Dancing with Demons Read online

  About Dancing with Demons

  THE EXTRAORDINARY MEMOIR OF A MAN WHO HAS SPENT HIS WORKING LIFE LOOKING INTO THE EYES OF MODERN EVIL.

  As Australia’s most distinguished criminal psychologist, ‘Doc’ Tim Watson-Munro has assessed over 30,000 ‘persons of interest’ in some of the nation’s most notorious court cases, including Hoddle Street gunman Julian Knight, corporate fraudster Alan Bond, Melbourne gangster Alphonse Gangitano and, in recent years, Australia’s first terrorist convicts.

  But the frontline of psychology is no place for the faint-hearted. Tim’s pioneering methods and proximity to evil made him front page news but also led him to a devastating personal crossroads – first wife gravely ill, second wife pregnant, best mate betraying him to the cops, $2,000-a-week drug habit spiralling out of control, brilliant career and hard-won reputation in crisis.

  Tim’s descent into the maelstrom is a candid, funny, frightening odyssey, offering unique insight into not only the nature of addiction, but also the lives and minds of the psychopaths we share our world with. After all, when you’re dancing with demons, it takes one to know one.

  Contents

  Cover

  About Dancing with Demons

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Crossroads

  Green

  Blind Man’s Bluff

  Si Tous Les Cons

  Lead on McDuff

  Transition

  Parenthood

  Knight’s Move

  Breaking Up is Hard To Do

  The Children of God

  Bondy

  The Major

  Godfathers

  Depression

  Carpeted by the Board

  Pigs at the Trough

  Surrender

  Cruel and Unusual Punishment

  The Twilight Zone

  On the Road Again

  Verdins and Ramage

  Positively Churchillian

  The Terrors of Terrorism

  Dopamine Cowboys

  Snake Oil and Other Therapists

  The Osmosis of Evil

  Betrayal

  Uncoupled

  Reflections

  Acknowledgements

  Images

  Copyright Page

  With profound gratitude to the myriad clients who have opened their hearts and allowed me to plumb the dark recesses of their minds. My life and deep understanding of my own human frailty have been enriched through your generosity of spirit. Thank you.

  ‘We have art in order not to die of the truth.’

  – Friedrich Nietzsche

  CROSSROADS

  September 1999. Sunday afternoon. I stumble into a room occupied by the glitterati of the Melbourne legal establishment. The iridescent glow of hot Chilaca chili peppers, meticulously placed, radiates through fine crystal vodka shooters. Stolichnaya and Krug are the orders of the day. The aperitifs cover nearly the entire surface of a beautiful Georgian era table. Immaculately groomed silver-service waiters seamlessly circulate a majestic array of hors d’oeuvres. The mood is euphoric and I am in high spirits. It’s a glorious spring day in salubrious South Yarra.

  ‘Looks like a marathon afternoon ahead,’ I whisper to Carla, my wife of nearly a decade.

  ‘Just watch your drinking, Tim,’ was her curt response.

  Things between us had been fractious for a while.

  I had been eagerly anticipating the day. It was the birthday of my mate and colleague, Phil Dunn. For a number of years beforehand, Phil and I had worked together in some of the country’s most notorious, high-profile criminal trials. He was a highly respected QC and I was his expert of choice.

  The conversations are highbrow. A Supreme Court justice, leading Queens Counsels and a smattering of judges, as well as attorneys, medicos and mates. This is my world. At the age of forty-six, my career and reputation as a forensic psychologist are already soaring beyond my wildest dreams. I had obtained a level of national recognition through my involvement with a number of very high profile criminal cases, some of the highest in the country. At the age of thirty-seven I had been appointed the National Chairman of the Forensic College of the Australian Psychological Society. I was also on the advisory board to the Department of Criminology at Melbourne University. Arising from this, I had been honoured with a Visiting Fellowship, lecturing in the psychological assessment of offenders.

  Events like this one inevitably provided a fabulous opportunity to network. Not that I needed more work. I was already consulting in excess of 100 hours a week.

