Surviving the predator’s paradise: Glen Fisher Pt.2

Glen Fisher was told he’d be dead by 21. Forced to survive on the violent streets of Kings Cross, Glen felt safer in jail. Decades after he was abused as a child, Glen tells Gary Jubelin how he wore a wire to bring down a pedophile and convict another three, how he broke his 30-year heroin addiction and how he’s now helping homeless Australians, showing kindness costs nothing but saves lives. 

This episode contains mentions of sexual abuse and suicide, if you need support contact Lifeline on 13 11 14

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Detective see aside of life. The average person is never
exposed her 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):
Welcome back to part two of my chat with Glenn Fisher.
If you listen to part one, you would have heard
Glenn talk about the horrific childhood he had experienced. If
you thought Glenn's life must have got better from there,
you're in for a shock, because in part two he
talks about it and it certainly didn't got a lot worse.
Addicted to heroin for thirty five years prison sentences, the

(01:08):
betrayal by the only two people he trusted enough to love,
and his attempts to take his own life, plus a
whole lot more. But Glenn also talks about how he
turned his life around, how he got justice against his abuses,
how he gave evidence at four court matters to get
his abuses convicted, giving evidence at two royal commissions, and

(01:28):
how he is now giving back to society. Glenn's story
is as dark as it is inspirational. Have a listen,
and I think it might just put in perspective how
lucky the majority of us are. Glenn Fisher, Welcome back,
Part two. I'm going to apologize, and I probably don't
have to. You've told me it's all right to talk

(01:49):
about things, but I'm taking in some dark places. So yeah,
I apologize up front, but I think and I agree,
I believe you agree with it. It's important to talk
about the things that you've experienced because there's a lot
of people out there that wouldn't have the courage is
probably not the right word, but for whatever reason, don't
feel comfortable in coming forward and talking about the type

(02:12):
of things that you talk about.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
There's a lot of stigma and shame around abuse, you know.
And I know for myself as just think, how did
I let somebody do that to me? You know, And
that's probably what sits with a lot of people, you know.
But I think if I write in my book, this
isn't a mean story, this is a wee story. Yeah,
this is a story about a lot of children who
went through this and were abused. I've just one that
to live to tell.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
You know. That's the insidious part about child sexual abuse,
isn't it That leaves the victim so traumatized and they're
even blaming themselves. But that's part of the manipulation they
do that for the people that are up braying on
these kids know that they can get away with things
because that's what they leave the kids with.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
They come across like they're doing you a favor, you know, like, oh,
you need money to get on. I can help you out,
you know, just for this cost, you know, and you'd
like a hanging out and with drawn, can you give
me the money first year?

Speaker 1 (03:03):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (03:03):
Okay, And you know you can get doing your favor,
you know, And they're not you know, and you've been
programmed that way prior, you know.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
I love the fact that you're talking about this and
it's almost like an avenging angel coming in. And these
people that have been involved in this, they must have
people like you talking. They'd be thinking shit. But when
am I going to get that knock on the door
and when I'm going to be called into account? I hope? So. Yeah,
So I have a lot of sleepless nights, absolutely, because

(03:31):
the lives that they destroyed. Just before we take you
back in the dark stuff, just to give you a sense,
give our listeners a sense of how far are you coming?
I think it's in the day. I'll say you're heading
down to Canberra. By the time people listen to this podcast,
you will have spoken on the steps of Parliament House
downing Canberra. What's that about?

Speaker 2 (03:50):
So it's called Zero Suicide. A friend of mine, Paul,
runs it every year and it gets us to come
down and speak. We lay out twenty five hundred and
twenty five shoes this year to represent and every life
lost to suicide. And I've been asked all over the
country to speak at different events and I'm making meeting
up with Malcolm Roberts on the day before. He wants
me to go on a podcast with him as well.
Share my story and and then I'll be speaking out

(04:12):
the front of Parliament with a lot of other creators,
a lot of influencers to try and you know, show
people just we need to stop this in its tracks.
You know, we need a men's minister. That's what we're
pushing for, is to get a men's minister to deal
with men's mental health and our situational distress.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
Yeah, talk on that a little bit more. Why you
think specifically for men.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
Well, because eight out of every nine that have died
is a male. You know, that's the problem. The leading
cause of death in our country between the age of
fifteen and thirty five is suicide. You know, that's catastrophe.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
You know.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
The only thing that's measuring near it now is dementia.
You know, and that's only just a recent state that
I read the other day. But you know, we're losing,
like I said, somebody every three hours. Why this podcast
has happened, We've lost someone. It's terrifying. And as a father,
as a grandfather, that terrifies me. You know, I'd hate
my kids to think that that's an.

Speaker 1 (05:05):
Option and it's not a simple fix. But to talk
about things like that, I think helps it. There are
people who have been in that lower step that I
want to talk or can talk about it. There are
places where people can talk about.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
And specifically with men. I mean women are quite good
at talking with each other about things that are going on.
Us men we've been like to swallow it and say nothing,
you know, and that's how we roll.

Speaker 1 (05:29):
I'm laughing because I know what you're saying. And I
just know you hang out with a mate and their
wife knows more about people's lives and your mate. What
did you talk about? We just said good day, We
talked about the football, We did this, we did how
you go on good? Yeah, like I dare say, you know,
we'd pass each other in the street. There are you

(05:49):
going good? Mate? How are you good? And that's that's
the depth of it. So good on you for working
in that space, in that space to the one thing.
And I know how sensitive you are to it because
you've told me on a number of occasions. And we
talked about the girl that you found in the cross

(06:10):
and you fell in love with her, and that was
basically your first girlfriend and world looked a little bit
brighter in the dark world that you were living in
because of her. Do you want to tell us about her?
Is it aka if I use the name Linda Kirby, Yeah,
something with the start of it. That's just beautiful to
start off with. So her family were going through her

(06:31):
stuff just recently, about a year ago, and when they
were going through their stuff, they found a photo and
on the back it said Linda loves Glen Fisher. And
they're like, who is this Glen Fisher? So they google
Gleen Fisher and you know, everything comes up and it's
my book. They buy my book. They opened up the
book and on the very first page it says, dedicated
to Linda Marie Kirby. I've now been in touch with them.
I have this relationship with them and other kids who

(06:53):
have died in across his family too. Well. I get
a chill down my spine when you just teld that
that's beautiful, wasn't it?

Speaker 2 (06:59):
It is feutiful? And I sat with them and one
of them just passed just in the last two weeks.
But the other I met the mum and the niece
and the brother and you know, and they all of
the ones that reach out to me. I was so
worried about sharing the story of other kids and they said, no,
and you've humanized my daughter. You've brought it to life.

Speaker 1 (07:17):
Wow. Yeah, tell us about Linda and tell us about
your relationship. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
So we first met, as I said, we were side
both side, like we were just two big kids, you know,
we were little kids and were running around with She
was kind of like the leader of the girls. I
was kind of like the leader of the boys. And
I wasn't the leader because I was tough. I was
a leader because I didn't shut up. That's why I
was the leader. That's kind of how we rolled.

Speaker 1 (07:37):
You know.

Speaker 2 (07:37):
But she started some older boys came in from town
hall in different areas and she started using heroin and
so I ended up checking up with this other girl.
I'm a breakdan. So I used to break dance on
the street. I was quite good.

Speaker 1 (07:47):
Actually, I've never had a breakdancer on the high catch
killer right cameras roll.

Speaker 2 (07:52):
The other day on TikTok and someone said that's a
for sure, that's a I was.

Speaker 1 (07:56):
Like a compliment. Yeah, yeah, that's a great compliment.

Speaker 2 (08:00):
But what ends up happening is I go to South
Australia to go into a dance competition. They reckon this
this group's the best dancers in Adelaide, and I know
they're not right in my I'm a good dance and
I know it, so I'm going up there to prove it.
So I head off up to South Australia and We're
going this dance competition. I create a little group called
the Megazoids. I had by us, sorry Insydney, we had
a group called the Megazoids. Mega means many, zoids mean

(08:21):
street people. But up there we made one called the
Electrical Connection, right, and we we practice all these routines
to go in this competition.

Speaker 1 (08:28):
We win.

