Chopper Unchopped (60 page)

FOR police, parole officers and the Office of Corrections, Mark Read has been a pain in the neck for almost three decades. Bureaucrats from several departments have been kept busy documenting Read’s activities, both inside and outside jail. For the first time these confidential official documents have been released through the Freedom of Information Act.

They give a fascinating insight into the uneasy truce Read has maintained with officialdom for most of his many years behind bars.

Reading between the lines reveals a maverick prisoner who, for all his well-earned reputation as a violent stand-over man, keeps up an almost jocular relationship with his keepers, the Parole Board and police. This reflects the mildly astonishing fact that apart from minor teenage scrapes – and the inspired stupidity of attempting to kidnap Judge Martin in his own courtroom
–
Read has never been found guilty of harming not only innocent members of the public but the traditional enemies of the underworld, police and prison officers.

From start to finish, the cheeky vernacular style which has made Read Australia’s most unlikely best-selling author shines through the stilted jargon of official correspondence.

Transfer details:

Read, Mark, to ‘H’ Division.

Reason for Transfer:

Read has been standing over other prisoners.

I request to be transferred into One Yard for protection because there are prisoners in this Division that firmly believe that I bashed Bobby Barron on behalf of the prison officers. This is not true, but it is a very hard thing to disprove. I am not doing long enough to warrant getting into any more trouble. Thankyou.

If you decide to send me to another Jail, I would like to go to Sale.

Mark Brandon Read.

Read has proved to be a standover type, his application is not recommended.

To Mr H Poden, Parole officer, Head Office.

Memorandum.

Mark Read.

File No 74/4480.

The above named is scheduled to be released on parole some time next August and you have been assigned as his parole officer. The file is at head office with administration and it may be wise for you to look at it before he is actually released.

It would be appreciated if you could attach the enclosed correspondence to his and note that the father’s address has been changed.

Best of British luck.

R H Perch.

DIRECTOR-GENERAL.

Mr Nick Doyle, Division of Correctional Services, phoned at 11 am today to advise that he had just been informed that a Mr Mark Read, a prisoner on bail, had entered a County Court and threatened Mr Justice Martin with a shotgun. Mr Read is being held in the County Court cells and is being questioned by police. It is not known who overpowered Mr Read. As soon as more information is to hand Mr Doyle will communicate it.

A S Cox,

Acting Secretary.

Minister: for your information.

Incident at Melbourne County Court on Thursday, January 26, 1978, at 10.25am.

Read, Mark Brandon.

Released on parole from Pentridge on August 12, 1977.

Mark Read entered the fifth court on the sixth floor of the County Court building in Melbourne.

Judge Martin was hearing Crown Appeals. Prison officers Leonard and McCurry were in attendance.

Mark Read walked through the court to the judge’s bench, he produced a gun and held it to the judge’s head. He indicated to the judge that he was going to take him hostage to obtain the release of James Loughnan.

James Richard Loughnan was certified and transferred from Pentridge to Ararat Mental Hospital on December 16, 1977. Loughnan sent a threatening letter to the Premier, Mr R Hamer.

Judge Martin assisted his Tipstaff and two prison officers to tackle Read and, assisted by police, overpowered him. He was taken into custody and held in the County Court cells.

They have requested that Read be transferred to H Division as soon as the legal formalities are completed.

N L Doyle.

FILE NOTE

74/4480

Interviewed in G Division. He is to appear in court (St Kilda) tomorrow 27/4/78 on charges of assault. He does not know when his Supreme Court case is on.

Mark is in a quite jocular state, asking how much do I think he’ll get for his offences. Explains he doesn’t think he’s done anything really serious. With regard to the assault, he claims that the man he attacked was a hoon and he deserved what he got, the police stood and watched him and agreed it was deserved. Mark feels he has done the community a service. Asked about his attempted abduction of Judge Martin, had he thought he could pull it off? Says yes, Loughnan had said that terrorism always worked ‘they shit themselves’. Mark very surprised when there was retaliation; now feels he went about it the wrong way, he should have pulled the gun and ordered everyone not to move before approaching Judge Martin. He only intended to hold him for an hour so that Loughnan could be given a car and a gun. Says always listens to Loughnan, although is now considering that perhaps his advice is not too good. They had planned an escape from hospital and Loughnan gave him a handful of ‘hardware’ to swallow. Much to Read’s disgust he did not see a doctor ’till three days later.

Asked about his ears: says decided he would do a ‘Van Gogh’ needed to draw attention to himself drastically as wrists didn’t attract enough attention, ‘everybody does that.’ States that he got Kevin Taylor to cut them off. He started to saw at one and then Mark said, ‘Don’t saw, slash it off’, which Taylor did. He then did the same to the other one and then vomited. Mark under the impression that you didn’t lose much blood when you cut ears off and was surprised to lose five pints. Also thought it could be sewn back on again quite easily. Thought he might be declared insane after this but when advised could end up a Governor’s Pleasure decided ‘he couldn’t win’.

Mark seems to want assurances that his offences are not really serious, whilst inviting the prison officer to assure that they really are extremely audacious and daring. No comments were elicited. The relation of these offences by Read were done in a light hearted and humorous fashion, which made it extremely difficult to keep a straight face. However there is little doubt that Mark’s impetuosity is extremely dangerous. I do not think that anyone would disagree that this lad is a true-blue psychopath. An earlier diagnosis of autism is interesting, as is father’s presentation.

The Superintendent,

H. M. Prison, Pentridge.

Self inflicted injury on prisoner

Mark Read, H Division.

Sir,

On Monday November 27, 1978 it was reported to me at 1.10pm by acting chief prison officer Hildebrand that H Division prisoner, Mark Read had inflicted three slashes to his right cheek with a razor blade.

