Why she’s ok that her brother's killer is free: Jessica Brown Pt. 1

On what seemed like an ordinary day, Jessica Brown was driving to her parents' house for lunch when her world was shattered, her brother Edan had been stabbed to death. If you're a regular listener of I Catch Killers, you’ll recall one of the most confronting conversations ever on this show, the moment Gary sat face to face with Anthony Jones, the man who took Edan's life. But that was only half the story. Now, we hear the other side of the story. In this episode, Jessica opens up about what it truly means to survive the murder of someone you love, the grief that never fully leaves, the moments that break you, and the extraordinary strength it takes to rebuild. She also shares how she transformed unimaginable pain into purpose. Listen to Anthony Jones on I Catch Killers here. https://pod.fo/e/3a9a2d Subscribe to our new Youtube channel. https://www.youtube.com/@ICatchKillers-Podcast Follow I Catch Killers: Instagram:@icatchkillers https://www.instagram.com/icatchkillers/?hl=enTiktok:@icatchkillerspodcast https://www.tiktok.com/@icatchkillerspodcastFacebook:@icatchkillers https://www.facebook.com/icatchkillers/ See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  The public has had a long-held fascination with detectives. Detectives see a side of life the average person is never exposed to. I spent 34 years as a cop. For 25 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 operate. 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.

• 0:46Speaker 00

  On what was otherwise an ordinary day, Jessica Brown was driving to a parent's house when she found out her brother Eden had been stabbed to death. Grief after murder is unlike anything else. There's a lot of pain and overwhelming sadness combined with anger. If you're a regular listener of I Catch Killers, you'll remember one of the most confronting conversations I had on this show was sitting across from Anthony Jones, the man who took Eden's life. Today, we hear the other side of the story. In this episode, Jessica shares what it means to survive after the murder of someone you love and how she turned that pain into purpose. Jessica is the driving force behind Sister to Sister and Warrior Woman

• 1:30Speaker 00

  and also sits on the Serious Offenders Review Board. She has a lot to talk about regarding the world of crime. Have a listen to what she has to say.

• 1:41Speaker 00

  Jessica Brown, welcome to I Catch Killers.

• 1:44Speaker 01

  Thank you for having me.

• 1:45Speaker 00

  Well, we've been in a lot of communication in the last couple of months, so it's good to finally have you in the studio and sit down and talk to you.

• 1:55Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me.

• 1:56Speaker 00

  Well, I've also got to thank you for the invite to the Keeping Women Out of Prison Breakfast at State Parliament that I attended a couple of weeks ago. It was quite interesting, some of the things that were raised there.

• 2:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it's important. That was the 10th anniversary, wasn't it?

• 2:10Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 2:11Speaker 01

  In Parliament House. What were the points that you got from that?

• 2:14Speaker 00

  They raised like a couple of points and I was going to raise some of it. Some of the statistics were quite concerning. Remand and sentencing. Sixty percent of women in prison are on remand and fifty two percent don't receive a custodial sentence. Now, breaking that down, you've got sixty percent in prison on remand. So these are people that haven't been convicted of a crime at this point in time. They've been put in custody, but there's no conviction. So sixty percent of women we have in the prison system in this state and of that sixty percent, fifty two percent, when the matter's finalised at court, they don't get a custodial sentence.

• 2:54Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 2:54Speaker 00

  Concerning.

• 2:56Speaker 01

  Yep, exactly.

• 2:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:57Speaker 01

  Um, so I only dealt with the serious offenders.

• 3:00Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 3:00Speaker 01

  Through the Serious Offenders Review Council and.

• 3:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:04Speaker 01

  So the statistics between the males and females are quite alarming. So you've got, you know, forty six in New South Wales.

• 3:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:13Speaker 01

  And then you've got eight hundred and forty five, I think it is, of males within New South Wales. So.

• 3:18Speaker 00

  Serious offenders.

• 3:19Speaker 01

  Yes, and these are the most serious offenders and most serious offenders are in there for murder, over half of them. And men, sexual assault as well. But yeah, a lot of the women are in there for murder as well, half of them.

• 3:35Speaker 00

  I think, given the nature of the breakfast at Parliament House, keep women out of prison, that was, we're just looking at alternate ways, you know, obviously, and I think, and we're going to talk about your experience with crime, with the murder of your brother Eden. And yeah, that's as real as it gets to be caught up in the world of crime. But if we can do something better and help people turn them around, there's the work that you do and the work that you've been doing for quite some time. I think we're in a better place. Another thing that came out, or another thing I picked up during the whole range of guest speakers that they had at the breakfast, was that sixty percent of incarcerated women

• 4:16Speaker 00

  are mothers. Now, it shouldn't give you a free pass from jail just because you're a mother. But I think the flow-on effect from that is that when a mother, because generally they're the primary carer of of children, when mothers are taken away from the family structure, you can see ongoing ongoing issues.

• 4:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, negative ripple effects. A lot of the kids end up in foster care if the mother is the primary carer. And also, just the just the knock-on effect of having, you know, someone incarcerated.

• 4:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:49Speaker 01

  You know, it's it's can be quite devastating for young women and men.

• 4:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:53Speaker 01

  Obviously, I've been working in the women and girls space for for many years now. But yeah, I've seen the devastating effects of of, you know, what it's like for young women to to have parents who are incarcerated.

• 5:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, and the advocacy work is is very important because I think when we talk crime, and I know I've been guilty of it, more so when I'm out of the police but doing the podcast, we talk crime, we talk prisons and all that. But we forget about the female prisons. Quite often, you mentioned jail and your image is of a group of men walking around in a in a yard somewhere. We don't often think about women in prison.

• 5:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, interesting enough, with my SAWC work, obviously, I've put a pause on that at the moment. But I I started that in two thousand and four.

• 5:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:40Speaker 01

  I only saw three women. Out of all of them, they were all men. And we we that was that was an interesting fact. But the ones that were there were interesting too.

• 5:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:49Speaker 01

  And and they were all mothers.

• 5:51Speaker 00

  Right.

• 5:51Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 5:51Speaker 00

  So just because you mentioned SAW and acronyms, I always get lost in acronyms, but Serious Offenders.

• 5:56Speaker 01

  Oh, there's a lot of acronyms in SAWC.

• 5:58Speaker 00

  Okay, Serious Offenders Review Board.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:01Speaker 00

  And that that's looking at people that are in for serious crimes and what what is to become of them and whether they should be released and and different things.

• 6:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:11Speaker 00

  Yeah. One last, and we'll just finish off on the the breakfast. Another stat that came out was Aboriginal women make up forty percent of the female prison population. And they're only three percent of the state's female population, which is concerning, isn't it?

