December 2, 2025 • 44 mins
In this episode, Adam sits down with Australia’s most recognisable criminal psychologist, Tim Watson-Munro — a man who has spent nearly 50 years staring into the darkest corners of the human mind. From Parramatta Jail in the 1970s to some of the most notorious cases in Australian criminal history, Tim has assessed thousands of offenders, earning the trust of hardened criminals and the respect of courts and the public. But Tim’s story isn’t just about what he witnessed, it’s about what it cost him. At the height of his career, the weight of extreme violence, trauma and expectation began to take its toll.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Apploche Production.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Welcome to Real Crime with Adam Shand I'm Your Host
Adam Shand. Tim Watson Munroe is Australia's best known criminal psychologist.
For nearly fifty years, Tim has decoded the minds and
actions of criminals for the courts and the general public
through the media. Known as the jail House Shrink, Tim
Watson Munroe has spent decades inside Australia's darkest cells. Blessed
(00:38):
with an inquiring and empathetic mind, Tim gained the trust
of some of this country's most notorious crooks, working not
just with criminals, but confronting the very nature of evil itself.
His work has taken him to the edge of the abyss.
He looked into the eyes of people who've committed the
most heinous acts and has calmly, dispassionately explained the motivations
(01:00):
behind them. He's built a huge following from his media work.
At the age of seventy two, continues to grace our
TV screens and our podcast playlists with his calm and
considered points of view. Tim Watson Monroe continues to be
one of Australia's most consulted experts on violent offenders with
more than thirty thousand cases assisted over his career, but
(01:23):
this insight does not come for free. In the nineteen nineties,
Tim went through his own dark night of the soul.
As a young psychologist working in New South Wales prisons.
Tim thought he could change the world, but he didn't
realize how much that world was changing him. He experienced
what he called in his memoir Dancing with Demons, a
growing cynicism, a gradual rotting of the soul. As his
(01:46):
accomplishments and fame grew, he experienced an escalating hubris. His
exuberance to succeed paradoxically became his nemesis. In the nineties,
he lost his way. His life and career no longer
had any meaning or purpose. He covered that up with
a raging cocaine habit that all but destroyed his public
(02:07):
standing when he was caught up in the fall of
defense lawyer turned coke importer Andrew Fraser Watson. Monroe says
he lost all sense of judgment during a period of
escalating cocaine news. Tim has rebuilt his career in profile,
telling the story of his downfall with an unflinching honesty
that offers so much to others in my career. Tim
(02:29):
has been a generous and thoughtful collaborator, and I'm proud
to call him a friend. Welcome to real crime, Tim.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Thank you very much, Adam. That's a very kind introduction.
I hope we can live up to it. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
I mean, I was struck when I was reading your
memoir again, how honest it was. And I wonder whether
at the times you just want to put that in
the past, and people like me are always going to
bring up the downfall. But I think it's important to
understanding your overall journey. I guess there are times when
you probably say, well, I'd rather just put that in
the past and move forward in the latter chapters of
your life and career.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
It's a good question. I'm in. My involvement with Coke
went on for a couple of years. I received a
good behavior bond for years and possess. It's twenty six
years ago now and I was deregistered in June two thousand.
I regained my practicing c tiicket in late twenty twenty three.
I resumed practice in early two thousand and four, so
(03:24):
that's twenty one years ago now, and I assiduously worked
at restoring my reputation and my professional standing. It's been
a long journey, but it's nice to be back. I
think it's an important and relevant part of my career,
and that's why over the ensuing years I've been happy
to discuss it in an open and honest manner to
(03:47):
perhaps explain what happened with me. And more importantly, I
think I've heard so many times from people who have
written to me saying, look, thanks for the book. Your
story is inspirational. You know, it gives me some hope
that I might be able to recover from my addiction
and move forward my life. Now, if that helps people,
I'm proud to be associated with.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
It, because Dancing with Demons is more than just a
brutally honest memoir. It's a bit of self flagellation as well.
You're looking at the mistakes that you made in the past.
But at the same time, I think the reader gets
a sense of you can't look into this abyss without
taking on some of the darkness that comes with it.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Well, I think it was an issue said when you
look into the abyss, the abyss stairs back at year,
and that certainly happened with me. There's no doubt that
the nature of the work that I was doing at
a very young age. I might add. My first job
at Paramounta Jail commenced on the fourteenth of August nineteen
seventy eight, so I had just turned twenty five years.
(04:50):
It was the worst jarl in Australia by any one's account.
It was a maximum security, multi recidivus prison and I
applied for the job. I didn't think I had a
snowflakes chance in l of getting it, but I hit
it off with the chief psychologist, Irene Malentto, in her
own way, a fascinating woman. She spoke twelve languages, highly intelligent.
(05:11):
So there I was Paramount of Jail day one, twenty five,
looking about eighteen, and I can still remember the first
day I walked through the gates and I was overpowered
with the smell of light soul. It's a very strong
anti infection kind of thing, bid luck, debt a. It
stronger the place wreaked of it, wolf wishlaws from Krim
(05:33):
saying come to my cl baby, all this sort of stuff.
And then meeting the prisoner governor, the Parry Duff, who
became a good friend of mine with the passage of time.
He was sitting in an office. There was the portrait
of Queen Elizabeth hung at thirty degrees to the perpendicular,
and old leather chairs, musty smells, and he said, welcome aboard, son.
(05:58):
Always remember this. If you can be conned, you can
be fucked. And I said, thanks a lot, mister Uff,
and I walked out of his office. Then I went
across to my office, and I had dressed in levis
and T shirts because I thought I'd fit in better
with the crims, you know, rather than a guy in
a certain of briefcase. The prison officer on the gate
(06:19):
to the administration block with my office was I said,
prison psacha, you know. I was full of humorous and pride.
And he looked at me and he said, he's not here,
your little dog. You're early come back in half an hour.
And then it dawned on me that the green T
shirt I was wearing was exactly the same as the
green T shirts that the prisoners wore. Now you've got
(06:40):
to put this in the context of a twenty five
year old who came from a fairly privileged, gentrified background.
My father was a professor of Physics at Sydney University.
My mother was an artist. I'd traveled the world when
he was on sabbatical. Left. One of my babysitters when
I was seven in Berkeley, California, was Einstein's granddaughter. Just
(07:01):
to give you some idea of where I'd come from.
When I applied for the job, people said, don't do
it, it'll change you. They were right, but I haven't regretted
anything beyond the drug use. Of course. I've had a
fabulous career and I'm very grateful for it.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
You sought out to change the prison itself. You got
involved in prisoner reform groups and hit the heavy heights
of going on the Mike Walshow on Channel nine with
hardened criminals and yourself, I mean talk about idealistic and futuristic.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
It was a great time for me and I had
the good fortune to be employed in the wake of
the Nagal Royal Commission that had developed as a consequence
of a rit at Bathist Jail and it wascathing of
the administration of prisons in New South Wales. They appointed
a board of commissioners, including the late Professor Toney Vincent.
(07:50):
He was a sociologist The whole focus then was reformation,
opening up the jails and trying to develop programs. Now
these days in prison throughout certainly New South Wales and Victoria,
there's lots of available for prisoners, but they didn't exist then.
So part of my charter was to do that, and
(08:11):
Paramatta was the ideal facility for it because it was
an end of the line jail. Everyone in Paramatta had
no other options. They weren't going anywhere for a long time.
I think the average sentence was ten to fifteen years.
A lot of life was for murder, robbers and so on.
So I came in just as they were establishing the
so called Day in Jail program, which was based on
(08:35):
the Scared Straight program in Rahway Jail, New Jersey in
the States, but we tweaked it a bit and made
it an insight learning program. So what happened was referrals.
They were juvenile offenders who, if it were not for
this program, would certainly be going to jail, and they
were sent to prison for one day. They spent the
(08:57):
morning as a prisoner wood cleaning locks, polishing floors, locked
up in their cell for lunch. It was just gruel.
It was atrocious and then in the afternoon they would
be counseled by two to four prisoners who had been
trained in basic counseling. I would sit in on those sessions.
It was a highly successful program. It was investigated by
(09:19):
the New South Wales Bureau of Crime, Statistics and Research
and it was found on a two year follow up
sixty percent of these people were not seen in court again.
So arising from that, inevitably it attracted a lot of press,
culminating in an invitation to appear with two of the
prisoners on the Mark Walsh Shire. And for those who
(09:40):
were old enough, Mark Walsh was the biggest rating show
in Australia. Really it was Midday Shire. You had the
blue rind set and all the rest of who had
watched it. And because Tony Vincent was the commissioner, he
gave permission for these two crooks to come with me
under escort the prison officers and a big Ford plane.
And that was a big deal for these bugs to
(10:01):
appear on the Mark Walsh program. As it eventuated, Mike
on the day was ill and the filly in was
Jimmy Hannon.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
I don't know if you do, you know he washed
up American Stary came out to a stadia.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
I think yeah, and I think he had commercials for
toothpaste and that sort of stuff, and he hadn't been
properly brief So we walked through the program. It was
just when video stuff was coming out, so we had
a video clip of the jail and the counseling and
that went on national TV. And then to conclude, Jimmy
went around us and he said, well, Ray, why are
(10:35):
you in prison. He said, well, I murdered my wife
and I'm really sorry about it and I'm doing life.
