Mayhem

by Matthew Thompson

  But things happen for a reason. There is a backup. Here we are in investigations because I’ve been tipped from this jail before for allegations of attempted escape. So they feel that I am a suspect. The three of us get moved but within two weeks we are cleared and so now I start on Plan B.

  45. BREAKOUT

  8 SEPTEMBER 1992: ST VINCENT’S HOSPITAL

  CHRIS:

  Within a fortnight we are cleared of links to the seized items. Nevertheless, we’re unofficially deemed guilty as sin and sent to Pentridge.

  Pentridge is pretty tight but I know that if I get injured badly enough to need a real hospital, they’ll send me to the locked ward at St Vincent’s, and security there isn’t great.

  We can bypass things and a gun can be smuggled.

  A friend is going to stab me and he’s going to do it in the showers to reduce the evidence. ‘Just take it easy,’ I tell him.

  First one’s in deep. Winds me. Second is bodgy; superficial.

  But he’s nearly killed me, the cunt.

  The first stab severed the artery at the base of my spine. Went right through.

  I nearly bleed out because it takes them fucking two hours to get me to hospital. What the fuck?

  They’re asking me who did it and I’m saying, ‘Dunno. I was washing me hair and someone come in. Felt ’em punch me in the stomach and thought they were mucking around. I rinsed me hair and then see there’s fucking blood, you know.’

  But I nearly die. They finally get me to St Vincent’s and have me on my deathbed. The prison investigators realise that this is serious because my blood pressure is very very low. To me it’s all clear as day. I’m not scared of dying. If it’s gonna happen it’s gonna happen. Not even really thinking about it, to be honest.

  They’re saying, ‘Chris, tell us what happened ’cos you’re possibly going to die.’

  ‘Listen, fuck off,’ I said. ‘If I’m gonna die I’m gonna die. Fuck off.’

  And I survive.

  My father starts visiting. He wears a chunky belt buckle that sets off the metal detectors every time.

  But he’s very weak from a disease of the heart. The guards assume it’s just his belt again and they don’t want to make him undo his daks every time. They’re conditioned that way.

  So one day he places a .32 calibre semi-automatic pistol under his jeans, positioned behind the zipper and buckle. There’s no bulge. Nothing shows.

  And he walks it in for me.

  My father is dying and knows it and it is basically his last wish for me to get out. He wants me to beat the system; to fuck the system. ’Cos he hates the screws. He hates the coppers. He wants me to get back out, you know.

  I am hoping to go to Croatia.

  I have it here for three days. It’s under me pillow sometimes. Otherwise nearby: always within reach.

  You can’t smoke cigarettes in here and I’ve got one bloke smoking in the fucking toilet, which could make ’em search the place. You can smell it. I say to him, ‘Mate, listen, I’m going. I’ve got something in here and if this comes undone because you’re smoking cigarettes I’ll fucking shoot ya. If you bring this undone I’ll fucking shoot ya.’

  I asked if he wanted to come but no, he was going for parole. The other bloke in the unit was Steve Barci who the police shot at Tullamarine airport during an Armaguard heist. He was winged and I know people that are visiting him. I say, ‘Buddy, if you want I’ll take the lead; you jump in the slipstream.’

  ‘Nah.’ He is still terrified, still recovering from the SOG arrest. Traumatised. They shot him a few times; nearly killed him. They killed one of his coeys: Norman Leung ‘Chops’ Lee, the only bloke ever charged over the 1976 Great Bookie Robbery. He got off that but now he’s dead. Barci doesn’t want to know about my plan. He’s not interested.

  All right.

  I am hoping that when they escort ya they don’t search ya, so I’ll have it concealed on me and we’ll walk out, down the elevator, and onto the street towards the transport. Even if I’m handcuffed, I’ll manage to pull it out and say, ‘Give us the keys,’ disarm them, and that’ll be it. Know what I mean? That’s my intention. That’ll be easy. I didn’t want to use it in the ward because I thought if they don’t comply I might get trapped with things escalating out of hand.