  ‘Ahh . . . the Doc,’ Phil’s refined, mellifluous voice was unmistakable. We enjoyed a warm affection and familiarity. ‘Great you could make it, mate.’

  ‘As always, a pleasure to be here, Dunnoire.’

  ‘And Carla, I see the pregnancy is progressing well,’ he continued, always the charmer. Quite the understatement, I thought. Carla at nearly nine months was protruding, near exploding. The baby was due within weeks.

  ‘I see you’re already enjoying the vodka, Doc. Quite a brew eh? Anyway, we shall catch up later, much to discuss.’

  Phil’s work in greeting the guests was cut out for him, and besides, we had spent several hours together earlier in the day, chatting whilst cycling 35 kilometres along the undulating, panoramic Beach Road, which encircles the city’s Port Phillip Bay. Philip and other mates, through the solicitations of Carla, had persuaded me to join them for the weekly Sunday morning ride.

  I was a reluctant participant: I was struggling with both physical and mental health issues. Three weeks to the day earlier, my first wife Susan had died after a roller-coaster battle with cancer, leaving behind our two adolescent children. We were all numb, grief-stricken and frankly, struggling.

  During this time, I had been duelling, on a daily basis, with my own demons. Fluctuating depression. Anxiety. Self-loathing. And a crippling, $2000-per-week addiction to cocaine.

  Following Sue’s death I had recognised that my life as it had been had to change. Urgently! Desperately! Carla, who was partially privy to my drug problem, had suggested I seek rehabilitation treatment. I knew she was right, but I had made the excuse that because of my high public profile I didn’t trust anyone at a professional level with my secret, not even the psychiatrist I had been seeing for my erratic moods.

  During the course of the bike ride, I came clean to Phil and another mate, David Stanley. He was well-connected in the area through his long involvement in the drug reform movement, and had softly, gently, by the end of the journey, convinced me to bury my paranoia and get serious about rehabilitation.

  Well-armed with my newfound resolve, I had decided that after Phil’s party, I would honestly embrace treatment, I knew I had no choice. No more bullshit, complete exposure to my therapist. Finally the nightmare may end. My mood was lifted by the prospect of reclaiming my life and my dignity.

  Having said that, Phil’s party promises to deliver a brief respite from the relentless and seemingly overwhelming problems I am facing. And so, secretly, without Carla’s knowledge, I arrive already well-fortified with a few lines of coke. Suitably anaesthetised, I embrace the afternoon.

  As the afternoon proceeds, the group of thirty or so become progressively less tidy and more raucous. No matter your station in life, alcohol is an equal opportunity intoxicant. ‘One more small vodka couldn’t possibly hurt,’ I chuckle to the waiter as I grab a glass, ’and one for my little mate Timmy,’ as I take another from his neatly polished tray. In a brief luciferous moment, I realise I am all in, kicking my heels well and truly up before the hard yards of rehabilitation, and a life of complete sobriety, commence the following day.

  My deep, albeit skewed moment of contemplation is abruptly interrupte
d by a forceful tap on the shoulder. It’s Phil. ‘A moment, Doc?’ I sense his urgency. ‘Front study. This is serious, mate.’

  ‘Sure Phil, straight away,’ I skol the remnants of my glass and follow Phil to the front room.

  ‘What’s the problem, buddy?’

  I assume a pressing work-related issue has arisen.

  ‘That fuck’n idiot Fraser has been arrested, I just received a call. It’s all over the news.’ Phil’s pallor says it all. Well, nearly all.

  ‘Arrested for what? Being an imbecile?’

  ‘No time for jokes, Tim. The cops raided his home very early this morning. He’s been charged with importing cocaine.’

  My sphincter twitches.

  ‘I’ll have more details soon. Con Heliotis is with him now at the police headquarters, he’s been there for hours. He’s been singing like a canary.’

