Partner to predator, my sovereign citizen ex: Scott Murrin Pt.1

Scott Murrin’s ex Helen Delaney is a sovereign citizen who has relentlessly stalked his family and tried to kidnap his sons. For years, Scott has been fighting to keep his two boys safe from their mother, and he’s not about to give up. He joins Gary Jubelin to share how his ex became a sovereign citizen group founder, the threats and fake arrest warrants he’s received, and the toll it’s taken on his young family.

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Detective sy aside of life the average person is never
exposed to. I spent thirty four years as a cop.
For twenty five of those years I was catching killers.
That's what I did for a living. I was a
homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead,
I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.

(00:23):
The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories
from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some
of the content and language might be confronting. That's because
no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged.
Join me now as I take you into this world.

(00:46):
Who the hell are these sovereign citizens? What do they
stand for? Why are we talking about them? And are
they something we should be concerned about. Recently, two police
officers were killed in Victoria, allegedly by a person who
identify himself as a sovereign citizen. At the time of recording,
that man is still on the run. In twenty twenty two,

(01:07):
two other police officers were shot and killed in Queensland
by Gareth Train who supported the Sovereign Citizen movement. So yes,
I think we should be concerned by the Sovereign Citizen
movement today. I spake to Scott Man. Scott's former partner,
Helen Delaney, is a co founder and self proclaimed leader
of the Sovereign Citizen group Nam Dhaka Dhala australis also

(01:31):
known as NDA. You're going to be shocked by what
he has to say and what has happened to him
and his children, including his concerns of the children being kidnapped.
Scott now has sole custody of his children, but he's
living in fear every day that they might be taken
from him. It's not the way you want to live
your life. Our conversation gave me a greater understanding of

(01:54):
what the Sovereign Citizen movement is all about and the
dangers we face when ideologies become extreme. It's really quite scary.
Scott Murran, welcome to our Catch Killers.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
Thanks, Garret. It's a pleasure.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
Well I'm guessing here, but I think you'd prefer to
be listening to a podcast, a true crime podcast, and
being the guest on a true christ Yes. Yeah, but
life hasn't turned out that way, has it with things
that you've been through.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
We're going to be touching because your wife and a
former wife, Helen Delaney, got involved in a sovereign citizen
movement and that sort of your life was never the same.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Following that until this day.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
So we're going to talk about it. And people would
have have recent times heard of sovereign citizens coming into
the narrative, recent shooting of two police officers down in
Victoria with a person who identified as a sovereign citizen,
And I don't know, maybe your perspective is completely different

(02:57):
because what you've been through, But when you ago, i'd
see someone who claimed to be a sovereign citizen, I'd
have a bit of a chuckle and think it's all harmless.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yeah that was me at the beginning too. Yeah, they're
just clowns, is what I thought. Yeah, but the further
you delve into what they put online and their communication
with each other, it's a very serious matter. And when
you get to a point of threatening to take somebody's children,
I treat that very seriously.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
Yeah, it's definitely, and that's where the ideology when they
start acting on their ideology, and it becomes transfixed on it,
it can become problematic. Before we get into our conversation,
I should clarify here your former wife, Helen Delaney, has
been convicted at court for eleven counts of breaching an
AVA and one count of intimidation.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
That's correct, Yep, that is correct.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
Yeah, Okay, we're going to talk about what happened to
you and the journey you've been on and protecting your children,
but we're also going to talk about sovereign citizens in general,
and I probably should. We'll talk about like while I
recently what I mentioned about the two police officers in
Victoria who were murdered, and then in twenty twenty two

(04:13):
there was two other police officers who were murdered when
they were shot by a person who identified with sovereign
citizen ideology. I think his name was Gareth Traine. Yes,
that was in twenty twenty two. So, just as by
way of a disclaimer, I need to make it very
clear we're not suggesting all sovereign citizens are capable of
committing such horrendous crimes or Helen. Then the nam Daka

(04:37):
Dahalia Australias, which is the sovereign citizen.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
Group, it was a group that she formed, Yes, yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
That she formed for that matter of linked or would
carry out crimes of that nature. So I just sort
of put that on record. But I think it's worthwhile
talking about crimes like that and how they are linked
to people with these sovereign citizen beliefs and ideology.

Speaker 2 (04:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:58):
I agree, because the first time I've heard about it,
or the first time it really became part of my understanding,
was during COVID, where people were coming out and they
were pushing against the powers of the state and the
lockdown laws and the mandatory vaccinations and all the type
of things that people were generally concerned about.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
Yeah, they also go under the monarch of freedom fighters
because sovereign citizen is an oxymoron. You can't be a
sovereign and a citizen. You'll hear them say that a lot.

Speaker 1 (05:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:30):
Yeah. And it's not just one group. There's a whole
ranger groups that we've come across. Ye, And they just
they meet online, they talk in secret chat rooms and
to me, have whatever thoughts or beliefs or ideologies you want.
But when you start acting on them and you start
including people's children, yeah, it's game on for me.

Speaker 1 (05:52):
Well that's where they cross the line with the impact
that it's had on you. And we're going to get
deep dive into that. And you say, oxymoron about sovereign citizens.
I want to when maybe we do it in part two,
just you know, sort of pick apart some of the
philosophies of a sovereign citizen because it doesn't seem to
add up to one thing that what they're they're claiming,

(06:14):
and then how they're living their life. So we'll have
a look at that. Tell me a little bit just
about your background, so people listening to the podcast understand
where you can.

Speaker 2 (06:24):
Before this, I was just a pretty simple living sort
of person. Grew up in housing commission in Globe Yep.
You know, got an education there. As I mentioned to
you before that you don't get in school. I think
you've had people.

Speaker 1 (06:40):
I'm just just focusing through who would you know, because yeah, Gleb, it.

Speaker 2 (06:44):
Was a lot of them.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
It was. It was a tough, tough neighborhood to grow
up on.

Speaker 2 (06:49):
Yeah, and before it became a trendy in the western
yeah suburb it was the projects, So it was a
tough place to grow up.

Speaker 1 (06:57):
Well, yeah, you've identified that you wouldn't be the first
guess that sat in that chair that grew up up
round the globe. Okay, so that was your childhood and
then into adulthood.

Speaker 2 (07:09):
Yeah, just sort of got wasn't that into school? So
I got out of school in year ten and I
started an apprenticeship. I sort of did that for a
while three years, discovered girls and through the apprenticeship away
and just pretty.

Speaker 1 (07:25):
Much make some great decisions at that age.

Speaker 2 (07:28):
Me and women. It's a big drama, but yeah, I
just sort of have been from job to job very much. Yeah, okay,
whatever I had to do.

Speaker 1 (07:37):
Now, you've had from your first wife, I understand that
you had had a child, yeah, her first wife.

Speaker 2 (07:44):
Yeah, I've got a daughter that's twenty seven. Yeah, she's
a psychologist, which has been helpful through this. And then yeah,
series of failed relationships after that, some of which I
was probably to blame for.

Speaker 1 (07:56):
Gary, Okay, let's break the hat right down. I've never
had admissions like that.

Speaker 2 (08:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:01):
Now, I understand like relationships are complicated, and yeah, they
when they fall apart, that things can deteriorate rather quickly.
But there's always two sides to the story.

Speaker 2 (08:11):
Yeah, never quite like this one.

Speaker 1 (08:13):
No, I've got to say, like, I've made some mistakes
in relationships as well, but I don't think I've gone
down as bad as you have in what's happened with
your relationship with Helen? Yeah, so when did you get
with Helen?

Speaker 2 (08:30):
So I was working as a security guard YEP in Sydney,
doing some very interesting work in that alone, and we
just I met. I was sort of like, I'm working,
you know, up until one hundred hours a week, no
time to meet anybody. Didn't feel like I was going
to meet my future wife on a nightclub door. And
then after that I sort of just started to look

(08:53):
into that internet dating and we clicked through that. At
the time, she was a film producer, working on big
stuff like Superman, The Matrix, that sort of stuff, pretty good,
making quite successful. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then once we
discovered we had a child on the way, my oldest son.

