CHRIS:
Here I am, first armed robbery, I’ve geed meself all up. I’m peaking. I’m scared.
I put a balaclava on, walk in and say, ‘This is a robbery,’ or something like this that I’d seen on the movies. Know what I mean? I basically use lines from the movies. ‘Everybody on the floor,’ I say, ’cos that’s a better position to control them. They’re not gonna run; they’re not gonna do this, do that, or try and jump me. There’s more control in that position, you know.
But they aren’t interested. It’s turned to shit – they won’t stop watching the fucking races. They’re fixated.
Three or four times, I’m: ‘Everybody down!’ But they are just fixated on the races.
What the fuck? This is not happening. Turning to shit. ‘Listen to me, man! What the fuck? Hey! Listen to me, fellas, I’ve only got a short time!’
Some of them are looking over; some of them aren’t. They see the balaclava and they just couldn’t be fucked; they’re watching the race. They had bets or something going on and their horse is running. They’re more interested in watching the race than they are listening to me.
I don’t have time for them to watch their race! I’m working on three minutes, and it’s just become like comedy capers.
‘What the fuck! Listen! Hey! Haven’t got much time here!’ But they’re not really tuned in. Maybe they think it’s a dodgy gun or some fake. ‘What the fuck, hey!’
Boom
Boom
Boom
That gets their attention.
Having discharged a few shots into the wall, I muster ’em. Don’t want them behind me, you know, ’cos I have to watch the cunt behind the teller. And I don’t have much time. A 100 per cent he will hit the holdup button. So I hand him the bag, a big sports bag, and ask him to fill it up – just the big notes. I want all the big notes: 50s and 20s.
I have a vehicle parked around the corner, a Holden Kingswood HQ. Very easy to steal. So I run out the back way and onto the side street and I’m looking but no one’s following me. I jump in the vehicle and actually drive past home in Braybrook and back onto Sunshine Road and through the train overpass and I leave the car at Footscray Hospital car park.
They’ve filled the bag but I don’t get any big notes – a lot of the money in coins. I get about $600, $700. It isn’t that much.
This happens around Mother’s Day.
*
This crime is unsolved until Chris contacts police in 2015 and volunteers his responsibility. He is subsequently charged and in 2016 pleads guilty in Melbourne Magistrates Court.
21. NIGHTCLUBBING
MAY 1988: HOT GOSSIP
Shortly after the Tottenham TAB stick-up.
CHRIS:
Me and a friend go to a nightclub, Hot Gossip.
He’s catching up with someone that owes him money and after he’s gone like five minutes I say, ‘Where’s me mate?’ and go and have a look.
As I’m walking into the toilets I see me mate bashing this bloke. You know, kicking him on the ground. It’s a bad scene and now there’s a pack of bouncers coming in behind me. The fella is affiliated to some of the bouncers while my mate is affiliated to the other bouncers. So there’s a stand-off. One group wants to eject me mate. The other group wants to support us.
We get ejected and I am spewing ’cos I’ve got some sheilas at the bar lined up and I’m supposed to be taking them home.
But now I’m escorted past them, manhandled, and ejected – what the fuck? We’re drunk, full of alcohol – what the fuck! – angry, full of hate inside. I run to the car, grab a sawn-off semi-auto .22 rifle with a five-magazine clip, run back a short distance and started shooting at the bouncers.
And then there’s a cunt at the hotdog stand nearby, a vendor, and I start fucking shooting at that bloke, too. What the fuck? I’m angry because I got ejected. I had nothing to do with it. Plus the alcohol, too – the alcohol and the bouncers and violence and guns, it gets mixed. Bad combination.
They actually shut the nightclub doors, the front doors, and gather everybody in.
*
This crime is unknown until Chris contacts police in 2015 and volunteers his responsibility. He has not been charged because there is no record of it happening.
