Chopper Unchopped (30 page)

MARGARET and I have been together for ten years, if you can call it that. She is a widow without a body to mourn over. Most of the time I have known her I have been on the inside.

But when we have been on the outside we have had a great time together. I simply wouldn’t toss that aside for the sake of shooting some ratbag, then driving him to hospital, then hiding the gun in my own back yard.

She is still with me in spirit, still sticking with me through all this heartbreak.

We’ve had a few tiffs. In fact, we had one big blue over my gambling. She threatened to leave. She ranted and raved and threw a few punches at me. I threatened to leave. She said: ‘You don’t have to leave me. I’ll leave you.’

But I walked over and started to take the guns off the wall. When she saw that she knew I was serious. She started to cry and said: ‘If you leave, can I come too?’

I love her, but I can’t understand why she still loves me.

After all those years of waiting for me, Margaret is still loyal and still in love. Don’t ask me why. I would have left Chopper Read years ago. I still don’t know what it is that Margaret sees in me, or why she loves me, or what makes her stand by me through the fires of my insane life.

She is tougher, stronger, harder and more solid than I ever will be. She was in her early 20s when we met, now she is ‘thirtysomething’ and more rock solid loyal than ever before.

Margaret grows stronger, not weaker, as she gets older, and she seems to get better looking as the years pass.

I believe that I am a lucky bloke to have known her at all, let alone have her by my side. In return, all I have ever given her is pain. Margaret is a mystery to me. I have said it a thousand times before. Thanks Bubbie, I love you.

I am a tough bloke, but when I saw her leaving Risdon jail to go home to Melbourne with tears in her eyes, I felt broken hearted. If only I was normal, she wouldn’t have to go through hell.

AFTER Read’s arrest Tasmanian police became concerned for the safety of some witnesses connected with the prosecution case. They received intelligence that one of Read’s closest friends, a mysterious, mentally-disturbed hitman known as ‘Dave the Jew’, was on his way from Melbourne to even the score. Both Trent Anthony and Sid Collins were placed under guard. It might have been a wise move.

I AM my own worst enemy.

I will fight to win this case, but I must face the fact that I haven’t a leg to stand on with the weight of evidence I now face.

If a man says he was shot and he says that I shot him, then that’s it for me.

I know my not guilty plea is a fart in the face of a thunder storm. Even my friends and loved ones secretly believe I must be guilty because I have been guilty so many times before. Most of my life I have been guilty of something.

It feels so out of place and abnormal for me to tell friends that I really didn’t do it. They agree with me and say ‘Of course you didn’t. Chopper, we believe you.’ Then they give me a funny look or exchange glances which tell me they think I have been up to my old tricks.

However, I march on in the face of it all. Don’t ask me why.

SOME of my so-called friends have deserted me. But it was good to know that some people like Mad Micky and Dave the Jew, would always be there for me.

As soon as he heard about this spot of bother Dave flew over to see the Apple Isle. Now, I know The Jew means well, but with me on the inside and him on the outside, anything could happen.

I don’t want this little bit of fuss to get out of hand and I don’t need assorted people going on the missing list. Win, lose or draw, I have to live in Tassie and it is too small for Melbourne-style blood wars. I explained this to Dave over the phone and he agreed, although he argued that one or two wouldn’t hurt.

I just said, ‘Dave, please go home’, and he did. But first he saw Margaret and our dog, Mr Nibbles, onto the ship and safely back to the mainland.

Dave’s loyalty to me over the years has been very touching. Most of my so-called friends here have lost their dash, except for characters like big Josh Burling.

TWO weeks before the shooting I was approached by someone in the bikie world in Tasmania with an offer to kill another man. I was told that I would be paid $10,000 for the job, but it was to be on credit.

I roared laughing, I wouldn’t shoot the neighbor’s dog on the nod. But once I refused the offer, the attitude towards me by some people changed dramatically. I don’t know why, but I was treated as a object of suspicion. Perhaps those who wanted me to kill thought I may tell the other side. Then there is a shooting and I am arrested. It is a mystery.

I am supposed to have wanted Collins dead. Well, then, why isn’t he? Sid Collins was driven to hospital at 100 miles an hour, enough to blow the welsh plugs out of the motor of a hotted-up 1974 Ford Fairmont. This proves there was no attempt to kill him.

I am a crack shot. I can shoot a stubbie of beer out of a man’s hand at 20 paces. Sid was shot at point blank range, so why wasn’t he shot in the head? If I had shot him, I could have taken his eye out at ten paces.

The gun involved was conveniently found under a log in my backyard three days later. The .410 sawn-off shotgun I used to kill Sammy the Turk in 1987 is still missing. None of it fits.

MY lawyer is Anita Betts, a sharp-minded, good-looking little honey. As lawyers go, I have never had a better one, and I have had some top lawyers in my time.

Anita has the competitive spirit to try to win. She throws the polite legal niceties out the window if she feels her client is not getting a fair go. She won’t try and sell you out or do deals with the Crown behind your back. She is cunning and hard working.

I have never been so impressed with a lawyer. She is a legal streetfighter with a great set of legs. The prosecution seems to hate her, and with good reason. She is on the way up.

EVEN though we are now on different sides of the courtroom, I feel that is not a reason to lose one’s manners. After all, I was invited to Sid Collins’s wedding. I even lent him the money for his fiance’s wedding dress. So the other day I wrote to him and said, ‘Dear Sid. I regret to inform you that I fear that I will be unable to attend your forthcoming wedding celebrations due to pending legal matters. Wishing you a speedy recovery. Regards, Mark Brandon Read’.

