A Shrink in the Clink
About A Shrink in the Clink
‘In A Shrink in the Clink, Tim Watson-Munro details his journey through the dark lives of criminals who have outraged the community with their shocking deeds. Tim’s raw account and honesty make for a compelling read.’ CHRIS MURPHY, leading criminal lawyer
DRUG LORDS. BLACK WIDOWS. CONTRACT KILLERS. MASS MURDERERS. PSYCHOPATHS. EVIL GENIUSES.
No one gets closer to Australia’s craziest characters than Tim ‘Doc’ Watson-Munro, a criminal psychologist with 40 years’ experience assessing the mad, bad and dangerous.
Tim started his career in the country’s toughest jail – ‘a shrink in the clink’ – and has assessed over 30,000 criminals to become a pioneer in the world’s understanding of evil in our society.
But it came at a cost. Tim’s appetite for knowledge about the dark side of humanity mutated. He spiralled into depression, addiction and mental collapse. The ‘Doc’ became the patient.
Now, in a series of thrilling, chilling, amazing true tales from a life at the coalface of jails and the justice system, Tim takes us deep into the minds behind Australia’s most notorious crimes.
Lock up and look out … A Shrink in the Clink is a real-life journey into the shadows.
Cover
About A Shrink in the Clink
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
1. A Day at the Office
2. Criminal Intelligence
3. Jailed for Life
4. Alcohol and Drugs
5. Drug Lords and Dealers
6. Sex
7. Deviance
8. Porn and the Internet
9. Black Widows
10. Street Crime
11. Corporate Crooks
12. Bluey Bob
13. First Responders
14. Bikies
15. Killers
16. Madness
17. Terrorism
18. Mad or Bad?
Endnotes
Acknowledgements
About Tim Watson-Munro
Also by Tim Watson-Munro
Praise for Dancing with Demons
Copyright page
IN LOVING MEMORY OF
DR DAVID ALEXANDER SIME
‘WHEN YOU GAZE LONG INTO AN ABYSS,
THE ABYSS ALSO GAZES INTO YOU.’
– FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Jails are bursting at the seams, newspapers are riddled with salacious, prurient crime stories and television is overloaded with the same. Dedicated 24/7 crime TV channels cannot keep up with public demand.
In A Shrink in the Clink, I share my insights into the workings of the criminal justice system in its numerous iterations, exploring the types of crimes and criminals I have encountered over the past four decades. From psychopaths to overwrought neurotics, from junkies to sex offenders and the intellectually disabled. The psychology of serial killers, contract killers, victims of sex crimes, drug importers and traffickers, as well as the ever increasing levels of addiction in rural Australia. The psychology of outlaw motorcycle gangs, as well as examples of intellectual brilliance to be found within penal establishments. The dynamics of women who kill for lust or profit, as well as the psychology of the truly insane who find themselves before the courts.
Some of these stories are not for the faint-hearted. I urge you to stay with me, though – shocking and confronting as some of them may be, they address the reality of the broad spectrum of criminal psychology and in so doing, hopefully provide a greater understanding of these individuals and the system, flaws and all.
My career has been an unusual one. Beyond academic training and 40 years at the coalface, I, for a time, suffered a number of the conditions described in the book. Working continuously with the face of evil affected me. Subtle, insidious symptoms of depression, crippling anxiety, features of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and eventually mental collapse, fuelled by a nasty addiction to cocaine became my world. In a sliding door moment, I became the patient.
My early professional life commenced in 1978 at Parramatta Gaol in Sydney, then regarded as the toughest prison in the country. I was a young, naive 25-year-old, clearly attracted to the dark side at a time when little was known about the underbelly of custodial life.
My appetite to experience and learn about the dark side of the human psyche was insatiable.
It was a steep learning curve, but one which established a solid platform for me to venture into private practice three years later.
Forensic Psychology was in its infancy back then. Few positions were available in prisons, even fewer practitioners worked in the private sphere.
