Surviving day one in maximum security women's prison: Kerry Tucker Pt.2

In this episode of I Catch Killers, Gary Jubelin sits down with Kerry Tucker, former prisoner turned prison reform advocate to track her extraordinary 20-year redemption. Inside, Kerry became known as the "jail lawyer." She kept daily diaries, completed a Master of Arts through Swinburne University (the first Australian university graduation ever held inside a prison), wrote a children's book for incarcerated mothers that's still in circulation today, and began writing parole letters for other women, going from almost no women getting parole to 38 at her lowest count. She spent her final 6 months working in a law firm in Werribee, left prison on a Friday and was lecturing at university on the Monday, went on to complete a PhD, and has spent two decades advocating for prison reform, education and fraud awareness. That work was formally recognised in November 2022, when the Magistrates' Court of Victoria spent and removed her criminal and prison record with the endorsement of the Victorian Chief Commissioner of Police, the Attorney General of Victoria, the Assistant Commissioner of Corrections and the Chief Magistrate. 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/ 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

  In part two of my chat with Kerry Tucker, we delve deeper into the life in a women's maximum security prison. Kerry talks about a role she found for herself in prison that got her the respect from fellow inmates and even the corrective services officers. We also discuss how prisons could be improved, the hurdles ex-prisoners face, how Kerry has truly turned a life around through education and advocacy, and how the character of Bee Smith in the women's prison show Wentworth was actually based on Kerry. I love stories of redemption, and Kerry's story is inspirational.

• 1:25Speaker 00

  We're back again for part two of I Catch Killers with guest Kerry Tucker. In part one, Kerry told us how she went from the sort of suburban housewife, two kids, two young kids, white picket fence, and found herself in prison. We discussed the fraud-related, the white-collar crime offences that Kerry committed. And then the fact that she's owned her mistakes and pleaded guilty. She was hoping to get two years in prison. I think it came, seven years you got Kerry?

• 2:02Speaker 01

  On top, yes. Seven on top, five on the bottom.

• 2:05Speaker 00

  Okay, so a fairly, well, not a fairly, a very lengthy, lengthy sentence. We're going to talk about how you survived in prison in some more detail. In fact, survives probably underselling it. You flourished in prison. And the things that you learnt and the person that you became has been the cornerstone of your life since you've left prison. And obtaining a PhD, education, and also advocacy for people in prison. But before we do, and we're going to get into some heavy stuff and painful stuff, before we do, let's just wind back to the end of part one, talking about how you, your story, became the main character in the Wentworth TV series,

• 2:50Speaker 00

  which was about a woman's prison.

• 2:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, it, when I was in prison, sort of, I need to go forward to come to that point. But when I was in prison, I ended up getting a computer. It just had Word on it because I was doing my master of arts in there. And I diaried everything, every day. I diaried two to three pages handwritten. And then when I got the computer, I was off. I was doing three and four pages every day of what phone calls I made with the girls, what they'd said, whether they're happy, whether they're crying. You know, if I needed to go and negotiate between two warring factions on the compound, I'd sit there and type it out first, like, you know, Jenny's connected to her and she's connected to her, so I've got to be careful of her.

• 3:36Speaker 01

  And it'd become my best friend. And when I got out, I had about a million and a half words. And because I did it every single day, because I knew also it was a unique experience. I did it also slightly from an academic point at times, being a participant observer. Nobody else could make the observations about why is this girl behaving like this? You know, this sort of stuff. What was her crime? And then really funny stories as well. So when I got out, I'd been on Australian Story and Big Jack Productions. They had seen it and rang me, got my number and rang me. And said, look, they're doing a rewrite of Prisoner, the old Prisoner, a re-imaging of Prisoner.

• 4:21Speaker 01

  And they wanted me to be involved as a, like a co-scriptwriter. And I used a lot of my journals. In fact, the main character Bee was based around me in the sense that, you know, to make it, to make the character move forward, fraud wasn't going to cut it. And it was sort of like, what's the next best thing you could do? And I said, kill my husband. Of course I didn't mean it. Of course I didn't mean it.

• 4:45Speaker 00

  I was just about to caution you.

• 4:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, of course I didn't mean it, all in jest. And so that's what they went with Bee. All the characters that were re-imaged from Prisoner were people that I spent time with. So it was very, very obvious. Because they'd say, hey, that's Wendy and, you know, that's Sue. So that's how I became involved in that. And I did the script writing. And they used my journals right up to the end of series one, the most successful. The problem with the end of series one was that all of a sudden the governor was killing people and the general manager was kidnapping. And I was like, I don't want to be part of this. Wentworth could have carried itself on its own. Just, we wanted to show where women come from,

• 5:31Speaker 01

  how they got to prison, their crimes and their life beforehand.

• 5:36Speaker 00

  I do a lot of consulting with scripted police-type TV shows. And I'm always at pains to tell the writers, you don't have to have multiple murders, you don't have to have car chases, explosions, shootouts. Just the interaction between the people involved in a murder investigation, the emotion and all that is enough to carry a show with the intrigue and the fascination. And that's where the real story is.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 6:02Speaker 00

  I get the sense that's what you're saying about with the prison. You don't have to make it dramatic. There's not a murder there every day and the governor's not here. Yeah.

• 6:11Speaker 01

  And there's not, there wasn't, you know, and with Wentworth, there's enough going on, new characters coming to prison, you know, characters being released, some on remand. You know, we could show all of that. And we did. The first season was the most successful.

• 6:26Speaker 00

  Did you get to meet the actors and actresses and get a sense of telling them how to play certain roles and different things?

• 6:35Speaker 01

  I did. I met Nicole de Silva, who played Frankie. You know, I met with her a couple of times because she was, she was, her character was about to leave prison and she wanted to know how that felt. And I knew just how devastating that can feel and frightening it can feel. So I met with her quite a few times. The rest of the characters, no, I didn't have anything to do with them. The script was pretty much already written by then. It was a lot of fun. At the same time, I was writing my own stage play, which was part of my PhD. And it was a one-woman stage play at La Mama's Comedy Courthouse Theatre.

• 7:18Speaker 01

  And it was an hour-long play, one-woman play. I was the star.

• 7:25Speaker 00

  Well, you may as well be if it's a best-performing actress. Did you get an award at the end of each show for the best performance of the night?

• 7:33Speaker 01

  No.

• 7:33Speaker 00

  That was called Revlon and Razor?

