The Crime Journalist the Outlaws Let In - Adam Shand

In this episode of The Clink, Brent sits down with veteran crime journalist Adam Shand for a deep dive into the gritty realities of outlaw motorcycle clubs, media bias and the changing face of crime in Australia. With 30 years on the crime beat, Adam shares untold stories from inside clubhouses to High Court challenges and reflects on the complex humanity behind the headlines. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Approach production.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
For the record. I'm don't trying to make you uncomfortable
for the record. You ain't trying to grow downy stuff
for your for the record, laugh on me going all
the way way for the record. Ain't trying to link,
No trying to waste for the record, for the record,
for the for the record, for the right, for the

(00:45):
ready record.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
For the record.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
I don't try and make you uncomfortable.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
That's right.

Speaker 3 (00:59):
Welcome back, another fantastic episode coming up today. Guys, this
gentleman thirty years as a crime journalist. This man has
ventured into some places that people would never dream of.
He has walked beside some of the most notorious crime
figures in this country and also overseas a wealth of

(01:20):
knowledge and experience beyond. But first of all, I want
to take a moment to say thank you to every
one of you people out there who continue to download.
I cannot tell you how awesome it is almost coming
up to that six million after this season. Six million
downloads over four and a half years. What a journey
it's been. Two hundred and twenty plus guests. Thank you,

(01:43):
every one of my guests. Thank you to the sponsors
in the past sideway surf that was with us for years,
and to anybody else who has got on board. Without
further ado, I'm going to introduce today's guests because we've
got a lot to talk about.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
Adam shand welcome to the clink. Thank you, bred mate.
I'm gonna be honest with you.

Speaker 3 (02:04):
Out of all my guess, I've had many from all
walks of lives along the similar lines of yourself that
you've walked close to and been in the company of
some notorious gang members, some very influential people in the
world of the underworld. But I have never had somebody
with the experience like yourself thirty years of journalism in

(02:25):
criminality and meeting people like myself who have lived that
life for many, many years. Not that I live that
life anymore, but definitely was in very, very deep with
it for well well over half my life. So today
is going to be a very interesting and informative one
and I cannot wait to start to dissect it all

(02:47):
because it really is something that I don't know anybody
else could actually sit down with and have these type
of conversations.

Speaker 4 (02:54):
The amazing thing for me is that if you told
me twenty years ago whenever I was around the motorcycle
club scene that I've been sitting here being interviewed by
a former member who actually was from that scene, you know,
because it was so hard to get people to talk
and there was such a mistrust of the media.

Speaker 1 (03:13):
We were just a rung below the police, really, And so.

Speaker 4 (03:16):
I think it's gratifying because back in the day everyone
was saying, oh, I should go and write a book
about my experiences in clubs or in crime, and say, well,
I said, well, listen, there's just not enough publishers to
publish all these things, and people don't really read books anymore,
to be honest. You go into the bookstore, there's hardly
any true crime books. Really, it's all crime fiction. But
I think to get people's voices out there and to
humanize them, I think that's what the Clink has done,

(03:39):
you know, let people in an unfiltered way, because for years,
people like me crime journalists were like the gatekeepers, and
we were shaping how the public would see. And often
you would see that the so called crime journalists were
actually just police journalists because they were staying very close
to their police contacts, getting feeds, staying very close to

(04:03):
the political contacts and he's straying away from that. And
I've had a decision very early on that I wasn't
going to do that and that it was much better
to go to the source. My man was a psychiatrist, right,
and he always used to tell me we grew up
with all kinds of p He used to go to
the jails and meet people and assess their fitness to
plea and all this type of stuff, and he said,

(04:25):
understanding people is more valuable than judgment. And that's kind
of been my way through this. And so it's really
a pleasure, and I really salute your success in what
you've done.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
Adam.

Speaker 3 (04:37):
Thank you first of all for that wonderful wording, because
it is something that I take a lot of pride in.
You know, you very much hit the nail on the head.
And I am old school. So there is still a
lot that we don't talk about. And that's just how
it is. You don't go through these walks in life

(04:57):
and think that you're going to go through and disclose
the ater's 's because it just doesn't work like that,
really it is. There'll be things that will go to
the grave of myself and many other members, especially long
term members in clubs or anybody that's held positions in clubs.
I don't believe that it's ever something that gets discussed

(05:18):
entirety outside of the four walls of the club.

Speaker 1 (05:20):
It's a club life.

Speaker 3 (05:21):
And respect that and hence me comfortably still being able
to respectfully walk around today. And I take that with
a lot of honor and gratitudes. But in saying that
as well, we do open up a forum. We've opened
up a platform by providing The Clink and other podcasts

(05:42):
out there for men like myself who most definitely at
forty nine years of age, spent well over half my
life in and around club life.

Speaker 1 (05:52):
Jail and.

Speaker 3 (05:55):
Have realized the realities of the system. And you know,
like I to this day, have nothing but utmost respect
and love for all brothers that I have a cross
path with, well ninety percent of them. There's always a
few you won't call a brother ever again, but you know,
majority are great men, you know, And I grew up

(06:16):
in an era where the men were real men. You
didn't just get given a patch, You had to earn
the patch, and the club was always bigger than you,
and that was something that was always drummed into us
as nominees or probates or prospects, whichever you prefer to
look at.

Speaker 1 (06:33):
Never forget that, you know.

Speaker 3 (06:35):
But at the same time, you see how the government
and the system and the world that we live in
has changed. And look, to be honest with you, I
don't feel that I would fit in today with just
the way. Not that I'm bagging or saying anything negative
about anybody out there.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
That's their choice in their life.

Speaker 3 (06:54):
But I'm old fashioned, and those old fashioned morals and
ways tend to drift a little bit from what they
should be today. I feel therefore I probably wouldn't be
right candidate.

Speaker 4 (07:06):
Oh yeah, Look, I think my experience in Clubland, if
you like, was that there was a changing of the
guard taking place. There was the old school bikers who
came from the sixties seventies, and they were really about
the brotherhood and about riding motorcycles and that staunchness, you know.
And I think as the world has changed, you know,

(07:28):
the crime world has changed. I mean back in the day,
you know, drugs weren't dominating so much, and there.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
Was a hierarchy.

Speaker 4 (07:35):
There were people who were enabling everything from sly grogging
to tobacco to girls, to whatever it was, and there
was a hierarchy and people work within in structures, whereas
with drugs, I think it's every bloke has got a
supply as a boss, you know, and there's a lot
of people who were using their own product and it

(07:56):
gets very hazy, you know. But I guess what I
saw looking at the motorcycle club scene. I don't call
them gangs by the way they get the most immotive
word to use.

Speaker 1 (08:06):
It lumps them all in.

Speaker 4 (08:07):
The same category stereotyping, and it doesn't help the understanding
at all. So I was comming clubs and some definitely
have changed towards that, but I did see them as
a former participatory democracy, and I was really entranced by
the stories that I was being told about. You know
why people joined, and it wasn't because they wanted to.

Speaker 1 (08:30):
Be a criminal.

Speaker 4 (08:31):
I mean, they wanted to be rebellious, they wanted to
wrap up against the fabric of society, if you like,
for various reasons, but also because they found a true fellowship.

Speaker 3 (08:41):
Well, I think the older guys, just touching on that
to Adam is the fact that we were the one percent,
We were the shit. We were the you know, and
it's very real now having these opportunities to open up
and have these conversations, is a lot of men that
were a part of club life were broken and hurt

(09:02):
men or traumatized men that literally we're just looking for love,
I guess brotherhood.

Speaker 1 (09:08):
And that's not weak in saying that.

Speaker 3 (09:10):
You know, I had the honor of coming into club
life the old school way, you know, and I'd been
around it since I was a teenager. But then when
the time come naturally, I drifted to doing my my apprenticeship.

Speaker 1 (09:24):
If you will, and earning my colors. It meant family.

Speaker 3 (09:30):
I didn't have family, you know, It meant brotherhood, it
meant camaraderie. It was really really thick with that many
years ago. I don't look, I'm not involved with it now,
so I don't comment. But I don't believe that the
structure is the same as what it once was. And
if it was, then I would probably still be there,

(09:51):
you know, if that's how it was. But we see
things and we have our reasons and beliefs and morals
about certain aspects of things that happen in and around
and you know, the perspective from the journalists that put
out the stories im and they just fucking love me.
They got oh yeah, and you've got to google my

(10:13):
name to read the shit that they've written over the
last five years or something that I've been fighting that,
Please God, in the next week and a half, I'll
have an answer to and no case to answer. But
that aside is being you know, you don't have to
be Einstein to work out the motive behind it was
to you know, chip chip and watch something fall apart
for them to get what they wanted, and there was

(10:35):
nothing to be got. So at the end of the day,
it's just how the system is and how the system works.
But on that yeah, I feel that, you know, you
can't go labeling everybody in a club a bad person.

Speaker 1 (10:49):
It's not that way at all.

Speaker 3 (10:51):
And you of all people have truly gotten to be
close to club life and some very very powerful people
both in underworld end also club life, And I mean,
there's no real difference. Suppose both same similar structures and
hierarchy and what have you. Obviously certain aspects of it

(11:11):
do certain things that are unethically correct.