22. TOOLING UP BIG TIME
30 May 1988: Ken Kim’s Sports Store, Altona, Melbourne Take: Eight or nine firearms
CHRIS:
There are three people involved in this robbery but I’m not naming the others. We have a vehicle outside with the engine running and someone in it, while two of us go in and jump the counters. I have an imitation handgun and my comrade has a knife.
We steal between eight and nine shotguns and rifles.
Ken Kim’s is a couple of shops down from the Altona State Bank. I rob that later using firearms from the sports store.
I’m a busy boy; I’m fucking hectic.
*
This crime is unsolved until Chris contacts police in 2015 and volunteers his responsibility. He is subsequently charged and in 2016 pleads guilty in Melbourne Magistrates Court.
23. HIT THE SLATE
31 May 1988: State Savings Bank of Victoria, East Keilor
Take: $21,688
The day after raiding Ken Kim’s Sports Store
CHRIS:
I have a legit vehicle parked near the primary school. That’ll be what I drive off in, all mellow and smooth after dumping the getaway car – a Torana I stole for the job.
This is a solo operation: I love ’em. It’s a big ask but it’s also a blast flying alone, taking all the responsibility, all the risk, and getting all the earn – and I don’t have to worry about bodgy crew members.
But it’s full-on when no one’s watching your back. Get distracted or just look in one direction instead of the other and you can miss a security guard, a copper, a bank worker pushing a button, a civilian slipping out a door: next thing ya know, someone’s putting a bullet through ya.
To have a chance of doing it clean and getting clear I got two minutes tops – maybe less.
What a challenge; what a rush.
Everything’s ready: overcoat on; in the mode; parked outside; engine idling; grab the pump-action; grab the bags; balaclava ready; deep breath to fill the chest and fuel my fire; good to go; up and out and in the side door of the bank.
‘This is a hold up!’
They freak the way civilians do, get all goosey and confused and indecisive, so I make it easy to know what’s happening by cranking the shotgun – God, I love that sound – and point it at the tellers. ‘I’m not fuckin’ joking!’ The handful of customers don’t look like trouble and just fucking quiver as I work my way down the row of three tellers, throwing each a shopping bag or two. ‘Hurry up! Just the big ones! Just the big ones! Move it – fuck!’
One of the tellers – a sheila about my age – is just gawking at where I missed trying to toss her a bag. ‘Stop mucking around!’ She starts filling the other bag, though, feeding it from her cash drawer. ‘Just the big ones!’
When I hit the end of the row I cover the crowd, control the floor, give the last teller a moment to stuff her bag, then collect it and move back along, collecting the rest of the proceeds.
Out and away to the car swap. Now I ease my foot off the juice and take it easy – on the outside at least, ’cos inside I’m all fingers-in-the-socket; all shocked and charged and coursing with power. I’m on fire.
I’m nineteen and I just made a bit over twenty G’s in about 90 seconds.
*
This crime is unsolved until Chris contacts police in 2015 and volunteers his responsibility. He is subsequently charged and in 2016 pleads guilty in Melbourne Magistrates Court.
24. A FEW CREWS LOOSE
17 June 1988: TAB, Moonee Ponds, Melbourne Take: $5326.58 Approximately 5.50 pm
CHRIS:
The police station is only a few blocks away – a quick sprint – so my adrenaline is on overload: what a fucking buzz. The hear
t’s hammering as we pull down our balaclavas, grab our sawn-offs, walk into the arcade’s rear and enter the TAB via different doors, taking control in a pincer movement.
My coey (co-offender) tells some quivering old lady to shut her trap and then trains his weapon on the manager. I jump the counter and toss the bloke some sports bags. ‘Give us the big notes,’ I say, levelling the business end of my 12 gauge. The cops are gonna be here fast as fuck and this clown’s not exactly rushing. ‘Move it! Fill it up!’
As he feeds a bag with cash from the drawers under the teller windows, my coey gets toey. ‘The big ones!’ he yells. But there’s not much here. ‘There’s got to be more than that!’ my mate shouts.