He had been talking to Jimmy Loughnan in No. 2 yard who told him that the only way to get out of ‘H’ was to slash up. Read said that he had slashed his cheek three times thinking he would spend Christmas in hospital.

Read was returned to No. 2 yard after he made his statement. He immediately went up to Loughnan and another prisoner and said: ‘I am taking no more notice of you two, I slashed my face for nothing.’

Over the same incident, another prison officer reported Read said: ‘Sir, I seem to have cut my face, could you get a medic, with a couple of asprins and a couple of bandaids’. I asked him if he felt the wounds were serious and he replied: ‘No Sir, a couple of bandaids will do.’

PRISONER APPLICATION FOR RECLASSIFICATION

Dear Sir,

I would rather not linger too long in this division or in Pentridge. I would like to get to a nice, easygoing country jail and out of the way altogether. So as soon as you think I’ve proved that I can live peacefully with my fellow man or whenever you think you can talk the Director General into it, I’d like to get the hell out of here.

I am very grateful for being given the chance to get out of Jika and to come to J of all places.

I guess I feel like a man who has to keep changing trains to get the last one home. H was the start, G was a stop over, then back to H, then on to Jika Jika, now J Division.

I guess I won’t really be able to relax in my mind until I am on the last train home when I can say, right this is it, no more questioning and wondering. I guess after six years of maximum security divisions and my last sentence was mostly in H Division, with a bit of D and B Division tossed in, the J Division set is real fantasy land.

Since I have been in Pentridge, I have had a bad run with personal relationships, they come and go. If I get to a country jail and get a local guy who’s doing time to put me on to a local girl and get visits every week. Jika messed up my last relationship and if I bother to try and get a new friend, she will only drop off when I get sent away. So I’ve got a few reasons for wanting to get to a nice country jail and do it easy.

Thank you very much.

PS: Beechworth sounds nice. Geelong is a dirty old hole. Thank you very much.

Mark Brandon Read,

model prisoner and totally reformed.

ASSAULT BY STABBING OF PRISONER

Prisoners Tsakmakis and Mark Read were alone in day room one of unit two, Jika Jika, about 10.30 am on January 7, 1981, when apparently Tsakmakis was discussing a prisoner in B Division with Read. The man is an enemy of both prisoners. Read requested to cease the conversation and after further comments Read lost his temper and a scuffle ensued. Tsakmakis requested to be let out of the day room, however Read followed him with a pair of tailoring shears. Read cornered him in the unit shower room and stabbed him several times with the shears.

G.F. MYERS

Superintendent.

Dear Classo Board.

I would very much like to go back into the same yard as Alex Tsakmakis, I like him and I get on very well with him. Unfortunately, I took a turn for the worse today, and very nearly made a fatal mistake. I am very sorry for this, the wrong thing was said at the wrong time. I was worried and upset about another matter and Alex said something to me that upset me for a moment.

I was in the wrong, by taking the action that I did. I’m sorry if you do not want to put me back into the yard with Alex, I will understand your action, but neverthless I have no plans to harm Alex and I do not believe he has a plan to harm me in any way. I know that you all believe me to be a smiling mad man, and I have done nothing to prove you wrong. If you do not put me and Alex back together again, then what? Problems, problems, problems. I feel that I should give some form of explanation re: my actions towards Alex Tsakmakis.

I was in a very sad mood after a visit with my father. I had been let down badly by a newspaper man who had for the last year claimed to be writing a book about me. My father plans to go down to Tassie in four years time, leaving me here on my own.

I know that I will rot in this Division forever and a day. I am bored stiff and I am slowly going out of my mind in this place. I’m doing a 17/2 year sentence over a man who betrayed me and from my point of view, my life is hopeless, and I have nothing in the world to lose.

Alex made a smart comment at the wrong time, that just made my mind snap. Alex did not mean to say anything wrong, he did not understand my state of mind. It was not his fault. Another thing, you have never given me any hope since I started this sentence, you dump me in H Division and now Jika without a shred of hope. I don’t know if I’m ever going to see a country jail, I don’t know if I’m going to get parole or not. I would like to do weightlifting, that’s why I want to go back to G Division, or a country jail. I would not escape. You dump me here with nothing to do, and then you cannot understand when I go off my head once in a while. I have never harmed a prison officer because I have always felt that if I could be trusted in that way then that at least would be one small favor. Anyway, I know that nothing I say or do will change your minds about me.

Once again, I would like to go back with Alex Tsakmakis. Question. Why is it that you always put me in spots where I have nothing to lose and then you wonder why I crack up now and again? Why don’t you try doing me a good turn instead of a bad turn and you would find out that I would never let you down.

Take G Division, for example. To my way of thinking this jail has done Mark Brandon Read no bloody favors. You have offered me no hope at all. It has been one line of labor yards, observation cells, H Division and Jika Jika, from the word go. When I arrived in Pentridge in 1975 I have been placed in spots where trouble would have to erupt.

If I was a paranoid person, I could easily believe that you have placed me in spots where you knew that sooner or later blood would flow, and my body, or someone else’s would be carried out in a bag.

The only division I have ever been in that did not upset me was G Division. I got on very well there, but they got paranoid of me, or did they? I still don’t know why I was moved and if there is anyone in Pentridge who really needs to be in G Division it is me.

Anyway, if I can’t go back with Alex, could you please find some harmless, inoffensive person for me to go in with. Someone I know will not attack me. I would not harm a harmless person.

Read is currently located in J Division and is serving a sentence of 14/11 years.

He has applied for a transfer to Geelong and this has been recommended by the Review and Assessment. The governor of Geelong is prepared to accept the prisoner and Mr Snook has given his support to the transfer. Mr Hecker stated that the prisoner should be transferred because he has taken the initiative and done what was required of him.