There was another guy, Arthur Brown, and he said, well, Arthur,
what brought you to jail? And he said, I did
all these armed robberies and I'm doing twenty or a fourteen.
And then he looked at me and I was dressed,
you know, again in leve ours and I might have
(10:55):
had a sports checking on. And he said, Tim what
brought you into prison? Right? And I said, I'm the psychologist. Jimmy, well,
you know, he went bright red and they cut to
an ad break and that was that. But you know,
they were healthy and funny times. In many ways, I.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Think he needed to change or retire somewhat to be
distinguished from the prisoner by the sounds of them.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Yeah, I didn't think about that, and I liked to
be I guess true to myself. I thought that he
had been properly proved, No doubt Mike Walsh would have been.
But it rated well, The program went very well. It
eventually shut down, as did a number of the other programs.
I said of a drug rehab program in Paramount of Jail,
(11:37):
and I was involving what was called the Concert Committee,
which was run by a blake by the name of
George Crawfort, a very heavy crook. You may remember the
name from two times in Sydney. But he had a
lot of talent, and he had connections with the rock
and roll industry, and long story short, he persuaded, with
the sort of impromat of the government a number of
(12:00):
top rating rock and roll bands in the seventies. Today
nate a Sunday afternoon on four consecutive Sunday afternoons as
a record. We had big bands there. And Cold Chisel
wrote a song about their experience of Paramount a Jar
standing on the outside looking in. It was one of
them that's on the East album and what happened with
(12:22):
that program. All the acts were recorded, they cut an
album called Canned Rock, and all the proceeds the royalties
were donated by the artists to the International Year of
the Child. So all this was a big deal, you know.
And for a while PARAMOUNTA was a bit like a
universe he CAAs you know, you had crooks running around
(12:43):
with clipboards and on the phone and you know, routing
the telephone. But in the three years that I was there,
I reckon I had ten years worth of experience. It
was invailuable.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Such a fragile thing, this public mood for reform, because
it only took a botched prison escape and a riot
for the dispensation to end. Think think, we've never really
seen it come back. There was a flowering of that
in different parts of the country. But these days there
is a hard attitude to prisons and prisoners. They're simply
there to be punished, keeping there as long as we
(13:16):
possibly can. But of course the misnomer is because all
these people eventually come out and then their's society's problems again.
So you could see the value of treating them as
human beings.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Yes, and to demonstrate that notwithstanding their hinous crimes, and
some of them were hinous crimes. They were individuals who
in their own right had a lot of talent. The
Botch prisoner escape you mentioned was a tunnel that was
being dug under the walls of Paramount Agile and they
were caught literally at one minute to midnight. They heard
(13:49):
about it because one of the prisoners had wrung his
mother and he had said, look, we need a few
more places at the dinner table tomorrow night because I'll
be there with some of them mates. Well she freaked out,
rang the garvernor. They did a huge search of everywhere
and there was this handler went through the catacombs of
the old jail under the wall. They had keys to
(14:10):
let people out and they are ready to go. If
that had happened, I think inevitably it would have brought
down the government because such was the rage. I think
your comments right. You know, in many ways, we are
all tired of crime, particularly in Melbourne at the moment.
It's a very topical issue in terms of youth crime
and all the rest of it, and I think there
needs to be consequences for that. But that said, the
(14:33):
spirit of reform and the recognition of the need for
treatment of prisoners has prevailed and has grown, so I
do a lot of work. Most of my work now
is through New South Wales. I do a bit still
in Melbourne, but I speak to prisoners and I say,
what are you doing? There's all these drug and alcohol programs,
anger management programs. When I started in the system, I
(14:54):
think in New South Wales it was probably twenty psychologists statewide.
I spoke to a friend of mine, doctor Nathan Brooks,
who was over from New Zealand recently. He's the police
psychologist there own, and he said he thought there was
an excess of about two hundred psychologists now working in
the system. So I think there is a recognition on
(15:15):
your point, Adam, that if you make it too hard,
if you don't give them treatment, if you don't address
the underlying drivers of their addiction, ultimately most of them
come out. You've got a bigger problem on your hands.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
To your point, the prisoner that gave away the game
on that tunneling exercise and called his mother and said,
you know, I'll be home for dinner was Michael Murphy,
who left jail and became part of the Henus crew
that murdered nurse Anita Cobby.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
That's quite right.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
And I met Murphy in Long Bay jail after that
and spent a few hours with him, and he was
someone who had very little insight into his offending. He
was probably a true site, very low intelligence, and was
led by the nose by other people in that gang.
So there has to be a place where you can
(16:02):
put those sort of people permanently with them a lot.
But what surprised me when you were talking in your book,
you're talking about there's very few that you would lock
up in perpetuity. What percentage of the crooks that you
met should be in jail forever.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Well, Murphy's won and his brother. That was a horrendous crime,
and I don't want to alarm your listeners, but it
really was. It's still considered, I think, one of the
worst crimes. I didn't really know Murphy. He was in
Paramounta for a while, but he wasn't a standout crook,
and his involvement in the tunnel came at really the
(16:40):
eleventh hour where he said to these heavy crooks, blugs
like Laughlin for example, who was a murderer, that if
he was not involved, he'd blow the whistle on it.
And so they brought him in at the last minute,
and then he rang Mum and the rest is history,
Thank goodness, would have in a terrible situation.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
Yes, you experienced over time a growing cynicism. And I
find this personally interesting because my dad was a forensic
psychiatrist and attended most of the jails that you worked in.
I remember when we'd got on the weekends to our
little farm up in the mountains and he'd had to
go via Paramatta or Long Bay jail, and we'd sit
in the car and he'd go in there for forms
(17:20):
an hour, an hour and a half, and he would
never talk about what he did. And I grew up
with this sense of that's what Dad did behind the walls,
and I always wondered, I guess now, particularly what impact
that had on him, because he had a very strong facade.
It was built of oak, and I think you had
that as well, and I think over time you got
in touch with that process in your life where you
(17:44):
had to deal with this coarsening, if you like, of
your moral health.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Probably more my mental health rather than my moral health. Obviously,
when I was using drugs, I crossed the rubicon, and
I've done a million mere kulpers On that I regret it,
but it's a long time ago, but it certainly impacted
on my mental health. I didn't really recognize it though,
(18:09):
until after the drug stuff. I started seeing a psychiatrist
to treat my depression and we kind of unpeeled all
of that and unpacked it, and I came to the
insight that really the turning point for me in terms
of all those issues that you've described. But the catalyst
really was my involvement with the Hotle Street massacre. I
(18:30):
assessed Julian Knight. I was thirty four years of age then,
so still very young and probably too immature to have
a case like that placed on my table, but I
took it on with great relish.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
For those outside of Victoria or Australia, Julian Knight was
the young man who decided to take weapons in Hoddle
Street near the city and killed seven and wounded nineteen people.
He's still in jail now and he's never to be released.
It's a good example of what we're talking about here.
But you saw him fresh.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
I think it was a week or two, Within a
few weeks, I think it was. The offense occurred in
August eighty seven, and i'd certainly seen him by the
first week or so of September. I can't remember precisely,
but I certainly saw him fresh and I went out
to the old Pendridge Jail and he was in the
hospital there. I didn't know what to expect, whether this
(19:25):
guy was going to be a raging psychopathic lunatic or what.
But he was incredibly respectful, humble, and I think at
that stage in shock. But that case, I was young,
I was exuberant. I became immersed in it and it
ultimately had an effect on me, but I didn't recognize it,
as I say, until years later when I faced mine
(19:50):
a year at my professional and that year, if I
could put it that way, and at that time, I
was full of hubris you mentioned here. So I had
all the big cases. I was young, I had a
high profile. I was considered to be very sick success
for I was the National Chairman of the Forensic College
of the Australian Psychological Society. I was a visiting fellow
(20:13):
at Melbourne University, where I'd sat on a board which
had put together the first professional doctorate in Australia for
forensic psychologists and then I lectured as a visiting fellow
in the assessment of offenders. You know, so I just
thought I was invincible and immaturity and cloud at judgment
can lead to very bad decisions.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
But also the cumulative effect of the brutality violence, the
images that stayed with you. I know, as you think
about Julia Knight, I'm sure you can recall the crime
scene pictures that you were shown of the victims.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Well, that's true. I blocked them out and I've processed it.
I mean, we're now talking what thirty eight years ago,
But you can't unsee this stuff. You can't unhear it.
I must say, though, in terms of my interactions with
Julian Night, he has always been very respectful. I've never
felt any sort of anger or antipathy from him. He's
(21:12):
had a hard road. Some would say he deserves it.
I note recently he's been transferred to Loden Prison, which
is out of Castlemaine. It's a medium security jail that
reflects some progress, but as you would be aware, I
think it was an apthion government packed past, an act
colloquially described as the Julian Night Act, which says that
(21:32):
he can't be released until he's too old or considered
too infirm to be a threat to the Australian community.