• 6:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. And in terms of, just going back to the Serious Offenders Review Council, is that over fifty percent of Aboriginal women, yeah, there's a really high statistic of Aboriginal women who were part of that bracket.

• 6:42Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 6:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:43Speaker 00

  No, you you hear that type of stats a lot and that it's something that, yeah, there's something broken, something that needs to be fixed. But that was the Breakfast at Parliament House. Thank you very much for the invite.

• 6:55Speaker 01

  That's okay.

• 6:56Speaker 00

  I enjoyed it and met a lot of interesting people there. They're very passionate about getting the justice system right, which is always, you walk away a little bit inspired from that. And the politicians said all the right things. Hopefully the politicians deliver. They're very good at saying the right things. It's a matter of them actually coming through with what they promised. Now, I want to speak to you about your brother's death. And when I say death, he was murdered by Anthony Jones. Now, Eden Brown and Anthony Jones might, if they've been listening to the podcast, would be familiar because I've had Anthony Jones on the podcast. He's since been released from when he murdered murdered your brother, Eden. That was in two thousand and ten.

• 7:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, and he was released in June last year.

• 7:43Speaker 00

  Yeah. Now, before I got him on the podcast, and this is how we started to get in touch, was I didn't feel comfortable getting Anthony on the podcast to talk about talk about his life unless I spoke to the family.

• 7:57Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 7:57Speaker 00

  Eden's family and that led me to you and I both spoke to you and and we talked about it. And I thought you were very generous in what you had to say and the feelings that you had about Anthony potentially turning his life around. So.

• 8:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, look, we're really grateful that he has turned his life around. I guess there's a lot of families that don't have that. Whilst we've been very unlucky by losing my brother, we've been lucky in the sense that he has made something of himself and he has a plan to, you know, give back to the community and to, I guess, turn his life into purpose now, rather than just being an angry man, which is what he described in the podcast that he did.

• 8:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:42Speaker 01

  So, yeah, really grateful in the sense that he, you know, a lot of families don't get that. A lot of people get out of jail with no remorse. And so he certainly does have that remorse, which is, which is a good thing.

• 8:54Speaker 00

  Hmm. But I, look, I understand that, but I say to you, full credit to you for the generosity of spirit that you could actually acknowledge that someone is turning his life around someone that's responsible for murdering your brother.

• 9:11Speaker 00

  We we're talking, this is not going to be the whole conversation, but I think it that puts in perspective the type of work that you're you're doing, because I I think if anyone's got an understanding of the pain of crime, it's yourself. First of all, before we talk about Eden, tell me what you remember of Eden as your your brother.

• 9:28Speaker 01

  Ah goofy, um fun-loving, um very charismatic, life of the party. Just a really good-hearted person. He, I know that Anthony in his podcast mentioned that he was like a big brother type to him, um which is is what Eden was like. He he he loved everybody and was not judgmental. I mean, mum came home one day and he had a homeless person at the having a shower and he was cooking him lamb chops under the, under the, um, you know, the grill. So he would honestly, I I could see how he would have gravitated to AJ and, you know, wanted to help him, knowing that, you know, he'd had really um crap upbringing, challenging upbringing. And so Eden would

• 10:10Speaker 01

  have been quite empathetic to that and wanted to help him. And, you know, I could see that he was wanting to be, you know, sort of a big brother to him.

• 10:19Speaker 00

  A a role model.

• 10:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, it it's tragic how it turned out and they've ended up in a situation of a a party where he was stabbed to death.

• 10:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was pretty crap.

• 10:31Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 10:31Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, I was actually, um, I'd had a really, really hard week and I, my phone was going off at, you know, all all sorts of hours of the morning and it was silent number and and my phone actually went flat and I'd left my um car charger in my car and um it was like one o one o two o'clock in the morning and I thought, well, I'm not going to walk to my car at that time. And I thought if it's some, if it was a number that I knew that I would answer it. But as it turns out, I was going to mum and dad's house the next day and for lunch. And so I didn't actually get, I had a big sleep in because I was just wrecked. Um. Got in my car and plugged my phone in and it just went absolutely ballistic.

• 11:15Speaker 01

  I had to pull over because I thought, oh gosh, my my phone's malfunctioning.

• 11:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 11:20Speaker 01

  Um. And I'd just seen on the news that two people had been stabbed, two separate um incidences. One was in the area that my brother um lived in.

• 11:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:29Speaker 01

  And I was like, oh, those poor families. That's exactly what I was thinking, those poor families, which you do, you know, you're on the news every morning, you hear something that's happened. And um, yeah, I pulled over and I, my heart just sank and I got a text from my sibling who said, um, yeah, Eden's been killed, he's been stabbed. Drive safely. And so I don't really remember much about the drive. I probably shouldn't have been driving.

• 11:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:58Speaker 01

  Um. To be honest, but I kind of just went into full adrenaline mode. Um. Apparently I rang my best friend screaming my head off and I don't remember that. So like I said, I probably shouldn't have been driving. But I did get, I did get there safely and um, yeah, and that's kind of where you just.

• 12:16Speaker 00

  I.

• 12:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, the ship began.

• 12:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, and it is, it's it's the start of a very long journey that continues to this day. But uh, yeah, getting that type of, that type of call and and response and uh, how do you respond to that? You know, you said you shouldn't be driving. What do you do? You've got to function and uh.

• 12:36Speaker 01

  I was very, I remember being very careful, like just thinking, God, what's, just trying to process. Um. So as I said, I did get there safely, but then you walk into a room of a whole family who's just, you know, been at the hospital, um. Just absolute silence. And you know, I would, the one thing that came to my mind was like, what do we do now?

• 12:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:59Speaker 01

  Like, what, what happens now? Like, what, what do we do? And then we were all called into the police station the next day and with a whole lot of detectives and police and they were, they were very, very helpful. Um. But we were obviously all in immense shock. We're like, what the hell happened? We didn't even know AJ. We didn't know. You know, there's a lot of what what happened.

• 13:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, it it's a world that people don't know and don't don't experience. And thank goodness for that, that most people don't experience that. But it is something completely foreign. You're you're not dealing with police and all of a sudden you you've prone and very much involved in a murder investigation. So the the process is trying to, and and now that you've been working in the criminal justice space, you get an un- un- more of an understanding. But at the time, that's the last thing you thought you'd be doing, sitting in a police station, talking to detectives about the murder of your brother.

• 13:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, you kind of, it's that saying that you don't think it's ever going to happen to you until it does. And, yeah, it was just, there was more questions than answers. And obviously, the police were still investigating things, so there wasn't much that they could really tell us.

