From soccer mum to prisoner number 171435: Kerry Tucker Pt. 1

When suburban mum Kerry Tucker decided she should start hitting the gym, she didn’t expect to be arrested a month later. For more than six years, Kerry had stolen two million dollars from her employer. In this episode, Kerry takes us inside the first 24 hours inside a women’s maximum security prison as a ‘cleanskin’, where she was locked up with some of Australia’s most infamous female criminals. You can watch I Catch Killers on Youtube here. 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/ Email the show at [email protected] 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 operated. The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some of the content and language might be confronting. That's because no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged. Join me now as I take you into this world.

• 0:46Speaker 00

  It's rare that you speak to a person who acknowledges prison was probably the best thing that happened to them. But today's guest, Kerry Tucker, a suburban mother of two, who was sentenced to seven years imprisonment for one of Victoria's biggest white-collar crimes committed by a female, speaks about how her darkest moment in her life became a turning point. In this episode, she talks about her life and how her experiences in a maximum-security prison opened her eyes up to the injustices of this world and led her towards advocacy for women's prisoners. I found Kerry's story quite inspirational. And this is coming from a person who, as a general rule, has a strong dislike for people who commit fraud.

• 1:28Speaker 00

  Have a listen and see what you think. Kerry Tucker, welcome to I Catch Killers.

• 1:35Speaker 01

  Oh, thank you. It's a real pleasure to be here.

• 1:37Speaker 00

  Just delving into your past, when you were a mother of two and chasing the white picket fence, did you at any stage envisage that you'd be on a true crime podcast called I Catch Killers, talking about your time in a maximum-security prison?

• 1:53Speaker 01

  Oh, absolutely not, no. I always thought that there was something different, something, you know, was going to happen. I knew my marriage would end sooner or later. You know, but I never ever envisaged this. And particularly to, you know, I was always into true crime, you know, all my life. I just didn't realise I'd become part of it. I read books about women that I ended up meeting in prison. So it was incredibly surreal. I never ever, ever pictured myself being in prison, in trouble, let alone being in prison.

• 2:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, your life certainly took a sharp turn into the world, into the criminal world. I'd ask you this too, because I'd be curious about that. You're into true crime, but did you ever give much consideration to what goes on in prison? Like, as I, you know, you would have heard the term squarehead in prison, someone that's, you know, a straighty 180.

• 2:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was it.

• 2:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, never, I would imagine you didn't really consider what happens in prison. You'd drive past prisons, you'd hear occasional stories in the media about things that had happened in prisons. Did you ever give any consideration to what goes on in a prison?

• 3:03Speaker 01

  No, and I didn't care. I used to, you know, I used to drive down, you know, East Link and I saw occasionally, it must have been quite a while ago, you know, the old prison that sat up in Fairfield. And I'd see that and it just, it completely unnerved me. It would unsettle me, almost like a premonition, you know, for the rest of the day sort of thing. But I had no consideration, you know, I come from the other side of the tracks. You know, I had no experience with drugs, nor had anyone in my family. I just felt that prisoners were exactly where they deserved to be. Drug users, if you didn't, if you didn't want to take drugs, then just stop. You know, I had, I was very, very judgmental.

• 3:47Speaker 01

  No idea about how a prison ran or what went on. Or what I was concerned about was that the bad guys were locked up.

• 3:55Speaker 00

  It's interesting and thanks for your honesty, because I think that's how most people look at prisons, unless they have some form of direct involvement in some capacity. And I think if you spoke to the average person on the street that hadn't been touched by a crime in their family or even themselves, you'd look at prison and think, well, who cares what goes in there? They're in there because they're deemed not to be fit for society.

• 4:22Speaker 01

  Exactly, you know, and that's why it's so important that when somebody does exist and live, you know, within the culture of prison and get to learn exactly what goes on in there, you know, it's a big responsibility to be able to correct the way the community thinks, because I had that opinion myself. I certainly don't now.

• 4:43Speaker 00

  No, well, life certainly changed for you. And I've, I had the pleasure of reading your book, The Prisoner, which is not, let's not spoil the ending, but if someone writes a memoir and it's called The Prisoner, one can assume that you've, you've...

• 4:58Speaker 01

  The clue's in the title.

• 4:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, okay.

• 5:02Speaker 01

  That wasn't my idea. I had a different name for the book, but anyway.

• 5:07Speaker 00

  Okay, well, interesting on the cover of the book, The Prisoner, How One Woman's Jail Term Was The Making Of Her. So it's, well, I think it's quite interesting. Perhaps your time in prison was the best thing that happened to you in a strange sort of way.

• 5:23Speaker 01

  Oh, absolutely. You know, I agree with that 100%. I was sort of just, you know, floating around. I'd just finished, you know, my marriage was over, but I still had, you know, the two girls. But I really didn't know what was going to happen then. I had no idea where my life was going to go. I thought that I was pretty okay. When I got arrested, I went and saw Paul Galblin. He said, look, you know, a woman of 40 doesn't just get up and do this. He sent me to a forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Paul Brown. Absolutely wonderful, wonderful man. And he diagnosed me with disassociative identity disorder. And he said, you know, that was formerly known as multiple personality disorder.

• 6:08Speaker 01

  And he said, you know, on the scale of like one to say Sybil, I was about a six. I had personality states, you know, rescuer, self-destructive and something else. And I had no, no idea that I had a problem or a mental problem. And I got to see him quite a lot. And in the end, you know, he come in and he said, look, Kerry, you've got, you've got a serious problem. And I looked at him and said, I can see what you're doing. You know, we've become friends, you know, you like me. You're just going to say this so I can get a shorter sentence. And he went, no, no. He said, you're, you're really not well and you need to get, you know, come to grips with that.

• 6:47Speaker 00

  Right.

• 6:48Speaker 01

  And, you know, I sort of still didn't. So then I was sort of arrested, I guess, and went to prison. While I was in prison, you know, I'd been in there two years before I went to trial. And Paul Brown came back out and said, you know, on the scale of disassociative identity disorder, I didn't register at all.