So that's where it is with him.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Do you recall in your book, I think you say
that he is somebody that could be released.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Well, yes, but with those caveats you see the issue
with Julian. He's not had a lot of treatment along
the way, and until this reason transferred to Loden, he
has spent effectively thirty seven thirty eight years in maximum
security jail. He's a highly intelligence and black I think
the best job he's had in prison, as he told me,
(22:09):
was sorting nuts and bolts. He was wanting more. Although
I think he undertook a degree. He did a university degree.
He was declared of vexatious litigant did he may be
were by the Supreme Court of Victoria that he was
really introducing and initiating actions to try and get a
better deal in prison. But he became, in the eyes
(22:29):
of many, a big pain in the ass.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
I would say Julian Knight tried to con you in
your early discussions with him. He talked about being in
a delusional state where he believed that there were these
shadowy forces who were attacking, and that it was him
and him alone that could take up arms, and that's
what motivated him. And he thought the even the police
helicopter was paratroopers coming in to get him, which was
just a whole bunch of eron bullshit, wasn't it.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
Well, that was part of it. He didn't calm me
because nobody believed him, right, but that was tried to well,
he was putting it up as one possibility. I was
retained with a forensics of car for a Stockton David Simon,
a great mate who tragically died in When Did He Die?
In nineteen ninety nine Doctor Kenneth Byrne and the late
(23:14):
doctor Alan Bartholomew, who was the Crown Psychiatrist also evaluated him.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Famous Penrick Prison Chicatris as well.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Yeah, he was. Alan was an interesting guy who was
well read and I think like your father who as
I understand that your paternal uncle was a QC right
and they were identical twins, obviously, both brilliant men. Urban
myth all legend had it that Allan's brother was a
professor of law, and I'm not sure if he was
(23:43):
a twin, but Alan Bartholomew's understanding the law was second
to none. It was extraordinary. But I digress. All of
us came to the same opinion that Nike did not
have a mental state defense available to him. He was
not psychotic. The delusions which were described were not accepted
as a mental state defense. He ultimately pleaded guilty. There
(24:07):
was no trial, and he maintains it in coming to
an arrangement with the Crown and the government, who was
more or less told that he would get laugh with
a minimum of twenty seven years. Well he's now been
in thirty eight years, and you know he's shaking the
tree of it trying to get out. But yeah, maybe
he was trying to Connors. I'll concede that, but it
(24:29):
wasn't successful.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Now. But Tholing here from memory, had another contribution to
this whole study where he had this theory about extra chromosomes,
that he had this pilot program in G division. I
think it was in Penridge, and everyoneted to get in
there because you were labrats there and you were being
studied and way better conditions, way better conditions. Do you
think there's anything in that sort of stuff in genetics
(24:53):
and chromosomes.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Or well, I think he was looking at supermls. You know,
the X DOUBLEY theory. Certainly there's been a lot of
study around that. I think to answer you a question,
is badness genetically determined or is it socially engineered? I
think it's a bit of both. I think people can
be born bad, and if they're raised in a bad
(25:15):
environment where dad's violent and mum's using drugs and there's
conflict and so on, that's their social learning, and that's
the one that they carry forward into adult life. They've
done interesting studies with identical twins adopted at birth and
raised in separate household. One household's affluent, the other's not.
If there's crime there, they both end up as crimps.
(25:37):
So it's not so much about social learning with those individuals.
I don't think we can say with any precision what
percentage of what is what. But Hans I Sink, who
was a fairly controversial figure back in the seventies, he
reckoned that IQ was probably eighty percent genetically determined and
twenty percent socially determined. He said, we don't choose our
(26:00):
level of intelligence any more than we choose our eye
colors or height. I guess. As a psychologist, I would
like to think that with positive input, change can occur.
But there's no doubt that social learning and environmental factors
these days, in particular ice or methyl ampheta man it's
changing personalities dramatically. You know, back in the seventies, a
(26:23):
typical learning curve as you would steal cars in your teens,
and you'd go to boys' homes, you go to jail,
you would end up robbing banks and so on. These
days where seeing murders occurring at the hands of seventeen
year olds, home invasions, serious crime in late teenage years,
which in many ways I think is attributable to us.
(26:44):
It's an evil drug. So that's an example of how
your behavior can be shaped by your environment to an extent.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
So as you're having these experiences Julian Knight and other
violent criminals, you're being exposed to all these things. It's
starting to effect this gradual rotting of the soul, as
you've called it. But at the same time, your career
is soaring, you are in demand from the media, you're
(27:12):
getting all these cases. You're incredibly accomplished. Did you see
any warning signs in what was going on.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Oh look, I was in denial. I believed my own bullshit.
I was like Icarus. You know, I can still remember
the first line of cocaine I had. I hadn't trudged
drugs until my forties. I might have had, you know,
the odd tote of pot when I was at university
in tutorials, you know, but nothing at all.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
In tutorials that was done back then.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
That's in the university, mate. Well maybe not tutorials, but
tutorial parties to be more precise. But I never really
was attracted to cannabis. I didn't use it, and I
hadn't used any drugs really until my early forties, and
I lost sight of it all. You know, That's what happened.
And the thing about cocaine a drug I detest now
(28:01):
as well. It affects your judgment. It has an impact
on your prefrontal cortex. Your personality can change, you become
more impulsive. Consequential thinking doesn't factor into your judgment at all.
And I had all those things you were talking about,
you know, the docs, intern all this sort of stuff,
(28:22):
and so I certainly lost my moral compass then, and
you know, I look back the hypocrisy of it, all
going to court as this doy on of you know,
this is how you run your life and secretly having
a double life where I was using drugs at home
and so on, I can understand why I was dealt
with so harshly when it all erupted.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
See a lot of people use and abuse cocaine that've
done it for many, many years. And yes we have
the story where it causes a disaster, but a lot
of people function on it. One thing I always call
bullshit on in drug stories is the idea that it
wasn't enjoyable at some point on the way through.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
You know, I'll call bullshit on that too. You know,
that's why you keep using it, but you reach a
point where the comdown is so harsh. That's what fuels
the addiction. You know a lot of other things were
going on in my life at that time. I was
working very hard some weeks up to one hundred hours
a week in demand traveling, and my first wife, Susan
(29:25):
had been diagnosed with stage four bowl cancer. She was
forty one, and we had two children who were just
hitting adolescents. Then. It was not an easy time and
so I was self medicating with that as well. Going
to work, taking the kids to the hospice, all that
sort of stuff, and that's when the cracks really started
(29:45):
to appear in a big way.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
What I've observed with people who abused cocaine that I've
known well is a certain I guess, loss of empathy
and the idea that the universe is now retooled there
at the center of it. Everything else revolves around them. Therefore,
they don't have the bandwidth to deal with personal tragedy
in people around them. That can cause a crating of
their life when it all comes to roost.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Well, certainly my life created I was using beyond that,
you know, discussion of it's initially pleasurable. I was using
to numb my feelings. So I think you're right, facing
up to the inevitability of Sue's demise, my kids, it
was all too much on top of the work. So
I was numbing out my feelings. It was energizing me
(30:31):
in some ways too.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
You know.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
I didn't use it work, but they were difficult times
they worked.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
And at the same time, I mean, you're now knocking
around with Andrew Fraser, the defense attorney who later became
a cocaine importer, and I guess everyone has their influence,
their cohort when they take drugs. He was yours.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Well, you know, I met Andrew when neither of us
used drugs. It was like a slow developing friendship. He
was a big deal in the criminal law field. He
started referring me work and a friendship developed out of that.
But he too lost his way, I mean obviously in
a massive way. I had no idea what he was
(31:11):
up to until he was arrested and charged in terms
of the importation. But I was caught up in the
slipstream of all of that because we're good mates. Would
speak on the phone all the time. That's how it unfolded.
I might say that from the time of me being
brought well, I actually went in to speak to the police,
but from the time of that occurring, I had no
(31:33):
further contact with him. I didn't speak with him ever again.
He died I think one or two years ago from
did multiple ma lamb, but we had no further contact.
He betrayed you.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
As well, though, I think it's a I mean, you
were caught up on phone taps and this is what
always gets police excited when people are using code for drugs. Yeah,
you were going to.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
The footy or you were aesthetic code when you look
back on it, but anyway.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Yeah, but that certainly dragged you into his world. And
like I said, that loss of empathy with Andrew Fraser,
and I'm very much tinged to Phraser by my mentor
Brian the skull Murphy is also late and he never
thought that Phraser was any good. He thought that he
was using when he was representing Dennis Allen, and he
was in and out of that home there, and he
(32:17):
kept Allan out of jail while he continued to murder people.
So there was some moral questions there.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
Well, I didn't know him then, so I can't really
comment upon it. But certainly when things blew up or
imploded it he had a raging habit and I wasn't
far behind him. And that's the insidious power, the evil
power of this drug, because along the road you lose insight,
you do lose empathy, you don't think about consequences. And
(32:48):
I don't know anyone who uses coke at that level.
It doesn't come out with big war wounds. You know,
it's not as bad as us, but it's really on
the same trajectory. I think. And the interesting thing Adam
Naji would know is there's so many people in the
professions using coke. Lawyers, accountants, some doctors. I don't know
(33:09):
these people. I hear it anecdotally around the traps and
from class. I say, oh, you know, I went to
see this lawyer and blah blah blah, and they were
a bit shocked. So and look you look at fluent.