• 7:37Speaker 01

  Revlon and Razor Wire. Because I thought that was quite unique. I used to always wear lipstick in prison. And initially, everyone would go, who are you wearing lipstick for? And I'd be like, fuck off. I'm not listening to this shit. I'm not going into the prison code stuff. I'm not, you know. And then, of course, the Razor Wire, that was. And that was what I wanted my book to be called. But, you know, basically Penguin, rightfully so, said, well, you know, that's not going to pop out straight away as a prison story. So, you know, I followed their lead. But I was always a writer, you know. So I really enjoyed going through, particularly as we were writing the scripts, in the sense I'd say, you can't do that. Because if you do that, that character will have to go to protection

• 8:22Speaker 01

  and then she's out of the picture.

• 8:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:23Speaker 01

  You know, or they wouldn't say that. This is how they'd say it, you know. You know, all of the sort of language around prison, you know, the drunks lagging and, you know, sweet. You know, all of the language, I absolutely hated, but used when I needed to.

• 8:40Speaker 00

  Well, I think that's, you know, that gives you the skill of communicating in all different environments. Because I'm sure, you know, when you left prison and were in the academic world, you're not using that type of language. But in prison, that's the way to communicate and the words and the way that they talk and carry themselves. Look, we've moved forward. I want to talk, we've jumped too far forward, so let's wind it back. You're talking like you're already out of prison. We just sent you to prison.

• 9:10Speaker 01

  Sorry, I just tried, I'm just trying to forget. I've just arrived.

• 9:13Speaker 00

  Wind it back a little bit.

• 9:16Speaker 01

  You asked me a question that was way ahead.

• 9:19Speaker 00

  This is not I Catch Killers about your play and your TV career?

• 9:25Speaker 01

  Should be.

• 9:27Speaker 00

  All right. When you're in prison, you highlighted when you're in the holding cells in police custody, your ability to write letters and, you know, give a voice to the people in the prison, in custody. When you went to prison, jail, whatever you want to call it, it's a new environment, you're in a contained environment, there's different rules, it's a different world, and you can upset people there.

• 9:55Speaker 00

  Were you fearful when you went from the custody situation into the prison population?

• 10:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was. When I first arrived there, the prison was locked down, so it was dark. And the beds were filled. We'd been brought out there just to fill up the last couple. And I was taken over to a cell, a unit. I had no idea what it was. But what I do remember is that it had a mattress, it had a blanket, it had sheets and a pillow, and I was in heaven. It had a shower that I didn't have to keep pressing the button on the wall. And I thought, this is fabulous. And I got up next morning, opened the door, really concerned, not knowing where I was, looking for my friends, you know. And this woman, she would have been probably seven foot tall if she was an inch. She's just almost grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and said, come on, newbie.

• 10:46Speaker 01

  Come, come and I'll show you around. And I said, yeah, I'd love to. I was a very agreeable person at that time. And she took me over to these two women. She said, this is Bomber. She likes to blow up airports and courthouses and things like that. And I was like, oh, nice to meet you, Bomber. And then she said, this one's Sparky. And I looked at her, I said, she's non-electrician, is she? She said, no, no, she likes big fires, big motherfucker fires. And I was like, oh, hello, Sparky. You know, and I went racing back to the office, to where the officers were. I said to this woman, give me a minute. I went racing back over there like some idiot. And I said, oh, hello, my name's Kerry. I arrived last night, like I'm at school camp.

• 11:33Speaker 01

  I just thought I'd introduce myself, but am I in the right unit? Because all of these women look really, you know, and they said, you're in the unit for the criminally insane. And I went, oh, no, he was right. I am insane, like, you know. And I thought, oh, my God. And he looked at me, he looked at the terror on my face and he said, no, no, no. He said, there's just been no beds available, so you're just here for a couple of nights. And then, and then you'll be going down to the reminder unit. And I was like, you know, I'd never been more thankful in my life to know that I was only there for a couple, couple of days.

• 12:08Speaker 00

  Like, you, you can laugh about it, but I can't think of a more scary situation to be in.

• 12:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, in a criminally insane, you know, you talk about your skills of reading the room. But insanity is a little bit hard to read sometimes, and someone can be smiling one moment, then, yeah, in a fit of rage straight after.

• 12:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I learnt very, very quickly, you know, I was, from, from that day, I was hypervigilant. You know, I was always, I was listening to somebody but watching somebody over the, you know, over my shoulder. So, you know, and I also found very quickly that just, just respect and kindness would, you know, earned me many, many, many, many favors, you know. I, I, I had no issues with, well, not, well, I did with some, but, you know, no issues with the majority of women. Because they knew that I, you know, I gave a damn.

• 13:03Speaker 00

  Yeah. And that, that carries you through. I've spoken to a few people in prison and said that kindness helped them get, get through too.

• 13:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:13Speaker 00

  Not having conflict, treating people that sort of, they're used to bridging up, like confrontation, confrontation all the time. But if someone just takes a sting out of it, and I'm not saying it works, works all the time, but majority of the time, you can de-escalate a situation.

• 13:30Speaker 01

  I found, I went to the reminder unit, which is a holding cell, 52 women that first arrive in prison. So no one wants to be there. It's like walking through, you know, a Bosnian minefield and hoping something wouldn't blow up. I, I found it quite refreshing, to tell you the truth, you know. I, my first night there.

• 13:49Speaker 00

  Maybe, maybe you are insane.

• 13:52Speaker 01

  I, I, I actually, yeah, probably, you know, I'd been married, nothing scares me anymore. But, but I, you know, I found it quite, you know, I saw women there, you know, if they're withdrawing from drugs, they have to do it by themselves. And it's, it's just dreadful. And I was the healthiest woman there. The first, first night I was there, this woman come up to me, it was a time when you could smoke. And she came up to me and she said, give us your smokes. And I was like, no, I'm pretty cool, I'm pretty happy to have one myself. And she's, bullies are always bigger. She was about six foot. And I, she's standing there, then all of a sudden, there's 50 women standing around going, oh, look at the newbie, you know. This woman, I didn't, she turned out to have come from a major crime family, but I didn't know that at the time.

