November 17, 2025 • 49 mins
Doug Morgan and his twin brother Peter robbed more than 20 banks in just two years, becoming known as the After Dark Bandits. But when Peter shot two police officers, their bank robbing days came crashing down. From Doug’s dramatic arrest and being locked up in Pentridge Prison with some of the heaviest criminals to attempting a prison escape, he shares how they evaded police for years before being sentenced to more than a decade behind bars.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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 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):
In Part two of my chat with former bank Robert
Doug Morgan, we delve further into his life as a
notorist armed robber, how he and his brother Pete were
arrested after a police officer was shot during an armed robbery.
We also discuss how he survived Penridge jail, how he
turned his life around, and the warning he has for
(01:06):
others that might consider following the path he took. I
also asked Doug how he now feels about all the
people he terrorized during his career as a bank robber.
It was an interesting chat, that's for sure. Okay, Doug Morgan,
Welcome back to part two of I Catch Killers.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Hang on, What am I doing on this one? This
is I'm not a killer?
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Yeah, but it's a fine life, fine line when you
walking to a bank or a tab with a gun.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
I totally agree, and when I look back the mistake
I made I was a bank teller. I believe that
anybody behind the counter and a TV or a bank
was trained the same as I was. Because I grew
up in a crime family, my capacity to handle things
is probably different to people who have been trained but
(01:57):
don't have the capacity to handle the actual live situation.
So I actually believe that they would be about as
stressed as I would be if I was the bank teller.
And a funny little story is I wasn't allowed to
have a gun because I was seventeen when I was
a bank teller. I'd been trained, but I wasn't actually
physically allowed to have a gun. So I went down
(02:18):
the street to let's say, an army disposal store, and
I bought the biggest and longest and most offensive looking
letter opener I could have, and used to put it
on my desk, on my teller's unit. And if you
try to rob me, I'm going to stab you with
my letter opener.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Well, see, that's the thing when you go in there,
and that's why I talk about the risk or before
you go in, you do not know how people are
going to react when confronted by that situation.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Well, do you want to know how I felt about
all that being a bank teller? How I used to think,
hope they don't shoot me, because I'll probably be on
their side. And now I'll tell a joke that if
you had to try to rob me in those days,
I would have went one for you, one for me,
one for you, one for me, and we'll all go
home happy tonight.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
What hope did that bank have had? Did you get
sacked or did you quit as a talent?
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Well, I had to leave with my father.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Oh that's right. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Now you said you want a real scoop, You want
a real scoop.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Yeah, give us a scoop. We're always out for a scoop, right.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
I was a brilliant bank teller, and in those days
it wasn't computerized, and it was up to me every
night to balance my books. And because I was pretty
good at it, the number one teller never used to
check my money, and I started to work this out
that I was pretty well trusted. We were on the
first floor of a building right in the middle of
the city in Melbourne. In the basement was a ta
(03:47):
b wow. What one of myself and one of my
knock about mates that was working at the bank who
became buddies because we were two of the let's say,
working class boys, you know me and I time the
other boys would say to me, Doggie, you want to
go down and look at tis in the shops. I go,
what the hell are you talking about? Look at tis?
(04:08):
I've got one tie, that's it. I got one suit,
that's it. Leave me alone. Anyway, So what we would
do at lunchtime is we would sort out some bets.
I would withdraw money from my unit and would make
a plunge. Now, in the old days, tabs pay you
out at five point thirty after the day's takings, so
(04:29):
I couldn't get the money back win or lose in
time to balance my books. So I would have to
falsify nearly every night my bank Telly's unit or would
call it, you know, was a unit, but that would
money would go back in the safe every night. So
I would falsify in my books most nights to cover
my bedding and the next day I'd get the money
(04:52):
the next lunchtime, so I'd work a day behind. So
I had the A and Z basically bank rolling Doug
Morgan Punter anything.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Well, I can't see how that could have gone wrong.
If you're lost, lucky you had something to get back.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
But it did lose once and I had to sign
because this can be done just in paperwork. Yeah, so
I made a withdrawal the next day once out of
my savings account to balance the books because I only
remember losing once. Yeah, I actually did lose eighty dollars
out of my own account. You're juggling, but it felt
(05:30):
better when it was theirs.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Well, doesn't hurt as much when you lose someone else's money,
I suppose. Okay, I want to clarify one thing before
we go into this next part. Your brother's still around, yes,
and you two are talking. I don't want to cause
a rift in the family.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
He came down to see me actually on the weekend
at rudolg Bar and Pendridge.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Okay, it's not going good. Well, talk us through the
police officer that was shot and Ray Koss. What's a
factual account of it? When your brother shot Ray Koch?
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Okay, I wasn't there. There was never any planning for
shooting people that was off limits. If you got to
that point, you'd failed. You'd failed our rules of engagement.
We had rules of engagement that if the job was
too hot, you walk away. His ego didn't allow that anyway.
(06:27):
So he drags the copper out of the car. He says,
you're a copper. He takes his car keys off and
froze into the paddock next next to and shoves the
gun into his stomach. This guy who was driving home,
innocent copper. And then my brother's got a way of
belittling people when he's got a gun in his hand.
The next time he goes there, Ray Kosh got close
(06:49):
to him and the gun was again in the side
of a person's body, and this time the gun goes off.
The next day he allows another copper to get close
to him. Gun again goes into the stomach of a
copper but this time the safety was on and he's
left handed, so he couldn't get the safety off. According
to the copper, this was rick hasty. Yeah, forget about
(07:14):
everything else. Just as a common sense person, if you
keep sticking guns against people's bodies, when does it go off?
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Yeah, Well, there's consequences and the risk. And you've said
you always looked at the bank if it's too hot,
and look at risks and try to mitigate mitigate the risk.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Let's say I've got you. You're a copper. Yeah, Let's
say I've got you. You've got no gun, Yeah, and
I've got a gun. I'd be foolish to let you
come within arms reach of me, wouldn't I.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Oh, you'd be in trouble if you did.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Yeah, because you're going to have a go.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Just what my brother did. He used to walk up
and stick the gun in the side of which means
he went to three coppers and allowed all of them
to be within struggling range. Now, now I have a flip. Look,
I make jest of a lot of things, and sometimes
I even make jest of this. Guns are not for
wrestling over.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
No, that's very true, very true.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
I tell you something I'm going to tell you something
that I've never said to anybody. I asked my brother
why he had got out of the search area after
shooting Raykosh and robbing the bank, and look, I don't
know if it was accidental, you don't know. We'll never know.
I wasn't there. He didn't follow our procedures and continued
and that was the result of him not following our
(08:33):
procedures of engagement with police. Our rules of engagement should
not have allowed him to even be there when the
police was so hot. But he broke those rules because
his ego and he being the commander in chief or
general as he saw himself, he kept changing the rules.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Now that the rule's been the pac that you guys
had made, Yeah, we had rule, We discussed.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Everything was discussed and planned down to the we had
in the scrub. We had flash torches, not to be
used because a helicopter would see them, but for a
pickup point if it was at nighttime. We have codes,
and I'll flash you the code if I'm picking you up,
and you will flash me back a code, even to
the extent if you don't flash me back the code
(09:19):
and you're in a car, I won't come out because
the coppers might have you in your car. So unless
you give me the real code, I'm not even coming out,
even if I know it's you. So we had over
a thing really well regimented for the safety of everybody.
Do you think we planned robberies to get caught? We
planned robberies to go home. Now the next day he
(09:42):
breached your perimeter because O're planning even after shooting a
copper and you flooded the area or you or your
let's say you, well, keep it you, you and me mate,
it's you and me today. All right.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
I'm happy you're getting me excited. I'd like to be
going after you guys. Yeah, okay, we've set up the well.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
I think we can do a movie if I saw you.
If I draw first, don't draw yours, because I'll let
you go home, but you let me walk as well.
We'll be doing good that day. But the trouble is
you're going to shoot me. Do you know what I
planned once to make I was going to have on
the back of my bike a rack that was bulletproof
(10:23):
so you couldn't shoot me as I rode away.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
I think ned Kelly came up with that a few
years ago or before.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
But I'm not a Ned Kelly fan. I paint Ned Kelly,
but I'm not a fan because he broke my rules too.
He shot people.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Well, I'm glad you understand that, because I saw the result,
whether it was in the stick ups or in homicide
where people get shot, that's devastating.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Absolutely. Now, I said to my brother, you got out
of the search area, you got to the pickup point
if it's too hot and I can't get in because
it's too many cops. Because there was a perimeter, and
he broke the perimeter, but he didn't bring he didn't
break the outside perimeter, so they had a first perimeter.
It was about ten kilometers, which was normal than those
days either or the other perimeter, yep outer perimeter was
(11:14):
a lot wider. And I couldn't get back in to
get him out of the pickup point. And our pickup
point was daylight the next day, because we're working in
the country. If you're hot, it's the next day. If
I can't get in because it's too hot. And I
actually went through a roadblock, and I was quick enough
to work out how to get back outside the roadblock
that i'd just driven through. That's the time for another story.
(11:37):
But if I don't pick him up at the pickup
point at daylight, he has to wait twenty four hours
because I'll come, I'll becoming I need to get you
out of there because.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
We are we talking generally here?
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Or is this no? This was on the last job.
This was the last job, but the same rules followed.
The pickup point was at a certain time. If the
pickup point was not accessible, wait twenty four hours and
go a bit like in the army where they have
to be at the helicopter pickup point, you have times
to be picked up. If it doesn't happen, it's twenty
four hours, pick up twenty four hours. Because if I'm
(12:11):
not there, there's a reason why I'm not picking you up,
because it's for your safety, my safety, and everybody's safety.
