July 27, 2025 • 33 mins
In this episode, Adam Shand speaks with Ken Mutton, the son of Geoffrey Mutton, the mastermind behind one of Australia’s most infamous forgeries—the 1966 $10 note scandal. They explore the family’s struggles, the high-stakes games with corrupt cops, and how this criminal operation led to the creation of Australia’s world-first plastic currency.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Apote production.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Welcome to real crime with Adam Shann. I'm your host,
Adam Shand it was the most audacious of crimes committed
by the most unlikely of gangs. In nineteen sixty six,
four ordinary suburban guys plus one master crook forged Australia's
new ten dollar banknote.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Melbourne Police believe thousands of forged ten dollar notes are
in circulation in all Australian states. Reserve a counterfeit ten
dollar note, the first found in the Canberra area, has
been passed across the bar of a Quimbean hotel.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
The venture collapsed in treachery and deceit, but led to
the creation of the world's first plastic currency and an
export industry for Australia. So there is a legacy from
this unfortunate crime. My guest today, Ken Mutton was charged
with being a part of the caper, which was the
brainchild of his father, Jeffrey Mutton, who died back in
the early two thousands. Welcome to real crime, Kenny. This
(01:06):
is a story that changed the course of your life
and your families. What was your dad thinking? What sort
of bloke was he? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Well, I mean I was in the bank when it
all happened to my first job, I joined the bank,
and of course it's the worst place to boo when
you want to do something like this. But he was,
you know, he wasn't always around for a while there,
and we sort of realized what he was up to
(01:32):
one day when he come in and just threw a
bunch of notes on the table and asked me to
count it. Oh yeah, So I counted it, and I
picked out all the dad notes, and then we knew
what he was up to.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Because this was this was in December of nineteen sixty six,
and the decimal currency had come in in February of
nineteen sixty six. Now this would be the first time
I'll ever sing on my podcast, but you might you
might remember. The little jingle they came up with back
in the day was something like income dollars income the sense.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
To replace the pounds and the shillings and the pens
being prepared folks when the coins begin to mix on
the ford. In the February nineteen sixty.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Six law was in a bank, so was the sole
part of the out of the bank lotch all that
sort of thinging.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
That's right, because he had he had been planning this
for some time. It was all made possible by the
Castetna color printer, which came out about the same time
as the ten dollar notes, and that's what made it possible.
And I've actually he wrote a manuscript ten years for
ten dollars, which has never been published, and you and
I looked at it over the years. I've sort of
(02:45):
put together some thoughts and some background based on that manuscript,
So I'll just do a bit of it before we
get into some of these questions here. But you know,
I imagine that on that day, the twenty third of
December nineteen sixty six, he's ready to go with his
big plan and he takes some money into a hotel
well in Melbourne's East and you can imagine the scene.
(03:08):
He's there, going this is it. His heart's pounding in
his chest. He pulled a wad of counterfeit ten dollar
notes from the glove box of the hr Holden and
headed into a pub in Melbourne's East. Now it had
a watermark and a metallic thread printed onto the surface
on the strath bond number eight paper, I believe, so
it was pretty good and the notes were perfect, but
(03:30):
for the feel At the last minute, the team added
some floor wax to get the weight right. But your
dad was nervous. He wasn't a professional, professional crook. He
was a failed shopkeeper of anything, and he was about
to launch a bold attack on Australia's new decimal currency.
December twenty third, ninety sixty six and the banks were
closed for Christmas, to reopen five days later, plenty of
(03:53):
time to pass one hundred and sixty thousand dollars worth
of the notes before the alarm might be raised. Your
dad hesitantly laid the first tenor on the bar, the
face of the convict Forger Francis Greenway staring up at
him from the note. Beer please, he said, holding his breath.
A twelve cent beer, said the barman. He took the
(04:13):
note and he dumped the change on the bar in
front of your dad. Martin drained the beer in one gulp,
a sense of relief spreading over him. What a lark,
he thought, This is dead easy. So he goes to
every bar in the pub and passed and noted each,
his confidence growing with each handful of change he pocketed.
He left the beers on the counter and he had
straight for the row of shops adjoining to cash more.
(04:37):
He was soon out of money and rushed back to
the car from war. By eleven PM, your dad had
three thousand dollars of real money in his pocket and
he was euphoric. The tax officer had taken his delicatessant
and put it out of business. This was his revenge,
I think, he used to say. He and his accomplices
had made their own money using a Gestetna color offset printer.
(04:58):
The worst nightmare of the Reserve Bank Governor H. C.
Nugget Combs was about to come true. Public confidence in
his state of the art currency was about to be rocked.
As he drove home to Ashburton in Melbourne's East, your
dad was floating on air. There was another two hundred
and forty thousand dollars worth of passable notes buried in
the back garden, along with another six hundred thousand dollars
(05:20):
worth of rejects been made in nine months of trial
and error. At six pm, unbeknowns to your dad, his
brother had given his wife two counterfeit notes to do
the shopping. She had no idea they were fakes, and
casually bought a box of chocolates for sixty five cents
at the corner store. The shop assistant was already used
(05:41):
to handling the new currency and this note just didn't
feel right. She followed your dad's sister in law to
the car and noted the registration plates. By the time
your dad got home, the police were tearing up the
house looking for the horde of fake cash. You were
there that night, Tell it, recreate the scene for us.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Ah, Well, it was at our house in who spent
lean And well, I mean we were there, Me and
my mother and my sister were there on that night
that they come and they sort of just barged in
and guns with guns in the air, and just we
(06:21):
sort of were shocked. And there was money there with
in a bag with groceries and stuff. So I put
down my bed and just to get it, because I said,
I didn't know there were police. I do you know
who was at the door. So I put in the
bed and then they barged in and they went into
(06:42):
my room and there was the money on the bed
and there was as far as I know, there was
no more forgery in that money, but there was eventually,
so I presume they put something in there. But anyway,
that's and then they.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Put something in there. They think they that they framed you.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Yeah, I reckon they framed, but didn't at that part
of it. Anyway.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
What a shock though, and Dad, Dad drives up and pandemonium.
He's thinking, he's floating on air. He's just broken the bank.
He's tried everything under the sun to maker money. He
was a bit of a chance, a year old man,
I got to say. And nothing had ever really gone right,
but this was about to go right, but it was about
to go horribly wrong.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
He was.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
He liked the money and he wanted He was always
buying and selling businesses to make money and houses. And
I mean we traveled around all over the place when
we were younger. We hardly settled anywhere, and he would
he was always chasing the dollar. And I thought that
maybe this is probably his big his big deal. He
was going to make some money.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Because the tax office had already put him out of
business in the delicates and down it rose.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
But I believe, but I know that they put him
out of business because we were on sell true business
in a year and he was buying businesses and selling
them and we did more than three in one year.