  Con Heliotis is another eminent QC. I know Andrew Fraser is in safe hands, but fear the worst. Although I have absolutely no knowledge of Fraser’s alleged importation, he is a regular source of the coke I’ve been using, intensely at times, since Sue’s diagnosis. Suddenly I realise that his phone would have been tapped and that, in all likelihood, the shame of my private addiction is about to become very, very public.

  In the twinkling of an eye, life as I had known it is ending. I know if immediate action is not taken, the police will arrive at my home. I’m poised to be transformed from a rooster to a feather duster, my reputation in tatters, reduced to scratching around for morsels of work to make ends meet. I might even have to face criminal charges. I have my children to think of. My wife is very pregnant.

  Given my epiphany earlier in the day, the irony of the moment blows me away. How has it come to this?

  The walls are closing in, shimmering; a sea of nausea engulfs me.

  I’m highly anxious. Powerless.

  ‘Fuck, Phil, do something.’

  It’s all I can manage.

  GREEN

  I was twenty-five when I started as a resident prison psychologist at HM Prison Parramatta in August 1978, and knew little of what I was in for.

  I had been raised in a privileged academic environment. My late father was an internationally recognised Professor of Plasma Physics. During his career he had been involved in designing the first nuclear reactors in Canada, the United Kingdom and then Lucas Heights in Sydney, Australia, which eventually became our home.

  My mother was equally gifted. She had initially commenced training as a doctor, which for a young female in the 1930s was a remarkable accomplishment. But World War II intervened and her aspirations were shattered. Undeterred, she became involved in the war effort as a scientist in her homeland, Canada.

  After undertaking pioneering work with radar during World War II, my father was invited in 1944 to Chalk River in Canada, where as part of an international team, he undertook research into the peaceful utility of nuclear energy. His primary task was the design of the control equipment for a heavy water reactor.

  My mother had been recruited to work in nuclear energy and during a ski trip in the Laurentian Mountains, she caught his eye. After a tenacious pursuit by my father, they eventually married in London.

  Every seven years we would travel overseas for sabbatical leave. This included a nine-month period when I was seven years of age when we lived in Berkeley, California. Our home at 1080 Creston Road was situated on one of the peaks overlooking San Francisco Bay. My bedroom had a clear view of the Golden Gate Bridge, which was interrupted by Alcatraz Prison. In 1960 the jail was still operational and, even now, I have strong memories of its security light casting moonbeam shadows across the bay in a rhythmic pattern through the night. Perhaps it was this early exposure to prison life, albeit at a distance, which triggered my subconscious desire as an adult to work as a prison psychologist.

  Another influence on me at the time was my babysitter, Evelyn Einstein, the granddaughter of Albert Einstein. She was living with her father, a widower and Professor of Engineering at the University of California Berkeley, where she was studying and heavily involved in university politics.

  We became solid friends, notwithstanding our age difference. We would talk about her life at university and particularly her political work there. I recall advising my mother one evening that Evelyn would not be babysitting me that night as I had witnessed her on the local TV news being handcuffed and escorted into a police wagon when a peaceful demonstration had exploded into a frenzied rage – ah, the turbulent and challenging ’60s.

  Our neighbourhood was an extremely liberal and creative one, and it had a profound influence upon my thinking from an early age, especially on my natural propensity to question authority.

  At school and university, I acquired a reputation as someone who defended the underdog and questioned unfairness, whether it be in the playground or classroom. My ‘attitude’ caused considerable difficulties for me when I was sent to the prestigious Sydney Grammar School, which in the ’60s was well-known for its harsh levels of discipline. I survived due to my ability on the sporting field as the age champion of the 100 and 200 metres, and long jump. But by the end of fourth form, I could no longer bear the strictures of a GPS education. The final straw was compulsory cadets: drill marches in the hot summer sun and being barked at by ‘officers’ who, despite being our peers, were more obsessed with the shining of their shoes than preserving friendships. I left school and for a time worked in a lumberyard, before common sense prevailed and I returned to a local high school.