I'm not coming in anyway. So I said to him
a few years ago, I said, so why didn't you
stay at the pickup point? Because they would have never
found you, and the after dark band Heed could have
assessed what you've done and decided what the future was.
(12:33):
I would have been stressing to him that it was
over and we walk away and it's all over, and
the war is over with the coppers and the chess
games and all that. Thank you lucky stars that we
can still walk away. But hopefully everything will be okay. Now,
do you know what he said to me, I played
by the rules. If I shoot one of you guys,
(12:56):
what does that mean I have given you right the
shoe me on site.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Well, you're going to have a ton of bricks coming
down on you, that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Do you know what I said to him? He said, Oh,
they would have They would have shot me. Now I
think that is so too faced. I said to him immediately,
but you shot one of them, And now you tell
me you're going to run because you're worried they're going
to shoot you. If I shot one of you guys,
(13:25):
I would take my punishment, whatever that may be.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
The old head each lived by the sword, died by
the sword. If you want to start engaging in gun battles, well, I'm.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Certainly exactly, but I would have. If I had shot
one of you guys. It would have been by accident,
maybe a warning shot that went wrong or something like that.
But I don't think that would have happened. And I've
never been really tested. I like to think that I
would have been good enough to avoid a full long confrontation.
I like to believe, And that's maybe one thing I
(13:55):
really don't want to even answer or even think about,
because it's horrific if I had to answer that.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
It's a hard question to answer, isn't it. What would
you do if a cop if I had fronted you
with a gun and that was freedom or put the
bullet in me? What you must have process that in
your mind at some stage when you're going.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
I think I really had belief in my strategies because
the strategy were going pretty good up to twenty three
jobs without a skeeric of evidence. So probably the father went.
You started to believe your strategies were working and that
you were a good tactician, and you were really playing
a game of chess with the coppers and they kept losing.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
You said with your brother, like an ego kicked in.
That was it a false ego or belief that you
both might have had that, Okay, we can get away
of this. We're out smartening them. Look they're running around
like headless choks.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
No, because what I knew, because he didn't see this,
what I knew every time we started stealing a motorbike,
we were giving you one up. You would go motor
like from a motorbike shop and they would usually be
country motorbike shops. So what would that mean if if
you're you're you would dealt with serial crimes in your life.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
Yeah, we might meet the sharpest pencil in the packers
as cops. But if in a lead up to a
robbery that the motor bike gets stolen in the country town,
then the bank gets robbed, Yeah, do it twice? We
might start to see something three times we'll be on.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Yeah, okay, I knew what he was doing before I
decided not to do anymore. I'll be honest. I tried
to talk him into changing our moo, not striking as
often and not striking as the after dark banded. Because
what people don't realize, and it's still with me today
that I stopped. Do you think because I stopped, I
(15:51):
was free?
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Yeah? When you when you say stop, But like this
last job where the shooting, because he got arrested after that,
what were you doing looking to pick him up? You see,
you're out of it?
Speaker 2 (16:01):
What happened? I said, I would never carry a gun again.
I would never and I wasn't going to work with
him again. But a friend of mine asked me if
they could borrow ten thousand to put together an inter
state truck business, and I went. Then I knew he
was about to pull a job, and he'd been averaging
about fifteen thousand, and I said to him, I'll give
(16:23):
you assistance, but I'm not in ever again. I need
ten thousand for a friend. Now, that was also false
loyalty to my brother right through the whole thing. And
then again when I look at it, that was false
loyalty to my friend because I was willing to go
back against my own decision to get ten thousand for
(16:44):
not even for me, it was for somebody else.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
So I've heard of too many old school guys like
yourself that have come unstuck because of that misguided loyalty
and getting dragged back into things because look, you, I
was a favor. Just do this one thing, and time
and time again, people sitting here having a chat tell
that story.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
You want to know the real story? Yeah, and my
brother knows it, so I can say this. I couldn't
actually look him in the eye at one stage and
say he worked on me and worked on me and
worked on me when I told him I'm out, So
I thought just to end this continual harassment of you've
(17:26):
got to do a job, you can't get out. I
never planned the job. He told me a job, and
a week before he did the last job, I agreed
to go to do his job. Nobody knows this, but
it's important because it's got a lot to do with
peer group pressure, which is evil.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
For it's a lesson that pass on to others too.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Absolutely. So I we take a motorbike to the area,
same as we normally did, in the back of a
horse float. So you can drive all around Australia with
a horse float and you've got horses, you haven't got motorbikes.
Nobody's going to suspect a horse robbing a bank. They're
expecting if you have a motorbike on an open trailer
that I saw that guy this morning driving a Falcon.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
GT, I say the logic of your thinking.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Yeah, anyway, So he takes me the area of a job.
The job was up at Hayfield. And this is the
honest gospel and something I've never spoken about before, but
I think these things are important. I knew I wasn't
going to pull the job. I sabotaged the bike, didn't
do the job right. He knows that the bank didn't
(18:34):
go down. Now, in a strange way, I carry a
bit of guilt. If I carry that job out and
I do it safely, maybe Cosh doesn't get shot.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
I see the connection.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Yeah, so I carry that and when the job doesn't
go down, he comes back to get me and I go,
I couldn't get the bike going. There's something wrong with it.
I knew exactly what was wrong with it. I did it.
So in a strange way, I have a little bit
of guilt.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
And say, the job where Kosh got.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
That would have gone down to.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
That because he had to do a job when you
guys were doing this. And then there's the after Dark Bandits.
You became the bandit even though there was two of you.
You became the most wanted person in Australia. How did
that feel? No, they're not most wanted because everyone liked you.
Most wanted by the cops because you kept robbing places.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Well, in a strange way, I suppose I wear it
as a badge. Yeah, but I see this. I see
the funny side to it that compared to a lot
of other criminals, I'm a nervous, very non dangerous. So
it just shows how exaggerated the tag can be.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
And I would imagine that it would have hit the
media and you would have been following the media that
the Australia's most wanted bandit.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
I was looking at my face on the TV, going, God,
you're an ugly basard. You better grow a beard.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
I was going to ask you this question, but I
don't want to get anyone in the trouble. But there's
probably statute of limitations. Did anyone else know outside you
and your brother?
Speaker 2 (20:06):
No, and my wife didn't know. And I'll tell you
the truth. I discussed this. We have even friends. How
stupid would I be to tell a wife that I'm
a bank robber. There's two bad angles. One have you
have you got children that play sport and you're worry
about them hurting themselves playing sport.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Can you imagine a wife sitting at home while you're
doing a bank Yeah, that's that'd be pretty stressful. That's
one reason why you don't tell them. The other reason
is I'm a professional trained by my father and I'm
more akrim than most crims will ever be. But I
choose not to rob banks now, so you don't include
other people because this is the lesson of life for marriages,
(20:49):
break in divorce. Would you like your ex wife knowing
you were a bank robber and asking for more alimony?
Speaker 1 (20:57):
No? And look, I've got to be on this here.
I'm not going to talk about my ex wife. But
from a CoP's point of view, they were ex partners.
Let's put it just in that term. Ex partners are
a great source of information because vengeance can be a
terrible thing. And ah, we haven't got a breakthrough, but
(21:18):
this relationship's broken up, and let's go have a chat
with one.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
There's an angle. There's an angle.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Okay, your brothers, he's got to rest it in the
lame way by Rick Hasey the cop there, and part
of your agreement between that he doesn't talk and you've
got at least twelve hours to said.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Hang on, no, there's no agreement. We had a very
heated discussion on Sunday about this. I'm going to put
this to you. Yeah, Now, all the bank robbers and
all the crooks you've ever met, Yeah, could you imagine
two of them sitting down and reaching agreement where you're
going to lag each other after twelve hours.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
No, I was surprised that if I've missed it interpreted
that I thought not even going to say a word
for twelve hours, because I've had crooks before me that
have just sat there and just not said a word.
Real hard ass.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
On Sunday, he tried to convince me that I agreed
to that.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
That you give him up after twelve hours, or that
he gives you up after twelve Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
So what sort of fool would I be to say
to somebody, Yeah, I'm cool with you giving me up
after twelve hours? What the stuff am I going? I've
cleaned that up, haven't I? What the stuff am I
going to do with twelve hours? I haven't got a passport.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
I'm not part of your crew, and I'm not your brothers.
But I would have expected that if you get caught,
I'm not saying a word about you, and if vice
versa like, keep your mouth shut.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Well, I'll tell you the real story how the whole
thing was set up. There's two parts to crime, and
you know this, all right, we do the bank. What's
the second part of crime? Having alibis and getting away
with it. Even if you get caught, you've got to
beat the blue in court. Otherwise, why did you do it? Now?
The day he shot the copper, I drove his car
(23:02):
to his horse trainer's place. And back in those days
we're twins, we looked the same set up. Ali, I
said his alibi up from the front gate. Because I
tooted the horn, he came out of his stable. I
waved to him. Even our voices are similar, and I've
yelled out, I'll be back later. So I've just given
him an alibi an hour before the bank, and the
(23:25):
bank goes down two and a half hours away. Now
I went home and my wife usually in the afternoon,
after picking up the children, and the women across the
road picking up the children, they would sit in her
lounge room and have a coffee. So I will the
bank was going down, I'm sitting across the road in
somebody else's house. Now it's like the old ad do
(23:49):
you want snake steak knives? As well? The house was
the home of a copper.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Okay, so you're setting up the alibi.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
That's how we worked. Yeah, And the whole point was,
and I'm going to give it to you. I don't
know if this would work or not. The original plan,
which I was willing to stick to but he didn't,
was that if he gets arrested and they don't shoot
him and he has not id the other brother has
probably got a bit of time to think what's going
(24:20):
to go down, right, because he's dead. It could have
been me that was dead, by the way, not just him.
