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- [00:04]
A
This is Australian True Crime with Michelle Laurie. For most of Ray Mooney's life, he has been a celebrated author, lecturer and playwright. In his early life, though, he was an inmate at the notorious Pentridge Prison. Inside, he became a spokesperson for prisoner rights and became close to some of Australia's most notorious career criminals, including Christopher Dale Flannery, aka Mr. Rent Akil. Ray found himself inside Pentridge because he was convicted of rape when he was 19 years old, a fact of his life that he never shies away from. And he's since lectured to young students about the importance of understanding consent. Ray joins us to discuss this period of his life and his experiences inside the College of Knowledge, Pentridge Prison. This is Australian True Crime. We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast is created, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung People of the Kulin Nation and a Warning. This episode of the podcast contains graphic descriptions of violence. There's not many blokes who, even if they've changed their way of thinking about sexuality and about what constitutes rape, would own up to it and want to talk to people about it. I've never known anyone else who's wanted to do that.
- [01:19]
B
Well, it's the worst crime you can ever admit to and that's why everyone claims they're innocent. And I did the same thing when I was caught. I claimed I was innocent, tried every trick in the book to get out of it and I was guilty of rape in 1967, served seven and a half years for it and deserved every day. But I sort of looked at it properly and tried to understand myself, my own background, my antecedents, to see if there were any things other than the fact that I just made terrible decisions in the moment that were responsible. And it's easy to justify your own situation, but the truth, the real truth was no, I made bad decisions in the moment. No matter what situations existed as antecedents, they were never, ever justifiable to try and diminish my own responsibility. And I came to terms with that.
- [02:16]
A
Yeah, it's hard because I want to justify it because I like you so much. You're such a lovely fella and such a smart, you know, self aware, generous person and I enjoy your company. And then I think, how can I come to terms with it? I mean, how did you, looking back now, what didn't you understand? What was your mind? What was going on in your mind when you committed this offence?
- [02:40]
B
Yeah, look, just back on what you said. You don't have to come to terms with it. There is no need to come to terms with it. You can't. You can't justify what I did. No.
- [02:51]
A
But part of me feels like I should shun you forever or we should shun a rapist forever. Like, I can't accept. I don't want to be near them. Like, you know, and then I suppose this happens in lots of circumstances and you meet somebody and you realise or you feel like, oh, but not him, not Ray. Ray's different to that. You know, once you meet someone and get to know them a bit, it's harder to just categorise people. Black and white.
- [03:16]
B
Sure. I think it comes down to whether or not you're prepared to accept that people can change.
- [03:22]
A
Yeah.
- [03:22]
B
Now, from my point of view, it's obvious people can change. I grew up barracking for one football team. I no longer barrack for that football team. I barrack for another football team. There's so many areas in which I have changed. Completely changed. Seriously.
- [03:39]
A
No. I'm Buddhist, so I believe we're changing every second.
- [03:42]
B
Then you'd be better. You're in a better state of sort of coming to terms with the fact that accepting that people can change. Once you accept that, then it's easier to say what you're saying. But there's a lot of people who don't accept that and therefore you're never ever going to convince them. I accept I can't convince them. And it doesn't worry me that I can't convince them. Doesn't worry me one little bit. People have got the right to be like that. If people have the ability to acknowledge their faults and their problems and where they are wrong, then you can put them in a situation where it's worth assessing what they're now saying is valid. Because rape was such a bad crime, always will be. Any sexual assault is such a bad crime, everyone wants to avoid it. Everyone refuses to. Or very few people ignore, acknowledge it even when they're guilty and it's so obvious that they're guilty, they still find it hard to acknowledge because we tag them so hard with that, with that, it's on your phone for the rest of your life, so to speak. It is the mark of Cain and you do carry it forever and ever. It's simply a matter of, in my case of understanding that and coming to terms with it.
- [04:53]
A
Part of what you did in prison was to sort of come out of yourself as. As a writer and as an academic, isn't it? I mean, tell us about that. How did all of that come about in jail in Pentridge of all places? Which at that time in the 70s was an incredibly brutal place that came
- [05:10]
B
about over a long. I was there for seven and a half years and that was like osmosis. It took a long time. It didn't happen overnight. It happened because of my involvement with certain people who I liked and who I respected. It happened because of what I saw happening or what I heard about happening to other prisoners. That's the violence you talk about, which was hidden from the mainstream of Pentridge, by the way. Not all Pentridge was violent and not all Pentridge was terrible. Some of the best times I've ever spent in my life were spent in Pentridge, unquestionably.