Although young, my training at the jail placed me in a fairly unique position when the time came to strut my stuff as an expert witness.
On a near-daily basis, I had dealt with the worst of the worst, the mangled twisted minds of murderers, gang rapists, armed robbers, sexual perverts and hopelessly afflicted drug addicts. I had become a conduit between the criminal mind of the underworld and mainstream society. A professional in high demand who could translate the inexplicable into a language which was understood by the judiciary and those who serve the courts.
And, I loved it.
My rise was meteoric – big cases, fast bucks and a huge ego rapidly followed. I had become the shrink in the clink.
Little did I realise that my own psyche was being affected. The osmosis of evil can affect us all if we spend too long at the gates of perdition. My work intruded on my family. Oscillating between overprotective and detached, my wife and children suffered. It was beyond my control. Overly suspicious and cautious, I was transformed with effluxion of time from a sensitive, trusting bloke to one who saw the potential for black behaviour in all. Although better corralled today, this sixth sense regarding some people I meet, and those with whom my now-adult children interact, still floats just beneath the surface. It is both a curse and a blessing.
My nadir erupted in the late ’90s. A breathtaking overwhelming reliance on cocaine led to my highly publicised professional demise.
I was struck off in 2000 with no room to move beyond recovery. The process was humiliating, yet ultimately life-saving and enhancing. The long years of recovery, therapy and eventual readmission to my profession in 2004 has made me a better practitioner. Humbler, more empathic and more insightful to the dynamics of psychopathology, crime and rehabilitation.
My work has also involved dealing with victims of crime and the first responders. The often faceless, yet ever-present reminders of unimaginable trauma reinforce the message to always be kind to others, as we have no idea of what life has dealt them. Tragedy is ubiquitous.
Some readers may find the material in this book highly confronting. The stories and case studies speak loudly and clearly to the criminal mind and the potential for devastating evil, even in the most benign and unexpected circumstances.
Stick with me. I have journeyed to hell and back.
Share the ride. It may help to explain much of what we as a society perceive to be an escalation of intense, extreme crime and violence in our community.
‘If you aren’t in over your head,
how do you know how tall you are?’
– T.S. Eliot
I’ve never really had a typical day at the office, however this experience in the winter of 1981 had to count among the more bizarre. It was 9.30 a.m. and I was tired. I’d left Sydney on the last flight to Melbourne the night before and after what seemed to be no sleep at all in a cheap ramshackle motel close to Essendon airport, I had been up since sparrow fart to catch a single-engine charter flight to Mildura.
Despite my fatigue, I was pumped. Although I had recently resigned from my prison psychologist job at Parramatta Gaol I was nonetheless about to commence a career in private practice where I would be deeply immersed in assessing criminals both in the community and in penal establishments throughout Australia.
I had spent the previous three years on a sharp and treacherous learning curve. Although in relative terms my tenure was brief, my experiential learning was deep. Beyond counselling and assessing the bottom end effluent of the New South Wales prison population, I had been involved with a high level of responsibility in establishing a number of nationally acclaimed prison rehabilitation programs. These included the first prison drug treatment program in Australia, as well as The Parramatta Recidivist Group, designed with considerable success to deter juvenile offenders from a future life of crime. I had also been involved in the implementation of a prison therapeutic centre, a jail within a jail at Long Bay prison. This had involved the recruitment and training of prison officers to work both as custodians and counsellors for serious offenders, with a view to reducing their recidivism.
However, the culture of reform and rehabilitation, which had been the golden thread of my work within the New South Wales Corrective Services department, was unravelling. There had never been votes in jails and the popular press was baying for a return to the good old bread-and-water days of hard time and strict discipline. I had reached my asymptote and it was time to move on, confident in the knowledge that my experience of jail life had well equipped me to deal with the professional life of a private practitioner. And, besides, I knew that my work would inevitably lead me back into jails on a near-daily basis, to assess and report upon the rich diversity and dynamics of criminal behaviour.