Speaker 4 (11:15):
Yeah, but you know, I mean I think I did
see a distinct difference between clubs and say the underworld
that i'd been immersed in with Carl Williams and Andrew
Venyuman and Tony Mockbell and those of the guys who
they were there solely for profit and to build their
influence and their.

Speaker 1 (11:35):
Base and so forth.

Speaker 4 (11:36):
Whereas if I was going to become a crook, I
wouldn't necessarily join a motorcycle club because you have a
very obvious place of association. You wear a uniform, everyone
can see, you make a loud noise. You are going
to attract plenty of attention, and they do.

Speaker 3 (11:51):
You know.

Speaker 4 (11:51):
I think when you look at today's scene now there's
like forty plus clubs in Australia, I think, and you
really only hear of like four or five, you know,
And I think, you know, and in some cases it's
quite justified they've gone into crime and so forth, but
you've also got equally. One of my favorite clubs actually
is a single chapter club an Adelaide called the Descendants.
It was started by a couple of New Zealanders in

(12:12):
the seventies, two brothers, Perry and Tom Mack.

Speaker 3 (12:14):
Yes, they reported, aren't they they're five o ones they're
about to become They got deported they did.

Speaker 4 (12:20):
In fact, you can hear Tom's last interview in Australia
on my show Real Crime with Adam Shann coming up
and the fight that he put up. But that club,
that was a really good example because they come from Auckland,
tough town, you know. And Tommy used to say that
he never won a fight until he got to Australia
because back then there were the parting all the Mary's
and the tough guys over there, and it was hairless.

(12:41):
But and they'd read the Hunter s. Thompson of Bikey's,
Hell's Angel and Rebel without a Cause, and they started
to adopt the kind of dress and the modes of
the sort of outlaws one percentage whatever, and you know,
like the Hell's Angels in the sixties, they drifted towards
heroin trafficking and the police went through the club like
a doos assaults and they all went through jail, a.

Speaker 1 (13:02):
Bunch of them. When they came out, they got like,
this is for the birds.

Speaker 4 (13:06):
You know, we joined to enjoy the motorcycle and the
camaraderie around that, and here we are acting like crooks.
So they went back to the motorcycle, got into speedway,
and it was all about that, and the criminal element
kind of filtered out of the club over time, yet
they're still regarded as one percent, never take a backwards step,
very staunch. And I really enjoyed their company because they

(13:28):
were real men, you know, and they welcome me and
I used to love going their club, you know.

Speaker 1 (13:33):
And you'd also have other people going there as well.

Speaker 4 (13:35):
You'd have bandits, you'd have angels, you know, all kinds
of people dropping because they were like on neutral ground
and they were older guy gypsy jokers in particular.

Speaker 1 (13:43):
Yeah, the amount of.

Speaker 4 (13:45):
Super high quality conversations at two or three or four
in the morning, when you got a skin full of piss,
you know, you go like, yeah, actually I remember some
of them really vividly, you know. And there was one
story that had various versions of why, you know, when
we join a club, it was usually like, you know,
dad was absent or in jail or abusive or had
step father. One of my favorites was like, there was

(14:08):
one guy who used to say, my stepfather used to
bash my mother, you know, all the time, and I'd
cop it. If I said a word, I'd just cop
it as well. He's a big guy. So one Christmas
days he's had a crack at mum. So I've gone
on the garden. She'd got a spade and cracked him
across the head. Went to juvenile Justice, met people who
were connected with clubs and so forth, and found a

(14:28):
place where they could belong and actually, for better or worse,
have someone who actually influenced them on their ethics and values,
you know, because young men totally need that. And I
know your story, and you know you needed that the
abuse that you suffered, and you know, I was so
lucky to grow up in a really nice family in Sydney.

Speaker 5 (14:50):
We never had to worry about that. Everything was you know,
private schools at the rest of it, you know. And
and I guess early on I started to look at
the other side. I went to My first job out
of school was to go and work in the mines
in the Northern Territory and a matter of a bunch
of guys there who are all kinds of connections, and
I started to see other ways of living and stopping
that judgment and seeing how important it was to have

(15:13):
that fraternity.

Speaker 1 (15:14):
And I think even today young men are going.

Speaker 4 (15:17):
Off the rails, not just in clubs, we see the
amount of people who are bashing their wives, who are
doing stupid things, getting involved in assassin for higher type stuff,
and you know, you go like, what are you doing?
You know, for five K or something, You're going to
knock some poor bastard life.

Speaker 1 (15:34):
Life is worth nothing these days.

Speaker 3 (15:36):
And it's I look, I'd be very careful about my
choice of words here, obviously, but I feel the way
things are happening, and what is happening.

Speaker 1 (15:46):
I get it.

Speaker 3 (15:47):
I not even nor stupid to what's what's happening below
the mainstream. But the brazenness and the fact that you know,
innocent people, women, children, just man, that's let's go back
to the days where if there was issues, we'd all
sit at the table. You'd have you know, your present,

(16:08):
your sergeant, whatever, We'd nut out a plan.

Speaker 1 (16:11):
Whoever was in the wrong, we'd come to a solution,
rather than clubs go to war.

Speaker 3 (16:16):
Certain factors play out because of circumstances. Might be money
issues could be whatever it might be. Today it's just
not a there's a stack who wants it. And it
might be like you said, five grand could be ten,
could be twenty third. Back in the day, you'd want
to have at least half a mil before you even

(16:37):
started talking. What's the value of life? I mean, we
just see what happened in Sydney this week, you know.
Innocent people again taken out obviously, and I once again
be very careful about how I put this out there.
But really, you get that close to someone you're supposed
to put to sleep and then all of a sudden,
once again, second time around, you can't get the job done.

Speaker 1 (16:59):
Wow, that's a little bit well. I would hate to
have been the bloke that paid them to do it.

Speaker 4 (17:05):
I hate to bring up the Sydney Melbourne rivalry, but
our assassin's down here have always been a lot more
jacked up, a lot more professional.

Speaker 1 (17:12):
Oh they're very quick and very efficient.

Speaker 4 (17:14):
There's only ever been in my knowledge one innocent Byastownder
that ever copped anything. Was unfortunately a little boy during
the painters and dockers wore down here. But otherwise they
do get the job done. I remember, oh, Billy Longley,
Billy the text them Longley, one of the painters and
dockers of the you know, and he was talking about
Carl Williams team when they were knocking off the Morans,
and the fact that they were getting people at the
football or getting people in their cars and different homes

(17:36):
and whatever. And he said, you know, these things send
a very strong message that these people are very serious
and you can be got anywhere you like. Absolutely, you're vulnerable.

Speaker 1 (17:47):
Yep. Yeah, And so.

Speaker 4 (17:49):
I think people have to be very very careful not
to get involved in stinks, you know. I remember one
thing I was a part of for on the sidelines
of there was a dispute between two clubs about the
positioning of tattoo parlors.

Speaker 1 (18:02):
And it came down to it like they.

Speaker 4 (18:05):
Had the street directory out and they said, you can't
be east of this certain road.

Speaker 1 (18:10):
You've got to be over there.

Speaker 4 (18:12):
And there was argibarji, there was some money changed hands,
but they sorted it out.

Speaker 1 (18:16):
That's that was what I was saying, Yeah, go to
the tail, that's right.

Speaker 4 (18:20):
Yeah, And I thought that was a really interesting and
people I just don't believe that it happens like that,
So it's interesting. I think it has changed a lot.
I think there are still clubs out there who have
those rules. Granted they're probably the older blokes who are
hanging on the old cave men who were still in
the clubs because you know, and their life members or
whatever else. But some clubs are I remember speaking to

(18:41):
one very senior president who said, Mate, my club's changed
so much.

Speaker 1 (18:46):
I can't pronounce half the names.

Speaker 4 (18:47):
I don't know what to put on the barbie anymore,
that drink, you know that. You know, they often don't
know how to ride their bikes, you know, this sort
of stuff. So it's in a state of flux. But
the biggest thing I think is to deal with the
fear that the public has because media and police see,
police always want bigger and more powers and they never
give them back. Right, So whenever the politicians spark up

(19:10):
with like a moral panic type situation, bikis are.

Speaker 1 (19:13):
Coming over the hill, they're getting bigger, they get they're
not getting any bigger than the ever were, you know.

Speaker 4 (19:18):
And my minentary to the whole thing was in South
Australia when the government there decided to bring in anti
association laws because the presumption was the clubs only exist
to commit crime. There was none of this tough stuff
we've been talking about. It's all about that. So if
you can stop them talking to each other, you'll stop
the crime, which was just patently false and we had

(19:40):
the parallel with the consorting laws in the fifties and sixties, which.

Speaker 1 (19:44):
Where cops got too much power.

Speaker 4 (19:46):
You get people like Roger Rogerson and others down here
who suddenly became really powerful because they could consort this
one and use the other one as an informer. So
you had to start to work with the fuzz to survive.
So I thought this would work, and it didn't. I mean,
the clubs that I was hanging around with, they had
a queue up the street of young men who wanted

(20:06):
to join.

Speaker 1 (20:07):
And the more that you know, the media parodied this
line about oh, you know, the new mafia on wheels,
and la la la.

Speaker 4 (20:14):
It just made it more and more attractive and actually
drought them together. Because what I saw was amazing was
these clubs that were supposedly, you know, at each other's throats,
we're very happy to sit down in the United Motorcycle Councils,
you remember those.

