Chopper Unchopped (80 page)

ON March 7, 1993, two dangerous criminals, Peter Robert Gibb, a convicted killer and armed robber, and fellow killer Archie Butterly, escaped from the Melbourne Remand Centre with the aid of a prison officer, Heather Dianne Parker
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Parker, married with two children, was having an affair with Gibb, who persuaded her to smuggle explosives into the jail to help the pair escape. It is believed she had replica cell keys made to allow the men out. Gibb and Butterly then used the explosives to blast out an external wall and climbed down using knotted sheets
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The escapers drove off in a stolen car, but were followed by a prison officer in a taxi. The criminals crashed the getaway car, injuring Butterly, but they stole a motorbike and crashed again. When two police tried to arrest them, Butterly shot Senior Constable Warren Treloar in the chest and left arm
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The pair escaped and were later treated at the Moe hospital before they moved with Parker to the Gaffney’s Creek Hotel, which they are believed to have set on fire next day. The historic 1865 brick hotel was burnt to the ground
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Six days after the escape police searching remote bushland near the head of the Goulburn River said they were fired upon by a machine gun. The Special Operations Group was called in and a 30-minute gun battle erupted
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Gibb and Parker were arrested as they tried to wade across the Goulburn River. Their accomplice, Butterly, was found dead with a bullet wound behind the right ear
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Police believe Butterly, who was badly injured from the car accident, might have been shot by Gibb. It is not known if Butterly asked to be shot rather than be recaptured
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Parker, who had previously been accused by other prison staff of having an affair with Gibb, was married to a prison officer. It was alleged she had been caught in a compromising position with Gibb in a jail cupboard
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‘We all knew what was going on,’ one prison officer said later. ‘It was the worst kept secret in the jail.
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Parker was allegedly paid $25,000 by the popular entertainment television program ‘60 Minutes’ to tell her story
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Police from the assets seizure unit began an investigation to see if any money paid by ‘60 Minutes’ and ‘Woman’s Day’ could be seized under laws prohibiting profit from crime
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Police raided the offices of ‘Woman’s Day’ and the home of Parker’s friend and publisher Andrea Hamilton-Vaughan, looking for evidence of payments
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In May, 1994, Parker, 30, was convicted in the Melbourne County Court of one count each of breaching a prison, rescuing a prisoner and causing serious injury
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She was also convicted of five counts of attempting to cause serious injury, four counts of each of theft, and using a firearm to prevent arrest, three counts of going equipped for theft, one of theft and making a threat to kill. In October the County Court ordered that Parker forfeit $42,000 under the Crimes (Confiscation of Profits) Act
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Gibb, then 39, was found guilty of rescuing a prisoner, causing serious injury and theft. He was also convicted of five counts of having attempted to cause serious injury, four counts each of armed robbery and using a firearm to prevent arrest and two counts of making a threat to kill. He had earlier pleaded guilty to escape
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During the trial Gibb and Parker would often whisper, touch or wink to each other. Friends said they were very much in love. Other prison officers claim Gibb would have killed Parker once he was free
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HOW do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee the length and breadth of the Remand Centre. I love thee under the table, and on top of it as well.

I love thee in my cell when you pop in for that quick cell search. I love thee in every nook and cranny of the whole prison, providing no bugger is watching.

With any luck, ‘my Princess in blue’ I will love thee in the getaway car, providing you remember to leave the bloody doors unlocked.

I have liked a few warders in the past, but you, my little turnkey in suspenders, will always be my perfect screw …

Excuse the bad Shakespeare, but the story of Peter Gibb and his perfect screw touched my heart even in far-off Tasmania. It proved that true love is not dead. How could the romantics amongst us not be touched by such a love story?

Little Miss Parker joined the prison service to serve, and she didn’t beat around the bush – or bush about the beat, in this case.

But don’t be mistaken. Little Miss Parker, the bluestone babe who turned the key on Peter Gibb’s heart, with one hand on the cell door and the other hand down his pants, is not the only lusty wench to have joined the ranks of the prison service. It always surprises many that there are so many spunky-looking ladies who work in the prison service and are prepared to serve any bloke, no matter whether he is a prison officer or prisoner.

Sex is not all that hard to get in Pentridge, if you know who to ask. I have heard of hard cash changing hands, in the case of one young lady who charged $100 for some extra stress relief. It was an outrageous asking price, but the inmates were in no position to argue, let alone argue the position.

There was no shortage of cash in Pentridge and the young female prison officer was swallowing the evidence every day she was on duty for about six months. Then she fell in love with one of her regular clients, and got caught by other prison officers humping his brains out.

She had to leave Pentridge in disgrace, but she was only one of many who got a bit too close to the job. Some of these officers have married former inmates.

Even as I write this, no doubt somewhere in Australia there is a female prison officer reading a love note that has been stuffed down her shirt by some hot-blooded inmate.

I have seen one glamorous gal in a blue uniform in the most compromising position with one of the nation’s worst sex offenders, and she was loving it.