It would have been sixty three, sixty four or something
like that in Chester Road and then we lost that house.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
See it had a bit of an unsettled childh Well,
my dad was chasing his dreams pretty much.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Chasing money, chasing money, money and trying to get money.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Yeah right. Was he a lovable rogue?
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Oh yeah. It was always a good little party, it was.
It was a lot of fun, yeah, but it was
dancing and doing stupid things.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
But there because his big opportunity to finance this caper
came when he had some sort of touch shop down
at Rose But I understand and a fellow called Robert
Bertram Douglas. Kid used to go there and Bertie was
probably one of Australia's most complete crooks. He and he
died a couple of weeks. I went to his funeral actually,
(08:50):
and he was a safe breaker, an armed robber, a burglar,
horse doper and a dedicated corruptor of police. He was
criminal royalty from about the sixties through to his jailing
for a series of hold ups in the early nineteen nineties.
Money was really the motivator for Kid. It was more
about the scoreboard that beating any system that kept him
away from the loot was probably more important than the
(09:11):
loute itself. He once stole. Did you notice he stole
twenty three kilos of gold from the cargo of a
courier plane by sending himself inside a box on the
same flight. But that's another story. So when he saw
this opportunity to forge the tend all the note with
your dad, he jumped at it. And he even though
(09:32):
even though he knew your dad wasn't a crook as such,
normally he dealt with organized criminals, but he decided to
get involved. And he said, how much is it going
to cost to buy the printer and get the plates
done and the whole thing and get the thing in production?
And he apparently your dad ripped him off, which wasn't
(09:53):
a clever thing to do really, because he was a bird.
He probably killed a couple of people, and there were
a couple of heavy moments. But he said to kid
that it would take twenty thousand dollars to set up
this Castettna two one printing press and the equipment required
to make the photographic plates. It actually only cost about
five thousands, so he'd already pocketed about fifteen thousand. Anyway,
(10:15):
so Bertie was into this and he goes straight from
a meeting with your dad and he goes to the
Hampton Hotel in Bayside, Melbourne, which he had been told
by his corrupt police officers that there was so much
money in this safe they could hardly close the door.
So he cut that open. He gets twenty eight thousand
dollars from that and hands over the money to your dad.
(10:38):
See where the whole thing went wrong is they didn't
listen to Bertie. Bertie's plan was to take the forged coin,
forged dollars and go out to the opal field by
the entire output of the opals there get real cash
for that, because no one has seen these dollars out
in the bush. So we'd get the opals and then
(11:00):
cash them in and send a whole bunch of other
money up to Hong Kong for the money changes, and
so we'd get into real currency. But your dad had
other ideas. Unfortunately, he had other ideas well.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
He included the family and his owes, and that was
a stupid move. I think I don't know why he
included all family, but that was ridiculous and we knew.
He knew we lived at Rosebud for three years, and
he knew Robert Kidd then. That's in the late fifties,
because I remember him and Robert Kidd cutting wood in
(11:35):
the pine forest together. Yeah. And I read in the
Robert's book that his brother was into the timber business,
or I think that correct. I was probably through that.
You know, we knew him then, and I think that's
where it all started from.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
I think that was the last honest job that Bertie
Kid ever did, cutting bit of timber. He was a
dedicated crook from that time onwards, but he did involve
the family, your dad and you mentioned before how he
actually when he was producing the notes, he brought a
pile of t because you've been in the bank, and
I think he put a whole He had a bunch
of real notes and he put the counterfeits within them.
(12:15):
Do you remember that.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Yeah, And I counted it and I picked everyone out,
and he actually cracked it and just rubbed the money.
Oh what do you know?
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Sort of So what was the difference with them?
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Like you said before, they had that waxy feel and
they was sort of crisp, not like the original notes
were sort of you could flick them like a like
a I don't know, a linen toype. I feel these
were crisp and you could just it was so easy
to pick out I don't know, on.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
The field, yeah, the field, Yeah, because they think they
also had a slightly they felt more like paper than
that sort of as you say, cloth or sort of
raggy feel that the real tendant on notes had. But
I guess the thing about counterfeiting notes is they had
to be perfect. You've only got to pass some one.
And that was Kid's plan. And unfortunately, as I say,
(13:11):
your dad had other ideas. And when when Kid turned
up at your house the same day, but this is
happening on the same day, December twenty third, and before
your dad had gone and I shouted to cash in
at the hotel, Kid had come to the house to
pick up what he thought was going to be two
hundred thousand dollars in fake notes, but your dad only
handed him forty thousand dollars. There'd been so many rejects.
(13:33):
He said that there was only a total of one
hundred and sixty thousand good enough to be passed, which
was not true either, by the way, So that was
a problem. And also your dad said, forget about taking
the money to the open fields. We're going to just
we're going to flood the market. We're going to go
out and spend as much as we possibly can. You
(13:54):
do what you want with yours, but we're going to
keep ours. And you know, and Bertie couldn't do much
about it, because you know, you guys had the loot
and he wanted to get it. He could pass it.
And there was quite a moment in this exchange where
one of your dad's offside who's got a bit smart
with Birdie Kid, and he came up with his famous line.
(14:16):
He pulled his coat back to reveal the thirty eight
in his in his shoulder holster, and he said, you're
a smarty I hope you've got your affairs in order.
All playing gangsters, but this was a real gangster. Your
dad was not a real gangster anyway. So Kid got
rid of most of his money in a flash, forty
thousand dollars he did. But at eleven o'clock he got
(14:39):
word from corrupt police that he should stop cashing because
he told he was told that your dad had been nicked,
and the whole plan for Kid from there was to
make sure that he wasn't pinched for the same thing.
So when a sergeant came over to your house and
he said to your dad, who are you working with?
(15:01):
And your dad said, I'm working on my own and
the sergeant said to him, you better fucking stick to that,
but you'll be thrown head first out the window. And
this was coming straight from Birdie Kidd, who was not
a man to be trifled with. Your dad got bail,
but his dreams of riches were shattered. Ten of his
(15:23):
friends and family were charged with possession of the forgeries
or uttering them. Of course, your dad was now terrified
to cash the remaining notes, each dashed in the backyard,
which was about five hundred thousand dollars worth. They dug
up the lawn. You didn't find.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Them, No, I don't know where they were then, because
they did come a note and digging everywhere.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
And they missed them. So what was it like for
your family at this moment when this is all going on.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Terrify really, because you know, we didn't know what was
what were you what was happening? That was just sort
of everything was thrown out of wool. I got the
sack from the bank, I guess, and we were just stuck.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Probably wasn't a good look a bank teller to come
on well bank getting involved in forging.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
I'd come back after it all happened, but they said, no,
you won't, that's it, and I had to sign a
release thing. The bank manager come to the house.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
And so you were charged with being an accessory I believe, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Possession you just possession, I think, yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Just possession of the notes. That was enough. Yeah, right,
And I guess they were expecting you to give evidence
against your dad and clean this whole thing up.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Well, actually when they come that day, they had guns
and one of them stuck a pushed me outside. There
was two of them together, and one pushed me outside
and stuck the gun, and they were sort of threatening
me because you know, tell us what you know, a
sort of thing, and I just says as because I'm ony,
I do you know. I said, oh, look, I've got friends,
(16:58):
and they usily walk inside. And later on I thought, well,
the friend that I've got they might have thought of
was rober kidd.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
S.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Thinking now that always just been are you teenager?