• 7:08Speaker 00

  Right.

• 7:08Speaker 01

  You know, I had no, you know, mental health, anything to do with that in prison. I just sort of became part of the community. So the community sort of helped me heal in a lot of ways.

• 7:22Speaker 00

  Well, it, my sense and in our discussions and the research I've done, it sort of, to me, it felt like you found yourself. And prior to that, you were living a lie. And I suppose we put up front about the crimes that you're in prison for, because the police didn't just pluck you off the street and throw you in jail. We don't do, we don't do those type of things.

• 7:47Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 7:48Speaker 00

  Did, tell us about the crimes, what you were convicted of. And because, you know, it's in that fraud category, white-collar crime. People don't fully understand it and the ramifications. Just tell us through what, how you got into committing the crimes, because it was over an extended period of time.

• 8:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:08Speaker 00

  What, what your motive was?

• 8:11Speaker 01

  Look, it was over a period of six years, but it was fraud. When I went to prison, I had, it looked like I was being charged with $500,000 over six years. By the time I went to trial, it was $1.9 million that I was, I was charged with. And, you know, if I, when I talk to you about it now, you know, it's almost like a dream. I think to myself, how on earth could I have got involved with something like that? It just doesn't make sense to me. But when I think of the motive and rationalisation that I had, if I really touch, touch on that memory, it's, it was quite fierce. I can still feel that I just had to do it, you know, if you know what I mean. It's very hard to describe. And the rationale was, you know...

• 8:55Speaker 01

  In my mind, there was, there was a couple of different rationales, um, you know, and one of the, one of them was, you know, I was in a very unhappy marriage and, uh, you know, I just didn't, I didn't want anything to, to, to, to blow up during the day, so to speak. So I made sure all the bills were, you know, were, were done. My husband at the time didn't know anything about this, you know. So it was, it was just such a stressful, obviously stressful time. And that sort of made me, well, I had to do it. Um, this is what I need to do. Plus, what was going on at the company sort of thing, um, it made it very easy for me. It became part of daily life. It became part of my DNA. It became part of a normal day.

• 9:38Speaker 00

  To, just to get a sense of it, writing dud checks, withdrawing money, creating false accounts, uh, uh, uh, that type of fraud, was it?

• 9:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yep. Cre- creating false accounts, false invoices, basic transfers from, from, from one account to my account. You know, uh, there was nothing, nothing ingenious about any of this. And, and it also needs to be said, you know, I didn't, I didn't have any extravagance. I didn't go on any holidays. I still owed thirteen thousand dollars on my car. I still had a house loan, you know, um, I, I didn't go on, you know, any holidays. I didn't have designer clothes or anything like that. It was, it was just, it was just a way of living, regardless of how big it was.

• 10:20Speaker 00

  Right. Did you, at the time you were committing the crimes, was there the, uh, sort of a Ponzi scheme aspect to it that you thought, okay, well, I'll, I'll get some money from here, I'll pay that money back? Did you have to cover your tracks?

• 10:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. No, I didn't. Um, I was never investigated. There was no accounting. There was no, um, I did have, in the end, there was, um, some audits towards the end and they didn't discover anything either, even though it wasn't an ingenious thing, you know. Um, so it was wide open there to be checked. And that's, that's, I'm not saying that to be clever, but I wasn't, I wasn't suspicious, I guess. You know, I worked very hard at having this soccer mum veneer, basically.

• 11:02Speaker 00

  So you didn't, it didn't turn up in the two hundred thousand dollar sports car or extravagant overseas holidays and?

• 11:09Speaker 01

  Absolutely not. In fact, when I went to trial, Judge Betty King, you know, said, um, said, well, you know, we don't know where it's gone. She thought I had it stashed somewhere. And she said, so she just divided the amount over how many weeks and said that I'd spent nine thousand dollars a week on makeup and twelve thousand dollars a week, a week on our kitchen appliances. Now, I've never enjoyed being in the kitchen, so that was a bit of a laugh, but, um, I, I, I was, I was astounded that, you know, I don't think anyone could spend nine thousand dollars a week on makeup or kitchen appliances. Um, but there you go.

• 11:44Speaker 00

  So looking, looking back at those crimes for, for six years, looking back now, the, the person you are now, uh, how, how do you feel about the crimes and did it impact? Well, it impacted on people close to you, but, but besides that, impact on anyone that, where the money was being taken from? How, how do you feel about that? Do you have remorse about that?

• 12:06Speaker 01

  Oh, absolutely. You know, I, I, I have remorse about that. And I have also other certain feelings, you know, in, in regards to that as well. But absolutely. You know, one of the reasons, and, and my remorse shows in the sense that, A, I was remorseful. I was in court. I didn't appeal my sentence. I very well could have. Um, it was one of the longest sentences for, uh, that amount in, in Victoria. So, you know, I didn't appeal it. I stayed in maximum security prison the entire sentence, the entire five years. Um, I didn't use legal aid. I used no community money whatsoever. Um, you know, I got my own barristers and my own QC's and, you know, so therefore I felt that I really had done

• 12:48Speaker 01

  my sentence well. And that gave me the ability to, to move on, to be able to move on as well.

• 12:55Speaker 00

  Yeah. And look, I, I, I know the end to this story and I, I want our listeners just to understand it, how, how it evolves. And, uh, I, I certainly think you made amends as best you could with, uh, being, uh, yeah, involved in, in that, that type of crime. I, I ask you from a, a personal point of view, did you always, was it like a shadow hanging over your, your shoulder that, uh, eventually you're going to get caught? Like at some stage that the cops are going to come knocking on your door and go, hey, look at this?

