In the H division, Smith had originally intended to wait and tolerate his sentence as best he could, but he soon believed that he would need to escape from Pentridge in order to save his life. He has claimed that he endured multiple beatings from corrupt prison guards. Even defending himself against fellow prisoners was proving to be a challenge. He used the knowledge that he acquired through experience as a well-read student to defend himself in the best way he knew.
On at least one occasion, the love of books even protected his life. Smith had encountered some tough inmates who promised him earlier that day that they were planning to kill him. He knew that like any kind of prey, there would only ever be two options: fight or flight. In this case, he knew flight was out of the question. He surveyed his cell for anything that could offer a solution and his gaze fell upon the collection of literary classics he had on the cell shelf. It seemed that destroying his prize possessions was the only option for survival, but he was still reluctant to pull the collection from the shelf. After a few moments of hesitation, he began to yank the pages from the binding. He strapped the hard covers to his mid-drift and forearms, and stuffed the pages underneath his shirt. He used any cardboard that was available within the cell to build the thickest layer he could to prevent any knives from puncturing his skin.
Miraculously, he returned from the knife fight still alive and with all limbs intact. He had defended himself using what little bit of martial arts self-defence technique he knew. But knowing that the guards could be as dangerous as the inmates, he had to dispose of any clues to what had happened. That included any sharp objects he had used, which were already inconspicuously dropped on the way back to his cell block. He tore the paper from his body and ripped it into tiny pieces. Then, he gnawed the pieces so that they were liquefied enough to flush down the toilet, watching crimson drops fall into the bowl.
Despite having developed a few enemies inside, Smith did befriend at least one inmate, Trevor Raymond Jolly, a convicted contract murderer. Jolly became his accomplice in the escape plan. He had been embroiled in the junkie world like Smith, before he was caught by police. During his contract killing trial, his defence had been that he had not intentionally killed his victim but, rather, it was self-defence. He said it was an accident in a struggle brought on when he tried to obtain the money that was owed to him for a drug deal. The Crown stated that he was contracted to kill the man for $5,000 by the victim’s wife and the man she was having an affair with. At age twenty-four, Jolly ended up being sent to Pentridge only three months before Smith. Perhaps it was their age or their common heroin addiction that brought Jolly and Smith together. Either way, it caused them to form a close relationship. Both of them ended up in the prison’s B division where the riot had occurred in 1979, and where long-term inmates with bad behaviour were housed. Jolly had been placed in the bad behaviour section because money was found in his possession.
After two-and-a-half years spent inside, the pair decided that it was time to take the opportunity to strike and leave Pentridge. On 23 July 1980, they were continuing to work on a concrete job they were completing just outside B division, which was often part of their routine. Unsupervised, they were able to wander away unsuspiciously from their duties into an administrative building. There, they were able to gain access to workmen’s tools which had been abandoned while demolition workers had gone for their lunch. It provided a perfect time-gap for them to use the tools and cut a hole in the tin roof. Security believed it was tin snips that were used to cut the escape route, but Smith has said that they actually used a buzz saw. He described it: “We broke into the governor of security’s office, and then got up to the ceiling, used a buzz-saw to cut a hole in the ceiling, got into the roof, cut through the roof with the buzz-saw.”
The pair then grabbed an extension cord and took it with them up to the roof, where they walked along until they reached the front wall. Staying within security’s blind spot, they dropped the cord over, and climbed it until they could let themselves go. They were finally free. Landing less than twenty metres from the front gate, they sprinted forward until they reached a small lane leading them to Sydney Road. From there, they naturally blended in, as they had ditched their work overalls earlier for normal sportswear, including football jumpers, shorts and runners. To any innocent bystander, they looked like any other pair of avid joggers.
The prison guards on duty had not seen any sign that there was trouble until 1.30 in the afternoon when they noticed the dangling power cord from the wall. One had completed a check fifteen minutes earlier and was positive that the cord had not been there then. Even then, this had not been enough to raise suspicion with the guards. They continued their shift as normal and only realized that something unlawful had happened when they completed the roll call for B division, when they found that the two inmates were missing. This occurred a couple of hours after the power cord had been seen, at approximately 4 p.m.
To Smith, the experience was exhilarating. Escaping from a maximum security prison went beyond the adrenaline he had experienced through martial arts training or any of the crimes he had committed so far. He had to have felt a pang of smugness towards the prison guards and police as he had predicted the outcome to them months earlier. Shortly after his sentence, he had mailed detectives a poem indicating his future escape plans. He was dubbed the “Chicken Man” by some because he once robbed a shop called the Chicken Inn. The poem was titled, “The Chicken from Snowy River”.
There was movement at the station for the word has passed around
The Chicken Man was on the loose – and covering a lot of ground.
He’s done some cheeky hold-ups
Every now and then
And the station men determined
To put him in the pen.
They gaoled the Chicken Man,
He couldn’t turn a trick,
Now it’s porridge for breakfast,
While he serves out a brick.
But the squad remains alert,
Ready again to swoop
If the Chicken Man learns to fly,
And one day flies the coop.