  But there are no beds available in the hospital ward at Pentridge for some time. And here is my father waiting in a vehicle around the corner. He spends three days just fucking sitting there in his car waiting for me.

  And there is another car parked nearby with the keys hidden in it. I am going to run to that, and drive it to a second location where my father is. Then we’ll go to a safe house.

  The escorts are done between nine o’clock and four o’clock, I tell him. So for three fucking days he gets there every morning and sits there all fucking day. I’m trying to get there but there’s no fucking beds at Pentridge and no fucking escort happening. So I tell my visitor, ‘Listen, fucken this is going to happen tonight. My father’s been waiting there three days in a row. I’m going to call it. I’m gonna pull it between such-and-such and such-and-such time.’ So he will be there waiting for me.

  The officers come in. One officer sits in the ward with us and another three sit in the security box. And there are couple of nurses in the nurses’ station.

  One of them is in the corner of the room. I have to walk past him to go to the toilet. Sometimes, because he is at a bit of a distance in the corner, he comes and sits amongst us to watch TV. That’s what he’s doing.

  Five minutes before I decide to time it he fucking gets up and goes to the corner so I’ve got to fucking lure him back. I make out I’m going to the toilet and as I come back I walk up and show him the weapon. My back’s to the box so they have no vision. I just pulled it out and say, ‘See this, fuckhead? Be smart; listen to what I say. You got a family? Think about your family. You wanna go home? Do what I say.’

  He knows me. He knows my history. He knows I am serious. He goes: ‘Chris, you don’t have to threaten me. Tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do it. I won’t fuck around.’

  ‘All right. Come back to where you were sitting and I’ll explain to you.’ And he does, so I say, ‘Listen, you’re going to get up; you’re going to tap up to make out you’re going to the toilet or make a coffee and I’ll follow not far behind.’

  He gets up; he taps up and there’s like an airlock. There’s one door open into the airlock where there’s access to the control room. The control room’s very thin perspex, maybe four millimetres. So he’s got up there and I’ve got up there slowly and they’re not looking at me.

  There is supposed to be two other screws there. Two of them had left their posts, and one of them happens to be Maggot – if he was here, he would try to fucking challenge me.

  With one of the guards, someone keeps tampering with his car and making the alarm go off, so he keeps going downstairs. Don’t know why Maggot has left his post.

  I’m bending over and I’ve got the dressing gown on, thongs on, and I’ve got the gun in my hand but I’m holding my stomach because I have a stomach wound. I’m leaning over getting a drink from the tap as the door’s opened and all of a sudden, bang, I’m in action.

  Within four quick steps I’m up to the first airlock door. It’s open and I’m pointing the gun at the first screw’s head. He’s like, ‘What the fuck?’

  I say, ‘Now open the fucking other door. Don’t fuck around.’

  He realises. He doesn’t even fucking shift. He doesn’t take his eyes off the gun. Just his hand moves to open the other door.

  Bang, I’m out.

  I run down the stairs but because I am in a rush, adrenalin pumping, I lose my bearings and run past the car that has been put aside for me and I think, ‘What the fuck?’ and run through the Exhibition Building. I know how to steal cars, you know, and there’s an XD panel van parked there.

  I break the window, steal it, drive through the barrier gates, meet my father and
dump the XD. He drives us to another location.

  We have drinks and celebrations and a last dinner, and then I say, ‘Dad, I’ve got to go. There’s too much heat over this.’ He is rapt, you know. He is crook and I’m glad I say my goodbyes. I tell him I love him. Leading up to that there have been arguments between me and him over Roxy, because I was in love with her and he knew she was bad for me. But it doesn’t matter how many people warned me about her, I still didn’t listen and she destroyed my life.

  So I collect the good stock of weapons that have been made available, say my goodbyes, hug him, tell him I love him, and I am on the road within a couple of hours.

  I drive all night, reaching Sydney at about eight o’clock in the morning and get picked up by Roxy.