Speaker 2 (08:28):
We actually win the competition. As I'm coming out of
the competition, I'm walking down the stairs. One of the
kids from the refuge, Jean Chapman, who just also recently died,
is at the bottom of the steps and I'm walking down.
I sorrdly, you see this bra did you see us?
And he's looking really somber and he goes, Linda's dead, sorry,
And I was like what And I grabbed him, thro
him against the wall and like John could have picked

(08:50):
me up and tossed me, but he just he just cleaned.
I'm serious, Linda's dead and fucking ripped my heart out, mew.
I just sat down on the spot and I was like,
fucking kidding me. What had happened is for the heroine
two bolts had asked a young girl to find a girl,
a kid, you know, fifteen year old just turned sixteen
year old girl. She went with them, They gave the heroin,

(09:11):
she dropped. They didn't know what to do. They were caught, convicted,
got twenty years jail. Then they went before Judge Elden
and on appeal got it dismissed. Altogether, it's because of her.
I've written my book. It's because of her. I do
everything I do today. But that's why I went up
to that abuse when I was just Linda just died

(09:31):
and I walk up and I was like, you you
I'm going I'm going to hold you responsible.

Speaker 1 (09:36):
That's when you told me.

Speaker 2 (09:38):
That's when I told him. There it was like I
just got I had to hit Shike back from South Australia.
What happened was I was doing dancing and I had
nun chuckers on me. I had them down my legs,
you know, he was carrying them down there and I
got pulled over by the police in gold and they
arrested me back then. Nunchuckers is the same as carrying
a firearm. It's a section thirteen A nine a preces nine. Yeah,
so I got I kept in the cells for two

(09:58):
weeks while her funeral was on side. I missed her
funeral and but I end up hit choking back to
the cross and sadly, Gary, that's where I actually become
a heroin addict. You know, I was like at that point,
I U speed coke. I not I sorry trips pot drink,
but I'd never put a needle been in the hand
that was taking the next step I did. I wanted
to know what it was. And the sad thing was

(10:20):
that because of all my trauma, it was like my
head never stopped. It was like I had all these
flashbacks in my head and visions. And the sad reality
for me was when I picked up her on it
was like my body realigned. It was just like that's
the answer, which was a lie because people don't understand
that that you chase that for the rest of your
life trying to get that realignment. You spend more time

(10:40):
in withdrawals and hanging out and chasing the dragon and
money than you ever do actually start trying to.

Speaker 1 (10:45):
Get you back to feeling okay, and that's what you're chasing.

Speaker 2 (10:49):
And then withdrawals, it was manifested. Those feelings were exasperated.
It was even worse. So I get all these flashbacks
and trauma and it was horrible. But I never coped
with her, and she was the first. I mean, I
watched the many kids die, you know, another girl, bam bam.
There's so many of them, Sharon Tracy. There's a lot.

Speaker 1 (11:06):
It's just such a waste of life, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (11:08):
Especially her. She was so vivacious, bubbly, she was talented,
she was smart, she was a leader, she was just
everything beautiful, you know. And yeah, her life.

Speaker 1 (11:18):
Two that were convicted did was it just the sentencing reduced.

Speaker 2 (11:22):
Or was completely dismissed. Yeah, but I only found these
out as an adult.

Speaker 1 (11:27):
And we don't know what's gone on with the court matter.
But when you're talking about justice yelled them.

Speaker 2 (11:34):
Yeah he's a pedophile.

Speaker 1 (11:35):
Yeah, well that's that's been widely reported.

Speaker 2 (11:39):
Yeah it's a non fact.

Speaker 1 (11:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:40):
Yeah, ended up taking his life at the wood draw
Commission suicided.

Speaker 1 (11:45):
Yeah, my understanding after the investigators spoke to him a
couple of times, and then he ended up committee suicide. Yeah,
following that, And that's that's scary, isn't that the person
in the position of that power.

Speaker 2 (11:56):
Yeah, absolutely, I mean and not only that, I mean
he's a compromise judge. The police also knew that he
was compromised the ones that work corupt in the Cross,
so they were able to take advantage of that as well.

Speaker 1 (12:06):
Well. I read somewhere that they were charges against him
or he was arrested and charges weren't laid whatever, So
there was an assumption that he was given a pass
or led off.

Speaker 2 (12:19):
Yeah, it's well known on the street that he was
given a pass. And he's not alone there. There was
a lot of them. Like I said, they used to
hold it over them, you know, photos or you know,
whatever it was that they had on them, and it
allowed you know, like there was high profile men coming
to King's Cross and buying children. It was like it
was like going to a coffee shop and buying a
cup of coffee. You know, they just come down and

(12:39):
be able to purchase a kid.

Speaker 1 (12:41):
What the discussing, Well, do you concern them? We can't
mention names because you and I end up in court,
and I don't want to go back to court. And
I don't think you want to go to court.

Speaker 2 (12:51):
I'm done with the court.

Speaker 1 (12:52):
But do you feel at risk because you are speaking up?

Speaker 2 (12:56):
I did for years. I had a lot of fear
around it. I have more fear around to people I
loved and me, you know, putting them in any kind
of danger. But I got in my head, I thought
I cannot not speak. They're all dead, Gary one, Bay one.
I've watched them die and the last one just recently, Marlene,
she had They're all dying a liver disease or suicide

(13:17):
or alcoholism or addiction overdoses. And I just thought, you know,
each one of these to reach out to me, and
so I just love you, and you're so brave taken
these guys to court. You know, we're proud of you,
behind you, And I just thought I have to talk.
You know, I need people to know, people like Linda, Marlene,
you know Bam Bam existed, you know my brother, you
know all these different people. You know, it's like I

(13:39):
have to speak.

Speaker 1 (13:40):
Yeah, you got to some law points in your in
your life, and they're addicted to heroin for a long time,
and I think you're still on the edge. Quite a
few times. We've just your heroin use. But you made
some over the attempts to take your own life. What
what was a lead up to that?

Speaker 2 (13:58):
So the first one was for seven years, I was
using on the streets, dropping all the time. I made
like thirteen overdoses in a period of two years because
I started taking pills. But I ended up meeting a
woman and you know, we got engaged. I'm gonna have
a baby, Shindy. She was pregnant. We just had a
little baby, and you know, and I loved this woman,
I really did. And then I got kicked off the
methadone program for violence, for fighting and it's the second

(14:21):
time I've been kicked off for violent, violent stuff. And
then when I stayed on the street for two weeks,
and when I came back, my brother was at my
house with my partner and I was like, oh, hello,
and I pick up the baby, and you know, it's
all normal, normal. I end up finding it these two
events sleeping together. You know, she ends up telling he
ends up telling me. And at the moment, I've just

(14:41):
been kicked off one hundred and twenty meals of meth today,
I've got a heroin habit, I'm homeless, I've just lost
my partner. The only three people I love in the
world is my brother, my fiance, and my little girl.
And I'm sitting outside of a church and I don't
know how I got myself to this point, but I'm
sitting there listening to the music, and something about Christian
music has always suve me gary out the way it
just does. And I'm sitting there and the music stops,

(15:03):
and all of a sudden, in my head just talking
to me, and I'm going, I'm rocking back and forth
flight this and I'm saying, this is my fucking point.
What's the fucking point? What is the point of this
fucking world? Everybody's a piece of shit, you know. And
I just kept saying it over and over and over.
And I walk into the church and my intention was
to get a cup of tea that they've got, maybe
this biscuits or something I can drink or eat. And
I walk inside and there's no one there, and there's

(15:23):
this big cross there with like a sheet with all
like someone's been spraying on something like paint or something
on it. And I look at it and I actually
get the sheet and I put it around my neck
and I start praying, you know, like I don't know
there's a God or not, but if you're there, hear
my story, man, and I start praying to God, and
then I just step off. And as I go to
step off, some my man just comes straight through and

(15:45):
grabs me and lifts me up and stop the actual
drop bit of me dropping. And he sat down with me,
and he was a priest and he started talking to
me about God. And I'll screaming at him, brother, and
I'm like, don't tell me about fucking God. Bro, you know,
just God. You know I'm angry. You know I'm angry.
And he gives me a poem. It's called Footprints. And

(16:07):
I read that poem and I just fucking broke down
in tears. Mate. It just made me cry. And I thought,
because I believe there's something out there, a God, but
I don't believe in religion or church as you know,
because it just seems to be the catalyst for everything
evil from from what I grew up with you. And
but that was the first time. But what ends up
happening is it turns into an arm robbery. I go

(16:29):
into stayed the next day, I go to see him
and he said, I stayed there night. Sorry. And the
next morning he says to me, I said, I got
to go, Bro. I said, I'm a heroin addict and
I'm fucking in bad withdrawals. I've got to go, you know.
I tell him that.

Speaker 1 (16:43):
So this is the dude that save you?