You know, they've got these guys running around in concrete
birds and gas masks, walking through the sewer studying fluent.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
And what a job.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Yeah, what a job. We couldn't pay me enough, I'm
telling you, but they will tell you in Sydney and Melbourne.
Cocaine ice it's just ubiquitous.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Yeah. You've also touched on something in your book which
I think is more fundamental. That you discovered, despite all
your success, life was hollow. It lacked meaning and purpose.
You'd created a distance between yourself and your most important assets,
your children, and that I think was something that cocaine addressed.
(33:59):
In fact, I remember a very famous barrister who became
a judge in this state. I was with him on
that when it had just taken some coke and I said,
how does it feel, He said, I feel the way
I feel I should feel.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
That's eloquent. You know, Well, look, the via chemistry, the
neurochemistry coke is that you have a big release of dopoment,
which is the good, feel good you transmitter chemical. And
so people typically when they use initially get a great
sense of euphoria and they're empowered by that feeling and
(34:31):
that's what gets them back. And you've probably heard this
over the years. You know, people years habitually, they're always
chasing that first experience and they never quite get there.
And that's the barrister probably nailed it with that comment.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
I think myself in a very much more minor way,
I understand when you talk about the empathetic toll that
it takes on you, and when you're trying to deal
with criminals and their families and all the things that
go on. And I've experienced this as well, to the
point where I think to myself, how deep is the
well how much can I give of myself to these
people before I'm in deficit? Did you feel the same
(35:08):
way that she turned yourself inside out?
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Well? I think I did. In retrospect, I don't anymore
I've been having ongoing, not mandated, but professional supervision for
years now because I recognize the nature of the work
that I we do in this field takes a toll
on you. And it's an interesting point. You know. Back then,
(35:31):
people knew me well, thought I was kind of unraveling
a bit, and they said, maybe you should get some help,
maybe you should get some supervision. I said, well, who's
going to supervise me? You know, I'm Tim Watson Monroe.
All this sort of bullshit, and I didn't want to
disclose its extent of my problem, so I didn't know
where it would end up. But these days I see
a clinical psychologist quite regularly. Not for treatment these days,
(35:55):
more about exploring the depth and trauma associated with some
of the cases that I'm still involved with. That said,
you know, I made a decision some years away to
get away from heavy crime, and I've sized known to
doing what could loosely be described as immigration works. So
it's just a different take on the same problem. In
(36:17):
some ways, people in Australia who are not citizens of Australia,
if they acquire a penalty in the court of nationally
twelve months to serve or more even if you don't
go to jail, they have a mandatory cancelation of their
visa and they are then generally placed in immigration detention
(36:38):
and there's an appeal process, and that's where I come in,
where I'm asked by their lawyers to provide a risk
assessment in terms of recidivism. I'm finding that much more
rewarding in many ways. As we've discussed privately, Adam, I'm
tired of gangsters and crooks and that grubby little scene,
which by the way, is much worse now than when
(37:01):
I was in the thick of it. Hardly a day
goes by now where somebody's not murdered on the streets
of Sydney and Melbourne. Never used to be quite like that.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
No, I think we're really desensitized to it. I mean
during the Gangland War and you had I think more
than a dozen of your clients got knocked off it
doing that. But I think there was a sense of
moral outrage. The public was up in arms. But now
it's become the de rigueur. And I don't know whether
it's a I'm going to say so this maybe it's
slightly ethnically centered, because this Gangland War was more to
do with Anglos, if you like, and the Italians and things.
(37:33):
Now we've got all the Middle Eastern community represented. I
think there's even less sympathy for them, and there's a
kind of a racism that's being applied to them in
a perverse way because their war is not getting the
same sort of coverage as the other war.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
Well, their war is ubiquitous, you know, the Gangland War.
I don't know twenty or thirty people were killed during
that time, As you correctly point out, a number of
mark class were murdered. But these murders, you know, where
people are shot coming out of restaurants. It reminds me
of Chicago. And the troubling thing about all that is
(38:07):
that young kids are being recruited to do the hits.
They have kill cars and kill kits. As you know,
they'll steal a car as a getaway car, they'll have
another get away car. There will be fuel to burn
down those cars to destroy them, and they will go
in for money and just shoot whoever they're commanded to
do so. I think that represents a step up or
(38:29):
a step down, however you want to put it. In
terms of what we're talking about. Twenty or thirty years.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
Ago, right, And the devaluation of human life because these
hitmen are getting paid small amounts. Yeah, I mean here
in Melbourne it was fifty thousand dollars and above. Some
silly people were paying a million dollars. If you pay
some of a million dollars, then well you've got.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Money to burn you do.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
So the devaluation of life is shocking. And I'm sure
you have contact with the profession still that's involved in
these cases. How are they going dealing with these the
lawyers and the psychologists.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
Well, I think it's very challenging for them. I mean, lawyers,
as you know, have a duty to represent their client
to the best of their ability and to put their
personal bars to one side. But inevitably, I know this
from direct experience, you can't unsee or unhear what's gone on.
In terms of psychologists who do these evaluations, I'm sure
(39:25):
that it affects them too. I can't speak for them,
but I would only suggest that if you are doing
this sort of work, take a leaf out of my book,
get proper supervision and have someone to talk to about it.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
Well, my father is a forensic psychiatrist as well, and
his way was to have a chat to his friend
next door. He was also a psychiatrist every couple of years,
and that was it. And he didn't have any discernible problems.
You'd like to drink, but it wasn't excessive, and I
was hoping to find the answer in the files that
he kept in locked cabinets. And he passed away. Now
(39:58):
in twenty fifteen, I expect to get access, but my mother, protective,
has always burnt all the files and ruined probably two
or three books I could have written about me and
my dad.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
You know, that's a great shame, because he certainly was
well known and eminent. But it's just the way it
is back then, and I was on the tail end
of this. I think you were stoic at all costs, right,
You didn't show your feelings. I never discussed work really
with anyone, and my way of dealing with it was
to go to lunch every Friday with the Larks of
(40:28):
Andrew Fraser and others in Melbourne, and they were big lunches.
That was how we debrief. We wouldn't necessarily talk about cases,
but what it did was it transported us away from
really the horror of some of the cases we were
dealing with.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
So now at this end of it, do you feel
you've reconciled the past or is it always going to
be with you? I mean, I think this said, this
does come with the territory. You can't walk in there
covered in teflon. It's going to affect you. Look, I've
reconciled the past. In terms of my misconduct. I haven't
touched drugs, oh goodness, twenty six years. I'm positive about
(41:04):
the work that I do, and I enjoy what I do,
but there's boundaries around it. I don't work nearly as hard,
and I guess the counterpoint to all that is, I know,
as you mentioned in your kind introduction, involved in other
creative pursuits.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
So I've written a couple of books. I do a
podcast with doctor Zanth Mallett, high profile criminologist, Associate Professor
of criminology, and I think now Central Queenslane University.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
Motive and Method. You can find it on nine podcasts.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
Yeah, yeah, we were picked up by nine podcasts which
were thrilled them out. And I really enjoy the sort
of intellectual stimulation of speaking with Xanth on a weekly
basis about criminal matters. But at the end of the day, mate,
I go home, na, I have a nice meal, I
watch a bit of TV. A very quiet life, you
might say.
Speaker 2 (41:55):
I like what you wrote at the end of your
first memoir, Dancing with Demons, where you go through all
this high fluting stuffing is incredibly important cases. But then
you say, and at the end of all this life
is brief and insignificant.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
That's quite right. And I think I also said leave
your ego in a box. You know, we get so
caught up in our hubris, and I think you need
to be mindful of that. And certainly, at my age
seventy two, life certainly is shorter than it was twenty
thirty years ago. Tim.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
I've only ever known you in this post the second
part of your career, basically, and I've never met someone
who's more humble without hubris than you. So obviously these
life lessons were incredibly impactful on you, because you rose very,
very high and you fell very far.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
Well, it's a very kind comment, Thank you, Adam for that.
Look before all the success and before the drugs, I
was actually pretty humble block too, But you know, they
were just crazy years, you know, cases like Alan Bond
Australia's richest man at the time, all the Gangster's Alphonse Gangitana, Graham, Kinnerborrow.
(43:04):
And I've said this already. I was young. I didn't
have the wisdom that I have now, and I think
the great takeaway for me is the acquisition of wisdom
through experience. So I clearly regret the past in terms
of those aspects of the past, But on the other hand,
my positive spin on that is it's probably made me
(43:24):
a better person.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
Tim, You're always a good bloke, and thank you for
sharing your memories today.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
That's a great pleasure. Thank you Adam for having me
on your podcast.
Speaker 2 (43:37):
That's Tim Watson Munroe. Tim I believe has transcended the
world of crime and law. He's had an impact on
our culture and he continues to do so through with
very generous participation in media, helping people like me and
we're making stupid comments and silly theories. He brings us
back to earth. So I really do appreciate his presence
in my life, and he also gives me an insight
(43:58):
intom but things my dad never told me. So this
podcast is extremely indulgent. You'll excuse me that in this case,
tell me. If you have a crime that you'd like
to report, please call crime Stoppers one out a, triple three,
triple zero. If you don't like the cops, you can
email me Adam Shander writer at gmail dot com. Thank
you for listening. Make sure you subscribe, share, like all
the things you do with podcasts these days. Thank you
(44:19):
for listening.