- [05:46]
A
I've never heard anyone say that before.
- [05:48]
B
I was the first Australian prisoner to start and complete a degree while they were in prison. Right. There was a reason behind that. I was lucky in that I'd probably been a pretty good. Before I went to prison.
- [06:02]
A
Yes.
- [06:03]
B
And therefore I understood personal motivation. I trained pretty hard and wasn't a bad athlete, so to speak. Not a great, Not a champion. I was never big enough to be the best, but I competed against the best. So therefore I was always motivated. I knew the day I went into prison that I was going to be there for a long time. I knew that when the time came, I would be assessed of what I had done while I was in prison, as to whether or not I would have been given parole when I was due for it. I also knew, and I worked this out straight away, that the only way that people can be assessed is through what they have done, either through their wrongdoings or their right doings. So I set out to set myself up to achieve as much as I could in prison, so that when the time came for assessment for parole, I would have being given parole. And that's exactly what I did. So I straight away got into study in a very big way.
- [07:03]
A
Yeah, that's interesting because the parole board doesn't see you day to day. They don't know that I'll raise a nice bloke. You have to rock up there with a record of what you've been doing with yourself.
- [07:12]
B
Plus the. If anything is passed along to the parole board, which in those days, by the way, really was. Yes, it was. It was just like a rubber stamp situation in those days. Any reports were written by screws and there was an attitude like it was sort of. There was a dichotomy within. Among screws. Within Pentridge, the dichotomy was that there were ball and chain screws who really thought we deserved to have our fingernails pulled out every day of the week. There were others who understood that the best thing for society was to release people with good values that they were never gonna come back. So therefore you had, you know, you had good screws who were prepared to help you and you had bad screws who wanted to really harm you.
- [08:00]
A
Well, a lot of the screws in those days, certainly the sort of senior screws, were World War II veterans, weren't they? They were old army guys.
- [08:07]
B
Totally, absolutely. Navy and military. And by the way, I use screws, not in a derogatory sense. They call themselves screws.
- [08:14]
A
I read that you one time you had to take take an exam, maybe it was more than one time an exam in Pentridge and you had to do it naked. Why was that?
- [08:22]
B
Oh, this is when I was in H Division. See, I had the best and the worst of Pentri. When I first went in, I was given a very good job. I was given a job by the governor had plucked me out to do the job of what was called a writer, which is basically another word for a secretary in the activities department. And the activities department was where everything was organised. All activities were organised for the rest of the prison, be it sporting activities, be it hobby work, be it entertainment. That was my job. My job was to organise that in Pentridge. And it was the best job and it was the best job. At the time I had no idea I was getting the best job. But I did. And it was interesting. When I first went there, I was what you call a square head, somebody who didn't know a lot about prison, even though I came from a background where I knew a lot of people who'd been inside. And I was, you know, my old man was a real knockabout and a publican and a dead set knockabout who bailed out heaps of people and therefore had a great reputation. So I go into prison with a bit of hangover from his reputation and the first week in my job I find out that the person who'd been there before me had done his job by being paid by prisoners to do his job. In other words, if they wanted hobby material, they had to slip this guy under the count of tobacco. If they wanted any sort of like amenities that were sort of that you. That I was in a situation to give them, you had to pay this guy. And I came to a decision and that's why it's the best job in the job because you ultimately became rich. And I immediately said no, people get everything for nothing. And that changed that changed the whole situation. And without realising it, I didn't know that the rest of the jail knew this. And therefore I was sort of given a little bit more respect than normally a person would have been given. It undermined a lot of the way that prisoners had to sort of kowtow to the kings of the prison system.
- [10:29]
A
Because there were also. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think during that period, what year did you go in?
- [10:34]
B
I went in in 68, I think
- [10:36]
A
during that period weren't there some old, old crooks as well? So it was a very sort of old, old school.
- [10:41]
B
Absolutely.
- [10:42]
A
Between the older screws and the older crooks there was a real set of rules that had been set up. And along with everyone else in the late 60s and early 70s, you younger blokes were all about change, revolution.
- [10:55]
B
Well it wasn't that we went in determined to be change and revolution. I was confronted by these old people. You're talking about the Joey Turners and the Marcus Bertrams. And I slapped Joey Turner in front of one of the chief of. In C division. And everyone just. I didn't know who he was. I had no idea who this guy is.