(09:16):
She had a home up in Newcastle, so I was
able to get work up there with the same company
I worked for, and we went to Newcastle and I
worked in the advertising business as a producer, and I
was working nights so I could be daddy day care
during the day. Yeah, and Newcastle beautiful spot. It was great. Yeah,
I thought we'd live there forever. And then my mum,

(09:39):
who's ninety five and still lives with me today. She
was in the family home down the coast and she
sort of got to a stage in life where she
needed help. She didn't want to go into a nursing home,
and I made a promise that, you know, I wouldn't
do that, So we shifted down there, and shortly after,

(10:01):
oh no, sorry, we had Grace, who I mentioned to
you before we lost the child.

Speaker 1 (10:06):
Yeah, she was a spine.

Speaker 2 (10:08):
Yeah, so they didn't find out until very late in
the pregnancy. So we had to go through the birth
of Grace and she didn't survive that day, which was tough.

Speaker 1 (10:19):
A lot of trauma associated with a situation.

Speaker 2 (10:22):
Like yeah, yeah, very tough. First time I did counseling
was kids and kids.

Speaker 1 (10:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (10:27):
I used to believe that was all, you know, spooks
and widows. But yeah, it helped me get through that.
We shifted down to live with mum, sort of start fresh,
and along come my third son. And after the birth
of my third son, we sort of I was working,
but she wanted to go back to work. She went

(10:48):
back to work and again, I went back into the
role of daddy daycare.

Speaker 1 (10:51):
Yeah, and how did you find that like it?

Speaker 2 (10:54):
Loved it? Yeah, yeah, loved it. Sometimes the only bloke
at the park with all the mums and the stroll
and stuff, But yeah I did. I loved it.

Speaker 1 (11:01):
Yeah, there's there's a lot said for it, isn't Yeah
you've done something like that. Yeah, I know some friends
that have gone down that path, and yeah I didn't
have that our rewarding it is.

Speaker 2 (11:11):
Yeah, I didn't have it with my daughter. But I'm
a strong believer in that tummy time. So straight after
all of my children were born, I did that tummy time.

Speaker 1 (11:21):
Spent spending time with the kid.

Speaker 2 (11:24):
Yeah. Yeah, and I for me, that just gives us
an unbreakable bond, which you know still there today.

Speaker 1 (11:32):
It's shown through. Okay. So it was a fairly every
when I say average life, it was a life that
you were living and a simple life, and you everything
was going well at that stage.

Speaker 3 (11:44):
And then when did it start to So when she
went back in the relationship, when she went back to work,
she became a real estate agent, selling land in a subdivision.

Speaker 2 (11:55):
And it was just at the time real estate was
really slow where we live, and then there was a
boom and I think she claimed one day to have
sold twelve million dollars worth of property record sales day,
that sort of thing. And you know, she was good
at what she did. Cut from that, Yes, life was good. Yeah, yeah,
and she sort of that was where it started. She

(12:16):
wanted to get into property investing in when we bought
a couple of properties like I mentioned too before, and
that was out of equity within my family home, having
lost a home earlier in life through another interesting relationship
which was right next door to the property that I
now live in.

Speaker 1 (12:36):
Scott Maybe we should talk off camera. I had a
tendency to and I should reveal this, But anyway, I'm
asking you a lot of questions. I had a tendency
to buy property in the in the peak and selling
the slump. And I worked out if I had adjusted
my relationships by two years, I would have been buying

(12:58):
in the slump and selling in the I would have
a lot more money.

Speaker 2 (13:00):
From when I was thirty till today. Financially, I have
just made a mess of my life in terms of
property and women.

Speaker 1 (13:08):
Well, well it happens, so yeah, I'm certainly not sitting
here in judgment of you, I wanted to talk. We've
got a sense of the relationship at this stage. Now
i'll talk specifically about Helen a little bit more detail
about it, but before we do, just so that our
listeners and can get a sense of what we're talking about,

(13:30):
because she, how would I put this, became rather notorious
is probably the best word. When she featured on a
YouTube sensation when she's been arrested by police and refused
to abide by their decisions. And I just want to
play that, and then we'll talk about Helen in more detail, sure,

(13:53):
because this will give people a sense of what we're
talking about. I should clarify this is after you've separated
from her. This is down the track when she's very
much embroiled and caught up in the sovereign citizen.

Speaker 4 (14:07):
Okay, on this land, I'll look at arrest you absolutely
what we are not driving, We are traveling. You guys
don't even know what you'se are on about. I need
your most senior, most JEU. We'll bring your most senior

(14:28):
sergeant down.

Speaker 1 (14:28):
Sir.

Speaker 4 (14:29):
You prode details, you will be arrested. We don't have
to give you any details. There is any you will
commit offense, You'll be liable for it. It is absolutely trespassed.
You've got no jurisdiction here, Bro, you're committing offense by
standing here, Yes you are. You don't know, you don't

(14:50):
have any jurisdiction on this on this land. I'll look
at arrest you absolutely, man. I would love to just
get you one on one.

Speaker 1 (15:02):
Drive you.

Speaker 2 (15:05):
To the vehicle under arrest.

Speaker 1 (15:07):
Okay, so what we what we just watched there? Helen
was the driver of the vehicle. Police have stopped her.
The aggressive man's voice you can hear that was a
passenger in the in the vehicle at the time. Helen
was stopped and claimed that the police or you know
in summary, that had no authority over her because she

(15:27):
identified as a sovereign sovereign citizen. Were you shocked when
you saw that?

Speaker 2 (15:32):
Yeah, that's not the person that I spent ten years
of my life with and had three children to. Yeah,
a completely different person.

Speaker 1 (15:39):
Because I remember remember seeing seeing that and it sawt
of where it goes from a little bit funny to
a little bit more serious. Now she was arrested on that.
I think there were some warrants in existence, and I
know the police come under criticism and ripping the window
out because what we saw on the video was the
police officer actually ripped the front driver's window out and

(16:03):
smashed it. But what the police to do in that
situation if someone's not recognizing their power, they can't they
don't know what's in the car. They can't just person
person drive off. So that's sort of for I played
that because I want people to understand the difference between
what Helen was when you first met her, or the
type of person that she was, to what she evolved.

Speaker 2 (16:26):
Into essentially two different people.

Speaker 1 (16:29):
Yeah, this is what Helen's got involved in. How long
were you guys together?

Speaker 2 (16:35):
Ten years?

Speaker 1 (16:36):
Ten years all up? And when you separated? When was that?
How long you separated after ten years or were before then? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (16:45):
Just before ten years we separated and it was amicable
at the start, fifty to fifty custody of the boys.
We didn't go to court.

Speaker 1 (16:53):
You're doing the seven days on, seven days off type.

Speaker 2 (16:56):
Scene, how I was, Yeah, Yeah, and the children are happy.
They went to the same We lived a suburb apart.
Everything was fine until I believe Christmas. I couldn't recall
a year, but they basically the children were eight and
eleven I think at the time, and the kids come

(17:16):
to me on Christmas Eve I believe it was, and said, oh,
we're moving to Sydney and I said, that's news to me.
So that was kind of the beginning of where we
went off the edge of the cliff.

Speaker 1 (17:27):
Okay, yeah, So up until this point it was an
amicable separation.

Speaker 2 (17:31):
Hady courts, property finances. Everything we did what they call
is a binding financial agreement. Yeah yeah, and yeah, we're all.

Speaker 1 (17:39):
Happy and living close proximity, so the kids' lives weren't
messed up too much prior to that separation. And something
around the time of the separation, Helen started to become
in her mind a property guru is my reading of it.
Also started listening to the self help but what's his name,

(18:02):
Matte So.

Speaker 2 (18:03):
It was Gary Vanderchuk. Yeah, he's yeah, I think another
one of Listen Jane Clarkson something, and she started to
really push that towards me. You know, we could be
sitting on a yacht in the Greek Isles and doing
this and that's people that know me. That's not me, Gary,
I win Lotto. I'm probably shouting the boys down the

(18:25):
pub I'm not sitting at a super yacht. So yeah,
she became obsessed with she wanted five properties in five years.
As I mentioned to her before, she we had two properties.
They were out of the equity in my family home.
And I just wasn't going to do five properties in
five years. I'm a bit more risk averse than that.

(18:46):
And what I said to her, well, what she said
to me was, you know, you're a glass half full person.
You don't want anything better in life. And I was like,
when you met me, this is the person I was.
You're not going to change me into something I'm not.
I don't want to beat it rich and famous.