• 14:35Speaker 01

  She's going, let's go outside. And I went, no, no, no, no, I want to have a smoke. And I just looked at her and she said, I said, it's cold outside. She said, right, we're going outside. And I just looked at her and I thought, in that flash of moment, I thought I've lost my house, my kids, you know, I've hurt my family, I've lost my self-respect, I've lost everything. You can't go any lower than that. And I actually just looked it up and I gave in. And I just said to her, yep, come on, let's go outside. I said, I've never been in a fight before and you're, you're gonna win this. But you're as sure as shit gonna know you've been in a fight. And she looked at me and she just stopped for a minute and then just went, oh, you're crazy and walked off. And I'm thinking, oh, thank God. Another woman come over to me and she said, hey newbie, that was cool.

• 15:20Speaker 01

  And I said to her, I saw it in a Mel Gibson movie once and I thought it was probably a good time to use it. And, and, and it worked. And then, but that also gave me the insight that bullies don't like being made a fool of. And I had a quick enough mouth to be able to do that. And, and so they avoided conflict with me in case the tough ones were made look like an idiot, you know. And if I ever had, if I ever had any sort of hard discussions, it was out of the way where they couldn't be made a fool of. Never out in the main compound. So that worked in my favour as well. I'm certainly no fighter or anything, but I'm no shrinking violet either.

• 15:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. But they're the little tests that you get in prison and it could dictate, it could dictate the whole way you spend your, your time in prison. How you react to that first, you know, give us your smokes situation. And you managed to talk your way out of it, which was quite clever. And it was pretty tough. Yeah, you might beat me, but you're gonna know you're in a fight.

• 16:19Speaker 01

  I was, yeah, I was like, I'm, I'm so done, you know, I might as well just give it my best shot. And it's sort of, everything just goes through your mind. Like if she knocks my teeth out, I'm in prison, so who cares? If I get a black eye, I'm in prison, who cares, you know? It was just, you know, I didn't want a broken nose because I thought that would hurt. But I, I sort of weighed up all these things at the last minute, thinking, well, I've just got to get into this life.

• 16:45Speaker 00

  Well, I suppose when you're at rock bottom and, and, you know, when you're talking prison, life and, yeah. And we're going to talk about the impact of your relationship with your, your daughters at, at the time and you've lost everything. You really, you get to that point where who gives a fuck? What are you gonna do to me? You know, like, it's, yeah, okay, let, let's go, that, that type of thing. I would imagine a bit of that, that kicks in.

• 17:09Speaker 00

  The skills that you adopted in the custody sort of lent itself to helping people. You turned up with the reputation of, you know, tough talking, smart letter writer.

• 17:20Speaker 01

  With muscles.

• 17:23Speaker 00

  Then, if she had a bike in here, she'd win the, yeah. Because she's been doing.

• 17:30Speaker 00

  Spin classes. How did that play out? Because that really shaped your, your whole, whole outlook on your time in prison. It got you a reputation with fellow inmates, a reputation with, with the prison guards. Tell us about how that evolved.

• 17:47Speaker 01

  It started off with, the parole board goes out to the prison, or this prison anyway, twice a year. And they usually see about 40 girls. And I was watching the girls come out of, you know, of where that parole board was. And they'd be like, you know, the maggot wouldn't give me my parole. And they just weren't getting their parole. And as they're coming out, I could tell they were saying this while they're in there. So I sort of started, after I got my computer and everything, I'd just sort of started to settle in. I'd gotten to know the women quite well. And I, I said, if I can convince, you know, the general manager to, I'll write your parole letter. That you take it into the parole hearing and just give it to the, to the judge. Don't open your mouth.

• 18:29Speaker 01

  And we'll, we'll go, we'll go, we'll go from there. Because, you know, they'd asked questions to the girls. And the girls are sort of, some of them are illiterate and they're sort of like, I've already been a child, you know, you know, you maggot, you know. And, and so, so they were very hostile. So I got to know them all very well, which is a really big deal. Because they told me their past, you know, what contributed to their crime, where they come from, what, you know. And I found that most of the women there didn't get their parole because they didn't do a particular program. And when I investigated it, the program wasn't even running at the women's prison. So I also felt that, you know, if the judge says, like the top sentence is like mine, seven years, bottom sentence is five years.

• 19:12Speaker 01

  The judge then says you're in prison for five years and you come out for two years for, you know, on, on parole. That's how he wants it. So I felt the women have done their time. They should, you know, done your time, you know, done the crime, done the time. They should have every opportunity to get out. So I'd started doing their letters, all of their letters. And because of the recidivism, they'd come back over and over. I'd just recall them from a disk that I had. And I ended up having quite, you know, parole time, I'd have seven or eight, maybe nine, 10 women lining up outside my room that very quickly become an office. And it went from none getting parole to nearly, you know, to I think 38 was my lowest

• 19:52Speaker 01

  of women getting parole. So then it become, if it wasn't just parole letters, you know, it was letters to the judge or it was family court letters or things like that. And I got to know the women very, very well and understand them very well. Because in prison, to give away your vulnerabilities is a really big deal, you know. Came in handy a couple of times with some, you know, ruthless ones in there. But other than that, I'd sort of cemented my place. I'd, I'd come full circle in there. And I relied on the officers a lot too. I used to say to the girls, you know, they'd say, you can't, you can't talk to the officers. And I'd like, I'm not getting into this bullshit, you know, women should do their own sentences. I'm not getting into the crim code here.

• 20:36Speaker 01

  So every morning I'd say to the officers, you know, good morning, Mr. Brown, good morning, Mr. This, that and the other. When I talk to the women, I'd say, you know, I'd call them screws, you know, uh, but, but never to them and whatnot. So, um, yeah, the letter writing sort of got me, got me on the way.

• 20:53Speaker 00

  But it, it, and it's a difficult situation. There, there's, I can see the benefits, the, the reputation that you, you get within the, because that's, a lot of prison is about reputation, isn't it?

• 21:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 21:04Speaker 00

  How you do your time. It's a reputation and it's amazing. Yeah. Some people that rise in, in prison or other people were, yeah, treated like, yeah, dogs, literally. Reputation's a big thing.

• 21:16Speaker 01

  It is, it is. And I knew, I got to know the, the prison and the women very, very well. And I sussed out everything, you know, and, you know, I knew I had to make myself a, a mover in, in prison. I, I wanted to and, but I wasn't coming from, in prison, in the women's prison anyway, we had someone that sort of run the drug trade, someone that was sort of run the violent trade, the standover trade. And I was neither of those. So, um, that's where I made myself being, you know, the like, the, like, you know, the jail lawyer, so to speak. Um, but it was sort of much more than that. And I really, um, you know, it really made a, a big, a big difference for, for the women in there. So I was, um, and, and as I said, I got to know them very, very well.

