Is your mum still around?
JOSH: Yeah, I think.
Oh, so you don't know.
Yeah, sometimes she is... but I don't have much... I don't talk to her.
So, you don’t have a good connection with her?
No.
And this is because of what happened or...
Yeah, because I was a spiritual birth.
Sorry?
I was doomed...
OK, so let's start with this one: "Doomed."
My mother was hit by a car when she was three years old. And she had skin (damage) on the other side of her face. So that was in the 50s. Yes, in Tasmania, and she was told she never had children. And she had five miscarriages before she had me. She had me after the fifth miscarriage and then went on to have another brother. Both of our fathers left. When I was five, Mum was raped and beaten in front of me. I don't remember it. But that's how I've got my little brother. So, my little brother is a product of Mum being raped when I was five.
So, who told you that?
She did.
When?
When I attacked my stepfather later on in life, she blamed everything else. By the time I was six, I was put into a mental institution in Victoria. And they tried to keep me there for a long time, but they didn't.
Okay, so what was the reason you attacked your stepfather?
Because he sexually abused me. When I was six, they tried to keep me in a mental institution, but Mum took me out. Around about the same time, the man down the road killed his wife and then killed himself. I still remember holding on to my brother. Why? My mum went inside, so they were both dead, and there was the baby. The baby was still alive. And Mum came outside holding their baby. (Later on) she tried to adopt that baby. It took a few days for the welfare (to come) and get the baby.... but I remember the dead bodies.
So, this is when you are six...
About six, seven... So, all this stuff happened. And around about the same time. That's when she met my stepfather who worked for the Brotherhood of St. Lawrence in Victoria.
The Brotherhood?
It's like a church group. And she went away one weekend with him to do a program for this church and came home with him. I'm not sure when it started. But he sexually abused me until I was 11 or 12.
... and lots of violence. He used to bash me really bad... So, that was how I grew up.
What was the reason they were sending you to mental care?
Because it was too hard to control me and my brothers, we went to so many different schools and all that... By that time, we'd already seen enough trauma.
Do you remember what they were saying about you (your mental condition)?
I do, actually, because Mom told me, they said that I'd already witnessed so much trauma that I wouldn't know how to love or care, the deaths, the rape, the man pulled over on the side of the road, harassing me.
Yes, but that's the reason to just give you more love.
Not back in 1976 -79. They didn't do that sort of stuff back there.
What about your behaviour?
My behaviour was all over the place, I think.
Do you think or do you remember?
I don't remember much. I think I blocked a lot of it out because of the stepfather coming along. So, I remember places and I can still tell you where I grew up. And the telephone number we had, but I can't tell you much else about how I grew up but I still had them programmed into my head and when I got one of my psychiatric tests done like through jail, they said to me that I had severe post-traumatic stress syndrome equal to that as somebody that has seen war because I could remember all these incidents where mom... or (how) we grew up pretty rough... when it was back in there and all the other stuff.
And where is, in this whole story your biological father?
He left when I was three. I have never seen him, never met him. Never tried to look for him.
And your mom, did you ask her about him?
No, not really.
Do you have his name, the last name?
Smith.
Yes, Noel Smith; he married my mom. But he is probably dead now like, they are both old. I don't know, I don't care but I wouldn't care if he was rich or anything like bad luck. ‘You've never been there...’ Mum believed in God because she was so hurt. We went from church to church, and the whole time, my stepfather was sexually abusing me. So, we'd go to church during the week and church on Sundays, and Mum went for the Hobart City Mission here when we moved back to Tassie. Well, I was bullied at school because we used to deliver food to the needy and stuff. So, I grew up getting gang meshed, and then I ended up I when I finally did go to jail, all the people that were picked on me, I went from being a little person to suddenly was a bigger aggressor because I was used to getting bitten by two or three people.
Just a little bit more about your mom. What was she doing for a living?
Volunteering for the Hobart City Mission.
Did they pay her anything... volunteering means not paying...
Not paying... And my stepfather, he worked for them and got paid. None of us have belonged to him.
Sorry?
None of us were stepfather's. My brothers..
(Do you mean) he had no biological relationship with the kids he was abusing...
Mum just kept taking him back over the years every time. (...) I left home when I was 17. Then I was 23. I was 23 or 24. I can't remember, but in 1997 I first went to jail in 1996 for a few things. And then I come back in 97. I did two months... (driving offences), and the day I got out, I tried to reconnect with Mom because I hadn't seen Mom for all those years. And I went home and had like a flashback... and stabbed him (the stepfather) repeatedly and was charged with attempted murder.
