Underbelly 2 Page 12

By 1980 he could be seen wandering around his division with a screwdriver, trusted to do electrical work in the jail. In his eleventh year in jail his supervisor wrote: ‘One can’t help but feeling that there is, in fact, much under the surface that he chooses not to reveal.’

  He was then moved to J Division in February 1981 and for the first time Dr Bartholomew was prepared to write what many had suspected for years: Percy had beaten the system. He was not mad and had never been so. ‘He is not formally psychiatrically ill, and is not in need of treatment at this time.’

  Another psychiatrist, Pentridge Co-ordinator of Forensic Psychiatry Services, Doctor Stephens, wrote: ‘Percy is sexually grossly disturbed and should never be released from prison.’

  In 1984 Percy told his mind minders he did not dwell about the killing of Yvonne Tuohy. ‘His memories of what occurred are now faded, but that he used to feel some concern for his victim’s parents, but hardly thinks of them any more.’

  In the same year Dr Stephens said Percy needed to be able to offer an insight into himself if he was ever to be understood. ‘I doubt whether he ever will and expect that he will remain in jail until he is made safe by advanced old age or physical disease.’

  According to a parole report Dr Stephens thought Percy was ‘a highly dangerous, sadistic paedophile who should never be released from safe custody. He is not certifiable neither is he psychiatrically treatable and he is totally unsuited to a mental institution. If Percy is ever so transferred he will in all probability earn some degree of freedom as the result of reasonable and conforming behaviour. The consequences of such freedom could well prove tragic.

  ‘At this stage it remains the combined opinions of Dr Stephens and the writer that Percy be contained in a maximum security environment for the rest of his life.’

  By 1985 he had not seen his family for two years. He appeared not to care. The only time he showed emotion was when it was suggested that he would be transferred to a country prison. ‘Percy, whose face was inscrutable, the eyes cold and mesmeric, suddenly displayed emotion. His lips trembled convulsively as he emotionally stated that he did not want to move from J Division because he had “his computers there”.’

  He started to write computer programs to help intellectually disabled children learn to read and was visited once a month by a volunteer social worker. Bob Hawke was Prime Minister, Alan Bond still a national hero and Christopher Skase had a solid reputation and sound lungs when Percy had served fifteen years in jail. A prison report in 1985 said ‘It has been mentioned that he is suspected of committing other child murders and if ever taken off the Governor’s Pleasure list may be charged by the police with other murders.’

  One of the original homicide detectives, Dick Knight, who was to go on to become a respected assistant commissioner, remained convinced that Percy had killed before he attacked Yvonne Tuohy. He argued that no-one could have committed the Westernport murder ‘cold’ and that it was likely he was responsible for earlier crimes.

  Files from around Australia were reviewed and unsolved child killings examined. Percy was considered a suspect in the abduction murders of Christine Sharrock and Marianne Schmidt on Sydney’s Wanda Beach in January, 1965, the three Beaumont children in Adelaide in 1966, Alan Redston, a six-year-old murdered in Canberra in September, 1966, Simon Brook, a young boy killed in Sydney in 1968 and Linda Stillwell, 7, abducted from St Kilda in August, 1968. Thirty years later the questions remained unanswered.

  Dr Stephens said Percy was a dangerously abnormal personality, but not mentally sick in the accepted sense.

  He was moved against his will to Beechworth prison in July 1986. At first he was unhappy because he did not have access to his computer and did not like the cold weather. He said ‘he wasn’t holding his breath’ waiting for a release date. The penny had finally dropped.

  Six psychiatrists interviewed Percy and none found signs of treatable mental disease.

  Dr Richard Ball, by then Professor of Psychiatry at Melbourne University, saw him again in February 1988. He reported that Percy refused to talk to others and spent most of his time either quietly reading, listening to the radio or resting, staring into space.

  ‘In a formal sense I suppose he could be regarded as without psychiatric illness,’ Dr Ball wrote.