Speaker 1 (19:02):
You can see how that would wear thin on the
relationship or put cracks in the relationship. But I get
the sense, and I'm asking, I'm not saying, but the
sense that I get is that she really bought into it.
I liken it too. You know when m Way salesman
used to come around and a friend had get caught
up in it and there yeah, suddenly, yeah, yeah, I'm

(19:24):
going to take over the world and this is the
best thing. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:27):
Interestingly, she took me along to one of the meetings
and we were sitting there and I thought they were
rushes all there on one side. They're in the dark,
and these people were sort of saying, oh, listen, we're
gonna we can do this for you, and then you've
got to buy a tape off them, you know, and
then if you pay a bit more, you're on the

(19:48):
platinum level. And as they turn the lights on, all
these ushes were standing there with not coffee and tea,
they were standing there with FPOs machines. And he goes
the first fifty people, you know, we'll get this steel
for four eight hundred dollars or something, and I think
I even put my hand on a leg and I
just said, we're not doing that, and she goes, I

(20:09):
already got the early bird price. I've gone and spent
four and a half greend or whatever.

Speaker 1 (20:15):
Yeah, it's interesting, but this is all going in the
whole psychology of how people get caught up in ideologies,
because I've been to and it was over in Western Australia.
For the life of me, I can't remember what the
name of it was, but it was on the weekend Saturday,
and it was all people up there saying this, you know,
the world's roy so you can have an I don't

(20:35):
think and if you just believe and exactly the same thing,
not in seeing there with the lights off, but people
ready to sign up if you get in early. And
I watched people get up and literally run to the
air where.

Speaker 2 (20:48):
You know, like a rock concert. They were actually knocking
each other over to get over there and put the
credit card on the machine.

Speaker 1 (20:54):
I found it entertaining and it was slightly humorous, but
it was also it shocked me. But I think there
in lies where people might be susceptible to getting caught
up in the ideology of a sovereign citizen. They got
that susceptibility to get into their mind and go, that's
what I'm missing, that's what I'm looking for.

Speaker 2 (21:14):
Yeah, and to me, I'm adding up, you know, five
grand per twenty people, and then you know, the first
fifty I'm going, this is a pretty good earn for
a day, you know. And then we went to the
Sydney one that was around the country, all major capitals,
and I was just like, no, this is not I'm
not doing this. That's when I started to get the
feelings of losing the family home. Something mild men worked

(21:37):
every weekend to get us out of housing commission and
give us a better life.

Speaker 1 (21:41):
Understandable.

Speaker 2 (21:42):
So I wasn't going to lose that, hay, And you.

Speaker 1 (21:44):
Get it drummed into you that you've got to have
a roof over your head. One is she tripped over
to America pursuing this type of stuff as well.

Speaker 2 (21:52):
Yeah, that was that was when I called quits on
the relationship. So she booked a trip to America. Good
friend to mine did some research and said she's paid
like four or five grand for a ticket to this
three day event, and off she went, you know, And
as she went out the door that morning, I said,
when you get back, relationships finished, will sort out what

(22:14):
we have to do with the kids in the properties.
But I'm not going on this journey with you. Yeah, okay.

Speaker 1 (22:20):
So the separation then, so it was her life was
heading in a different direction. You wanted to keep the
life that you would work, simple life, and okay, so
you separate. So I understand that. Then it comes to
that Christmas Eve where the kids have said we're moving,
which is a devastating thing.

Speaker 2 (22:41):
Like the timing was incredible.

Speaker 1 (22:43):
Yeah yeah, but like that is where that's where people
lose their shit over, Like when the kids have been
moved in the state or a long way away when
they've been living close and then's yeah, it doesn't do
anyone any good.

Speaker 2 (22:56):
Now, and to put your clear on that go. What
happened was my son asked me to go and talk
to his mother who was next door, and say, you know,
I don't I don't want to go.

Speaker 1 (23:06):
How I was his son at the time.

Speaker 2 (23:08):
He was around ten or eleven, okay to their friends. No,
he was going into year six at primary school, you know,
formal at the end, all his friends that sort of.
He didn't want to leave, and she basically told me
I was being abusive. Was sitting at a table having
a conversation. My son was present, and I said, look,
I'm just going to leave. This is not my home

(23:29):
or walk outside. It was a mother's house at the time,
and she convinced my son to stay with her for
the night. The next morning he said, we're going to Sydney.
I've changed my mind. I was like, mate, that's a
big change. But not wanting to have the kids torn
between mum and.

Speaker 1 (23:48):
Dad, I understand it.

Speaker 2 (23:49):
Yeah, I just said, you know, if you're going to go,
then when you go. If they don't want to be
there they come back.

Speaker 1 (23:57):
You know.

Speaker 2 (23:57):
That was probably the first mistake I made, big mistake, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (24:01):
Because it was a number of days or a period
of time before you saw or heard from the kids again.

Speaker 2 (24:06):
Yeah, And I saw them sporadically over that time. Sometimes
it was fortnightly, sometimes it was monthly. But also not
wanting to upset the kids. They were put into forty teams.
They love their footing, and they were you know, they
had a game on or there was always something or
I was working.

Speaker 1 (24:23):
So when the kid and we're talking, what three hours
away from where you were living.

Speaker 2 (24:27):
Yeah, Yeah, they moved to Dremoyne, Sydney.

Speaker 1 (24:30):
So it's something that you couldn't facilitate, not feasible for
them to play football up there and be at yours
on the.

Speaker 2 (24:37):
Week Yeah, otherwise are going to spend every weekend in
the car. Yeah, and the youngest one doesn't like sitting
in the car for more than ten minutes. So it's
a big ass. So I had to take a bit
of a backward step there for a while.

Speaker 1 (24:48):
Okay, So what was the next thing that happened in
this situation?

Speaker 2 (24:53):
Then one easter a bit further down the track, the
kids were getting harder to contact. This is around the
time of the Lismore floods.

Speaker 1 (25:00):
Okay, So what period of time has expired from when
they moved to Sydney to when it was getting harder
to contact?

Speaker 2 (25:07):
Someone was in year six and then went into year seven,
so we're talking within twelve months.

Speaker 1 (25:11):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (25:12):
Yeah, I found out they were up in Lizmore the
liz More floods. They told me on the phone. You know,
I'm helping, we're helping to get money.

Speaker 1 (25:20):
You thought they were still living at Sydney.

Speaker 2 (25:22):
Yeah, no knowledge.

Speaker 1 (25:23):
So they're up at the Lizmore floods yep.

Speaker 2 (25:25):
Yeah. And the person that's in the car with Helen there,
he's been sort of a pivotal role in where she's
been at times.

Speaker 1 (25:34):
You referred to that. That was the voice that we
heard when Helen was arrested on the video. So he's
been a fixture in her life certainly.

Speaker 2 (25:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (25:43):
Okay, So your kids are up in liz Moore around
the time of the Lizmore floods and what were they
doing up there?

Speaker 2 (25:50):
Well, you know, Brion might have found out a lot
of this down the track, but they were going around
getting donations and things like that. For to help people
out in the angerble camp. Yeah, that's where that person
we've mentioned before was living. And the kids we're living,
sometimes sleeping in their car, sometimes in tin shacks.

Speaker 1 (26:14):
How old were the kids then.

Speaker 2 (26:16):
So still around that same age of eight or nine
years of age, and then the eldest one was about
eleven twelve.

Speaker 1 (26:22):
Okay. Now I can only imagine from your point of
view how concerning it would be that you're losing touch
with your kids. I'm assuming you didn't have a lot
of direct contact with Helen at that time.

Speaker 2 (26:34):
Not a lot, just emails mainly and the odd text message.
But I quickly worked out it wasn't a lot of
truth in what she was saying was happening and what
was actually happening.

Speaker 1 (26:44):
And in that period of time, did you get the
weekends with the kids or school holidays?

Speaker 2 (26:49):
Yeah? On and off. The kids come to me one Christmas,
this is around the time of the Canbra protests. Yeah,
and we met sort of halfway between Camber and where
I live. The kids got in the car Gary and
they smelt that badly that I did the fifty k
trip back home of all four windows down and chucked

(27:09):
them in the shower as soon as I got them home.

Speaker 1 (27:11):
Right now, when you say it smelt badly, as in
they hadn't been bathing.