‘That’s all,’ the white-faced manager says. ‘No more.’ He passes the bag over the counter and puts his hands in the air.
Time to go. I jump the counter again and then spot the manager opening the safe. No time for it and there’s probably a fucking alarm switch inside, but it’s worth a squiz before we scarper so I keep the weapon trained on the manager to keep him from pressing the button.
BLAM!
‘What the fuck?’
It’s raining ceiling.
‘What was that for?’ But my trigger-happy coey’s too geed up to answer, let alone think. Show’s over. ‘Let’s fucking go.’ I race for the door and he’s right behind me. Down the arcade and out to the car park we run; the engine’s on and I fucking fang it, smoking the tyres to rocket us clear.
When we’re good I check the proceeds. Five G’s. Fuck all. Loose change.
I feel dudded. I feel really fucking duped.
From now on I’m handing out transparent plastic freezer bags every fucking time so I can see exactly what they’re packing.
*
This crime is unsolved until Chris contacts police in 2015 and volunteers his responsibility. He is subsequently charged and in 2016 pleads guilty in Melbourne Magistrates Court.
25. HAPPY EIGHTEENTH, BARRY
JUNE 1988:
DRIVING IN THE SUBURBS
In mid 1988, Chris is on a rampage of armed robberies but he still takes the time to think of others. His brother Barry turns eighteen on 1 July and as the big day nears, Chris finds a way to make it special.
BARRY:
A few weeks before my eighteenth he gave me a car. I was at my mother’s place. My mum had just cooked dinner and we were about to sit down and eat. My brother comes tearing along in this car, an XA Coupe. It was a Fairmont but it had all the good gear in it. It had a 351 top loader, 9 inch diff. It had 12 inch Mickey Thompson racing tyres on the back. It had what they call a shaker. It was all done up as a GT. But the body was quite rusty.
My brother’s rocked up in the car and I’m saying to him, ‘Fucking nice car.’
He goes, ‘Yeah, it’s yours.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘Yeah, it’s for your birthday.’
I go, ‘Bullshit.’ ’Cos I don’t trust my brother.
‘No, it is.’
‘I’ll go take some photos of it.’
‘No, we’ll go for a drive.’
My mum said that dinner was ready, so eat first and then go for a drive. The car was unregistered; it had been unregistered for a while but the bloke it came from used to race it and it had a lot of tricks on it.
After dinner we left the house in Braybrook and went to Footscray, to the service station there that sold AvGas [high octane aviation fuel]. My brother put $20 worth in there which back then was probably half to three-quarters of a tank. Then he took it for a drive. He was thrashing it everywhere and it was all good, didn’t worry me, I’m seeing what the car can do.
We went past an area where we used to live and on the corner was a milk bar where we used to hang around – they had a pinball machine – we knew the people in the shop. I seen water leaking across the road: must have been a pipe broken. I just knew, and I said to Chris, ‘Whatever you do, take it easy over the water.’
He just looked at me, dropped it back a gear, left his foot on the clutch, revved it, and as soon as we hit the water he let go of the clutch. That car just spun. It done a 180 and we’re going down the street backwards at about 150 k’s. We cleaned up cars all along my side: hit three cars.
But my brother didn’t run away or nothing. He stayed and faced the music. It wasn’t a stolen car, just unregistered, and he wasn’t licensed. He copped it on the chin with the coppers.
So I never drove it. He gave me a replacement vehicle at a later stage, a ZG Fairlane with a 302 motor, but he drove that sideways around a corner and hit a pole.
26. ATTACK TO COMMONWEALTH
30 June 1988: Commonwealth Bank, St Albans, Melbourne Take: zilch
CHRIS:
Warm afternoon for the middle of winter, especially under these heavy dark clothes, and as my carload of soljas, my brothers-in-arms, cruises towards a side street just around from the bank, I’m itching to move – itching to hit the go-switch – but only if everything’s fucking just right.