  *

  Maggot caused a lot of hate and evil in Pentridge so I suggested later on that he was involved. They thought it was an inside job ’cos two of the screws left their posts! What the fuck? But it just happened to be bad timing; it was just pure arse.

  I said that he gave me the gun – a bodgy gun that I paid him ten grand for. And his wife just happened to buy a new vehicle soon after! So they thought there was some credibility in this and he was under suspicion for a long time. There was disciplinary action because he couldn’t answer why he wasn’t there. It didn’t look good. I heard about this later on from the other screws. But I just thought, ‘You fucking rat, you bashed us, tortured us, so you know what, mate? I’m gonna fuck you over.’ They couldn’t prove it but it gave him a lot of grief. And you know I didn’t tell the story about Maggot giving me the gun to any investigators – I just said it to other screws, and it got back. So now they’re talking amongst themselves and I know he was investigated.

  46. MY AUDACIOUS EIGHT DAYS

  8 SEPTEMBER 1992: OUT OF CUSTODY

  CHRIS:

  Back in Sydney, catching up with my girlfriend. Holed up at her place which she shared with another couple. That evening her girlfriend answers the phone and the other end asks for ‘Erica’, Roxy’s first name. But she does not use that name, she introduces herself to all as ‘Roxy’. Smiles had this number and would send her dollars from time to time to help her out. Her girlfriend denies anyone of that name lives there, and asks, who is this? where did they get this number from? The caller refused to answer and hung up.

  Only police call her Erica. This means the place is now compromised. We hastily packed up all that we owned and left that moment, going to a friend of hers named Bill.

  The next week, I done an armed hold-up again. This robbery was audacious in any language, committed not even two blocks away from the Major Crime Chatswood North Police Complex, a smaller version of St Kilda Rd, jumping the counter, not out of hospital a week, a major wound still healing, clearing some ten odd tellers. I lost much time inside and I shot out the rear door to make an exit, expecting police to arrive at any moment as they would walk through the mall regularly during the day.

  Avoiding the arrival of police increased the excitement; that was all part of the challenge. It added fear/danger to this crime done alone by myself in a major shopping centre 180 metres from a police complex. So perverse indeed. It ‘excited me’.

  (There were far more easy targets around I had ignored.)

  Bill was a fencer of stolen goods.

  We leave Bill’s, all our bags packed up ready to depart the state that day. We’re driving to a car lot – we had a car to pick up, had left a deposit on it already days before, and needed to do the robbery to pay the balance off and swap the one we had that was in Roxy’s name – when the state protection squad intercept our car.

  I had pulled over so Bill could catch up to us across the traffic lights.

  Bill was behind us in a two-car convoy to the car yard. He was also picking up a car I paid for, how he was able to drive off in his clapped-out bomb blowing smoke was beyond comprehension. They’d watched us leave his driveway not 50 metres away. Inside the house was a high risk arrest to them.

  The State Protection Group knew I was armed to the teeth, all the military weapons loaded ready to go. Their ballistic vests were no match for these weapons at all. So they let us leave the safety of the house, watching what was carried – a small bag placed under the front driver’s seat containing the .32 auto pistol used in the escape. Safely out of reach whilst driving observed.

  The risk of now making an arrest was dramatically reduced as hands were seen driving, and any attempt to go for the pistol would be noticed, unlike inside the house.

  Bill set me up for arrest after I gave him five grand from the armed robbery I done the day before, to buy a car. Great mate he.

  He won huge brownie points with police as a result.

  I was arrested by the NSW State Protection Group on 16 September 1992.

  I was only hours away from leaving the state headed for Queensland and found with assault rifles, including the modified one used in the Warringah Mall robbery nine months before, this unique weapon becoming an issue in my defence at trial.

  47. JUMPIN’ OUTTA PARRA

  1992: CATCHING UP

  ANNETTE:

  I heard he was arrested and taken to Parramatta.