So, he was still there.
Yeah, all those years later. And mom stayed with him even years after that.
But you didn't kill him. He was just injured. Badly?
Yep.
And that's how I found out most of this other stuff because Mum kept telling me I had false memory, and that this happened. Don't remember this bad thing happened.
But prior to the stabbing how was your relationship with her?
None, I was the other end of the state? I was at Devonport. I didn't really talk to her. And only comes home to Grandma. But after I told everyone after stubbing what he'd done...
Who is everyone?
All the family. When I got out of the jail. I told everybody...
How long was your jail sentence?
Eight months. I got dropped down to intent. And the prosecution made a deal with me that if I didn't mention the sexual abuse or the Hobart City Mission, they would lower the charges.
Why didn’t they want you to mention it?
Because they were in the church, that was the power of the church...
So, your step father was working for the church.
Yep.
So what is the connection between the legal practitioners, a prosecutor and the church?
Because I didn't want to come out (about the abuses) in public. That's just how they used to do things. That's why I hate them so much. And then, if that was in 1997, in 2014,
Are you sure that was the deal?
Yep. They said to me that I couldn't mention it.
Not just because you plead guilty.
They said that they would lower the charges if I didn’t mention the church or the sexual abuse.
Did they ask you to sign it? Or was it just verbal?
Yeah. They did the same in 2014 when Victorian police came and saw me, and there were more victims. I wasn't the only victim. And I had to go over there. And so, when I went to Victoria, I wasn't allowed to talk about what happened in Queensland. I wasn't allowed to talk about what happened in Tasmania. And I wasn't allowed to talk about the physical violence. I was only allowed to talk about this. He was found guilty a number of times, and they overturned it on technical grounds. And the Victorian police, when I told them what I just told you about how, they said to me that they lower the charges and plead guilty and try and get me out as soon as possible. The Victorian police couldn't believe that they did it, and they said what if you told the Tasmanian police? Why didn't the Tasmanian police charge him for a sexual offence? And I said, I don't know, I don't care, I just wanted to get out of jail.
What about of your mom? Did she know?
She finally believed me after like 2000 and something like, but I don't talk to her anymore.
Because of that?
Yep, I haven't spoken to her for nine years.
I have never really spoken to her, probably because she just wouldn't accept it. Then I think, like, in 2014, when I went across to Victoria for the court, she tried to talk to me, and I still didn't talk to her.
So, along all those years of those experiences in contact with the criminal justice system, was there anyone who actually properly listened to those stories and made some kind of meaningful use of this information?
No. What they did, they used it in my offense (?) Well, I did get in trouble. I just turned into a violent criminal for many years until I had my own family.
So, how did you establish your own family?
I met a girl, and she got pregnant straight away.
Is this in Devenport?
Yep. We had a little girl, and then she was pregnant straightaway again, and we had a little boy, and I thought that was all meant to be good, but it wasn't.
Did you establish a household or get married?
We didn't get married...
Why?
I don't know.
Did you want it?
No.
Why?
Because we were just happy the way things were, I think.
Partners and she was happy about it. Who is she?
She's the one who ended up turning into the demon.
But at this date at that stage, you actually liked her.
Yeah, it was I was only with her for nine years. I wasn't with anybody else.
Was she your first girlfriend?
No, third.
The third girlfriend but she was a serious one.
Yep.
So what did you like about her?
It was just fun until she had the baby. We used to go shooting and fishing. I had boats and cars and guns and all that sort of stuff ... when we first met, but then I got rid of them because they wanted to get in more trouble. I think the reason she loved me was because she liked the criminal side of me. And then when the babies came...
That criminal side was actually about robbing?
Drug dealer.
So, how did you get into this business?
Because I knew everyone from jail.
The jail university' graduate.
Yep. I went to jail for drunk driving and coming up just meeting people and other people and got a reputation from one side and Tassie to the other.
What reputation?
Yep. And I'd walk in and just hit five blokes at once and take them all that kind of no fear you wouldn't imagine...
Violent.
I can. I've run into 15 people and started hitting them all because I want to bush one person, and people go fuck, do you remember when Parker did that... or did I have had people pull guns on me and tell them to pull the trigger or make a good story and then take the gun off and beat the fuck out of them. And I don't know why I can be expected one minute, and then when I feel threatened, I'll just go loopy but I used to beat most of them but I got beat up heaps but I wasn't scared. Nothing would stop me... I would wake up in hospital. So, get back and to the same place.
