Chopper Unchopped (59 page)

Talking of kick boxing, they used to put on contests in Pentridge in 1991. Big Davey Hedgecock, a former world-ranked kick boxer on his way to a world title before some scallywag shot him in the shoulder, used to bring in a team of professional kick boxers to fight the team of ex-professional kick boxers doing time.

Dave Hedgecock is a legend in the Melbourne nightclub scene. He runs a security company that supplies bouncers to clubs and pubs and discos all over town. Dave is a very good friend of my old jail mate Frankie Waghorn. He is also a friend of a gentleman in Lygon Street, Carlton, who doesn’t like me much, but that’s not Dave’s fault.

Anyway, back to the story of the boxing shows. Being the charitable, goodhearted fellow he is, Dave arranged to bring a few strippers into Pentridge with the boxing shows. Wearing as little as legally allowed, they would jump into the ring between rounds and hold up cards indicating which round it was, and strut their stuff – much to the delight of the crowd. The whole thing was videoed and replayed throughout the jail and, believe me, the between-rounds entertainment put on by the girls was the main attraction. The girls knew it, and played up to the crowd and to the camera.

The powers that be ended up stopping these boxing and girl shows. Sometimes, the jail authorities have no sense of humor at all.

I interviewed your client at the Risdon Prison Special Unit on the 31st October, 1992. To assist me with my assessment I was provided with a copy of Mr Read’s Record of Prior Convictions.

Mark Read is a 37-year-old man who, prior to his arrest, was living in a de facto relationship in Newnham. He had previously been released from prison in November, 1991, and remained free until May, 1992. He has recently been convicted of charges arising out of the shooting of one Sydney Collins.

Mr Read has a most interesting family background. He was the older of two children of a family that lived mainly in Victoria. His father served with the Regular Army for 26 years and at the time of retirement from the forces was a senior NCO. Mr Read’s mother had previously been the matron of a Seventh Day Adventist Missionary College in New Zealand. Mr Read’s father’s occupation led to the household having many moves both within Victoria, and to other states. Your client estimates that as a result of these moves he would have attended approximately 20 schools. This caused him to have limited opportunities to form any enduring friendships.

His difficulty in peer relationships was exacerbated by the household’s religious practices. As noted above, Mr Read’s mother had been a matron of a Seventh Day Adventist College. She was a strict adherent of this faith, and Mr Read’s father was required to convert to the same faith. The household followed Seventh Day Adventist principles which included fundamentalist religious views, strict observance of a Saturday Sabbath, vegetarianism and asceticism. There were prohibitions upon the use of alcohol and drugs, and the expression of aggression. Corporal punishment was frequent, with a ‘Spare the rod, spoil the child’ philosophy prominent.

This religious background caused your client to be further isolated from his peers, and subject to some school yard bullying and harassment. Furthermore, the observance of a Saturday Sabbath meant that despite his increasingly powerful build, he was unable to participate in various sporting activities.

Once a child emerges from such a background and moves into adolescence, there is a fundamental choice as to whether to accept the household’s rules for living, or repudiate them. There is no middle ground. Mr Read rejected his mother’s upbringing and her church, and during his adolescence became increasingly difficult to control. In contrast, his sister embraced maternal values and fundamentalist religion. Mr Read left the Seventh Day Adventist Church when he was aged 15. Interestingly, his father left the church not long after, and the parental marriage subsequently failed.

Mr Read left school, and obtained work readily. His athletic physique allowed him to work as a nightclub bouncer from a relatively young age. In such a way, having left the household culture he entered a new sub-culture, the criminal underworld of Melbourne. He became involved in many acts of violence, the majority which appear to have been directed at other criminal elements. His modus operandi evolved into ‘standing over’ other criminals such as drug dealers and massage parlor operators. He appears to have not been a particularly successful criminal, having spent the period 1974-91 almost continuously in custody.

His most notorious offence was the armed abduction of a County Court judge in 1978. This was the only offence about which he has expressed any remorse or regret. He told me that all the other offences had been against criminal elements, but he had no personal wish to harm the judge. When he later discovered that the judge had recently recovered from cardiac surgery, your client wrote to him, apparently to apologise. Mr Read told me that he and the judge, who had by then retired, subsequently exchanged correspondence.

I was interested to learn of the background to Mr Read having mutilated his ears, the basis for his nickname, ‘Chopper’. He told me that he had been directed by the Prison Classification Committee to spend his time in Pentridge’s H Division, and that he had been informed that he would be there for a long time. He gave me a vivid account of H Division and its inmates, many of whom are mentally disturbed or show markedly disorganised behavior. Mr Read assured prison authorities that he would be getting out of ‘H’ Division; they replied that he would not. He then resolved to win the day by doing something so out of the ordinary the authorities would feel obliged to transfer him. He persuaded another prisoner to cut his ears off with a razor blade. He was apparently moved out of H Division promptly. He denied any other acts of mutilation. He advised me that his behavior prompted a virtual epidemic of ear cutting within H Division as other prisoners tried the same ploy. Mr Read told me that this group of prisoners were nicknamed the Van Gogh Club, with Mr Read the unofficial president. Although there has been no other acts of mutilation, Mr Read is covered in a large array of amateur tattoos, most of which have a theme of violence or bravado.

Although Mr Read has been a singularly violent person, his repudiation of maternal values does not appear to be complete. For example, he denied any significant alcohol or substance abuse, and expressed almost moralistic views concerning those who profited from drug abuse. He had no regrets about his offences against drug dealers and underworld figures.

His past health, other than for injuries, has been good. He has incurred several injuries which might be regarded as an occupational hazard: e.g. hit on the head with a hammer when aged 18, shot in the back when 16, and so on. There is no history of psychiatric assessment, although he had spoken briefly with Dr Bartholomew, a Victorian Forensic Psychiatrist, while he was in Pentridge.