She's my hand is starting to shake a little bit
talking about this. Then let's say they arrest him or
they arrest me. There'd be a court appearance, maybe two
days later or whatever, a bit of slap around, a
bit of questioning with the old phone book. If you
don't talk where the phone book? Right, go to court,
(24:43):
because the other twin will walk into court and say
not a word and just sit there. Now, you if
you were the resting officer and you saw a twin
brother sitting in the audience and you're trying to pint
it on this bloke, you have to pint it on
the correct brother in the right bank. Not as a necessory,
but you have to put the right brother in the bank.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Yeah, you asked me the question. I can see the complications.
I saw it in myin career. I won't mention the
actual murder, but the murder where some twins were good
persons of interest for it. Then they cause a lot
of problems by the fact that they were identical identical twins.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Well, do you know what happened once he got arrested.
Let's just say he was helping it in their investigation.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Co operating.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
I think, yeah. But anyway, so we're going to now
try and beat it in court because you have to pinpointous.
Now you know that that's going to be rather difficult.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Well, you've just got to be on reasonable doubt and
you walk free.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Now what happened was because he was, let's say, making
enough confessions, and the solicitor came in the next day.
He said, he see what's going down. He said, you
do realize that he's cooperated so much that you're now
the bad boy. You know what they said to him.
(26:09):
If you make the statements and plead guilty, it won't
come out in court and you'll be able to sell
a movie. You're laughing.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
I'm laughing. I think, if they're going to come up
with something, come up with something better than that. But
I understand.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Yeah, yep, they got him his ego, they got him.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Well, I've always said in an interview room, you play
the person's weakness or you exploit that weakness. Now, if ego,
and I'm talking generally here, I'm not saying that's Pete's thing,
but if that's ego that sometimes, jeez, you are a good,
good bank robber. You've got the way of all these
And then oh, I actually did more. Yeah, you play
the people's.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Well he did. He told them, he told them about
a job that we did as a two man job.
They didn't know about it. Now, so what should have
happened is we should have been a really interesting court battle,
because a court batter gives you power with let's say,
a plea bargain.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Well, that's true. If it's a week a case, it's
easier to bargain.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Yeah. Now, my solicitor said straight away, he's given him
enough evidence that they won't get you on twenty five
if you fight it. But they're going to give you
ten years for the first one because they're not going
to let you go, he said, So you've got nowhere
to go. Now. The next step was the fact that
these statements were so strong and you know, I'm not
(27:28):
going to say you'll fit people up, but if you
know the story, because he's given you so much information,
you can then go to other people and say, where
was Doug on a certain night because his brother says
it was over here. They would have went to my
wife and said, on the night of such and such
does your brother or sorry, was your husband home? And
she would have said no, they built houses in the
(27:51):
country and he goes away for a week at a time.
So I was fitted because my wife goes, oh, no,
he wasn't home that night.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
How did that make you feel like we're pissed off
with your brother?
Speaker 2 (28:02):
No, I'm a very understanding person. I'm not even angry
at my brother. You have to take responsibility because if
you keep blaming other people for your life, that means
you've got no control.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Well, Doug, that answers a lot to me, because I
was looking at your store and your brother's story, and
I thought, oh God, we're going to have an hour
of you going that doggie did this, he did that,
blah blah blah. Yeah, the way I think a lot
of people would react. But I understand where you're coming
from and that you accept your responsibilities. You're not going
to judge others. Everyone's different, so I do get an
(28:37):
understanding of what you're saying.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
The greatest moment would be in my life if my
brother would just accept what he did and stop trying
to script the truth to hide his failures in life,
because my life had a lot of failures. The robberies,
they're failures. You know what I really think about bank
robbers and people in prison. I don't like you. I
(29:02):
really don't like you. I knocked around with some of
the heaviest criminals in Victoria's history, and I played tennis
with them on a tennis court. We're tennis players. I
don't like what you did off this court. While we're
on this court, we'll play tennis, but we will not
be friends off this court.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
It makes sense. And the conversation we had the other day,
you were talking about criminals and even the way you
look at there's criminals that commit crime to make money
for money, crime for money. Then there's criminals that commit
crimes of violence, of vengeance and all the other things
that may evate people that commit horrendous crimes, and you
(29:44):
deviate between those.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
I try to explain it to people. I'm mixed with
Victoria's worse or in the jail with Victoria's worst sex
offenders and child molesters and all sorts of things. I said,
how did I get here?
Speaker 1 (29:58):
What? Well?
Speaker 2 (30:00):
I'm not this is not natural for me.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
That was your first stint inside? Yes, how were you arrested?
When were you arrested? And what were you convicted of?
Speaker 2 (30:10):
I was convicted of about twenty four to twenty five
armed robberies, use of a firearm, stealing motor cars. I
was arrested unarmed by about forty coppers. I didn't surrender.
I ran down a laneway off a beach and ran
into the side of a divvy van right. They jumped
on me like a rugby scrum NRL style Up there.
(30:31):
All I could hear was grab the bag. Grab the bag,
there's probably a gun in it. And all I can
think of while I'm lying under all these coppers was
the grab the gun. It's another oswell. And then I
was handcuffed to two coppers. They take me back to
Frankstin police station. They were told not to talk to me.
I kept talking to one of them because he was
(30:52):
shaking so badly and he wouldn't talk to me, and
I said, look, mate, I knowin not thatw to talk
to me, but were just settled down. I'm supposed to
be the one that's nervous, so it.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
Was nerves, not anger who was shaking you reckon.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
I don't know what and you know what I was thinking.
And this is how stupid I am. There was a
window behind me, and I'm sitting on a desk and
as hard against the window. I was seen it myself.
Like in the movies, you see all sorts of things.
I thought, I wonder what happens if I spring up
and I throw myself out through the window. Will the
cuffs come off before I hit the ground?
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Well? Probably not? Probably not.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Well that's the conclusion I reached before I sprang out
through the window backwards. Yeah, and look, I make light
of it. This is how I went through my jail.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
I do like the fact that, like, jail's a very
personal experience, and everyone's experience in jail is a little
bit different. But I haven't heard your winge about it.
You've got a smile on your face, and there's horrific
things that happen in jail, as you know better than
I do.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
But I'll tell you something. Right here, I'll tell you
how horrific it is. See that there? Can you see
the cross?
Speaker 1 (31:58):
It's a cross, is it?
Speaker 2 (31:59):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Ye?
Speaker 2 (32:01):
That has cut out of a window bar. And that's
for the eight young fellas that hung themselves because they
couldn't handle the brutality from prison guards, screws, or prisoners
trying to rape them. I wear that in honor of
those boys.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
So your brother did time in the same prison.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
Yes, and there was talk that was going to get
him right. And when I walked in and went into
the yard, and they were animal yards like cattle yards
in those days, I looked around and went, there's seventy
people that I don't know, even my brother. Would be
better to have him on my side if something's going
to go down. So he was the enemy. That was
(32:44):
Watterson as bad as the unknown enemy. So can you
now understand I'm not worried about what you have done.
I'm worried about the next twelve years.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
But what I underestimated or overestimated was during that twelve
years he would never back me up.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
I'm confused. We should do a relationship podcast about you
and your brother, because you've still you both built houses together,
rob banks and tabs together. And then even after all
this shit, after you got out of Joe, you went
back in the building together.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
Because I look, should I be angry because his level
of my expectations was wrong?
Speaker 1 (33:26):
No, And you answered that very well before. I do
understand where you're coming from. I'm just a little bit confused.
You're a very forgiving, forgiving man.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Well I didn't say I forgive. I understand. Yeah, yeah,
but I would process it or maybe more disappointment.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
Yeah, yeah, fair cool. So your art you're saying you'd
already broken away from the life of crime when you
went in. So when you're doing your time, you're ten
and a half years or twelve, subject to debate. Let's go,
we'll add another year.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
Yep, we'll probably just served it.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
You might go back in after this. I don't think
I can sense you. I'd try. You were always you
weren't going to go back to the life of crime.
It wasn't sort of thinking. So it wasn't a watershed
moment in the jail that you thought, no, this life's
not for me. You knew at the moment you walked in.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
I'll give you something. Yeah, this is a word of
advice to everybody in the world, run by Dougie's rules.
When you make a decision and you feel your weakening
on that decision, stand up and look in the mirror
and you ask yourself, yes, perhaps I can lie to
other people, but what sort of man lies to himself?
(34:41):
So if you make a decision, you know it's right.
I'll be honest. Three or four years after I was out,
was really hard pushing, and it's a tough life coming
out of twelve years of jail and having to settle
back down to earning a living. And I had a
moment where one night I sat there and thought about
the future and I was trying to make a decision
(35:01):
do I continue on this righteous path? And I said,
it's pretty tough, And then I went, try a bit harder, Dougie,
try a bit harder, because I'm not going to lie
to myself. And that's it. Every time it gets tough,
go back to what you believe was the correct decision,
and don't lie to yourself. And it was the right decision.
(35:25):
I go and watch my grandchildren play football.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
Now, yeah, well, you know I'm looking at you, and
you don't look like you're a man. That's been broken
by life. There's a lot of positive, positive vibes.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
You know, they're saying the army makes and breaks.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
I had so much adventure and fun in jail. I
got shot at during an escape attempt. You know. The
screw came down to my cell and haste vision that night,
knocked on the trap and said, Dougie, am I okay?
And at first I thought what's he talking about? Then
I got it. Our family will police you. He might
(36:02):
think I'll retaliate in twelve years time.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Ah, I see where you're coming from.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
Yeah, we used to sit down years later and laugh
about that day.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
So tell us about because you do meet up with
a lot of the corrective, not a lot that you
have socialized. I suppose having a beer with former creative
services officers, because what are you doing at the now
the new Pentridge jail or it's not a jar anymore,
it's a you describe it the bar.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
Well, what I like to think is on educating people
on the brutality what you're going to expect if you
cross the blue line. I like to call it the
blue line that you cross, or the cost of crime.