- [11:13]
A
What you slapping for?
- [11:15]
B
Because he told me to get fucked in front. He was acting like a screw and. And my. I was delivering hobby material to C division which had nothing, absolutely nothing.
- [11:26]
A
Yeah.
- [11:26]
B
And I'd given, I'd put all, put a whole lot of extra stuff together and I take it in there and this guy's sitting here with a fellow called Gemmel who was a CPO at the time, drinking tea with him. And he said put it there. And I said what? He said get fucked. You know, just like that. So I just grabbed him by the throat and swam against the wall. And I had no idea who this guy was.
- [11:46]
A
Who was he?
- [11:47]
B
His name was Joey Turner. A so called big painter and docker, you know, who had a strong reputation of having done things. But I saw them in a different light. You know, I saw them just acting as another screw. And I ran into a few people like that. So that's how I finished up becoming friends with a lot of the young heavies, the up and coming heavies. Cause they saw the same thing. They hated these guys, they hated these old crims with a vengeance because they'd spend their whole days in there making coffee for the screws and the young cremes coming through, you know, come from the boys homes were a tough group, a really tough and up and coming group.
- [12:26]
A
Really tough group. For the worst possible reason. These guys we now know, thanks to the Royal Commission, that the boys homes were just hotbeds for all kinds of abuse, especially sexual abuse.
- [12:37]
B
Totally.
- [12:37]
A
Yeah. And a lot of the most violent crims of the 70s and 80s had come through that process.
- [12:42]
B
Bayswater and Morning Sale were the two worst for sexually abusing kids. Then you had Tirana, which had its own sort of like Haste Division, Poplar House. They were most of these young boys homes and the girls homes when Layton too were denominational, in other words, they were sort of fostered out by the church, was given funding to run them. And they were horrific.
- [13:03]
A
Cause a lot of those blokes never, ever, ever spoke about it. So it was really only retrospectively that
- [13:10]
B
not only did they not speak about it, Marshall, but the people who perpetrated escaped it.
- [13:16]
A
Yeah, absolutely.
- [13:17]
B
Young kids who every day of their life had to fight to survive. That's what a lot of people. If ever you're going to pick a fight with someone, don't pick a fight with a kid who's been through the boys homes because every day of their life they. This is the fighters in the boys homes, they had to fight and they turned out to be ferocious fighters. But none of this Marcus of Queensbury, like this was wheeze your eye, you know, goodbye nose, like these kids were fair dinkum because they fought every day of their lives. And the sand tailors of the world were ferocious fighters. Ferocious fighters.
- [13:52]
A
Yeah, it's. It's just. It's heartbreaking in its way, and I'm often accused of being too compassionate towards offenders, but it is. You can't help but when you put it that way and you look at me so intensely and we imagine these as children having to fight every day of their lives, never knowing where the next threat is coming from. Is it coming from a staff member, from another kid? Is it coming from some rando that a staff member's invited in to abuse them? I mean, it was just unfathomable what they were living through, wasn't it?
- [14:20]
B
Oh, totally. And what we never, ever take into consideration. I. Because my involvement in working with Collingwood Football Club years later, I follow very closely the head injuries concept.
- [14:33]
A
No, absolutely, yes.
- [14:34]
B
Of what that means in terms of people committing suicide, committing offences they wouldn't normally commit, especially domestic violence as a result of head clashes on the field. What about us when we went through body prison? What about hates Division, what it did to people. No one ever mentions the head or
- [14:54]
A
you know like the head injuries and the head injuries from the boys homes as well.
- [14:58]
B
And it was daily. And it wasn't just a slab, you know, it was to you unconscious. That's how it worked.
- [15:04]
A
Yeah.
- [15:05]
B
And I'm not making that up to make your program sound or doesn't this sound horrific and what have you. This is absolute, you know.
- [15:12]
A
Yeah.
- [15:13]
B
This is how it was.
- [15:14]
A
And these are things, these matter. This is context and it matters. So how did you meet Christopher Dale Flannery? You know, I always like to use his whole name. I don't know why. There's something just. I don't know why. I just love his full name. I feel like when I was a very young kid, you'd read it in the paper and all that. It was always Christopher Dale Flannery.
- [15:32]
B
Yeah. It wasn't in the early days. It was Christopher Dale Flannery after he died and the same as Rent Akil after he died. Mr.