• 14:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:12Speaker 01

  Um, and there was a lot of people who were just not speaking and they were still interviewing people and doing the whole process of what needs to be done to find out and get to the bottom. We're very lucky that we did get a dying declaration from Aiden to tell us who it who it was. I wonder if we hadn't got that, how messed up, more messed up, you know, I would be.

• 14:33Speaker 00

  Well, it it's, I I suppose it gave you some form of answer or an understanding of what happened. And a lot of times with murder investigations, there there's no idea at the initial stages anyway. You you said that the the police were good. Oh, I'm interested in a perspective from, yeah, a family member, what the type of things police can do to help in those situations. What what was it about police that you thought they handled well?

• 15:00Speaker 01

  Uh, well, they kept us informed.

• 15:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:02Speaker 01

  Every step of the way, they were, obviously, two years later, we had the trial. We had two trials, the first trial was six, you know, it was going to be six weeks long. It, we said that it could be up to that, so I agreed to do the first two weeks. My brother said he would do the next two weeks because my brother and sister live overseas.

• 15:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:21Speaker 01

  And then should it continue, my sister said that she would fly down, um, fly over as well. So it took the six weeks and then it was a hung jury.

• 15:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, that that must have been hard because the whole process, I think people assume because we we watch it on TV or crime shows on on TV. If something happens, police have caught the person, then it's going to be resolved quickly. But this goes over years. It's a it's a long drawn out process. When did you find out that police had made the arrest of A J?

• 15:51Speaker 01

  Uh, they came to mum and dad's house.

• 15:53Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 15:54Speaker 01

  Um, they found him in a nightclub. And apparently the way dad describes it is that he had been unshaven. And we're very, very excited to to let mum and dad know that they had found him.

• 16:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:06Speaker 01

  Um, because, yeah, he went AWOL, I guess, for for two weeks.

• 16:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:11Speaker 01

  Um, so that was concerning as well for us. Um, so, so, yeah, that was. But in terms of going back to the police, they were obviously at, um, um, shout out to Tim Pooley from uh.

• 16:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:24Speaker 01

  Uh, D Y Police. And he was there every day with the court case.

• 16:29Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 16:29Speaker 01

  Um, who was representing the family. So, yeah, really, really great support. We still speak to him to this day.

• 16:36Speaker 00

  That's good. And I I think that should be the type of relationship investigating police have with family members that.

• 16:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:42Speaker 00

  Have someone killed because it's intense. It's an intense, deeply emotional situation. And if you've got a police officer that cares, that can make it make a difference.

• 16:52Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, who else do we have to go to? I mean, we have restorative, um, yeah, that's that was kind of our thinking is we we don't have anyone to go to for answers.

• 17:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:02Speaker 01

  And, um, obviously, you know, eventually we had restorative justice and the D P P and stuff like that. But that didn't happen immediately. So, um, there was no sort of homicide counselling given to us immediately.

• 17:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:16Speaker 01

  Um, we did get offered that a little bit further down the track. And I was like, well, you know, so those services are available, but.

• 17:24Speaker 00

  How did it? How did it make you feel when someone had actually been charged? When the police told you that they'd charged someone? What what sort of emotions went through your your heart and mind at that stage?

• 17:38Speaker 01

  Well, we were still in shock, you know, two weeks later. We were obviously happy that they had found him.

• 17:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:44Speaker 01

  But there was still so many questions. We didn't know who he was, you know, what happened. There was still that big question as to what happened.

• 17:51Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 17:52Speaker 01

  Uh, because in Aidan's dying declaration, he said AJ did it. Uh, and I think they'd asked him, why did he do it? And he said, I don't know.

• 18:00Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 18:01Speaker 01

  So it kind of makes sense now that like that, for us, it was like, well, what, what the, what the heck happened?

• 18:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:08Speaker 01

  Like, how did that erupt? You know, what? And why, why did no one go to my brother's rescue? He literally had to drag himself up.

• 18:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:18Speaker 01

  The street, dying, um, bleeding to death.

• 18:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:23Speaker 01

  And knock on someone's door, window at, um, two o'clock in the morning, which would have been extremely scary for that person who then went and got his neighbour.

• 18:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:32Speaker 01

  And then had to, um, you know, thankfully, those two guys came out and tried to stop the bleeding, called the ambulance. So why was he, um, and, you know, there was all those people in court as well who had to, who were horrified as well. There was a girl who drove past at that time, um, and Aidan tried to flag her down, but she, you know, the big burly guy.

• 18:55Speaker 00

  Covered in blood.

• 18:56Speaker 01

  Really big, covered in blood. And I imagine there was a bit of a scatter of people around as well. And she immediately got home and rang the police, but she wasn't gonna, I wouldn't do this. I would not.

• 19:06Speaker 00

  No, I, I, yeah, I, I can understand.

• 19:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, she was completely traumatised, had to come to court.

• 19:12Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 19:12Speaker 01

  As well. And, um, and so, and of course, the ambulance got there before the police. So the ambos couldn't get out.

• 19:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 19:20Speaker 01

  Couldn't wait. They had to wait. Um, so eventually, um, they did come and then they, um, yeah, they got him in. But yeah, he just.

• 19:30Speaker 00

  How did it change you and the family, uh, when you, you had a family member murdered?

• 19:37Speaker 01

  Wow, um, well, it changes your life forever.

• 19:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, you lose faith in humanity, or I would imagine that it potentially could cause divisions in the family, it might bring you closer together, probably a whole range of emotions.

• 19:53Speaker 01

  Uh, I think we all deal dealt with the grief in different ways. You know, you go through a whole stack of emotions like grief, loss, anger, but mostly bringing us together.

• 20:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 20:09Speaker 01

  But it was just seeing my parents, which is the most horrible.

• 20:13Speaker 00

  I know, uh, and I'm apologize for for bringing this up, but I I think it's important people understand what really happens with with crime, the the depth of emotion that kicks in and it it broke my heart when I spoke to you, talking about getting A J on and you said, look, I I can deal with him coming on and if he's turned his life around. But to this day, my parents are still broken by the fact that their son's been murdered. And yeah, we're talking from two thousand and ten to the present day and they're still carrying that carrying that pain.

• 20:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, no, no parents should have to, you know, bury their child, right?

• 20:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 20:53Speaker 00

  You're very much involved in their advocacy side of things and we will talk in depth about that. From a court's perspective, do you think the the needs of the victims' families are properly catered for, where you kept informed on what was going on? You you said that you had a had a good police officer that was there the whole time, which I'm sure helped. Um, i- is the system set up to, um, yeah, acknowledge the pain and the trauma that the victims' families are going through?

• 21:22Speaker 01

  I mean, there are homicide services.