There's a cost of crime to both sides. I guarantee
you've had the cost of crime.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
Yeah, yeah, so you.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
Know what I'm talking about. Yeah, there's not really a
good story anywhere on either side because prison officers became depressed,
they became oken, marriages, all sorts of things because of
the stress of the situation. I went out with a
prison officer for three years, ten years after I got
out of jail, and I learned about what it was
like for those guys. She wasn't a guy, she was
(37:12):
a woman.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
But I mean, yeah, you run with that.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
This is show you. I'll show your photos later. And
I learn a lot about the jail from the other side,
about all the heavies that were giving people up. I
have a great understanding for the overall picture. Now as
far as have you forgotten the question you asked me
that I have, Oh what do I do with brew
dog at the jar? It's a very good platform to
(37:41):
raise what the price is of crime. If I want
to talk about car racing, well let's do it while
we watch Ellen Moffatt or Peter Brock or whatever. So
let's take it to where we have some feeling for it,
and you can come and visit me and you about
what it's really like and what the cost will be.
(38:03):
So there in that situation, I've bumped into a lot
of ex prison officers and they all want to put
their arm around me, and I just jested with them,
and I give them the same lip. I had a
governor that punished me very severely once and put me
in Haite Division, and they were taking photos of us,
and I had my arm around his shoulder like you
normally do in the old photos with and I was
(38:25):
whispering in his ear when everybody was too far away
to here, I go, Remember that jelly night. You never
got me? So I like to give people a slap,
even forty years later. And he laughed. He said, yeah,
I know, and we both had a laugh about it.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
But not everyone would be capable of that. I would
imagine there's a lot of people that there's a resistance
as a blue and the green, and people are.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
Sure, well, I like to say this, and you'll look
because you're you're a understanding because you've been in the
We're not much different really, because we both understand. Right now,
I'd like to say to people, why would I be
angry at a copper? I don't remember coppers coming to
(39:10):
my house and dragging me into a bank and making
me rob it. Now I can go the other way
because my brother told me that I would not come
in I would be heavily armed. The armed robbery squad
held my family hostage in my house for four days.
(39:30):
My three and five year old son and daughter had
to sit in the bathroom all day, and I sometimes
wonder if they were old enough to comprehend that if
I walk through that door, I was going to be shot.
So there's always two sides.
Speaker 1 (39:45):
So yeah, and I understand it would have been an
intense situation when the cops are after you, exactly.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
But I don't give them much other avenue. So who's
responsible for what my children went through?
Speaker 1 (39:59):
Well, you do impress me in the fact that you
take ownership all the stuff when you look back at
all the places that were robbed. I know and speaking
to other people that bank robbers from the past didn't
fully appreciate the psychological damage. You walk out. You haven't
showed anyone. You think, oh, well, I'm not a bad person.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
Well do you reflate the damage is done?
Speaker 1 (40:24):
Yeah, you reflect on that.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
So the actual stress is perceived stress. But guess what
that is real. That is far more damaging. I'll tell
you a story from my side. A young fella that
believed he was going to be beaten up the next
day by a heavy and jail was so stressed he
(40:47):
went to his cell with no mother to turn to,
no phone call to talk to his brother or his
sister or his father. The stress of being beaten up
and only by hand, he hung himself that night. It's
the perceived situation that stresses people. I jokingly say. Now,
(41:08):
people say, could you rob a bank? I go, I could.
I'll tell you how I do it. I will do
the job. Let's say jobs should still be done because
we've got to go back to that era. I will
do the job. And as I walk through the door,
as I'm leaving with the cash, I would throw my
water pistol back over my head and go, I'm sorry,
but it was just a water pistol. Don't stress. I'm
(41:31):
gone because now I understand the stress. But I didn't
perceive that stress because you know, I'm jovial about even
if I was robbed. So therefore I believed all army soldiers, Navy,
Air Force, police, bank tellers are trained. What I didn't
(41:55):
realize is they all have different personalities and levels of stress.
There's probably police officers that suffer worse than me. Oh
absolutely more. I don't suffer because I accept all this
and so you can't hurt me. Nobody in the world
can hurt me. I carry the demons. I'm my worst critic.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
Well, you made that point earlier on that. You know,
how's your life or judge of in the last ten
seconds of your life and look back and can you
face yourself in the mirror and done everything I can?
What's a message you'd give for young and like, I
don't think no matter what. Maybe there's a retro thing.
The music comes back in fashion, clothing comes back in fashion.
(42:40):
Maybe robberies and banks come back in fashion. I do
so that'd be crazy, but I doubt it. But the
currency of crime now there's different type of crime. And
then back in the day and back twenty years ago.
But what message would you give to know young blake
or girls these days that think it's sclamorous a life
(43:01):
of crime and where the consequences might be you end
up in prison or sorry, okry the guilt.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
Over the last thirty five years, I've trained many, many
young men as apprentices. All of them talk to me
with total freedom because they know who I am. There
was one apprentice that was selling party drugs pills, and
he came to me one day. I know what they're doing,
and I'm not going to condemn them. It's not my
role to condemn people. I will try and point out
(43:29):
what you'll get yourself into. I won't condemn you, and
I won't tell you what you can do with your life.
For all I know you're a bad person, but that's
your business. Now. This guy he comes to me on
I think it was a Monday, and he said, oh, look,
on a Friday night he met with three guys with
(43:49):
one thousand dollars for some pills for the week under sell.
And he said, but what happened was they had machetes.
And this is about ten years back, so machetes have
been around for a while. They are very intimidating piece
of equipment. Now, he said, what they did was they
took my thousand dollars and think of many pills. And
I said, well, you're about to learn the lesson of crime.
(44:12):
What happens in crime. You can't control this direction. What
will happen is you have to make a decision. Now,
are you going to take the next step and rearrange
with somebody else to meet these guys and you'll turn
up with a bigger machete And then what they'll do
is they will arrange get back at you with a
bigger machete, which might be a gun. So so today
(44:35):
I want you to think about if you're in or
you're out. He came back to me at three point thirty.
He said, Dug, I'm out. I said, I'm very happy
for you. You made the right decision. Now, what happens
is young people they start selling a bit of drugs
so they don't have to pay for their drugs. What
they don't realize is you slowly get in deeper and
deeper and deeper, and I'm going to use the great
(44:57):
Carl Williams. Williams tried to use the press to make
some drugs and make some money.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
He's pill press.
Speaker 2 (45:07):
What happened was they found out and they shot him.
Carle probably asked himself, when Carl was doing the drugs
at that stage, he didn't perceive himself as being a killer.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
You agree, yeah, yeah, I think this is a reasonable
way of describing it.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
Then they shot him, so he made a decision to retaliate.
If Carl Williams walks away when he was shot, a
lot of people don't die. But what happens in crime,
it keeps escalating out of control. Like my brother when
his ego escalated him out of control and he shoots
(45:48):
Ray Kosh. It's not this crime or that crime or
that crime. It happens. That's what happens in crime. You
lose control and you maybe stupidly go to the next level.
That's it. That's what you have to tell young people.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
Well, I think that's I haven't heard it spoken that way,
but that's a good breakdown of of course, in their
detail of how it can escalate, and before you know it,
you're in deeper than you care to be and the
consequences are pretty heavy. Look, I will wrap up on
that note. Just the stuff you do with your ard,
(46:27):
if people want to reach out to you, and the
type of things. What are you doing these days?
Speaker 2 (46:31):
Well, probably the only important thing some of the money
that I raised from art. I don't know if you
can see that. That's a bluestone key ring with Ned
Kelly painted on it.
Speaker 1 (46:41):
Okay, yep, now.
Speaker 2 (46:42):
We sell these things. I still I'm going back working
with the Salvos and we'll be selling them for about
fifteen dollars and five dollars we'll go to the guys
who make them, five dollars will go to the guys
who sell them, and five dollars will go to the Salvos.
And I've got a deal with one of the chaplains
that they'll tell me things that people getting out of
young people getting out of jail require to set their
(47:04):
lives up. So what I want to do is spend
some time raising money and going back to mentoring, because
I've done mentoring with prisons before and it's like, we
can all be a show pony, or we can all
do things for the things that you do that are
positive will give your life some value. I seek value
(47:25):
in my life.
Speaker 1 (47:27):
I can understand that you look like you're enjoying your life.
Where can people reach out to you if they want
to contact with you.
Speaker 2 (47:34):
Well, if they go to brew Dog Pub at Pentries
Jail and they ask for Doug, they'll be told, no,
he's not here today, or he is here today. But
I'm retired. So in theory, I'm supposed to be the
jail artist and his story and every day after three o'clock, okay,
but sometimes I get lazy.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
Well, we all need a day off every now and then, Doug,
I've enjoyed the enjoyed the chat. Thanks for making the
effort and giving this an insight into a world that
most of us don't get to sea or fully understand.
So that's what I like to do on the podcast.
That's what we've been trying to do for years. Let
people fully understand what goes on in the world of crime,
because there's this misconception. But people are now, okay, this
(48:18):
is a real live robber and we've just had a
sit down chat and talking to an next cop who
would have thought so. I appreciate you, honestly, people get
to understand the world.
Speaker 2 (48:29):
You don't seem a bad blake for a copper.
Speaker 1 (48:32):
You're all right for an arm Robert too.
Speaker 2 (48:34):
That's been quoted in books.
Speaker 1 (48:35):
Actually fair core. All right, Well, thank you very much,
and yeah, we'll stay in touch.
Speaker 2 (48:43):
And one last thing, and you've got to think about this.
Speaker 1 (48:46):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (48:46):
I will never know if I've ever helped anybody, but
it doesn't matter. I try.