Still transitioning to make the full move to Melbourne, I was exceptionally pleased to have been briefed by Hillards, a prominent re
gional law firm, to undertake a full psychological assessment of their client, Mr Smith. Equipped with all the tools of my trade: pen, note pad and an array of psychometric tests, this was one of my first referrals and I was keen to impress. Given the urgent nature of the referral, I knew little about the case beyond a feeble assurance, ‘Don’t worry, mate, you shall be fully briefed when you arrive . . . It’s a break-and-enter matter.’ Young, naive and enthusiastic, I was reassured. Plenty of time to get across it when I land, I mused.
The flight was rough. Adding to my discomfort, the passenger seated behind me was breathing heavily and dripping with perspiration. He had seemed distracted when we took off, but now in the late stage of the flight his symptoms were escalating, along with my concern.
‘Are you alright, mate?’ I gently enquired.
Although I was still a comparative novice in the mental health arena, his psychological and physical distress was obvious.
‘Aviophobia . . . I have a fear of flying,’ was his urgent, gasping response as he blurted his partly digested breakfast onto the cabin floor. Momentarily recovered, he continued, ‘We’re all going to die, I know it!’
Quivering, red faced and hyperventilating, his demeanour said it all. I had encountered his type before. He was verging on a full-blown panic attack.
‘Breathe into the paper bag, mate . . . slow, easy breaths, that’s it.’ I wished he’d chucked up into the vomit bag courteously provided by the charter company instead of onto the floor, but at least now he could put it to good use.
The need for intervention was pressing. A large man, cognitively unchained in a light plane, I could see the situation becoming very dangerous.
The pilot, headset attuned, was focused on his instrument panel and seemingly blind to the unfolding drama. I checked my watch. There was still another 20 minutes before we landed.
Aviophobia is highly debilitating. Generally silent when the sufferer is on land, its potency leaps into action and control if the person is confronted with the prospect of flying. I once had a patient who was so afflicted he could not drive by an airport, let alone bid friends and loved ones farewell, without being overcome by symptoms of anxiety and nausea. It can be mentally crippling.
I marvelled at this bloke’s courage in daring not only to fly, but to risk the journey in a light plane. ‘Must be something very important to take you to Mildura like this,’ I opined. I was attempting to reassure him with calm modulated tones while he clung to his bag like a stranded rat on a sinking ship. His fear was palpable.
‘Urgent business meeting, no time to drive,’ was all he could manage.
‘Just stay calm, mate, concentrate on your breathing, we will be landing soon.’
Then came the exclamation of another passenger who, oblivious to the unfolding pantomime, had his nose buried in a newspaper. ‘Fuck, have a read of this,’ he squealed. ‘There was a plane crash last week. You wouldn’t fucking believe it, it was the same plane as ours, a Cessna.’
I could have murdered him.
My glowering silence did little to bridle his enthusiasm as he continued. ‘Poor bastards, they were flying back from a fishing trip in Queensland. The plane disappeared without a trace. And you won’t fuck’n believe this,’ he chortled, ‘it’s gone down in the Barrington Tops, same place as the plane crash in the ’50s . . . completely vanished, no survivors. Just like the Bermuda fuck’n Triangle.’
‘Will you shut the fuck up,’ I hissed, ‘we have a situation here!’
I sensed my now patient was on the verge of a conniption. His heavy breathing in sync with squirts of fresh perspiration dripping across his forehead said it all. Such was my attention on these pressing internal dynamics, I had failed to notice the subtle throttling down of the engine. Mercifully we were in final descent.
‘Hold the phone, cobber,’ I whispered, ‘we’re nearly on the ground.’
‘Thanks, mate,’ he grunted as the comforting sound of tyres connecting with terra firma resonated with the reverse engine thrust. Before alighting, I grabbed the troublesome newspaper and tucked it under my arm. Although I had internalised my own anxiety, the coincidence had unsettled me. I was keen to read the story.