• 21:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:24Speaker 01

  Um, whether my family wanted to reach out to those or not was was a big question mark. So I feel like, yeah, it was like, I guess that was what I was saying is, you know, when it we all found out, we're sitting around the lounge room, we're like, oh. What happens next, you know, there was not, um, we kind of had to figure that out.

• 21:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:44Speaker 01

  But at that particular time, the police were all, you know, investigating and things like that. So, yeah, I feel there are services out there and some good ones. Um, but yeah, we just didn't really know about them at that particular time.

• 21:55Speaker 00

  Yep. What about the length of time that court matters matters taken? There's a whole range of reasons why, yeah, justice can be slow. But I, I think it's ridiculously slow in some, some situations. I mean, A J was charged by what you've said. So the two weeks after, uh, after the event and then we're looking at the trial years down the track.

• 22:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that's a hard thing and that's something that I didn't really know either, that that's how long it takes. Um, but yeah, you know, to gather all the evidence and yeah, the two years, that was quite painful and excruciating for us. Because, you know, we wanted to get some answers. The trauma, I was sort of seeing that there was other people involved. And that's why we had a hung jury.

• 22:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:39Speaker 01

  Is because the, the police were trying to get, get pinned down more than just A J. And so that's, that's why we ended up having a hung jury because they were going for more than just A J. Like A J didn't act alone. We know that.

• 22:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:55Speaker 01

  Um, whilst he was the one that did stab him, you know, cause what are you, who are you going to believe your brother? His dying declaration. So clearly he did do that. But there was other, we know that there was others involved.

• 23:06Speaker 00

  I, I always saw the pain that trials and, and court matters could bring to families and the intensity of it. And it's such a, yeah, it, it's just a horrible, horrible situation. How was it with the media? Like the media play a part in these things too. What was your dealings with the media?

• 23:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. So the media.

• 23:26Speaker 00

  Good or better or?

• 23:27Speaker 01

  So given that, um, the area that we grew up with, um, where it happened, that we had a lovely journalist actually, actually. But he was reporting on it every day.

• 23:37Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 23:37Speaker 01

  And we ended up making friends with him, but he, yeah, it was dragged through the, the, the local newspaper and other newspapers. I remember being in Surrey Hills, getting my coffee when I used to, to, um, work in Surrey Hills.

• 23:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:50Speaker 01

  And looking over at the Sydney Morning Herald and seeing an article about it. And I wanted to tap the person in front of me and go. That's my brother, that's about my brother. And I thought, God, that would be so weird if I did do that.

• 24:02Speaker 00

  Weird, but understandable. Yeah, yeah.

• 24:06Speaker 01

  But I just wanted to shout to the rooftops, oh my God, this is, so that that was really hard, especially with some of the stuff that came through the media, which, you know, may or may not necessarily have been true. Like, there was a lot of question around still what happened.

• 24:19Speaker 00

  The thing about the way court matters are covered in the media too, if something's said in court, a decision hasn't been made whether this is true or not true. But if someone makes an allegation or someone says something, the journalists can report that. This is what was said in court because it's public record. And I think you need that scrutiny. But it can be very misleading. I've been involved in cases where I'm seeing things reported, I'm just going, and then the general public are reading that headline. And then that's the narrative. They might have the paper or listen to the news the next day. So that's the narrative they've sat with. So.

• 24:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:57Speaker 00

  I I asked this of families of victims who have been murdered, what their dealings were like with the media, because some resent it and others, you know, understand the need for it. And it's just, it's a real delicate, delicate area.

• 25:13Speaker 01

  At first, it was really hard.

• 25:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:15Speaker 01

  And then, like I said, we made friends with the guy and he, yeah, he, I don't know, it was just something, you know, and even like Aidan's funeral, you know, there was a picture of his coffin in the particular newspaper as well. Like, that was hard, hard to deal with and, you know, things like that.

• 25:36Speaker 00

  Well, it's another thing that you, that most people aren't used to is, you know, first of all, being caught up in criminal procedures like that. But also at your worst emotional stage, exposed to the public in the rawest of ways.

• 25:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, so those ones were not great.

• 25:55Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 25:55Speaker 01

  Um, that's, we would much prefer that that didn't happen, that one. Um, yeah, we also had, yeah, at the funeral, we had swarms of police there as well, filming and it was, um, yeah, that was really weird as well, trying to see whether any of them turned up, which they of course didn't. But yeah, so the, so the media, it was hard, but we, um.

• 26:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, they do, they do, they just report on what, what comes out in court that day.

• 26:28Speaker 00

  And.

• 26:28Speaker 01

  Whether it's true or not.

• 26:30Speaker 00

  Sitting, sitting at court and, yeah, we're not, the court result speaks for itself and I, I don't want you to mention specific people, but sitting there and hearing things that come across in, in court because you, it's your brother's murder, you would have been listening very intently and, yeah, all the things that come across i- in court from witnesses in the witness box. The legal fraternity and how they put a spin on it or it almost like it's theatre for them and don't quite touch into the emotion of what, what's been discussed. How, how was the whole court process for you?

• 27:04Speaker 01

  Um, the defence lawyer, I mean, we thought it would be over day dot because the, the opening line was the triple O call. And like, we were like, we know who did it. So why do we need to go through six weeks of court?

• 27:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:19Speaker 01

  And then we ended up having to do another trial after that.

• 27:21Speaker 00

  Yeah. And, and you've mentioned the hung jury and for people that don't understand, that's where the jury members can't make a unanimous decision on guilt or innocence and therefore the hung jury. And invariably that means there's going to be another, another trial.

• 27:36Speaker 01

  Yep. So we had to go through another trial. That was, that was pretty crap.

• 27:40Speaker 00

  What was it like sitting in the court looking at AJ?

• 27:45Speaker 01

  He was very pan-faced. He didn't look like.

• 27:50Speaker 01

  It was bizarre is probably the way to describe it. Just, I tried not to look at him, to be honest.

• 27:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:59Speaker 01

  But he, he was not happy, as you would be. So I think that was hard. Um, it was, yeah, just, I don't know, all these things are flooding back now. Some things are blocked out, a lot of things are blocked out. I think looking up there, I'm like, just tell us what happened. Um, and he did get up and say something and I think seeing the other guys that, that, you know, had to bring in on the bus from the, from jail, they were, they were kind of just as scary, I guess.

• 28:35Speaker 00

  My understanding, correct me if I'm wrong, during the second trial, A J made the decision to plead guilty on it. How did that make yourself and your family feel?

• 28:46Speaker 01

  Um, I mean, relieved, you know, nothing was going to bring my brother back, but relieved that we had an ending.