  Steve was shattered. After all that, after all the risks, for Chris to be stupid enough to get captured again. It completely crushed Steve.

  When Chris escaped from St Vincent’s he was the proudest father on the earth. Now he was extremely depressed and withdrawn.

  Chris contacted me, asking me to go to Badlands, up in Queensland, to collect the guns he left in a cave and bring them back to Melbourne.

  I said, ‘Not on your life. You’re compromising me. I am not going to be doing that.’

  Then he said, ‘Well, you can put it on the train.’

  ‘Not on your life.’ He just didn’t think. I wasn’t a member of his gang. I have a smaller child to think of, too, and I’m not a Ma Baker type. I said no, I’m not touching them, not at all.

  I was curious to see the property, though, and I could discuss the sale of it with the agent.

  The fellow I was seeing at the time, John, came as a relief driver, and Wayne, who was only little, came too. Steve agreed to look after my dog while we were gone.

  We visited Chris on the way up. When we pulled up in the car park at Parramatta jail I recognised Chris’ voice. He was calling, ‘Mum!’ from an upstairs window. ‘Mum! Hey Mum!’

  When I got inside for the visit, do you know the first thing he asked?

  Not how are you or how’s Dad or anything like that. He said, ‘How many doors did you walk through?’

  Unbelievable.

  I said, ‘What? Don’t tell me. Not again.’

  ‘Ah, Mum,’ he said in his gravelly way. He leaned close: ‘I’ve already got the hacksaw.’

  I was stunned. He did my head in. Still does. ‘I don’t want to know about it, Chris, and I don’t go counting doors when I walk into places.’

  Badlands was so remote that to get there I had to first see a real estate agent in Bundaberg who knew the way. It was about 100 kilometres west of Bundaberg – the nearest town was Gin Gin – and you had to go up bush tracks and over little creeks. I would never have found it so the agent led the way in his vehicle and we followed him to the property.

  There was a little doorless shack on Badlands and that’s where he lived with Roxy.

  Inside we found a double dildo. I’d never seen anything like it and I wasn’t too sure what it was until John told me.

  ‘You’re kidding me,’ I said. ‘I didn’t think they made double ones.’

  Roxy. It was hers for sure.

  John and Wayne played footy with it, kicking it around, sending it flying high in the air.

  John was curious about the guns but I said, ‘You can go and have a look. I’m not going anywhere near them.’ I wanted nothing to do with them.

  Badlands had a little creek where there was something like a small cave. Chris said that he had wrapped his guns up in blue tarpaulin and there w
ould be guns in the cave. He didn’t think ahead that when it was raining this creek would rise and flood the cave.

  The weapons got rusty.

  I don’t know much about his life at the property or how often he went there because, to tell you the truth, I had nothing much to do with him at that time. I didn’t like Roxy. Roxy and I clashed, like I did with most of them.

  I could see the writing on the wall with that one: money and adventure, you know, notoriety.

  As for John, he later gassed himself in a car.

  CHRIS:

  As big a headache as life on the run can be, it’s never a relief getting captured. The whole point is: I escape to be out of custody. Getting captured crushes you. It depletes you. It takes all the air out of you. It takes the life out of you.

  I’m shattered.

  And on top of this, on top of fucking everything, I know that it will be affecting my sick father. He’s in poor health. I don’t want to dwell on it so I don’t.

  The only way forward is to escape. This is the thought that lifts me out of despair.

  Within days I’m scanning the terrain for weak spots. I’m getting out. I know I can.

  I meet a few good blokes and say to one of ’em, ‘Mate, can we get out of here?’

  He points out the reception, which we’re overlooking from up here in 5 Wing.

  If we can get out through one of the windows here, drop to the roof of the old store that stretches along below us, and jump the gap between that roof and the roof of the reception area, then we’re past everything except for the main gate, which is left open.

  Problem is there’s a watchtower above us.

  But in studying the angles, I can tell that if the screw sits in the tower then he has a blind spot: when we’re right below him, he can’t see us.