Speaker 3 (20:28):
Yes, absolutely well. I technically that was two thousand and nine.
I think it was two thousand and eight. Two thousand
and nine they started to bring those laws in and
then obviously in Queensland after the Broadbeach incident that then
forced the hand and you know, we had, for example,
the Finkx up here that I think were the first
club to engage in law to be able to prevent

(20:49):
that ruling, which then, you know, as we both know,
change the whole demographic of things once that all sort
of fell into place, well it didn't.

Speaker 1 (20:59):
It was funny because here all these so called outlaws in.

Speaker 4 (21:02):
The High Court, they go to them, many of them
are very even out laws anymore, you know, you go
to the High Court, and actually because I just felt
that those laws were repugnant to anybody who'd had a
criminal record, you know, that they could now suddenly no
longer associate with people on license premises and so and
so forth, you know, and it was just not right.

Speaker 1 (21:23):
So that was my starting point.

Speaker 4 (21:24):
I think it's always like there was a bit of
a misnoment that I was like, oh, I was soft
on bikers and I was deluded in La la la.
But you know, I was saying that that's not it's
not what that's about. It's about saying, understand the nature
of crime and will this actually do any good? Because
my argument always was that yes, it's attractive to suddenly
have biker squads, you know, these dedicated teams, which you know,

(21:47):
would go after biker that's fine, you know, but when
you look at the actual offenses people were being charged with,
usually it was stuff that really an old sergeant on
a bicycle could have done back in the day, you know,
And it wasn't making much of an impact.

Speaker 1 (22:02):
So it really didn't make much difference.

Speaker 4 (22:04):
And what I was seeing was that, yes, there were
criminals in clubs, and you you knew that, but they
were often doing business with each other, little cells within
the club. They were often doing business with other clubs,
sometimes their rival clubs, even, you know, And that wasn't
something that everyone was in on.

Speaker 1 (22:22):
In fact, I used to have these conversations with people.

Speaker 4 (22:24):
I'd say, you know, some and so has brought his
made into the club, and he's doing this, that and
the other, and you know, we don't like it, and
we're not making any cash offer, and you know, we're
going to get rid of these guys this type of stuff.

Speaker 1 (22:34):
So I wasn't universal.

Speaker 4 (22:35):
So the whole thing was just a misnomer and just
another moral panic in society and an excuse to wind
back civil liberties for everybody. And I just kind of
went along that path and you mentioned broadbeats. There was
also the Sydney Airport issue with of sells, angels and
commos back then, and that just became like where there
was any doubt, there was no doubt and the public

(22:57):
was terrified, and you know, and I think it certainly,
I couldn't believe. After that, I started to see certain
clubs turn up within the Melbourne Underworld.

Speaker 1 (23:06):
Structure which hadn't been there before.

Speaker 4 (23:09):
And I think we've seen some of that within the
building industry and heavy vehicle industry and so forth. And
I think it's become in some of these unions see
this is a good way to build their own power
bases and all that type of stuff. So but it
doesn't do the average you know, outlaw one percent any
favors at all.

Speaker 3 (23:28):
I want to just touch on something very important. It
relates to this. And when we talk of clubs, there's
always been clubs. Now and I know this is going
to be so I guess controversial, and listeners are going
to sort of have their saying comments and what have you.
But that's okay, this is the clink, so suck it
up and sound like it changed the fucking channel.

Speaker 1 (23:46):
But the bottom line is and no one can deny this.

Speaker 3 (23:50):
We outlaw one percenters right literally, I mean not just
use the term outlaws, but legally completely zero tolerance. Yet
we well also we we back in the day, we
would hold I put it down to like an ecosystem
within the humanity. So for example, the jungle has an ecosystem.

(24:15):
You've got the King of the Jungle, and that works
its ways down the ocean. You know, we've got the
white pointer, and then we work our way down. But
everything balances.

Speaker 1 (24:22):
Now. I'm sure that you'll agree with this.

Speaker 3 (24:25):
When we talk about our situation today and the youth
crimeinom everyone goes, oh yeah, they'd feed of this, feed
again fucking bullshit. Right when clubs were present within communities
or areas or suburbs, there was none of this bullshit
going on. There was always someone higher to answer to.
And if you went in and robbed the fucking dear

(24:46):
old lady or slaps or raped some young girl or
you know four or five outed some bloke and whatever,
there were consequences that you would answer to. And parents
that had kids that were out of line, single parents
would knock on the clubhouse door and say, oh, look
at he Gan sim You know my son Barry, Barry's
just really out of here. I think he's out there
knocking off cars or whatever. Look, if you boys seen them,

(25:07):
can you pull him up, give him a bit of
a firm talk and.

Speaker 1 (25:09):
Who a scare? Yeah, nowhere is missus Smith.

Speaker 3 (25:13):
You know things like that that people don't say, and
people go, oh yeah, bullshit. Look at the other side
of this, right, you talk about religion, More fucking pedophiles
come out of the Catholic Church than anything else. Okay, corruption,
we've got police and political corruption, multi billion dollar fucking

(25:33):
frauds and corruption of PaperWorks signed under the table and
whichever way you want to start to pull it apart
by the threads, there's a thousand threads there to pull.

Speaker 1 (25:42):
How big do you want the whole?

Speaker 3 (25:44):
I don't see anybody sitting there over the years turn
around and saying, right, consorting you mister politician, and you,
mister priest, and you mister school teacher, that you're a
you're all under the consorting Act or you know you're
on I don't know, let's call it zero white collar club,
you know, zero tolerance.

Speaker 1 (26:05):
Yes to me, what is the fucking difference? What is
the difference?

Speaker 3 (26:09):
Between you know, a white collared crime that's say, for example,
massive on fraud or even as we've seen in the
many years gone by, heavily involved in importation of major
drug syndicates. Police come on, like, how many police over
the last twenty odd years thirty odd years have fallen
to the shit because of their ways and ethics that

(26:33):
they swore to protect and oh bide by fucking bullshit.
They see a grab, they take it, you know what
I mean? Like it's one of those things where if
you're gonna sit there and you're gonna label something, then
look at it from the bigger picture. Why just take
one little spectacle of the bigger scene and say, okay,
well that's the problem.

Speaker 1 (26:54):
Yeah, well you're the boogeyman, you know, we just we'll
just target that because they're bad people.

Speaker 3 (26:59):
And all of a sudden, you know, across Australia, as
we know now, clubhouses insigney you know, like you don't
see anybody right on Melbourne, you do. They still have
it there and Western Australia has always been a zero tolerance.
South Australia's coming down extremely hard. Like I don't even know, really,
I think Melbourne might be the only place so many
of an NT. The NT's strict d as in Queensland.

(27:21):
Obviously he's a no brain and you just can't wear
colors or anything up here whatsoever.

Speaker 1 (27:25):
So it's just pushed everything underground.

Speaker 3 (27:29):
Now, back in the day, you would have structure, we'd
have discipline, we'd have a hierarchy within the system, like
the army does, like the police do, like anybody else
with a structured club or outfit has. So there was
always someone even internally to answer to.

Speaker 1 (27:43):
Fuck.

Speaker 3 (27:44):
I remember doing something that I shouldn't have been doing,
and I was a senior member, and I still got
black eyed by the Nationals for it because I did
the wrong thing, and it wasn't really the wrong thing
as in outside of the club, but within club rules
between me and another member, I did something that you
just can't do it.

Speaker 1 (28:02):
You can't put you in.

Speaker 3 (28:03):
On another member, you know what I mean without it sanction,
as simple as that. So long and short of that,
I was reprimanded for it and disciplined. Now, did I
want to go through that Chigan fact?

Speaker 1 (28:13):
No?

Speaker 3 (28:13):
Oh, stand there in a circle of my brother's looking
to watch them getting black eyed because but you know,
I and many others were sometimes not easy to control,
and that's that was club life. You had someone to
answer to. Oh yeah, so you know where we are today.
I feel the government has a lot to answer to
and we're just being dating issues high go out and

(28:34):
do like you know, you hear about the troubled youth
in North Queensland, you know, Townsville. We just did a
workshop up there, myself and Jeremy Donovan, you know, we
volunteered our time for a week, went up there and
really got into the community to see where the problems were.
It's not the fucking youth, it's everybody around there that's
been dating the problems and not really going back and asking.

Speaker 1 (28:54):
What is the problem. Why are our young people rebelling?

Speaker 3 (28:57):
Nothing to do with bike clubs, But yet the media
will be quick enough to portray oh yeah, they're up
and coming, you know, young gangs that are actually being
molded into club life and all this sort of shit.

Speaker 1 (29:08):
It doesn't work like that.

Speaker 3 (29:09):
I'm not saying that there's not outfits out there that
support clubs. There's always been supporter groups or supporter clubs,
if you will, gangs.

Speaker 1 (29:17):
I mean, that's life, you know, That's just how it works.

Speaker 3 (29:21):
It's no different to playing in the NRL or the
AFL and plane you reserve grade, you know, second and
third tier their structure.

Speaker 1 (29:28):
You get what I'm saying. And at the end of it,
where is the problem?