  I was always interested in the dynamics of human behaviour, and even at university, when I was attempting to study other subjects, I found myself inextricably drawn to the psychology section of the Fisher Library, where I would be engrossed readings books for hours at a time. After finishing my Master’s Degree in Psychology I was extremely fortunate to be offered a position within the Department of Corrective Services, where posts for recently graduated psychologists were few and far between in the late 1970s.

  I was in high spirits when I first walked through those ominous doors at Parramatta. Friends had expressed concern for me, worrying that I might be permanently scarred by the experience. ‘What about your physical safety?’ they had argued. Parramatta, after all, was not your run-of-the-mill jail. At the time it enjoyed the unenviable reputation of being the toughest prison in the country. It was universally acknowledged as the end of the line for the scuttled lives of some of Australia’s most notorious and hardened criminals: murderers, rapists, armed robbers and recidivists alike. But I could not be dissuaded.

  Such was my enthusiasm that I arrived at the prison a full two hours early. Keen to relate to my charges, I had ditched my suit and tie at the last minute in favour of casual clothes – a pair of Levi’s jeans, boots and a green T-shirt.

  Built a century beforehand, Parramatta Gaol reflected at a physical level the harsh, unforgiving attitude of its day when it came to meting out justice. Its imposing structure, rising from the Parramatta soil, stood as a powerful psychological deterrent for those early citizens to not transgress the laws of the land. Equally forbidding, the environment within its four walls punished society’s transgressors not only by depriving them of their liberty, but also through acting as a constant reminder that any thoughts of escape were entirely futile.

  The walls and cellblocks were built of hewn Hawkesbury sandstone. A powerful natural insulator, the sandstone walls would trap the heat during the long sweltering Sydney summers and, with equal cruelty, freeze out any hope of warmth during its winter months.

  Standing outside the jail that morning, as far as I could see, little had changed since the nineteenth century apart from some awkwardly constructed ‘add-ons’, which had no doubt been constructed to meet ever-growing accommodation requirements.

  The cells, little bigger than an average family bathroom, were lodged within six separate wings, each three storeys high. Each cell possessed the bare essentials for life: a bed, washbasin and toilet. Ventilation was one m
odest window, with reinforced iron bars refracting the sparse natural light.

  I entered through the main gate and was greeted by a maze of solid gates, impenetrable walls, and fences garnished with barbed wire. Each gate was manned by prison officers who carried and twirled a dazzling array of jingling keys. I soon learnt that my passage through the prison could take minutes or hours, depending upon the level of accord that I had with each of these ‘post keepers’.

  For the first time, I was also bombarded by the pungent smells of institutional life, the odours of human toil and suffering interspersed (with a change in wind direction) with the ubiquitous stench of Lysol.

  I followed a guard deeper into the bowels of the prison and small clusters of heavily tattooed crims dressed in prison greens started to congregate near the barriers.

  Wolf-whistles and catcalls followed me.

  ‘Come and suck on this, sweetheart.’

  ‘Nice look’n arse . . . can’t wait to get you into my cell, baby.’

  The main gate to freedom already seemed a long way away.

  What have I got myself into, I wondered.

  After negotiating no less than three checkpoints, I arrived at the office of the prison superintendent, Mr Harry Duff. He sat on a slightly oversized chair, like Tiberius holding court, in his dark musty room. Behind him, slightly askew, an imposing portrait of Her Majesty the Queen adorned the wall. The ambience was menacing.

  ‘Tim Watson-Munro,’ I squeaked as I held out my hand.

  ‘Harry Duff,’ he replied. ‘You know that the last prison psycho only lasted a short time . . . It’s a tough environment, son. I hope that we can work together. Always remember this, mate, if you can be conned, you can be fucked!’ He chuckled as I politely excused myself from the room.

  I knew that my work was cut out for me. At the time, prison officers still had a deep-seated, culturally ingrained suspicion and resentment towards civilians working in prisons, particularly those engaged in human welfare. Social workers, welfare officers and psychologists were all seen as naive do-gooders – a bunch of misguided and vulnerable people who could be conned into compromising situations by the prisoners in ten seconds flat.