The local media shared this piece of writing a couple of weeks after Smith and Jolly broke free. Meanwhile, the pair was still on the loose, but they did eventually part company. Smith mingled in a few different groups shortly thereafter, including a motorcycle gang. He was able to hide for a while in New Zealand before he was smuggled into India, and settled in Bombay (Mumbai) in 1981. Jolly was not so fortunate as on 26 May 1981 he was charged with a further three years for using a firearm upon arrest, assaulting a police officer and stealing a police car.
India introduced Smith to a whole new level of crime. Originally, he began surviving on petty drug trading, particularly to foreigners visiting from abroad. But he became aware that he would need to adjust to the culture to survive in this new world. India is where he was swallowed into powerful groups of hard men, including the local mafia. At first, though, he had to adjust to living in a slum in Bombay. Cramped in a tiny hut built with wood and rags, Smith lived in a community where around 25,000 people were squashed in a space no bigger than 800 metres square.
Smith was in his hut one day when he had heard loud screams from outside. He could see flames coming from one of the huts. He figured it would not take long for the fire to sweep through all of the community, including his own home, and it was best just to get the hell out of there. Grabbing his bag of belongings, he began to sprint as far away as he could. But, after a few minutes, he noticed the women and children glaring at him with a sense of bewilderment, and he stopped. He watched the native slum-dwellers, who were not as strong as him. They were carrying heavy buckets of water and heading into the fire to try to extinguish it as best as they could. Smith decided that he could not run this time, and that it was more important for him to help the people.
When the fire had ceased, 250 people were injured and twelve had died as a result of the crisis. Smith had a modest supply of
basic first aid equipment which he used to clean the wounds and bandage up those he could. From the next day, people considered him to be a valuable doctor and would queue outside his hut for treatment from then on. It was a round about this time when Smith was given the nickname “Shantaram” or “Man of Peace”.
Smith’s next few years were eventful and he soon ended up back in prison. Pentridge prison had seemed like a hell, but it had only a fraction of the effect that Bombay’s Arthur Road Prison had on him. Despite it only being a relatively short sentence, four months, its impact on Smith was profound. He had entered the institution weighing 90 kg, and left weighing only 45 kg. The prison had established a convict overseer system, whereby convicted murderers were able to make the decisions in the prison. They were able to control the food rations, which meant they could build on their strength while they starved the other inmates, making them much weaker. Smith, despite drastically dropping in weight from starvation, became involved in a fist fight with one of the overseers. As a result, the overseers clamped irons on his legs. They used a cramping tool to do this, tightly binding the ankles. Other prisoners would share their food rations with him, but would end up being beaten themselves. It was the boss of a local mafia who bailed him out for US$10,000. The local Bombay mafia was a smaller unit of a larger Colombian group. As a foreigner who was obviously a survivor under harsh conditions, Smith was an asset to the mafia to smuggle passports, drugs and other illegal items between borders.
While Smith was manoeuvring between borders, the authorities were none the wiser if he was still in Australia or abroad. In 1988, the longest standing name on the top ten most wanted list for the Victorian police was Gregory John Peter Smith. Despite being on the run for so long, Smith was nervous about being caught. His fears of being recognized were justified when, in 1990, he was caught travelling from Bombay to Zurich on a false passport, carrying a stash of drugs. The authorities had previously uncovered an illegal passport operation in Bombay and had even pinpointed a specific stamp from Sri Lanka that was used in a fake passport. Any passports containing this stamp were immediately picked out by international customs officers, and it would finally land Smith in the hands of the police. To them, they had finally caught the ultimate Houdini. To take the necessary precautions, they put him in a maximum security prison in Germany, which housed the bottom-feeders of society, including terrorists. Smith was then extradited back to Australia where he ironically finished the sentence he could not bear so many years before: in Pentridge Prison.
Smith spent his second round in Pentridge compiling the short stories of his turbulent journey into a format that would make him a bestselling author. Despite his manuscript being destroyed twice by prison guards while inside, his determination would overcome any suffering he was subjected to. Although he admitted that there was the occasional opportunity to escape again and experience that thrill, he held himself back. This time, no reason to escape would be greater than his desire to see his family again. He had finished running. Since he has been published, Smith has set up charitable foundations in Mumbai, assisting the city’s poor by providing healthcare coverage. He has also been approached by one of the guards who had destroyed his book years before, while he was banged up inside. The guard explained he had deep regret for committing such a deed. But Smith viewed the experience as he did so many of the hardships he endured: it had made Shantaram a better book in the end.
DENNIS MARTIN (UK)
One of Britain’s Toughest Men
Introducing … Dennis Martin
ASK ANY DOORMAN on any door anywhere in the UK if there was one city where they would not want to work the doors and without doubt most would say Liverpool. Liverpool is a tough, hard, dangerous place populated by tough, hard people and is currently rated one of the most violent cities in the United Kingdom. Home of the world-famous Beatles, Liverpool is also home of some of the wealthiest gangsters in British history whose empires extend to controlling many of the clubs and pubs, and many of the doormen. If you are not tough and “known”, and if you cannot “mix it” when you need to, you will not last long working the doors in this dangerous and volatile city. There was no one tougher on the doors in Liverpool in the 1970s than Sean Reich and the same goes for Dennis Martin today. Everyone knows Dennis and Dennis knows everyone. Polite, respectful, modest and well-read, Dennis is undoubtedly one of the hardest, yet humblest, doormen in Liverpool today.