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Oh yeah, how old you then?
Speaker 1 (17:14):
You were a dan?
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Yeah? Yeah, being a silly teenager, because you're dealing with
the big boys now, and they were corrupt police. The
only one who wasn't, I believe, was a fellow called
Bill Holland was who led the raid on the house.
And he'd been there, was an Northern irishman, and he'd
been arrested. He had not been arrested. He was the
wrestling champion Victoria police. He was a big bluff character,
and he'd kicked the door in and came bursting in.
(17:36):
So he was leading it. But unfortunately he was probably
the only corrupt, not corrupt one that was there. Because
now the raid's over, everyone's charged. Your dad gets bail
and he's trying to salvage something from the wreckage here
as I understand it, and he goes to Bootie Kid
and who agrees to pay your dad ten thousand dollars
in real twenty dollar notes for two hundred thousand dollars
(17:59):
of the counterfeit money. He also asked your dad also
asked Kid to mind another three hundred thousand until things
quietened down. But of course Bertie was always looking after
number one. He also demanded that the printing press be
given to him, which he moved to a stable he
owned at Flemington, and later your dad came to claim
(18:20):
it and the money, and kid took a sledgehammer and
destroyed it in front of him, and then he put
the wreckage in the Ara River and your dad got
no money back whatsoever. Do you remember those days when your
dad was trying to salvage something out of this?
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Yeah, remember the days, But I mean we weren't involved
in that sort of thing. We didn't know until he
got home. He never really talked about to us what happened.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
He's playing a very dangerous game at that time.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
The days, I say, you knew. They were sort of
friends for since the late fifties, and I don't know
there was up to shifty business. I think all the
way bejoined there, but whether I don't know how much
one trying there that they Dad walked around the house
(19:09):
with this plastic container full of jewelry and one I
was gown forty five on the top and I saw
a held it because I was so young. It was massive.
But apparently that was a bag that Birdie had throwed
thrown over the fence, so he had to go and
get it from somewhere. He'd stolen it somewhere and Dad
(19:31):
was supposed to hell and get it.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
And this was prior to the tender the notes.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
I think it was just it must have been some
sort of payment.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Well, this is new news because Bertie didn't tell me
that he's gone to his grave. He can't tell me now.
But he called you Dad the little weasel. He didn't
trust him, and you know, and that's the thing about
cooks of that era. They used to do business with
each other, usually because they couldn't trust other people. But
your dad obviously was quite charismatic. Your dad. It eventually
gets ten years for the scam, and other family members
(20:01):
got shortened sentences. I think you've got a good behavior bond.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
That was another story because I've been to court. I
did two courts, two appearances parents. Yeah, because at the
first trial failed and I had to go back to
the second court, second trial because the word was it
that Robert Kidd had got to one of the jury members.
(20:28):
That was a story. I don't know if it was true.
And I had to go do a second trial and
I was found guilty and we're out waiting for sentence,
and real man was standing there and he said, hang
on a minute, and he went and come back and
he said, I've told them, if he goes, you go,
(20:49):
That's what he said. He told them. So when I
went in for sentences, they give me a five year bond.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
So he was saying that if you if you go.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
If he goes, you go. And he sold that to
somebody I don't know who, some I think nettlefol was
it nettlefold to judge?
Speaker 2 (21:08):
At this time? When your dad got his long sentence,
he now decided he was going to put Kid in
for this, and so he said a message to kids
saying that if he didn't give back the money and
reveal the whereabouts of the press, he would finger him
as the mastermind of the whole thing. And Kid was
told by his police retainers. Thatton had already written statements
(21:29):
for the police that as yet unsigned. So there was
this standoff going on. I wrote to Berdie Kid when
he was in journey jail. Actually this is going back
many years, and he actually told me some of the background.
Here's some of the quote from the letter that he
sent me. You know, so that Jackson knew I was
the mastermind. They had all the money and knowledge the
printing press. We will follow twenty four hours a day. So,
(21:49):
being a bit brash, me and mate picked out a
card as we were on the Gold Coast. It read
Relaxing in the Sunshine. I got a ten dollar note
with no serial number on it and put it in
the card with the following, Jeff, could you please put
some numbers on the next slot, as we are down
to the last. When you come home, we'll drown you
in champagne and choke you with cigars. So he was
(22:10):
having a good time on these ten dollar notes and
also also confident that he wouldn't be charged. This threat
was enough for your dad to sign the statements and
Kid was arrested and charged in a blaze of publicity.
Out on bail, Kid's mischief wasn't finished. Remember I told
you about Bill Holland. There was a copper that first
did the raid. Holland was still pursuing Kid and going
(22:33):
up against the corrupt coppers who were protecting him. So
Kid breaks into Holland's house and planted a few hundred
dollars in counterfeit notes in his refrigerator. Nice trick. Holland
was never never charged. There was a warning for him
to back off. He was dealing with some very powerful forces.
In the end, Kid beats all the charges, the forgery,
(22:55):
uttering and even the safe breaking at the Hampton Hotel
that had financed the operation. Despite your dad's detail statements
against him. It was assumed that Kid to have bought
off the jury. But I actually spoke to his barrister,
Brian Burke is now late now, and he denied this,
and he said the key thing was the Crown had
made a big mistake. They put up two handwriting experts
(23:17):
whose evidence contradicted each other. Therefore reasonable doubt was established
and that was the end of any prosecution of Bootie Kidd.
He sails off into the sunset and he then spent
He was the main beneficiary of your dad's money because
he spent the funny money for the next two or
three years. He said he paid off corrupt coppers with it,
splashed all of erace courses across Australia, helped out mates
(23:40):
and their families who were skinned. At Christmas. I had
a lovely time with those tenors. He told me what
was your family doing at the same time.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Oh, we was struggling not to get back, get our
lives back together. But I remember one I come into
the city one day with some friends and I was
just walking up up the street and the Robbie kids
stepped out of the one foot air of the pub
with a pot in hand and said, can't And I
said yeah, And he said thanks for not dubbling in
(24:11):
and just went back in the pun. He just saw
me walking along the street and jumped out that I
couldn't have dubed him in because I really didn't know
that he was involved. It was only you know, later
on there I found out he was involved.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
And when you visited your dad in jail and things
like that.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Yeah, we've we've visited. He went just done it more well,
we went down there for a while, have visited me,
Mum used to go every weekend and had them more
well that it was a terrible song. Really.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Yeah. And while he was in there he was writing
the manuscript ten years for ten dollars. He still thought
he could goney. Yeah, he had some glory out of
this whole thing.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Yeah. Well, even like I said to you one other time,
he would have reveled in all this. He would have
loved loved talking to you about it. He would have
been ride into it.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Yeah, I think I think this story needs to be
remembered because it did have an interesting twist for Australia.