• 22:01Speaker 00

  Tell me about the, the women in there because, uh, yeah, I, I know in conversations with you and, and aspects I've read in the book, it's, you obviously had empathy for them and I, I think it would be fair to say you were shocked by what people, uh, had experienced before they came to prison. They were victims of crime as much as they were the criminals. And they've ended up in, so tell us about the type of people that the general public mightn't realise are in, uh, in prison.

• 22:28Speaker 01

  I think, um, you know, you're, you're very right. Most, most women in prison were victims of crime before they ever became perpetrators. And that's really important. That's not, that's, you know, that's not trying to get out of anything. That's a fact. You know, and, and again, you know, a lot of the women, when I'd sit and do their parole letters, you know, or if I'm talking to them in a, as a group, they'd just sit there and go, yeah, I remember the first time I was raped. I was six and they'd go, oh no, I was seven. You know, and it was, or someone would go ten, you know, and I'm sitting there thinking, my God, my God, you know, you know. And, and they were saying it like it was just, well, you know, I, I get that. It's happened. You're a kid, you move on, sort of thing. But, and they just, women just took it on the, on the chin. They just, that's, that was their life. They couldn't change it. They moved on and here we are now.

• 23:13Speaker 01

  You know, and I, I would challenge any person that has gone through that sort of trauma, not to become, you know, a, a drug addict, you know, to try and cope with what's happened. Sixty, probably seventy percent of the women when I was in prison were drug addicts. They were a nuisance to society. They weren't a threat to society and they shouldn't be there. You know, we need prisons. I'm a, I'm a reformist, not an abolitionist. We need prisons, but we need them, we need better ones. We need them to, to run better. So I think, you know, if you took all of the, because drugs in prison will always be there. Sending a drug addict to prison doesn't make them automatically a non-drug addict. And, and it's ingenious how women get their drugs because they always will. I didn't care about that, you know.

• 23:57Speaker 01

  Um, so, so a, a whole lot of the women in there, probably, you know, three quarters of the prison shouldn't be there. They should be in, in a, um, a custodial health system, you know, for, for drugs and whatnot. That way you could concentrate on the ones that should be there, you know, people that have, you know, murderers, conspiracy to commit murder, um, you know, there are a lot of, um, you know, sort of violent, you know, armed robbers in there and, and whatnot. You could focus on, on them.

• 24:26Speaker 00

  We need to protect society from, from those people. Yeah.

• 24:29Speaker 01

  Uh, uh, absolutely, you know, so, but I have a lot of empathy for, for the drug girls who are just trying to get by. They've been shit on all their lives, you know, um, and usually been thrown out of home after some sort of incest or whatnot, you know. I, I, I, I can't begin to tell you how many girls went to their mum because, you know, their new dad is, is molesting them or whatever else and got thrown out in the streets.

• 24:53Speaker 00

  I really, and I've been trying to champion the cause or at least, uh, speak about it, that, uh, child sexual abuse. How many people are in prison? And it's not just the female prisons.

• 25:04Speaker 01

  No.

• 25:05Speaker 00

  It's the male prisons as well. I, I thought, uh, pedophiles were, you know, called rock spiders and everything else in, and they're a lower pecking order in, uh, in the prisons because of the nature of the crime.

• 25:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:18Speaker 00

  What I, what I found out when I did a podcast series in a maximum security prison, it was because a lot of prisoners in there have been sexually assaulted as kids and.

• 25:27Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 25:27Speaker 00

  I, yeah, I, you're into advocacy and, um, prison reform and all that. I, I, I look at crime, how we reduce crime. I think we could do a big thing on crime if we protected our children.

• 25:39Speaker 01

  Oh, I, I couldn't agree with you more. You know, it's such a sad, so, see, and, and what, what's happening is I had a government, what was actually the shadow minister, contacted me and said, you've got some ideas about prison. Let's hear them. So we met for lunch. Um, I said to him, this is great, but I'm still not gonna vote for you. I said, but I, I'd like to be able to chat to you. I told him, you know, how the prisons work, how this, that and the other. And he just, once he, I said, put the drug addicts, non-violent offenders, three and six month sentences, well, they shouldn't be there anyway, but put them into a custodial health system, white coats, not corrections offices, blah, blah, blah, rebuild these women.

• 26:20Speaker 01

  You know, he didn't want to hear it. He said, well, the community won't like it. And I said, well, someone's got to finally say, I don't care what the community thinks. You know, it's not working now. We need to change it. We're still staying within the parameters of keeping the community safe. But the community doesn't get to have two bites of the cherry with everything when it comes to how we're going to reform prisons. Because when I was in prison, three hundred and fifty women populated that prison. It's over nine hundred now. They just keep building beds. And, you know, I, I, I just can't see, I just can't see how that helps anybody.

• 26:54Speaker 00

  Well, the, the, the rate of recidivism that we've got in this country, in, uh, female prisons, male prisons across, across the country is ridiculous.

• 27:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, yep.

• 27:04Speaker 00

  I, I think, yeah, if something is not working, what have we got, got to change? We all say, we're not little do-gooders that go, oh, we don't need prisons. Bullshit. We need prisons for some people. Some, uh, society needs to be protected. But if it's not working, if we can help people become out of prison a better person than when they went in, reduce, so they don't reoffend, that means less victims. It's not, you know, it's getting smart on crime.

• 27:33Speaker 01

  The, the knock on effect is, is enormous. Like, as you've said, you know, it's less victims. And, and my theory too is that, you know, every woman that arrives in prison should immediately start a program the next day that is around rebuilding her, addressing the crime so that she leaves the best person she could possibly be. Because she's going to come out and quite possibly live next door to you.

• 27:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:53Speaker 01

  You know, um, why the community think at different, I've heard it so many times, you know, that they go to prison and they get all these luxuries and whatever else. And it's just so far from the truth, you know. And the other thing is, if you want, you know, people that need to understand that, that the sentence, the loss of your freedom is huge and it's enough. It's enough. You can't then turn around and go, well, we want them to break rocks as well. We don't want them to watch TV. Because there's nothing worse than an already angry crim coming out of prison as a pissed off one. You know, because that helps nobody. But people respond to kindness and empathy, you know, and rebuilding them.

• 28:34Speaker 01

  And I think that's how we have to look at, you know, uh, moving forward, certainly how we look at running prisons with half the population that they have.