During the interview, despite his somewhat fearsome appearance, Mr Read presented in a manner that might be described as friendly and charming. He was articulate and seemed to be above average intelligence. He was very plausible. There was no evidence of any mood disturbance of thought, perception or cognition.

THERE is no evidence of psychiatric disorder in Mr Read. He clearly has a most unusual personality, but then, that would be expected of someone who is not uncomfortable about being regarded as a professional criminal. I had wondered whether an anti-social personality disorder can be diagnosed in this man, and technically it probably can. However, typical features such as alcohol and drug abuse or impulsivity were not present. While he clearly has been violent on many occasions, I gained the impression of a man who has control over aggression, rather than being violent in a chaotic or disorganised manner. From a psychiatric perspective, there was no disorder present which would suggest any particular propensity for him to lose control of his aggressive impulses.

My report has to be somewhat qualified by the lack of third party information. This report relied on information provided by Mr Read, and his Record of Prior Convictions. Ideally, one would have liked to have information from Victorian authorities before reaching diagnostic conclusions.

In conclusion, on the information available, I could discern no formal psychiatric disorder in your client. He may satisfy the criteria for diagnosis of an antisocial personality disorder, but this is not a mental illness. This personality diagnosis is probably more appropriate for his younger days. An impression is gained of some mellowing in recent years. While the presence of such a personality is generally associated with violent behavior, with respect to your client I gained the impression that his violence has been controlled or utilised, rather than being chaotic or disorganised. In other words, if he acts in a violent manner, he has control and choice over this.

Please do not hesitate to contact me for any further information or clarification.

Yours faithfully,

Ian Sale FRANZCP

Director of Public Prosecutions, November 2, 1992.
Office of Director of Public Prosecutions
c/-The Department of Justice
15 Murray Street
Hobart.

Dear Sir

Re: The Queen v Mark Brandon Read.

At your request I examined the above at the Special Institution on 20 October, 1992 and again on 29 October, 1992. I have studied the Crown Papers and I have also obtained a psychological assessment to determine his personality profile.

Mr Read was quite co-operative at the interview and agreed to do the psychological test, the results of which I shall incorporate in the report.

I did contact Pentridge jail on two occasions but was unable to get any information as to any psychiatric assessments while Mr Read was incarcerated there. He tells me he did see Dr A. Bartholomew, but it was only for chats and not formally as a patient.

Mr Read did not admit to the offence nor was he vociferous denying it. He did say that there was a lot he could say at the trial on his behalf, particularly in relation to the circumstances of the shooting but he was in a ‘Catch 22’ situation and whatever he said would have been misinterpreted, particularly because of the notorious publicity he received at the time he published his book and the attendant TV and news coverage.

MR READ was born in Carlton, Victoria, older of the two children. His father was in the regular army and both he and his mother were in their 30s when they married. His mother was a very devout Seventh Day Adventist and he tells me he spent the first 18 months of his life in a baby home because his mother could not look after him because of some nervous problem. As he was growing up his mother got his father to punish him as soon as he came home from work and quite often for no good reason. She used to wait for him to come home and father thrashed him using the army webbing, thick canvas belt.

At school he was regarded as dyslexic and at one stage the school counsellor labelled him as autistic. He was bullied at school and as it was drummed into him that he should ‘turn the other cheek’, there was not much he could do about it. He did get into trouble at school and on one occasion he received 15 straps on his hand but he felt that it was what he deserved.

His parents used to argue a lot but there was no physical violence between them. The worst arguments were regarding the Seventh Day Adventist religious tenets. He was made a ward of the state at 14 years and a year later he left home. His father finally left his mother and has lived on his own ever since.

When he was about 16 years they moved from a rather rough neighborhood to Prahran where, apparently, ‘well respected’ criminals live, and he began associating with the sons of the Painters and Dockers and he feels that is where he started going wrong and that is the first time he actually saw a .32 calibre hand gun.

His first relationship with a female was when he was 18 but he was cautious about relationships as his father had given him a very graphic picture of the horrors of VD and the treatment where an ‘umbrella like’ contraption was inserted in the urethra to scrape the infection!

He admits that he first went to jail at the age of 17 years and by the age of 20 years he received his first long sentence of 3-1/2 years and this was trying to rob a massage parlor. It was during this incarceration in ‘H’ Division that he could not handle the jail and cut his ears off so that he could get out of the yard. He has spent a total of about 18 years in jail since age 20 years, with only a few months out on parole each time.

The last offence was when he took a judge hostage and this was to obtain the release of a friend to whom he had given his word that he would get out.

He has had one relationship with a Margaret for the past 10 years. She still stands by him.

Although he drinks, occasionally a bit too much, he has never used drugs and appears to be excessively critical of drug peddlers. He claims he came to Tasmania to get away from the criminal element and he is sorry that he ever got involved in the present situation.

On clinical examination Mr Read comes over as an intelligent and charming man. He is self-conscious about his ears and his heavily tattooed body. Most of these tattoos were put on when he was about 20 years. He has tried to remove some of them.

I could find no evidence of psychiatric disorder. His personality testing shows anti-social traits which is not surprising, considering his background and the amount of time he has spent in jail. He is in many ways immature, which is demonstrated by his somewhat childish ‘show off’ bravado expressions. In many ways he is his own worst enemy.

Mr Read is not suffering from a clinical mental illness, at least I cannot find psychiatric indication for him to be considered a dangerous criminal. However, there is some evidence that his alcohol abuse has been a disinhibiting effect, which releases some of his impulsive behavior which he appears to have good control of when sober.