Because the Reserve Bank was so concerned about the quality
of the money. Even though they disted in the court
and said it was amitris and so forth, it was
good enough to pass once and a lot of people
passed it. So Nugget Coombs, there was a Reserve Bank governor,
turned to science for an answer. He assembled a think
(25:23):
tack of experts that met in Threadbow in nineteen sixty eight,
and there was a guy from Kodak there who said
that the new color printing presses were the biggest threat
and they would continue to forge money using those and
if the new banknotes could be photographed, they could also
be printed and forged. So the only way to beat
(25:44):
this was to insert optically variable devices they see through
panels and holograms that sort of change colors with different
light conditions and pressures. There was an expert in the
team in polymer technology been working at due Lux with
plastic paints, and he said that the best option would
be a radical move to a plastic polymer with these
(26:05):
OVDs inserted. Took twenty years and twenty million dollars to
get there. But in ninety eighty eight the first world's
first plastic labors in circulation the commemorative ten dollar note
marking Australia's by centenary. So that I think we'd probably
like the fact that his caper led to world first.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Yeah, well that's right, and it's history now, isn't it.
And it's worth it's worth talking about.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Well, I think it is. You know. It's like so
many things in the in the straight world, if you like,
have come from criminal scams, you know, like the banks
we have today are as a result of the counter jumpers,
the arm robbers who are coming in there and robbing
the banks through the eighties and sticking guns in people's faces.
The die bombs and the security it's all to do
(26:53):
with that. So this is just another one. And today
the Reserve Bank exports to twenty five countries. This place
that they really should put your dad's head on it,
don't you think? Do you think this in the corner?
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Yeah, that'd be good.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
I reckon it should be, you know. And the fact
was that your family did pay heavily for your dad's folly.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Well, my mother never gone over and the elder sister
never has never gone over, so you know things are
like that. I mean, it doesn't really affect me so much,
but it has affected the others. So you could never
talk about it. And DES's wife I think Des died
(27:32):
first and then his wife. She couldn't handle talking about
it or do this.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
And your dad didn't escape the remorse. He wrote in
his manuscript that his jail sentence was small compared to
the heartbreak, degradation and insecurity I brought on my family. Now,
as time slowly passes, the children are growing and are
drifting away to their own lives. The only thing I
have left dear to me is my wife. I intend
(27:58):
to try to make up for the unhappiness and trouble
I've caused her. What did he do when he got out?
Speaker 1 (28:06):
No, I don't know. It never changed really, sill mine
cars and all these Brian ideas. You don't never really
settle down.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
But do you think he was sort of chastened by
the jail and the whole the drama because he almost
lost his marriage over it.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Yeah, it was playing gangsters. I think I think that
was his He liked that lifestyle, but anyways didn't do
him any good man.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
No, it didn't, and he did have dreams of his
book being published and being made into a movie. Did
he know who's going to play him in the in
the film?
Speaker 1 (28:41):
I don't know. I don't know. He's only a little bloke,
so I don't know. You'd have to find so.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Well, maybe if Jimmy Cagney was still around, he might
have gone for him. How do you feel about the
whole thing now? I mean we first spoke quite a
few years ago, and I sought you out, and no
one had really spoken from the family, and it hasn't
been easy even now recounting the story and the implications
of it.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
Well, no, I don't mind talking about it, and because
I think it's a court it's historical. It's a historical
thing now and I think it's we should talk about
it at sixty years ago. And it doesn't really worry
me talking about it. But as I say, the others
are still a bit shocked, and I sure can't handle
(29:26):
the talking about it. But all my family know, and
my nephews and all that, No, they don't worry about it.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Yeah, so it doesn't affect part of history now. It
definitely is, and I think Boodie Kidd was always fairly
happy about his role in it, and when I told
him that it had led to the plastic notes, he
was especially chuffed about that because there weren't many things
that he was going to be remembered for other than villainy.
And he's just died. So there's going to be another
(29:58):
edition of his book where I believe it's going to
be revealed his role in a couple of murders.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Yeah, just from me knowing him as little as I did.
But it didn't seem that sort of a violent person.
He seemed all right, actually, what a nice block. But
you never know.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
He hated bullies. That was the one thing that it
really really got him going. And he was very close
with a guy called Michael Sayers, who was a Melbourne
crook that was actually involved in the Fine Cotton scandal
on the end, and he fell foul. Sayers fell foul
of a guy called Roy Thurger up in Sydney, and
(30:41):
it's always been said that Thurger had killed Sayers. And
at Bertie's funeral there were some of mixed relatives and
they were happy to say that they felt that Bertie
had cleaned up Roy Thurger on behalf of his their
late brother.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
So yes, well, like I said, I never never seen
that way to me, but I was on the eater.
But I mean, I remember one time he come to
the house and I had an old car and I
was fixing it up and he looked at the car
and he s, ah, you're doing a good job, and
I said yeah, and he said I should get you
a panel business and business or something like that. And
(31:21):
I just continued on, but apparently you give my mother
money to paint the car so I wouldn't be so
obvious and get picked up driving the car around.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
I see.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
Yeah, So it's all that sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
And he did talk about using the ten dollar notes
to give to families who were doing it tough up
in Sydney and things, and they were trying to pass them,
and they had some pretty good thieves in his team
who were going around passing the notes. And there was
one who went to the racecourse in Sydney with a
whole lot of them and tried to do some big bets.
But the bag swingers already knew this, and they closed
(31:58):
all the gates and there was that there was an
announcement over the speakers anybody taking Kendle and know to
be very careful. There's a scam on the course, so
it blew it. But Readie did say to me that
he was a bit sorry that the plastic notes finally
came in because with the paper ones, they could have
kept ruling it for years and years. So it was
a bit sorry to stuff up a good rud for
the you know, for the others. When your dad finally passed,
(32:21):
did he talk about that at all his regrets in life?
Speaker 1 (32:24):
Or he wouldn't have regretted. Never, he wouldn't have regretted it.
He just would have regretted getting old and feeling sick
loggy when he died. But no, no, he wouldn't have regretted.
He was he was, He loved all that sort of thing.
He was a gangster, pretend gas.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Thanks to all Right, I've seen a few of those
coming go over the years. Butten Thank you Ken Mutin
for coming in and sharing this story. It's a fascinating
one and how the ten dollar note was forged back
in nineteen sixty six, and that's that's why we got
the plastic notes we have today. So thanks for coming in.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
Yeah, no worries. Thank you for asking.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Me, absolutely pleasure. That's Ken Mutton, the son of Jeffrey Muttin,
mastermind behind the Great ten dollars forgery back in nineteen
sixty six. If you've got other stories like this, they've
never been told, let me know, manuscripts, what have you
got out there? Come on and let me know what
it is. Give me a email. Adam Shanner writer a Gmail.