• 28:44Speaker 00

  Carrie, you, you speak so much truth there and I, I agree with you one hundred percent. And, yeah, we've got to get this mindset away from people that, uh, go into prison if they're allowed to, um, you know, do study or they're allowed to watch TV or they get books. That's not fair. They should, should be, uh, should be punished. Trust me, the really bad ones in prison will get punished because they, they won't be able to, they won't embrace the kindness. They won't embrace the opportunity. So people will get what they want, but the punishment is being taken away from society.

• 29:16Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 29:16Speaker 00

  That's what, that's what the punishment, punishment is.

• 29:19Speaker 01

  And it's huge. It's, it's huge. Everything falls into that, you know, your, your kids' lives, you know. And it, it may well be, like in my situation, it may well be my fault. Absolutely it was. But, you know, the, the pain is still there. So it's very, very real. Watching my kids grow up, I become auntie mum. You know, fractured relationships with, with everybody, you know, your ability to earn a living, your, your assets. Everything falls into that great big hole and it's enough.

• 29:48Speaker 00

  I, I think the fact that you had the, um, understanding that you needed to put yourself in with the girls, because I could imagine you walking around like you, the day one, when you're in there, I don't want, could you keep that prisoner away from me? No, you are the prisoner. But a little bit of advice like that. Yeah, it's, it's just showing a bit of kindness in a very unkind, uh, world, isn't it? It means, means a lot to people.

• 30:14Speaker 01

  It, it is. I, I used, I sat there one day with a girl and I said to her, you know, I said to her, you're gonna be okay, sweetheart? It's the first time you've been here. She was about twenty. She's in on, um, attempted murder. You know, and, and I said to her, um, you know, it's okay, you know, I'm gonna be here with you for the first couple of days, maybe the first month or so. I, you know, I'm gonna make sure you're okay. She burst into tears and said to me, you're the nicest person I've ever met. And I thought to myself, it, it really stuck with me because I thought, I've just said about five sentences to you, sweetheart.

• 30:44Speaker 00

  And that, that's the most love and kindness she's had in her life.

• 30:46Speaker 01

  Exactly. Yeah. So I followed her through her sentence, you know, because I just wanted to make sure and touch base with her. But that happened quite a lot, you know, that, that ability to be able to connect, you know, with, particularly with really wounded people.

• 31:00Speaker 00

  Your situation with your kids, tell, tell us on that, the, the impact that that had on you. And I, I, I, I see how it just becomes so hard and the visits and how, how painful it is. How did you deal with that, that situation?

• 31:14Speaker 01

  Um, I had, um, you know, we had, uh, family court, so I was only allowed two phone calls a week. Uh, six, six, uh, twelve minute phone calls. So six minutes for one and six minutes for the other, all in the one call, and then it hangs up, it disconnects. And visits, the visits with the kids got further and further apart, the more, the more, the more my, my ex-husband, you know, sort of wanted to move, move on with everything. And plus I didn't realise how far away geographically, I didn't even know where I was in, in the, in the western suburbs. I'd never been out there before. I've never driven out there before and I arrived in a van. So they were as far on the eastern suburbs as I was in the western. So, you know, pet, petrol, the kids getting car sick, you know.

• 31:59Speaker 01

  Um, at one point there, I just had to let it be, you know, just, just let it be. But what I did was I used to sit back and think, I, you know. I don't want to become, you know, a shadow of their life. So I buy a card each from the canteen every day and I'd write a joke and I'd go, um, my darling Shannon, today I thought of you a hundred and one times. And I'd put a joke in it and then to Sarah, my darling Sarah, right up until I was writing, my darling Shannon, today I thought of you one thousand seven hundred and sixty three times. And I put a, a joke in. They, you know, the girls told me about six months ago, they've still got the boxes of them and they, and they used to run to the, to the

• 32:40Speaker 01

  mailbox to, to, to get the joke and all that sort of stuff. So it was one way of me being able to connect to them. The phone calls, I would have sold my soul for, I never did anything wrong in prison, but I absolutely would have sold my soul for a mobile phone. Because in the men's prisons, the phones are inside their units. So they can ring all night. The women's prisons, the mothers, the phones are outside the unit. So it's at five o'clock in the winter and seven o'clock in the summer, once you're locked in, you can't make a phone call, you know, and sit twelve minute phone calls by the time, you know, I grew up with my little girls' voices. To this day, I can still know if something's going on, that they're not telling me just through making them talk, you know, and it'd start off with, you know, hello sweetheart,

• 33:25Speaker 01

  how you going? And they, the first one on the phone was so quiet and I'm sitting there thinking, come on, come on, come on, the minutes are ticking away, you know, and then about, at about six minutes, they go, I'm good. And it'd be like, oh God, put the other one on, you know.

• 33:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:38Speaker 01

  And you go through that, you know, and it started off with these tiny little, you know, hello mommy, tiny little whispers up to when they were sort of becoming teenagers with, you know, yo, how's things, you know. Um, so, you know, I have a very good ear for what's going on.

• 33:54Speaker 00

  And, and keeping, keeping that connection's in- important. I know at Macquarie Correctional Centre, a prison up in Wellington, in New South Wales, where they're trying something a little bit different from the, um, traditional prison and, and giving prisoners more access to communicating with their families and, and whether it be in the visits or just being able to contact them more, more often. I think that's important because the one thing that helps a lot of prisoners when they get out of prison is if they've got a community or a family or people that they can come back to, that they haven't lost connection with.

• 34:29Speaker 01

  Oh, I, I couldn't agree more. The, the more, the more you feel that you're still part of something, then, you know, the more you, you're going to feel more inclined to be, you know, uh, to, to sort of contribute to the community and not break community laws. If you're telling people, we don't want you in the community, why in hell should they, you know, um, abide by community laws? It's again, how people are treated. And, you know, I, um, I just think, one of the hardest things, you know, when I was in prison, I, I, I've sort of counted down to the day, you know, to get out and be with my girls. Cause in prison, time stood still for me. But they'd moved on, you know, and, and the very last prison visit I had with them, you know, I've sort of come in and I've gone, you know, oh mommy's

• 35:13Speaker 01

  coming home, you know, this is our last prison visit here and whatnot. And they looked at me and said, you know, don't cry mum, but we don't want to live with you when, when you come home. And I just, I couldn't react, you know, but the floor just opened up, you know, and I, and I just thought, my God, you know, and, you know, they, and that was fair enough. They didn't trust that I wasn't gonna disappear from their lives again. And, you know, it was very, very difficult. Leaving prison was very difficult for me.