‘Hey, mate, I suggest you drive home,’ was my parting advice as I shook his clammy, trembling hand before traversing the tarmac.
In the tiny airport I was greeted with a pat on the shoulder and a warm, firm handshake. ‘Hey there, you must be Tim. Paul Duggan. I trust your flight was uneventful.’ The only ‘frocked-up’ bloke to alight the plane, my new suit and polished black shoes clearly advertised who I was.
Hope he doesn’t realise how new to this I am, I reflected. To distract him, I was tempted to share my airborne adventure but, sensing his urgency, I refrained. ‘Uneventful, actually.’
Paul was regarded as a brilliant up-and-coming solicitor. Already a partner at Hillards, he had excelled during his law degree, but eschewed the fast, demanding pressures of a city firm, opting for a more balanced life in rural Victoria.
I eased into his car. It was a beautiful country winter morning and the exhilaration of rolling up my sleeves for my very first case rapidly distracted me from ruminating over my dramatic flight.
Paul was an affable bloke who clearly relished his role as a country lawyer. While I was happy to engage in polite chitchat regarding his work, I was keen to focus on my pending assessment. ‘So, mate, tell me about the case – must have been quite a heist, to call in an expert from the big smoke.’ Having already saved the day by averting a major aviation catastrophe, my self-importance was growing by the minute.
‘Yep, quite a case, Tim, however, we are pressed for time, so it’s probably best if I drop you at the police cells. Our office is just around the corner; I’ll see you once you’ve conducted your assessment.’
As I mentioned, I was still a novice at the time, new to the ways and means of the medico-legal world. In fact, totally naive. A more experienced practitioner would have at the very least insisted on a verbal briefing.
‘See you soon,’ he screeched as he zoomed off with seemingly vulgar haste. I had scarcely decamped his motor with my new, shiny briefcase.
Odd little bloke, I mused as I walked into the Mildura Police Station.
With fading bricks, peeling paint and an ominous vibe, the building was a typical country boob. A front desk stood between me and the desk sergeant, whose domain overlooked a long corridor of cells. These dark, dank rooms lodged itinerant weekend drunks, held until they slept off their booze-addled Saturday nights. For the more serious, troubled offenders, it also served as a holding facility for remand prisoners due to face court.
I arrived on the first day of the County Court sittings. Melbourne judges spend a few weeks on these circuits, no doubt relishing a break from the pressures of a city list. Paul had mentioned that Bruce McNab, a tough but unswervingly fair beak, was sitting. It all meant little to me. I was an out-of-towner and back then, a 28-year-old known to no one. I did, however, momentarily wonder why a simple break-and-enter case was being heard in a more superior court.
‘Tim Watson-Munro,’ I announced to the heavily badged desk sergeant.
‘What can I do for you, son?’ He seemed slightly nonplussed.
‘I’m the psychologist retained by Hillards to assess Mr Smith.’ My response was firm and full of the hubris of an up-and-coming professional.
‘Mr Smith, eh?’ My imperious response appeared to startle him.
‘Yes, it’s a break-and-enter case, and I need to see him for an assessment ahead of the court sitting after lunch.’
‘Break and enter, eh? You know what’s he’s been breaking into and entering, son?’ He responded with a smirk as he continued. ‘I’ll tell you, son, your Mr Smith has been breaking into chicken coops and entering chickens’ arseholes . . . How about that?’
I was gobsmacked. Before I could draw breath he yelled out to the large throng of crooks in their cells. ‘Hey boys, a city slicker headshrinker is here to visit Mr Chooka Smith!’
He could scarcely contain his mirth. My attempts to respond were drowned out by a cacophony of prisoners, squawking and clucking their brains out.
‘Fuck’n turd,’ I mutter, not directed at the copper, poor bloke, he was just having a bit of sport during an otherwise uneventful day.