This has been Adam shan for Real Crime. Thanks for listening.
Apote production.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Welcome to real crime with Adam Shann. I'm your host,
Adam Shand it was the most audacious of crimes committed
by the most unlikely of gangs. In nineteen sixty six,
four ordinary suburban guys plus one master crook forged Australia's
new ten dollar banknote.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Melbourne Police believe thousands of forged ten dollar notes are
in circulation in all Australian states. Reserve a counterfeit ten
dollar note, the first found in the Canberra area, has
been passed across the bar of a Quimbean hotel.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
The venture collapsed in treachery and deceit, but led to
the creation of the world's first plastic currency and an
export industry for Australia. So there is a legacy from
this unfortunate crime. My guest today, Ken Mutton was charged
with being a part of the caper, which was the
brainchild of his father, Jeffrey Mutton, who died back in
the early two thousands. Welcome to real crime, Kenny. This
(01:06):
is a story that changed the course of your life
and your families. What was your dad thinking? What sort
of bloke was he? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Well, I mean I was in the bank when it
all happened to my first job, I joined the bank,
and of course it's the worst place to boo when
you want to do something like this. But he was,
you know, he wasn't always around for a while there,
and we sort of realized what he was up to
(01:32):
one day when he come in and just threw a
bunch of notes on the table and asked me to
count it. Oh yeah, So I counted it, and I
picked out all the dad notes, and then we knew
what he was up to.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Because this was this was in December of nineteen sixty six,
and the decimal currency had come in in February of
nineteen sixty six. Now this would be the first time
I'll ever sing on my podcast, but you might you
might remember. The little jingle they came up with back
in the day was something like income dollars income the sense.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
To replace the pounds and the shillings and the pens
being prepared folks when the coins begin to mix on
the ford. In the February nineteen sixty.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Six law was in a bank, so was the sole
part of the out of the bank lotch all that
sort of thinging.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
That's right, because he had he had been planning this
for some time. It was all made possible by the
Castetna color printer, which came out about the same time
as the ten dollar notes, and that's what made it possible.
And I've actually he wrote a manuscript ten years for
ten dollars, which has never been published, and you and
I looked at it over the years. I've sort of
(02:45):
put together some thoughts and some background based on that manuscript,
So I'll just do a bit of it before we
get into some of these questions here. But you know,
I imagine that on that day, the twenty third of
December nineteen sixty six, he's ready to go with his
big plan and he takes some money into a hotel
well in Melbourne's East and you can imagine the scene.
(03:08):
He's there, going this is it. His heart's pounding in
his chest. He pulled a wad of counterfeit ten dollar
notes from the glove box of the hr Holden and
headed into a pub in Melbourne's East. Now it had
a watermark and a metallic thread printed onto the surface
on the strath bond number eight paper, I believe, so
it was pretty good and the notes were perfect, but
(03:30):
for the feel At the last minute, the team added
some floor wax to get the weight right. But your
dad was nervous. He wasn't a professional, professional crook. He
was a failed shopkeeper of anything, and he was about
to launch a bold attack on Australia's new decimal currency.
December twenty third, ninety sixty six and the banks were
closed for Christmas, to reopen five days later, plenty of
(03:53):
time to pass one hundred and sixty thousand dollars worth
of the notes before the alarm might be raised. Your
dad hesitantly laid the first tenor on the bar, the
face of the convict Forger Francis Greenway staring up at
him from the note. Beer please, he said, holding his breath.
A twelve cent beer, said the barman. He took the
(04:13):
note and he dumped the change on the bar in
front of your dad. Martin drained the beer in one gulp,
a sense of relief spreading over him. What a lark,
he thought, This is dead easy. So he goes to
every bar in the pub and passed and noted each,
his confidence growing with each handful of change he pocketed.
He left the beers on the counter and he had
straight for the row of shops adjoining to cash more.
(04:37):
He was soon out of money and rushed back to
the car from war. By eleven PM, your dad had
three thousand dollars of real money in his pocket and
he was euphoric. The tax officer had taken his delicatessant
and put it out of business. This was his revenge,
I think, he used to say. He and his accomplices
had made their own money using a Gestetna color offset printer.
(04:58):
The worst nightmare of the Reserve Bank Governor H. C.
Nugget Combs was about to come true. Public confidence in
his state of the art currency was about to be rocked.
As he drove home to Ashburton in Melbourne's East, your
dad was floating on air. There was another two hundred
and forty thousand dollars worth of passable notes buried in
the back garden, along with another six hundred thousand dollars
(05:20):
worth of rejects been made in nine months of trial
and error. At six pm, unbeknowns to your dad, his
brother had given his wife two counterfeit notes to do
the shopping. She had no idea they were fakes, and
casually bought a box of chocolates for sixty five cents
at the corner store. The shop assistant was already used
(05:41):
to handling the new currency and this note just didn't
feel right. She followed your dad's sister in law to
the car and noted the registration plates. By the time
your dad got home, the police were tearing up the
house looking for the horde of fake cash. You were
there that night, Tell it, recreate the scene for us.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Ah, Well, it was at our house in who spent
lean And well, I mean we were there, Me and
my mother and my sister were there on that night
that they come and they sort of just barged in
and guns with guns in the air, and just we
(06:21):
sort of were shocked. And there was money there with
in a bag with groceries and stuff. So I put
down my bed and just to get it, because I said,
I didn't know there were police. I do you know
who was at the door. So I put in the
bed and then they barged in and they went into
(06:42):
my room and there was the money on the bed
and there was as far as I know, there was
no more forgery in that money, but there was eventually,
so I presume they put something in there. But anyway,
that's and then they.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Put something in there. They think they that they framed you.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Yeah, I reckon they framed, but didn't at that part
of it. Anyway.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
What a shock though, and Dad, Dad drives up and pandemonium.
He's thinking, he's floating on air. He's just broken the bank.
He's tried everything under the sun to maker money. He
was a bit of a chance, a year old man,
I got to say. And nothing had ever really gone right,
but this was about to go right, but it was about
to go horribly wrong.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
He was.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
He liked the money and he wanted He was always
buying and selling businesses to make money and houses. And
I mean we traveled around all over the place when
we were younger. We hardly settled anywhere, and he would
he was always chasing the dollar. And I thought that
maybe this is probably his big his big deal. He
was going to make some money.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Because the tax office had already put him out of
business in the delicates and down it rose.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
But I believe, but I know that they put him
out of business because we were on sell true business
in a year and he was buying businesses and selling
them and we did more than three in one year.
It would have been sixty three, sixty four or something
like that in Chester Road and then we lost that house.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
See it had a bit of an unsettled childh Well,
my dad was chasing his dreams pretty much.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Chasing money, chasing money, money and trying to get money.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Yeah right. Was he a lovable rogue?
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Oh yeah. It was always a good little party, it was.