Speaker 2 (27:15):
Just any somebody that's sleeping, sleeping rough Yeah, yeah, yeah,
they looked terrible. They didn't look like my kids.

Speaker 1 (27:23):
How did you feel as a father there?

Speaker 2 (27:25):
I was gutted, Yeah, and remembering that they're not in
my custody yet at that stage. So that's when I'm
starting to think was.

Speaker 1 (27:32):
There any order? Was there any order at that stage
of the custody or it's still yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:36):
No there was, there was none. So the kids appeared
in a news clip when the fires happened in Old
Parliament House.

Speaker 1 (27:45):
Okay, now we're talking about the protests at the Parliament
House in the tenth Embassy. Is that the process we're
talking about when there were attempts to set Old Parliament
a light or that's how it was reported something?

Speaker 2 (27:58):
Yeah, And as I'm sure you from the photo I
sent you, my two boys were right there front and center.

Speaker 1 (28:04):
So how did you discover that?

Speaker 2 (28:08):
I believe it was my daughter called me and said
because I'd actually made contact with Helen's mum, who I
got on very well with, and I said, I don't
want the children going to Canberra. Yeah, I can't see
him to talk any sense into her. I don't want
them at the protests. They're becoming violent. She said she's
not there, and I said, I've just had a phone
call that the kids are there, you know, and I

(28:30):
remember the words very clearly Gary. I said to her,
I'm going to take those children away from her.

Speaker 1 (28:35):
Yeah, and okay, so I can see you concern caught
up in that environment. I then picking them up and yeah,
as you describe, smelling obviously not being looked after properly. Yeah,
so what do you do in that situation? Mat?

Speaker 2 (28:51):
I went straight into the nearest police station and said,
my kids are in Canberra at this stuff. How do
I get them back? And I'm sure you probably remember
from policing days nobody likes being on the front desk.

Speaker 1 (29:04):
Would have been ducking for ducking for cover.

Speaker 2 (29:06):
Yeah, yeah, and so pretty much got what can we do?
Contact the Federal police. So I did that and they
said we're aware that there's the kids were actually staying
at that time in the ten embassy down there. More
and more stuff was, you know, people are ringing me
and saying I'm seeing your kids on TV and things
like that. It just got to a I started the panic,

(29:29):
I guess, so I wrung the federal police. They said, yeah,
we were aware of these kids in amongst this. What
do you want us to do? Just storm on in
there and pick your kids up? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (29:39):
Well, who else do you go to if you can't
get to the police? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (29:43):
Yeah, And I want to make clear from the start, Garrier,
I'm not here to bash the police, the local police
and the police that I've dealt with throughout this, and
I've dealt with a lot. Yeah, have been fantastic. I've
had police that have been off duty coming reach me
in the shops multiple times and just ask how the

(30:03):
boys are going, because they've been on the journey with us,
they know how crazy it's gotten. And yeah, I appreciate that.

Speaker 1 (30:10):
You know, how did you make the reconnection with the kids?
How did you get the boys? Boys back?

Speaker 2 (30:16):
So after that, I went to the nearest lawyer's office
in town Lucky. I stumbled into a good one and
I said, what do I do? This is what's going on.
They said, you know, have you got the money for
It's expensive, as lawyers are, and I said, yeah, I'll
find the money. You know, what do we do? How

(30:37):
do we How do I get my children back? I
was told pretty much it's very difficult, particularly if you're
a dad trying to get the kids back from the mum.
And I did an initial interview again. At this stage
I only knew little bits and pieces. I didn't know
a lot. And then fast forward from there to east

(30:58):
of school holidays. The two boys come to stay with me,
and my eldest son said, Dad, I'm not going back.

Speaker 1 (31:05):
How old was he at this.

Speaker 2 (31:06):
Stage he would have been twelve and a half. Their
adounts he was in high school, first year of high school.
So this is where it gets a bit dark every
but he said to me what was going on. He's
a super intelligent young kid, so in order to prove
to me what was going on, he was taking photos

(31:26):
of everything. He was storing, like dropping pins on maps.
We stayed here, we slept here in the car, We
did this sort of thing, and he said, if you
make me go back, I've got my bus pass. Instead
of getting on the bus pass to go to school,
I'm going to use it to go to Central station.

(31:47):
I know the train timetables. I've saved some money up,
I'm going to jump on a train and I'll keep
doing that until you let me stay. He even looked
up this how smart as he looked up and worked
out where the phone box was out the front, and
he said, I know, I've I ring you at ten
o'clock at night from that phone box. You'll turn up.
So he had a lot going on in his mind,

(32:08):
and too much for a twelve year old.

Speaker 1 (32:12):
Want your kid's going through that, But good on him
to see, yea that he needed to get get away.
So yeah, okay, so you're presented with that, what do
you do? And I asked this genuinely because it's such
a difficult situation to find yourself in.

Speaker 2 (32:25):
Yeah, mate, I just I'm a strong believer in gut instinct,
So I just whether the things I thought things were
right or wrong at the time, I went off what
my gut told me to do. A little interesting side
story is that my son went fishing at the local
wharf and a kid was intimidating him. He was trying

(32:45):
to pick up his gear and get out of there.
Quit he dropped the phone with all the evidence in
the water. It was a stormy day. You couldn't see
in the bottom of the water. I'm thinking, of great,
we've lost a lot. As the lawyers were telling me,
you know, there's a lot of stuff that will help
in there. So I went to work and I was
telling the boys at work about it. And when the

(33:07):
boys said, I know, guy, that's a diver. When you
see you'll go and have a look. I says, it's
been in the water overnight, there's been a storm. He goes,
you can't, can't to give it a go. Thank god
he did, so I get I call this young kid up.
He goes down and closes the wharf off. Whether that
was legal or not, I don't know, and does a
grid search in probably five foot of water back and

(33:30):
forwards with his hands. He said he had no visibility,
couldn't find the phone. I said, thanks for trying. You
know it's going to sling him some cash. And he
said what color was it again? And I said green.
I'm color blind, Gary, so I'm guessing colors. What happened
was my son was still there with me. He turned
around and said, Dad, look back of the phone case

(33:51):
is white. The diver said, give me a second. He
goes down and what he thought was a bit of
rubbish lodged in the barnacles on the side of that wharf.
It was my son's phone, So you know, the universe
helped us a bit there. But we took that phone
to her phone fixed place and they were able to
abstract extract all of.

Speaker 1 (34:11):
The information information. Okay, well that that would have helped.
So you've got evidence that the way the children have
been treated in their life. You've engaged a solicitor. What
is the next step the family law court?

Speaker 2 (34:25):
Yeah, it is. I was told to go hard early.
I had Initially I had a family law solicitor. Then
they said, no, you're not a specialist. That specialist then
said we're going to need a barrister as well. And
I'm thinking, he goes your bank account and the family car,
whatever I can get rid of.

Speaker 1 (34:45):
It's horrendous. It's horrendous.

Speaker 2 (34:47):
How Yeah, but how do you put a price on
your children?

Speaker 1 (34:50):
Well, that's the thing, Yeah, that's the thing. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:54):
So what happened then was we had what they call
it an initial hearing and going back in the story,
what happened was my youngest son wasn't sure whether he
wanted to stay. So I made the decision again one
I regret to let him go back to his mother.
So you can imagine how that went. When I'm supposed
to be dropping two children back, I dropped one back.

(35:17):
He jumps out of the carr and says, my brother's
not coming back. This what's happened? I left there. This
was up in Sydney. I went to my now wife's place,
and shortly after I get a phone call from the
cops that are looking for a child that's kidnapped, a
child that I've kidnapped. I said, that's not the case,

(35:41):
my son. I've been a little bit old. By this
stage is a bit cloudy, but basically I was told
that children can sort of vote with their feet by
the time they're around fourteen. I think we're edging up
towards that. And yeah, that just started what's now becoming
a nightmare.

Speaker 1 (35:58):
And so, okay, so there's complaints. I'm assuming from Helen
that the child's been kidnapped, and yeah, how does it
feel been accused of kidnapping your kids?

Speaker 2 (36:11):
Terrible? Yeah, you know, I've been accused of a number
of things, but genocide.

Speaker 1 (36:17):
Yeah, are you been accused of genocide?

Speaker 2 (36:20):
The genocide? Yeah? Alienation, parental alienation, yeah, just.