• 35:46Speaker 00

  Before we have you leaving prison, you, uh, you've started, uh, studying, you're doing a masters.

• 35:52Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 35:52Speaker 00

  At prison and, and you met, uh, someone from the university that came out that became a bit of a mentor and, uh, role model for you in, uh, in, in prison. Talk us through that and your journey there.

• 36:04Speaker 01

  There was a, um, I was always annoyed that, um, that they, they'd removed doing H, what they called HSC, high, you know, which is a platform for, for everyone to bounce off of. They removed it for women in prison, you know, and it was just like, you know, guys, what, what's the sense of that, you know? So there was a woman, a, a, a Japanese woman in prison who was doing her master of arts through Swinburne University. And she, I got to know her quite well. And she asked Swinburne if they, if she could continue doing it in prison. And they sort of said, well, you know, why don't we get a couple of other women to see if they want to do it as well. So the four of us that ended up doing it were there long enough to be able to complete the three year master of arts. We were all

• 36:48Speaker 01

  sort of fairly articulate, you know, we'd all have, probably had degrees beforehand. And so the prison said, yes, you know, well, let's, let's give it a go. On the understanding that no one felt that we'd do it. So, and it was very, I say again, this to the community. They think that, you know, education in prison is, is, um, you know, we just get all these luxuries. Well, it's not, it's a privilege, you know, you've got to earn it. But also, it is the best thing for rehabilitation in prison. But also, I left there with a thirty six thousand dollar HECS debt, you know, we had to pay for it, just like every other student. And we did it hard. We didn't have the internet. We had nothing. So as a tutor from Swinburne would come out every Friday and she'd bring out reams and reams of paper

• 37:32Speaker 01

  for us to study. But then we could only keep it in our cells for six days because it'd become a fire hazard. So we, we did it very, very hard. Um, and, and we graduated and it's the first, um, Australian university graduation that was brought out to the prison. So the vice chancellor came out, you know, we had, um, all of the academics, everyone was gowned up. They went through being frisked, you know, um, and even a lot of the officers, you know, they came in on it, uh, on their day off and congratulated us. And when we went back onto the other side of the wall, there was almost a guard of honour there from all the crims, you know, saying, you know, they were so happy that, that we'd actually

• 38:12Speaker 01

  proved everyone wrong and, and we graduated. So it was very, very important because had I have not had any education, I would have got a job at Coles, you know, uh, when I got out.

• 38:23Speaker 00

  But education can offer so much more than just the education. It's the way you start to look at things, think about things, think about yourself. There's so, so many benefits from education.

• 38:35Speaker 01

  You know, it, it just teaches, it just opens your eyes to, to possibilities. It gives you that leg up to be able to, you know, further yourself when you get out. And again, you've got a captive audience, you know, why not teach, you know, I used to almost blackmail women to, to, you know, to go to education, to learn how to read and write.

• 38:55Speaker 00

  This is what I've been digging for, the standover si- situations in, uh, in prison. You get them in the yard and you ma- make them read and write. I knew it.

• 39:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'd sit there, sit in the corner, read. But, you know, and there are a lot of women that did leaving, you know, they'd learnt to, to read and write, but the education system was so small there. It was such a tiny part of, of the whole thing that is prison. To me, it should have been half of it, you know. Um, but, you know, at, at any given time, even then, three hundred and fifty women, probably only four were allowed in the visit centre. So, um, yeah, it's a big missch- big missed opportunities there to help women.

• 39:39Speaker 00

  And the, uh, the different corrective services officers, and we, we flagged it in, uh, part one, you know, good cops, bad cops, good corrective services, bad corrective services. My observation in prison is like a good officer, I, the amount of difference they can make to, to the inmates, the way they, uh, they handle situations. Would you agree, agree on that?

• 40:03Speaker 01

  Oh, look, absolutely. In, in prison, there's a big difference between a corrections officer and, and a policeman, you know. Um, corrections officers are just civilians that have done a six week training course and it shows, you know. Um, they, they, they talk to you, they don't want to shoot you, you know, they're, they're, they're very, very good. The dog squad used to come in with the police and it was just, you know, you could just feel the chill in the air. It's, it's two different things, you know, and, you know, again, we had the, uh, the general manager, uh, Mr Brendan Money was there when I was there. And he, he was, uh, he made such a difference to so many people's lives, including my own, in the sense that he knew how the system worked. He knew the women.

• 40:48Speaker 01

  I watched him for the first month I was there, trying to work out who he was, sort of. And he'd walk through the, the main compound, he'd address every woman by name, he'd ask about their kids by name. And I was like, this is a man that knows his stuff and is empathetic. And so I got to know him very well. He gave me so many opportunities when I wrote the children's book in there for, for women. It's still in circulation today. I sort of said to him, I, I'm gonna have to write a children's book in here and, uh, you're gonna have to pay for it and publish it, you know. And he's gone, all right. You know, um, the last six months of my sentence, I worked in a law firm in Warrabee, you know,

• 41:27Speaker 01

  three days a week. He was instrumental in, in, in doing that. But, um, he gave me so many opportunities that I was never not going to respect that. And to this day, you know, I thank him and have the utmost respect. You know, we still talk, we're, we're friends. And he made a difference in my life. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him. And, and I know of many, many other women's lives too, because again, he recognised that your sentence is enough. Let's, let's sort of deal with women on their own level whilst inside the prison. Extraordinary man.

• 42:02Speaker 00

  Well, I'm glad you said good things about him, because I've got some quotes here that he said about you and it would have been a bit embarrassing if you, if you were saying some bad things, but so you've made this easier. Um, this is a former head of Victorians Women's Prisons Brendan, Brendan Money says, and talk, talking about Kerry. In twenty seven years working in prisons, I haven't come across any prisoner quite like Kerry. She used her time in prison so effectively, she not only changed her life, but left a legacy that has changed the lives of many other women since. She encouraged the culture of education in the prison, which had a significant impact on the health and wellbeing of the prisoners. There are women who turned their lives around because she made them feel that

• 42:46Speaker 00

  they could learn. Some women who could not read or write, who had been in and out of jail all their lives, began to learn. And that's a remarkable achievement. Wow. That's, uh, do, do you get, do you get chills when, uh, yeah, this is, this is, yeah, head of women's prison and, and that's what he's looking at your time in, in prison, making the most of it and the impact that you've had?