• 13:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. And well, towards the end, yes, it was very obvious. Uh, probably about the last eight months, I guess. Um, it was very obvious and it was a shadow, you know? And in the end, I knew that the police were involved, you know, uh, one of the, one of the, uh, uh, family members of the people out at the company had kept me informed. They didn't, they, they sort of felt that it was fair that I at least knew what was coming. Um, and, you know, they had opinions about different things and whatever. So I was well aware. That was a really difficult time, sitting and waiting, you know, for them, for them to pounce. So, and there's always that thought, always with white collar, there's always that thought that you're going to pay it back somehow or other. So it wasn't,

• 14:12Speaker 01

  when you're talking about the Ponzi scheme before, you know, it's, it's, it's a similar sort of thing, but I, you have nowhere else to, to bring the money in from, but you might, you might win Tats Loto. You know, that was a real thought, you know, why can't it be me that wins Tats Loto, you know? So there's always that thought, certainly that, you know, I was going to, to, to pay back what, what I took.

• 14:32Speaker 00

  Yeah. Uh, it's interesting because I, I haven't had a great deal of experience with fraud matters in, in my policing career, but in the, the limited experience I did have, quite often it was always at the end of it, uh, being caught. But it's almost like there's a gambling gene in there. Like, I'll, I'll just roll the, roll the dice here. I'll get away with this. Okay. I might be able to pay that money back, but I need another big score. And I just see people go down a rabbit hole chasing, uh, chasing.

• 15:01Speaker 01

  Again, um, you know, not to sound evasive or anything, but there are reasons, there are a lot of reasons why I didn't think that I would get caught. I didn't think it was a gamble, you know? So, so for those reasons, I didn't have that sort of over, you know, um, in my face every day because there was, yeah.

• 15:21Speaker 00

  But there was a time when, uh, you knew the, uh, it was up and, uh, you decided you were going to start going to the gym and preparing yourself for jail. And I, I, I had a laugh with you about this because it just makes me think of that, uh, movie, uh, Get, Get, uh, Get Square, who's with, uh, Will, Will Ferrell and, uh, Kevin Hart, where Will Ferrell, and it was a fraud matter, where he realised he's going to go to jail. So he hired Kevin Hart to toughen him up before he went to prison. Tell us about your getting, getting hard.

• 15:56Speaker 01

  Well, well, well, thanks for that comparison. I would have preferred a Shawshank Redemption or something comparison, but I'll go with that. It's very close. Um, I knew, uh, Paul Galbely, when I first went and saw him, said at the time, you're looking at two years, you know?

• 16:10Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 16:10Speaker 01

  And so the first thing I did was went back into Hillswood and thought, oh, I've got to get into shape, you know? Um, because, you know, if I get into a fight, I've got to be able to defend myself. There's probably big girls there. I need some muscles. You know, I went to the gym every day. I swam probably five, 10 kilometres every day and, um, and lifted weights. I did everything I possibly could. So I was big and tough and ready for whatever prison brought, you know? It was just pointless, but that was my thought process.

• 16:43Speaker 00

  Uh, look, I, I, I would imagine, and I think a lot of us have probably had that thought, what would you do if you went to prison? And you think you want to go in in the best shape possibly, possibly you can. But I thought, I thought it was funny and I, I might be laughing at you more so than with you, but anyway, you've, you've got to, you've got to try. Tell us the day of the reckoning, when the, uh, police turned up. Talk us, talk us through that. Because I, I think this is a cautionary tale to people too. Like, there's a full-on redemption story that you got and we'll, we'll cover that in, in more detail, obviously. But when people think they can't find themselves in, in jail, tell the story, because I want it as a wake up to people that, uh, think, you know, life, life is always fair, but it's not.

• 17:29Speaker 01

  It's, um, you know, and I, when I talk about my, I, my arrest, I do so with complete honesty and with respect to all of the police that were involved there at the time. They had a job to do, but the, um, I was at the gym. They'd had me under surveillance for two weeks, which was to me just a, a waste of resources. I wasn't going anywhere. I had a three and a five year, a five and a six year old at home. I, I wasn't going anywhere. Um, I wasn't a violent offender, you know? So I went to the gym each morning and I got to the gym and I was halfway through a spin class and, and next minute, you know, there's about three squad cars pull up and I could see out the window and I thought, oh, here we go. This is it. And he walked in, there's about four of them walked in,

• 18:12Speaker 01

  three, three males and a, and a female. He came over and he said, are you Kerry Tucker? And I said, yes, I am. And, and he'd gotten to know. One of the women out at the company involved and was very sympathetic to her. Um, and rightfully so, and very had me in his sights, you know, I was obviously the mastermind, so on and so forth. So he handcuffed me and took me back to the Lillidale Police Station. And firstly, I was gonna sing like a bird anyway, you know, it was, it was over. And so I said, yeah, I'll, I'll confess. I hadn't even been charged, I hadn't even been interviewed, so then he put me straight back in the car, took me down back to Hillsborough, to my house.

• 18:53Speaker 01

  There would have been six to eight cars blocking the street, police cars and a huge truck. And they had, they were taking furniture and everything out of the house, they were just gutting it, they gutted the place. And, you know, I remember standing in there and I thought, well, this is awkward, there's so many police here. I said, this is awkward.

• 19:11Speaker 00

  Why put in it?

• 19:12Speaker 01

  I thought this is awkward, so I said, you know, um, would anyone like a cup of tea? And they just looked at me as if to go, you know, uh, nah. And I, so I said, okay, I'm thinking this is awkward. So I said, I'm just gonna pop off to the toilet. And the female officer looked at me and said, not without me, you're not. And I was like, oh no, that's when I realised, one of the first times I realised my life was out of control. And, and, you know, they're, so that, so they gutted the place. Um, and then there's another knock at the door and the guy, he said he was from the Piranha Task Force. And all I could think of was underworld, you know.

• 19:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:47Speaker 01

  The.

• 19:47Speaker 00

  They were investigating the, uh, the organised crime killings in the gangland wars in Melbourne, yeah.

• 19:53Speaker 01

  And, and of course I knew that, so I was like, oh shit, I'm in real trouble here, what do they think I've done? And I didn't, it, it took him a little while to, to let me know that there was a, you know, um, a financial side of the Piranha Task Force and they were investigating it.

