How Brenden Abbott Escaped Two Maximum Security Prisons

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So he’s really quite a lateral thinker not just where the next job is coming from and what he does immediately after that.

I think society has a lot of people who think you know just a cut slightly cut above everybody else not much but just enough and I think when he was doing those jobs uh the electrical good ones there was a market he understood the market it was almost entrepreneurial >> James I don’t want to leave you hanging there not saying anything while we’re talking about your dad in amongst all of this uh I guess we’ll get to when he’s on the run and when you guys first really meet properly for the first time but have you spoken to your dad about his early life.

I mean, you only are allowed to speak to him through the prison system, phone system, or face to face while being monitored.

Have you had a chance to get to understand him as a young man at all? >> Not so much really.

Like, there’s a few questions that I’ll ask him here and there, but I’m sure there’s a lot more that he’d he’ll be telling me once he’s once he’s released.

I guess our times are very cut short.

10-minute phone calls and then the one hour visits, which usually aren’t even a full hour.

Yeah, we’ll talk about that too because you’re in the documentary you do express the frustrations at trying to get to know your dad and it does seem like maybe purposefully your visits are not well planned when it comes to actually you’re there and you’re waiting and then your dad will be waiting and sometimes they put you in places where speakers don’t work and they knew that.

Do you feel like there is intervention happening behind the scenes to purposely limit your contact with him or do you think it’s just coincidental? >> It’s it seems that way.

I think it’s more so frustration.

Like I part of me thinks like at the time when I’m angry I’m like they’re doing this on purpose but then later on once I’ve calmed down I’m like well they don’t really have a reason to be destroying that, you know.

So I think it just falls down to bad communication between the system sometimes.

like you’d have to be pretty spiteful to intentionally, you know, destroy that time we have together like and for for no reason whatsoever really.

So I think a lot of times when I do think like they are doing it on purpose, I think it’s just me just being angry at that time.

>> And I think when you if you ever worked in government, you realize that they’re very in sometimes quite incompetent.

And I think James is right.

I think that that uh it’s probably not spiteful, it’s just incompetence.

>> Well, can we talk about that for a bit? Because it seems Brendan over his career cashed in on the incompetence of systems that were in place at the time.

I mean, his first sort of registered escape, he essentially walked out of a police station because the young man who was supposed to be watching him went to make him a cup of tea.

But then like he managed to escape from two very intense prison systems using things that have been smuggled in.

And maybe that’s why they keep a very close eye on you, James, because the two escapes that he has done have been using items that were brought in from outside with people he was visiting with.

>> But those systems, Glenn, within the prison that have allowed Brendan and others to escape at the same time, >> do you think we would be shocked to know that those systems aren’t as secure and as tight as what we think they are or think they should be? First of all, I think in relation to his first escape, I know John, the young detective at the time who did that.

Um, I wouldn’t say I there was a different time in the 80s.

There was a more of, you know, there was almost a, you know, you’re going to do the right thing.

Yeah.

There was trust and I’m not saying Brendan breached it.

He took an opportunity in relation to the other escapes.

Um, holding people in custody is very complex.

Um, you know, and we go back to the 80s when we’re holding them at pre-manal prison.

If you if you look have you ever been to this free manal prison? It’s a disgrace.

Even you know I know they closed it in the late 80s early 90s but it was a 19th century um prison complex trying to cater for 20th century prisoners.

So I think they were behind the eightball anyway in relation to the second um escape.

Uh no one’s done it since and probably no one did it before.

So that tells you something about Brendan and his capabilities and his planning and his way he was a strategic uh thinker when he was doing things.

Um when we talk about the chase for him and how long he was on the run for and I know we’re going to go there.

Um you got to remember that the whole time every police officer for many for the first 5 years was just Brennan would pop up somewhere in Australia.

um that local police force would deal with it.

Then he’d pop up somewhere else.

It was very very difficult until we got a national approach to um chasing Brendan.

And I’m sure we’ll talk about that a bit later on.

>> Well, let’s touch on that now.

The fact that his spree of bank robberies when he did escape prison was across WA, South Australia, and Queensland.