- [15:42]
A
Rent a killer.
- [15:42]
B
No one ever called him Rent. A kill while he was alive. They make out they did, but it's just.
- [15:46]
A
It's a bit narrative.
- [15:47]
B
It's bullshit. Yeah. Total bullshit. I met Chris as a result of a couple of things. He had been convicted with Laurie Prendergast for rape. And they were repealing their rape. And he was in a different division to me. He and Laurie were both up in B division and I was in A division. Now back in the day, A division was for what you would call an inverted commas. The sucks and the dogs, the good guys, the square heads. Those who had never done anything wrong and were carefully selected by the authorities. Which is true, bloody true. B Division was for the boob heads, the yo yos. Those who are going to be in and out of jail for the rest of their lives. You know, the hard timers. And A Division had everything. It had all the night classes and rehabilitation that existed. B Division had nothing.
- [16:41]
A
So you were A division because you were young? First timer.
- [16:44]
B
First timer.
- [16:45]
A
You had a good rep for whatever
- [16:46]
B
reason and had the top job.
- [16:47]
A
Yeah, you got the.
- [16:48]
B
And so those people were sent down to waiter vision. Yeah, yeah.
- [16:52]
A
And where was Chris?
- [16:53]
B
Chris is in B Division.
- [16:54]
A
He's a yo yo. They think he's going to come in and out all the time.
- [16:57]
B
Oh well, he like. And this is his first serious offense. But he had a. He had a long history of sort of violence in terms of assault, assault, police assault by kicking. And Laurie Prendergast came From a family well known in the industry. So these are up and coming and this is what they did. They took the up and coming kids and they put them in the B division. Turns out they were all the hotheads and they're the ones ultimately to bring about the rebellions. Cause they put them all together and beat them again.
- [17:28]
A
I was thinking, isn't that fascinating? Like, rather than thinking these kids come from crime families or they come from backgrounds, but they're still young, this is our opportunity to rehabilitate, to maybe get them into some education, maybe get them into some positivity. Nah, chuck em all together, Cage them
- [17:45]
B
together, which is what they did.
- [17:47]
A
How did you meet Chris then? If you're in different divisions, do you fraternize much or.
- [17:51]
B
No, you don't. But he had heard about the fact that I was, that I'd been convicted of rape. I had appealed and lost the appeal. He was appealing. And he had a good friend who was also in A division who talked to him about me. And so there was a little bit of. I was 22 when I committed to rape, by the way.
- [18:17]
A
Right.
- [18:17]
B
I thought you were. Sometimes I say, yeah, no, I was 22. So therefore I'm older than Chris. Chris says I'm four or five years older than Chris. And he thinks maybe I've got a wise head and might be able to help him a little bit in terms of his appeal. And he asks, we get together and we get together because I've arranged it through the spofit. Going down to the sporting oval at the same time.
- [18:40]
A
Which you could do because of your job.
- [18:42]
B
That was my job. And, and that's what I used to do, arrange sort of whoever was allowed to go down and play sport. So he, we meet each other and, and it's nothing other than just 2 grams meeting each other. And he says, look, I'm appealing this. I've been verbal on this rape. I'm. I'm innocent. I've been totally verbal. Will you have a look at my transcripts? Because I'm appealing it. I said, yeah mate, I said, but remember, you know, I, I just, I. My appeal was dismissed. I'm not sort of the go to person. And this is in 1969, remember? So this is before my attitudes change. Yeah, this is when I'm sort of like quite prepared to do something like that, probably to better myself in terms of respect and reputation and also to help someone who I think deserve, Might deserve to be helped. So he goes and tells his lawyer, his lawyer fights it and they get they win the appeal, they get a retrial. So Chris and I become really close. As it turns out, he goes back to court, gets found guilty again and gets exactly the same sentence.
- [19:45]
A
Now, how did you end up leaving A Division? That's a whole other story because you ended up in H Division for a period of time. So how did you go from the sort of star pupil. Yeah, to in the shit?