• 28:53Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 28:54Speaker 01

  Um, I'm of the understanding that he, that mum and dad were pulled aside. I wasn't there that day and, cause I had to work. And he, they were pulled aside and said, he can either go for murder or manslaughter. And he could, he could get away with murder or we could go for manslaughter. And my mum just went, heck no, we're going to go for murder with the risk that he might get off.

• 29:22Speaker 00

  So break this down, I, I'm surmising here, but I've seen this before where, and it's good that they say consulting with the families, because I've seen it where the prosecution don't consult with the families and all hell breaks loose. But the prosecution are speaking to your mum and dad and saying, well, yeah, we could take manslaughter, um, because he might beat murder. So that's a terrible situation to be put in. And you're not very informed on the nuances of the law and, or it's a horrible situation to be put in. But I'm still glad that they, they were spoken about it. Um, what, what did they say?

• 30:04Speaker 01

  I'm of the understanding that they were pulled aside and they said, he could either go for manslaughter and we could agree to that.

• 30:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:12Speaker 01

  And he would definitely go away for, you know, what is it, eight years, whatever. Or he, if we go for murder, then he could possibly get off and go, not go, he'd already been in there for two years, right?

• 30:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 30:24Speaker 01

  Or more than that in the second trial. So, and mum just said, no, hell no. He killed my, my boy. We're going for murder. And then he pled guilty.

• 30:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 30:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. That's my understanding.

• 30:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, I look at, that would be how I could imagine it, imagine it playing out. So it doesn't surprise me, but it's a horrible responsibility to put on the, on the families, isn't it?

• 30:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, we were like, oh, I mean, I wasn't there that day, but dad was like, oh, we just, you know, he deserves to go away for some time at least.

• 30:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:57Speaker 01

  And, but mum was the one that just went, no, not happening.

• 31:02Speaker 00

  What changes did you see in your parents going through that, that process? Because as we spoke about earlier, that's the worst thing that could happen, happen to a parent. But then the court matter and just like an ongoing nightmare, I would imagine.

• 31:16Speaker 01

  Mum's very stoic. She was there every minute of every court, every day. Um, dad, some days he just, um, you know, wasn't well enough, you know? And that's a lot to go to every single day to court. And of course, you know, all of us had to kind of go back to work and, you know, I would, I was close by. So I was able to drop in as much as I possibly can because I was working in Surrey Hills at the time.

• 31:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:40Speaker 01

  So, look, they, yeah, I saw it affect my dad more than my mum. But like I said, mum's very stoic.

• 31:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:49Speaker 01

  And all of my brothers and sisters have dealt with things differently. I'm, some, some of my siblings have really want to put this just behind them and they're just happy to do that. Whereas, I don't know, mum and I are a bit like a dog with a bone.

• 32:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 32:04Speaker 01

  And dad's just not checked out from it, but he, he just, we kind of spare him from that. Cause he's, he's a bit like me, we're the emotional ones in the family, whereas the others are not.

• 32:15Speaker 00

  It's interesting you say that because you don't know how people are going to deal with situations like that. And, um, and people choose different ways. Uh, I often get asked whether I stay in contact with family members of victims of homicide. And yes, there's, there's quite a few I do. There's others that I, I don't speak to because I sort of leave the onus on them. Because it's as a homicide detective, you come into their life at the worst possible time. And possibly the last thing they want is me phoning up every 12 months saying, hi, how are you? Cause it just brings up the horror of, of what they went through. But then there's others that like to stay, stay in contact. So. It's understandable, you're saying, even within your family, people were dealing with

• 33:00Speaker 00

  it differently. Your mum and dad were dealing with it differently because it's just, and, and talking about it like this, I, I want people to understand because quite often, as you said, you read about a crime in the paper and it's that day's news and then you sort of move on and, and, and get on with the rest of your life. But, so there's a big impact, isn't there?

• 33:22Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, it completely changed our lives forever. Like, we, I've got PTSD from it.

• 33:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:29Speaker 01

  And that doesn't go away.

• 33:32Speaker 00

  With the sentencing, when it came down, how, how long did A J get when he was sentenced?

• 33:38Speaker 01

  Eighteen years and eight months.

• 33:40Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 33:41Speaker 01

  And he served fourteen years. So he got out last June.

• 33:45Speaker 00

  How, and I'm not talking in your capacity of the advocacy work you do, and this is where I think it's quite remarkable, the type of work that you do and, and what you've been through. But as Eden's sister, when that came down, the sentence, how, how, how did you feel personally?

• 34:05Speaker 01

  Apparently, um, apparently that was a good sentence. Like, if we, if he'd got like five years or something like that, that would have sucked. So it was a good fair whack of a sentence.

• 34:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:17Speaker 01

  Um, you know, after doing my Serious Offender Review Council work, when I, when I see murders, I use that as a benchmark all the time.

• 34:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:26Speaker 01

  Um, so, yeah, as, as in, you know, the, the extremity of the, the, so, so, yeah, we were, we were happy with, with that, as happy as you could be, right? You know, because there's, most people are, you know, should be away for, you know, kill a life, go away for life. It just doesn't happen that way.

• 34:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, I, I, it's interesting, sitting down and talking to someone that, that's so deeply affected by murder. And I have a lot of people that, yeah, that's a narrative because of the work I'm, I'm doing now, or the work I, I used to do. And, you know, if you take a life, that should be a mandatory life sentence. You're in a unique position to have been impacted upon it personally, having your brother murdered, and also working in the areas that you work. And it's interesting that you say that you don't believe in mandatory life sentencing.

• 35:16Speaker 01

  Depends, I, yeah, I don't, I, I think if there's rehabilitation, I mean, there's, there's some people.

• 35:23Speaker 00

  Sorry, because I, I want to clarify that so people don't jump on board and bash me for being soft. There are plenty of people and the rehabilitation is one aspect, and I'm just talking from my, my point of view. You're, the work that you do, you've got more of an insight than I have, but rehabilitation is one side of it. But there's also a protection of society that's got to come into it too. And, and sometimes, okay, they might appear rehabilitated, but we can't take the risk because the consequences are too high.

• 35:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the frustrating thing that I've found is that, you know, they have a, they have a sentence, they, they have a parole period. And there's, you know, I've met serial killers, I've met, you know, horrendous murderers who have done horrible, horrible, horrible crimes.

• 36:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:08Speaker 01

  And their sentences finish and they get out. And so what, what we do with the Serious Offenders Review Council is we try and help rehabilitate them back and integrate back into the community.