Speaker 2 (16:47):
Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. And what happened is he says
to me, what about I'll give you fifty bucks for
that help. I said absolutely, you know, and like as
an addict, it's like I'm better, I'm not because I know.
I said, it's subconscient, right, And then I suddenly he
says to me, no, I can't do it. My religion
faith won't allow me to give you that money or
whatever it is, you know. And so just to clarify

(17:08):
it back, there was two men there, and it was
actually another man who stopped me for falling.

Speaker 1 (17:13):
It was right.

Speaker 2 (17:14):
It came in and there, yes, built the relationship with
Then what happens is I pick up a button knife
and I put it to my neck and I hold
it to my neck and I said, you don't fucking
get it, bro, I don't want to be here, and
then I threw it on the ground, right, that's it.
I just threw it on the ground and he said, look, Lynn,
let me drive you to the cross. And he drove
me to the cross and I had a bag of
clothing with me. He gave me the fifty dollars and

(17:36):
he said, can I pray for you? And I said, okay,
you know, and then he went to touch me. I said,
just don't touch me. You can pray for me, Please
don't touch me. I don't like being touched. So he
prays for me. He said, how about you leave your
clothes with me and you can come back the next
day and get them and we'll wash them. I said,
I wash them for you, and you can't come back
and get them. Two weeks that's passed, and I'm passing
through that area and I knock on the door and
he goes, come in, come in, come in, welcome in.

(17:58):
And so we go in and have a cup of coffee,
and all of a sudden, about fifty he goes, can
I've got to go and do something. I'll come back.
He's gone and ring the police. I didn't know this,
and then two minutes later the police turn up, knock
knock knock, and they arrest me and they charged me
with the mar money with menace. Right then what happens
is King's Cross Police. So I ended up getting put
into jail for eleven months in MRC. But King's Cross

(18:20):
Police learn of it and they change the charge and
turn it to armed robbery.

Speaker 1 (18:25):
So robbery, So breaking that down to mean money with
menace was the first one. Yeah, so that's okay. The robbery.
It takes it to another level a completely the weapon
that you're threatening someone to rob them.

Speaker 2 (18:37):
Yeah, that's right. And so I ended up getting Supreme
Court bail to Odyssey House, but I didn't make it.
So what happens is pretty funny. My girl, the one
that sat with my brother, she's at the court and
as we're leaving, I said, i'll see you in ten
minutes at the station. She's, what are you talking about?
They're escorting you out to Odissey House. I said, I'll
see you at the station in ten minutes. We getting

(18:57):
the bars, all of these guys that have been Supreme
Court bail outdid us the house. And I'm sitting here
a window and I'm skinny, little and attic, and it's
about that much space, you know, to get out this window.
And I look at into the guy and it starts
like I'm oh, I know this, stay over there, and
I'm pointing all this stuff they've sort of engraced in
whatever it was I pointed to, and then Bush I
ship out the window, gone, I'm at the station. And
the sad part to this story is so I went

(19:19):
up to her and I said, you got any money?
She goes, yeah, should I'll give you fifty bucks or
you can come with me and my daughter, I said.
I looked at her and I thought, you betrayed me, mate,
TU give me the fifty And I still kind of well,
I don't now because I've had a beautiful After that,
I mooved on it, but for that point in time,
I felt sad. But I end up escaping and staying

(19:39):
on the streets for ages, you know, using and stuff
until I eventually get caught. So the police used to
see me, right. I remember walking down the main street
of the Cross and they're walking up eating an ice
cream and they look up and they see me and
I run towards them and I run down through this
arcade and down Chapman Steps in the Cross and they're
chasing after me, and I'm fast and they get to
the top of the sets and I'm like, come on,

(20:00):
come on. And I'm playing this game with them for
about a week. Every time they see me, they're chasing me.
They can't get an injury. I'm trying to help out.
And then what happened is one day I score and
I gave to this place. And so the day before
I'm having a shot on a staircase and all of
a sudden, someone must have come up from behind and
hit me with a bottle. Because I'm laid out on
the ground with blood coming out of my head. I

(20:20):
think someone didn't like me using in the air, so
it's come up from behind and on whack with a
big goourney bottle. The next day, I go back to
the same spot, but a different little part of it,
right where no one can see me, and I'm shooting
up but you can't get out of where I'm at.
Suddenly those three detectives walk in and they're like, god A, Glenn,
the fuck okay, you got me. I still my arm
as they're doing it. I pushed it in. I thought,
I'm not at least I'm going to have my whack

(20:42):
before I go. You know what, actually I say they
saved my life. They wouldn't like the irony of that,
But putting me in jail they was not their intent
at all. They wanted to get me, silenced me, to
get me off the street, but me going to jail.
It's sad to say this, but I actually enjoyed being
in jail.

Speaker 1 (21:00):
I've read and about that's your your view on it,
talk us through it.

Speaker 2 (21:05):
For the seven years prior to that, I'd slept in
bloody parks, in the pouring rain. I'd slept in back alleys.
I've been using every day. I was always looking over
my shoulder for somebody I've robbed, ripped off all the police.
You know, I was just tired. By the time I
got to jail. I had three meals a day, I
had a roof over my head. I had one hundred mates.
Because I wasn't that tough guy in jail, I just
got on with everyone. I was the friendly guy. Everyone

(21:27):
just got a case.

Speaker 1 (21:28):
So you were staking your piece of ground in prison.

Speaker 2 (21:31):
That's right, Yeah, I didn't. That wasn't my role.

Speaker 1 (21:33):
People didn't see you as a threat threat.

Speaker 2 (21:35):
No, you know, everyone called me stretch. I was playing
football one day and someone says, are you long, fellow,
big fella, Stretch, give me the ball. And then from
that day everyone called me stretch and it's a stretch,
and it was like but they always said, he comes
fucking stretch again with the bluey. I was always I
used to run all the competitions in jail, touched football,
whatever it was, you know. So that's how that knew me.
I got my school certificate in jail. So one of
the things that I did was I thought, right, this

(21:57):
is my chance to learn to read and write. So
I bought all these books. The only books I could
get was I got the Bible, a book called seventy
Times seven, and The Cross and the Switchblade. So they're
the three books that I read to try and get
more articulate and to learn words. Then I started to
do my CGE General Certificate of Education, which is Equivalency
DISCOL Certificate, which I did, and I got all these

(22:19):
other things, did computer courses front end later first aid
I spent my whole time in prison learning.

Speaker 1 (22:25):
That's when the system works, isn't it. I suppose you're
unique in that your start to life was so shit
prison looks better option luxury. How long's this been going on?
That's but yeah, that is the system working. It doesn't
work for everyone but someone that's in there. And credit
to you, Credit to the system for allowing you to

(22:47):
do it. But you've taken that opportunity.

Speaker 2 (22:49):
But it also taught me anger and hate. It also
taught me that respect equals violence, that if someone's disrespectful
to me, that that's met with violence. So it there's
good and the bad. And I saw a lot of
people come in to jail that stories not like mine.
You know, they come in and they do these ones
and they try and bounce around like a tough guy,
and that gets sorted really fast.

Speaker 1 (23:10):
And yeah, you know, how long did you do? So?

Speaker 2 (23:14):
I did eleven months on raman and then two years
eight months was my sentence. So I did two years
eight months.

Speaker 1 (23:19):
And that's when you literally like, we haven't even talked
about your education, but you had enough going on in
your life early schooling. Did you do much schooling or no?

Speaker 2 (23:27):
So I did the only years I can remember. I
was bounced around so much that only years four, five,
and six and seven I did. I did half a
year seven in a high school in Erina, and then
I got put into Derek. Halfway through that, I started
year eight and then I ran away. About three weeks
into it, somebody punched my brother and I attacked him

(23:48):
in the principal's office. I literally attacked him in the
principal's office. And so I ran away that time as well,
and I was institutionalized again. But yeah, I didn't do
much schooling at all, and even when I was there,
I was so messed up with my trauma and the
kids bullying and like they I've actually joined one of
the pages to the scrool I went to, and I've

(24:09):
had so many people reach out to me and said,
I Glenned, we'd had it only know and you know,
like it hurts me saying it because it felt such
a nice, needed moment. And I said to them, look,
you could never have known what was going on in
my life. You just couldn't, you know. But they knew
I lived in the oldest house that I always smelt, like,
you're right, So I had I wet the bed really bad.
We didn't have hot water as a kid. We had

(24:30):
an urn, and we didn't have a public toilet, proper toilet.
We had one that was empty back then, and so
everyone sort of knew me as the stinky, poor kid,
you know, and it is cruel, but kids don't know,
you know.