Speaker 3 (29:32):
The problem starts with us, Us as the adults, us
as the people in general that have a swaying decision
or making through parliamentary situation or maybe authority with law.
There's not going to be a solution, and it's only
getting worse. And I know that. Like I said, people

(29:54):
are going to sort of come at me for this,
But why hide the fucking clubs. Let the clubs be.
There's always going to be good and bad. There's always
going to be opposite. We're going to be corrupt, there's
always going to be politicians. There's always going to be
pre They're going to be pedophiles. That's just life. It's
been that way for how many centuries. There's always been
the pickpocket and the bootlegger.

Speaker 4 (30:13):
There was graffiti on the walls of Pompeii five hundred BC,
goodness bemoaning the youth of today, young men out of control.
So I said before, it's like you just society always
loves a boogeyman. You know, whether it's the latest ethnic arrivals,
or it's bikers, or it's whoever it is. You know,
it's always easier to say, let's not look at the
roots of our problem. Let's just blame it on a

(30:34):
particular group in society and we'll legislate to ban them
while at the same time removing civil liberties and things
that I mean we grew up and you talk about
Lord of the Jungle, ecosystems and things. We grew up
I guess from the city Osborne in nineteen sixty two, right,
and so into the era of countercultures. There was all

(30:55):
kinds of countercultures going on, and as long as you
didn't fuck with other people, then you could pursue that
culture that you liked.

Speaker 1 (31:01):
The bikers is one of those hippies, you name it,
they're all there.

Speaker 4 (31:04):
And over time time that's the nab and sort of
clamped down on some people needed to be clamped down on.
But to sort of say that the diversity in our
society with self regulating countercultures is somehow a threat to
the fabric of society is rubbish and they'll always be there.

Speaker 1 (31:20):
And I mean I saw firsthand.

Speaker 4 (31:22):
Like a very close friend of mine was a sage
at one of the clubs, and his life man, it
was like the general manager of a really unruly kind
of company, and things were going on day and night,
and I'd stayed his house and I'd be with him
and see his family and the whole thing.

Speaker 1 (31:36):
And you know, I used to joke with him and
his wife.

Speaker 4 (31:38):
I'd say, I bet your wife would have rather you
took up fucking golf than this, you know, or anything else,
but this, you know, because it was and it was
financially draining. He was always having to talk to lawyers,
and you know, they had things like, you know, you
have someone who'd commit some sort of crime whatever, and
they'd want to ride back to the clubhouse and take
refuge there, and they have to say, there's no way

(31:59):
you're not coming in here. We'll actually give you up
because you're bringing heat on everybody now, you know. So
I think there was a lot of self regulation and
it worked really well. And you've experienced that and you're
on the receiving end of the rough justice as well.

Speaker 1 (32:13):
So that's you see from both ends. Look, it's just part.

Speaker 3 (32:16):
It's part and parcel, and like I said, you know,
like there is structure and there is discipline. And look, yeah,
everyone's can say they're all criminals and they're all drugs
and this and that. I can tell you now whatever,
there's good and bad and everything.

Speaker 1 (32:28):
But other clubs or bikeys.

Speaker 3 (32:32):
The ones that are completely deeply the ones you know,
organizing everyone, bringing everything, creating this disharmony within the community.
There's everyday people out there doing the same shit. You know,
just because you're a patch doesn't make it any different.
I just stepping away from here for a moment. There's
something that I wanted to touch on, which I think is
a really really big thing. Sunny Barger. I seen that

(32:57):
you got to go to America to be beside literally
the og of outlaw world.

Speaker 1 (33:07):
I mean, really, who was there before him?

Speaker 3 (33:11):
There was very few that were a true one percenter
and you know, lived by the meaning of and you
know today obviously being around one of the world the
biggest international motorcycle club in the world. Wow, Like, you know,
as somebody that's lived and breathed the life for this

(33:33):
is pretty pretty amazing that you were even able to
get close to a man like that on that scale.

Speaker 1 (33:39):
How was that yeah, that was That's quite a moment.

Speaker 4 (33:42):
Well, how it happened was that I was doing all
these stories in Australia and I'd met various bells, angels
and other clubs and things, and I was going to
America because my kids were living in America.

Speaker 1 (33:52):
At the time in California.

Speaker 4 (33:53):
I thought I'd try to go to Phoenix, Arizona, and
while I was there and catch up with him.

Speaker 1 (33:58):
And it took I don't know, six weeks or something,
and it went.

Speaker 4 (34:01):
Through this process of referral and I finally got to
speak to his lawyer, who wasn't a biker, but he
looked like one. He had a pink beard and he
had this mohawk and he was you know thewks. Yeah,
just looked like and anyway, so they were curious enough
to kind of, you know, let me come and spend

(34:22):
a day or two with him, and you know, we
went for a ride on his bike there and he said,
you know, this is really bad for my reputation having
you in the back of my Bike's supposed to be
a beautiful girl, not some lumpy Australian journo. And he
talked all about that freedom that people had brought into
the clubs and that camaraderie that people had had coming
out of the armed forces, people with the Air Force,

(34:42):
and they'd ridden Harley's and you know, at that time
they were paving all the roads of southern California and
suddenly had this freedom after the war, and also the
drift towards crime that occurred when they started to do runs.
In fact, what happened was they started to hang out
with the psychedelic crew Ken Kesey and authors like that,
you know, and initially that's how they turned onto drugs.

(35:04):
So that's scene, and pretty soon they realized that this
was exploding across California and the states, and so they
started to runs down to Mexico to pick up drugs
and so forth, and you know, pretty soon the fear
fact exactly what happened to here, some sort of moral
panic happened, and they actually enacted RICO, the racketeering influenced
blah blah blah legislation to stop the Hell's Angels.

Speaker 1 (35:27):
It didn't work. They were the only ones to actually
beat it.

Speaker 3 (35:30):
You know, it's pretty amazing, actually, isn't it. How they
actually did that. Very very smart, amazing smart.

Speaker 4 (35:36):
Yeah, but again, it comes back to the same point
that you didn't join these clubs to simply commit crime.
Like I said, you wouldn't have done that. I mean,
you would have gone into the Philly mob or the
Collabrium or whatever. You wouldn't go into the club to
do this because you know, a you've got to share
it with a lot of people if that was the case,
and you're going to run a ground eventually, you know.

(35:59):
So I found that really instructive, and it's sort of
I could see the same cycles repeating from the fifties
onwards right until today, and it really told me, you know.
And Barger was at that time was saying that Phoenix,
Arizona had to have this massive economic explosion and all
the area was now being populated by these new settlers

(36:20):
and so forth, and he wanted to go further into
horse country, as he called it, you know, get away
from the cluster of you know.

Speaker 1 (36:27):
I mean, at that stage there was all these nuveau reached.

Speaker 4 (36:30):
People driving their Bentleys and their big Cadillacs, and you know,
he just hated it, you know, and that's what he
wanted to I'm not sure he ever did that, but
you know, it was always that freedom seeking element. And
I think as life becomes so much more constrained and
money becomes everything and at the cost of living is high,
people just you know, they forget the essence of being free.

(36:52):
And I think that's what really attracted me. I mean,
I was I was an African correspondent and roamed all
over Africa in the nineties and it's really experienced some
of the same notions, you know, that I experienced in
the bike world.

Speaker 1 (37:03):
So I could identify with that.

Speaker 4 (37:04):
So really he set me up for coming back to
Australia and having these really important conversations that weren't popular. Breath,
they weren't popular. I wrote a book on out law
its actually I'm going to he sit in here. I mean,
this book sold about two copies. Really, I'm serious, because
it didn't stoke the stereotype, you know, but I was
happy because it reflected my experience.

Speaker 1 (37:25):
I had to have a bit of guilt to myself.
You know.

Speaker 3 (37:29):
Back in the day, there was this university whatever you call,
somebody who'd gone through criminology in that and he was
the go to guy on outlaw clubs and he was
in Sydney for many, many years I think the Daily
Telegraph used to just grab him all the time, and
he'd always have his two cents worth in doctor somebody
I think he is today or but the shit that

(37:52):
used to come out like any time that there was
an incident or something. I mean, obviously things were a
lot different back then. Weren't as in your face today,
that's for sure, But if anything did kick off, it
was like a wow.

Speaker 1 (38:05):
Back then. Today it's just expected every day there's going
to be something.

Speaker 3 (38:07):
There's today that someone's going to pass through a shooting
or a stabbing, or it's going to happen. It's inevitable.
Back then it was wow, shit, that's a big thing.
Oh my goodness, you know. But yet little did they
know how much underneath, beyond everybody's knowledge, things were happening.
It was just done very discreetly in a much different way.
But this this spokesperson, you know, and I think that

(38:30):
he wrote a few books, to be honest with you.
He was an author as well about the outlaw world.
He just they would go to him and have him
on the news and have him in the papers, and
he knew everything. He knew everything about every club and
how it worked in the inside, it's just to sit
there and game right really like it's the media is

(38:54):
just a fearmonger, like it really is, you know, like
I can't go into too much detail, but even in
this matter that I've been fighting for the last five years,
the media came in and you know that, as you
can see on Google you can type it in and
see there some of the headlines and this and that,
like really and then all of a sudden they come
into a committal trial and within two days it went

(39:17):
for a five day committal trial to media in there
and plastering my face again. To then there was not
a word said in any paper, on any news or
anything because they could obviously see the real story of
what was going on, and it wasn't anything that there
was originally portrayed it to be, because the way it
came out was extremely harsh of what allegedly took place

(39:41):
and this allegation of what happened on this particular day.
So you know, initially it was like blah blah blah,
and everyone was like, oh, fuck, that's bad, that's really bad,
like this, Well, no, the proof's out there now and
it's all all been put on the table.