• 36:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:20Speaker 01

  By, you know, obviously doing courses, it might be Violent Offenders Therapeutic Programme. Or, you know, just helping them to rehabilitate, you know, in the different classes, they call them within the jails. And so they do move around a bit to different, you know, and we hope that by the end of it, they go from sort of on remand A, and then to A sentence, then to B, then C, then C on, and then C off. That, that's our, that's, that's our goal. There's the steps of rehabilitation, they don't always get there.

• 36:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, and, and explain to people that don't understand the system, the difference between serving your sentence and out on parole? And what the benefits one way or the other, or?

• 37:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I know people have a lot of mixed feelings about that, that people should just serve out their full sentence. But what I've learnt is that we really need to have um be able to monitor them within the community to see if they, because if they stuff up, you know, like.

• 37:25Speaker 00

  There there's that you've got something hanging over their head if they're out on parole.

• 37:29Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 37:29Speaker 00

  You can monitor them.

• 37:30Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 37:30Speaker 00

  Because I I've had this discussion with people and uh uh I understand the logic that, well, they should serve their whole sentence. Why? Just because they behave themselves in prison, why should they?

• 37:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I used to believe that too.

• 37:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:42Speaker 01

  I absolutely used to believe that as well.

• 37:44Speaker 00

  But it's more complex than that, because if they serve their full sentence, we open the prison gates and they're out and we can't monitor them, that we don't have control over, they've served their sentence.

• 37:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:55Speaker 00

  If they get out on parole, there's a degree of monitoring.

• 37:58Speaker 01

  Yep. So so that's the thing is that, I mean, that was my thinking at the very beginning. They should, if they get twenty five years, they stay in there for twenty five years.

• 38:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 38:05Speaker 01

  Um but but what I've learnt through the SAWC work is that that reintegration part is really, really important because, you know, they can go in there as animals and come out as animals.

• 38:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:17Speaker 01

  And then just reoffend. And and how how useful is that? Whereas if we're able to monitor them and um, you know, have that um, help them to reintegrate into the community. I mean, some some reoffend, there's a lot of recidivism, obviously.

• 38:34Speaker 00

  Oh, it's a hard right.

• 38:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, hard right.

• 38:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:37Speaker 01

  Um but, you know, and then there's, you know, people like, well, what why were they let out? And and and usually it's because their sentences are up or.

• 38:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:44Speaker 01

  And things like that. So, yeah.

• 38:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's a, I think the way we look look at crime, it's and it comes around state election time and law and order becomes an issue. We're going to get tough on crime. We're going to increase penalties. We're going to do this, we're changes of legislation. Sometimes legislation does need to be changed. Sometimes sentencing, you know, needs to be appropriate. I don't believe in mandatory sentencing. But rather than get tough on crime, would you you agree that we've got to get smarter on crime rather than tough on crime?

• 39:17Speaker 01

  I think prevention is is really, really important.

• 39:21Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 39:22Speaker 01

  And that's a lot of the work that I do with my two charities that I run is.

• 39:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 39:27Speaker 01

  Let's try and prevent this happening in the first place.

• 39:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 39:30Speaker 01

  So I, yeah, like, let's help these young women and men who are in the foster care system because, you know, either mum or dad's in jail or they're.

• 39:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 39:39Speaker 01

  Addicted to drugs or whatever, like, how can we help prevent that happening? But I think that's where my work lies.

• 39:48Speaker 00

  When I say smart on crime, prevention is the ideal situation. It's everyone's wins if you can prevent crime, less victims. Um, and lives aren't just thrown away and wasted in prison. If we talk about the prison system, the costs associated with keeping someone in custody. I think I I heard figures bandied about at the that breakfast at Parliament House, and I've heard them before. But I think it's a minimum of a hundred and fifty thousand to keep an adult prisoner.

• 40:16Speaker 01

  Absolutely, minimum, yeah, yeah.

• 40:18Speaker 00

  So that we're talking a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year.

• 40:21Speaker 01

  A year.

• 40:21Speaker 00

  So just think about that for everyone that we put in jail, we're spending a hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

• 40:28Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 40:28Speaker 00

  Now, what sort of diversionary programs could be put in place with that type of money?

• 40:33Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So, I mean, it's just astounding the figures and, and, you know, and kids in juvie as well. It's they're really same, same.

• 40:44Speaker 00

  I think it's even higher.

• 40:45Speaker 01

  Higher, it is higher, it's higher, it's much higher. So, so, yeah, I mean, it's astounding that those figures that we as taxpayers pay for. Um, but, you know, let's face it, there are some people that need to be logged up.

• 40:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 40:58Speaker 01

  And, and so, yeah, that's that balance of do we let them out on parole? And monitor them, which is going to be cheaper to the community, but is it safer for the community?

• 41:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, the safety of the community's got to be paramount. But if we can prevent crime, that's tapping into keeping the community safe. It's not, yeah, it's not going soft just because people aren't in prison. If we're keeping people away from crime and the community safe. But I I look at the the money, if you just look at it from a monetary position. I'm thinking a hundred and fifty thousand, you give me someone that's off track. I reckon I could wisely spend a hundred and fifty thousand and keep that person back on track with the money. Um, we had Tim Watson Munro on the podcast years ago, criminal psychologist.

• 41:45Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 41:46Speaker 00

  Vastly experienced and he was working in Parramatta Prison years ago, in a bygone era. And he was ma- making the point for all the money that's spent with people in custody. You could basically have their own private psychologists monitoring everything they do all day.

• 42:02Speaker 01

  Absolutely, absolutely.

• 42:04Speaker 00

  For that amount of money. Getting back to what happened to Eden and AJ. Once he was sentenced, did you think about him? Was it? I'm just trying to, what you carried with you once the sentencing has, because that chapter in your life had come to a conclusion, like the court matter, and now the person's serving jail. I've been chastised by victims where I say, we'll get, we'll give you closure if we put this person away. And I learnt that very early in my homicide career that, no, you don't get closure from it. But I just want to get a sense of, you're getting on with your life, you're, you're

• 42:46Speaker 00

  missing your brother because the life has been stolen from you and someone's in prison. How, how does, how did you feel personally?

• 42:56Speaker 01

  Um, I think the unresolved part of why, and we still kind of have those questions. You're, having AJ on here kind of gave us a little bit more clarity around that.

• 43:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:08Speaker 01

  That he didn't remember what happened, but there were people there that would have. So it's that what the hell happened is still a big question mark for us, you know, and I think that's always going to be, we're not going to have closure until.

• 43:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:26Speaker 01

  I'm hoping that when AJ in years to, when he gets, when he can, I can sit down with him and ask him.

• 43:33Speaker 00

  Well, you, you made, made the comment before we started the podcast that you're seeing in the seat that AJ was sitting in and I, I apologise for that. It must be confronting for you in that, that regards.

• 43:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's all right. It's, yeah.