Apploche Production.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Welcome to Real Crime with Adam Shand I'm Your Host
Adam Shand. Tim Watson Munroe is Australia's best known criminal psychologist.
For nearly fifty years, Tim has decoded the minds and
actions of criminals for the courts and the general public
through the media. Known as the jail House Shrink, Tim
Watson Munroe has spent decades inside Australia's darkest cells. Blessed
(00:38):
with an inquiring and empathetic mind, Tim gained the trust
of some of this country's most notorious crooks, working not
just with criminals, but confronting the very nature of evil itself.
His work has taken him to the edge of the abyss.
He looked into the eyes of people who've committed the
most heinous acts and has calmly, dispassionately explained the motivations
(01:00):
behind them. He's built a huge following from his media work.
At the age of seventy two, continues to grace our
TV screens and our podcast playlists with his calm and
considered points of view. Tim Watson Monroe continues to be
one of Australia's most consulted experts on violent offenders with
more than thirty thousand cases assisted over his career, but
(01:23):
this insight does not come for free. In the nineteen nineties,
Tim went through his own dark night of the soul.
As a young psychologist working in New South Wales prisons.
Tim thought he could change the world, but he didn't
realize how much that world was changing him. He experienced
what he called in his memoir Dancing with Demons, a
growing cynicism, a gradual rotting of the soul. As his
(01:46):
accomplishments and fame grew, he experienced an escalating hubris. His
exuberance to succeed paradoxically became his nemesis. In the nineties,
he lost his way. His life and career no longer
had any meaning or purpose. He covered that up with
a raging cocaine habit that all but destroyed his public
(02:07):
standing when he was caught up in the fall of
defense lawyer turned coke importer Andrew Fraser Watson. Monroe says
he lost all sense of judgment during a period of
escalating cocaine news. Tim has rebuilt his career in profile,
telling the story of his downfall with an unflinching honesty
that offers so much to others in my career. Tim
(02:29):
has been a generous and thoughtful collaborator, and I'm proud
to call him a friend. Welcome to real crime, Tim.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Thank you very much, Adam. That's a very kind introduction.
I hope we can live up to it. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
I mean, I was struck when I was reading your
memoir again, how honest it was. And I wonder whether
at the times you just want to put that in
the past, and people like me are always going to
bring up the downfall. But I think it's important to
understanding your overall journey. I guess there are times when
you probably say, well, I'd rather just put that in
the past and move forward in the latter chapters of
your life and career.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
It's a good question. I'm in. My involvement with Coke
went on for a couple of years. I received a
good behavior bond for years and possess. It's twenty six
years ago now and I was deregistered in June two thousand.
I regained my practicing c tiicket in late twenty twenty three.
I resumed practice in early two thousand and four, so
(03:24):
that's twenty one years ago now, and I assiduously worked
at restoring my reputation and my professional standing. It's been
a long journey, but it's nice to be back. I
think it's an important and relevant part of my career,
and that's why over the ensuing years I've been happy
to discuss it in an open and honest manner to
(03:47):
perhaps explain what happened with me. And more importantly, I
think I've heard so many times from people who have
written to me saying, look, thanks for the book. Your
story is inspirational. You know, it gives me some hope
that I might be able to recover from my addiction
and move forward my life. Now, if that helps people,
I'm proud to be associated with.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
It, because Dancing with Demons is more than just a
brutally honest memoir. It's a bit of self flagellation as well.
You're looking at the mistakes that you made in the past.
But at the same time, I think the reader gets
a sense of you can't look into this abyss without
taking on some of the darkness that comes with it.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Well, I think it was an issue said when you
look into the abyss, the abyss stairs back at year,
and that certainly happened with me. There's no doubt that
the nature of the work that I was doing at
a very young age. I might add. My first job
at Paramounta Jail commenced on the fourteenth of August nineteen
seventy eight, so I had just turned twenty five years.
(04:50):
It was the worst jarl in Australia by any one's account.
It was a maximum security, multi recidivus prison and I
applied for the job. I didn't think I had a
snowflakes chance in l of getting it, but I hit
it off with the chief psychologist, Irene Malentto, in her
own way, a fascinating woman. She spoke twelve languages, highly intelligent.
(05:11):
So there I was Paramount of Jail day one, twenty five,
looking about eighteen, and I can still remember the first
day I walked through the gates and I was overpowered
with the smell of light soul. It's a very strong
anti infection kind of thing, bid luck, debt a. It
stronger the place wreaked of it, wolf wishlaws from Krim
(05:33):
saying come to my cl baby, all this sort of stuff.
And then meeting the prisoner governor, the Parry Duff, who
became a good friend of mine with the passage of time.
He was sitting in an office. There was the portrait
of Queen Elizabeth hung at thirty degrees to the perpendicular,
and old leather chairs, musty smells, and he said, welcome aboard, son.
(05:58):
Always remember this. If you can be conned, you can
be fucked. And I said, thanks a lot, mister Uff,
and I walked out of his office. Then I went
across to my office, and I had dressed in levis
and T shirts because I thought I'd fit in better
with the crims, you know, rather than a guy in
a certain of briefcase. The prison officer on the gate
(06:19):
to the administration block with my office was I said,
prison psacha, you know. I was full of humorous and pride.
And he looked at me and he said, he's not here,
your little dog. You're early come back in half an hour.
And then it dawned on me that the green T
shirt I was wearing was exactly the same as the
green T shirts that the prisoners wore. Now you've got
(06:40):
to put this in the context of a twenty five
year old who came from a fairly privileged, gentrified background.
My father was a professor of Physics at Sydney University.
My mother was an artist. I'd traveled the world when
he was on sabbatical. Left. One of my babysitters when
I was seven in Berkeley, California, was Einstein's granddaughter. Just
(07:01):
to give you some idea of where I'd come from.
When I applied for the job, people said, don't do
it, it'll change you. They were right, but I haven't regretted
anything beyond the drug use. Of course. I've had a
fabulous career and I'm very grateful for it.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
You sought out to change the prison itself. You got
involved in prisoner reform groups and hit the heavy heights
of going on the Mike Walshow on Channel nine with
hardened criminals and yourself, I mean talk about idealistic and futuristic.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
It was a great time for me and I had
the good fortune to be employed in the wake of
the Nagal Royal Commission that had developed as a consequence
of a rit at Bathist Jail and it wascathing of
the administration of prisons in New South Wales. They appointed
a board of commissioners, including the late Professor Toney Vincent.
(07:50):
He was a sociologist The whole focus then was reformation,
opening up the jails and trying to develop programs. Now
these days in prison throughout certainly New South Wales and Victoria,
there's lots of available for prisoners, but they didn't exist then.
So part of my charter was to do that, and
(08:11):
Paramatta was the ideal facility for it because it was
an end of the line jail. Everyone in Paramatta had
no other options. They weren't going anywhere for a long time.
I think the average sentence was ten to fifteen years.
A lot of life was for murder, robbers and so on.
So I came in just as they were establishing the
so called Day in Jail program, which was based on
(08:35):
the Scared Straight program in Rahway Jail, New Jersey in
the States, but we tweaked it a bit and made
it an insight learning program. So what happened was referrals.
They were juvenile offenders who, if it were not for
this program, would certainly be going to jail, and they
were sent to prison for one day. They spent the
(08:57):
morning as a prisoner wood cleaning locks, polishing floors, locked
up in their cell for lunch. It was just gruel.
It was atrocious and then in the afternoon they would
be counseled by two to four prisoners who had been
trained in basic counseling. I would sit in on those sessions.
It was a highly successful program. It was investigated by
(09:19):
the New South Wales Bureau of Crime, Statistics and Research
and it was found on a two year follow up
sixty percent of these people were not seen in court again.
So arising from that, inevitably it attracted a lot of press,
culminating in an invitation to appear with two of the
prisoners on the Mark Walsh Shire. And for those who
(09:40):
were old enough, Mark Walsh was the biggest rating show
in Australia. Really it was Midday Shire. You had the
blue rind set and all the rest of who had
watched it. And because Tony Vincent was the commissioner, he
gave permission for these two crooks to come with me
under escort the prison officers and a big Ford plane.
And that was a big deal for these bugs to
(10:01):
appear on the Mark Walsh program. As it eventuated, Mike
on the day was ill and the filly in was
Jimmy Hannon.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
I don't know if you do, you know he washed
up American Stary came out to a stadia.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
I think yeah, and I think he had commercials for
toothpaste and that sort of stuff, and he hadn't been
properly brief So we walked through the program. It was
just when video stuff was coming out, so we had
a video clip of the jail and the counseling and
that went on national TV. And then to conclude, Jimmy
went around us and he said, well, Ray, why are
(10:35):
you in prison. He said, well, I murdered my wife
and I'm really sorry about it and I'm doing life.
There was another guy, Arthur Brown, and he said, well, Arthur,
what brought you to jail? And he said, I did
all these armed robberies and I'm doing twenty or a fourteen.