- [19:58]
B
Chris had been down to H Division six different times and they smashed the shit out of him every time. Hays Division was one of these places that you only heard about if you hadn't been there. You either had to believe or disbelieve what you heard about the place. And I knew about how bad it was because all my friends had been down H Division and they'd had the shit punched down at them really badly. And Chris admitted it. He said, yeah, they broke me, blah, blah. Anyway, he is so offended by the fact that he can't come to terms with the fact they broke him that it psychologically affects him to the point where three and four years after, in 1971, 72, he has himself sent back down to Haight's division, arguably with a couple of friends, with four friends to take the place on and destroy the place. The friends wait a week, they don't come down. He's left there one out and he takes the whole place on. Abuses. Everyone calls all the creme's dogs for not being part of it and refuses to do anything.
- [21:04]
A
That psychology is so fascinating. Again, we're going back to the boy's home psychology, having to understand that the way this bloke thinks is so different to. It's so unexpected to me that I'm thinking, well, if Age Division's notorious, then where's the shame in coming back and saying, oh, they beat the shit out of me and I just collapsed. But he.
- [21:27]
B
The shame wasn't admitting that I copped it. Yeah, I copped it. Sweet. That's the shame, because everyone did. Everyone copped it. Sweet.
- [21:34]
A
That's what I mean. Everyone did. So why, why the shame? But that's the mentality of the bloke is the defeat is just too shameful. So he wanted to go down there and avenge it, essentially. Can you tell us what happened in Age Division? The thing I find really hard to get my head around is the literal breaking of rock. Yeah, like, that's like a cartoon to me. What is that?
- [21:54]
B
Well, look, the moment you go to Heats Division think of how a hospital works. A hospital. The moment you become a patient, they'll take your clothes away, they will reorganize your time schedule. They'll organise what you're allowed to eat and what you're not allowed to eat. They'll completely dominate your routine. Well, Hates Division worked the same way. The moment you got to Hates Division you receive what was called a reception biff. Everyone was bast shitless and you were forced to march around this quadrant at double pace. You are never allowed to look an officer in the eye. You had to wear their clothing which had a badge over the heart, front and back. Jokingly. This is where we shoot you, where we have to shoot you. You had to wear a hat pulled down over your eyes. You always had to. Everything you did was on double pace. You had to always find your spot. In other words, if any officer came anywhere near you, find your spot. Mooney, which was in front of you. An ex, an imaginary than a real ex in front of you. In other words. The rules and regulations were horrific. You were strip searched continuously. You never bite with another crim. This is when you first went down there. You were bound by this incredible rules and rigor and it was brutal. You got bashed for two weeks. Everyone got bashed for up to a week to two weeks. Then they drop off you because it was a floating population. So there were people coming in and out all the time. No different to how military camps work throughout the world. And there's hate divisions in every place in the world. There always have been. The Hates Division in Pentridge was perhaps one of the worst. Grafton up in New South Wales was equally as bad. So it was quite horrific in terms of the way that you had to behave and that's why everyone was terrified of the place. And you broke during the. For the first. Depending upon what your charge was and why you were there, you could have been there for any number of reasons. For abusing a screw, for having. For misdemeanors, for having money, for trying to escape. Mainly for trying to escape. The reason why they set it up this way was because Bill O' Meally in the 50s, 56 had tried to escape. 58. Sorry. Had tried to escape. And in the escape a screw was shot and. And he was the last person to be flogged in Australia. And they set up specifically as a result of what had happened. And the idea was that we terrorise every crim in Victoria because if they try to escape and they get caught, they have to go back through Hates Division. So everyone knew if you played up in a prison, country prison or if you played up anywhere in Pentridge or if you tried to escape, you went back through via Hay Division and you were flogged mercilessly. Like.
- [24:45]
A
Yes.
- [24:45]
B
So that's how it operated. And it was successful after your like
- [24:48]
A
2 week whatever initial flogging period where they're trying to break you. Is that when you get the work duty of breaking the rocks?
- [24:55]
B
No, you break rocks immediately. You're straight away. The first day that you are marched down in order to break rocks straight
- [25:01]
A
away, it was literally blue stone rocks
- [25:04]
B
with different size sledgehammers. The first part of the morning, you use an 8 to 12 pound. In the afternoon, you then broke the rocks that you had broken into small chips with a smaller hammer in the smaller screenings. At the end of the day, you swept your yard up and you pushed it out through a chute and the yard was inspected by the screws that were there. And you were marched back to your cell. You'll march back to your cell for lunch too, by the way.
- [25:32]
A
Okay. What were the rocks for?
- [25:34]
B
Well, we thought we were building a highway to Sydney, the screenings to Sydney. That's what we used to joke. They were just for screenings, you know, for screenings. Screenings are the blue metal chips you'll see on the side of roads.