• 43:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:47Speaker 01

  You just have to deal with those things, right?

• 43:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 43:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, but weird.

• 43:51Speaker 00

  Other than this idiot ex-cop now podcaster me contacting you and saying that we're getting AJ on there, did you, were you aware when he was released from prison?

• 44:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:02Speaker 00

  Had you, were you notified, formally notified?

• 44:05Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 44:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:06Speaker 01

  Hundred percent.

• 44:06Speaker 00

  What happened, what happened there and how, how did you feel at that point?

• 44:09Speaker 01

  Our restorative justice asked us and kept us informed of everything that was happening. I actually went to the, the bail hearing in Parramatta. And so that was, he was up on A V, obviously, and um, and he, yeah, it was, we were informed every step of the way. I mean, look, we had heard that he had reformed himself. And so we, I don't think we had any qualms with him getting out.

• 44:39Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 44:39Speaker 01

  It was just more that, that he was gonna stay on track for us. Yeah.

• 44:45Speaker 00

  Were you asked to add, uh, provide input or family, uh, thoughts before the decision was made?

• 44:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, mum, mum and dad did that.

• 44:55Speaker 00

  And what, what was their, their position?

• 44:56Speaker 01

  They were happy for him to get out.

• 44:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:58Speaker 01

  If he, if he had, um, reformed himself, so.

• 45:02Speaker 00

  Where do you, as a family, get that kindness from? And, uh, because I, I, I, in all honesty, I, I would like to think that I would be that, that way in a set of circumstances. And I'm sure other people would think they can have that sort of genuine kindness, understanding, empathy or, or whatever. And I, I'm not putting that as a, a weakness by any means, but where, where do you get that, uh, those values from?

• 45:26Speaker 01

  Well, I think we, when, what's the saying? If you hold on to resentment, it's like you're drinking poison and, and expecting the other person to die. Like.

• 45:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's a good one, isn't it?

• 45:39Speaker 01

  One person has lost their life and one's willing to make us, you know, uh, take a second chance of his.

• 45:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 45:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. But yeah, my, my mum and dad are very empathetic, they're lovely people. And we've, I don't know, that's where I've learnt it from.

• 45:53Speaker 00

  Well, it, it comes across. So it's a full credit to, uh, to them as, as your parents and, and you, because it, it can't have, uh, can't have been easy.

• 46:02Speaker 01

  No.

• 46:03Speaker 00

  The advocacy work that I want to talk about in, uh, later on in the podcast or in the next portion of the podcast, but were you doing that when, at the time?

• 46:13Speaker 01

  I was already doing it.

• 46:14Speaker 00

  Okay, so we've sort of jumped in and you're the expert on prison sentencing and serial killers and all that, but you're a teacher first up, weren't you?

• 46:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was a high school teacher.

• 46:25Speaker 00

  Okay, so there's a big step from going from a high school teacher getting into the type of work that you're doing. How did that play out?

• 46:32Speaker 01

  So I was a performing arts teacher and I, yeah, I loved my job. I had two sort of parallels to my job. I had working with some really, really, really talented students who went on to Whopper and Nider and this incredible job working with these and had such great relationships with their families and we had great rapport with those students after school because, so I worked ridiculous hours, but you know, we had some great fantastic results with the young. And then there was the other parallel of my job was that I, the other teachers thought I was a little bit crazy, a bit nuts, but I wanted to work with

• 47:14Speaker 01

  the students who had, who had behavioural problems.

• 47:20Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 47:21Speaker 01

  Who were, or who were deemed as having behavioural problems with their school. So they weren't eight A or B or C, they were, you know, sort of further down the track. So I was like, give me those classes. I absolutely loved working with those kids.

• 47:37Speaker 00

  And what was it about that that you got so much joy from?

• 47:41Speaker 01

  Because their behaviour is not them and I love the challenge of their behaviour.

• 47:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:46Speaker 01

  And then I found that because of the empathy that I do have and the persistence, like they were pretty naughty, some of them.

• 47:54Speaker 00

  How old are we talking?

• 47:55Speaker 01

  Oh, well, seven to twelve, but usually it was.

• 47:58Speaker 00

  Okay, they can be little shits at that stage.

• 48:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're right, you're right. They say, always say, you seven, then you in the school, you're eight, they're. Start to go a little bit feral if they can, and they're near nines when they, they hit the, and then, and near ten, they try and get back on, back on the track. So that's kind of teacher language.

• 48:16Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 48:17Speaker 01

  But, um, yeah, I absolutely loved working with them because they would, oh, they'd test me out.

• 48:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:22Speaker 01

  They would test me out, but I.

• 48:23Speaker 00

  Have you, have you got an example without identifying the, the kid, but one kid that you thought, okay, this kid, he or she could slip through the gaps here and how it turned around and what, what it, uh, what it did for you?

• 48:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 48:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:37Speaker 01

  Um, I, oh, lots of stories, lots of stories. There was one particular guy and he, um, he was huge. He was, he would bellow over me and he was, back in the days, it might have changed now, but principals would swap. When kids got expelled, they'd do swapies.

• 48:51Speaker 00

  Right.

• 48:52Speaker 01

  He came to the school and, and of course, when they come new to the school, they have their, they've got their bravado on and, you know, trying to find, uh, uh, you know, put it on and test the teacher out. And usually they would do that once and they would never do it again.

• 49:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:06Speaker 01

  Cause I was pretty strict but fair.

• 49:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:08Speaker 01

  And, um, I ended up having great rapport because I sat him aside and I just said, what's going on for you?

• 49:13Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 49:14Speaker 01

  And, you know, he explained that life was really, really tough at, um, at home.

• 49:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:20Speaker 01

  Which is usually the case, nine times out of ten, there's something going on in the background, whether it's abuse, neglect, trauma. And so he was brilliant in my classes from then.

• 49:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:29Speaker 01

  And, um, there was once a week where I would actually go and see another teacher and to have a coffee with her, which was very rare. Like teachers heat up their coffees like seven times. You would have probably been the same as a coffee.

• 49:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:42Speaker 01

  You hit your coffee up seven times a day. Um, and I went over and I would see him every single time in the corridor. And I, I'd, I'd say to him, what have you done now?

• 49:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:52Speaker 01

  What have you done now? What, what's happened? Oh, miss, she threw me up because of this, blah, blah, blah. And I said, well, you probably shouldn't have done that.

• 50:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 50:00Speaker 01

  But, you know, what did you do? And then one day he, he said, I'm out here now. Um, cause I didn't, didn't get my homework done. And I said, well, why didn't you get your homework done? You know, what, what was the problem? He said, oh, dad beat mum up, mum went off to hospital, dad um went off to, off to the cop shop. And I had to go and stay with the neighbours and then I still had to get my siblings ready for school that morning.