And then he looked at me and I was dressed,
you know, again in leve ours and I might have
(10:55):
had a sports checking on. And he said, Tim what
brought you into prison? Right? And I said, I'm the psychologist. Jimmy, well,
you know, he went bright red and they cut to
an ad break and that was that. But you know,
they were healthy and funny times. In many ways, I.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Think he needed to change or retire somewhat to be
distinguished from the prisoner by the sounds of them.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Yeah, I didn't think about that, and I liked to
be I guess true to myself. I thought that he
had been properly proved, No doubt Mike Walsh would have been.
But it rated well, The program went very well. It
eventually shut down, as did a number of the other programs.
I said of a drug rehab program in Paramount of Jail,
(11:37):
and I was involving what was called the Concert Committee,
which was run by a blake by the name of
George Crawfort, a very heavy crook. You may remember the
name from two times in Sydney. But he had a
lot of talent, and he had connections with the rock
and roll industry, and long story short, he persuaded, with
the sort of impromat of the government a number of
(12:00):
top rating rock and roll bands in the seventies. Today
nate a Sunday afternoon on four consecutive Sunday afternoons as
a record. We had big bands there. And Cold Chisel
wrote a song about their experience of Paramount a Jar
standing on the outside looking in. It was one of
them that's on the East album and what happened with
(12:22):
that program. All the acts were recorded, they cut an
album called Canned Rock, and all the proceeds the royalties
were donated by the artists to the International Year of
the Child. So all this was a big deal, you know.
And for a while PARAMOUNTA was a bit like a
universe he CAAs you know, you had crooks running around
(12:43):
with clipboards and on the phone and you know, routing
the telephone. But in the three years that I was there,
I reckon I had ten years worth of experience. It
was invailuable.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Such a fragile thing, this public mood for reform, because
it only took a botched prison escape and a riot
for the dispensation to end. Think think, we've never really
seen it come back. There was a flowering of that
in different parts of the country. But these days there
is a hard attitude to prisons and prisoners. They're simply
there to be punished, keeping there as long as we
(13:16):
possibly can. But of course the misnomer is because all
these people eventually come out and then their's society's problems again.
So you could see the value of treating them as
human beings.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Yes, and to demonstrate that notwithstanding their hinous crimes, and
some of them were hinous crimes. They were individuals who
in their own right had a lot of talent. The
Botch prisoner escape you mentioned was a tunnel that was
being dug under the walls of Paramount Agile and they
were caught literally at one minute to midnight. They heard
(13:49):
about it because one of the prisoners had wrung his
mother and he had said, look, we need a few
more places at the dinner table tomorrow night because I'll
be there with some of them mates. Well she freaked out,
rang the garvernor. They did a huge search of everywhere
and there was this handler went through the catacombs of
the old jail under the wall. They had keys to
(14:10):
let people out and they are ready to go. If
that had happened, I think inevitably it would have brought
down the government because such was the rage. I think
your comments right. You know, in many ways, we are
all tired of crime, particularly in Melbourne at the moment.
It's a very topical issue in terms of youth crime
and all the rest of it, and I think there
needs to be consequences for that. But that said, the
(14:33):
spirit of reform and the recognition of the need for
treatment of prisoners has prevailed and has grown, so I
do a lot of work. Most of my work now
is through New South Wales. I do a bit still
in Melbourne, but I speak to prisoners and I say,
what are you doing? There's all these drug and alcohol programs,
anger management programs. When I started in the system, I
(14:54):
think in New South Wales it was probably twenty psychologists statewide.
I spoke to a friend of mine, doctor Nathan Brooks,
who was over from New Zealand recently. He's the police
psychologist there own, and he said he thought there was
an excess of about two hundred psychologists now working in
the system. So I think there is a recognition on
(15:15):
your point, Adam, that if you make it too hard,
if you don't give them treatment, if you don't address
the underlying drivers of their addiction, ultimately most of them
come out. You've got a bigger problem on your hands.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
To your point, the prisoner that gave away the game
on that tunneling exercise and called his mother and said,
you know, I'll be home for dinner was Michael Murphy,
who left jail and became part of the Henus crew
that murdered nurse Anita Cobby.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
That's quite right.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
And I met Murphy in Long Bay jail after that
and spent a few hours with him, and he was
someone who had very little insight into his offending. He
was probably a true site, very low intelligence, and was
led by the nose by other people in that gang.
So there has to be a place where you can
(16:02):
put those sort of people permanently with them a lot.
But what surprised me when you were talking in your book,
you're talking about there's very few that you would lock
up in perpetuity. What percentage of the crooks that you
met should be in jail forever.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Well, Murphy's won and his brother. That was a horrendous crime,
and I don't want to alarm your listeners, but it
really was. It's still considered, I think, one of the
worst crimes. I didn't really know Murphy. He was in
Paramounta for a while, but he wasn't a standout crook,
and his involvement in the tunnel came at really the
(16:40):
eleventh hour where he said to these heavy crooks, blugs
like Laughlin for example, who was a murderer, that if
he was not involved, he'd blow the whistle on it.
And so they brought him in at the last minute,
and then he rang Mum and the rest is history,
Thank goodness, would have in a terrible situation.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
Yes, you experienced over time a growing cynicism. And I
find this personally interesting because my dad was a forensic
psychiatrist and attended most of the jails that you worked in.
I remember when we'd got on the weekends to our
little farm up in the mountains and he'd had to
go via Paramatta or Long Bay jail, and we'd sit
in the car and he'd go in there for forms
(17:20):
an hour, an hour and a half, and he would
never talk about what he did. And I grew up
with this sense of that's what Dad did behind the walls,
and I always wondered, I guess now, particularly what impact
that had on him, because he had a very strong facade.
It was built of oak, and I think you had
that as well, and I think over time you got
in touch with that process in your life where you
(17:44):
had to deal with this coarsening, if you like, of
your moral health.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Probably more my mental health rather than my moral health. Obviously,
when I was using drugs, I crossed the rubicon, and
I've done a million mere kulpers On that I regret it,
but it's a long time ago, but it certainly impacted
on my mental health. I didn't really recognize it though,
(18:09):
until after the drug stuff. I started seeing a psychiatrist
to treat my depression and we kind of unpeeled all
of that and unpacked it, and I came to the
insight that really the turning point for me in terms
of all those issues that you've described. But the catalyst
really was my involvement with the Hotle Street massacre. I
(18:30):
assessed Julian Knight. I was thirty four years of age then,
so still very young and probably too immature to have
a case like that placed on my table, but I
took it on with great relish.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
For those outside of Victoria or Australia, Julian Knight was
the young man who decided to take weapons in Hoddle
Street near the city and killed seven and wounded nineteen people.
He's still in jail now and he's never to be released.
It's a good example of what we're talking about here.
But you saw him fresh.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
I think it was a week or two, Within a
few weeks, I think it was. The offense occurred in
August eighty seven, and i'd certainly seen him by the
first week or so of September. I can't remember precisely,
but I certainly saw him fresh and I went out
to the old Pendridge Jail and he was in the
hospital there. I didn't know what to expect, whether this
(19:25):
guy was going to be a raging psychopathic lunatic or what.
But he was incredibly respectful, humble, and I think at
that stage in shock. But that case, I was young,
I was exuberant. I became immersed in it and it
ultimately had an effect on me, but I didn't recognize it,
as I say, until years later when I faced mine
(19:50):
a year at my professional and that year, if I
could put it that way, and at that time, I
was full of hubris you mentioned here. So I had
all the big cases. I was young, I had a
high profile. I was considered to be very sick success
for I was the National Chairman of the Forensic College
of the Australian Psychological Society. I was a visiting fellow
(20:13):
at Melbourne University, where I'd sat on a board which
had put together the first professional doctorate in Australia for
forensic psychologists and then I lectured as a visiting fellow
in the assessment of offenders. You know, so I just
thought I was invincible and immaturity and cloud at judgment
can lead to very bad decisions.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
But also the cumulative effect of the brutality violence, the
images that stayed with you. I know, as you think
about Julia Knight, I'm sure you can recall the crime
scene pictures that you were shown of the victims.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Well, that's true. I blocked them out and I've processed it.
I mean, we're now talking what thirty eight years ago,
But you can't unsee this stuff. You can't unhear it.
I must say, though, in terms of my interactions with
Julian Night, he has always been very respectful. I've never
felt any sort of anger or antipathy from him. He's
(21:12):
had a hard road. Some would say he deserves it.
I note recently he's been transferred to Loden Prison, which
is out of Castlemaine. It's a medium security jail that
reflects some progress, but as you would be aware, I
think it was an apthion government packed past, an act
colloquially described as the Julian Night Act, which says that
(21:32):
he can't be released until he's too old or considered
too infirm to be a threat to the Australian community.
So that's where it is with him.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Do you recall in your book, I think you say
that he is somebody that could be released.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Well, yes, but with those caveats you see the issue
with Julian. He's not had a lot of treatment along
the way, and until this reason transferred to Loden, he
has spent effectively thirty seven thirty eight years in maximum
security jail. He's a highly intelligence and black I think
the best job he's had in prison, as he told me,
(22:09):
was sorting nuts and bolts. He was wanting more. Although
I think he undertook a degree. He did a university degree.