Did you also do the fitness? (in prison)
No.
So, you were always a big, big man. Physically big.
But from the kid that used to get bashed up and picked on and raped at home to the bloke that was walking from one pub to another... like
Okay, going back to your partner. So, you have two children.
Three, but to this one, I have one that's 21 or 23 (years old). He doesn't speak to me because of what happened.
But this was before this relationship.
Yeah. Yeah. Now, the kids are only six and eight.
They are small.
Yeah. So, you said that she was really into your criminal background?
Yeah.
Was she enjoying it?
I think she enjoyed that life. And that's cuz she was 20. She's only 30 (now). I'm 50. So there is a big age difference. And she it was kind of exciting for her to have a little bit of a thrill coming from....
There was money available. Lots of money.
But also a risk.
Yep. So, once we had the babies, I stopped doing everything. I stopped going to the pubs and didn't do anything. I went to work every day. Come home. Go, cook, clean. I did everything.
Really?
Yeah.
What work was it?
I was at the abattoirs and the fish farms in production.
So you turned into a perfect partner.
I thought I was. But she must have got bored along the track simply because she started cheating on me.
But was she a good mum?
Yeah.
So actually, your kids at the beginning they had both good parents. Because you were actually on the top of your (responsibilities).
Yeah, I've changed my whole life around it ... it took a couple of years to get the real and to get the cops off my back, and all that sort of stuff took a few years, but it worked.
So, you didn't do it with the first one (child)
No. I wasn't ready to settle down.
Okay, so you know what's happening? Is she cheating on you?
Yep.
And then?
So that was a while into it. I knew it. But I just couldn't prove it. And that was when she told me that she loved me. And she needed me... she wanted a cake to have and eat too, she wanted me there for the kids, she won't be there for the home. And then I'll go to work and she (...) whoever she'll say. And like stuff up. I wasn't drinking, I wasn't taking drugs. And I can say stuff was going on, and I broke down at work once. I just thought something was wrong. I could just feel it. And I was crying at work... I was going to chuck myself in front of tracks all the way that I could couldn't do it. Like I was just bad. I was a mess. And I got home and she was telling me that there's something wrong with me that she wouldn't do that. And then she came home and I because my clothes were covered in blood. I go to the laundry. And I see her undies, and they just didn't look right. I'd say that's not right. That's not right. (But she would say) ‘You know, I had all the problems after X was born, he was 10 pounds 11”. And stuff like that, or I would wash the sheets on the Monday and then come home on the Wednesday, and she'd be rewashing them. And then tell me that I was fucked in the head for thinking that she'd slept with somebody and but she was, and I thought I was crazy. I started hearing noises sometimes and stuff like that in the backyard because I went to work at four or five in the morning. And I thought I was crazy. But I went to the doctor and told the doctor about saying things, hearing things because I haven't got really good sight in shadows... The bloke was waiting in the park across the road and stuff for me to go and then came out of the bushes and went and met, and everybody knew about it but me.
How did you find out?
The next-door neighbors, everybody?
You talked to people...
Yeah, but I thought I was crazy. I went to the doctor and told him that I'd say things and hear things that he put me on psychotics. And then everything kept happening. Things kept happening, and I'm thinking that it didn't look right, and I flicked across the screen on the phone, and she had my phone bugged one time I called her. She took two and a half grand off me, and the next time, she stole over five grand off me, to the point that I just wanted to die, and then I was done. And I found a picture (on Tinder) that looked like her before she had the kids. Before we like when we first got together. I said that you've got the scar there. It's got the scar there. And she said, Of course, it's not, I wouldn't... I've never been with anybody but you; you're crazy. You need to get help and all this sort of stuff. A couple of weeks after that, another picture appeared. And it was our bedroom. But everything had been like a photo edited, like pixeled out. And she had our daughter's name. And I said that is.. fuck it. And that's when I lost the plot and started using drugs again for a few weeks, and I went from not how they're using drugs probably once every three, four months. When I was going to a party or something for three weeks straight. I got on the meth, and it went to sleep twice.
And she was also using?
Yep.
How do children navigate this situation?
I've got no idea. X was probably only 3 or 4 and Y was 10.
Do you have grandparents helping?
She had a mum, but her mum was just a sly.
What?
Sly, covered up, covered up for her...
Was she helping with children?
No. She's got another two children that are very troublesome.
So the children are just adjusted to the situation.