It was a lot of fun, yeah, but it was
dancing and doing stupid things.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
But there because his big opportunity to finance this caper
came when he had some sort of touch shop down
at Rose But I understand and a fellow called Robert
Bertram Douglas. Kid used to go there and Bertie was
probably one of Australia's most complete crooks. He and he
died a couple of weeks. I went to his funeral actually,
(08:50):
and he was a safe breaker, an armed robber, a burglar,
horse doper and a dedicated corruptor of police. He was
criminal royalty from about the sixties through to his jailing
for a series of hold ups in the early nineteen nineties.
Money was really the motivator for Kid. It was more
about the scoreboard that beating any system that kept him
away from the loot was probably more important than the
(09:11):
loute itself. He once stole. Did you notice he stole
twenty three kilos of gold from the cargo of a
courier plane by sending himself inside a box on the
same flight. But that's another story. So when he saw
this opportunity to forge the tend all the note with
your dad, he jumped at it. And he even though
(09:32):
even though he knew your dad wasn't a crook as such,
normally he dealt with organized criminals, but he decided to
get involved. And he said, how much is it going
to cost to buy the printer and get the plates
done and the whole thing and get the thing in production?
And he apparently your dad ripped him off, which wasn't
(09:53):
a clever thing to do really, because he was a bird.
He probably killed a couple of people, and there were
a couple of heavy moments. But he said to kid
that it would take twenty thousand dollars to set up
this Castettna two one printing press and the equipment required
to make the photographic plates. It actually only cost about
five thousands, so he'd already pocketed about fifteen thousand. Anyway,
(10:15):
so Bertie was into this and he goes straight from
a meeting with your dad and he goes to the
Hampton Hotel in Bayside, Melbourne, which he had been told
by his corrupt police officers that there was so much
money in this safe they could hardly close the door.
So he cut that open. He gets twenty eight thousand
dollars from that and hands over the money to your dad.
(10:38):
See where the whole thing went wrong is they didn't
listen to Bertie. Bertie's plan was to take the forged coin,
forged dollars and go out to the opal field by
the entire output of the opals there get real cash
for that, because no one has seen these dollars out
in the bush. So we'd get the opals and then
(11:00):
cash them in and send a whole bunch of other
money up to Hong Kong for the money changes, and
so we'd get into real currency. But your dad had
other ideas. Unfortunately, he had other ideas well.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
He included the family and his owes, and that was
a stupid move. I think I don't know why he
included all family, but that was ridiculous and we knew.
He knew we lived at Rosebud for three years, and
he knew Robert Kidd then. That's in the late fifties,
because I remember him and Robert Kidd cutting wood in
(11:35):
the pine forest together. Yeah. And I read in the
Robert's book that his brother was into the timber business,
or I think that correct. I was probably through that.
You know, we knew him then, and I think that's
where it all started from.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
I think that was the last honest job that Bertie
Kid ever did, cutting bit of timber. He was a
dedicated crook from that time onwards, but he did involve
the family, your dad and you mentioned before how he
actually when he was producing the notes, he brought a
pile of t because you've been in the bank, and
I think he put a whole He had a bunch
of real notes and he put the counterfeits within them.
(12:15):
Do you remember that.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Yeah, And I counted it and I picked everyone out,
and he actually cracked it and just rubbed the money.
Oh what do you know?
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Sort of So what was the difference with them?
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Like you said before, they had that waxy feel and
they was sort of crisp, not like the original notes
were sort of you could flick them like a like
a I don't know, a linen toype. I feel these
were crisp and you could just it was so easy
to pick out I don't know, on.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
The field, yeah, the field, Yeah, because they think they
also had a slightly they felt more like paper than
that sort of as you say, cloth or sort of
raggy feel that the real tendant on notes had. But
I guess the thing about counterfeiting notes is they had
to be perfect. You've only got to pass some one.
And that was Kid's plan. And unfortunately, as I say,
(13:11):
your dad had other ideas. And when when Kid turned
up at your house the same day, but this is
happening on the same day, December twenty third, and before
your dad had gone and I shouted to cash in
at the hotel, Kid had come to the house to
pick up what he thought was going to be two
hundred thousand dollars in fake notes, but your dad only
handed him forty thousand dollars. There'd been so many rejects.
(13:33):
He said that there was only a total of one
hundred and sixty thousand good enough to be passed, which
was not true either, by the way, So that was
a problem. And also your dad said, forget about taking
the money to the open fields. We're going to just
we're going to flood the market. We're going to go
out and spend as much as we possibly can. You
(13:54):
do what you want with yours, but we're going to
keep ours. And you know, and Bertie couldn't do much
about it, because you know, you guys had the loot
and he wanted to get it. He could pass it.
And there was quite a moment in this exchange where
one of your dad's offside who's got a bit smart
with Birdie Kid, and he came up with his famous line.
(14:16):
He pulled his coat back to reveal the thirty eight
in his in his shoulder holster, and he said, you're
a smarty I hope you've got your affairs in order.
All playing gangsters, but this was a real gangster. Your
dad was not a real gangster anyway. So Kid got
rid of most of his money in a flash, forty
thousand dollars he did. But at eleven o'clock he got
(14:39):
word from corrupt police that he should stop cashing because
he told he was told that your dad had been nicked,
and the whole plan for Kid from there was to
make sure that he wasn't pinched for the same thing.
So when a sergeant came over to your house and
he said to your dad, who are you working with?
(15:01):
And your dad said, I'm working on my own and
the sergeant said to him, you better fucking stick to that,
but you'll be thrown head first out the window. And
this was coming straight from Birdie Kidd, who was not
a man to be trifled with. Your dad got bail,
but his dreams of riches were shattered. Ten of his
(15:23):
friends and family were charged with possession of the forgeries
or uttering them. Of course, your dad was now terrified
to cash the remaining notes, each dashed in the backyard,
which was about five hundred thousand dollars worth. They dug
up the lawn. You didn't find.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Them, No, I don't know where they were then, because
they did come a note and digging everywhere.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
And they missed them. So what was it like for
your family at this moment when this is all going on.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Terrify really, because you know, we didn't know what was
what were you what was happening? That was just sort
of everything was thrown out of wool. I got the
sack from the bank, I guess, and we were just stuck.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Probably wasn't a good look a bank teller to come
on well bank getting involved in forging.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
I'd come back after it all happened, but they said, no,
you won't, that's it, and I had to sign a
release thing. The bank manager come to the house.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
And so you were charged with being an accessory I believe, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Possession you just possession, I think, yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Just possession of the notes. That was enough. Yeah, right,
And I guess they were expecting you to give evidence
against your dad and clean this whole thing up.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Well, actually when they come that day, they had guns
and one of them stuck a pushed me outside. There
was two of them together, and one pushed me outside
and stuck the gun, and they were sort of threatening
me because you know, tell us what you know, a
sort of thing, and I just says as because I'm ony,
I do you know. I said, oh, look, I've got friends,
(16:58):
and they usily walk inside. And later on I thought, well,
the friend that I've got they might have thought of
was rober kidd.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
S.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Thinking now that always just been are you teenager?