• 50:26Speaker 00

  Ooh.

• 50:26Speaker 01

  And he started to cry, so I had to pull him aside and big burly guy, like, and so from then on, I just, you know, went to the school councillor and I just said, look, we, this kid needs help, you know, we need to be able to support him. Anyway, he, he did end up dropping out, um but he would sometimes come and visit me.

• 50:48Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 50:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, at school, like, mate, you're not supposed to be on the school campus, but he would, um anyway, years later, years later, I was um coming out of the gym at Bondo Junction in Spring Street. And I'd come out of a boxing class, a spin class, anyway, I was all sweaty and, you know, when you finish, you know, gross, gross hair. And um this, I could hear this, see this out of the corner of my eye, this, this kid running towards me. And I was like, shit, what's going on? I mean, it was busy, so I wasn't too scared. And he was like, miss, miss, miss. And I, I was like, oh, okay, all right, so next student's fine. He bowed me over and he said, can I give you a big hug?

• 51:30Speaker 01

  You changed my life. Um I've got my, I've got a job at JB Hi-Fi. Um I'm now about to be manager and um, you know, I just wanted to tell you that you changed my life. And he's like, and miss, I can give you stuff discount. And so, yeah, just, just, um, yeah, that's, that's one story.

• 51:49Speaker 00

  That, that's, that's a beautiful story, but isn't it? Like, one, one kid, no, seriously, like, one kid's life changed just by you showing some kindness and interest and.

• 51:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:59Speaker 00

  And, yeah, he so easily could have been just dismissed as, you know, just a troublemaker.

• 52:05Speaker 01

  Ended up in jails or something like that, not, not, not because of me, but because I, a link in the chain, because we, we put him in touch with different services and things like that. So, but yeah, he, he was heading that way.

• 52:16Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 52:17Speaker 01

  Like his dad, like his dad.

• 52:18Speaker 00

  And and you wonder how many kids are like that and they're not gonna, they're not gonna come in and um reveal all that to you unless you take the time to sit down and just show and it must be the the first bit of genuine interest he he's seen. So how how important's that? They um I often uh hear about the law and order issues with the state elections and that and more money in policing and yeah, you can, you can argue that case. But I honestly believe if we want to make a difference in in crime, pour it into education. Cause how like the work that you were doing, how important do you think it is for kids to be educated to uh keep, give them self-esteem to start with?

• 52:56Speaker 01

  Well, that's, that's um, that's been the the core of both my charities with working um with young girls. So I went on from teaching because I did see um, you know, young kids falling through the cracks uh of the welfare system and the school system. And so I thought, well, where do I start? Do I start with the boys? Do I start with the girls? And I thought, well, being a female, I could probably, you know, let's start with the girls. And so, yeah, I worked with At Rich Teenage Girls for seventeen years. And um so quite a few stories and lots of success, success stories as well.

• 53:27Speaker 00

  So and we'll, we'll talk about it, Sister the Sister and Warrior Woman and all, all the other stuff that you've been doing. But two thousand and ten, you had left schools and you were, you were working in the advocacy space?

• 53:42Speaker 01

  Two thousand and three.

• 53:43Speaker 00

  Okay, so you've been doing it for a lo- long time?

• 53:45Speaker 01

  Um.

• 53:46Speaker 00

  When you were thrust into the justice system with the murder of your, your brother, did that change your thinking at all? Or did that uh sort of re- reinforce the importance of the work that you're doing?

• 53:57Speaker 01

  Um, well, I'd been working in the, the space for a long time anyway. Um, so I've worked with a lot of girls in dog's care.

• 54:04Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 54:04Speaker 01

  And you know, in and out of juvie and stuff like that. So I was kind of aware of, but, but with teenagers. But Warrior Woman was born from the, my need and want to help young women leaving the out of home care system because, and that was prompted by A G, um, killing my brother.

• 54:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 54:21Speaker 01

  Because he did grow, I know he didn't mention it, but he did, his foster care mum was there every day at, at the court.

• 54:28Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 54:29Speaker 01

  And um there's an emerging adulthood gap where things can go incredibly wrong or incredibly right, where um I mean, they've raised the age to twenty one from kids leaving out of home care, which has been wonderful, but it used to be eighteen.

• 54:43Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 54:43Speaker 01

  And they've kind of just booted out on their their eighteenth birthday.

• 54:46Speaker 00

  And their babies at that that.

• 54:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, and they're when they've been through abuse and trauma and foster, I worked with a lot of foster care kids um during sister to sister, they're two to three years behind in really important um subjects like English and maths. So when they get to eighteen, you know, they may well um um most, you know, dropped out of school. So going back to the education, that's what we're, you know, really, really important. Um but yeah, um the stats for young people leaving the out of home care in Australia is two, you know, two thirds of the youth homeless population are made up of young people leaving the out of home care system.

• 55:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:23Speaker 01

  And one in two or one in three stats, sometimes the stats vary that I read, uh end up either unemployed.

• 55:31Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 55:32Speaker 01

  Incarcerated, which is normally more so the boys than the girls.

• 55:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:36Speaker 01

  And um homeless.

• 55:38Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 55:39Speaker 01

  Um and or um a first time parent.

• 55:43Speaker 01

  Within the twelve months of leaving, yeah, so that that's, you know, with everything that happened with AJ, knowing he came from the foster care and his his story is obviously horrendous.

• 55:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:52Speaker 01

  His upbringing, um so I thought, well, I'll start another charity.

• 55:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, I I can see.

• 56:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:01Speaker 00

  See why it would motivate you if you you you're looking at that going, look at the pain my family's gone through. And maybe if someone was in there to help AJ, that pain could have been prevented. So I understand where the motivation comes from. Let's take a take a break now and then we'll we'll delve deeply into um Warrior Woman and A Sister to Sister. And you work on the Serious Offenders Review Board. Because I I I think honestly, I I've I've said this when I was in the cops, I thought, you know, as a policeman, I'm making making the difference, arresting people and all that. But I think it's people like you, the quiet ones, just chipping chipping away and making the more of a difference to reduce crime than uh we we do in the police, and that's not being critical of police.

• 56:46Speaker 00

  We need need police and there's some great uh great police, but there's different ways of fighting crime, isn't there, and reducing crime?

• 56:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, I just think trying to prevent it is the best, you know, which is not easy.

• 56:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. But yeah, we've got to try.

• 57:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:01Speaker 00

  Okay, let's have a break and we'll be back for part two.

• 57:05Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 57:05Speaker 00

  Cheers.

• 57:06Speaker 01

  Cheers.