They always had everything they looked at. I don't think they've missed out on a lot of it until the actual day that I lost my shit. But the more I lost my shit and ended up in jail - I finally realised that I wasn't crazy. And it just all hit me at once. It felt like everything was crashing. And I just wanted to die. And I sat in the bedroom, and I cried all day. They made it into the paper that I held her against her will. She told him that I just turned up and that she was too scared to ask me to leave. That wasn't true. And she could have gone at any time of the day because I was in the bedroom just crying. She's sitting there telling me that I'm crazy. And I knew I wasn't crazy anymore. And I didn't want to be there. And I grabbed a knife, and I went to cut (myself) up, and the kids come run, but none of that was in the paper. The kids came out of the hallway crying and screaming, and I did. I stopped when I put the knife back. And I just thought, What are you doing? What are you doing? Mow the lawns and get some fresh air. I walked outside, grabbed petrol, and shook it to make sure there was enough petrol to mow the lawns, walk back in to grab a drink. She said something to me. I threw the petrol down, kept drinking some Fuckit ... and then that's when it got really scary because sometime in the next two to three hours, I must have thought about setting my family on fire, because I said (that) to her as she was leaving. But I don't know why I said that. I don't know how I come to think of it. And I went from mowing the lawns to threatening my family so it just escalated as this goes.
She called the police...
Her mom did, Yep.
So she was living kind of nearby, her mother...
Yeah, her mother was working down the road that day, but I left the house three or four times during the day. They just made me sound so bad and didn't take into they didn't take anything into consideration, so...
So they came, and they arrested you, and that's it.
The police came, and that's when I grabbed the petrol and threw it everywhere.
Then you really lost it...
Yeah, I threw it over the door so they wouldn't come in. I was running to the bathroom ... go to sleep. I was planning to cut myself in the bath, but when I threw the petrol over the door the petrol splashed down on the policeman, he said I threw it at him. Throw the petrol at the policeman, I know that much... I did, as much as at the door, and it must just splash near him. If I was going to throw it from here to that door, it was probably the distance he was gonna get him. I would have got him, and they all kept telling me how dangerous I was, but nobody got physically hurt, which is scary and it's bad. But I was brainwashed into the point that I thought I was fucking crazy when you keep breaking down and then you try to take drugs to fix it. Which just made it worse. Yeah.
So how did they treat you after they arrested you that day?
Good.
Yeah, except when I went to court, and they twisted everything around to make it sound good. A lot of the prosecution said, if you had a lighter, that would have been so much worse, or had a lighter and they made it sound like my family was inside. They weren't there outside when I left and had been gone for hours. Like they just did everything they could, I agree with all except for when it comes to. I said I don't know. I said whatever happened. I said, I can't remember. I don't know. But I know that I did not throw petrol at that policeman. I threw it over the door so he wouldn't come in.
Did you agree that you intended to actually set everything on fire?
After my arrest? Yeah, I pled guilty. Yeah.
How was your partner actually interacting? What was she doing in this whole situation?
Coming to the door and told me I was crazy because I was in the bedroom most of the time. She still tells me I'm crazy.
Are you in touch with her?
Yeah.
Okay, so I just want to understand that after you're arrested, she contacted you to talk to you. And
After a few months, she kept crying all the time because her next partner, so I got three years for that. Her next partners...
You went to Risdon for three years.
Yes, I did two years and ten months. Her next partner is doing two and a half years. He bashed her with a golf cub in front of the children. Same reason she was sleeping with his brother behind his back. Not long before I lost it... I called his brother in my driveway when I was meant to be going to work at three o'clock in the morning. And my bestie's brother, so now he is doing two and a half years. The next boyfriend, so now she's just had a baby to the 22-year-old Jackie; he just spent six months in jail for bashing her. Now, she's had a baby to him. And the first thing your daughter is saying is that 22-year-old man interfered with her. So, she's got four kids, no dad, and I don’t know what's going on because I'm down here, but I just know I wasn't crazy. I was I was in a really, really bad place. And if I wanted to hurt people, I would have, but really, the only person I had was myself.
What about her, your partner's life?
Yeah, the whole big family. This guy's coming and going. Yep, drugs are coming and going.
Yep, she is still on the drugs. Oh, she's not now. She's been pretty good. But, um, the kids are going to a really good school.
In Devenport.
Yep. And they're doing really well.
How come?