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Oh yeah, how old you then?
Speaker 1 (17:14):
You were a dan?
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Yeah? Yeah, being a silly teenager, because you're dealing with
the big boys now, and they were corrupt police. The
only one who wasn't, I believe, was a fellow called
Bill Holland was who led the raid on the house.
And he'd been there, was an Northern irishman, and he'd
been arrested. He had not been arrested. He was the
wrestling champion Victoria police. He was a big bluff character,
and he'd kicked the door in and came bursting in.
(17:36):
So he was leading it. But unfortunately he was probably
the only corrupt, not corrupt one that was there. Because
now the raid's over, everyone's charged. Your dad gets bail
and he's trying to salvage something from the wreckage here
as I understand it, and he goes to Bootie Kid
and who agrees to pay your dad ten thousand dollars
in real twenty dollar notes for two hundred thousand dollars
(17:59):
of the counterfeit money. He also asked your dad also
asked Kid to mind another three hundred thousand until things
quietened down. But of course Bertie was always looking after
number one. He also demanded that the printing press be
given to him, which he moved to a stable he
owned at Flemington, and later your dad came to claim
(18:20):
it and the money, and kid took a sledgehammer and
destroyed it in front of him, and then he put
the wreckage in the Ara River and your dad got
no money back whatsoever. Do you remember those days when your
dad was trying to salvage something out of this?
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Yeah, remember the days, But I mean we weren't involved
in that sort of thing. We didn't know until he
got home. He never really talked about to us what happened.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
He's playing a very dangerous game at that time.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
The days, I say, you knew. They were sort of
friends for since the late fifties, and I don't know
there was up to shifty business. I think all the
way bejoined there, but whether I don't know how much
one trying there that they Dad walked around the house
(19:09):
with this plastic container full of jewelry and one I
was gown forty five on the top and I saw
a held it because I was so young. It was massive.
But apparently that was a bag that Birdie had throwed
thrown over the fence, so he had to go and
get it from somewhere. He'd stolen it somewhere and Dad
(19:31):
was supposed to hell and get it.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
And this was prior to the tender the notes.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
I think it was just it must have been some
sort of payment.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Well, this is new news because Bertie didn't tell me
that he's gone to his grave. He can't tell me now.
But he called you Dad the little weasel. He didn't
trust him, and you know, and that's the thing about
cooks of that era. They used to do business with
each other, usually because they couldn't trust other people. But
your dad obviously was quite charismatic. Your dad. It eventually
gets ten years for the scam, and other family members
(20:01):
got shortened sentences. I think you've got a good behavior bond.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
That was another story because I've been to court. I
did two courts, two appearances parents. Yeah, because at the
first trial failed and I had to go back to
the second court, second trial because the word was it
that Robert Kidd had got to one of the jury members.
(20:28):
That was a story. I don't know if it was true.
And I had to go do a second trial and
I was found guilty and we're out waiting for sentence,
and real man was standing there and he said, hang
on a minute, and he went and come back and
he said, I've told them, if he goes, you go,
(20:49):
That's what he said. He told them. So when I
went in for sentences, they give me a five year bond.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
So he was saying that if you if you go.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
If he goes, you go. And he sold that to
somebody I don't know who, some I think nettlefol was
it nettlefold to judge?
Speaker 2 (21:08):
At this time? When your dad got his long sentence,
he now decided he was going to put Kid in
for this, and so he said a message to kids
saying that if he didn't give back the money and
reveal the whereabouts of the press, he would finger him
as the mastermind of the whole thing. And Kid was
told by his police retainers. Thatton had already written statements
(21:29):
for the police that as yet unsigned. So there was
this standoff going on. I wrote to Berdie Kid when
he was in journey jail. Actually this is going back
many years, and he actually told me some of the background.
Here's some of the quote from the letter that he
sent me. You know, so that Jackson knew I was
the mastermind. They had all the money and knowledge the
printing press. We will follow twenty four hours a day. So,
(21:49):
being a bit brash, me and mate picked out a
card as we were on the Gold Coast. It read
Relaxing in the Sunshine. I got a ten dollar note
with no serial number on it and put it in
the card with the following, Jeff, could you please put
some numbers on the next slot, as we are down
to the last. When you come home, we'll drown you
in champagne and choke you with cigars. So he was
(22:10):
having a good time on these ten dollar notes and
also also confident that he wouldn't be charged. This threat
was enough for your dad to sign the statements and
Kid was arrested and charged in a blaze of publicity.
Out on bail, Kid's mischief wasn't finished. Remember I told
you about Bill Holland. There was a copper that first
did the raid. Holland was still pursuing Kid and going
(22:33):
up against the corrupt coppers who were protecting him. So
Kid breaks into Holland's house and planted a few hundred
dollars in counterfeit notes in his refrigerator. Nice trick. Holland
was never never charged. There was a warning for him
to back off. He was dealing with some very powerful forces.
In the end, Kid beats all the charges, the forgery,
(22:55):
uttering and even the safe breaking at the Hampton Hotel
that had financed the operation. Despite your dad's detail statements
against him. It was assumed that Kid to have bought
off the jury. But I actually spoke to his barrister,
Brian Burke is now late now, and he denied this,
and he said the key thing was the Crown had
made a big mistake. They put up two handwriting experts
(23:17):
whose evidence contradicted each other. Therefore reasonable doubt was established
and that was the end of any prosecution of Bootie Kidd.
He sails off into the sunset and he then spent
He was the main beneficiary of your dad's money because
he spent the funny money for the next two or
three years. He said he paid off corrupt coppers with it,
splashed all of erace courses across Australia, helped out mates
(23:40):
and their families who were skinned. At Christmas. I had
a lovely time with those tenors. He told me what
was your family doing at the same time.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Oh, we was struggling not to get back, get our
lives back together. But I remember one I come into
the city one day with some friends and I was
just walking up up the street and the Robbie kids
stepped out of the one foot air of the pub
with a pot in hand and said, can't And I
said yeah, And he said thanks for not dubbling in
(24:11):
and just went back in the pun. He just saw
me walking along the street and jumped out that I
couldn't have dubed him in because I really didn't know
that he was involved. It was only you know, later
on there I found out he was involved.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
And when you visited your dad in jail and things
like that.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Yeah, we've we've visited. He went just done it more well,
we went down there for a while, have visited me,
Mum used to go every weekend and had them more
well that it was a terrible song. Really.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Yeah. And while he was in there he was writing
the manuscript ten years for ten dollars. He still thought
he could goney. Yeah, he had some glory out of
this whole thing.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Yeah. Well, even like I said to you one other time,
he would have reveled in all this. He would have
loved loved talking to you about it. He would have
been ride into it.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Yeah, I think I think this story needs to be
remembered because it did have an interesting twist for Australia.