Speaker 1 (39:57):
You know.

Speaker 3 (39:58):
I mean, obviously I can't obviously talk about it because
of the case being active. But what I can say
is it wasmpletely reverse what the media portrayed it to be,
totally completely backflipped, you know, so how much power Yet
I will get pulled up And it happened to me
after my matter. I had the Crown reach out to

(40:20):
my legal team and I put up a post purely
just in no way identifying or intimidating anybody by any means.
But it was just a post simply saying, you know,
being a Crown witness or a witness to something, if
you're going to lie on oath, has a detrimental effect
to many people involved, ie families myself, Like I was

(40:40):
referring to my situation because it was all bullshit and
it all come out that it was.

Speaker 1 (40:46):
All just bullshit.

Speaker 3 (40:48):
So you know, the effect of the last five years,
the financial effect, the relationship, all the damage that was done,
you know now I've got to work back from is huge.
Because someone decided to lie for what reason, you know what,
I mean, to save their own ass, but yet they
thought they were all covered and then a committal it
all comes out in the wash anyway, you know, like

(41:08):
the statement comes out that you can't hide from it.

Speaker 1 (41:11):
It's there. But the media wrote that. I mean, I
had my.

Speaker 3 (41:15):
Daughter getting attacked, you know, Okay, what sort of my
father was involved in murder and all this sort of shit, Like, mate,
don't attack my kids over something that you know nothing about.

Speaker 1 (41:25):
I knew nothing about it, you know.

Speaker 3 (41:26):
But here I am getting dragged into something that you know,
the media portrayed because of my position at that stage
within a club that I was somewhat of authority and
you know, enforced or whatever you want to call it,
I had to have been involved. Well that's not the
case at all. So I'm one of many that that's
happened to, you know, So therefore you are labeled. You

(41:48):
are one hundred percent labeled, and every headline to this date.
I mean, my club life stopped in two thousand and nine,
twenty ten, just as the laws were changing. I got
the six years sentence for importation and that was done.
I've been involved since I was a kid. You know,
I could see change and I was respectfully enough, that
was it. I just wanted to do my time and
get out and be a dad. So when you sit

(42:11):
there and you think about, you know, those ways that
the police and the media are able to amp things up.

Speaker 1 (42:18):
The public then get a perception of fear.

Speaker 3 (42:23):
Naturally, all their perception is is scum, fear, bad shit people,
and it's so far from the truth. And once again,
you know, you go back to any walk of life,
it doesn't matter whether you're in a club or not.
There's those labels attached to every people, just on every level. Yeah,

(42:45):
where do we start, where do we finish?

Speaker 1 (42:48):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (42:48):
Yeah, And it's really terrible when it can affect legal
proceedings and presumptions of innocence of this.

Speaker 1 (42:55):
Type of stuff.

Speaker 4 (42:55):
You know, But I hope it's driven a lot of
people towards your.

Speaker 3 (42:58):
Podcast where you're guilty, you're guilty to prove in innocent.

Speaker 4 (43:01):
Yeah, I hope it's driven driven a lot of people
towards your podcast because to write it can be you know,
it can be not a bad thing either. I mean,
chop a read, I mean who I think he never
told a true story in his whole life. You know,
he understood that the value of notoriety. And he's a
guy that was so damaged, you know, I know, I
know his real deep background. People don't understand who he
really was. He wasn't anything like he was portrayed. He

(43:23):
had a really nasty childhood, he had psychological issues, he
had all kinds of things, and he found a way
through telling stories to actually get a career. Twenty three years,
nine months in jail, right for all stupid things. Nothing
like being against the stupid things. You don't want to
go into it. But he found a way beyond that
by telling stories and giving the public what they.

Speaker 1 (43:44):
Wanted, to the point where this is hilarious.

Speaker 4 (43:47):
When he was dying, rings me out and says, mate,
I got to make some money for the kids.

Speaker 1 (43:51):
I said, what story are you going to tell now? Mark?
He said, mate, you know four murders? I said, mean,
you didn't kill four.

Speaker 4 (43:57):
You know you kill one bloke sending to Turk that
was self defense, more than four. He says, shut up.
I said, okay, you want to sell it? Who to
sixty minutes? I said, okay, how much do you want?
Quarter million dollars? I said, mate, you are fucking dreaming.
You're not going to get that. And he said, mate,
shut up, do it for me. I said, fair enough
to I aised some favors.

Speaker 1 (44:14):
I go and blow me down.

Speaker 4 (44:16):
They paid it right, and I said, you realize he's bullshitting?
Do you realize his bulls? And I said, oh, we'd
better get you to check some of these yarns. I said, okay,
check the first one. Reckon he'd killed a bloke in
D division and Penttridge in company with a guy called
mad Charlie Haglaji who was his childhood mate. And checked
the corners file, checked the prison records I could get to.

(44:37):
I found that Mark and Charlie weren't even in the
same division. In fact, Charlie wasn't in the jail, and
the bloke that they'd supposedly kicked to death had hung
himself flat out in the jail. So go make the
sixty and said, oh to all bullshit. I said that's
enough checking. I said, well there's three more. They've gone
like that's enough. And mate, that was the highest rating
sixty minutes of the year.

Speaker 1 (45:00):
I actually I remember it.

Speaker 3 (45:02):
They were walking through the scrub and that weren't there
and he was just kicking time. He was just talking shit.
What was the name that it was? A female? Wasn't
it that interviewed him?

Speaker 1 (45:10):
Am I right? Tara Brown it was, wasn't it.

Speaker 3 (45:12):
Yeah, Yeah, and I actually remember that years ago, and
that's right because he was he was well and truly
into his deathbed. Yeah, he wanted to just leave a
little bit there that you know, hadn't been.

Speaker 4 (45:25):
Dug up, so to speak, well thought Robbish, I mean,
you know, I mean he he had shot Sydney Michael Collins,
a biker in Tasmania in the guts, you know, for
nothing at all, just he was in the car and
we board and he shot him in the starch. I mean,
stupid stuff Mark did. But the fact that the idea
that he backed up and killed him after a show
up and casino in you know, northern New South Wales

(45:47):
was complete rubbish and I pretty the poor coppers who
had to follow it up, you know. But it didn't
really matter because the truth wasn't important. The impression, the impact,
you know, the reinforcement of stereotypes was more important than
the truth, because, let's face it, our meet has become entertainment.
You know, people switch on to your poet, I guess
for different reasons, but the game of the mainstream media

(46:08):
often just for entertainment, and if you're working in that space, Okay.
I started in newspapers back in nineteen eighty six. When
you how old were you then?

Speaker 3 (46:16):
Eighty six forty nine, so eighty six, eighty thirty five,
eighty six, I was ten, was ten? Right?

Speaker 1 (46:23):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah, ten ten or eleven?

Speaker 4 (46:26):
Right, So I was trying to make my way at
that time, and we had to cover everything, right, you
were the journal of record, and you know, but as
soon as we get towards the Internet era where all
the articles are being downloads suddenly matter.

Speaker 3 (46:39):
You know.

Speaker 4 (46:39):
It wasn't just a sales that was now downloads, you know.
So if your story didn't rate, you didn't get in
the next time.

Speaker 3 (46:45):
What do you call it today, click clickbait, clickbaiting. Isn't
it called clickbaiting or something exactly exactly?

Speaker 1 (46:52):
And so you know you've been a victim of it.

Speaker 4 (46:54):
You know, if you've got a decent headline bikey and
forser murderer.

Speaker 1 (46:58):
Well what's this?

Speaker 4 (46:59):
You know, within five minutes you've forgotten it, You got
onto the next thing.

Speaker 1 (47:03):
It doesn't really matter.

Speaker 4 (47:04):
So I'm I wish I could tell people not to
take it so seriously. But I'll tell you one thing though,
One thing I did notice in the criminal world also
in MCS and so forth, was that they needed the police,
they needed the media because that gave them solidarity. Look
at those bastards they want to want to bring us down.
Look at the coppers, you know what I mean. So
it actually was a point of solidarity, and they would

(47:25):
read about themselves relentlessly. In fact, I think the worst
thing I could have done as a crime jural was
get their name wrong, you know, it was misspelled or something,
because people loved the publicity they actually did, you know.

Speaker 3 (47:37):
I remember when I wrote I Come out of Jail
two thousand and fourteen too. Yeah, I finished my parole
and fifteen had three years pro and I come out anyway,
I finished it. And I become the first person in
the world to cycle across Australia in forty five days
from east to west and long and short of.

Speaker 1 (47:54):
It all on a bicycle. Yeah, yeah, I cycled. Yep.
Are you fucking crazy? You do that?

Speaker 3 (47:59):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (47:59):
Because I'm fucking crazy, because I know.

Speaker 3 (48:03):
Look, in all honesty, it was to awareness for mental
health and suicidality, and it was there was a lot
more purpose behind it. And not only that, I wanted
my children to be proud of their dad, not to
you know, as time got on, as we are today,
google my name and just see blah blah blah blah.
You know, I wanted them to actually engage. I'm very
proud of your dad. And I have twenty six year old,
eighteen year old, fifteen year olds, so they're not young.