Her mom is helping her. And she's staying at her mum's. But they sometimes I get her into tears and she just goes what I wish that everything could get back. Well, she shouldn't have done it. Like, if she didn't want to be with me. I would have left. But she didn't say that (...) and I'd put everything in, like I had furniture, cars, boats and guns and everything. And I gave it all up for her, and I still had the boats and everything else, but I we got nothing now, she stollen my super, she stollen my taxes. She stolen everything after went to jail. Slept with at least eight of my friends that I thought that they were friends but obviously weren't.
So, do you talk to her on the phone? Do you talk to your children? How they talk to you. How's your relationship with your kids?
Good.
Do they call you by themselves?
Not because I'm not allowed to have contact physical contact until the end of the month.
Because you are still on parole?
Yep. I am on the family violence thing till the 25th of July so that I can see them physically. So, at the end of the month!
How are you going to do that? Devonport. Do you have a plan for how to...
No, just to be there...
So, what do you, do you make plans, taking some medication?
Yep, I'm just a light little sleeper to stop my head from going tick, tick, tick.
Just to help you to sleep.
Yep, calm down.
But you're not taking any psychoactive drugs?
No!
Anything for depression?
Sometimes, Yeah.
But you're not addressing your depression with medication.
Yeah, it's only a 25 milligram slow release just to make me stop going tick, tick, tick. All get worked up over, like the pedophiles that are here. That drives me crazy after what happened to me. Yeah, it's four or five. And it drives me nuts. Especially when they say hello, and I kind of go to sleep sometimes because I just don’t want to go nuts... because I had kids.
Look at this like a really good training for yourself.
Yeah, I have to.
Like people go to fitness to exercise their muscles. You have here people who can trigger something, and you have to learn to cope with it. How long can you stay here is there any time limitation?
No. I'm trying to get the place and trying to get a job on the Bridge Water bridge.
Okay. So construction work.
Yeah. So I've been waiting till the 25th of July. I've got to see the kids. And then I've got in August. I've got a breach. They're trying to put me back in jail for a year... I've got the bracelet.
Yes.
I went to Devonport for court. And I went to the police station. And I said I don't know where I can and can't go. And the lady behind the counter gave me the wrong information. And I walked into the area where I was not allowed to go, and they came and arrested me.
When you were doing your Risdon time, did you receive any kind of offer to sit and talk?
I took. I told the doctor everything I told you about my mum being raped in front of me.
The doctor?
The doctor and he took me off my medication, told me I needed to learn how to cope. That was his words: you need to learn how to cope, and he took me off all medication.
Was it a psychiatrist or psychologist?
Actual doctor.
GP
Yep. He took me off the anti-psychotics and mood stabilizers.
And was it a good idea?
I don't know because I was still... for the first few months, I went to jail. I thought I was crazy. And I tried to hurt my family. But I ended up learning how to paint and that fix it.
You learned to do what?
Painting.
So that was your way of calming down thinking reconnecting with yourself probably.
Yep.
What did you paint?
Have you heard of Bob Ross? On SBS. He was teaching people to paint.
On TV.
Yes, and you started to watch those shows?
That was what I did. I started to do it in the Aboriginal way.
Do you have an Aboriginal background?
No. So that's all that's all dots. Just little dots.
You did oil paint?
No, acrylic.
That's what you started to do in prison?
Yeah, just a little.
Did you show it to your kids?
Yeah, I used to send them pictures.
Did they like it?
Yeah.
(showing photos)
Miniatures...
Yeah.
That's really cute. So, this is something you're copying...
No, it's out of my head most of it. The birds aren't, but a lot of it is just from thought. Some of it's down there, but I sold a lot of it.
Again, an Indigenous theme. How come?
Because there were a lot of Aboriginals in there.
In Risdon...
Yep. And they taught me how to do that. And the dots were calming.
So, your friends are over there?
Yep. Lots. But the same people in jail in 1996 are still in jail today. So, they say that they fix everything. How's it fixed when you've got fathers that were in jail in the 90s, were in their 20s like me, and they're in their 50s? Not only are they there, but some have their sons in there. Something's got their sons and daughters. It's a revolving circle. I got out in 2010.
I stayed out of jail for ten years and then went back in 2020. When I turned around to the judge and told them how I turned my life around and all that sort of stuff, he said, No, you no, you didn't get caught. True. This is what judge said to me. The one in the low courts. I don't know their names. But that's what he said to me.
Was he right?
A little. You have this 10 years gap.
Yep. So that's a long time, huge array of things. I mean, I'll share bad upbringing too, but it's funny. He's like, if you have a bad upbringing, you seem to find other people that have had bad upbringing is there seem to be your circle of friends like the amount of people that I've lost to suicide is for a lifetime.