Speaker 1 (24:42):
And I can see why you get the emotional where
the kids probably gave you a hard time at school
of reaching out and apologizing.

Speaker 2 (24:50):
There, Yeah, and I respect that, you know, like you know,
someone says, you know that I should have done better,
and I wished I did. And there was a couple
that I that kind of knew what. They didn't know
the extual side of it, but they knew that I
was being subjected to extreme violence, you know, like it
was visible. I had one story I as a kid,
is I had to get up to go to school

(25:11):
one day and I'm sitting at the bus stop my
eyes like black, like really bad. And I get on
the bus and the bus driver said, what happened to you?
I said, I hit my head on the side of
the corner of the door. He said, you do that
a lot. Anyway, he drives about one hundred meters and
stops at the front of my dad's house and then
he walks up to the front door and I couldn't
hear it. And this is a guy's about seventy years
old and Clary right mag Man Bank, and you could

(25:31):
see him, he's so animated. And I'm sitting in the
bus like, what's going on? You know, because my dad
teaches karate like he's a mushler, you know, he's a
violent man. And but yeah, he gets back in the
bus and he goes heter not be doing that again.
I'll be knocking on the door every day and he's
talking all the way to Still it is the only
time in my life anyone stood up for me as
a kid. And yeah, and then I ran away. I

(25:52):
didn't come home.

Speaker 1 (25:52):
But he stood up for you.

Speaker 2 (25:56):
Now.

Speaker 1 (25:56):
But I can see the smile on your face coming
when you talking about that, because you wouldn't have had
anyone fighting you.

Speaker 2 (26:02):
No, that's right. And that's the thing that I think
that really strikes me with my stories. I didn't know
where to turn, and the system that was supposed to
protect me failed me and repeatedly failed me. And it's
it's the systemic failures. My story are so many.

Speaker 1 (26:20):
Just you know, when you talk about the docs file
and all that, and twenty two times you've been taken
from your home by the time you're seven, or something
very ridiculous. Hello, there's a pattern for me there. I
don't know the breakdown of the system.

Speaker 2 (26:34):
And you had that with my medical records of the
amount of times that I present to Mount Drew at hospital,
nor sit in the hospital all these different hospitals. You know,
I got stitches in my ankles, stitched in my fingers,
I've got scars all over me made.

Speaker 1 (26:45):
When you were taken to the hospital with your carpet
burns and your fingers, your fingers cut off, and the
mum's obviously irrational screaming at screaming at the doctor. That
would have been the moments that could have Yeah, if
someone stepped in, that's when the difference could have been mate.

Speaker 2 (27:00):
Yeah, there are so many moments that I look back
when I read through my files where I think that
so many people could have done something and nobody did nothing.
And that angers me more than the people who hurt me,
because I'll never be that guy, Gary, even if it
hurts or cost me my life. If as someone hurting
a child, bro, I can tell you right now I'm
stepping in and I feel every person should you know, I.

Speaker 1 (27:22):
Think you're right. Yeah, if we can't protect it's a
mark of society if we can't protect the vulnerable, and
the most vulnerable are kids. That's right, absolutely, Okay, so prison,
you've got an education, or if you've learned to read,
you start to appreciate the finer things. You got some skills, Yep,
when you left prison, did you have a game plan

(27:44):
of where your life was going to.

Speaker 2 (27:45):
So when I got out, they wanted me to get
a job and a place to live. I don't even
have a family mate. Am I going to do that?
So I met some Christians and they gave me a
job as a carpenter ap preentice carpentry, and I live
with them. But when I got out, the woman tried
to come on to me. She was like seventy two
year old. She walked up behind me one day and
I just come out of the gym. She's got a

(28:05):
hands all avery. I'm like, fuck this man, I'm out
of you.

Speaker 1 (28:07):
You know. Christian lady, Christian Lady's Christian.

Speaker 2 (28:12):
It was very un Christian. Yeah, But the problem was
that my addiction, Gary was doing push ups for me
waiting outside, although I never used the entire time I
was in prison.

Speaker 1 (28:22):
And that prove me again explain that one I like
the same just explained.

Speaker 2 (28:27):
Well, what I mean is that I hadn't been treated.
And that's the part of our system that does fail
us that we put people into a time warp and
know they're still a heroin atic. You know, I'm a
long believer that we should move away from punitive and
move towards rehabilitation when it comes to drug related offenses. Now,
when it comes to offense against children women, you know,

(28:48):
they said, I think that's a different story, bro. But
when we're talking about people who recidi is keep going
back and back again because of drug addiction. They come in,
they clean, they get themselves all good, then they walk
out the door, bang they use again, and many of
them drop or die or homeless.

Speaker 1 (29:03):
Well, you talk like, when you release from prison, want
to get you a job, want you to do this,
find the home and all that. You don't get much
when you released from prison. You haven't got the CV
that's going to get you get your job. So there
is I think a fair enough thing a responsibility or
it just makes sense that when you're released from prison,

(29:24):
there's a pathway.

Speaker 2 (29:25):
That you can absolutely I think one of the things
that I talk about often is I would like to
see levels. So when you go into prison, I could
say to you, listen, mate, you can do your four
years jail in jail, or you can do four levels.
Level one is we do anger management, narcotics, anonymous, we
learn educations and we work our way through all these
things so by the time someone comes out they're better

(29:46):
equipped to live a life. I mean someone like me,
that would have been ideal if somebody had taught me
about my addiction, someone taught me a little bit about
my trauma and my anger management, those kind of things,
given me an education, and then at the end you
do a bit of job release and get you an
actual place and set you up. You know, I think
that would have been a lot better than me trying
to defend for myself. And that's what it basically is.

Speaker 1 (30:08):
Well, the high rate of recidivism, not just in New
South Wales but across the country I speak, speaks of
the fact that we haven't quite got it right. But yeah,
giving something to work towards. And I know when I
was doing the series Breaking Badness, there was a lot
of people I saw in jail that were on lengthy
sentences and you could see if I had the authority,

(30:29):
and I'm not a bleeding heart or softy, I would
sign the paperwork to let them out. They had clearly
learned their lessons and they wanted to get back out
and contribute to society. But we're going to keep them
in there for another extended period of time, and who
knows what they're going to be when they get out.

Speaker 2 (30:48):
I think what the viewer needs to understand, or Australia
needs to understand, is that there's a difference between a
sick person who needs to be weighing well as opposed
to a bad person who needs to be made good.

Speaker 1 (30:58):
Yeah, you know.

Speaker 2 (30:59):
And I think when comes to a sick person needing
to be made well and heroin addict in addiction, if
we look at those sort of programs away from punitive
and move towards rehabilitation, I think that could work. Whereas
with the bad people, I think, like there's some grubs broking,
you know, they need to be in prison.

Speaker 1 (31:18):
I think and put in perspective like in prison and
talk in prison, a large percentage of the prisoners that
prick should never be released. Yeah, absolutely, like they know
bad people, but scaring jail. It's the smaller percentage of
the people that are in prison are the ones that
can't turn around to their life around. Ken Marslow said,

(31:38):
I've said a lot on the podcast, but I think
it's a good way of looking at it. You've probably
got thirty percent that have made the decision they're going
to be criminals. They're going to they're going to try
and score a dollar, and the price they pay, they're
going to get the cents that might be twenty thirty percent.
Then you've got the sixty percent probably sitting there that

(31:59):
have made a mistake. They're not bad people. It might
have been circumstances like like yourself, and they found themselves
in prisons. They're the ones that you can change. And
then the ten or fifteen percent, the real bad bastards, well,
we can't can't help them.

Speaker 2 (32:12):
And the way the system set up now is that
those fifty percent that are good to survive end up
doing some of the messenis things in prison, you know,
And I've seen that happen. I've seen good men come
to prison and join into groups and the next minute
they're shaving people or doing all sorts of stuff just
to survive, you know.

Speaker 1 (32:28):
And that's that's the thing, isn't it survival?

Speaker 2 (32:32):
Yeah, that's right. It changes men. I know the first
time I got out of prison, you might have read
it my book. I got into a punch on because
I've been taught respect equals violence. Someone wouldn't shake my hand,
and the next minute I'm punching like I literally he's
behind the door and I'm kicking the door in. And
the barman come over and said, mate, you got a choice.
You can get attacks and go home. I can bring
the police and you go back to Jaga. And I

(32:54):
took the option to go home.