Speaker 1 (48:52):
I like your attitude on things. Do I can see
why you made it through some hard times and come
out the other end good stuff. Take care in the back.
Speaker 2 (49:02):
Never never, anti bas
The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Detective sy 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):
In Part two of my chat with former bank Robert
Doug Morgan, we delve further into his life as a
notorist armed robber, how he and his brother Pete were
arrested after a police officer was shot during an armed robbery.
We also discuss how he survived Penridge jail, how he
turned his life around, and the warning he has for
(01:06):
others that might consider following the path he took. I
also asked Doug how he now feels about all the
people he terrorized during his career as a bank robber.
It was an interesting chat, that's for sure. Okay, Doug Morgan,
Welcome back to part two of I Catch Killers.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Hang on, What am I doing on this one? This
is I'm not a killer?
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Yeah, but it's a fine life, fine line when you
walking to a bank or a tab with a gun.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
I totally agree, and when I look back the mistake
I made I was a bank teller. I believe that
anybody behind the counter and a TV or a bank
was trained the same as I was. Because I grew
up in a crime family, my capacity to handle things
is probably different to people who have been trained but
(01:57):
don't have the capacity to handle the actual live situation.
So I actually believe that they would be about as
stressed as I would be if I was the bank teller.
And a funny little story is I wasn't allowed to
have a gun because I was seventeen when I was
a bank teller. I'd been trained, but I wasn't actually
physically allowed to have a gun. So I went down
(02:18):
the street to let's say, an army disposal store, and
I bought the biggest and longest and most offensive looking
letter opener I could have, and used to put it
on my desk, on my teller's unit. And if you
try to rob me, I'm going to stab you with
my letter opener.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Well, see, that's the thing when you go in there,
and that's why I talk about the risk or before
you go in, you do not know how people are
going to react when confronted by that situation.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Well, do you want to know how I felt about
all that being a bank teller? How I used to think,
hope they don't shoot me, because I'll probably be on
their side. And now I'll tell a joke that if
you had to try to rob me in those days,
I would have went one for you, one for me,
one for you, one for me, and we'll all go
home happy tonight.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
What hope did that bank have had? Did you get
sacked or did you quit as a talent?
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Well, I had to leave with my father.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Oh that's right. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Now you said you want a real scoop, You want
a real scoop.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Yeah, give us a scoop. We're always out for a scoop, right.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
I was a brilliant bank teller, and in those days
it wasn't computerized, and it was up to me every
night to balance my books. And because I was pretty
good at it, the number one teller never used to
check my money, and I started to work this out
that I was pretty well trusted. We were on the
first floor of a building right in the middle of
the city in Melbourne. In the basement was a ta
(03:47):
b wow. What one of myself and one of my
knock about mates that was working at the bank who
became buddies because we were two of the let's say,
working class boys, you know me and I time the
other boys would say to me, Doggie, you want to
go down and look at tis in the shops. I go,
what the hell are you talking about? Look at tis?
(04:08):
I've got one tie, that's it. I got one suit,
that's it. Leave me alone. Anyway, So what we would
do at lunchtime is we would sort out some bets.
I would withdraw money from my unit and would make
a plunge. Now, in the old days, tabs pay you
out at five point thirty after the day's takings, so
(04:29):
I couldn't get the money back win or lose in
time to balance my books. So I would have to
falsify nearly every night my bank Telly's unit or would
call it, you know, was a unit, but that would
money would go back in the safe every night. So
I would falsify in my books most nights to cover
my bedding and the next day I'd get the money
(04:52):
the next lunchtime, so I'd work a day behind. So
I had the A and Z basically bank rolling Doug
Morgan Punter anything.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Well, I can't see how that could have gone wrong.
If you're lost, lucky you had something to get back.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
But it did lose once and I had to sign
because this can be done just in paperwork. Yeah, so
I made a withdrawal the next day once out of
my savings account to balance the books because I only
remember losing once. Yeah, I actually did lose eighty dollars
out of my own account. You're juggling, but it felt
(05:30):
better when it was theirs.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Well, doesn't hurt as much when you lose someone else's money,
I suppose. Okay, I want to clarify one thing before
we go into this next part. Your brother's still around, yes,
and you two are talking. I don't want to cause
a rift in the family.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
He came down to see me actually on the weekend
at rudolg Bar and Pendridge.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Okay, it's not going good. Well, talk us through the
police officer that was shot and Ray Koss. What's a
factual account of it? When your brother shot Ray Koch?
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Okay, I wasn't there. There was never any planning for
shooting people that was off limits. If you got to
that point, you'd failed. You'd failed our rules of engagement.
We had rules of engagement that if the job was
too hot, you walk away. His ego didn't allow that anyway.
(06:27):
So he drags the copper out of the car. He says,
you're a copper. He takes his car keys off and
froze into the paddock next next to and shoves the
gun into his stomach. This guy who was driving home,
innocent copper. And then my brother's got a way of
belittling people when he's got a gun in his hand.
The next time he goes there, Ray Kosh got close
(06:49):
to him and the gun was again in the side
of a person's body, and this time the gun goes off.
The next day he allows another copper to get close
to him. Gun again goes into the stomach of a
copper but this time the safety was on and he's
left handed, so he couldn't get the safety off. According
to the copper, this was rick hasty. Yeah, forget about
(07:14):
everything else. Just as a common sense person, if you
keep sticking guns against people's bodies, when does it go off?
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Yeah, Well, there's consequences and the risk. And you've said
you always looked at the bank if it's too hot,
and look at risks and try to mitigate mitigate the risk.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Let's say I've got you. You're a copper. Yeah, Let's
say I've got you. You've got no gun, Yeah, and
I've got a gun. I'd be foolish to let you
come within arms reach of me, wouldn't I.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Oh, you'd be in trouble if you did.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Yeah, because you're going to have a go.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Just what my brother did. He used to walk up
and stick the gun in the side of which means
he went to three coppers and allowed all of them
to be within struggling range. Now, now I have a flip. Look,
I make jest of a lot of things, and sometimes
I even make jest of this. Guns are not for
wrestling over.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
No, that's very true, very true.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
I tell you something I'm going to tell you something
that I've never said to anybody. I asked my brother
why he had got out of the search area after
shooting Raykosh and robbing the bank, and look, I don't
know if it was accidental, you don't know. We'll never know.
I wasn't there. He didn't follow our procedures and continued
and that was the result of him not following our
(08:33):
procedures of engagement with police. Our rules of engagement should
not have allowed him to even be there when the
police was so hot. But he broke those rules because
his ego and he being the commander in chief or
general as he saw himself, he kept changing the rules.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Now that the rule's been the pac that you guys
had made, Yeah, we had rule, We discussed.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Everything was discussed and planned down to the we had
in the scrub. We had flash torches, not to be
used because a helicopter would see them, but for a
pickup point if it was at nighttime. We have codes,
and I'll flash you the code if I'm picking you up,
and you will flash me back a code, even to
the extent if you don't flash me back the code
(09:19):
and you're in a car, I won't come out because
the coppers might have you in your car. So unless
you give me the real code, I'm not even coming out,
even if I know it's you. So we had over
a thing really well regimented for the safety of everybody.
Do you think we planned robberies to get caught? We
planned robberies to go home. Now the next day he
(09:42):
breached your perimeter because O're planning even after shooting a
copper and you flooded the area or you or your
let's say you, well, keep it you, you and me mate,
it's you and me today. All right.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
I'm happy you're getting me excited. I'd like to be
going after you guys. Yeah, okay, we've set up the well.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
I think we can do a movie if I saw you.
If I draw first, don't draw yours, because I'll let
you go home, but you let me walk as well.
We'll be doing good that day. But the trouble is
you're going to shoot me. Do you know what I
planned once to make I was going to have on
the back of my bike a rack that was bulletproof
(10:23):
so you couldn't shoot me as I rode away.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
I think ned Kelly came up with that a few
years ago or before.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
But I'm not a Ned Kelly fan. I paint Ned Kelly,
but I'm not a fan because he broke my rules too.
He shot people.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Well, I'm glad you understand that, because I saw the result,
whether it was in the stick ups or in homicide
where people get shot, that's devastating.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Absolutely. Now, I said to my brother, you got out
of the search area, you got to the pickup point
if it's too hot and I can't get in because
it's too many cops. Because there was a perimeter, and
he broke the perimeter, but he didn't bring he didn't
break the outside perimeter, so they had a first perimeter.
It was about ten kilometers, which was normal than those
days either or the other perimeter, yep outer perimeter was
(11:14):
a lot wider. And I couldn't get back in to
get him out of the pickup point. And our pickup
point was daylight the next day, because we're working in
the country. If you're hot, it's the next day. If
I can't get in because it's too hot. And I
actually went through a roadblock, and I was quick enough
to work out how to get back outside the roadblock
that i'd just driven through. That's the time for another story.
(11:37):
But if I don't pick him up at the pickup
point at daylight, he has to wait twenty four hours
because I'll come, I'll becoming I need to get you
out of there because.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
We are we talking generally here?
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Or is this no? This was on the last job.
This was the last job, but the same rules followed.
The pickup point was at a certain time. If the
pickup point was not accessible, wait twenty four hours and
go a bit like in the army where they have
to be at the helicopter pickup point, you have times
to be picked up. If it doesn't happen, it's twenty
four hours, pick up twenty four hours. Because if I'm
(12:11):
not there, there's a reason why I'm not picking you up,
because it's for your safety, my safety, and everybody's safety.
I'm not coming in anyway. So I said to him
a few years ago, I said, so why didn't you
stay at the pickup point? Because they would have never
found you, and the after dark band Heed could have
assessed what you've done and decided what the future was.