(48:25):
They're getting older. And as we know, anybody can google
anything these days. It's all there to be read. How
you take it is up to you. But the morning
I was leaving the Gold Coast Bulletin and fuck, I
can't stand them, and I mean it, I fucking despise
the Gold Coast Bulletin. They did an interview with me

(48:47):
about the right now in that ride. They was just
in that turning point I think of the new laws
coming in, and they were going on about, you know,
that Nike bikey style of biker and all this sort
of crap like whatever. They asked me a couple of
questions about the style of biker coming along now, you know,

(49:09):
because you know they're all looking big on the juice
and the big gold chains and said, fuck, you know what,
you know, one's bigger than the club sort of thing,
and you know, like it doesn't matter how much juice
you put in those needles you stick in your ass,
your heart's not going to grow any bigger. It was
something along those lines, mate, Did they take that out
of context? And next minute I'm leaving, I'm reading the

(49:30):
paper in the morning expecting this really nice editorial like say,
whatever about my past, But what I was actually doing,
why I was doing, what I was doing, who I
was representing, and what the purpose.

Speaker 1 (49:41):
Of my journey was was about that big in a
two page editorial.

Speaker 3 (49:46):
The rest was all about clubs, the laws changing, and
me stating that I think that the bikes today were
weak and they stick steroids in their ass to try
and intimidate, like completely reworded and blew it out of
proportion to the point where it would have had to
have pissed somebody off.

Speaker 1 (50:05):
And I'm thinking, are you fucking kidding? I'm about to
ride four five hundred kilometers with a car.

Speaker 3 (50:11):
Follow me one other bloke who's just the normal bloke
with a caravan, and I am a moving target heading
across this country in the most remote parts of this kind. Mate,
I could have just something laid in the grass, wouldn't
have even known and has put one straight through me
and just kept going.

Speaker 1 (50:26):
No one would have known any different.

Speaker 3 (50:28):
And I thought to myself at that stage that was
for me, that was like fuck this, you know what
I mean, the media can truly go fuck themselves. And
then you get the ABC, which did some fantastic editorials
and supported my right and basically anything I've done, even
with the podcast.

Speaker 1 (50:44):
You know, there's been some.

Speaker 3 (50:45):
Great reads there that they've really been supportive about, and
you appreciate those moments, so like, hey, there's good and
bad everywhere, isn't there?

Speaker 1 (50:55):
Well, there is, you know.

Speaker 4 (50:56):
And I think that the financial pressures on the media
are so great these days that they'll default towards, you know,
the old principle of no conflict, no interest sort of thing,
and happy stories don't rate, you know, and all this
type of stuff, and to be able to stir up conflict,
as I say, is much more commercial. And I guess
over my years of doing this, you know, I guess
I've seen that I've been part of it from time

(51:16):
to time.

Speaker 1 (51:17):
But you have your own journey in life, you have
your own children, and you want to be proud of
what you've done.

Speaker 4 (51:23):
And I find myself more and more, you know, I
want to get away from the stereotypical media stories about
crime and get to ones that you know, particularly, I'm
really happy when there's no other journalists around what I'm doing,
you know.

Speaker 1 (51:35):
And I found all the time in the clubs there
was never any other journalists. They didn't want to be there.
It was too hard, you know.

Speaker 4 (51:41):
And I found it was challenging because you'd be in
clubhouses with people at functions and whatnot and all this
sort of things, and no matter how much you felt
you were welcome, there was always one bloke in the room.

Speaker 1 (51:51):
Was giving you the dagger eyes.

Speaker 4 (51:52):
And my attitude was I got and say get I made,
I'm Adam Shann let's talk, you know, and usually usually
it worked out pretty well.

Speaker 1 (52:00):
And I just feel like.

Speaker 4 (52:01):
A lot a lot of journalists don't want to get
out into the field anymore. They have to stay in
the office and churn it out. So they're going to
take an easy, easy grab and just go with that.
And it's a real shame because I think, over my
I've had a fantastic life, full of adventure, full of intrigue,
full of challenges, and hundreds of thousands of high value

(52:21):
conversations the people that I respect, and I've got to
I've got to cast the characters I drag around behind me,
you know. And I've actually got a little posted in
the wall it says completion. There's about half a dozen
cases missing persons or murders or whatever that I want
to keep talking about as much as I possibly can.
And the new series Real Crumb, that bit of a
plug here, The real series, Real Cryme with Adam Sham

(52:43):
is going to go into that sort of stuff. It's
not going to be those stereotypical things. And like I've
seen so many journalists become. You know, there was a
book called dead Man Running about your club. Yes, yes, yes,
it was absolute bullshit. It was was absolute bullshit.

Speaker 3 (52:58):
I just yeah, I shook my head because I was
in the club when they brought that out, and I
was like, what the fuck?

Speaker 1 (53:04):
I'd they've even met the bloke and I've been in
the club. Whatever happened to him? Fuck the find who's
Johnny Utah? No? Hilarious, you know, And.

Speaker 4 (53:13):
That book sold so many copies, I'm telling you, you know,
because it in reinforced the stereotypes.

Speaker 1 (53:19):
You know, you don't go broke pushing that. But you know,
at the end of the day, have you done anything worthwhile?

Speaker 4 (53:24):
You know, you look at the end of your life
and here you're you're forty nine, right, you're actually a
young man. You think you're so ancient, Right, you've been
through all his experiences in jailor everything else. But your
greatest moments could just be ahead right where all this
comes together and you're able to not carry the backpack
of regret and anger and the stuff that's happened to you.

(53:46):
And if you can drop that off, I'm telling you
you can do anything.

Speaker 1 (53:49):
You know.

Speaker 4 (53:49):
I think that's the why I asked in my life
is I've been very lucky to be able to go
from one thing. And I'm really grateful to Jay who's
helped me get this podcast up as well, because he
understands the criminal world and you know, the storytelling aspect
of it, and I think it's an am You've done
an amazing thing, and I really I'm very proud of you, actually,
because I used to get very proud of people I

(54:10):
met in the club scene who had the insight, you know,
into their lives, you know, and they realized that I've
always been told about Oh you've got to be rehabilitated.

Speaker 1 (54:19):
They go, hang on, I've never been habilitated.

Speaker 4 (54:22):
I came from a situation where, you know, I never
had anything that's resembled a stable, safe home life. I
had to fight from day one, you know, I had
to suffer all these things.

Speaker 1 (54:32):
I've never been habilitated. So let's talk about that.

Speaker 3 (54:35):
And the thing is too, Adam, you know, like I
as a father, I've had to learn to be a father.
You know, I made mistakes as a father with my
oldest son, twenty six year old young man, who's an
amazing young man who unfortunately our relationship is quite distant.
And that's okay, that's his choice. It breaks my heart,
but I'll never give up and never stop trying. But

(54:56):
learning from that was to not make that same mistake
with mother three children, you know, and I have been
a very present father and vowed to you know, not
to go ever back down those roads. I don't need to,
you know, I don't regret it. I don't regret any
part of where I am. I wouldn't be here talking
to you if I did like it. Just that's life,

(55:16):
you know, They're the cards I was dealt with there
wasn't some nice times. There were some really fucking shit times.
There were some tough experiences. There was life and death situations,
But hey, you know, I've been kissed on the dick
a few times, and at the end of the day,
I'm I'm okay with who I am. You know, I
don't hold any skeletons in my closet. There's always going

(55:36):
to be people out there that've got something negative to
say about It. Doesn't matter what you do or how
good you are, what you try and change about you,
Someone's always going to pull you apart and still look
at you like you're a piece of shit, or say
you're a fucking dog because you talked on a podcast
to you a journalist, or like fuck off whatever.

Speaker 1 (55:53):
Mate.

Speaker 3 (55:53):
At the end of the day, I'm still who I was.
I choose to be a better man. I choose to
be a better human. I choose to be compassion I
choose to care. I choose to want to live a better, at, cleaner,
healthier life for the future of me and my children.
Because I can assure you now i'd be still in
jail doing life or dead. My children wouldn't be existing,
or they wouldn't have a father, the ones that were here.

(56:15):
So that's the reality of it, really plain and simple.
Now I still have great mates. Well when I say
great man, I don't talk to them all the time,
but if I've seen them, there'd be no issues. I
can still shake hands and have a hug. And you know,
if I wanted to have a beer, I'm welcomer. Those
things will always be there. If that ever sort of

(56:37):
popped up, you know what I mean, or was ever
in a position where we were bumped into each other,
whatever it might be. But do I choose to live
that life?

Speaker 1 (56:45):
No? And do I want to live a.

Speaker 3 (56:48):
Good life and a happy life and a life that
fulfills me and my family.

Speaker 1 (56:52):
Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (56:53):
One thing I've learned and you'll relate to this because
you were around.

Speaker 1 (56:57):
I'd sit there with three.

Speaker 3 (56:58):
Or four phones at one stage there for all different
reasons and purposes. And back in the day, that's do
you just sit at a table to talk in your phone?
To be just sitting there wanted ring, wonder ring, I'd
be on a plane overseas within twenty four hours, like
it just I'd be in another state.