- [25:45]
A
Okay, yeah.
- [25:46]
B
Just screenings? Yeah, they're about the size of your thumb and literal.
- [25:51]
A
And blokes are smashing down big rocks into that. And also, it seems to me weird that they let you have sledgehammers. Isn't that a scary weapon for.
- [25:58]
B
Absolutely, yeah. Don't worry, it is. Just on hate's division, we need to be aware that there were varying periods of brutality throughout its existence. When it first opened up until 1968, in it was a terrible institution. It was the worst place on the planet. Worse than anything you can imagine in Port Arthur. It was terrible. Crimson found, hung, suspected, you know, suicides and what have you. It was a terrible place. Everyone was terrified of it. A couple of people start to play up. One prisoner gets bashed terribly, who's a friend of Chris's, and gets taken immediately to the Royal Melbourne Hospital via the prison where all the prisoners see him. A fellow called Archie Butley, who later on goes to escape from the Remand center and does blows his way out of the Remand center with Peter Gibb. And then they track them down and capture Peter Gibb, who had. His girlfriend was a fellow screw. And Archie's found dead. But anyway, at that stage, Archie was a very close friend of Chris's. He's taken the Royal Melbourne Hospital in a really bad way. And that sets up all these incredible riots and explosions. Now, what we need to factor into the whole situation is Chris's brother, stepbrother on the outside is a lawyer, Eddie Flannery, and a very responsible lawyer who's working with the Council for Civil Liberties, trying to bring about awareness of what's happening in H Division. So Chris is aware of that. At the same time he goes down the H Division to smash the place up, that he knows he's got a brother outside who, if it gets really bad, is there to do as much as he can. And the end result is they have a royal commission into brutality in heats division, plus discipline within Pentridge. But basically they have this royal commission under a bloke called Jenkinson and it's called the Jenkinson Inquiry and the results are. That hates. The vision slightly changes because awareness is made. It's daily reported in newspapers what happens in Pentridge, thanks mainly to Ed Flannery, and he's very rarely credited with the kudos that he deserves.
- [28:24]
A
Is he still alive?
- [28:25]
B
No, he died years later from lung cancer.
- [28:27]
A
Yeah.
- [28:28]
B
Yeah. Chris has gone to. He's been released on parole and he's gone to Western Australia. In the interim, there are more riots in Pentridge over mistreatment of prisoners and the fact that they were worried that the Jenkinson Inquiry was going to be a whitewash. Jenkinson hasn't released his findings yet. This is 1973 and it was started in 1972 and he hasn't released his findings. So Pentridge is in uproar. I'm still in a division and a division and all the other divisions, all the divisions have gone on strike and they're expecting a division to join them. A division has never been on strike because the governor has always threatened if a division ever goes on strike, they will lose their night classes. And everyone knew that was going to be the case.
- [29:24]
A
And they're square heads by nature and
- [29:27]
B
most of the lifers and lifers are the people who you sort of arguably look after because they're there for the
- [29:33]
A
rest of their lives and they don't want to end up down age division, that's for sure.
- [29:36]
B
Definitely. Definitely not. So we're all in the yards and the prisoners are talking to me. And at that stage, I suppose I was a bit of a voice in terms of if something needed to be said. I was never scared to say it. Like it didn't worry me that I'd what ramifications and I'd said a few things that brought me a little bit of scrutiny from other screws. I was on what was called the Prisoners Representative Committee, where two prisoners from every division met once a month with the governor to talk about how the prison was effectively running. It was basically like. It was sort of a bit of a joke in a way, but we often got a few things through, but usually we didn't win anything anyway.
- [30:19]
A
But you did have the ear of the governor.
- [30:21]
B
We had the ear of the governor. Plus the governor liked me for some reason at this stage. He's on holidays. The governor's on holidays. And his second in command, a fellow called Roy Vodville, was the acting governor. And there's dissension in A division. All half the crims are saying, look, we should be supporting the rest of the jail. And they come to me and ask if I'd be a spokesperson. Now, the day before, the Prison officers union had stood over Voddin and Vodden had dismissed the Prisoners Representative Committee. And it had come that there were no longer any representatives of the Prisoners Representative Committee. And we all knew this because that had come through the system.
- [31:10]
A
So it sounds to me that the screws were as worried as you were about this report coming out. The prisoners were worried it was going to be a whitewash, but the screws
- [31:18]
B
were worried that they were going to get.