He was declared of vexatious litigant did he may be
were by the Supreme Court of Victoria that he was
really introducing and initiating actions to try and get a
better deal in prison. But he became, in the eyes
(22:29):
of many, a big pain in the ass.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
I would say Julian Knight tried to con you in
your early discussions with him. He talked about being in
a delusional state where he believed that there were these
shadowy forces who were attacking, and that it was him
and him alone that could take up arms, and that's
what motivated him. And he thought the even the police
helicopter was paratroopers coming in to get him, which was
just a whole bunch of eron bullshit, wasn't it.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
Well, that was part of it. He didn't calm me
because nobody believed him, right, but that was tried to well,
he was putting it up as one possibility. I was
retained with a forensics of car for a Stockton David Simon,
a great mate who tragically died in When Did He Die?
In nineteen ninety nine Doctor Kenneth Byrne and the late
(23:14):
doctor Alan Bartholomew, who was the Crown Psychiatrist also evaluated him.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Famous Penrick Prison Chicatris as well.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Yeah, he was. Alan was an interesting guy who was
well read and I think like your father who as
I understand that your paternal uncle was a QC right
and they were identical twins, obviously, both brilliant men. Urban
myth all legend had it that Allan's brother was a
professor of law, and I'm not sure if he was
(23:43):
a twin, but Alan Bartholomew's understanding the law was second
to none. It was extraordinary. But I digress. All of
us came to the same opinion that Nike did not
have a mental state defense available to him. He was
not psychotic. The delusions which were described were not accepted
as a mental state defense. He ultimately pleaded guilty. There
(24:07):
was no trial, and he maintains it in coming to
an arrangement with the Crown and the government, who was
more or less told that he would get laugh with
a minimum of twenty seven years. Well he's now been
in thirty eight years, and you know he's shaking the
tree of it trying to get out. But yeah, maybe
he was trying to Connors. I'll concede that, but it
(24:29):
wasn't successful.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Now. But Tholing here from memory, had another contribution to
this whole study where he had this theory about extra chromosomes,
that he had this pilot program in G division. I
think it was in Penridge, and everyoneted to get in
there because you were labrats there and you were being
studied and way better conditions, way better conditions. Do you
think there's anything in that sort of stuff in genetics
(24:53):
and chromosomes.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Or well, I think he was looking at supermls. You know,
the X DOUBLEY theory. Certainly there's been a lot of
study around that. I think to answer you a question,
is badness genetically determined or is it socially engineered? I
think it's a bit of both. I think people can
be born bad, and if they're raised in a bad
(25:15):
environment where dad's violent and mum's using drugs and there's
conflict and so on, that's their social learning, and that's
the one that they carry forward into adult life. They've
done interesting studies with identical twins adopted at birth and
raised in separate household. One household's affluent, the other's not.
If there's crime there, they both end up as crimps.
(25:37):
So it's not so much about social learning with those individuals.
I don't think we can say with any precision what
percentage of what is what. But Hans I Sink, who
was a fairly controversial figure back in the seventies, he
reckoned that IQ was probably eighty percent genetically determined and
twenty percent socially determined. He said, we don't choose our
(26:00):
level of intelligence any more than we choose our eye
colors or height. I guess. As a psychologist, I would
like to think that with positive input, change can occur.
But there's no doubt that social learning and environmental factors
these days, in particular ice or methyl ampheta man it's
changing personalities dramatically. You know, back in the seventies, a
(26:23):
typical learning curve as you would steal cars in your teens,
and you'd go to boys' homes, you go to jail,
you would end up robbing banks and so on. These
days where seeing murders occurring at the hands of seventeen
year olds, home invasions, serious crime in late teenage years,
which in many ways I think is attributable to us.
(26:44):
It's an evil drug. So that's an example of how
your behavior can be shaped by your environment to an extent.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
So as you're having these experiences Julian Knight and other
violent criminals, you're being exposed to all these things. It's
starting to effect this gradual rotting of the soul, as
you've called it. But at the same time, your career
is soaring, you are in demand from the media, you're
(27:12):
getting all these cases. You're incredibly accomplished. Did you see
any warning signs in what was going on.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Oh look, I was in denial. I believed my own bullshit.
I was like Icarus. You know, I can still remember
the first line of cocaine I had. I hadn't trudged
drugs until my forties. I might have had, you know,
the odd tote of pot when I was at university
in tutorials, you know, but nothing at all.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
In tutorials that was done back then.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
That's in the university, mate. Well maybe not tutorials, but
tutorial parties to be more precise. But I never really
was attracted to cannabis. I didn't use it, and I
hadn't used any drugs really until my early forties, and
I lost sight of it all. You know, That's what happened.
And the thing about cocaine a drug I detest now
(28:01):
as well. It affects your judgment. It has an impact
on your prefrontal cortex. Your personality can change, you become
more impulsive. Consequential thinking doesn't factor into your judgment at all.
And I had all those things you were talking about,
you know, the docs, intern all this sort of stuff,
(28:22):
and so I certainly lost my moral compass then, and
you know, I look back the hypocrisy of it, all
going to court as this doy on of you know,
this is how you run your life and secretly having
a double life where I was using drugs at home
and so on, I can understand why I was dealt
with so harshly when it all erupted.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
See a lot of people use and abuse cocaine that've
done it for many, many years. And yes we have
the story where it causes a disaster, but a lot
of people function on it. One thing I always call
bullshit on in drug stories is the idea that it
wasn't enjoyable at some point on the way through.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
You know, I'll call bullshit on that too. You know,
that's why you keep using it, but you reach a
point where the comdown is so harsh. That's what fuels
the addiction. You know a lot of other things were
going on in my life at that time. I was
working very hard some weeks up to one hundred hours
a week in demand traveling, and my first wife, Susan
(29:25):
had been diagnosed with stage four bowl cancer. She was
forty one, and we had two children who were just
hitting adolescents. Then. It was not an easy time and
so I was self medicating with that as well. Going
to work, taking the kids to the hospice, all that
sort of stuff, and that's when the cracks really started
(29:45):
to appear in a big way.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
What I've observed with people who abused cocaine that I've
known well is a certain I guess, loss of empathy
and the idea that the universe is now retooled there
at the center of it. Everything else revolves around them. Therefore,
they don't have the bandwidth to deal with personal tragedy
in people around them. That can cause a crating of
their life when it all comes to roost.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Well, certainly my life created I was using beyond that,
you know, discussion of it's initially pleasurable. I was using
to numb my feelings. So I think you're right, facing
up to the inevitability of Sue's demise, my kids, it
was all too much on top of the work. So
I was numbing out my feelings. It was energizing me
(30:31):
in some ways too.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
You know.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
I didn't use it work, but they were difficult times
they worked.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
And at the same time, I mean, you're now knocking
around with Andrew Fraser, the defense attorney who later became
a cocaine importer, and I guess everyone has their influence,
their cohort when they take drugs. He was yours.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Well, you know, I met Andrew when neither of us
used drugs. It was like a slow developing friendship. He
was a big deal in the criminal law field. He
started referring me work and a friendship developed out of that.
But he too lost his way, I mean obviously in
a massive way. I had no idea what he was
(31:11):
up to until he was arrested and charged in terms
of the importation. But I was caught up in the
slipstream of all of that because we're good mates. Would
speak on the phone all the time. That's how it unfolded.
I might say that from the time of me being
brought well, I actually went in to speak to the police,
but from the time of that occurring, I had no
(31:33):
further contact with him. I didn't speak with him ever again.
He died I think one or two years ago from
did multiple ma lamb, but we had no further contact.
He betrayed you.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
As well, though, I think it's a I mean, you
were caught up on phone taps and this is what
always gets police excited when people are using code for drugs. Yeah,
you were going to.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
The footy or you were aesthetic code when you look
back on it, but anyway.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Yeah, but that certainly dragged you into his world. And
like I said, that loss of empathy with Andrew Fraser,
and I'm very much tinged to Phraser by my mentor
Brian the skull Murphy is also late and he never
thought that Phraser was any good. He thought that he
was using when he was representing Dennis Allen, and he
was in and out of that home there, and he
(32:17):
kept Allan out of jail while he continued to murder people.
So there was some moral questions there.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
Well, I didn't know him then, so I can't really
comment upon it. But certainly when things blew up or
imploded it he had a raging habit and I wasn't
far behind him. And that's the insidious power, the evil
power of this drug, because along the road you lose insight,
you do lose empathy, you don't think about consequences. And
(32:48):
I don't know anyone who uses coke at that level.
It doesn't come out with big war wounds. You know,
it's not as bad as us, but it's really on
the same trajectory. I think. And the interesting thing Adam
Naji would know is there's so many people in the
professions using coke. Lawyers, accountants, some doctors. I don't know
(33:09):
these people. I hear it anecdotally around the traps and
from class. I say, oh, you know, I went to
see this lawyer and blah blah blah, and they were
a bit shocked. So and look you look at fluent.
You know, they've got these guys running around in concrete
birds and gas masks, walking through the sewer studying fluent.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
And what a job.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Yeah, what a job. We couldn't pay me enough, I'm
telling you, but they will tell you in Sydney and Melbourne.