Speaker 1 (57:12):
I'd be nothing, no one by love you. I see
when I get home.

Speaker 3 (57:16):
That's it, bagpack gone, that's it, full stop, nothing more said.
So learning to understand yourself, realizing that it's just you.

Speaker 1 (57:27):
No one gives a fuck the end of the day.
You are on your own.

Speaker 3 (57:30):
No one's coming to savior, and you've got to live
with purpose, my purpose, my children and my family and
doing what I'm passionate about, which is delivering these podcasts
and working very hard in a small business that I'm
trying to build as well, and pressure cleaning. There's always
room for improvement, but you've just got to try and
find that acceptance within yourself. I miss having a brotherhood,

(57:55):
But do I miss the politics?

Speaker 1 (57:57):
Do I miss the target on my back?

Speaker 3 (57:58):
No? Do I miss my door getting kicked in? Not
a minute of it. You know, when all this shit
went down, my kids were there. You know, they come
in ushah.

Speaker 1 (58:05):
Fuck. Would I ever wish that upon my children?

Speaker 3 (58:08):
And I've always been a little bit sort of I
found it hard to understand the generational thing within clubs.
I get it, but I just wouldn't want my children
to go through that life and live that life. And
that's not bagging anybody that makes those second or third

(58:29):
generational choices. That's the way they choose to live me personally,
that was my choice. That wasn't my children's choice. My
children's opportunities in this world are fucking so much greater
than mine ever were.

Speaker 1 (58:41):
They've got stability, they've got.

Speaker 3 (58:42):
A home, they've got mom and dad to their love,
they've got three good meals on the table, clothes on
their back.

Speaker 1 (58:47):
You know, they're safe. I didn't have any of that.

Speaker 3 (58:51):
Mine was to get out there and fair for yourself
and hope the fuck you survive.

Speaker 1 (58:55):
Yeah, you want to live it. You want your kids
to live a better life than you did.

Speaker 6 (58:58):
You know.

Speaker 4 (58:59):
One of my favorite old time crooks like called Wee
Jimmy Lloyd, who was one of the best shoplifters you've
ever heard to Britain in the sixties and robbed all
the big stores with a bunch of called the Kangaroo Gang. Right,
and Wee Jimmy never spent he had his first shilling, right,
he saved it all because he was always going to
put it into the education of his two sons who
are now like investment bankers or something, you know, high

(59:20):
flying types.

Speaker 1 (59:21):
You know, So he.

Speaker 4 (59:22):
Wasn't trying to create a multi generational Crime dynasty. He
was just trying to do better than his father had done,
and his kids were going to do better as well.
That's what you want, you know. I'm sorry you're blooming
with his son. I'd love to see you guys get together.
I'm actually bloomed my son at the money. He's thirty two,
and you know, he's just a beautiful guy, you know,
and he's actually mixed martial arts fighter. So I've got
to be careful what I say to him, you nobody,

(59:43):
but he's very at of restraint. But to talk about
this and life has lived in chapters, particularly as men,
you know. And I've seen a lot of people over
my time writing crime who've been in the criminal justice system.
They get to forty forty five and they go like,
what the actual fuck have I been doing?

Speaker 1 (59:59):
You know?

Speaker 4 (59:59):
And some of them can make that change, others curve,
but there is that moment of like, I don't need
to be doing this anymore. And I think, also, you know,
I got to be careful with this. But I often
hear this sort of this word brother thrown around, and
a lot of brotherhood and hugging and all that kind
of stuff, and you know, but I've got a very
few friends. I've kept my entire life right, very few,

(01:00:20):
you know, and even less than I would share certain
secrets with. And the fact is, you're in the dock
on your own. And I see some of these big
time crooks running around now. And I was talking to
someone this morning who's giving me some information. I must
be getting old, Brent, because I had a person called
me this morning and said, listen, I've got this really
hot information about so and so and so. I said,

(01:00:40):
I fucking don't want it. I just don't want it,
you know, Are you kidding me?

Speaker 1 (01:00:45):
No, I'm not doing that.

Speaker 4 (01:00:46):
And anyway, I said, the person that's going to give
them up is sitting right next.

Speaker 1 (01:00:50):
To him, now, yeah. Yeah, And that's the reality.

Speaker 4 (01:00:55):
So I think you've got to allow yourself to develop
and mature as men. I think it's really important. I
think maturity is such an issue for many young men
see him getting all these terrible situations, and I think
what you're doing in terms of mentoring and talking about
mental health and just having discussions around maleness and the
various aspects of that is really valuable. I think I've

(01:01:18):
been doing a kind of PhD in that myself over
the years and having these conversations invariably, you know, trying
to offer some useful advice from your own experience.

Speaker 3 (01:01:26):
You know, I'm really big at I'm on the look,
and I constantly say it. People get sick of it,
but it is the truth. Lived experience far out weighs
a university degree. You know, I've got a university degree
of the streets.

Speaker 1 (01:01:42):
And I'm grateful for it.

Speaker 3 (01:01:45):
You know, I still have traits and bad habits because
they're embedded in me. When I say that, you know,
like I'll always be the first one somewhere. You know,
I'm that punctual that you won't even know that I've
been there, and you know you may supposed to meet
me at that time. Well I've been there and I've
been waiting for you, and I'm watching every point and
angle and like just walk into a room reading a

(01:02:06):
room first thing, scanning the room, understanding who's around, what's around,
where are you?

Speaker 1 (01:02:10):
You know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (01:02:11):
These type of things are embedded. But that goes back
to beyond anything to do with club lot. That's just
childhood coming up on the streets and you know, survival.

Speaker 1 (01:02:21):
It's called hypervigilance.

Speaker 3 (01:02:22):
Yeah, and I still to this day. I mean, look,
I've lived a crazy life. I'm very blessed to be
here at forty nine. I didn't think i'd make it
this far now far out. If I walk out of
this studio and don't get to my car because someone's
wants to put me off, or if it's going to happen,
it's going to happen, I can't change it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:41):
Is that something I wish saw want No way in
the world.

Speaker 3 (01:02:44):
I'm going to get in my car and have a
safet trip home and go see my kids and make
sure my new fucking fridge gets delivered.

Speaker 1 (01:02:50):
But anyway, that's another story. Because it didn't get delivered.
God not delivered today. That's my biggest worry for the day.

Speaker 4 (01:02:56):
But see, there's also randomness to life's experiences too. I
call it the falling grand piano syndrome. You can think
everything's great in your life, everything's cooling, and suddenly a
piano falls on your fucking head, you know, and it
can happen, you know, so And the other reality is
that ninety percent of what you worry about never happens anyway.
But there's one certainly in life that does come to

(01:03:17):
an end. So I think you've got to not put
off those moments like making it better with your son.
I'd love to see that happen, by the way, you know,
I'm sure there's a way to do that.

Speaker 1 (01:03:25):
You know. Look, I'll never give up.

Speaker 3 (01:03:27):
And that's something that you know, I obviously say to
a lot of people to in this similar situation, and
it's very relevant. Keep sending the messages, keep making the
calls that don't get in its, just keep acknowledging, sending
that I love you, thinking of you. And look, there's
been moments there where he's reached out. It's been beautiful,
you know. But then, like I say, he's his own man.
I respect that. There's obviously a lot of traumas there

(01:03:50):
of me not being present and making wrong choices and
not being a dad as I should have been. And
I get it, and I sort of feel he probably,
you know, finds it hard looking at his three siblings
and how I am with them as opposed to why
wasn't I like that with him?

Speaker 1 (01:04:07):
And you know, that's just my observation, and I get
it and I.

Speaker 3 (01:04:10):
Respect it, and he's right, you know, I wasn't well
you know, not to justify it. And that was life
I needed to learn and unfortunately it cost me dealing
in that respect. So we all have to go through
things in life to find growth. And I feel that sometimes,
you know, whether you want to admit it or not.

(01:04:30):
And people say, you know, God gives the toughest challenge
only the strongest people. Well yeah, okay, I can accept
that too, But sometimes you do sit back and you go, fuck,
when when can I just have a break? When can
I breathe and just just enjoy me and enjoy what
I have in life and be humble and happy? You know,
Like I said, you know, I choose to be the

(01:04:50):
man I am today. I choose to be here right
in this moment. I choose to have probably two mates.
You know, my phone doesn't ring unless it's for unless
it's someone chasing money or for a client for work,
it doesn't ring. And it used to bother me because
I went from so many years of just you know,
every day there was something to do, brother to hang with,

(01:05:12):
you know, whatever. It was always something going on. I
wouldn't know what Arthur and Martha are doing if there
was no Instagram from on data the next because I
don't get in righted anywhere, no one calls, no one
checks in. It's like you just get to the point
you go, well, you know what matters. What matters is
my people, my family, my children, you know. And you

(01:05:36):
would have seen that over your years, the amount of
commitment that, oh, for sure gets put into you know,
the underworld or that way of life for you know,
the club life.

Speaker 1 (01:05:46):
It really is. It's it's big.

Speaker 3 (01:05:48):
And if you want to live that single life, and
if that's the life you choose, then hey, I mean
I'm not to judge anybody by any means. That's individually
your choice. These are my choices and for me, I'm
happy with that right now.

