephan and because he could speak five languages. This guy
and all the pedophiles always had the same thing as well.
They'd all blame the angio. The angios of people come
in and say, listen, you're you're in trouble, you know.
(01:04:56):
So I've been read what this guy has done. He
had so he was with this woman who had six
kids to six different fellas. She's a nice addict Cambodian woman.
He's living with her. He's prostituting these children out to
men were coming to the house. I think the oldest
(01:05:18):
was ten, you know what I mean, And the youngest
was four boys and girls, you know. And I'm having
to sit there and try and speak to this guy.
And you know, as you know of the podcast I
mentioned many times, we've got a son and he was
four at the time, and just and they very what
(01:05:40):
I learned about the pedophiles in the time that I
spent with him in prison. As the master manipulators, they'll
turn everything back on you. They deflect all the time,
they deflect. I'll turn the conversation to something else, like
the angio was a perfect example. Ah. They they've been
trying to catch me. It's the corruption and this and
(01:06:01):
that and the other and you know, sure I might
go on, but with that something like that, you know,
where yeah, things like that, and having to deal with
those guys that goal was in my cell for you know.
And because he had money, they left him alone, you know.
And then he started manipulating people in the cell, because
(01:06:22):
there was always six or seven people that were regulars
in that cell, me included, and he started manipulating you know, people,
and you know, like yeah, and then as soon as
he got better, the first thing he did was signed
up with this American guy who had been doing whatever
he'd been doing to just terrific stuff.
Speaker 1 (01:06:47):
There's levels of yeah that just keep stooping down in
a prison, prison like that. Well, yeah, and as you've
told me, and then all the conversations we've had, there
so many stories, and I've only drawn on a small
part of it. The document we've been referring to as
(01:07:08):
a narrative that you wrote down. I read it and
I was blown away. And as I said to you,
I was reading another book and prep for a guest
coming on the podcast, and this was sent to me
by a mutual friend, and I started reading and I
didn't put it down because I just it was just
so heavy in what's there? So an amazing story, and
(01:07:31):
I've just got to say in finishing up, Yeah, I
don't think you should feel shame. I think you should
be proud of the fact that you survived the situation
that most people wouldn't.
Speaker 2 (01:07:40):
Thank you, Gary, I appreciate that. Really.
Speaker 1 (01:07:42):
All the best, all the best for the future. It
was a good future.
Speaker 2 (01:07:45):
Thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:07:47):
Cheers.
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