Speaker 1 (32:58):
I've heard a lot of people say that when they
get out of the prison because they're so used to
walking around, bridged up, ready to go at the moments
know this, and then the gates to the prison are open,
and then walking down the street and someone disrespects you,
maybe yeah, accidentally bumping in or not shaking your hand,
and you're so conditioned that you've got to react, and
it's on again.

Speaker 2 (33:17):
I made a video just recently about justice for that gas.
Right when I was telling you about we're walking together
and we bump into each other and we're bad. You
won't have a crack. You know, we do this full
long thing and then we go literally little, and we
go backwards, and then we do it again and I'm
so sorry, bro, and he so sorry. One of the
things I teach a lot of people to do now
is when I call it monkey mantello. Two men walk
down the street and they I bought each other and
they just keep doing it. So someone said what what?

(33:38):
And it starts when somebod's that to me, I smile
and I go hi, mate, And ninety nine percent of
the time they smile straight back because what I've done
is I said you're safe. I'm safe, nothing to fear here, bro,
and then we carry on.

Speaker 1 (33:52):
Well, you can the few It's interesting, you can the
few situations I speak to young fellas and they go, well,
you know, sometimes you've got to punch on some times
you've got to do this. And I use the example
of bumping into each other at the bar. If someone's
and we've all been there, someone's taken a dislike, had
too much to drink or whatever and looking at you

(34:12):
and they've got the shits with you, yeah, for whatever
the reason is. And they might look at you and
whether you're looking at mate, and I give people this too.
If you said that to me, I'd go, sorry, mate,
I'm just having a bad day, and you can walk
away from it. You can diffuse it absoutely. We know
we can, but it's that that instinct we have. Fuck this,

(34:36):
I'm going to escalate it and take it up. But
you can walk away from the situations, can't you.

Speaker 2 (34:40):
Absolutely. I look, I work on the streets, and I've
had people scream in your face and yell at me
and all sorts of stuff. And now I'm able to
one of the things I can do. Now, I'm better discernment.
Great word. I sort of look at them and I think,
what actually is going on for you? I can see
them fasad, but what's actually going on underneath? And more
often than not, at something trauma, it's a defense mechanism
because they're actually afraid. And so I just sort of

(35:02):
stepped back and I'm just continually being kind. And I've
had there's been times, Gary, I've had somebody in my face.
I'm like and then I've had to walk away and
come back and say hey, and like come from another and.

Speaker 1 (35:12):
Well, you know, you can control how many times have
you looked back and gone and it might get physical.
It might get physical, but you look back and I
could have handled it a little bit differently.

Speaker 2 (35:22):
Yeah, like that.

Speaker 1 (35:22):
And so if you can stop and think before you react, react, Yeah, respond,
don't react. But that's the thing when the prisons are
set up that you have got to be ready to
go at the moment. It's not some respects everything. And
I can understand why bloke's coming out of there are
just and it's it's not just about the bloat that's

(35:43):
fucked up again and ends up back in prison. There's
more victims in someone's someone's been hurt.

Speaker 2 (35:48):
I would say that people don't stand tall to stand up,
which means you don't walk around on this. But if
someone puts it on you, you go straight back. And
it's not about winning or losing. It's about face, you know,
That's all it's about. In respect. I'm you know back then,
I loved being in it. When it was time to
get out, I was afraid to get out, but I
couldn't live that world.

Speaker 1 (36:05):
Now talk us through that, because that's interesting.

Speaker 2 (36:08):
Well, so for the last three months, you know, they
come up, you know, your times wearing out. I'm now
at a farm in oberon I've got a job. I'm
working in education. Everyone's be made. I played football, chess
every day. I got my own slot.

Speaker 1 (36:21):
You know.

Speaker 2 (36:21):
It's like I'm in my own room, you know, And
but then suddenly I'm getting out. I remember feeling like
for three months I ran a marathon, and to read
that in the book, I came first iron and actually
ran a marathon like I was. I just loved being
in there. But when I got out, it was time
to getting closer and closer to get out. I was
getting this really bad anxiety. I was like, I don't
know what I'm going to do where you know, how
am I going to do this? Like I've never my

(36:43):
everything in my life's been violent and you know all
this stuff. I don't know how to survive in the world.
I've never really maintained work or any of those things.
I don't know what that looks like. And and because
of that, I didn't take long for me to find
myself back into that scene.

Speaker 1 (36:58):
You know.

Speaker 2 (36:59):
It was only because in nineteen ninety six I met
someone and we'd had a little boy that the Woodraw
Commission knocked on my door, and you know what they did,
Like I know, they didn't mean it, but they still
did it. I was sitting in my loungery with my
partner at the time and bangman bang on the door,
Kings Cross Police, like straight away, my heart stopped right
because it's King Tross. Straight away I opened up. There's

(37:20):
two women and a man. They are dressed in black
and all in black clothing. Hi aware from the Woodraw Commission,
You've been identified by multiple people as a victim of
sex crimes in your time in the Cross in front
of my partner, right in front of my partner. A
little bit, it could have had a lot differently, And
because I'd never told that part of my story to
my partner, and so that was the first thing. I

(37:41):
wasn't quite ready when they came forward, but I did.
I put two men away through that case.

Speaker 1 (37:48):
I suppose you wouldn't have been trusting too.

Speaker 2 (37:51):
I didn't make King Tross Police. That in itself was
an alarm bell for me, you know. And what's this
Woodraw Commission you speak of, you know? And I tell
them and stuff, and I gave some stuff half away,
but not really all the everything. It wasn't until the
next Rayal Commission into institutional abuse, where they took my
full story.

Speaker 1 (38:07):
You put two people away.

Speaker 2 (38:10):
Yes, So in the Woodraw Commission, I put away a
guy named Paul Chapman Jones, he was a counselor at
the refuge, and a guy named Ken Foggery. He was
the head of O'Brien Glass or I worked for O'Brien glass, sorry,
and used to sit outside the park all the day.
He's the one that raped me that time. I was
telling you about that one that was quite violent.

Speaker 1 (38:25):
And was that just by providing a statement or did
you do well?

Speaker 2 (38:29):
So a lot of other people had come forward as
well in those particular two, including someone close to me,
and so I spoke up as well, and I went
to court against the both gave evidence that in the
first case against Paul Chapman Jones. When we were at court,
they broke for lunch and I was sitting out in
my lunch and I looked up at the table and
he's come up, like literally approached me in the inter

(38:51):
room and he's gone, Glenn. He said, look, I'm really
sorry for what I did to you when you were
a little boy, and he mentioned another victim. And he
went back to court and played guilty, but he was
charged by multiple charges. He got eighteen months, right, eighteen
months sentence. Then the other one he pled not guilty
and fought it all the way through, got found guilty.

(39:13):
He also got eighteen months. And I was like, at
the end of that, mate, I'd just gone through all this,
going around, the drive, around the hearings, you know, the
whole thing. Because the problem with my cases was I
was subjected to the time governing abuse, which meant that
I was subjected to the laws of when my abuse occurred,
which meant I had to be at every hearing every man,
you know, everything, had to be at every fucking thing.

(39:34):
And it was hard.

Speaker 1 (39:36):
Man. How did you find that? And were you're still
using heroin?

Speaker 2 (39:40):
So I'd been clean and then what happened was because
I was living in Leftgo, I had to catch the
train every day to the Downy Center and I was
making a detour ry the cross getting on and then
I was sitting in court like this every day, like Onniqord,
you know, just smash because I couldn't process it.

Speaker 1 (39:55):
Man.

Speaker 2 (39:55):
It was the way that the solicitors for them would
treat me. You know that. It's like it's changed now,
but back then they could say just about anything they
wanted to, you know, and like trying to make it
all my fault.

Speaker 1 (40:09):
Just how long you've been using heroin for you just yea,
yeah you went.

Speaker 2 (40:14):
To arm robbery, didn't you? And you know, and like
are you gay?

Speaker 1 (40:19):
You know?

Speaker 2 (40:19):
You know, you know, did you get an erection? You
know I would have you got an erection? You must
have enjoyed it, you know, like the things that they.

Speaker 1 (40:26):
Say, is that how they literally what.

Speaker 2 (40:28):
They said to me? You know, did you get it aroused?
You know, did you get an erection? Did you did
you like it? You know? You went to Paul twice?
So therefore you know, like and it's it's just fat.