(12:33):
I would have been stressing to him that it was
over and we walk away and it's all over, and
the war is over with the coppers and the chess
games and all that. Thank you lucky stars that we
can still walk away. But hopefully everything will be okay. Now,
do you know what he said to me, I played
by the rules. If I shoot one of you guys,
(12:56):
what does that mean I have given you right the
shoe me on site.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Well, you're going to have a ton of bricks coming
down on you, that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Do you know what I said to him? He said, Oh,
they would have They would have shot me. Now I
think that is so too faced. I said to him immediately,
but you shot one of them, And now you tell
me you're going to run because you're worried they're going
to shoot you. If I shot one of you guys,
(13:25):
I would take my punishment, whatever that may be.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
The old head each lived by the sword, died by
the sword. If you want to start engaging in gun battles, well, I'm.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Certainly exactly, but I would have. If I had shot
one of you guys. It would have been by accident,
maybe a warning shot that went wrong or something like that.
But I don't think that would have happened. And I've
never been really tested. I like to think that I
would have been good enough to avoid a full long confrontation.
I like to believe, And that's maybe one thing I
(13:55):
really don't want to even answer or even think about,
because it's horrific if I had to answer that.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
It's a hard question to answer, isn't it. What would
you do if a cop if I had fronted you
with a gun and that was freedom or put the
bullet in me? What you must have process that in
your mind at some stage when you're going.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
I think I really had belief in my strategies because
the strategy were going pretty good up to twenty three
jobs without a skeeric of evidence. So probably the father went.
You started to believe your strategies were working and that
you were a good tactician, and you were really playing
a game of chess with the coppers and they kept losing.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
You said with your brother, like an ego kicked in.
That was it a false ego or belief that you
both might have had that, Okay, we can get away
of this. We're out smartening them. Look they're running around
like headless choks.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
No, because what I knew, because he didn't see this,
what I knew every time we started stealing a motorbike,
we were giving you one up. You would go motor
like from a motorbike shop and they would usually be
country motorbike shops. So what would that mean if if
you're you're you would dealt with serial crimes in your life.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
Yeah, we might meet the sharpest pencil in the packers
as cops. But if in a lead up to a
robbery that the motor bike gets stolen in the country town,
then the bank gets robbed, Yeah, do it twice? We
might start to see something three times we'll be on.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Yeah, okay, I knew what he was doing before I
decided not to do anymore. I'll be honest. I tried
to talk him into changing our moo, not striking as
often and not striking as the after dark banded. Because
what people don't realize, and it's still with me today
that I stopped. Do you think because I stopped, I
(15:51):
was free?
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Yeah? When you when you say stop, But like this
last job where the shooting, because he got arrested after that,
what were you doing looking to pick him up? You see,
you're out of it?
Speaker 2 (16:01):
What happened? I said, I would never carry a gun again.
I would never and I wasn't going to work with
him again. But a friend of mine asked me if
they could borrow ten thousand to put together an inter
state truck business, and I went. Then I knew he
was about to pull a job, and he'd been averaging
about fifteen thousand, and I said to him, I'll give
(16:23):
you assistance, but I'm not in ever again. I need
ten thousand for a friend. Now, that was also false
loyalty to my brother right through the whole thing. And
then again when I look at it, that was false
loyalty to my friend because I was willing to go
back against my own decision to get ten thousand for
(16:44):
not even for me, it was for somebody else.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
So I've heard of too many old school guys like
yourself that have come unstuck because of that misguided loyalty
and getting dragged back into things because look, you, I
was a favor. Just do this one thing, and time
and time again, people sitting here having a chat tell
that story.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
You want to know the real story? Yeah, and my
brother knows it, so I can say this. I couldn't
actually look him in the eye at one stage and
say he worked on me and worked on me and
worked on me when I told him I'm out, So
I thought just to end this continual harassment of you've
(17:26):
got to do a job, you can't get out. I
never planned the job. He told me a job, and
a week before he did the last job, I agreed
to go to do his job. Nobody knows this, but
it's important because it's got a lot to do with
peer group pressure, which is evil.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
For it's a lesson that pass on to others too.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Absolutely. So I we take a motorbike to the area,
same as we normally did, in the back of a
horse float. So you can drive all around Australia with
a horse float and you've got horses, you haven't got motorbikes.
Nobody's going to suspect a horse robbing a bank. They're
expecting if you have a motorbike on an open trailer
that I saw that guy this morning driving a Falcon.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
GT, I say the logic of your thinking.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Yeah, anyway, So he takes me the area of a job.
The job was up at Hayfield. And this is the
honest gospel and something I've never spoken about before, but
I think these things are important. I knew I wasn't
going to pull the job. I sabotaged the bike, didn't
do the job right. He knows that the bank didn't
(18:34):
go down. Now, in a strange way, I carry a
bit of guilt. If I carry that job out and
I do it safely, maybe Cosh doesn't get shot.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
I see the connection.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Yeah, so I carry that and when the job doesn't
go down, he comes back to get me and I go,
I couldn't get the bike going. There's something wrong with it.
I knew exactly what was wrong with it. I did it.
So in a strange way, I have a little bit
of guilt.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
And say, the job where Kosh got.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
That would have gone down to.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
That because he had to do a job when you
guys were doing this. And then there's the after Dark Bandits.
You became the bandit even though there was two of you.
You became the most wanted person in Australia. How did
that feel? No, they're not most wanted because everyone liked you.
Most wanted by the cops because you kept robbing places.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Well, in a strange way, I suppose I wear it
as a badge. Yeah, but I see this. I see
the funny side to it that compared to a lot
of other criminals, I'm a nervous, very non dangerous. So
it just shows how exaggerated the tag can be.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
And I would imagine that it would have hit the
media and you would have been following the media that
the Australia's most wanted bandit.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
I was looking at my face on the TV, going, God,
you're an ugly basard. You better grow a beard.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
I was going to ask you this question, but I
don't want to get anyone in the trouble. But there's
probably statute of limitations. Did anyone else know outside you
and your brother?
Speaker 2 (20:06):
No, and my wife didn't know. And I'll tell you
the truth. I discussed this. We have even friends. How
stupid would I be to tell a wife that I'm
a bank robber. There's two bad angles. One have you
have you got children that play sport and you're worry
about them hurting themselves playing sport.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Can you imagine a wife sitting at home while you're
doing a bank Yeah, that's that'd be pretty stressful. That's
one reason why you don't tell them. The other reason
is I'm a professional trained by my father and I'm
more akrim than most crims will ever be. But I
choose not to rob banks now, so you don't include
other people because this is the lesson of life for marriages,
(20:49):
break in divorce. Would you like your ex wife knowing
you were a bank robber and asking for more alimony?
Speaker 1 (20:57):
No? And look, I've got to be on this here.
I'm not going to talk about my ex wife. But
from a CoP's point of view, they were ex partners.
Let's put it just in that term. Ex partners are
a great source of information because vengeance can be a
terrible thing. And ah, we haven't got a breakthrough, but
(21:18):
this relationship's broken up, and let's go have a chat
with one.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
There's an angle. There's an angle.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Okay, your brothers, he's got to rest it in the
lame way by Rick Hasey the cop there, and part
of your agreement between that he doesn't talk and you've
got at least twelve hours to said.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Hang on, no, there's no agreement. We had a very
heated discussion on Sunday about this. I'm going to put
this to you. Yeah, Now, all the bank robbers and
all the crooks you've ever met, Yeah, could you imagine
two of them sitting down and reaching agreement where you're
going to lag each other after twelve hours.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
No, I was surprised that if I've missed it interpreted
that I thought not even going to say a word
for twelve hours, because I've had crooks before me that
have just sat there and just not said a word.
Real hard ass.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
On Sunday, he tried to convince me that I agreed
to that.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
That you give him up after twelve hours, or that
he gives you up after twelve Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
So what sort of fool would I be to say
to somebody, Yeah, I'm cool with you giving me up
after twelve hours? What the stuff am I going? I've
cleaned that up, haven't I? What the stuff am I
going to do with twelve hours? I haven't got a passport.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
I'm not part of your crew, and I'm not your brothers.
But I would have expected that if you get caught,
I'm not saying a word about you, and if vice
versa like, keep your mouth shut.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Well, I'll tell you the real story how the whole
thing was set up. There's two parts to crime, and
you know this, all right, we do the bank. What's
the second part of crime? Having alibis and getting away
with it. Even if you get caught, you've got to
beat the blue in court. Otherwise, why did you do it? Now?
The day he shot the copper, I drove his car
(23:02):
to his horse trainer's place. And back in those days
we're twins, we looked the same set up. Ali, I
said his alibi up from the front gate. Because I
tooted the horn, he came out of his stable. I
waved to him. Even our voices are similar, and I've
yelled out, I'll be back later. So I've just given
him an alibi an hour before the bank, and the
(23:25):
bank goes down two and a half hours away. Now
I went home and my wife usually in the afternoon,
after picking up the children, and the women across the
road picking up the children, they would sit in her
lounge room and have a coffee. So I will the
bank was going down, I'm sitting across the road in
somebody else's house. Now it's like the old ad do
(23:49):
you want snake steak knives? As well? The house was
the home of a copper.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Okay, so you're setting up the alibi.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
That's how we worked. Yeah, And the whole point was,
and I'm going to give it to you. I don't
know if this would work or not. The original plan,
which I was willing to stick to but he didn't,
was that if he gets arrested and they don't shoot
him and he has not id the other brother has
probably got a bit of time to think what's going
(24:20):
to go down, right, because he's dead. It could have
been me that was dead, by the way, not just him.