• 20:08Speaker 00

  I just wondered upfront about the, the, the crimes you, you committed and we'll, we'll talk about the process from there, what, what happened after that. Um, but one thing that sort of reflect on the fact you were doing a spin class, preparing for jail, maybe not have been the right thing. You probably should have been in the, in the weight room, but anyway, that's a, that's a personal.

• 20:28Speaker 01

  I'd probably finished with the weights, Gary, I was winding down.

• 20:31Speaker 00

  Oh, okay, all right. Tell us a little bit about you, the, the child, your, your childhood that you grew up in.

• 20:38Speaker 01

  I was born in Sydney, but we moved around a fair bit. Um, you know, from Sydney to Tassie, to Leighton in New South Wales, to Robben Vale, to Muljura. And, you know, I don't think that was a very happy childhood. And to be honest, I don't have a lot of memory from, um, from a little girl to the age of about eight. You know, my father died when I was 13 and, you know, my mother couldn't cope with, with his death. I didn't understand it at the time because I was 13.

• 21:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:09Speaker 01

  And, um, all of my older siblings had been married and moved away, they were out of the house, so to speak, and I had a younger brother. Uh, my mother was very concerned, you know, about him, so I was sort of just wandering around, looking for the next wall to run into, you know?

• 21:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:24Speaker 01

  Um, and the other thing too is, you, you know, and so, so I was in her way. I was headstrong, I've always been sort of a little bit rebellious. I had no guidelines from, from any family, uh, as in, as in parental guidelines, you know, there was. So, so I was sort of just left to find my own way. Um, and, and, you know, that, that brought on a lot of different issues and a lot of trauma for me, but at the time. And right up until, till I had to start talking about it when I was writing the book. You know, you don't realise that you've had a traumatic life because you, you're just, that's just how you do, you just get on and, and, and just keep going.

• 22:04Speaker 01

  You know, you, you, you've got no time to reflect or no scale to, to reflect when you're a teenager and things are happening to you. So you just keep moving on, not realising that you damaged every little, you know, each time along the way. So I didn't want to include anything in my, in my past in my book, I don't, I've never felt a victim, I'm certainly not a victim. But it, it, it was said to have been, made it more personable about, you know, where I came from.

• 22:32Speaker 00

  Well, I, it, it gave me more of an understanding, uh, who you are and, and the backstory. But, uh, clarify that, uh, you, you're certainly not putting your hand up as a victim and not blaming aspects that happened to you. But you had, uh, my, my reading of it, you had some, uh, very traumatic things happen to you in your, yeah. In your, your childhood, teenage years, you know, leading up to early adulthood. Um, if you're comfortable, are you prepared to talk, talk about some of those, uh, some of those things?

• 23:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, look, you know, when I was, when I was very, very young, um, I was engaged to a, that's what you did in the country in the, you know, in the eighties. You know, I was engaged to a young man and got pregnant. My father had just died. And of course, in a small town, the, the local doctor there was my, one of my dad's best friends. So I went to, to, to, to him and he was just horrible. He just said, well, I hope you're happy with yourself, I hope you're proud. You know, your father would be rolling in his grave, you know, blah, blah, blah. And he's picked up the phone and rang my mother and they talked, um, you know, they said, you've got to come down to the hospital. You know, because you're very young, they've just got to make sure that everything's okay, you know, with a young pregnancy and all that sort of stuff. No discussions had taken place about whether I was going to keep it or what, you know, it was just a.

• 23:47Speaker 01

  But it was all in the pretence of making sure that I was healthy and whatever else. And, and, you know, so, um, I was put under anaesthetic and woke up, I don't know, hours later and, and was told that they'd, uh, taken the, taken the baby. So my resentment for my mother set in then. Um, I felt absolutely traumatised, you know, the, the father of the, the baby had, didn't even know. You know, and I wouldn't probably have kept it, I, I, I was too young.

• 24:15Speaker 00

  How old were you at the time?

• 24:17Speaker 01

  Fifteen, I think, sixteen.

• 24:19Speaker 00

  Okay, so from going to the doctor and confirming that you're pregnant to being put under general anaesthetic and having the, the baby, uh, taken. Within 24 hours or that day?

• 24:31Speaker 01

  Oh, oh, six hours, within, within six hours. So, you know, and a lot of these things, a lot of the, the, the things, that started my resentment for, for my mother. Because then, of course, it, it was done in such a bad way that I hemorrhaged and had a lot of internal problems. It become quite a big thing. Um, and in writing these things, you know, I, I was told to sit down and have a good think about different things that had happened and so I did. But I also spoke to some of my sisters about, because they were aware of it, about me writing about this sort of stuff. Because they had different relationships with our mother, you know.

• 25:08Speaker 01

  Um, and, and, and I didn't, so I, I didn't want to offend them, but they also realised that this was my story, you know? Um, and, and look, yeah, yeah, she couldn't cope with dad's loss, she'd become an alcoholic and I mean, you know, in every sense of the word. So I was, I was just in her way. Um, and, and she made it obvious that I was in her way. So, you know, there was another instance where, you know, um, you know, I, I was, um, having dinner at one of our friend's places. And, um, they said, well, come and pick the young son up from football. And it was down past the footy oval and I noticed as we drove closer, I noticed a, a bag in the back seat. And, um, you know, I was wondering what was, what was going on.

• 25:52Speaker 01

  We drove straight past the oval and straight, uh, and kept driving for about six hours into a little small town in the middle of Victoria. You know, and it was about midnight and, um, you know, this, this friend, this family friend, you know, he wouldn't talk to me for the whole trip. And just pulled up at the front of a, a roadhouse, it was about midnight and handed me over to, to, to fellas. Um, you know, I couldn't understand and I was, I was told it was to have a job, you know, um, working in one of the restaurants and all that sort of stuff. And it wasn't until, I don't know, maybe six months later. Um, and I was basically held captive there, I escaped through a bathroom window, you know?

• 26:32Speaker 00

  Uh, uh, held captive to work, there wasn't abuse there?