Because the Reserve Bank was so concerned about the quality
of the money. Even though they disted in the court
and said it was amitris and so forth, it was
good enough to pass once and a lot of people
passed it. So Nugget Coombs, there was a Reserve Bank governor,
turned to science for an answer. He assembled a think
(25:23):
tack of experts that met in Threadbow in nineteen sixty eight,
and there was a guy from Kodak there who said
that the new color printing presses were the biggest threat
and they would continue to forge money using those and
if the new banknotes could be photographed, they could also
be printed and forged. So the only way to beat
(25:44):
this was to insert optically variable devices they see through
panels and holograms that sort of change colors with different
light conditions and pressures. There was an expert in the
team in polymer technology been working at due Lux with
plastic paints, and he said that the best option would
be a radical move to a plastic polymer with these
(26:05):
OVDs inserted. Took twenty years and twenty million dollars to
get there. But in ninety eighty eight the first world's
first plastic labors in circulation the commemorative ten dollar note
marking Australia's by centenary. So that I think we'd probably
like the fact that his caper led to world first.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Yeah, well that's right, and it's history now, isn't it.
And it's worth it's worth talking about.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Well, I think it is. You know. It's like so
many things in the in the straight world, if you like,
have come from criminal scams, you know, like the banks
we have today are as a result of the counter jumpers,
the arm robbers who are coming in there and robbing
the banks through the eighties and sticking guns in people's faces.
The die bombs and the security it's all to do
(26:53):
with that. So this is just another one. And today
the Reserve Bank exports to twenty five countries. This place
that they really should put your dad's head on it,
don't you think? Do you think this in the corner?
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Yeah, that'd be good.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
I reckon it should be, you know. And the fact
was that your family did pay heavily for your dad's folly.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Well, my mother never gone over and the elder sister
never has never gone over, so you know things are
like that. I mean, it doesn't really affect me so much,
but it has affected the others. So you could never
talk about it. And DES's wife I think Des died
(27:32):
first and then his wife. She couldn't handle talking about
it or do this.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
And your dad didn't escape the remorse. He wrote in
his manuscript that his jail sentence was small compared to
the heartbreak, degradation and insecurity I brought on my family. Now,
as time slowly passes, the children are growing and are
drifting away to their own lives. The only thing I
have left dear to me is my wife. I intend
(27:58):
to try to make up for the unhappiness and trouble
I've caused her. What did he do when he got out?
Speaker 1 (28:06):
No, I don't know. It never changed really, sill mine
cars and all these Brian ideas. You don't never really
settle down.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
But do you think he was sort of chastened by
the jail and the whole the drama because he almost
lost his marriage over it.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Yeah, it was playing gangsters. I think I think that
was his He liked that lifestyle, but anyways didn't do
him any good man.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
No, it didn't, and he did have dreams of his
book being published and being made into a movie. Did
he know who's going to play him in the in
the film?
Speaker 1 (28:41):
I don't know. I don't know. He's only a little bloke,
so I don't know. You'd have to find so.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Well, maybe if Jimmy Cagney was still around, he might
have gone for him. How do you feel about the
whole thing now? I mean we first spoke quite a
few years ago, and I sought you out, and no
one had really spoken from the family, and it hasn't
been easy even now recounting the story and the implications
of it.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
Well, no, I don't mind talking about it, and because
I think it's a court it's historical. It's a historical
thing now and I think it's we should talk about
it at sixty years ago. And it doesn't really worry
me talking about it. But as I say, the others
are still a bit shocked, and I sure can't handle
(29:26):
the talking about it. But all my family know, and
my nephews and all that, No, they don't worry about it.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Yeah, so it doesn't affect part of history now. It
definitely is, and I think Boodie Kidd was always fairly
happy about his role in it, and when I told
him that it had led to the plastic notes, he
was especially chuffed about that because there weren't many things
that he was going to be remembered for other than villainy.
And he's just died. So there's going to be another
(29:58):
edition of his book where I believe it's going to
be revealed his role in a couple of murders.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Yeah, just from me knowing him as little as I did.
But it didn't seem that sort of a violent person.
He seemed all right, actually, what a nice block. But
you never know.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
He hated bullies. That was the one thing that it
really really got him going. And he was very close
with a guy called Michael Sayers, who was a Melbourne
crook that was actually involved in the Fine Cotton scandal
on the end, and he fell foul. Sayers fell foul
of a guy called Roy Thurger up in Sydney, and
(30:41):
it's always been said that Thurger had killed Sayers. And
at Bertie's funeral there were some of mixed relatives and
they were happy to say that they felt that Bertie
had cleaned up Roy Thurger on behalf of his their
late brother.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
So yes, well, like I said, I never never seen
that way to me, but I was on the eater.
But I mean, I remember one time he come to
the house and I had an old car and I
was fixing it up and he looked at the car
and he s, ah, you're doing a good job, and
I said yeah, and he said I should get you
a panel business and business or something like that. And
(31:21):
I just continued on, but apparently you give my mother
money to paint the car so I wouldn't be so
obvious and get picked up driving the car around.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
I see.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
Yeah, So it's all that sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
And he did talk about using the ten dollar notes
to give to families who were doing it tough up
in Sydney and things, and they were trying to pass them,
and they had some pretty good thieves in his team
who were going around passing the notes. And there was
one who went to the racecourse in Sydney with a
whole lot of them and tried to do some big bets.
But the bag swingers already knew this, and they closed
(31:58):
all the gates and there was that there was an
announcement over the speakers anybody taking Kendle and know to
be very careful. There's a scam on the course, so
it blew it. But Readie did say to me that
he was a bit sorry that the plastic notes finally
came in because with the paper ones, they could have
kept ruling it for years and years. So it was
a bit sorry to stuff up a good rud for
the you know, for the others. When your dad finally passed,
(32:21):
did he talk about that at all his regrets in life?
Speaker 1 (32:24):
Or he wouldn't have regretted. Never, he wouldn't have regretted it.
He just would have regretted getting old and feeling sick
loggy when he died. But no, no, he wouldn't have regretted.
He was he was, He loved all that sort of thing.
He was a gangster, pretend gas.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Thanks to all Right, I've seen a few of those
coming go over the years. Butten Thank you Ken Mutin
for coming in and sharing this story. It's a fascinating
one and how the ten dollar note was forged back
in nineteen sixty six, and that's that's why we got
the plastic notes we have today. So thanks for coming in.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
Yeah, no worries. Thank you for asking.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Me, absolutely pleasure. That's Ken Mutton, the son of Jeffrey Muttin,
mastermind behind the Great ten dollars forgery back in nineteen
sixty six. If you've got other stories like this, they've
never been told, let me know, manuscripts, what have you
got out there? Come on and let me know what
it is. Give me a email. Adam Shanner writer a Gmail.
This has been Adam shan for Real Crime. Thanks for listening.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.