But it is not just female prison officers and the inmates involved. I have known the male staff to be involved with their female counterparts.

Nightshift with the right female staff member can be party time for the rest of the staff. One lady was caught doing the job under the desk. Perhaps they were just playing nude Twister.

And there have been female members of staff caught in each other’s arms.

The sex stories in the big slammer are never ending.

Females too dizzy to get into the police force seem to be welcome in Pentridge, and while there are some solid, hard-working, honest and straight women who work in jails, there are others who just cause trouble. I would say that 80 per cent of them are solid as rocks but the other 20 per cent run riot in a sexual sense. They create trouble because jealousy leads to violence. They play one prisoner against another, one screw against another. It only takes one trollop to screw her way through inmates and prison officers in one division to cause a riot within a month.

I could name seven female prison staff who have been involved in everything from heroin trafficking to selling sexual favors.

It is the sex that causes the trouble. All female prison officers should be horsewhipped at the gate, not only in the name of security, but for the common good. I have never seen the sense of allowing females to work in a male prison. In the first place, they are first, last and always, a security risk, and a total waste of space.

The smell of perfume in the air in a men’s prison can be very hard to take, let me tell you. It would be kinder to prisoners to kick female staff out and to hell with the Equal Opportunity Commission. Common sense should prevail.

So what’s the attraction? Why
do
women want to work in a male prison?

Don’t ask me to explain some of the unlikely love stories that have happened behind bars, because love is a mystery none of us can explain.

Personally, I have never screwed a screw. I am somewhat of a criminal snob, after all. It is my long held view that one does not hump prison officers or police, no matter how beautiful they may be, and no matter how tempting the offer. It’s a form of fraternising which can only lead to unhappiness, in my view.

One female screw blew up a condom in front of me, tied a knot in it and then signed her name on it with a texta color. She thought it was a joke, but to me it was teasing of the worst kind. Another would spray perfume on your pillow and kiss the pillow with a mouthful of lipstick. That sort of stuff does no-one any good.

It might be funny for them, and it might give some of the bent bitches a thrill, but those capers can send you silly when you’re locked up all the time. No, I say they should get women officers out of prison before they get some poor bugger killed. It will happen. It could be an inmate, or it could be a member of staff. Some of these ladies are downright dangerous.

Little Miss Heather Parker is tame compared to some of the dirty girls in blue.

I’ve known Peter Gibb for 20 years. He is an old hood who grew up in Prahran. The first time he came to my attention was at a dance in Prahran, when a handgun dropped out of his pants and hit the floor. All eyes turned to see a somewhat embarrassed and sheepish Peter bend down to pick up the offending firearm and try to tiptoe out without drawing attention to himself.

He was always good at pulling the girls and little Miss Parker, if my memory serves me correctly, would be the third female prison officer to fall for Peter’s glib tongue.

They all gave Peter their hearts, as well as their panties.

He must have a good line of conversation because I have seen Peter in the showers, and believe me, he hasn’t got a big line in anything else. Ha ha.

But some of these blokes could talk the pants off the Pope’s mother and I suspect Peter Gibb is one of them.

While I applaud true love, and it is nice to see romance raise its head, in this hard, cold world such goings on can be fatal.

In little Miss Parker’s case, true love found a way, but it got poor Archie Butterly blown away.

As I’ve just said, jails are no place for women because they drive men mad, but it does have its moments. One day here in Risdon my little mate Bucky pulled out his old fella on a female prison officer known around the jail as the ‘chewing gum blonde’. Bucky yelled out to her, ‘Hey, Pudden, get over here and get a bit of this into ya.’

The chewing gum blonde, who always has a mouth full of gum, looked at Bucky, then down at the offending member and yelled back, ‘Put it away, you little idiot. I’ve seen better bits of meat hanging off the butcher’s pencil.’ Which wasn’t a bad comeback, but it didn’t worry Bucky. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘well get over here and drop your drawers and I’ll knock a string of farts out of you that ya wouldn’t believe.’

That’s what I think poor old Peter Gibb should have done to Heather Parker … knocked a string of farts out of her, and left it at that. What a bloody mess. And poor old Archie Butterly spent his last six days on earth out in the bush listening to Peter Gibb hump the guts out of little Miss Parker. Bloody hell, if I was out the bush with those two I’d be saying, ‘Come on, Pete. Whack up.’

Someone shot poor Archie. I wonder who?

One doesn’t like to make light of true love, but this time around I can’t help it. I remember little Miss (or I should say Mrs) Parker from when she worked at Pentridge, and I recall her as a stuck-up little miss with a bad attitude.

I dead-set hate female screws. What the hell are these cows doing in a man’s prison? They do nothing but create trouble, jealousy, frustration and anger. Who wants to look at these molls prancing about the jail trying to look tough?

Peter Gibb is a harmless enough poor bugger in spite of a dangerous reputation, and I’ve got nothing against him personally, but bloody female screws are lower than shark shit in my opinion, and a very dangerous thing to have in an all-male prison. The bloody things should be driven out the front gate with horse whips. I spit on them all.