Senses are wired tight: taking everything in – not rubbernecking around like a mad cunt but smooth. I’m absorbing what’s here: traffic and pedestrians in normal busy flow as the banking day nears its end, people coming and going from the supermarket across the way; and absorbing what’s not here: patrol cars, unmarked vehicles, security guards.
‘Get set, fellas,’ I tell my crew. The driver pats his balaclava; he’ll have it down in a flash when I give the command. The bloke in back takes a deep breath. Shotguns ready. My heart is pounding: not fast but slow – every thud keeping time for the job about to unfold. The bank’s closing soon so there’s lots of cash to grab. Hands on the tools; the weapon feels beautiful.
We park our stolen car – fucking everything’s mine for the taking - in a side street close to the target. Seconds out.
Bloke behind me stiffens. ‘Armaguard,’ he says.
Fucking van across the road from the bank – not directly opposite but parked 30 metres or so away. Picking up from the shopping centre. Still too close. They’ve got firearms and I don’t want them involved. I tell the boys to sit tight. ‘We’ll wait ’til they fuck off.’
And we wait. And wait. The rhythm is fucking straining. The beat wants action.
Five minutes.
Ten minutes.
The van pulls out. ‘We’re on,’ I say and me and me mate in back are up and at it, hot and cold and wired fucking tight as we storm the door, balaclavas down, bags and guns all ready for a king-size take.
Fuck me, they’ve locked up.
‘Open the fucking door, you bastards!’ I’m kicking the shit out of the door. ‘Open it!’ The tellers are down the back – I can see a bunch shitting themselves as I put the fucking boot in and roar, tossing up whether or not to blast the door to pieces with the shotty. A couple teenage fellas stare at us open-mouthed from the ATM right fucking next to us. I kick again but my heartbeat’s calling time. This is just comedy capers. ‘Abort, abort!’
My coey isn’t happy and he walks into the middle of the road and points his gun at a parking inspector who is seeing what all the noise is about. My mate’s screaming at him: ‘Come on, you motherfucker! Come and get me!’
The bloke’s shitting himself.
‘Let’s go! Let’s go!’ I’m trying to snap my coey out of it but instead of going for the vehicle he turns and sprints at the bank, roaring and landing such an almighty kick the glass shatters at last. But it’s all too late and we bolt for the car which is ready with the doors open and the driver guns it and we’re off, empty-handed but alive.
We park near another car that we’ve pre-positioned, ditch the getaway, and cruise off in an orderly fashion having a laugh and a fucking spew – all at the same time. What a fiasco. Should have called it when the van didn’t piss off in time. Can’t fucking let greed call the shots in these operations.
*
This crime is unsolved until Chris contacts police in 2015 and volunteers his – and only his – resp
onsibility. He is subsequently charged and in 2016 pleads guilty in Melbourne Magistrates Court.
FUCK THE MONEY
A few years before, Chris tries to explain his love of heists to the cops (quoted in the Age in 2012):
For the excitement. The rush. Lifestyle: you’d have to know what it feels like. It’s like you’re on a raid, you’re in control, your blood starts rushing, you feel grouse, you’re hyped up. Fuck the money. It’s more than excitement; it’s an addiction. I don’t know what it is.
27. ANYONE SEEN CHRIS?
2 JULY 1988:
MELON STREET, BRAYBROOK
A couple of weeks after Chris gets in early with the hotted up XA Coupe, Barry celebrates his eighteenth.
BARRY:
For my eighteenth I went out to a nightclub with some mates and had a few drinks. Came home pretty pissed.
That morning I was supposed to have the test for my licence but I knew I was too pissed so I slept in instead.
I was asleep and then someone’s pulling my doona back and there’s a bunch of coppers in the room with their guns trained on me.
They were after Chris.
I don’t know where he was or what he was doing but it was me they ended up seeing. Made me wake up pretty quick.
I actually spewed that I didn’t go for my licence.
28. MATCH HEAD THIN
8 JULY 1988:
BRUNSWICK LOCKUP
Mayhem Page 7