• 26:36Speaker 01

  No, there wasn't, it was, it was, but I wasn't allowed to do anything, to talk to anyone. I had to collect, clean their house, clean their restaurant, look after the kids, you know, I was pretty much a bit of a slave, yeah. And, and, you know, when I found out that, you know, my mother had organised it, you know, that was, that was it, you know, for me. And so I sort of just wandered around then, um, from going to Melbourne to back to, you know, Muljura. Um, but each time I went back, it, my mum's condition was so much more worse, you know, so. You know, I wasn't, I remember going to a seance once with my daughters and the woman, the, the clairvoyant who I, you know, I didn't really believe at the time.

• 27:17Speaker 01

  She turned around and she said, oh, there's a woman coming through that says you are really difficult to love. And I went, oh, hello mum. She's, she's obviously, how you going? She's obviously turned up, you know, so.

• 27:31Speaker 00

  Well, like the things that you're describing there and I, I, I like the fact that you're not walking around with, yeah, a, a victim badge saying, this is why I've done this, this is.

• 27:41Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 27:41Speaker 00

  You're not, you're not buying into that, but you're acknowledging that, yeah, it does have an impact, the two situations you've outlined there. Um, traumatic in formative years.

• 27:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and I, I didn't, I didn't relate to that until I was writing the book, you know, that, that was when I sat back and thought, oh, maybe it wasn't that great, you know? But prior to that, I gave it no thought, you know? I think it led more into bad decisions around, um, relationships, rather than having anything to contribute to the crime.

• 28:12Speaker 00

  Okay, now, at the, at the time that you, uh, you got arrested, um, at the gym, doing your cycle class. Um, you were married to, to children, two daughters, three and five or, uh, uh, three and six at the time?

• 28:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, five and six.

• 28:28Speaker 00

  I, I think, and the point that I, I like to make and get this across to people, when you're taken into custody, it's not a nice place to be. So if you have lost control of your life, it's basically you're in custody, you've got someone else telling you what to do, when you can eat, when you can go to the bathroom. Yeah, virtually full, full control on you.

• 28:50Speaker 00

  When you were arrested, did you get bail at any stage or were you in custody throughout?

• 28:55Speaker 01

  We decided that um we wouldn't go for bail. Well firstly, uh he he made a point of arresting, arresting me at five o'clock on a Friday. So there was no chance.

• 29:05Speaker 00

  You're in custody over the weekend.

• 29:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, over the weekend sort of thing. So I was in in the Ringwood Police Holding Cells for one night. And then I was taken across to the Marabyn Police Holding Cells. And I remember sitting in the back of a divvy van. That was my real experience. And I could hear the coppers talking about the thing in the back, you know. There was no seat belts or anything like that. They were just driving at breakneck speed. And then I went to the Marabyn Police Holding Cells and and that was probably one of the scariest things, you know. I remember was standing there and and this detective's turned around and gone, well, you know, I'm going home, but you're not. And I was like, oh, it's cute. It's, you know. Anyway, I'm standing and then he goes, see ya. And I'm just standing in the corridor.

• 29:51Speaker 01

  And another copper comes out of nowhere and goes, um prisoner coming through. And I actually went up to him and said, look, you know, don't leave me standing here if there's a prisoner coming through. And he looked at me and he said, that's you dickhead. I was like, I just, I sat there and I thought, oh, God, I was so, I felt so humiliated. Get used to it.

• 30:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:11Speaker 01

  And um and then out come a couple of women with a with a first strip search, you know, um which was absolutely delightful. But, you know, you get used to that as well.

• 30:22Speaker 00

  But but first up, like, tell us through that because that that's traumatic for people.

• 30:27Speaker 01

  It um, you know, I was very compliant, right from the word go, I wasn't gonna, it wasn't my nature. Unless I'm backed into a corner, you know, it wasn't, I was at their mercy and I was quite happy to have them telling me what to do. But the strip search again, they didn't tell me what was going to happen, how how how I had to do it, you know. Um at the time I had my period, you know, and I'd said, you know, can I, you know, get some, you know, get some assistance with this? And they said, no. They had the blue rubber gloves on. I didn't know whether they were gonna do, you know, an internal. I I had no idea. It was absolutely frightening. And then at the end, they just turned around and said, you know, part your cheeks and all that sort of stuff. And and um there becomes a little dance involved really.

• 31:11Speaker 01

  And then just get dressed again. And then I was just thrown into a a a cell.

• 31:15Speaker 00

  Tell us about that, your your first twenty four hours in the cell.

• 31:19Speaker 01

  Uh, I I was standing there sort of thinking and I was saying to this person, you know, I I had absolute terror. I could hear women in the cell. There was about, it was a really big cell. And and there's about five little cells off it. And I could, it was just all concrete. And I could hear them screaming, who's that? Look at that, you know, sort of thing. And I said to them, oh, could I go into another cell, please? I, you know, I had no idea. And I just just laughed at me and just, I had my little pillow and my my blanket and they threw me into the cell with these women. And and I thought, my God, this is unbelievable. I was nearly crying. I was so frightened.

• 31:58Speaker 01

  And one of the women came up to me and said, and I'll never forget it. She said, my name's Leah and you're gonna be fine. And I just sort of looked at her and I said, oh, thank you. And she said, yeah, she said, um, and that's Christie over there, you know. She said, we're all um heroin addicts. And I I just gasped for air. I was like, oh, my God, I'm I'm in the same place as a as a real life heroin addict, you know.

• 32:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:22Speaker 01

  I was so naive. And it was brutal in the sense of how the police treated them. It needs to be said, I was treated very well by them, except for a female police officer, one female police officer. But I was treated very well. I was also a church mouse in the corner. The rest of the girls in the cells were, you know, they were withdrawing from drugs. Um and they were they were treated dreadfully. I know it's a thankless job for the police, getting abused and whatever else. But they could have they could have um stopped it right from the word go by just being a little bit more sensitive um to to the thing. And I was just sitting there watching the whole thing. And I'm understanding both sides.