Cocaine ice it's just ubiquitous.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Yeah. You've also touched on something in your book which
I think is more fundamental. That you discovered, despite all
your success, life was hollow. It lacked meaning and purpose.
You'd created a distance between yourself and your most important assets,
your children, and that I think was something that cocaine addressed.
(33:59):
In fact, I remember a very famous barrister who became
a judge in this state. I was with him on
that when it had just taken some coke and I said,
how does it feel, He said, I feel the way
I feel I should feel.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
That's eloquent. You know, Well, look, the via chemistry, the
neurochemistry coke is that you have a big release of dopoment,
which is the good, feel good you transmitter chemical. And
so people typically when they use initially get a great
sense of euphoria and they're empowered by that feeling and
(34:31):
that's what gets them back. And you've probably heard this
over the years. You know, people years habitually, they're always
chasing that first experience and they never quite get there.
And that's the barrister probably nailed it with that comment.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
I think myself in a very much more minor way,
I understand when you talk about the empathetic toll that
it takes on you, and when you're trying to deal
with criminals and their families and all the things that
go on. And I've experienced this as well, to the
point where I think to myself, how deep is the
well how much can I give of myself to these
people before I'm in deficit? Did you feel the same
(35:08):
way that she turned yourself inside out?
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Well? I think I did. In retrospect, I don't anymore
I've been having ongoing, not mandated, but professional supervision for
years now because I recognize the nature of the work
that I we do in this field takes a toll
on you. And it's an interesting point. You know. Back then,
(35:31):
people knew me well, thought I was kind of unraveling
a bit, and they said, maybe you should get some help,
maybe you should get some supervision. I said, well, who's
going to supervise me? You know, I'm Tim Watson Monroe.
All this sort of bullshit, and I didn't want to
disclose its extent of my problem, so I didn't know
where it would end up. But these days I see
a clinical psychologist quite regularly. Not for treatment these days,
(35:55):
more about exploring the depth and trauma associated with some
of the cases that I'm still involved with. That said,
you know, I made a decision some years away to
get away from heavy crime, and I've sized known to
doing what could loosely be described as immigration works. So
it's just a different take on the same problem. In
(36:17):
some ways, people in Australia who are not citizens of Australia,
if they acquire a penalty in the court of nationally
twelve months to serve or more even if you don't
go to jail, they have a mandatory cancelation of their
visa and they are then generally placed in immigration detention
(36:38):
and there's an appeal process, and that's where I come in,
where I'm asked by their lawyers to provide a risk
assessment in terms of recidivism. I'm finding that much more
rewarding in many ways. As we've discussed privately, Adam, I'm
tired of gangsters and crooks and that grubby little scene,
which by the way, is much worse now than when
(37:01):
I was in the thick of it. Hardly a day
goes by now where somebody's not murdered on the streets
of Sydney and Melbourne. Never used to be quite like that.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
No, I think we're really desensitized to it. I mean
during the Gangland War and you had I think more
than a dozen of your clients got knocked off it
doing that. But I think there was a sense of
moral outrage. The public was up in arms. But now
it's become the de rigueur. And I don't know whether
it's a I'm going to say so this maybe it's
slightly ethnically centered, because this Gangland War was more to
do with Anglos, if you like, and the Italians and things.
(37:33):
Now we've got all the Middle Eastern community represented. I
think there's even less sympathy for them, and there's a
kind of a racism that's being applied to them in
a perverse way because their war is not getting the
same sort of coverage as the other war.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
Well, their war is ubiquitous, you know, the Gangland War.
I don't know twenty or thirty people were killed during
that time, As you correctly point out, a number of
mark class were murdered. But these murders, you know, where
people are shot coming out of restaurants. It reminds me
of Chicago. And the troubling thing about all that is
(38:07):
that young kids are being recruited to do the hits.
They have kill cars and kill kits. As you know,
they'll steal a car as a getaway car, they'll have
another get away car. There will be fuel to burn
down those cars to destroy them, and they will go
in for money and just shoot whoever they're commanded to
do so. I think that represents a step up or
(38:29):
a step down, however you want to put it. In
terms of what we're talking about. Twenty or thirty years.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
Ago, right, And the devaluation of human life because these
hitmen are getting paid small amounts. Yeah, I mean here
in Melbourne it was fifty thousand dollars and above. Some
silly people were paying a million dollars. If you pay
some of a million dollars, then well you've got.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Money to burn you do.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
So the devaluation of life is shocking. And I'm sure
you have contact with the profession still that's involved in
these cases. How are they going dealing with these the
lawyers and the psychologists.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
Well, I think it's very challenging for them. I mean, lawyers,
as you know, have a duty to represent their client
to the best of their ability and to put their
personal bars to one side. But inevitably, I know this
from direct experience, you can't unsee or unhear what's gone on.
In terms of psychologists who do these evaluations, I'm sure
(39:25):
that it affects them too. I can't speak for them,
but I would only suggest that if you are doing
this sort of work, take a leaf out of my book,
get proper supervision and have someone to talk to about it.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
Well, my father is a forensic psychiatrist as well, and
his way was to have a chat to his friend
next door. He was also a psychiatrist every couple of years,
and that was it. And he didn't have any discernible problems.
You'd like to drink, but it wasn't excessive, and I
was hoping to find the answer in the files that
he kept in locked cabinets. And he passed away. Now
(39:58):
in twenty fifteen, I expect to get access, but my mother, protective,
has always burnt all the files and ruined probably two
or three books I could have written about me and
my dad.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
You know, that's a great shame, because he certainly was
well known and eminent. But it's just the way it
is back then, and I was on the tail end
of this. I think you were stoic at all costs, right,
You didn't show your feelings. I never discussed work really
with anyone, and my way of dealing with it was
to go to lunch every Friday with the Larks of
(40:28):
Andrew Fraser and others in Melbourne, and they were big lunches.
That was how we debrief. We wouldn't necessarily talk about cases,
but what it did was it transported us away from
really the horror of some of the cases we were
dealing with.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
So now at this end of it, do you feel
you've reconciled the past or is it always going to
be with you? I mean, I think this said, this
does come with the territory. You can't walk in there
covered in teflon. It's going to affect you. Look, I've
reconciled the past. In terms of my misconduct. I haven't
touched drugs, oh goodness, twenty six years. I'm positive about
(41:04):
the work that I do, and I enjoy what I do,
but there's boundaries around it. I don't work nearly as hard,
and I guess the counterpoint to all that is, I know,
as you mentioned in your kind introduction, involved in other
creative pursuits.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
So I've written a couple of books. I do a
podcast with doctor Zanth Mallett, high profile criminologist, Associate Professor
of criminology, and I think now Central Queenslane University.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
Motive and Method. You can find it on nine podcasts.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
Yeah, yeah, we were picked up by nine podcasts which
were thrilled them out. And I really enjoy the sort
of intellectual stimulation of speaking with Xanth on a weekly
basis about criminal matters. But at the end of the day, mate,
I go home, na, I have a nice meal, I
watch a bit of TV. A very quiet life, you
might say.
Speaker 2 (41:55):
I like what you wrote at the end of your
first memoir, Dancing with Demons, where you go through all
this high fluting stuffing is incredibly important cases. But then
you say, and at the end of all this life
is brief and insignificant.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
That's quite right. And I think I also said leave
your ego in a box. You know, we get so
caught up in our hubris, and I think you need
to be mindful of that. And certainly, at my age
seventy two, life certainly is shorter than it was twenty
thirty years ago. Tim.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
I've only ever known you in this post the second
part of your career, basically, and I've never met someone
who's more humble without hubris than you. So obviously these
life lessons were incredibly impactful on you, because you rose very,
very high and you fell very far.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
Well, it's a very kind comment, Thank you, Adam for that.
Look before all the success and before the drugs, I
was actually pretty humble block too, But you know, they
were just crazy years, you know, cases like Alan Bond
Australia's richest man at the time, all the Gangster's Alphonse Gangitana, Graham, Kinnerborrow.
(43:04):
And I've said this already. I was young. I didn't
have the wisdom that I have now, and I think
the great takeaway for me is the acquisition of wisdom
through experience. So I clearly regret the past in terms
of those aspects of the past, But on the other hand,
my positive spin on that is it's probably made me
(43:24):
a better person.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
Tim, You're always a good bloke, and thank you for
sharing your memories today.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
That's a great pleasure. Thank you Adam for having me
on your podcast.
Speaker 2 (43:37):
That's Tim Watson Munroe. Tim I believe has transcended the
world of crime and law. He's had an impact on
our culture and he continues to do so through with
very generous participation in media, helping people like me and
we're making stupid comments and silly theories. He brings us
back to earth. So I really do appreciate his presence
in my life, and he also gives me an insight
(43:58):
intom but things my dad never told me. So this
podcast is extremely indulgent. You'll excuse me that in this case,
tell me. If you have a crime that you'd like
to report, please call crime Stoppers one out a, triple three,
triple zero. If you don't like the cops, you can
email me Adam Shander writer at gmail dot com. Thank
you for listening. Make sure you subscribe, share, like all
the things you do with podcasts these days. Thank you
(44:19):
for listening.
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