Speaker 1 (36:26):
And these all the type of allegations that came against
you from Helen and whoever.

Speaker 2 (36:33):
Yeah, And what I'd like to point to Gary and
I had police say it to me, is that in
the nearly four years this has been going on, there
has not been a nasty text message from me. Ye,
any allegation I've made, I've been able to back up
with facts and yeah, it's not it's not good, but

(36:54):
I've developed a pretty thick skin through this.

Speaker 1 (36:56):
It's a smart way the plant Scott. I think a
lot of people make this mistaken, especially blokes react with
anger and frustration. Then it comes back to buy it.
So if you can take a step back, keep the
emotion out of it as hard as it is, yeah,
it's beneficial.

Speaker 2 (37:14):
Yeah, I can tell you I did a lot of
soul surging through this. And I don't say this lightly,
but I asked myself where how far I'm prepared to go?
And I'm not somebody that makes threats. I don't believe.
Don't do what you're not prepared to carry out. But
in the case of what those people have put myself
and my family through, I'm prepared to open the gates

(37:37):
to hell and drag them in there with me, simple
as that.

Speaker 1 (37:40):
I understand that from a father's point of view. Okay,
your nightmare is starting to play out. Yeah, just break
it down what you've gone through, because I know it's
been a hell of a.

Speaker 2 (37:52):
So what happened was we returned home Somewhere shortly after that,
the courts decided that the boys couldn't be separated. So
what they did was put both the boys with me.
At this stage, the youngest son had been turned against
the eldest son, which is hard to watch.

Speaker 1 (38:14):
What what what sort of things in what way?

Speaker 2 (38:17):
So he was told his brother was a snitch, that
he'd caused the family break up. I found out the
change of heart to move to Sydney was that the
boys were told that they mum was going to sell
all of their stuff, you know, kids stuff, PlayStation Yeah yeah,
And you know, like I said, the oldest one was

(38:37):
worried that I wouldn't believe him. I was going to
send him back. And his fear was, you know, if
I tell Dad all of this has been going on,
I'm going to mean a lot of trouble. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (38:48):
Okay, so you've got the kids.

Speaker 2 (38:50):
So what happened was always in the Narra at the
lawyer's office, and they said go and get your son.
My son was in Sydney, his mother was in the
next street, and three and a half hours away on
a Friday afternoon in traffic. So yeah, I did what
I did to get up there in time. When I

(39:11):
get there, I noticed not only Helen there, but a
couple of the chaps, one of the chaps we've mentioned
before and another one. And I was informed by the
school that they'd made several attempts to get in and
get my son.

Speaker 1 (39:24):
So when just to clarify, the person that we mentioned before,
was a person identifying as a sovereign citizen was in
the car with Helen.

Speaker 2 (39:32):
Yeah, and actually further than that was identifying as a
law enforcement officer. You've soon in the.

Speaker 1 (39:37):
Payork and you've traveled from the South Coast up to
up to Sydney to pick your younger child up. When
you've got to the got to the school that the
schools informed you that Helen and.

Speaker 2 (39:51):
Three other two other blokes.

Speaker 1 (39:54):
Two blokes have been there and trying to retrieve him.

Speaker 2 (39:58):
Okay, yeah, against according junction. So it was an injunction
made that day preventing her from going to the school.

Speaker 1 (40:05):
How did the school handle it?

Speaker 2 (40:08):
So backtracking again, I wasn't down as a contact at
the school, so when she put the kids into that school,
they weren't aware.

Speaker 1 (40:17):
So you had no rights or powers you.

Speaker 2 (40:19):
Can have like first second and I believe a third contact. Yeah,
I believe I was the third contact. But there was
no phone number. So when my kids weren't attending school
and they were going to list more and stuff, their
attendance was somewhere around the fifty percent mark. I was
unaware of that. They yeah, they weren't telling me that
the school hadn't called me. I thought everything was going

(40:41):
along rosie for them. You know, they seemed to enjoy
living in Sydney, and yeah, then I find that out
and I've you know, Principal's got my son in the
school and told me to get up there and get
him all on the way there. When I've seen these guys,
I thought I better ring the cops. I don't want
to have a punch on in front of my son

(41:02):
out in the front of a primary school. It's not
a good look. So I called the cops. They turned up.
They met me in the side street and I said
how is this going to work? And apparently I was
informed by the school at once. Obviously once he gets
to the edge of the school property, he's not the
school's problem. And I just could see that going pair shaped.

(41:24):
So I was in communication with this principle I'd never met,
you know, who was taking a big risk in doing
what he was doing. But he was, you know, he'd
been in communication with the boys are given like independent
children's lawyers, and they look after their journey through the
courts and their interest. Yeah, so I don't know it
was that person. Somebody had spoken to the school and

(41:45):
they're aware that he wasn't to go home with mum. Initially,
if she was told she could take some stuff and
say goodbye. But because she espoused the sovereign citizen ideologies
during the court, she was preventing by injunction and she
doesn't do no Gary.

Speaker 1 (42:05):
So the sovereign citizen stuff started to come out. She
was very much embttered in.

Speaker 2 (42:10):
That blue system ideology at that stage. Yeah, right in
the thick of it.

Speaker 1 (42:15):
Now, the group that she was involved in, do you
want to tell us a little bit to or as
I understand that CO found that the group that referred
to as NDA. Do you want to tell us a
little bit?

Speaker 2 (42:24):
Yeah, so in Darker dalai Estralla so I think I'm
pronouncing it right. Was a group that they formed whilst
she was on the run, and they were basically offering
a life to people outside of the life the rest
of us live, you know, in the community we live,
and they were recruiting at the time. I think up
through NRANG somewhere up north there somewhat some of the

(42:47):
footage I saw of that was the hell and I
knew that, like, you know, if you had friends around
or a dinner party or something, she would take over
the dinner party. So I saw that part of her
personality within it. The stuff she was talking about was
completely new to me at that stage. I hadn't researched
any of it, and I just found it difficult to watch.

(43:10):
I had both of the boys in my custody, and
what she did, I believe has formed this group to
try and take the boys back and garner support.

Speaker 1 (43:21):
Well, we're going to we're going to break down all
the things that happened to you. And it's quite quite
frightening what took place. But just the NDA group and
this is. I did a bit of research on it too,
just trying to get a sense of it. And this
is how it's described. Positions itself as a movement reclaiming

(43:41):
indigenous sovereignty and customary law governance over Australia, challenging the
existing governmental authority and fostering the communal peaceful living based
on the ancestral traditions and natural law. So that's a
narrative in which they describe that in itself sounds relatively
and there's an alignment to indigenous, the indigenous sovereignty and

(44:06):
all that, But it's a lot more complicated than that.

Speaker 2 (44:09):
Isn't Yeah, it is, Yeah, And you know, I'm not
happy with the fact that they aligned it with the indigenous. Yeah,
you know, I don't know what words to use for that, Gary,
but it's just she's not indigenous. Yeah, my children aren't indigenous.
She claims they are. I've been told that you can
be invited into a tribe through an elder. I don't

(44:32):
know if that's happened or not. I just don't believe
if you're not indigenous, don't claim you are. Well, it turns.

Speaker 1 (44:39):
By going down that path that claims a little bit
of legitimacy, I would suggest by aligning to Indigenous issues
and there would be people that are sympathetic to that
type of thing. I've just further details, and again because
we're going to be talking in depth about this organization,
so I think it's worthwhile probably further detail about it.

(45:03):
Organization that sovereignty based on Indigenous customary tribal law, declaring
itself the lawful authority over the land unofficially known as Australia.
It promotes the idea that purporting Australian government is illegitimate
and has ordered it to stand down. So let's just
the Australian government is illegitimate and has ordered it to

(45:23):
stand down, urging people to recognize themselves as self governing
under ancestral laws and unity with a demilitarized zone. The
group operates the Superior Court of the People of Namdhaka
Dahalis Australias, a court adhering to ancient law Speltre adjudicated
by senior law elders, and seeks to establish peace, harmony

(45:47):
and respect for natural and ancestral law among the land's
original bloodline descendants and others who choose to join the
communal sovereignty. Now there's a lot in that. The things
that jump out at me, the things that, yeah, the
Australian government is illegitimate, and the fact that they the
group operates the Superior Court of the People. Yes, that's

(46:10):
a concern, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (46:11):
Yeah, and I've even heard claims to be above the
High Court of Australia. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (46:18):
Okay, So you've got the two men and Helen out
the school. You've called the cops. Yeah, you're in contact
with the principal. And did you manage to get the
hand over?