• 43:10Speaker 01

  I sort of, I, I, I sort of, I sort of do. What I feel more is just appreciation. When I hear that, I feel, okay, I did my job properly then. I, every opportunity he gave me, I did it properly and he's thankful for that. So I feel really appreciative that, that he sees it that way. Because, you know, we, yeah, we worked really well together to, to make things, you know, a better. Because his, his, his way forward was also the same as me, you know, in, in, let's try this. You know, let's try and do this. It might just work out for the women in a better way. Or he might just say, that's just ridiculous, Kerry, you don't come back tomorrow. That sort of stuff.

• 43:54Speaker 01

  I was always at his heels in prison with one thing or another and he was always there.

• 44:01Speaker 00

  Challenges when you were released from prison? Accommodation, initially the story of where they put you first up, but you ended up living on the uni campus. And talk, talk us through the challenges that you faced upon release.

• 44:17Speaker 01

  For my, my situation, and particularly after hearing the, you know, the, the girls didn't want to, to live with me. You know, Brendan Money came and saw me the night before. When long termers leave prison, they have a barbecue, you know, sort of stuff. And, and everyone gets together to say goodbye and walk into the front gate. I'd sort of said to everyone, I'm inviting the officers to the barbecue as well. And some of them were sort of like, well, we're not coming then. And I'd be like, oh, see ya. You know, so it was sort of, and then Brendan Money come up to see me and, and sat me down and said he wanted to thank me for everything that I'd done and, and I burst into tears and I said to him, you know, can I stay? And he's just, he's just looked at me, he's gone, uh, what?

• 44:57Speaker 01

  I said, I don't have to go, you know, can I stay? And, you know, I'm quite happy to stay. And he said, no, no, Kerry, you know, your time is here, you, you need to move on. And then I burst into tears even more. And it was very, it was very frightening because I was somebody in prison. I had a place in prison, I made a difference in prison. And I mean a real world difference to someone coming up and saying, you're so kind, you're so nice, sort of thing. Or, you know, not just I'll pick up the milk and bread for you. This was really big, big difference in people's lives. So it was very difficult for me. And what they'd sort of done was when I left, they had organised accommodation for me, but it was in Ascot Vale.

• 45:40Speaker 01

  And it was in a place where everyone that's doing drugs comes out of prison and goes to. I was the only female there, non-drug user and surrounded by men knocking on the door all night, you know, wanting to score. And so I did a, I did a runner the next morning and thought, oh, I hope, I hope the parole board come looking for me because they'll send me back to prison and I'm fine with that. But I wasn't staying there. And so then, yeah, the tutor that I dealt with through Swinburne at the time, organised accommodation on the student village at Swinburne. So, you know, one of the hardest things is finding out where you fit back into community because you don't. And I had to work out where I fit in my children's lives. I was very much, you know, auntie mum.

• 46:25Speaker 01

  So I had to be very, very, I don't know, patient, patient with the girls to earn their trust. It's very, it's extremely difficult. I went from leaving prison on a Friday lunchtime to lecturing at a university on the Monday. You know, that's enormous privilege, one I'm so very thankful for. But it, and I still had enormous trouble, even with family support. So it goes to show how difficult it is leaving one community that you're completely accepted in to a community that, you know, no one really wants you. It's, it's one of the hardest things possible. Leaving prison with a drug habit or going out to another drug habit, you know, it's, it's just impossible.

• 47:09Speaker 00

  And also you carry with you, as you found out, thankfully people accepted, there's a stigma that's attached. Where, where have you been? I've been in prison, okay. And, and people, you know, take, take a step away. So you carry that, there's, it's a hard road.

• 47:24Speaker 01

  It is, it's, one, one of the things I felt when I left there was again, falling back to the, the thing that I'd done my prison hard. I'd, I had done that. So I felt very, very capable of saying, look, you know, you can, you can judge me, that's not a problem. I, I, I, I understand that, I absolutely do, but I've earned my right to be here. You know, I felt very comfortable that I'd showed everything I needed to, to be able to come back into the community as a, as a, you know, contributing member of the community, non, non criminal.

• 47:57Speaker 00

  Have, have you found, found the purpose in your life post-prison? And I, we haven't got time to go all through the things that you've achieved. Even lecturing on a fraud conference, I thought that was interesting.

• 48:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, I do a lot of, I do a lot of fraud conferences.

• 48:13Speaker 00

  Okay, well, yeah, it's, it makes sense, but your advocacy work and your academic studies, all the things that you're doing, you're really making a difference.

• 48:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think the, the biggest, still the biggest, the biggest thing for me, you know, daily are my daughters. Shannon's 30, Sarah's 28 and Sarah's just given birth to our first grandchild, granddaughter Anastasia. So, you know, us, the girls are very, very close and naturally with my granddaughter now, it's a whole new, different thing. But I'm still, you know, sort of on the, on the circuit. Prison will always be prison and I'll always have an opinion about how to make it better for, for women in prison and the community in, in general. You know, so I'll always, you know, I, I always want to contribute to that, you know, particularly about moving things into the health system as well.

• 49:06Speaker 01

  You know, I work full time, you know, I'm a student engagement manager at a, you know, academic campus. So, you know, I'm, I'm busy, but prison will always be a big part of me. And, and the thought process that one day we can make it a whole lot better, particularly for women. My experience is in women, so I can't really talk to men's prisons, but across the board, I think we could do a whole lot better.

• 49:30Speaker 00

  Well, I, and look, whether it's men's prison or a women's prison, it, yeah, all needs the attention on it and how, how it can be improved. But I think women's prisons, and I, I've only learnt this, you know, since I've been out of the cops, get left behind in a lot of things. Because people don't, when, when you talk prisons, you think, okay, group of men walking around the yard, that's prison. You're not thinking of women in, in prison. But look, maybe, yeah, it's funny how life plays out, isn't it? Yeah.

• 49:59Speaker 01

  It is, yeah.

• 50:00Speaker 00

  Your lowest point has turned into giving you a purpose and a direction in life. And if it's about balancing the ledges from, from your crime, and I don't say this lightly, but to me, like you're, you're giving back to, giving back to the community. And we should be listening to your, your thoughts and on ideas that can, can make a difference.