IN August 1994 the Victorian Government finally closed the most notorious section of the prison system, H Division. It was the high security division where inmates broke rocks as punishment, and where Ronald Ryan, the last man hanged in Australia, spent his last few hours before his execution in 1967
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Of the infamous criminals who spent time in the 37-cell division, prison officers remember one above them all – Chopper Read
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THE end of H Division is the end of a part of my life. It might sound totally insane, but H Division was my own personal kingdom. I was the general of an army of psychopaths that no horror movie could ever do justice.

It was the place where we made our own rules. I used all my tactical and strategic expertise. My rule was total and without question. I put together a crew of nutters never before seen in any prison, and we waged a prison war which went on for years.

It was the sort of violence that only ever existed in war. God, I loved it. It is the gang war which is now part of Victorian jail legend.

It wasn’t the only gang war that I was involved in. I took part in many, and through cunning, strength and good luck, I survived them all. But as far as tactics were concerned, the H Division fracas was the classic. It was textbook physical combat and psychological warfare. It was there that I learnt that a small army of blood loyal deranged allies could defeat an army of established criminal families. They had the names, the networks, the backup and the reputations. We had the courage, the ruthlessness and the tactics.

Keithy Faure and the dockies were tough, there is no doubt about that, but the Overcoat gang, led by my good self, was tougher. I had been taught by my old Dad, Vincent Villeroy and Billy ‘The Texan’ Longley, and I used these tactics to the full.

I turned H Division into my own personal fortress. The end of H is the end of a large part of my past life. I know it sounds insane, but I loved that division. That is why I would win the battles. The other inmates hated the place and suffered because of it. I loved it and it was never too hard for me.

The modern prison is a marshmallow compared with good old H. It was the last place from the old hard school and in my heart I preferred the old days to the system that we have now. A good flogging can concentrate the mind.

I did ten and a half years in H, the so-called bloodhouse of the system. It wasn’t just my home, I owned the place.

I owned it, I controlled it, I ran it. By ruling that division we ran the jail. We were the most feared gang in the most feared division of the most feared jail in Australia, and I was the commanding general.

I ran a five-year gang war from within the walls of H Division. And we had the power and influence to reach out from behind those walls.

The power we had was never really understood or appreciated except by our enemies, who understood very well indeed. H Division scarred the bodies and minds of generations of so-called hard men. Even the prison staff were scarred, not to mention scared.

Why is it that every time I wave at a psychiatrist from a distance of 300 metres he tosses a handful of pills down my neck? I have been put on Xanax and mentally speaking, I feel like I’m being held in the Whitbury Newtown Leisure Centre. They have just given me my nightly ‘bomb me out pill’ and the white clouds are rolling in.

Any rate, enough of this. My double dose of Mogadon is just beginning to kick in. My grandfather was as mad as a hatter, my father has just got out from the psychiatric ward of the Launceston Hospital. I’m now left to wonder what nut house I’ll end up in. Ah, mental insanity, the last refuge of the true genius. Ha ha. Goodnight.

I have decided to tell the shrinks to jam the medication up their anally retentive bottoms, and I am going to face life with a clear mind. I have seen that many psychiatrists I am quite confident that I could put up my sanity against theirs and still get some change. It is not a profession that gives you confidence in the stability of its occupants.

I have pulled all the pictures of girls from my walls. I have become sick and tired of prison staff and other inmates perving on pictures of some of my good friends who happen to be female.

There have been many rude comments made about an old friend of mine, Melissa Bentley. Every sex maniac and rapist in jail would call in for a daily perve. There were about 70 photos, many of them of fans of the books who were kind enough to send their pictures to me.

But I have decided to get rid of them because with some of the comments made about them I would end up pulling some bastard’s eye out, which would not look good when I am trying to convince the High Court that I am the male version of Mother Teresa. So I have put up pictures of the Derwent Valley in their place. It has helped calm everyone down, me included. I have never had a dream of covering the Derwent Valley with whipped cream and then licking it off.

The last one off the wall was a poster of Samantha Fox. I kissed her goodbye and gave her to a young bloke doing six years for rape. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.

Michael Hodgman QC, MP, always insists that I polish up before we have a court date. As I’ve mentioned I have been forced to wear a Liberal Party tie so that I look smart enough to attend court.

Michael is a Hutchins private school old boy which is part of the Tassie establishment.

He was representing some old ratbag scallywag who was dressed like a St Vincent de Paul reject and was the town drunk. Mick wanted him to look spick and span before he went to court before an old stick-in-the-mud judge who is no longer with us.

Mr Hodgman, the kind-hearted soul he is, lent his client a clean shirt and a tie, which as luck would have it, was the respected Hutchins school tie.

The judge looked horrified to see this bloke, who looked like a dog’s dinner, sitting before him in the dock. It became clear very early that this bloke was as guilty as sin. The judge must have felt sympathetic because he said, ‘Guilty, but I don’t think we need bother your client with a jail sentence.’

The shocked client walked free. Perish the thought that the old school tie did the trick.