Speaker 3 (46:28):
Did you?

Speaker 2 (46:28):
The cops turned up and got called off on an
urgent job. Yeah, so, no cops. It was now dark
and just before I got my son, the cops and
other lot of cops arrived. I'd made several phone calls
and while they were talking to Helen and her mates,
the principal slipped my son out a side gate. You've

(46:51):
got to imagine he hasn't seen me for quite some time. Yeah,
he doesn't even know why I'm there.

Speaker 1 (46:56):
You know.

Speaker 2 (46:56):
So I'm having to play as I've had to do
a lot lot through this.

Speaker 1 (47:00):
And wouldn't under surprise and the call order or that
surprise Dad's here.

Speaker 2 (47:05):
You're coming to my place for the weekend. Yeah, how
did that.

Speaker 1 (47:09):
Go down between you and him?

Speaker 2 (47:12):
Well, if you're familiar with the Dukes a hazard, that's
pretty much how I drove to get out of Sydney. Yeah,
flat stick and then kind of made it like a
bit of a game for him.

Speaker 1 (47:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (47:24):
I just did not want any confrontation in front of him.
We get him down, and then the next day we
have to go and get him a school uniform to
start at school. So I left my oldest son in
the house with my mother. We took him to the shops,
which is we call it town. It's the nearest town
and it was probably thirty five minute drive. We're at

(47:48):
the shops and my youngest son rings and he's petrified.
He said, mums here trying to get him in the house.
I said, call Triple zero. He said, I've called them
and they've told me don't open the door law until
you get here. As you'll find through through this, there's
what I believes two versions of the truth. There's the

(48:10):
truth as I see it and I lived it, and
there's what Helen Delaney says and her claims she wasn't
trying to get into the house for me, for my
son to go into. It's, like I said, a smart kid.
He took his grandmother, who's pretty frail, and himself into
the only room in the house. I had a locking door,

(48:31):
locked the door and called Triple zero. I beat the
police to the house that day, convinced him to open
the door. Shortly after they turned up, Helen wasn't there,
and then she returned while they were there, and I
think that was the first time she was arrested. She
was claiming she had court orders to have the kids.

Speaker 1 (48:50):
And these claims. Is that in keeping with that she
doesn't recognize the law, our law of the land and
she's got her own law with.

Speaker 2 (48:59):
The Yeah, the the orders that cost me just shy
one hundred thousand dollars have put in place and a
lot of stress. Yeah, they're void in her mind, they're void. Yeah,
they don't exist.

Speaker 1 (49:15):
It's hard to argue or being in conflict with someone
that's got that type of attitude. You know, like if
someone once said to me, if you're arguing with an idiot, too,
idiots are arguing. Yes, it certainly comes in the play.
How do you this person's not going to abide by
the court ruling because in their fanciful mind, the court

(49:37):
doesn't apply to them.

Speaker 2 (49:39):
Yeah, that's it. And literally all I have then to
protect my children is a piece of paper.

Speaker 1 (49:44):
Yeah yeah, okay, Well you're painting a pretty scary scenario
when they're troubling scenario when you talk and what price
do you put to look after your kids? But one
hundred thousand dollars that's not one hundred thousand dollars you've
got in your back pocket.

Speaker 2 (49:59):
I don't driver Ferrari, I can tell you that.

Speaker 1 (50:01):
And all the stress associated with worrying about your kids,
seeing your kids, picking up their kids, and thinking they're
not being looked after properly. But I suppose at this
point in time, the systems working for you, the police,
have supported your the orders are in place. But now
you're dealing with a situation that, as you said, for
all the money I've spent to get that order as

(50:21):
a piece of paper that someone doesn't even acknowledge or recognize.

Speaker 2 (50:25):
Yeah, mate, And I believe at one stage she was
contacting three to five different LAC's basically claiming I'd stolen
kidding up my children. I think the word that was
getting used, was child trafficked?

Speaker 1 (50:39):
Yeah? Now is this she's very much embedded in the
Sovereign Citizen movement at this time. It was all this
stuff that was coming from her. You've described how she's changed,
But is this the ideology that she was now believing
of believing.

Speaker 2 (50:55):
Or living living branding?

Speaker 1 (50:56):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (50:57):
Yeah, yeah, And like I said, that's a loose freedom
fighters is another term that gets thrown around, you know,
whatever name you put on it. If you've got people
willing to help you kidnap somebody else's children, we're not
playing around you. You know, we're at the serious end
of the game.

Speaker 1 (51:17):
So in that incident, she's out the front, you've called
the police, she got taken away, arrested, and then I'm
assuming not charged at that point in time.

Speaker 2 (51:26):
No, And I think there was like an interim ABO
put in place.

Speaker 1 (51:29):
Okay, so this is the first of the AVOs that
have come in the place. And what were the directions
of the av were?

Speaker 2 (51:37):
I think just the basics. You can't come within five
hundred meters of myself where I go to work, that
sort of stuff.

Speaker 1 (51:45):
Yeah, and tell us about the breaches.

Speaker 2 (51:48):
The breaches, so you know, very hard as a man
when you talk about the domestic violence space, it is
predominantly women and children that have spoken about and so
it should be because that's where the worst of it
is that I see. But there is men that go
through this. The violence part doesn't have to be physical violence.

(52:11):
It can just be unwanted attention. And we were getting
quite a bit of that, text messages, phone calls, random
people I didn't know, doing welfare checks on the boys,
you know, I want to check their safe, this sort
of thing.

Speaker 1 (52:27):
So, and these are random peo people I've never heard of,
but people trying to make out that they've got a
right to check this or making a full representation of
who they are, that type of thing.

Speaker 2 (52:38):
Yeah, involving themselves in my children's lives, you know. But
this was going on at the police station. It's one
of their tactics. They just flood you with phone calls,
flood you with emails.

Speaker 1 (52:48):
When you say it was going on at the police station,
what do you.

Speaker 2 (52:51):
Mean asking for welfare checks?

Speaker 1 (52:53):
Right, Yeah, they're contacting the police stations, say they've got
concerns for the kids.

Speaker 2 (52:58):
Yeah. So my my senses were heightened already at this stage.
But we'd watched the movie with the kids. Remember, and
I'm playing two roles, he protector of my children and
dad yeah, and.

Speaker 1 (53:10):
Trying to shield your kids from all the drama.

Speaker 2 (53:13):
Yeah, and they want to watch movies together, do you know,
very difficult to switch between both roles. To this day,
it's very difficult. So we'd all watch the movie. We're
asleep on the lounge. Yeah, got the fireplace. Everything's going well,
you know, and next minute, bang on my door, like
you would see with those raids that you see on

(53:35):
tap drug dealers houses, bashing on the door. It's raining.
Open the door. There's a full driver of the spotlight
on the house, saying their police they want to come in.
I was in a bit of a Day's opened the door.
My poor mum, she's crying at the time. She was frightened.
We said what's going on? They said where's the kids?

(53:58):
And I was like, here and that to me, We've
been told they're locked in a cage. I think was
one of the remarks from the copper. And I was like, uh,
you know, you know we've had calls from this person,
which was the mother, and I said, well, there's court
orders in place, they're meant to be they are safe.

(54:19):
Don't quote me on the number, Gary, but I think
we had nearly twenty seven of those twenty five to
twenty seven.

Speaker 1 (54:24):
Well fare, okay, Yeah, it's just harassment, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (54:29):
Yeah. Yeah, and by ringing and.

Speaker 1 (54:31):
I'm not saying police harassment, they're going to follow up
when there's a complaint.

Speaker 2 (54:35):
No, the police were good in the end. Like what
happened was you got different shifts. Yeah, so you know,
one job didn't you know, how busy they get. One
job didn't get picked up. Then a different car crew
pick up the job, they come to the house. So
it was happening day and night. I sort of started
with going in to speak to the local sergeant and
then I sort of bumped it up, you know.

Speaker 1 (54:55):
And eventually the police, the local area police would start
to understand that.

Speaker 2 (55:00):
The correct But where we had an issue was she
was calling LAC's up in Sydney. So you've got I
believe Inspector level up there saying we've had the phone call.