  Professor Ball said he didn’t believe Percy’s statements that he couldn’t remember what happened over the killing. He said he offered Percy the chance to take a truth drug, purely to judge his reaction. He refused the offer. ‘I think this man has always been very secretive about his fantasies and his actions. It is very clear of course that for many years prior to his apprehension he had successfully hidden these from public scrutiny, even when living in a communal setting such as the navy.

  ‘I have the feeling that this man is dissimulating and is just not prepared to admit his feelings and impulses.’

  As a test Professor Ball decided to put Percy under pressure, bringing up horrible details of the torture and murder he had committed. ‘He did not appear distressed in any way. There was no evidence of sweating, raised pulse rate, his respiratory rate remained unchanged, his colour was no different, his eye contact remained exactly the same. I might simply have been talking about the kinds of cheese that one eats.

  ‘I think he must be regarded as having an abnormal personality with major sexual deviation and I cannot assure myself that this has changed for the better.’

  Professor Ball added that the problem might get worse, not better. ‘I suppose one needs to consider the possibility that sometimes age withers control rather than decreasing drive.’

  By 1988 Percy’s parents had retired to live in a caravan park and his younger brother operated the family’s car air-conditioning business in Queensland. The parents went on an extended holiday, travelling around Australia.

  Percy told prison officer he no longer had fantasies about children and wanted to be released. He said talk of him being involved in other child murders was a fixation of the media.

  He still received an invalid pension from the navy and had saved $9000. Visits from his family became less frequent and he had not seen his brothers for five years. The mail chess games with his closest brother stopped years earlier.

  He smoked, did not take illegal drugs and was considered fit. His transfer to Beech worth failed due to some ‘hassles with blokes over a number of things.’ He returned to Pentridge seven months later. In September, 1987, he was moved to Castlemaine jail.

  His favourite television program was A Country Practice.

  He began to age, lose his hair and develop the defeatist attitude of a man who has realised he may never be freed. ‘That’s what jail does to you,’ he said.

  His one outside friend, volunteer social worker, George McNaughton, retired and lost contact. In September, 1988, he was stabbed in the chest by another prisoner at Castlemaine who falsely believed he had killed the inmate’s niece. Percy escaped serious injury.

  He followed a vague interest in following Fitzroy in the football and kept an interest in Test cricket.

  In 1990 Dr John Grigor from Mont Park Hospital suggested Percy be moved from prison and treated with drugs to suppress his sadistic sexuality. It was the first hope for Percy in years, but it failed to eventuate.

  In 1991 he was described as an ‘oddball, but no trouble whatsoever.’ Prison officers said he mixed only with fellow sex offenders who, like him, refused to take responsibility for their crimes.

  In his sixteenth review his interviewer tried a different approach to get through the ‘cold and remote’ veneer. For years Percy would answer all questions with a detached, rehearsed response. This time he was caught off-guard. ‘Why do you think society takes such a dim view of people murdering children?’ he was asked.

  Then Percy did something he had rarely done in twenty years — he laughed.

  ‘Why, there would be nobody left, would there?’ he spluttered.

  Wrong answer.

  The interviewer wrote in his c
onclusion, ‘Percy presents as an unacceptable risk and as such should be confined in the safe and, above all, secure custody of a correctional facility indefinitely.’

  In 1992 psychiatrist Dr Neville Parker reviewed the case. He said Percy was not insane and the Supreme Court jury had got it wrong. ‘There was nothing at the time to suggest that he was psychotic when he committed the crime, nor that he had ever had a mental illness.’

  He said he didn’t believe there was any treatment that ‘could hold out any hope of changing this man’s very perverted sexual drives.’

  By 1992 he had effectively given up hope of ever being released, believing psychiatrists had preconceived ideas about him.

  In 1993, when asked about his crime, he said he didn’t think about it and said his victim could have been ‘hit by a bus a week later and died.’ He refused to join any therapeutic programs. The interviewer said Percy’s only apparent regret was the crime had ‘stuffed up’ his life.