Sid Collins and Simone Watson were married on July 18, 1992, and about 50 people attended the reception. Sadly, I was unable to attend as I was in Risdon at the time. However, I was informed that a number of high-spirited revellers went to the Launceston Casino and were heard to make a number of loud and drunken threats against my good self.

I reckon that if that’s the way they feel then Collins should give evidence which would result in my acquittal so they can kill me on my release.

It doesn’t matter if I am in Melbourne or Launceston, the same sort of drunken and drug-crazed threats are made against me by weak-gutted mice. It seems to me that this verbal, ‘we hate Chopper’ vomit is only voiced when I am safely behind bars.

When I get out, or look like getting out, the same thing will happen. Mouths will shut and holidays will be taken. These mice are so predictable. I find it sad that this sort of crap should start against me in sleepy old Tassie.

I believe that Sid Collins was shot as part of some motorcycle club rivalry. It is a puzzle to me, but I do not see why I should be blamed for the puzzle. Some of the thinking in the criminal world would be the equal of the KGB and the CIA on a big day.

NOW, in matters of crime and violence I can be a touch naive, but even so, I am a little confused on the Sid Collins matter. You see, Mr Collins is a former president of the Outlaws Motorcycle Gang. I have watched the old Jack Nicholson movies and I always thought that big tough bikers stuck to the code of silence in matters of violence.

Why, then, has Sid turned Crown witness against me? It is all most odd. As he is a former President of the Outlaws, it casts a shadow over their good name. Even stranger is the conduct of another former friend, another president of a biker group who has threatened my life, foolish fellow. He is acting as a bodyguard for Sid.

It seems strange that other bikers would protect a man who has so clearly broken the rules of the club. What the hell are these so-called heavy men so worried about?

I believe the man who really shot Collins is someone in the bike world. Blaming me is the easy way out. We may never know the truth about the shooting. I know that Sid’s attitude to me changed about two weeks before the shooting.

Whether the shot was fired within my car, I really don’t know, For some odd reason, the police did not fingerprint the inside of the car, even though it was the crime scene.

Finding the 9mm Beretta in my backyard was a lovely touch. I know the police didn’t put it there. I have no idea why Sid blamed me for the shooting. All I know is that the Crown evidence doesn’t add up. I believe the true story of the shooting is more unbelievable than what has been revealed in court.

I am not Simpson with his donkey. I don’t take wounded men to hospital. I don’t even take dead men to the morgue.

IT is sad but true that there aren’t many tough guys left. Money, drugs and good living has weakened so many. Few of them can sit in a police station and face the prospect of losing their toys and their treasure.

The ‘code of silence’ these days means ‘whisper, whisper, but we want our names protected. We want to be kept out of it’. So as long as face can be maintained and the tough guy solid image can be kept intact, then 90 per cent of the so-called tough guys these days will spill their toys in a police station.

The moral fabric of the criminal world is a memory. Hard men are a dying breed. I live in hope that we can turn back the clock, but we won’t. Criminals today and the world they live in is as weak as jelly. So why are the police still losing the war?

Because you can’t clean up a sea of vomit with a mop and a leaky bucket.

The police finding the Beretta in my backyard is almost laughable. In reality this is a two-bob shooting matter, an attempted murder charge dropped to grievous bodily harm, yet they are treating it as if it was a double murder.

ANITA came to visit in me at Risdon for our last legal conference before the battle. She was wearing a pair of gold stiletto shoes and white cotton, stretch pants. She is definitely the sexiest lawyer I have ever had. As she sat opposite me patiently explaining court room tactics and strategy, I am afraid I completely last the plot.

It is difficult to concentrate one’s mind on matters at hand when one is harboring highly illegal thoughts about one’s lawyer.

We must look a puzzling sight as we go to court; the Beauty and the Beast factor must come into it.

I have had some top lawyers in my time: Aaron Schwartz, Colin Lovitt QC, Boris Kayser and Pat Harvey. But believe me, Anita Betts is hotter than Hitler’s gas bill. She is bloody magic, and for a bloke like me, a good lawyer means everything.

I AM used to having a few people in the crime world show me a bit of grudging respect, but I was very surprised to find a couple of Tasmania’s finest were on my side.

While I was waiting for the jury to come back from the first trial I was surprised to see a very attractive policewoman and her young male partner come down to my cell in the Supreme Court.

They said they wanted to shake my hand, as they had read and enjoyed the first book. I must be the only crim in Australia with a police fan club.

WELL, it was a hung jury. All I needed was three out of the 12 to feel that there was reasonable doubt and I had the hung jury. It has to be a unanimous verdict, 12 out of 12, within the first two hours and it can be a majority verdict of 11 or ten after that. But if ten can’t agree it is a hung jury. That meant that I only had to sway three of them and she’s a hung jury. A second hung jury and I walk out the bloody door.

When I gave evidence I was able to tear the Crown case to shreds. To be honest. I didn’t have a shred of evidence my way. They pulled in 30 Crown witnesses, including two so-called eye witnesses.

All I had was logic, and an ‘it doesn’t add up’ argument. The Crown even had the cheek to quote part of my book to me in front of the jury. ‘Bullshit baffles brains’, I said. ‘You are quoting a few sentences to me out of a whole book. Allow the jury to read the book and they will understand my meaning.’

But the Crown would not allow this. The only witness for the defence was my good self. Anita Betts performed magically. I do love a good court room battle and some of this has been the height of good humor.

A second hung jury and I will walk free. All is not lost.