• 33:03Speaker 01

  Thinking if I was a copper, this would be pissing me off. But I'm I'm with the women that are so kind to me. And I'm thinking, this is just, this is just wrong. Like, you guys could have fixed this, you know, you've. So I'm just watching this whole thing unravel, thinking, okay, this is, this is great. If this is what my life is gonna be for five years, I, you know, or two years is what I thought.

• 33:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:24Speaker 01

  Uh, I'm not gonna be able to handle this, you know, um people coming in and out all the time and having all these issues. But it was a very very, very good start for me. I was there for nearly a month. Because the maximum security prison for women fills up usually every May and every December. Fills up with women, no beds. It's cold and Christmas, you know, it's cold.

• 33:46Speaker 00

  Okay, yep.

• 33:48Speaker 01

  And um, yeah. So um the only way we could get out to the prison in order of arrival at the cells was when someone was released from prison. So by the, we, there was about eight of us in there. So by the time it got through to me, it was nearly nearly a month uh in in there. But it, I must say, it was it was incredibly difficult. Um but it put me in very good stead for when I arrived at the prison because I was able to sort of befriend all of these women who were old, old school crims.

• 34:18Speaker 00

  How how did you? Because I I would imagine the moment you walk in to an environment like that, and I I can picture the environment, that they're gonna smell you a mile away that you're a straighty one eighty in their, in their, in their world. And there is that inclination to take advantage or or manipulate the situation. Did you find that? Or did you find a a different response? You're all in this together or we're not gonna take advantage?

• 34:43Speaker 01

  I I found a different response. I was, I was amazed and and and thankful, so thankful. Um I was amazed. The first thing they said to me when I walked in was, if you've got any smokes, you know, and I I didn't know about the, how women used to bank

• 34:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:59Speaker 01

  the bank and bank their smokes, you know, uh vaginally. I had no idea. So I had smokes in my property. So I actually turned around and said, yeah, I've got a whole packet. And they, they were, I was their best friend straight away. And they said, well, get them out. And I said, well, they're in the property. Just ask the policeman. They thought I had them banked and they went, oh, they just looked at me and said, oh, Christ, she's a, she's a clean skin. She's a square head. And they sort of just dismissed me in a way of having any involvement in anything until it got so bad there that they were dishing up, you know, frozen meat, you know, for lunch, frozen hamburgers for lunch. It was um taking all of our, you know, when they cleaned the place out, they would

• 35:41Speaker 01

  use a fire hose and just fire hose the entire concrete cell. It was the middle of May. Uh, we weren't allowed to use, wear shoes, you know, it was just incredibly dreadful and there was no need for that. So I was starting to find my feet and my temper after about two or three weeks. Um because the other thing too is that, you know, I, as much as I was frightened, once I realized I was very quick at being able to read the room and read their their their nature, their behaviour. Um and I could work around that. But essentially, they were just very, very kind to me, but they were being treated really, really badly. And and, you know, I I thought there was no need for that. One of the female coppers turned on me. Um

• 36:24Speaker 01

  and I sort of thought, well, I'll show the rest of the crims that I can be like them.

• 36:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, okay.

• 36:31Speaker 01

  You know.

• 36:31Speaker 00

  Tell us, tell us this one.

• 36:33Speaker 01

  I'm just like them, you know, I'll fit in really well. And she's, she came in and, you know, and I said to her, she took all of our cups, our drinking cups. And I stood there, I thought, now's my chance. So I stood up and said, you know, um were you born a bitch or do you really have, do you have to work at it? Because to me, it seems to come really naturally. And I just looked around at all my new friends and gave them a smirk and a smile. Thought, here I go, I'm on the way. And um she just got me and locked me down for about eight hours in this tiny little cell. And I wasn't so, uh, they came up to me, all the, all the crims come up to me later and went, yeah, that wasn't wise, Gary.

• 37:09Speaker 00

  You you thought you were being clever and uh look what I can do. And then uh the ramifications flowed from there.

• 37:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, I thought two weeks in the cells with them, you know, by now I could start acting like them. But I sort of gave that up.

• 37:23Speaker 00

  With the, uh, the, the food, you, uh, you got behind, um, your first bit of, uh, prison protests and advocacy to, uh, sort the food situation. Tell us that story.

• 37:34Speaker 01

  I did. Um, it was, it was really, really bad and, and the crims were, you know, they, the, the, the girls, they were just beside themselves and, and it was, it was really dangerous situation, to tell you the truth. And, and, um, one of the girls turned around and said, you know, we, we should be able to tell the ombudsman this, you know, and I had no idea who the ombudsman was. And, and they're standing there going, you know, screaming at the officers going, we're going to tell the fucking ombudsman and we're going to slit your throat and all that sort of stuff. And I said, oh, maybe not. I said, I went up to the girls, they said, they were going to write the letter. And I said, I could probably help with this, you know, um, I used to write letters all the time. And they said, right. And they all gathered

• 38:16Speaker 01

  around me at this little concrete desk. I got a pen and, um, I got a pencil, sorry, and a piece of paper from one of the policemen. And they laughed at me because they were sort of like, yeah, we'll give it to you and play along, but you're never going to be able to get it out. So I'm sitting there and I said, look, I tell you what, you tell me what you want to write and I'll just, I'll just write it. And I can't remember exactly what, what it was, but she's like, okay, fine. I want this to go to the head fucking person at the fucking ombudsman, fucking officer. And I've gone, uh, dear sir, for the attention of the ombudsman. And I've gone, and I've sat there and gone, yep, right. And she said, tell them we're going to fucking write. We're going to take the lid off this fucking place. And

• 38:57Speaker 01

  I've gone, um, recurrent concerns of, of incidents, incidences that we have here with, with, you know, issues that we have. Tell them, she said, because if they don't come out here, we're going to slit their fucking throats. I said, they're all cunt dogs. And I, and I went, um, and it is escalating to the point where we are needing assistance. And we're right there. She turned around, she said, um, she said, and tell them if they don't come out, we'll fucking kill them too. And I just went sincerely yours, girls.