  Professor Paul Mullen wrote in 1993 that Percy was sane. ‘The wisdom or otherwise of the court’s finding in Mr Percy’s case may be open to question but it is not open to modification.’

  He said it was unsatisfactory that Percy was still in a jail but there was no secure facility suitable for him outside of the prison system.

  By 1994 he had more than $25,000 in bank accounts and investments in gold. His navy pension was forwarded to the family business.

  He played cricket once a week at Ararat and worked with his computer.

  In 1995 Attorney General Jan Wade said she wanted to know if there were any moves to transfer Percy to a hospital because of the ‘need for the strictest security at all times.’

  In 1997 he was developing a computer program to retrieve cricket statistics and remained an avid newspaper reader. According to his prison review: ‘Currently the objective with Mr Percy can only be for reasonably humane, long-term detention.’

  After spending five years in Ararat he was involved in carpet bowls and organised intra-prison competitions, but only at a superficial level. He was still, in 1998, marooned on an emotional island the way he’d always been.

  He’d had what was described as a ‘remarkably uneventful prison history.’ He had no friends and had made no efforts to deal with his problems.

  He outlasted his investigators and most of captors. He outlasted three of the jails where he was an inmate: Beechworth, Pentridge and Castlemaine have all been closed.

  His prison record showed he was one of the best-behaved inmates in Australia. In November, 1995, he was fined $60 for having too many educational tapes in his cell.

  A little earlier he had been transported from Ararat to Pentridge for an assessment. He was taken in a private prison van that had windows. He was, noted an observer, ‘clearly elated by this experience as it is perhaps the first time Percy has viewed the open country side in almost twenty-five years.’

  WHAT THE JUDGE SAID:

  FINAL judgment of Justice Eames, delivered on 30 September, 1998:

  The notes seized from Mr Percy’s car after the killing of the young girl disclosed that her abduction and death were not spontaneous events, but occurred very much as the notes anticipated that such events might occur.

  In 1971, in his cell, it was discovered that Mr Percy had comprehensive notes describing even more horrific fantasies concerning abduction, imprisonment, torture, rape and killing of children. Also located was a collage of newspaper photographs of children, with obscene additional artwork in Mr Percy’s hand.

  The notes are of the most horrifying nature, which, again, I consider it unnecessary to describe in detail.

  Mr Percy had written a complex chart, with first names given to proposed victims, in which he traced a pattern of conduct which would take place over many years involving the rape, torture and killing of named children.

  Among the first names of the children referred to in these 1971 notes were some names which coincided with those of children of a family known to him, which family he had occasionally visited at the time of his arrest.

  There were, too, some other references in the notes which suggested that the perverted fantasies did relate to those children, even if other names used were those of imaginary children. I have before me a statement by the father of those, now adult, children, urging that Mr Percy not be released.

  Mr Percy did not give evidence to me, and his assertion to those who interviewed him — that he no longer holds violent sexual fantasies — has not been tested.

  There is no doubt, whatsoever, in my opinion, that both at 1969 and at 1971 Mr Percy was indeed a very dangerous man whose release from custody would have been inconceivable. The question is whether he remains such a dangerous person.

  In my opinion, an examination of the 1969 and 1971 material, together with knowledge of the facts surrounding the killing, tend to confirm that not only was Mr Percy very dangerous at the time, he remains so, because the underlying sadistic condition was then, and remains now, deeply entrenched. He has received no treatment of any kind which might have changed that situation. He has shown no real interest in having such treatment. He has demonstrated no significant remorse or anxiety, at least none which I find credible, as to the circumstances which caused him to kill.

  Because I am satisfied that Mr Percy holds those fantasies, then, in my opinion, the conclusion is irresistible that he remains as dangerous now as he was in 1969 and 1971.

  Prior to, and during the course of, my hearings several articles appeared in the newspapers which speculated that Mr Percy may have committed more killings than that of Elizabeth Tuohy. There is no evidence before me to support that assertion.