Speaker 1 (40:40):
So they can put that spin on it, and yeah,
balance out with the fact that you're a kid at
the time and being taken. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (40:46):
I don't want to give credit to a pedophile, but
I will say that Paul Jones noticed what was happening
in the court and I could see he was distressed
by my distress, strangely enough, and he did, like I said,
come up and apologize to me. And he's the only
one that has and I do believe there was a
genuine remorse and that man, but he still did what
he did, right, you know, so that yeah, he apologized

(41:08):
and that meant something to me. But the other one
was quite coarse. And I've actually had people reach out
to me at different stages about him like that are
friends of his, you know, Like same with Simon. He
works in the privacy sector. I had all these people
saying you cannot speak online and talk about him until
he's been convicted that because you know, but then I
also someone else that reached in the privacy sector, and

(41:28):
so He'm glad. I just want you to know that
we're not all work in that area like that, you know.
And I said, but the three guys that would really
give me a hard time on Twitter messaging me the
minute he got convicted, block block block orfully the block
block block, because I was so ready to go, well
what now?

Speaker 1 (41:43):
What what now? Yeah, Hey, guys, it's Gary Jubilan here.
Want they get more out of VI Catch Killers, then
you should head over to our new video feed on
Spotify where you can watch every episode of VI Catch Killers.
Just search for I Catch Killers video in your Spotify
app and start watching today. How does it feel face

(42:05):
him down in court?

Speaker 2 (42:07):
Well, with Simon was the biggest one.

Speaker 1 (42:09):
Yeah, tell us about that, because that was a long,
longer process process.

Speaker 2 (42:12):
In twenty sixteen they put out a red notice for
Simon Davis. But I named him in the Woodrow Commission
in ninety six I named him in my statement in
twenty twelve and in the wood Rock in the Royal
Commission instit institutional abuse. They allowed him to leave the
country even though multiple people had spoken about him as
the primary abuser. And he ends up going to London

(42:34):
and then he gets catches win that this warrants come
out right, so he flees to the Netherlands. So he's
learned that if you go to certain places in Europe
that they have statute of limitations and that you can
use the statute of limitation laws to negate crimes in
this country, which is frick and insane.

Speaker 1 (42:49):
It should be you would think it would relate to
the country where the offense committed.

Speaker 2 (42:53):
Absolutely. So what happens is there's four people who have
made charges against Simon Davies and eighteen charges against him.
Time he leaves the Netherlands, two of those victims have
no longer got charges against him. I had thirteen against
him turned into three, but I'll never forget the police.
This is where for me, police change right, the sex
clamed squad from Paramatta, Nick Sprows. I'll say his name,

(43:15):
Beca is a beautiful man. He used to ring me
every day. Hey, I played rugby league super coach. That
is fantasy sport. I run podcasts for it, right, He
bring about and goes, oh, Glenn, I'm doing my football side.
You know who do you reckon? I should pick? And
we just talked for an hour about footy or BBL. Right,
But what he was doing was building a rapport. He
was building a trust and he said to me one day,
this says Glenn, I promise you. I know it's taking

(43:36):
nearly a decade, he says, but I will fucking get him.
And then of course COVID come in that made it
even more difficult. And I'll never forget. The haard Man
has kind of upset me again. He ran me from
the airport from the Netherlands and he goes, hey, Glenn,
how are you doing? I said good? Maybe he goes
this and I just want to warn you that all
over the news tonight, Simon Davey's been arrested. We got him,
you know, And I just remember Garry, I said on

(43:59):
the lounge with so bad depression. After all them court cases,
I didn't move, I wasn't showering, I wasn't eating. I
just sat there. I didn't know how to survive. I
was literally on methadone, but I wasn't using drugs. I
didn't know where to fit in. And I just kept thinking,
they're never going to get him, They're never going to
get him. And finally the time that he rang me
up and he said, Glenn, I've got him, I felt

(44:19):
like I was able to breathe again. But then when
I went to court, the coward wouldn't come to court.
He wanted to do it on the screen and he
would not look across. But he caught up at the
end and he made this big letter trying to you know,
I'm so sorry I'll let you down as a leader.
And Jim and de clant to come up to me
and she said, Glenn, I come up with exact words,
but it's like you're one of the most bravest people

(44:39):
I've ever seen speak, you know. She said, you are
so articulate, and she said you are so better than
that man. And I really appreciate those words at that
minute from Dimni and deb Night. They're just some really
lovely people out there.

Speaker 1 (44:52):
Yeah, well, I think people do understand. And I know
both the people you just mentioned, and they understand what
you've been through. Yeah, yeah, we read that, we hear
about it in the paper. But unless you sit down
and actually speak to someone that have a full appreciation
of what they've been through, it's just sort of gets
lost in the news headlines, doesn't it.

Speaker 2 (45:15):
You know, when I told my story to the police,
I remember them, the two police I'm talking about, they
got their arms folded like this and they're listening to
my crum sitting there, but they're sort of listening, and
you could see that they were like, this is a
good story, bro, and it's a lot you know, it
doesn't make it and I'm trying to cut your fingers off, okay,
and yeah, and this happened and that okay, you could
see it. Yeah, they went away six weeks. They were gone, right,

(45:35):
and I thought, well that's that. Then then they turned
back and it was almost like they're excited. Those mean,
we've been all around the country. We've spoken to so
many kids from the cross and every single one Parrot
of what you said. So what we want you to
do is wear a wire. And I was like, are
you're fucking kidding me? I'm not wearing a wire. But
I did, and I'm glad I did because I got him.
You know, that's the other one, Grant Morrow, So I

(45:55):
ended up getting him as well.

Speaker 1 (45:56):
You went and wore a war and met.

Speaker 2 (45:58):
With Yeah, it's crazy. So they asked me.

Speaker 1 (46:00):
First, how do you feel. That's a lot of pressure.

Speaker 2 (46:02):
I was scared, and I know scared the right word.
It was like everything that had been taught to me
that growing up was that still that crim side of me.

Speaker 1 (46:11):
It's on half laughing and you got to you've got
to see some light and samrries. But I just know
that I krim were a wire.

Speaker 2 (46:20):
Yeah, I'm a snitch, you know. And then that's when
the police said to me, like, it's a different rule
and so online as well. It's a different rule when
it comes to those who abuse children, Glenn, And that's
when I had that conversation with him about, you know,
saying that everyone there after abuses. And now the funny
thing was I put this wire on right, And then
he had to drop his car off somewhere so they

(46:40):
knew he was going to walk a path, right, But
as I came out to where I'm coming up this way,
I'm going to walk down that way, there's all roadwork
in the three and so I think, fuck, I've got
to rush past the roadwork so that they confined. So
I did, I thought it. So I got past all
the road works so that I met him at the
corner and I walked past, and I sort of tapped hi,
my dad as I kept walking past, and went Glenn,
is that little Glenn? And I'm like, oh, hi, Graham,
how trying to be nice and stuff. And they gave

(47:02):
me a phone as well, So for a specific phone,
I gave him the phone numb. He didn't contact me
for two weeks. Then one night he rang me up
drunk and just bang, he just blurted and blurted. As
soon as they hung out, I got a call straight
from the police. And this was late at night. Glenn.
We got him and they say, can you organize a rendezvous?
So what they did was they organized it so that
I introduced him to a pedophile he thought was a pedophile.

(47:25):
And this pedophile had a boy that was with his parents,
and we needed to get him back from his parents'
own So when I introduced Grant to this pedophile, he
walks in. First, he slides a photo across the right,
and I opened, there's two naked boys on the stomach
at the refuge, right, And soon as I grab that,
I slid it to the detective. Then I realized what
I was doing, and I slid it straight back and
just folded up and sat there. And that's when he

(47:46):
said that thing. He said, He didn't It's like I
wasn't even there. He is so engrossed with this guy.
He thought it was a pedophile. They're just interactive and
he's gone, yeah, and we targeted pretty pubis and kids
that come from broken homes, and this is how we
went about it. And he's given the game man and
I was sitting there thinking, and the police said to
me later on, I walked out, I need a cigarette.
I needed to because I was angry at that stagment.

Speaker 1 (48:07):
I can imagine.

Speaker 2 (48:07):
But they rang me straight away. You're okay, you know.
They were like, like I said, I saw a different face.
And he said to me, going, I don't see myself
as like a copper, he said, I see myself as
an investigator investigating child crime. But can I just say this,
what a fucking kind of a job, so to swear,
but imagine being in that position, having to watch videos
or hear the replays of those stories over and over,

(48:28):
then go home to your children. How do you do that?