• 50:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, you know, apart from the time away from my children, I wouldn't, I wouldn't trade my time, you know, living in that prison and in that environment for anything. You know, it's, it's given me a platform and a voice for others that don't have a voice. Particularly, you know, coming from the side of the tracks, it was quite judgmental. You know, I, I fall on my sword, you know, for that every day. And I'm still very fond of, of most of the women there. You know, I don't see them socially, but I, I keep in touch, you know, with, you know, a lot of them have passed, you know, from, from overdose and whatnot. So it will always be a big part of my life because prison is, is here to stay. You know, it's, it's, it's, it's not sort of fluid like everything else.

• 51:08Speaker 01

  It's just going to always be here. And the more we struggle to, to just make it work, the more it won't, you know. And I, I think there's a whole different way that we could look at helping people, you know, they do their sentence. That's all that's required of them. And we need the media to be in line with that too, you know. I don't know how many times I see the media say they got out early, you know. And it's sort of like, in Victoria, and I'm sure Australia as well, no one gets out early, you know.

• 51:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 51:37Speaker 01

  What they do is, is the, the top sentence, seven years, bottom sentence, five. It's, that's, that's the time that the judge wanted in there. But if someone gets out at the five, they go, well, actually they got a sentence of seven. So they've gotten out early. And it's, and it just alarms the community. Again, it makes the prisoners look as though, you know, they've gotten off lightly and whatnot. The only way you're getting out of prison before the judge says your release date is if you die. It's just that simple. So we need, you know, the media to start telling the lie.

• 52:07Speaker 00

  There, there is a benefit, a benefit to parole that people don't understand too, in that it keeps some degree of control. Otherwise you finish your sentence, you walk out the door, you're, you're not obliged to do anything.

• 52:18Speaker 01

  That's right, yeah.

• 52:19Speaker 00

  Check in on you. So there are benefits. But yeah, I, I do think the media need to get behind. But yeah, we've got to worry every time there's a state election and there's a law and order issue. We're going to get tough on crime and we're going to increase the police and we're going to make mandatory sentences. I get sick of it. I got sick of hearing that narrative when I was in the cops and certainly out of it. We've got to look at, okay, let's, let's be smart.

• 52:43Speaker 01

  Oh, totally. And, and mandatory sentences are a thing of the dark ages, for God's sake. Every person should be dealt with, you know, for the circumstances of that particular crime.

• 52:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, I, I, I agree, I agree. Now, one other thing, well, there's lots of other things. I mentioned your book, The Prisoner, and I, I've got to say it's a, it's a great read. And we have only just scraped the surface on, on the stuff that's covered in the book. But one thing that sort of blew me away, and I had to check it with you to make sure I was reading it, reading it correctly, because I haven't heard of this happening before. So in November, two thousand, yeah, I'm, I'm choking on the words because you can actually do this. I've got a criminal record, I wonder if this could, I could go for this.

• 53:28Speaker 01

  In 10 years, if you're in Victoria, yours will be spent automatically.

• 53:32Speaker 00

  10 years. In November 2024, in recognition of Kerry Tucker's 20 years' service to prison reform, education and fraud awareness, her criminal and prison record was spent and removed in the Magistrates Court of Victoria. This was with the endorsement and support of the Victorian Chief Commissioner of Police, the Attorney General of Victoria, the Assistant Commissioner of Corrections and the Chief Magistrate of the Magistrates Court of Victoria. My understanding of this is that your criminal history, you're, I'm not talking to a criminal here now, it's been, uh, been spent.

• 54:09Speaker 01

  Well, you know, I don't like to ever. I felt pretty comfortable in that role for a long time. But yes, that was all, that was all spent. Under the news.

• 54:19Speaker 00

  And, and spent, sorry, spent is just because that's a word that I hadn't heard used before, but spent as in it's done.

• 54:26Speaker 01

  It's gone, yeah.

• 54:26Speaker 00

  It's gone. Yeah, I like it. Yep.

• 54:28Speaker 01

  So it's, um, if, if you're, uh, if you, if your crime was less than 10, it was more than 10 years ago, you haven't re-offended, so on and so forth, and it wasn't custodial, it was automatically spent in the Spent Sentences Act. If you've had a prison sentence, it rarely ever happens, but there was a gentleman by the name of Glenn Broome, um, who I've been on the circuit with, who got his spent through this system because he's done an enormous amount of work in the community. And he, he sort of said to me, Kerry, you should, um, you should do it as well. And so I, I, I, I applied and, um, it went through all the normal channels and, and, um, yes, it was, it was spent, it was very successful and I was thrilled.

• 55:13Speaker 01

  I was, it made me feel like everything had been worth it. My girls actually said, you know, we couldn't be prouder, you know, it was just full circle and sort of recognition. I also incredibly humbled by it too. It's a big deal. I did spend, you know, a long sentence in, in prison, you know, um, I'll never ever deny that. So, you know, it's great being spent, but you've only got to Google me, you know, and, and it is there. So, you know, it is part of me.

• 55:42Speaker 00

  Well, I, I think, yeah, all, all jokes aside, it's like recognition of, of what you've done from, from the time that you were first arrested, uh, arrested by police and, and what you've, you've done since then. And, uh, full credit to you. Yeah.

• 55:56Speaker 01

  Oh, thank you.

• 55:57Speaker 00

  What else can we, that, that seriously, what else can we ask of someone than to, to do what you're, you've done and, uh, and turn things around. So you're, you're the, uh, an example of when the system actually works, but, uh, full credit to you because you had to, uh, had to, uh, you know, drive that pathway that you found.

• 56:15Speaker 01

  Oh, thank you, thank you. It's a, it's, it's been, it's been a journey. It's, you know, nearly 20 years now.

• 56:21Speaker 00

  Long time. I've enjoyed having a chat. One more thing I, I just want to, want to ask you is that, uh, now that you've seen the workings on the inside of prison, would you suggest spin class or a creative writing course that you should do in preparing yourself for prison?

• 56:37Speaker 01

  I think both.

• 56:40Speaker 01

  I think both have worked really well, although, you know, I don't have a bike in prison, that's a, that could be classed as a weapon.

• 56:48Speaker 01

  But I think we could do both and, and keep everyone very happy and there's nothing wrong with a few muscles here and there.

• 56:55Speaker 00

  Well, you, uh, you take care, it was great to chat and, uh, let's, uh, speak again down the, down the track.

• 57:00Speaker 01

  Thanks so much. I've really had a good time. Thank you, Gary.