She's my hand is starting to shake a little bit
talking about this. Then let's say they arrest him or
they arrest me. There'd be a court appearance, maybe two
days later or whatever, a bit of slap around, a
bit of questioning with the old phone book. If you
don't talk where the phone book? Right, go to court,
(24:43):
because the other twin will walk into court and say
not a word and just sit there. Now, you if
you were the resting officer and you saw a twin
brother sitting in the audience and you're trying to pint
it on this bloke, you have to pint it on
the correct brother in the right bank. Not as a necessory,
but you have to put the right brother in the bank.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Yeah, you asked me the question. I can see the complications.
I saw it in myin career. I won't mention the
actual murder, but the murder where some twins were good
persons of interest for it. Then they cause a lot
of problems by the fact that they were identical identical twins.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Well, do you know what happened once he got arrested.
Let's just say he was helping it in their investigation.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Co operating.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
I think, yeah. But anyway, so we're going to now
try and beat it in court because you have to pinpointous.
Now you know that that's going to be rather difficult.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Well, you've just got to be on reasonable doubt and
you walk free.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Now what happened was because he was, let's say, making
enough confessions, and the solicitor came in the next day.
He said, he see what's going down. He said, you
do realize that he's cooperated so much that you're now
the bad boy. You know what they said to him.
(26:09):
If you make the statements and plead guilty, it won't
come out in court and you'll be able to sell
a movie. You're laughing.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
I'm laughing. I think, if they're going to come up
with something, come up with something better than that. But
I understand.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Yeah, yep, they got him his ego, they got him.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Well, I've always said in an interview room, you play
the person's weakness or you exploit that weakness. Now, if ego,
and I'm talking generally here, I'm not saying that's Pete's thing,
but if that's ego that sometimes, jeez, you are a good,
good bank robber. You've got the way of all these
And then oh, I actually did more. Yeah, you play
the people's.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Well he did. He told them, he told them about
a job that we did as a two man job.
They didn't know about it. Now, so what should have
happened is we should have been a really interesting court battle,
because a court batter gives you power with let's say,
a plea bargain.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Well, that's true. If it's a week a case, it's
easier to bargain.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Yeah. Now, my solicitor said straight away, he's given him
enough evidence that they won't get you on twenty five
if you fight it. But they're going to give you
ten years for the first one because they're not going
to let you go, he said, So you've got nowhere
to go. Now. The next step was the fact that
these statements were so strong and you know, I'm not
(27:28):
going to say you'll fit people up, but if you
know the story, because he's given you so much information,
you can then go to other people and say, where
was Doug on a certain night because his brother says
it was over here. They would have went to my
wife and said, on the night of such and such
does your brother or sorry, was your husband home? And
she would have said no, they built houses in the
(27:51):
country and he goes away for a week at a time.
So I was fitted because my wife goes, oh, no,
he wasn't home that night.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
How did that make you feel like we're pissed off
with your brother?
Speaker 2 (28:02):
No, I'm a very understanding person. I'm not even angry
at my brother. You have to take responsibility because if
you keep blaming other people for your life, that means
you've got no control.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Well, Doug, that answers a lot to me, because I
was looking at your store and your brother's story, and
I thought, oh God, we're going to have an hour
of you going that doggie did this, he did that,
blah blah blah. Yeah, the way I think a lot
of people would react. But I understand where you're coming
from and that you accept your responsibilities. You're not going
to judge others. Everyone's different, so I do get an
(28:37):
understanding of what you're saying.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
The greatest moment would be in my life if my
brother would just accept what he did and stop trying
to script the truth to hide his failures in life,
because my life had a lot of failures. The robberies,
they're failures. You know what I really think about bank
robbers and people in prison. I don't like you. I
(29:02):
really don't like you. I knocked around with some of
the heaviest criminals in Victoria's history, and I played tennis
with them on a tennis court. We're tennis players. I
don't like what you did off this court. While we're
on this court, we'll play tennis, but we will not
be friends off this court.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
It makes sense. And the conversation we had the other day,
you were talking about criminals and even the way you
look at there's criminals that commit crime to make money
for money, crime for money. Then there's criminals that commit
crimes of violence, of vengeance and all the other things
that may evate people that commit horrendous crimes, and you
(29:44):
deviate between those.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
I try to explain it to people. I'm mixed with
Victoria's worse or in the jail with Victoria's worst sex
offenders and child molesters and all sorts of things. I said,
how did I get here?
Speaker 1 (29:58):
What? Well?
Speaker 2 (30:00):
I'm not this is not natural for me.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
That was your first stint inside? Yes, how were you arrested?
When were you arrested? And what were you convicted of?
Speaker 2 (30:10):
I was convicted of about twenty four to twenty five
armed robberies, use of a firearm, stealing motor cars. I
was arrested unarmed by about forty coppers. I didn't surrender.
I ran down a laneway off a beach and ran
into the side of a divvy van right. They jumped
on me like a rugby scrum NRL style Up there.
(30:31):
All I could hear was grab the bag. Grab the bag,
there's probably a gun in it. And all I can
think of while I'm lying under all these coppers was
the grab the gun. It's another oswell. And then I
was handcuffed to two coppers. They take me back to
Frankstin police station. They were told not to talk to me.
I kept talking to one of them because he was
(30:52):
shaking so badly and he wouldn't talk to me, and
I said, look, mate, I knowin not thatw to talk
to me, but were just settled down. I'm supposed to
be the one that's nervous, so it.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
Was nerves, not anger who was shaking you reckon.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
I don't know what and you know what I was thinking.
And this is how stupid I am. There was a
window behind me, and I'm sitting on a desk and
as hard against the window. I was seen it myself.
Like in the movies, you see all sorts of things.
I thought, I wonder what happens if I spring up
and I throw myself out through the window. Will the
cuffs come off before I hit the ground?
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Well? Probably not? Probably not.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Well that's the conclusion I reached before I sprang out
through the window backwards. Yeah, and look, I make light
of it. This is how I went through my jail.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
I do like the fact that, like, jail's a very
personal experience, and everyone's experience in jail is a little
bit different. But I haven't heard your winge about it.
You've got a smile on your face, and there's horrific
things that happen in jail, as you know better than
I do.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
But I'll tell you something. Right here, I'll tell you
how horrific it is. See that there? Can you see
the cross?
Speaker 1 (31:58):
It's a cross, is it?
Speaker 2 (31:59):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Ye?
Speaker 2 (32:01):
That has cut out of a window bar. And that's
for the eight young fellas that hung themselves because they
couldn't handle the brutality from prison guards, screws, or prisoners
trying to rape them. I wear that in honor of
those boys.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
So your brother did time in the same prison.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
Yes, and there was talk that was going to get
him right. And when I walked in and went into
the yard, and they were animal yards like cattle yards
in those days, I looked around and went, there's seventy
people that I don't know, even my brother. Would be
better to have him on my side if something's going
to go down. So he was the enemy. That was
(32:44):
Watterson as bad as the unknown enemy. So can you
now understand I'm not worried about what you have done.
I'm worried about the next twelve years.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
But what I underestimated or overestimated was during that twelve
years he would never back me up.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
I'm confused. We should do a relationship podcast about you
and your brother, because you've still you both built houses together,
rob banks and tabs together. And then even after all
this shit, after you got out of Joe, you went
back in the building together.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
Because I look, should I be angry because his level
of my expectations was wrong?
Speaker 1 (33:26):
No, And you answered that very well before. I do
understand where you're coming from. I'm just a little bit confused.
You're a very forgiving, forgiving man.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Well I didn't say I forgive. I understand. Yeah, yeah,
but I would process it or maybe more disappointment.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
Yeah, yeah, fair cool. So your art you're saying you'd
already broken away from the life of crime when you
went in. So when you're doing your time, you're ten
and a half years or twelve, subject to debate. Let's go,
we'll add another year.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
Yep, we'll probably just served it.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
You might go back in after this. I don't think
I can sense you. I'd try. You were always you
weren't going to go back to the life of crime.
It wasn't sort of thinking. So it wasn't a watershed
moment in the jail that you thought, no, this life's
not for me. You knew at the moment you walked in.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
I'll give you something. Yeah, this is a word of
advice to everybody in the world, run by Dougie's rules.
When you make a decision and you feel your weakening
on that decision, stand up and look in the mirror
and you ask yourself, yes, perhaps I can lie to
other people, but what sort of man lies to himself?
(34:41):
So if you make a decision, you know it's right.
I'll be honest. Three or four years after I was out,
was really hard pushing, and it's a tough life coming
out of twelve years of jail and having to settle
back down to earning a living. And I had a
moment where one night I sat there and thought about
the future and I was trying to make a decision
(35:01):
do I continue on this righteous path? And I said,
it's pretty tough, And then I went, try a bit harder, Dougie,
try a bit harder, because I'm not going to lie
to myself. And that's it. Every time it gets tough,
go back to what you believe was the correct decision,
and don't lie to yourself. And it was the right decision.
(35:25):
I go and watch my grandchildren play football.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
Now, yeah, well, you know I'm looking at you, and
you don't look like you're a man. That's been broken
by life. There's a lot of positive, positive vibes.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
You know, they're saying the army makes and breaks.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
I had so much adventure and fun in jail. I
got shot at during an escape attempt. You know. The
screw came down to my cell and haste vision that night,
knocked on the trap and said, Dougie, am I okay?
And at first I thought what's he talking about? Then
I got it. Our family will police you. He might
(36:02):
think I'll retaliate in twelve years time.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Ah, I see where you're coming from.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
Yeah, we used to sit down years later and laugh
about that day.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
So tell us about because you do meet up with
a lot of the corrective, not a lot that you
have socialized. I suppose having a beer with former creative
services officers, because what are you doing at the now
the new Pentridge jail or it's not a jar anymore,
it's a you describe it the bar.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
Well, what I like to think is on educating people
on the brutality what you're going to expect if you
cross the blue line. I like to call it the
blue line that you cross, or the cost of crime.