• 39:29Speaker 01

  And they go, right, you got all that? And I went, I sure did. Yep. And they've gone, and they settled down completely. They'd been heard and they settled down. And bugger me if the, there was a copper out there and his name, just come to me from nowhere. His name was Mr. McInerney, I think. And he was lovely. So I, I snuck up to him one day and said, I've got a letter here, uh, that I've, I've got to send it to the ombudsman or something. And he said, I'll do it for you. And I thought, no, you won't. And I, so I said to the girls, it's gone. Um, and he actually came back a couple of hours later and said, I faxed it. And I said, oh, great. Not a problem. Next day, the ombudsman comes out. And, yeah. And she interviewed all the women. They're sitting there going, yeah, yeah, fucking motherfuckers and whatever else. So I've, now she interviews me and I've walked

• 40:12Speaker 01

  in and gone, oh, hello, lovely to meet you. And she said, you're the one that wrote the letter. I went, oh, it's a bit of a giveaway there, wasn't it? And, um, and then she turned around and she said, which one is the heart, which officer is it that you, is doing the most harm? And the door behind me had a, a square window, you know? And I turned around and she's got her ugly face sitting there. And I turned around and I said, her, it's absolutely her. She's just, and I'm pointing at the window, she knew. And she, and I thought, ah, ha, gotcha. You know? And then the ombudsman thanked me and said, I'll, I'll follow your journey through this, through the system. I'd like to see how you're going. I said, well, thank you, blah, blah, blah. And, um, about, after she left, about 15 minutes later,

• 40:54Speaker 01

  along come that, that copper again and locked me down for another eight hours, uh, because it was the same one. So that didn't work out, you know, I was still finding my feet.

• 41:03Speaker 00

  Yeah. Hey, did the, with your, your creative translation, that sort, that, well, I don't know how, how else to describe it. But that gave you some, um, in a strange way, that I would imagine the girls in the, uh, in the cell, when they've seen what you've actually written, they would have thought you was gold.

• 41:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, they, they didn't see that, what I'd written, because I didn't want to insult them, you know, I didn't.

• 41:27Speaker 00

  Okay, yep.

• 41:28Speaker 01

  I, so I just sort of said, I just jumbled up a few words and, but I, I've got your point. I've got exactly what you wanted to say to the motherfuckers, you know? And, uh, so we, we sort of went from there. But by the time I got out, and, and they were amazed that I've sent this letter, I've, I've decided I'd write the letter, I've sent the letter. They knew that it wasn't about me because I wasn't withdrawing. They weren't holding medication from me. I wasn't on any. So they knew that I was doing it for them. And then the ombudsmen comes out, interviewed them. So they just felt heard and seen and, you know, so by the time I got to the prison, I had eight really good friends and they were telling everybody, you know, yeah, yeah, get a load of this one, you know, she's really good. So I, it, it sort of paved my way, as you, as you, as you would say.

• 42:13Speaker 00

  Well, you, you, you found your feet and, uh, you, you didn't have to fight your way, even with your, uh, your, your hardcore training, leading up to.

• 42:21Speaker 01

  My muscles.

• 42:22Speaker 00

  With your muscles. But it was your, your ability to read the room and your, your, your sharp tongue and the fact that you've come in there. And this is, I, I think, and it certainly came out in your book, you started to understand the trauma associated with people that are, you know, locked up. And you didn't put yourself in that category, but you found yourself in with that group. And you saw how these people, they're not used to getting anyone sticking up for them. They're, they're, they're used to just getting one kick after the other. And that sort of shape, shapes their attitude.

• 42:54Speaker 01

  They were, they were absolutely amazed that I, I would even take the time, you know, um, to, to, to do that. And that gave me a really good understanding. And, you know, again, it needs to be said, these, these heroin addicts that I was so judgmental of before I got there were so kind to me, you know, um, making sure that I was okay and, and that, you know, it's not as bad as it seems. It looks pretty bad, you know, but when we get out to the prison, it'll be better. And, and, and they paved my way. And, and I had a really deep understanding of how really good people can end up, you know, in, in situations like this where no one gives a shit. They're at the bottom of the pile, you know, even, even on the criminal scale and even out at prison, but certainly

• 43:37Speaker 01

  in the cells, they're at the bottom of the pile. No one gives a shit.

• 43:40Speaker 00

  I, I've heard so many in, in different jurisdictions, as in states, talk about, and I, I know from New South Wales, the, the police custody, the holding, holding cells, that, you know, police headquarters and that. All the crooks talk about that as the worst place to be. Yeah. Like, that's, because I, I don't, like, police are not corrective services officers. They're probably resenting being there. It's a horri- horrible environment. No, it's usually below a police station, no light, no natural light, no, not facilities. And, uh, yeah, it's a, it's a difficult place. And I've heard them just call it squalid.

• 44:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's dreadful. It's, you know, and, and, you know, the, the, the culture is, as we know, with, with the cops and the crims, you know, that's, that's, that culture will always be there. So, so if the police are in power, sort of thing, they can do, you know, they used to withhold the girls' medication, you know, there was just, they'd say they were going to take them out for, for, you know, a smoke, you know, and, and they, and they wouldn't, you know, they'd, they'd light up and, and have a barbecue right beside the vent where we were, you know, and you could hear them joking. So they were quite, you know, they, they were having fun and games with this. And, and yeah, I could see that it was a, it was a, you know, thankless job.

• 44:51Speaker 00

  Because there's so, so much misery and anger, resentment, everything in that whole environment. Because this, this is where people go when they're just first arrested. So they're staring down lengthy sentences, they're missing their loved ones, they're not getting their, their hit of drugs if they're, they're coming, coming down off, off drugs. So, so, so many things that, uh, are going on.