Speaker 1 (48:31):
Look, it's a very hard area of criminal investigation and sadly,
and I think we're recognizing it more now, but they're
always under resourced. Yeah, relatively, Junius. Sometimes you've got some
of the more experienced ones that can stay on, but
quite often inexperienced police officers and doing that. And yeah,
people say, give q thos to investigating homicides unless you're

(48:54):
after a serial killer or gangland. Yeah, the crimes happen,
you're trying to find the person that it's done it,
which there's pressure there. But with child sex abuse, you know,
if you don't catch this preck other kids are going
to be there's a lot of responsibility. And I think, yeah,
it's great that you're talking talking some up because I

(49:15):
would imagine your your starting point is you don't like
cops from what you've experienced in the in the early years,
So for you to talk talk it up, and I
get the sense you see the cops that you're talking about,
the good ones, they actually cared. And what the difference
that makes too, It doesn't.

Speaker 2 (49:33):
I think one thing that I've learned, you know, there's
good people and there's bad people. And that's in every
sector of wherever anything flows, you know, whether it be
in the tax department or we're in the police department,
or in crime world. You know, I mean even the
crim world. There's good people and there's people that are
just really bad, inherently bad people. You know, there's a difference.
And I have seen a different face to policing, you know.

(49:53):
And I appreciate the way that they were so gentle
through it because I was really struggling, and I really was,
and and I almost suicided again, Like I guess I
should tell you that, So I twice. So the first
time was I took a heber. I went to a
heroin dealer and I said how much you got? He said,
I've got found of bucksworth. I said, I want the lot.
I said, I'm out of you. I literally told him

(50:14):
I'm going to kill myself. And I walked up to
this church and I took the whole lot, stood nothing
walked down the main street, lit go, walked into a path,
got a glass of water, went banged and hit the deck.
So luckily I was in the safe place to be here.

Speaker 1 (50:27):
But that says something about the dealer too, doesn't You're
telling him I'm out of here. Well that's that's not good, mate.
You probably shouldn't do that. But here.

Speaker 2 (50:36):
I won't say his name, but the irony is he
actually overdosed about it a year later himself, which is sad,
but you know, I guess he saw it from that's
money to his own habit.

Speaker 1 (50:47):
So that's the way. Look, he's dealing with his own
own demons.

Speaker 2 (50:50):
And then there was a third time, and the last
one is a pretty I went to rehab. Before I
went to rehab, what happened was, I'd been speeding on
the gas for about a week and I'm fucking in
another world and I just sat there again. I got
that thought process, so I just don't want to be here,
and I just kept looking around, thinking around. I thought
there is nothing in this world, and there was, but
I didn't realize that I want to be here for

(51:12):
So I went down to the cliff of the tumba right,
and I stand. I'm scared to deaf of heights, right,
But I stand back from this cliff and I'm actually
getting my carriage and I'm going to run and I'm
going to jump. Where I was actually going to jump
was actually a fence, and then there's another drop down
but I didn't know that. But all of a sudden,
as I'm about to go, I hear a voice and
this guy says, hey, bro, And I look over and
he goes, you know that people don't always die when
they go over there, right, And I'm like, what you go?

(51:33):
Sometimes they land at the bottom and all broken pieces
and they've got to take hours to get them out.

Speaker 1 (51:37):
It was a smart, smart fellow that makes you think,
doesn't it.

Speaker 2 (51:40):
And I was like, fuck a. My mind's already convoluted
from seven days. I'm not sleeping pretty much, you know.
I mean, I'm like, and I'm thought that'd be pucking
my luck. I'll land on a tree and fucking break
everything on the way down and sit at the bottom,
and aren't thought fuck it. And then the funniest part
of the story, right was I thought that he rang
the police. So on the way back, every light, everything
I'm ducking in under cars.

Speaker 1 (51:56):
All the way, getting your breakdownce and work there.

Speaker 2 (52:01):
And then what happened was the next morning a rehab
bring me and said you've got a space in Caroliica
in Canberra, which was the start of the change of
my life. But while I was in Camber in rehab cant,
I didn't know I had thyroid cancer and I had
two other nahors on my back as well.

Speaker 1 (52:17):
You thought you were just getting rock and getting super fit,
and look at me, I'm stripped down, lean me.

Speaker 2 (52:23):
I thought I was buff bro. And they called me
into the office one day and they said, mate, can
you get your stand on the scales? Mate? And she
said you're six foot two and you weigh sixty six kilos.
I said, okay, you said, I think something's not righty.
They took me in. There's only two types of actual cancer.
It's called atypical pattern and forliquda amphipedia. I had them both.
I had five nodules and that was rage and I
was very unwell. And I also had hepatitis C and

(52:45):
I had two melanamers on my back. Yeah, so they
had to and you can't treat thyroid and lither together,
so they had to take a risk. They did that,
did my radiation, all that treatment, then they put me
through a new trial perhaps, so you got rid of that,
and they cut the two things out of my back
as well.

Speaker 1 (53:00):
So you went through the full full thing, full thing. Yeah,
and okay, and you're still smiling.

Speaker 2 (53:07):
I'm still smiling.

Speaker 1 (53:08):
There's a quote I meant to say it in the
first part of the podcast. I like it, and I'm
not sure if you invented it. You probably probably didn't,
but i've heard you use it. Is it don't let
the past rob you of your future. Yeah, that's a
that's a really I highlighted that because it's a really
powerful thing to say it because so many people have. Yeah,

(53:30):
you've had all these kicks in the guts, Like just
when you think you're getting through, getting getting new shit together,
cancer comes in the place another one. But you're still standing. Yeah,
and you're now doing doing some good stuff.

Speaker 2 (53:44):
Yeah. Well that's right. I turned. I started to its
started off on TikTok. My daughter asked me to do
a dance on TikTok. When you do a dance to me, Dad, No,
this time, I may have a wait. I haven't showered
in probably weeks, like being honest, not eating properly. I'm
really not well. And she says, when you do a
dance to me, TikTok dag. So so my money don't
talk to jiggle jiggles. So my job was the jigle jiggle,
you know. And then there're a bit of my rap dancing,

(54:06):
you know. And then anyway, she's challenged me almost like
you know, you're an old man, mate, no one's going
to watch you on TikTok. I was like, okay, well,
challenge accepted. So I went on and I read the
back of my book. I got to about thirty thousand
views and about a thousand followers.

Speaker 1 (54:22):
Street credibility with your daughter, then yeah.

Speaker 2 (54:24):
Yeah, that's right. She thinks I'm famous. Now about a
hundred you know, it's a lot more, but she's But anyway,
that's how it started out. And then what actually happened
was I shared a couple of parts of my journey
on TikTok and stuff, and people started reaching out to me,
you know, and they were people from the past, you know,
and they were like, bro, you know you need to speak.
You know, you're articulate, you speak honestly. You know, you're

(54:47):
not afraid, you know, because all of us are and
are for different various reasons, whether it be family related,
you know, there's old reasons. Yeah, and and it just
grew into something and then that goes right. I was
telling you about his an incredible story of his own.
You know, he's big drug deal, all this stuff in
by the me to Melbourne, and he sat me down.
He said, bro, you've got a hell of a story.
And he said, you know, you can really change hearts

(55:09):
and souls, you know, if you just get your shit together.
But I was still on some box of tone at
the time, and I thought, fuck this, I'm going to
get off it. And then when I was coming back
from Melbourne, it was midnight and I caught the train.
Bag don't even catch training in Melbourne. It's a fucking
lot of tripment. But any way I did, and I
got off the train. I saw all these homeless people
at Central Station, where literally I used to sleep at
one point in my life, and I thought, this is bullshit. Man,

(55:31):
nothing's changed, you know. I thought, you know, I'm just
going to I had seventy bucks, it's all I had
to my name. I said, I'm going to spend this
seventy bucks on these people and get to know their story.
And I started doing that and I just kept backing up,
backing up, backing up. And now it's going into an org.
You know, like I'm running this shit. I've got a
whole lot of volunteers at work with me now. And
you know, we hand out swags, we had out sleeping bags,

(55:52):
we hand out toiletries, we had out. But the biggest
thing about it, Gary, it's not about the things that
we give people. What it is is about connection. I'm
trying to make people understand that, you know, show them
that there's hope.

Speaker 1 (56:04):
You know.