There's a cost of crime to both sides. I guarantee
you've had the cost of crime.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
Yeah, yeah, so you.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
Know what I'm talking about. Yeah, there's not really a
good story anywhere on either side because prison officers became depressed,
they became oken, marriages, all sorts of things because of
the stress of the situation. I went out with a
prison officer for three years, ten years after I got
out of jail, and I learned about what it was
like for those guys. She wasn't a guy, she was
(37:12):
a woman.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
But I mean, yeah, you run with that.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
This is show you. I'll show your photos later. And
I learn a lot about the jail from the other side,
about all the heavies that were giving people up. I
have a great understanding for the overall picture. Now as
far as have you forgotten the question you asked me
that I have, Oh what do I do with brew
dog at the jar? It's a very good platform to
(37:41):
raise what the price is of crime. If I want
to talk about car racing, well let's do it while
we watch Ellen Moffatt or Peter Brock or whatever. So
let's take it to where we have some feeling for it,
and you can come and visit me and you about
what it's really like and what the cost will be.
(38:03):
So there in that situation, I've bumped into a lot
of ex prison officers and they all want to put
their arm around me, and I just jested with them,
and I give them the same lip. I had a
governor that punished me very severely once and put me
in Haite Division, and they were taking photos of us,
and I had my arm around his shoulder like you
normally do in the old photos with and I was
(38:25):
whispering in his ear when everybody was too far away
to here, I go, Remember that jelly night. You never
got me? So I like to give people a slap,
even forty years later. And he laughed. He said, yeah,
I know, and we both had a laugh about it.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
But not everyone would be capable of that. I would
imagine there's a lot of people that there's a resistance
as a blue and the green, and people are.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
Sure, well, I like to say this, and you'll look
because you're you're a understanding because you've been in the
We're not much different really, because we both understand. Right now,
I'd like to say to people, why would I be
angry at a copper? I don't remember coppers coming to
(39:10):
my house and dragging me into a bank and making
me rob it. Now I can go the other way
because my brother told me that I would not come
in I would be heavily armed. The armed robbery squad
held my family hostage in my house for four days.
(39:30):
My three and five year old son and daughter had
to sit in the bathroom all day, and I sometimes
wonder if they were old enough to comprehend that if
I walk through that door, I was going to be shot.
So there's always two sides.
Speaker 1 (39:45):
So yeah, and I understand it would have been an
intense situation when the cops are after you, exactly.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
But I don't give them much other avenue. So who's
responsible for what my children went through?
Speaker 1 (39:59):
Well, you do impress me in the fact that you
take ownership all the stuff when you look back at
all the places that were robbed. I know and speaking
to other people that bank robbers from the past didn't
fully appreciate the psychological damage. You walk out. You haven't
showed anyone. You think, oh, well, I'm not a bad person.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
Well do you reflate the damage is done?
Speaker 1 (40:24):
Yeah, you reflect on that.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
So the actual stress is perceived stress. But guess what
that is real. That is far more damaging. I'll tell
you a story from my side. A young fella that
believed he was going to be beaten up the next
day by a heavy and jail was so stressed he
(40:47):
went to his cell with no mother to turn to,
no phone call to talk to his brother or his
sister or his father. The stress of being beaten up
and only by hand, he hung himself that night. It's
the perceived situation that stresses people. I jokingly say. Now,
(41:08):
people say, could you rob a bank? I go, I could.
I'll tell you how I do it. I will do
the job. Let's say jobs should still be done because
we've got to go back to that era. I will
do the job. And as I walk through the door,
as I'm leaving with the cash, I would throw my
water pistol back over my head and go, I'm sorry,
but it was just a water pistol. Don't stress. I'm
(41:31):
gone because now I understand the stress. But I didn't
perceive that stress because you know, I'm jovial about even
if I was robbed. So therefore I believed all army soldiers, Navy,
Air Force, police, bank tellers are trained. What I didn't
(41:55):
realize is they all have different personalities and levels of stress.
There's probably police officers that suffer worse than me. Oh
absolutely more. I don't suffer because I accept all this
and so you can't hurt me. Nobody in the world
can hurt me. I carry the demons. I'm my worst critic.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
Well, you made that point earlier on that. You know,
how's your life or judge of in the last ten
seconds of your life and look back and can you
face yourself in the mirror and done everything I can?
What's a message you'd give for young and like, I
don't think no matter what. Maybe there's a retro thing.
The music comes back in fashion, clothing comes back in fashion.
(42:40):
Maybe robberies and banks come back in fashion. I do
so that'd be crazy, but I doubt it. But the
currency of crime now there's different type of crime. And
then back in the day and back twenty years ago.
But what message would you give to know young blake
or girls these days that think it's sclamorous a life
(43:01):
of crime and where the consequences might be you end
up in prison or sorry, okry the guilt.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
Over the last thirty five years, I've trained many, many
young men as apprentices. All of them talk to me
with total freedom because they know who I am. There
was one apprentice that was selling party drugs pills, and
he came to me one day. I know what they're doing,
and I'm not going to condemn them. It's not my
role to condemn people. I will try and point out
(43:29):
what you'll get yourself into. I won't condemn you, and
I won't tell you what you can do with your life.
For all I know you're a bad person, but that's
your business. Now. This guy he comes to me on
I think it was a Monday, and he said, oh, look,
on a Friday night he met with three guys with
(43:49):
one thousand dollars for some pills for the week under sell.
And he said, but what happened was they had machetes.
And this is about ten years back, so machetes have
been around for a while. They are very intimidating piece
of equipment. Now, he said, what they did was they
took my thousand dollars and think of many pills. And
I said, well, you're about to learn the lesson of crime.
(44:12):
What happens in crime. You can't control this direction. What
will happen is you have to make a decision. Now,
are you going to take the next step and rearrange
with somebody else to meet these guys and you'll turn
up with a bigger machete And then what they'll do
is they will arrange get back at you with a
bigger machete, which might be a gun. So so today
(44:35):
I want you to think about if you're in or
you're out. He came back to me at three point thirty.
He said, Dug, I'm out. I said, I'm very happy
for you. You made the right decision. Now, what happens
is young people they start selling a bit of drugs
so they don't have to pay for their drugs. What
they don't realize is you slowly get in deeper and
deeper and deeper, and I'm going to use the great
(44:57):
Carl Williams. Williams tried to use the press to make
some drugs and make some money.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
He's pill press.
Speaker 2 (45:07):
What happened was they found out and they shot him.
Carle probably asked himself, when Carl was doing the drugs
at that stage, he didn't perceive himself as being a killer.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
You agree, yeah, yeah, I think this is a reasonable
way of describing it.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
Then they shot him, so he made a decision to retaliate.
If Carl Williams walks away when he was shot, a
lot of people don't die. But what happens in crime,
it keeps escalating out of control. Like my brother when
his ego escalated him out of control and he shoots
(45:48):
Ray Kosh. It's not this crime or that crime or
that crime. It happens. That's what happens in crime. You
lose control and you maybe stupidly go to the next level.
That's it. That's what you have to tell young people.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
Well, I think that's I haven't heard it spoken that way,
but that's a good breakdown of of course, in their
detail of how it can escalate, and before you know it,
you're in deeper than you care to be and the
consequences are pretty heavy. Look, I will wrap up on
that note. Just the stuff you do with your ard,
(46:27):
if people want to reach out to you, and the
type of things. What are you doing these days?
Speaker 2 (46:31):
Well, probably the only important thing some of the money
that I raised from art. I don't know if you
can see that. That's a bluestone key ring with Ned
Kelly painted on it.
Speaker 1 (46:41):
Okay, yep, now.
Speaker 2 (46:42):
We sell these things. I still I'm going back working
with the Salvos and we'll be selling them for about
fifteen dollars and five dollars we'll go to the guys
who make them, five dollars will go to the guys
who sell them, and five dollars will go to the Salvos.
And I've got a deal with one of the chaplains
that they'll tell me things that people getting out of
young people getting out of jail require to set their
(47:04):
lives up. So what I want to do is spend
some time raising money and going back to mentoring, because
I've done mentoring with prisons before and it's like, we
can all be a show pony, or we can all
do things for the things that you do that are
positive will give your life some value. I seek value
(47:25):
in my life.
Speaker 1 (47:27):
I can understand that you look like you're enjoying your life.
Where can people reach out to you if they want
to contact with you.
Speaker 2 (47:34):
Well, if they go to brew Dog Pub at Pentries
Jail and they ask for Doug, they'll be told, no,
he's not here today, or he is here today. But
I'm retired. So in theory, I'm supposed to be the
jail artist and his story and every day after three o'clock, okay,
but sometimes I get lazy.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
Well, we all need a day off every now and then, Doug,
I've enjoyed the enjoyed the chat. Thanks for making the
effort and giving this an insight into a world that
most of us don't get to sea or fully understand.
So that's what I like to do on the podcast.
That's what we've been trying to do for years. Let
people fully understand what goes on in the world of crime,
because there's this misconception. But people are now, okay, this
(48:18):
is a real live robber and we've just had a
sit down chat and talking to an next cop who
would have thought so. I appreciate you, honestly, people get
to understand the world.
Speaker 2 (48:29):
You don't seem a bad blake for a copper.
Speaker 1 (48:32):
You're all right for an arm Robert too.
Speaker 2 (48:34):
That's been quoted in books.
Speaker 1 (48:35):
Actually fair core. All right, Well, thank you very much,
and yeah, we'll stay in touch.
Speaker 2 (48:43):
And one last thing, and you've got to think about this.
Speaker 1 (48:46):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (48:46):
I will never know if I've ever helped anybody, but
it doesn't matter. I try.
Speaker 1 (48:52):
I like your attitude on things. Do I can see
why you made it through some hard times and come
out the other end good stuff. Take care in the back.
Speaker 2 (49:02):
Never never, anti bas
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