LIVERPOOL’S HARDEST DOORMAN
By Barbara Preston
When you think about the term “hard bastard”, what mental image comes to mind? There are a number of dictionary definitions for the term, but initially most people would probably think of a man who is perceived as being vicious or ruthless; a “big man” in his crowd, hard-drinking perhaps, and often with criminal tendencies. This stereotypical description is all wrong – at least where Dennis Martin is concerned.
Being “tough” does not mean being violent or aggressive; a “hard man” is simply someone who is able to handle difficult situations and keep his head, and, if necessary, is not afraid to fight to protect himself or others who are unable to defend themselves. Hard, tough men are also able to take a lot of physical punishment – seemingly without much effort – which takes years of dedication, training and extremely hard work.
So what has made a normally quiet, passive Dennis Martin one of the hardest men in the UK today?
Born in Liverpool, the fourth largest and one of the toughest cities in England, Dennis Martin had what he calls a “normal upbringing”. He wasn’t interested in sports at school but in his early teens he discovered the world of martial arts. A judo demonstration at a local fête captured his interest and there began a journey that has brought him to the pinnacle of self-defence and close protection instruction. Nowhere along the way did Dennis consciously choose the path his life took; it developed and evolved over the years and, by his own admission, his life is very much still a “work in progress”.
Initially learning karate from books and television, Dennis finally heard about a karate demonstration by Masters Kase, Shirai, Kanazawa and Enoeda at the famous Red Triangle dojo in Liverpool. He was totally impressed by the dynamism and power displayed and was lucky enough to be offered a place at the dojo, which already had a long waiting list. The training was Shotokan karate and, in another stroke of luck for Dennis, Master Enoeda himself moved to Liverpool which meant that Dennis had a consistently high standard of training directly from the master himself, whom he describes as an incredibly hard trainer suiting the style of the pure Shotokan.
Martin’s progression from dojo to doorman came about by accident. It was Christmas, he was eighteen years old and short of cash, and so he took a job on the door of an all-night Indian restaurant and his job was to make sure nobody left without paying. He quickly learned how to deal with drunks and aggressive groups, and shortly after he was offered occasional work on the door of the Blue Angel nightclub, where he had his first real altercation on the doors. A big guy came at him and Dennis used an ura-tsuki (a close, low, snapping punch in the ribs) to put him down.
It did wonders for his self-confidence!
Dennis continued training hard several times a week and slowly became interested in Okinawan karate; he was fascinated by the incredible power levels reached in that particular style. He wasn’t a strong kicker, so the short-range traditional Goju-ryu style suited him. The term Goju-ryu actually means “hard-soft style”, which refers to the closed hand techniques (hard) and open hand techniques and circular movements (soft) that comprise this martial art.
This style of karate was something that Martin would use when working on the doors because not only does it have a wide range of short-range techniques such as elbow strikes and open hand strikes, it is also very strong on conditioning – both mental and physical. Dennis met Brian Waites at a championship where Waites was giving a demonstration as he was one of the first to introduce the Goju style in England. Dennis boldy invited Waites to Liverp
ool for some training, which he agreed to. Also around this time, Gary Spiers, another well-known doorman and martial arts expert, moved to Liverpool and began teaching a form of “street Goju” and Dennis, of course, trained with him as well.
Through his friendship with another fellow martial artist Terry O’Neill, Dennis was taken on as a doorman at the Victoriana Club, a local hotspot for trouble. After a year on the “Vic”, he moved to another nightclub further along the same road. But for Dennis, working the doors was just to make a living and pay for his passion: karate. He, O’Neill and Spiers would frequently work a Friday night, travel to London to train at a particular dojo or with a visiting master on the Saturday, then back to Liverpool to work that night, and then head off for London again to train the following Sunday.
As a doorman, Dennis quickly learned early on that the martial arts used in the dojo were not the same as were needed on the streets and the doors, and both O’Neill and Spiers taught Dennis how to modify his style and techniques for street-fighting – extremely effectively when it came to working the doors together. He also learned about dealing with people; reading them and their behaviour and getting them to do what you need them to do, preferably without a fight breaking out. He also learned about situational awareness: “I never got any of the mental side from formal martial arts. We [Dennis and Terry O’Neill] were walking through the city centre in Liverpool and I said, ‘How can you remember all the guys you’ve smacked?’ He said, ‘You can’t, it’s impossible. You’ve just got to be on your guard all the time.’ And I’ve lived by that principle ever since. I’m on my guard when I’m in public. It’s what we now call situational awareness.”
The Mammoth Book of Hard Bastards (Mammoth Books) Page 47