Speaker 2 (56:05):
That's what I'm trying to show people is I'm living
proof that you can come out the other end, that
today's addict could be tomorrow's advocate. And we are. We're
changing the minds. And it's three pronged. For me, It's
not just about helping those on the street. It's about
making Australia aware that when you walk past someone on
the street and you step around them or you call
them a name, that could be someone's mother, brother, sister, annie, uncle,

(56:28):
is somebody somebody right. But more importantly, mental health is
a epidemic on the street. It's absolutely heinous. There's this
misnomer that everyone on the street to heroin, addict or alcoholic,
and that's not true. I mean there's a percentage that,
but there's also a huge percentage that are there. Because
they closed all the institutions as you know, back in

(56:48):
around twenty fourteen fifteen for mental health and just release
them onto the street.

Speaker 1 (56:53):
It has created the problems and people that find themselves
our the home and showing that little bit of connection
you call it connection connection there. But yeah, little things
like that can make can make the world a difference.

Speaker 2 (57:06):
That's right, and that's what we do now. And I've
surrounded myself. One of the smartest things that I've done
is I've surrounded myself with people who can do the
things I cannot. You know, I don't have the education
everyone else. It's what I do do well is connect.
I can see, I get And the other thing is
I don't. I always get down and sit with people
and I'll spend whatever time it is with them, and
I like they come up and hug me, Hey, bro,
I love you. It's so beautiful the way I've built

(57:26):
this relationships. But what's happened is by the people that
I've got with me now because I've built this rapport,
they instantly trust the people that I surround myself with.
And I've got an Ai n I've got a woman
that's going to university also from the Cross, so another
history of our own. There's a whole lot of people
you know that are now just incredible, incredible.

Speaker 1 (57:45):
That lived experience. What's it called?

Speaker 2 (57:47):
And how can people I've called the leg Up Project
and so you.

Speaker 1 (57:51):
Can how can people follow it or see what.

Speaker 2 (57:53):
I actually have a Facebook page called the leg Up
Project on Facebook, or you can follow my socials. We're
about to create a web page, so we'll have a
web page as well soon. I've got a podcast as
you know. Of course, it's into the Cross on YouTube
that I've just started because I tried. One of the
problems is all the money from my book has been
how I financed this up to now. So what I'm

(58:13):
trying to do is trying to make a way where
I'm able to fund it for not me doing it,
you know. So I've created a YouTube page so that
if I can monetize it, I can use that to
do what I do on the streets because I give
it So last two Christmases in a row, I gave
out one eight hundred worth of gift cards the year
before last and last year I gave out twenty eight hundred.

(58:35):
I addressing is the drink this year. And on Christmas
Day and Christmas Eve, Christmas Eve, I go with the
church they give out presents. And then on Christmas Day,
I just what I do is I ask Australia just
send me a Christmas card, write a beautiful little message
in it, and just stick at ten on the gift
card inside and I'll hand that out on the street
and I go live, so people get to literally watch
me do it.

Speaker 1 (58:53):
Good on you. Wow, let's give the book of promo
pass over here you follow up to the camera. Can
people get the book?

Speaker 2 (59:02):
So it's several ways. It's called Predator's Paradise. So most
people message me they want to get it directly from me,
but you can get it on Amazon, Kindle, book tape
or all the places. But now it's on all twenty
four platforms of audio. I've actually had Channel seven do
it for me and make it. The only one that's
not out on is Audible, but it will be in
the next week. It's just that the picture. They didn't
accept my picture, so we had to put a different

(59:22):
picture there for the actual book, and we've now called
it King's Cross a Predator's Paradise for audible.

Speaker 1 (59:28):
Okay, well, you've heard just a snippet of Glenn's story today,
and the book goes into a lot more detail and
there's so much, so much, I say, fascinating them. I'm
not sure if that's the right word. That's just really
if you want to understand someone's life that didn't start
off the right way, but you've come through it, it's
an inspiration.

Speaker 2 (59:48):
Yeah, I have come out the other end. And one
of the main reasons, like I said, I don't talk
about my family, but that is the catalyst. The main
reason for me is I don't want to see history
repeat and it was repeating. I'm telling you, that's where
it was going. And after rehab, you know, one of
the best things rehabbed in for me was it made
me realize that I didn't know shit. You know, I
thought I knew a lot, like everything I knew was wrong.

(01:00:09):
And that's pretty much what I had to start from
scratch and rehab and start to learn about owning my shit.
You know, start to own my behavior and start to
change myself from the core. And I've done that. But
the biggest catalyst for me was understanding the undercurrent to
my addiction was trauma. And once I started to realize
I've actually got PTSD, I have ADHD and all the

(01:00:29):
other fucking leaders of the alphabet.

Speaker 1 (01:00:30):
Probably I could just keep having.

Speaker 2 (01:00:33):
But you know, the main one being PTSD. I don't
think my trauma will ever fully go away, but I
have better tools now to manage it.

Speaker 1 (01:00:41):
And that's that's the thing. It's not going to go
away itself. That's all in the past. It's always there.
But you've got the tools. Yeah, and I would imagine
the work that you're doing, and yeah, it would be
bringing a good random act of kindness, which you're doing frequently.

Speaker 2 (01:00:59):
It's good to this absolutely, and the following that I
have on social media, it's not just there. Like so
many people reach out to me and share with me,
you know they're suffering. I get so many mums and
dad reached out about their child there, you know, the parent,
whatever it is. You know, like shed one last story
with you, because this is really one that I really
touched my soul. I was walking into a post office

(01:01:20):
and a woman come out with two little kids and
she said, oh, you glenn off TikTok. I said, yes
I am. She goes, please give you a hug, and
then she started hugging me and she was almost sobbing,
and I was like it was a little bit creepy
at first. I'm like, what's going on here? And then
she lets me go and she goes. Four weeks ago
and my husband is an alcoholic, had a violin thro
and stuff like the house. He hits me all the time.
So we've split and left him. But before we left,

(01:01:41):
my daughter grabbed one of your videos press play and
put it in front of him and said watch that,
then walked out the door. He rang her up about
two weeks later and confessed to his own history. Right
he's now. I think it's seven months nearly eight months
sober in a rehab.

Speaker 1 (01:01:58):
There's a lot to people have got to own, haven't they.
That's a starter time and that example you just provided.
They're like, yeah, wow, what you're making a difference. Yeah,
and making a difference. That must feel good.

Speaker 2 (01:02:10):
It does feel good, you know, Like I was. I
was going to say I was a part of the problem.
I was the fucking problem. I'm telling you, I was
the problem.

Speaker 1 (01:02:16):
Yeah, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:02:17):
And now I want to be a part of the solution.
And I know that's cliche, but it's legit what I
want to do. I want to use whatever time I've
got left on this earth to I feel like my
whole life Gary has been gives me the experience to
do what I do. You know, that's the one good
thing that's come from all that trauma is that I'm
able to empathize recognize what someone else is going through.

(01:02:38):
I'm able to step back and instead of seeing the
facade of someone, I see the heart of someone. Yeah,
you know, And and that makes me able to connect
on a level a lot of people can't.

Speaker 1 (01:02:47):
And and the courage to talk out like you've yeah
talked out about because that's that and that's why the
things that happened to you were allowed to happen because
people didn't talk about it.

Speaker 2 (01:02:56):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (01:02:56):
Yeah, Stigma, it's powerful stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:02:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:02:59):
Well, well, I am glad we've got you on I
catch killers and you've got a lot of people that
keep hitting me over the head with it going. You've
got to get it, get him on get him on.
Yeah ye, but yeah it's great and sitting down and
chatting with you and just full credit to you, mate,
I seriously say this. I was inspired by the way

(01:03:19):
you've got through all the shit that was thrown at
you and you've come out the other side and you're
doing some really good work and you've made me reflect
on what said. When you walk past people laying on
the road, the people that haven't got a home for
the time being, and.

Speaker 2 (01:03:35):
Bonus is free, Gary, it takes a minute to stop
and say, hey mate, my name's Gary.

Speaker 1 (01:03:39):
How are you doing? You know?

Speaker 2 (01:03:40):
Could I buy you a coffee? You know? And the
coffee's token is the it's the actual connection, you know,
just say I see you, bro, you know, because you know,
I know. When I was on the street, people used
to walk past me. I felt like I was invisible,
or if I wasn't invisible, people would say the most
enous and horrible things to me, and I go home
to your mother or and they didn't realize that wasn't
an option for me. I didn't have that option. And

(01:04:00):
we don't know what someone's going through until we know,
you know.

Speaker 1 (01:04:03):
Not good good way to finish all the best for
the future and stay in touch.

Speaker 2 (01:04:08):
Absolutely cheers, absolutely thanks Gary,