Speaker 1 (55:11):
We need that checked. Yeah, I can see how it
could be manipulated. And just whining back for a sec too.
You talked about it's difficult from a man's point of
view when you're talking domestic violence, and that that doesn't
have to be physical. It can be the manipulation and
all that. I think it's healthy having the discussion and that, Yeah,
the majority of domestic violence are where women are the victim,

(55:34):
and the domestic violence is a broad term I'm using
for conflict within a domestic relationship. But this type of
manipulation and harassment, that's how I would describe what's going on.
And if you're putting the figure in the twenties, whether
it's twenty seven or twenty, it doesn't matter. If it's
just a frequency of it that can be not just

(55:55):
destroy your life, destroy the kid's life. It's just yeah,
and not to mention the waste of resource public resources.
There is an offense called public mischief where you report
the crime and find out that's, yeah, it's not not
true and not justified in your reporting it. I'd be
sort of looking towards that.

Speaker 2 (56:15):
On one occasion, I had a detective called me. I
had the kids at Escape Park and he's like, where
are the kids? I said that with me. I tried
to walk away from the car to have this conversation
with him. Unfortunately, bluetooth kicked in and the kids heard
that conversation. But you know, I started to just realize,
I'm not going to get anywhere if I kick up

(56:35):
a stink here. I've got to I've got to work
my side of it. So what I did was, I
was like, where's the nearest police station. I'll meet you there.
I'll bring the kids there. And you know that that
end up happening on that day again. They go through
sort of these questions, you know, are you okay, yep?
Who's that? That's dad? Do you want to be here

(56:55):
with dad? Yes? You know, kids became like they didn't
like the police very much. And you know that's why
I say I won't say anything bad about the police,
because I had an officer come in, could see the
kids were distressed about it, grabs a footy from one
of the boys footies and says you want to go
in the yard for a kick? That legend still see

(57:18):
him around town these days. Yeah, that one, That one
act changed how the boys saw the police. Eventually we
got to a stage where we were told that we've
got to come and they said, what we need to
do is just cite the boys, ask if they're okay,
and that's it. So what happened then was we formulated
that plan. I'd get a phone call from the police.

(57:40):
We've had another call. Can you walk the boys out
on the front Franda. They'd walk out and say, you
know how you're going?

Speaker 1 (57:46):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (57:47):
All sweet little wave off off they went. We were
you say the black about black humor? The kids want
me to sell the car because every cop car in
the area knows my car and they wave when they
go past. And teenage boys are a little embarrassed.

Speaker 1 (58:05):
By that, but they want to be hanging out with
the colt.

Speaker 2 (58:08):
No, yeah, no, And you know, but I think that's
good policing.

Speaker 1 (58:14):
Yeah, yeah, it's community policing. And the fact is that
it's good to know that the police are going to respond,
even if they've got their doubts. If there's just that
one percent that they're going to just check. So they check.
How do you deal with this like it did? Was
she breaching the AVA by this?

Speaker 2 (58:30):
No others were doing it? Yeah, And then the breaches
of the AVO were appearing on so we we had
to formulate safety plans. Right, So that was drive my
youngest son to school. There were two separate schools, which
made that difficult. Driving to school, hand him over in
the office. Once that stuff member was on him, he

(58:53):
basically had someone shadow him around the school for his
entire school day. That was done very cleverly by what
they call an SLSO. And so he's like, oh, you
know this guy. I won't mention his name, but he's like, oh,
this guy plays handball with me every day and he
does his never out of somebody's sight at any That's.

Speaker 1 (59:12):
What had to be put in place because of this.
So when we talk in the twenties of these inquiries
or concerns for welfare of your children over what period
of time was.

Speaker 2 (59:23):
This nearly the whole family court fifteen sixteen months?

Speaker 1 (59:29):
Right, Okay, yeah, what's the next step? What do you do?

Speaker 2 (59:34):
Yeah, well, you know, I had safety plans put in
place with the school, so they involved meetings. I then
somewhere along the lines, I've gone from full time work
back to part time. You know, I wouldn't have gotten
to this point if it wasn't for the support of
the family that I'm employed by. They let me go
back to part time work and pretty much anything I've

(59:56):
had to be at court appearances, school meetings, they just
facilitated and I can't thank them enough for that. And
I guess it got to a stage where, if you know,
the school would take them on the outings to the
park or bike riding or something. My son couldn't go
to that unless I was there.

Speaker 1 (01:00:15):
And this is because of the concerns that they would be.

Speaker 2 (01:00:20):
Yeah, so I skipped over a bit. So what had
happened was on one occasion, I'm talking like, you can
imagine how tightly you hold your kids when this goes on.
So even for my son to go out and play,
and I say my son, because the youngest one was
the biggest concern. His mum was going to grab him.
You know, she'd sort of cut the eldest one off

(01:00:41):
because he was the snitch in her words. So what
happened was my son used to go and play with
one friend down the end of the street. I was
advised by police you might want to throw a tracker
on him, and I was like, what do you mean.
They said, you know, in case he's grabbed, that's difficulty,

(01:01:02):
very difficulty.

Speaker 1 (01:01:03):
And for police to say that that must have some
reason I rationale behind telling you to put the tracker on.

Speaker 2 (01:01:10):
Yeah, and then you know, don't put it in a
school bag, because that'll be the first thing gets thrown away.
And my head's spinning. So we come up with a
plan there, and I won't go into where or how
he carries it, but he still does to this day
when he's outside where we are. So we formulated a
plan with his friend down the corner that he'd ride
the bike down. As he turned around the corner, I

(01:01:32):
couldn't see him. The other mother was on the phone
and she says, yep, I can see him. They'd play together,
and then when he was coming home she'd ring. I'd say, yes,
I can see him. We're talking maybe one hundred and
fifty two hundred meters. He's gone around that corner, and
I believe the mum was watching them play outside. She's

(01:01:52):
gone inside for a second to check the dinner or
something like that. My son gets approached by somebody that
it passes him a cryptic note and says, don't tell anybody,
but mummy's coming to get you tomorrow.

Speaker 1 (01:02:07):
Any idea who that was or.

Speaker 2 (01:02:09):
We managed to get CCTV footage, but police were never
able to find that person. Male female, female, Yeah, and
my son knew the face but couldn't say the name.
He just said he'd seen that face in the camps,
and the camps meant wherever they'd stayed during.

Speaker 1 (01:02:26):
That Mummy's coming to get you.

Speaker 2 (01:02:28):
Yeah. Yeah, he come home that afternoon, is very quiet. Yeah,
so for an hour or so. He's a very deep
thinking sort of child. So I just sort of gave
him a bit of space and then I said to him,
what's up. We need to have a chat, and he
passed me the little note. He wouldn't talk. Gary was Froe.

Speaker 1 (01:02:46):
So when the cryptic note actual physically gave him a note.

Speaker 2 (01:02:50):
Yeah, yeah, so there was when I say CRYPTI there
was no writing on it. There's a thing called a
mood ring, and he was given the mood ring. And
then his mum kept the little bit of cardboard that
tells you what color is what mood and it was
folded up in a wallet. This is what he's told me,

(01:03:11):
And he said that he knew that was mum's. So
that was the way of telling him, Okay, yeah, that's
what I believe, and something over.

Speaker 1 (01:03:21):
He could relate to it.

Speaker 2 (01:03:23):
Yeah yeah, yeah, And you can imagine the confusion going
on because he's already missing his mum and you can't
when you're going through the court process. Don't discuss it
with the children. They put you in a pretty difficult
position because they see in all the moods and everything
that goes on. Yeah, very difficult position, and.

Speaker 1 (01:03:41):
You can't discuss any of its, explain what's going on, Yeah,
because you're contaminated. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:03:48):
And around this time, Gary, I guess I took on
the role of investigator as well as, you know, his
personal security guard. So I actually went. He was approached
twice in he didn't he loves riding his bike, so
he didn't not want to ride his bike anymore. So

(01:04:09):
I just said to this mum, you know, we'll do
the same thing. But I was floating around. It actually
annoyed him. I was floating around in the car, so
I was watching him from a distance. I wasn't going
to have that happen a second time. So I'd driven
up the street to do a U turn. The kids
were playing out the front of the local service station.
They had a little jump there. The guy in the
service station, I knew as I've gone to turn the

(01:04:32):
car around up the end of the street sort of,
I was patrolling. He's approached again. But this time, the
same woman, same car. This was when we were able
to put it to because when I found out about
the first occasion, I flew down there at a rate
of knights. Nobody around. We live in an area where,
you know, it's a small community, so.