- [31:20]
A
They were going to get in trouble.
- [31:21]
B
Absolutely.
- [31:22]
A
It's going to change the way they do things.
- [31:23]
B
And the whole place is on edge.
- [31:24]
A
There's tension.
- [31:25]
B
Yeah, totally on edge, you know, really on edge. Anyway, there's rumblings in the A Division yard that morning just before we are supposed to muster to go to work. And the chief of the division, who is not the normal chief of division, but he's a relieving chief, comes to me and says, ray, will you speak to the men please, and tell them that they need to go back to. To work? And I said, look, I said, I can't speak on behalf of anyone because you have just disbanded the prisoner's representative. Prior to that, I could have as the prisoner's representative. And he said, no, look, he said, I'm giving you permission to speak to them Now. I knew that was subtext for Ray. You talk him into going to work. I knew that, you know, and I suppose. And he knew that. And in normal situations it might have been how it played out, but. But I was as upset as anyone about what Hate Division was and had always joked about, if they ever send me to H Division, I won't be breaking rocks Ha, ha, ha. All that shit, you know, big noting and what have you. And knowing, never believing I'd go anywhere near hates Division. Anyway. He says, look, speak to the man. I said, well, I'll do it on one condition, and that is that you accept what it is I've got to tell you. He said, yep, not a problem believing that. I talked them into going to work. A division never, ever been on strike, not even once in its entire history. You know, way back in the 1850s, I'd never been on strike, not once. And I talked to them and I said, look, okay, what do you want to do? And half them wanted to go back to work, half them wanted to go on strike. They said, look, we'll leave it to you. You make the decision. I said, will you back me no matter what happens? They said, yes, we will, Ray. So I went in and said that we're on strike. First time ever. Cell door opens and there they are, the security squad. Okay, get your gear, Mooney. You're off the Heights Division.
- [33:30]
A
Oh, my God.
- [33:32]
B
Straight down the Heights Division. Now, the good thing about going down that time of a night is that the screws. There's only one screw on. On duty down in Heights Division. So they weren't there. So I don't get a reception. Reception, Biff. I just get sloughed up, as they call it, put into H Division. They sort of. There's a sheet of paper, read your rules and regulations and all that crap. And. Anyway, the next morning, the door opens and I know this is where you find out where you are in life. This is the acid test. And, and, and I knew, for some reason, I sort of knew it was coming. And everyone at some stage in their life has an acid test where they. Where they get tested. And here I was, big, nutty, better. Well, I won't be breaking rocks, blah, blah, blah. They said, okay, Mooney. They started taking me through the procedure. Step out. And I just stepped out. Quick march. And refused a quick march and get pushed down to a labor yard. Door slams and up in the tower in the gauntlet, there's a screw who gives me the orders of the day. Mooney. Give your name to the officer. Mooney. Sir. Take the hammer over in the rack and I want you to take those bluestone rocks and I want you to work on them and break them into smaller pieces. Now, strangely enough, I had sort of been preparing for this one. And this is half the acid test, half of it. I said, look, I want you to know that I am not refusing to obey, disobey your order. In the prison system, the worst offence a prisoner could commit was to disobey a lawful order. That's like in the military, it should have. That is the worst offense you can ever commit. Doesn't matter what you do, you can do anything else. But you can't refuse to disobey a lawful order because everyone loses face and they know it. And it spreads through the whole system like wildfire. You know what?
- [35:30]
A
That's a bit like parenting, Ray, that you're mentioning it. I've got teenagers and there comes a day where they realise they can just say no and it changes everything and you've got no authority left and you're
- [35:41]
B
put to the test. So I say, look, I want you to tell the chief that I am not disobeying a lawful order. However, I think that the order you gave me is unlawful. However, if you're prepared to give me gloves to protect my hands, goggles to protect my eyes from flying chips, shin guards to protect my shins from, I'll consider breaking rocks.
- [36:03]
A
What a smart ass I was.
- [36:04]
B
You know, it was an extreme smart ass answer. But I knew that their weakness was their industrial. Even though they'd never been tested in law, I knew that that was their weakness. But, you know, so he rushes off, comes back, door opens, two big guys and that's it in the kidneys. And that went on for days and days. And the one thing I can hold my head up and this is what I know about myself, that's why you asked me other things. I know where I'm at. They couldn't break me no matter what they did. And I'm the only creme who can really say that because there were heaps of crims who refused to break rocks, but never the first time they were sent down there later on after the system had changed. And at least I can hold my head up, you know, I refuse to break rocks no matter what they did to me.