  Amongst the materials placed before me was a statement by Detective Senior Constable K. S. Robertson of the Victoria Police, dated 5 May, 1970. In that report Robertson referred to an interview conducted with Mr Percy about the deaths and disappearances of other children, both in NSW and Canberra. I did not hear any evidence from Mr Robertson. At its highest the statement of Mr Robertson records Mr Percy’s agreement that on other occasions prior to the death of Elizabeth Tuohy, whilst on beaches in New South Wales, he had sordid thoughts towards children and his agreement that he might have committed other offences had not the children been in the company of their parents.

  The note records that police had no evidence to connect Mr Percy to any other killings. Only one item of ‘evidence’ was advanced. When questioned about one killing in Sydney he is recorded as having said: ‘I could have done it but I can’t remember.’

  CHAPTER 11

  Riding with the enemy

  Inside the Bandidos bike gang

  Kulakowski gave the nod and they trashed the place and bashed the bouncers

  IT was the spot a film director might pick for the opening scene of a bikie movie. Bleak, damp Ballarat, with the first morning of winter only hours away. Two angry, suspicious men and two detectives from the organised crime squad, collars turned up against the biting cold, meet near an isolated hamburger stand in a desolate car park.

  Out of sight, armed police watch, ready to move if things turn ugly. The stakes were high. Melbourne police had called the meeting to stop what was destined to be a full-scale bikie war. Trouble had been fermenting for just over a year and the organised crime squad knew that if nothing was done to prevent the slide towards armed confrontation, killings would follow.

  The police wanted to get together representatives of two warring bike groups: the Vikings, who for years had been the tough gang that controlled Ballarat, and the Bandidos, predators with a world-wide reputation for violence and drugs. The outlaw motorcycle world is always filled with tensions between groups, but usually there is a balance between the bravado of drug-enhanced macho aggression and the basic instinct of self preservation that ensures an uneasy peace.

  But it doesn’t take much to upset the fine balance and turn a standoff into a running war. The balance was destroyed in Victoria when the two heaviest bikie groups agreed to divide the
state like a ripe peach, leaving the remaining gangs dangerously exposed.

  According to police intelligence, The Hells Angels, long the bikie power in South-East Australia, agreed to allow the Bandidos to expand into regional Victoria on the condition the Angels’ power remained unchallenged in Melbourne. The two gangs still had their skirmishes, including the occasional drunken bashing, but in general the pact held.

  The Bandidos were expansionists from way back. They moved into country centres and used their national numbers to take over local bikie groups. Join us, or get beaten to a pulp, was the general message. This resulted in country club-houses being signed over, an increase in membership and new drug distribution opportunities.

  They were not the only gang in the take-over business. In 1993 a man was shot dead and several others tortured when the Rebels took over the Warlocks in Geelong. In the bikie world, the strong devour the weak. Rather like the stockmarket, but with guns and real blood.

  In April, 1995, the Bandidos took over the Broke Brothers in Kyabram. Only three Broke Brothers joined, the rest were ‘retired’. The next month the Bandidos absorbed the Ballarat gang the Loners. The Loners and the Vikings had been the local gangs for years and although they hated each other they managed to co-exist in an uneasy peace. The Bandidos also opened a Geelong chapter in July.

  In May the Bandidos decided to take over the Vikings, but the local gang refused the ‘offer’. This led to a series of increasingly violent incidents over the following year that convinced police a gang war was almost inevitable.

  In April, 1995, the Vikings’ Ballarat clubhouse was sprayed with gunfire. In response several Melbourne outlaw motorcycle gangs vowed to support the Vikings. In May, a bike shop owned by a Bandidos’ member was fire-bombed. In November, a Bandido was the victim of a hit-run. The car that struck him was believed to have been driven by a Hells Angel. In February, 1996, a car containing Vikings members was shot nearly twenty times in a drive-by shooting.