• 45:13Speaker 01

  It makes it worse, you know, um, I spent about six hours at the Melbourne Custody Centre, which is renowned to be the most brutal place because it's, it's manned by coppers, and I'll say this unconditionally, by coppers that obviously have the lowest IQ and antisocial behaviours, certainly when I was there. No one wants to work there, no one wants to be there, you know? And when I was there, it's about six hours, they terrorised us. I could hear them belting the crap out of a guy down in the cell, you know, down the corridor. I thought they were going to come to us next, you know? And the problem with it is, is it's totally unsupervised. You know, it's, it's dark, it's underground sort of thing. It's totally unsupervised. You can't have any visitors there. You can't

• 45:54Speaker 01

  have Salvation Army. There's no oversight whatsoever. And if you were, if you, and, again, I was only there probably about six hours. It traumatised the hell out of me, you know? I was frightened. I was vigilant. And I think that's where my vigilant, I was listening at the walls for their, for their footsteps, you know, um, to see whether they were coming to us. So it is, it's, it's the holding cells where there's no oversight, that anyone can be treated anyway.

• 46:20Speaker 00

  I, I, I can't say with a, a great deal of certainty in regards to Victoria. I know in, in New South Wales, there is now, because we're talking, yeah, a couple of decades ago, there is that, that oversight coming in now, um, that, uh, understanding that there, there was a problem there. The plea, uh, plea of guilty, like, you, we've talked about a little bit at the, at the start, but you decided that, uh, I'm going to take ownership, I'm going to get the plea and I've got to just knuckle down and serve, serve the time. Talk us through the mindset of deciding to plead guilty, besides the fact that you were guilty, because a lot of people don't, yeah, that, it's, but a, a lot of people,

• 47:02Speaker 00

  uh, a, a lot of people will contest it and, uh, they might be the, be the matter for whatever reason. But you made a decision to plead guilty and.

• 47:13Speaker 00

  I don't know, and this is my observation, I could be wrong, but I think that helps to a degree in your case, that you take an ownership and, okay, acknowledge my mistakes and this is a step forward. Is that how you looked at it?

• 47:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I had, um, look, for the first year that I was sort of in there, I was, you know, I was reasonably angry. I was angry about a whole lot of things, but mainly about myself, you know, with myself. I had a lot of guidance from Paul Galblie. I'd sit and say, I don't want, initially it was sort of like, I'll plead guilty for what I took, you know. And so, you know, we sort of, he said to me, this couldn't have happened without you, Carrie. So, you know, so I accepted that and sort of then just decided, right, this is where I am, this is where I need to be. I was also becoming very important

• 48:07Speaker 01

  in the prison, you know, I developed sort of, so I felt quite safe to be able to just sit there and let it settle in. You're guilty, plead guilty, you know, do the right thing. I was never going to look like a sook, you know, I couldn't bear that. So I pleaded guilty and just took whatever the judge gave me. I was already, I expected about two and a half years, three years, she doubled that, I didn't sort of expect that, but I was already halfway through my sentence by the time I was sentenced. So, and that, once I'd done that, it really released me to be able to just become an integral part of the prison

• 48:47Speaker 01

  DNA, you know, every bit is one of the women there, if not worse, you know. So you don't judge anymore. So it made me take control of my sentence.

• 48:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's interesting. There's a quote from yourself, and this will give a sort of insight into the way you were going to approach your imprisonment. And I'll get you to talk to it after I read it out. "I went from being a suburban mother of two to being prisoner number 171435. My life as I knew it was completely gone. I thought my life was over. I had the choice to give in to the shame and fall into a deep, dark abyss of failure that I had created. Or I could fight back, and I choose to fight. I owe it to my girls." That, my reading of that, that sort of encapsulates what you were just talking about, but can you expand on your thought process there and the reference to your girls?

• 49:43Speaker 01

  Um, you know, there's a time, one time during the whole thing where, that still sits with me, you know, they came to visit one Sunday and, you know, they cried the whole time. And when they were leaving, you know, what it looked like to them was two big police officers, but it was two corrections officers were walking them out, you know. And they're looking back at me, just screaming, "Come with us, mummy, why aren't you coming with us?" You know, it, you know, it gets me right to, you know, today, this sort of thing. And I looked, it ripped a hole in my soul. And I looked at them and I thought,

• 50:25Speaker 01

  you know, there's nothing harder than seeing that and knowing that you are totally to blame for what they're feeling. And that made me decide that everything I did from that point on would be to make them proud. And I knew I was going to have to go through a lot for that, but I didn't want to get home and have them being embarrassed to walk down the side, you know, the pavement with me. I didn't want them to be worried that people are going to go, "Look, that's her" or whatever, you know. I had, I knew to make them proud, that I had to do everything in my sentence and outside of my sentence that was twice as big as what my crime was. I had to overshadow that, to have, to have

• 51:07Speaker 01

  my girls say, you know, "Mum, we're so proud of you." And that was, that was my, that fuelled my determination. That day in the visit centre nearly destroyed me because, you know, I could have easily just given in, you know, let my defences down, started crying, which I hadn't sort of done before, but I knew that if I started crying, I quite possibly wouldn't be able to stop.

• 51:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:28Speaker 01

  So, so I knew I couldn't give in to the vulnerability and I just toughened the shit up. I leant on my muscles and decided, decided that, you know, I was just gonna, I was gonna change things, you know.

• 51:43Speaker 00

  Well, I, let's take a break here. When we get back into part two, we're going to talk about your prison experiences and some funny stories, sad stories, and the realisation of what you discovered, not just about yourself, but about the prison system when you're in there. And then the amazing way you've turned your life around. And we love stories of redemption on I Catch Killers and, you know, we get the look in, into the dark side and then someone's turned their life around. But your story is quite inspirational in what you've achieved since you've got out of prison. I think people will be fascinated by it.

• 52:22Speaker 01

  Oh, thank you.

• 52:23Speaker 00

  And, yeah, just a content heads up, that I didn't realise this until a little bit more research, that the Women's Prison Show, Wentworth, you had a big part to play in that. And the main character, Bea Smith, was based in series one, basically from your prison stories.

• 52:44Speaker 01

  Absolutely, yeah.

• 52:46Speaker 00

  Well, who would have thought? Who would have thought? We're going to talk about all that back in part two. Let's have a break and we'll get back shortly.