- [36:55]
A
And they tried their best breaking a person to us. I mean, I think I know what you mean. But you talk about Chris saying, admitting that he was broken in age division the first time down there, and you're saying they didn't break you even though they're bashing you. What happens when a bloke breaks in that environment?
- [37:13]
B
Well, what happened with Chris, and this is what I've written a lot about, was he resigned from the world. That was his way of coping.
- [37:21]
A
How then? Okay, so we've found your journey from A division to H Division. So how does that end up in parole? As we've discussed earlier, like to get parole, one needs to present a very positive report.
- [37:35]
B
They charge me every day, but never get. Never get taken to court. Refuse to take me to court. And I know they don't want it. They want me out of there as soon as they can do it. But they're still interesting. And it was only after I started pissing blood and had to, oh, of course your kidneys are ratchet, you know. And I finished up having to sort of like I confronted one of them and he didn't want to know about it. That gets around that. That type of thing gets around. And they wanted me out of there as quickly as possible. I spent 14 weeks down and then they sent me up to C division. And four months later I'm allowed to come back to a division with a new job, a different job. Mainly because word had got around I had never given the chief up who gave me the order to that I had the right to speak to the men. I refused to give. I didn't say anything. How fascinating. They still bashed me in. H. But I didn't give him up.
- [38:32]
A
But that, that for the staff, that could have seemed like a massive cock up to give you the ability to call this strike.
- [38:39]
B
It was terrible. Like it put him in. He would have been fired straight away. And I knew he would have been fired. So I never gave him up. I didn't say anything at all about that. And word gets around because that same guy, the guy who gave me that order, had also worked in Hates Division as a screw. And he knew them all. And even though they still bashed the shit out of me, but they didn't kill me, put it that way.
- [39:00]
A
And they let me back in A division.
- [39:01]
B
Yeah. And ultimately back in Atavision. So I play the game. Oh, down in Hates Division, I decided to become a writer. That. That's where I made the decision. I will reveal to the world what this place is like. And I did.
- [39:13]
A
You did?
- [39:14]
B
Yeah, I did, yeah.
- [39:14]
A
Well, you continue to. But that was the place that the decision was made.
- [39:19]
B
That's where, by the way, they forced me to sit. I was doing a university course at the time from. In social science. Degree in social science. And they forced me to sit in the middle of winter in the nude so I wouldn't cheat. Oh, God. Oh, no. In case, like, oh, they thought I was going to cheat. I said, yeah, right. You know, also a bit of fun
- [39:43]
A
for the staff, no doubt.
- [39:44]
B
Oh, it was a total joke. Yeah.
- [39:46]
A
And making it just that degree of extra difficulty to do the exam.
- [39:51]
B
I passed them. That's. I did three exams there. No, two. Two.
- [39:55]
A
How many books, how many plays now? Where are we at? How many degrees?
- [39:59]
B
Oh, look, I've written a lot of plays, probably around about 15 full length plays, another 10 one act plays and most of them have been on, not all of them. There's about eight books that you can get POD publish on demand through Amazon. So I've written about Wall Street. I've written about Chris Flannery called Shove in terms of him being wrongfully charged with one of the murders. They accused him of a fellow called Raymond Loxley, which he definitely didn't do.
- [40:31]
A
Now, you're gonna come back and talk to us about a lot of the subjects of those books. But in the show notes to this podcast episode, we've got links.
- [40:37]
B
Yes.
- [40:38]
A
So everyone can go and do what I'm gonna do, which is prepare ourselves by reading them all.
- [40:43]
B
It'll take a long time. That's all right.
- [40:45]
A
I got time.
- [40:46]
B
Yeah, I've written a bit. Yeah.
- [40:47]
A
Yeah. Thank you to our guest today, Ray Mooney. If you'd like to find out more about Ray or buy some of his books, you should take yourself over to raymoo.com this is Australian True Crime. We'll be back next week. Thank you for joining us. If you need support after listening to this podcast, you can call Lifeline on 131114 or contact 1-800-Respect on 1-800-737-732 or 1-800-Respect. Org au Indigenous Australians can contact 13Yarn on 139276 or 13yarn.org au.