Speaker 4 (01:06:02):
So well, and I think also you're touching so many
people like I dare say to this, yeah, not like that,
touching their hearts, my.

Speaker 1 (01:06:13):
Friend, I accept that one. Thank you for correcting.

Speaker 4 (01:06:18):
But I mean, dare I say to your son's probably
listening to this, you know, if I regret to him,
you know, give the old amount of break, you know,
you know, give him a break and.

Speaker 1 (01:06:27):
Find that common ground.

Speaker 4 (01:06:29):
And I think that's what I've always I've loved these
conversations over the years of people you know, and you
try to play a positive role in people's lives, you know,
and particularly those from the underworld. One great story that's
coming up in our series. Actually, but I was in
an antique store in South normOn. I've actually watching that.
I collect vintage watches, you know, I've got each of them.
Oh wow, I love them, you know. I mean this

(01:06:51):
antique store and a lady rushes and said you're out,
and I said yeah. She said, well, you know, I
come from the underworld. I was one of four sisters.
Three of them died to heroin. I've been right to
the mill. I was almost stabbed to death by my partner.
I was a witness protection La la la Lah. I
want to tell my story. So as we're telling it,
she says, Oh, by the way, my father was a copper.

Speaker 1 (01:07:09):
Are you serious.

Speaker 4 (01:07:10):
He said, yeah, like mum was with this crook and
the copper come to arrest in put him in jail.

Speaker 1 (01:07:14):
The copper moved in on my mum.

Speaker 4 (01:07:15):
I was the product, and the crook gets out of jail,
comes after the copper. He disappears to Western Australia, never
to be seen again.

Speaker 1 (01:07:22):
I said, has anybody tried to find him? She says no.
I said, well, give me five minutes. I call.

Speaker 4 (01:07:27):
But my old mates who are in the same era.
Of course, we found him in half an hour.

Speaker 1 (01:07:30):
You know.

Speaker 7 (01:07:31):
I ring up and say, mate, I've just been with
your daughter. He's got like, I haven't got to do.
I said, yes, you do, Yes you do. I'm not
going to go away till you admit it, right, you go. Sure,
And he admitted it, and they got and they got reunited.
People ask me, like, what are the stories that I
love most. Those are the kind of yarns that I
like the most.

Speaker 4 (01:07:47):
I love that because you've made that singular impact on
one person's entire world.

Speaker 3 (01:07:52):
And that's a life, that's a life that's life changing.
It is, you know, And that's somebody who actually takes
pride in the job.

Speaker 4 (01:08:02):
Got it out at the moment where a lady who
was abused her stepfather for three years from eight till eleven,
the mother actually put her in foster care because she
wanted to save her marriage.

Speaker 1 (01:08:11):
Right, you imagine that.

Speaker 4 (01:08:12):
And the guy was he was arrested at the time
because the school got involved and they actually questioned him.

Speaker 1 (01:08:18):
He was let off.

Speaker 4 (01:08:19):
Right, Nothing happens for years and years and years, she's
putting her mother in care because you got dementia, goes
through the house, finds the entire file, right, and she's
called me and said, what do I do it?

Speaker 1 (01:08:30):
I said, we go fucking hard.

Speaker 4 (01:08:31):
That's what we do, you know, And you know, getting
the cops involved, find the offender. He's still around, you know,
So these things you can do more than you think.
And I think the power of conversation, the power of
talking to people, the power of taking action in your
life is so profound. And I see a lot of crooks.
You talk about people having life of regret in their marked,

(01:08:52):
you know, because of what they've done. You can change it,
you know. I've seen some extraordinary transformations.

Speaker 1 (01:08:58):
You definitely can.

Speaker 3 (01:08:59):
And I think as long as you remain headstrong about
what it is that you truly want to do and
you don't bullsh it yourself, then you can achieve anything.
And look, I I love what I do with this platform,
you know, like I keep it as raw as real,
and like I say, there's people out there that have
got I don't like it. Change the fucking channel, Like

(01:09:19):
you don't have to be here. I'm not asking it
to be here. I appreciate everybody that takes an interest.
But if you don't like what you hear or you've
got something negative say, then fuck off. Like there's other
people you might be interested in elsewhere. That's where we're different.
I want if they hate it, that have to stay listening.

Speaker 1 (01:09:34):
I want to stay listening because you can't be all
the time. They end up staying anyway.

Speaker 3 (01:09:39):
They don't get addicted, they can't help themselves. They get nay,
they want to fucking know what's coming and what's going.
It's look at the end of the day that it's
people are bad creatures of habit you know. And this
this is a cold hard fact, and this is why
things happen the way they do. And a lot of
the times so easy because people are creatures that have it.

Speaker 1 (01:10:00):
It's embedded in it.

Speaker 3 (01:10:01):
It's not until you assess it, think about it, or
I have had to live differently around that.

Speaker 1 (01:10:05):
It's just natural. We just do things habitually.

Speaker 3 (01:10:09):
Oh, it's very easy to find what you need to
find sometimes because of that reason.

Speaker 1 (01:10:14):
But in saying that, make change be the change. You know.
If you if you want something to be different, fuck
just do it.

Speaker 4 (01:10:24):
But also putting yourself in a vulnerable place, parking your ego,
learning humility, like I've been with clubbies, Like if someone
looked at them wrong way, they're out in the car
park having a crack, you know, and they find themselves
in custody at the end of the night because they
couldn't cop somebody having a negative expression at them. So
I think doing media and podcast in particular podcasting, because

(01:10:47):
it is so forward facing into the audience. You know,
people will give you that reaction and they will tell
you what they think they and you know what type
of stuff. And I think it is it is difficult
for people to accept that. And the media particularly has
traditionally been in an ivory tower, separated from the audio,
the authority and get away of all kinds of things

(01:11:07):
where they can't get away with that in this in
this sphere. And I think it's a tremendous thing.

Speaker 1 (01:11:12):
I must say, I agree with you totally.

Speaker 3 (01:11:14):
And I've had some very good conversations in the last
couple of seasons with some very high profile people from
all walks of life, which I'm sure that.

Speaker 1 (01:11:24):
You're aware of, and I've enjoyed every one of them.

Speaker 3 (01:11:26):
And you know the reality is when it all comes
down to the final point.

Speaker 1 (01:11:33):
We're all really the same.

Speaker 3 (01:11:35):
We're just trying to do our best, and we're all
just trying to you know, as long as you live
by some sort of moral code, you know, and you're
not some woman bash and pedophile, scumbag, fucking dog, then
you're not doing anything wrong, you know what I mean.
Like and look, I had a great interview with Gary Jubilant, you.

Speaker 1 (01:11:57):
Know what I mean. And you know.

Speaker 3 (01:11:59):
We literally eat a two part episode that brought two
men to be able to sit at a table at
the end of the second episode and realize he was
just doing his best at what he was doing. I
was doing the best at what I was doing, but
we both lost everything in between.

Speaker 1 (01:12:15):
Yep, you know, so does that Yeah? Yeah, and yeah
it really is.

Speaker 3 (01:12:22):
Once you sit down and you start to actually use
your brain and have a think, Yeah, life can be
That's right.

Speaker 4 (01:12:28):
I mean, i'mber doing a show on SBS about bikers
back in the day, and we had a bunch of
people that I helped come on, plus the head of
the biking squads in a couple of states, And I
remember the next day we went over night when we
had breakfast and they're all chatting to each other at
the breakfast buffet, you know, and they were just like
your natural enemies here, but and you're now finding that

(01:12:49):
common grant a bit like.

Speaker 1 (01:12:50):
The road runner and the coyote. You know, they actually
need each other.

Speaker 3 (01:12:53):
They do.

Speaker 1 (01:12:54):
There's no story without the both of them, No, there's not.

Speaker 3 (01:12:57):
And I'll tell you what, Adam, I would love to
actually have you on again at some stage and we
go into a part two because we could talk for hours.
I am going to have to wind it up a
little bit now because I have a long trip ahead
of me back down the end one into all the
wonderful traffic from Brisbane. But mate, I do want to
say thank you very much for you coming on this
afternoon and the informative chat. I know that there's, like

(01:13:20):
I said, there is a lot more. I really would
love to sit down and chat with you further about
and maybe we can have an off and off the
cuff chat and move into a phase two of the
Clink or vice versa. But I'm truly grateful for you
taking the time to come on here and give us
some sort of insight from a media point of view,
from your lived experience of thirty years as a crime reporter.

Speaker 4 (01:13:42):
Absolute pleasure, Brent. I'll get you on my show. How'd
that be known? Wemendous.

Speaker 1 (01:13:47):
We can do that and I would be absolutely honored.

Speaker 3 (01:13:50):
So feel free to reach out to our team and yeah,
we'll go from there. But from me, mate, I want
to say thank you very much, and next time, let's
go into a part two and.

Speaker 1 (01:14:02):
Divulge a little bit further into the life of the
cron Rider. You're wrong, Thanks buddy, Thank you night cheez.

Speaker 2 (01:14:10):
For the record, I'm done trying to make y'all comfortable
for the record. You ain't trying to grow any stuff
for your pride for the record, laugh on me going
all the way for the record. Ain't trying to link
no time to waste.

Speaker 6 (01:14:23):
For the record, for the record, for the for the record,
for the record, for the record, for the record.

Speaker 3 (01:14:45):
H