Speaker 1 (01:04:53):
A strange car, I'll stick out.

Speaker 2 (01:04:54):
It'll stick out. Yeah, So I went to the local
service station after he it said the lady come again.
But she walked, I believe, up to approach him, and
then passed him and went to go on the service station.
And the attendant thought it was funny that she didn't
go in, and then turned around and say, I think
he sort of caught partial license plate over the vehicle.

(01:05:16):
So I'd say maybe she got, you know, spooped a
bit or something a couple of days. So obviously I'm
calling the police with all of this, they said. I
remember one police officer said to me, make these things
contend to make you a little bit paranoid, And I'm like,
for an approach to that quick, Gary. They're watching, right,

(01:05:39):
So then Wet tightened security around him a lot more.
We were driving to the school along the school run
at the bottom of our street, just outside the range
of the AVA is Helen walking up the street. This
is on the school.

Speaker 1 (01:05:55):
Run, and then she'd have no businessman down there. It's
not like she's and half hours away.

Speaker 2 (01:05:59):
Yeah, you know, way smiling. You know, it's not a
physical thing, but not meant to be there. You imagine
the confusion.

Speaker 1 (01:06:08):
You've had these approaches by the unknown woman you've had, Helen.
They're not breaching the AVA because he's just outside meither
outside the five hundred mether radius. Where do you go
to from there?

Speaker 2 (01:06:22):
So two things happened very quickly. So shortly after the
police come to tell me that the vehicle was linked
to that male that we mentioned before who lives ten
hours away.

Speaker 1 (01:06:38):
Okay, and this male being the person that was very
vocal in the car front passengers car of the video
that we played when Helen was arrested and refused to
acknowledge police power.

Speaker 2 (01:06:49):
Yeah, that's it. So that kicked me up another gear again. Yeah, okay,
this is now working in company with others.

Speaker 1 (01:06:56):
And all these people are associated to the NDA, the
Sovereign Citizen Movement.

Speaker 2 (01:07:03):
Yeah. So then the interesting thing was there the police
are on the way to tell me they've they've linked
that vehicle to this person and the car is laying
in wait in another side street just up there over
my house. So they approached it. It sped off, I believe,
a short pursuit insured and they got away and I

(01:07:26):
was sort of told, you know, we've got a number
plate recognition. It won't get all the way back to
where it comes from. I said, well, it god, all
the way down here, didn't it. And when I meet
up a gear, that's when I really started taking the
protection of my son extremely serious.

Speaker 1 (01:07:42):
So your your concern, based on the stuff that had
been happening to you in the situations you found yourself in,
was that your son was going to be abducted.

Speaker 2 (01:07:53):
Yeah, and I'll take you to Constant And you know,
reoccurring nightmares that my son was having was and I
had to go out and comfort him when he wakes
up screaming, was that somebody was pulling a bag over
his head and dragging him off his bike. Now that's
come directly from that person. You know, they didn't grab him,
They just approached him, approached him, but it frightened him.

(01:08:15):
That's taken a lot of counseling to get him through that.
You know, kids should be worried about getting lollies from
the corner shop, hanging out with their mates, fun times.

Speaker 1 (01:08:24):
Totally carefree, no responsibility.

Speaker 2 (01:08:26):
Yeah, you know, these kids have been treated like they
belong to movie stars. You know, they've They've got myself
and others following them around and protecting them in their
day to day activities right.

Speaker 1 (01:08:39):
Now, and they'd be aware of that. Part of the
fun was getting away from the scrutiny of your parents
and people watching what you're doing.

Speaker 2 (01:08:45):
Yeah, even to play that. The kids love their footy,
even play footy. I'm patrolling the car park. Other fathers
are watching for faces we don't know. Yeah, you know,
the community has been sensational in the they've given. My
kids are nowhere in our community without eyes on them,

(01:09:05):
you know, it's just how it has to be.

Speaker 1 (01:09:08):
So you've got the police have got this car that's
been identified in the vicinity of where your son is,
and that's linked to the group that Helen's involved with
from ten ten hours.

Speaker 2 (01:09:22):
Away up the North coast.

Speaker 1 (01:09:23):
Yeah, living a normal life when you feel like you've
been watched all the time and you've got people stalking
and tracking the movements of your kids, how did that
affect you personally?

Speaker 2 (01:09:34):
I'll have been. I did Victims of crime counseling, Yeah,
was recommended to me. I during that was displaying all
the signs of pdsdeh. I think that's a term that's
thrown around pretty loosely these days. But you know, they
did psycho tests some men stuff like that, and they

(01:09:54):
just said, you're super hyper vigilant. So I was, it's
enough and for me to be running eighteen nineteen hour days.
There was stages there where I was I think, blacking
out Gary I was, I was coming to you know,
not remembering getting it, getting out of bed and lying

(01:10:17):
behind the front fence, tooled up, ready to go.

Speaker 1 (01:10:20):
I kind of.

Speaker 2 (01:10:21):
Likened it to when I was when I was working
on the door. I used to I'm a pretty passive guy.
Used to get a kick out of talking blokes down,
you know, not punching on with them. A kind of
when I put on that uniform, I become a different
person to who I was he my own life. So
I went back to that. The unfortunate side of it
is I didn't take the uniform off and I still

(01:10:41):
haven't to this day. You know, I've become a different person.
My wife has said that this has changed our lives forever,
and that's exactly what it's done.

Speaker 1 (01:10:51):
Okay, look, we might we might take a break. Now.
What you're going through is horrendous and you're describing it
very well. Indeed, tell and the build up and the
frustration and all the things that go into there. When
we get back for part two, we're going to talk
about you. You're getting served a warrant from the nda

(01:11:11):
Supreme Court of the World or whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:11:15):
They that's another fact of the case that did happen.

Speaker 1 (01:11:17):
Yeah, and then the court matter, and I've got some
extracts from the transcripts of things that Helen said in
the court just to give the listeners a sense of
what you're dealing with here. I think you coming out
and speaking and I know before we spoke on the podcast,
you want people to understand these are the things that
can happen, and this is the impact it can have.

(01:11:38):
Is that the basis of your talking here, Yeah, it's.

Speaker 2 (01:11:41):
That it's to tell other men out there. Yep, the
domestic violence is real for you. Everybody's case is different.
I understand that you've got to stand up. Yeah, you know,
you've got to grow up here and stand up and
say this is not okay, Well.

Speaker 1 (01:11:57):
I suppose flip it and what you've discribe. Now, if
it was a woman in this situation, the man was doing.

Speaker 2 (01:12:04):
That, I'd already be sitting in silver Water.

Speaker 1 (01:12:07):
Well you said it, I didn't.

Speaker 2 (01:12:09):
Well that's the truth.

Speaker 1 (01:12:10):
I think we need to have that discussion. If you
flipped it was a man stalking.

Speaker 2 (01:12:17):
Moon like that, and sometimes.

Speaker 1 (01:12:19):
And quite rightly, you should be sitting in silver War
the prison if you're doing that.

Speaker 2 (01:12:24):
I agree totally.

Speaker 1 (01:12:25):
I think it's a healthy discussion to have about. Yeah,
sometimes males are the victims in these situations.

Speaker 2 (01:12:32):
Yeah. I think I pointed out to you Gary in
a letter I sent you that, and you know where
I grew up. Real number one was don't fuck around
with another person's family. Yeah, they chose the wrong men's
family to fuck around with in this case. So I'm
not going away. I'll do it publicly, I'll stand in

(01:12:53):
front of them, I'll do I'll take it to whatever
level they want to take it to. But they chose
the wrong fucking family to mess with.

Speaker 1 (01:12:59):
And watch I like the messaging. Yeah, and that quite right.
You can't be intimidated or harassed. And good on you
for standing up to them. Let's have a break and
come back. And I think when people listen to some
of the some of the transcripts from the court matter,
they'll get a sense of what you're dealing with and
how difficult it was.

Speaker 2 (01:13:19):
Yeah, thanks to look forward to it.

Speaker 1 (01:13:21):
Okay, cheers,