That kind of worked in his favor, right? And I’ve heard some suggestions too that maybe police officers during that time, during the late ‘ 80s, early 90s, weren’t keen to share information with their interstate counterparts.

Would you say that’s true? >> I think there was a very siloed approach to policing in the 80s and into the ‘9s.

Um, the states really worked quite separately.

Um, and it wasn’t until something like the National Crime Authority came along um that we started cooperating across all areas.

But I think the good thing about it is that when we had squads and we had the armed robbery squad in Perth, we had um we had a very dedicated officer in South Australia, we had the armed robbery squad in Queensland and um more so Melbourne and and Sydney.

Those those uh relationships actually started to get us to talk to each other on this one issue.

We were always talking to each other but not about one specific issue.

And you know, Brendan Abbott in the initial stages was only known in WA.

He wasn’t someone who we were looking at elsewhere.

>> Can we just mention how well he hid himself while he was on the run for those 5 years? Even his sister has been interviewed and said that he tapped her on the shoulder at one stage and she didn’t recognize him and he said something like, “Don’t you know who I am?” He like he went through a lot to look different, to act different, and as far as I can see, had like more IDs than any human would ever need to get through, you know, 20 years, let alone 5 years of moving around the country.

>> I mean, there’s an example of why he was a cut above everybody else.

He was operating at a different level.

He knew that, you know, especially in the 80s and 90s, that it was mainly visual identification.

So if he changed his appearance, he dyed his hair, shaved his hair off, grew a beard, um wore glasses, he was he was certainly doing something that no one else particularly was doing, you know, unless we’re talking about spy ages agencies or something like that.

So, you know, that’s what allowed him to stay on the run.

And you also got to remember that Brendan Abbott wasn’t the only criminal running him up in Australia.

Um there was a lot of lesser criminals who were keeping us very busy.

So um and when you think about his escape from um Queensland, he made us very busy or the police very busy because there was four or five others who we were busy chasing.

>> Well, that’s the thing.

He did in both escape attempts attempt to have several go with him.

The first it was only one, but five of them escaped at one stage uh from the Queensland prison.

But do you think he learned his lesson after that first escape attempt when he is with the other prisoner he’s escaped with for quite a long period of time which if you look at the movie representation of that was an often quite strained relationship and then the second time around he kind of discarded the majority of those men and and had one with him afterwards.

Do you think he learned from that first escape attempt? >> Oh, I’m sure he did.

Um the one he stayed with Barishon I think he actually felt sorry for him.

I think there was a loyal the loyalty issues that mostly I think well certainly after the second escape caused him grief and I think ultimately brought him undone.

>> From what I can tell he was an armed robber which in itself causes trauma to the victims who are being held up.

But I think part of the folklore around Brendan Abbott is that he didn’t hurt people and that he was essentially even polite to police when they did finally apprehend him and that he was just kind of a nice bloke.

Is that true? >> I wouldn’t have called him a nice bloke.

I would call him a professional in what he did.

He knew that being a [ __ ] dealing with people would only cause him more grief.

um when he’s doing a robbery, it’s important to try and stay in control.

It’s like anything you do that’s high risk.

So, you you’re going to control your emotions.

And I think that’s what he did during the robberies.

Um when we dealt with him, he was, you know, very controlled.

Um and that puts him at a kind of almost an even standing with those who are trying to interrogate him or arrest him.

So, I think I think he was very smart in that regard.

I think his crimes, how he threatened people with guns, um, and and verbally violent, uh, has caused a lot of damage and, uh, for which he’s paying for now.

Um, that’s something that, you know, we we’ve got to be very careful when we we mythologize these uh, people who commit these crimes is that, you know, we’ve done it with Ned Kelly.

Ned Kelly was a brutal killer and yet he’s a he’s an iconic Australian as far as most people are concerned.

So we have to be very careful that we we don’t go down that road.

Um so he did a lot of damage.

Did a lot of damage to people in relation to the fear they felt.

And if you’ve ever been at the other end of a gun, you know, you you know it stays with you.

>> James, your dad was on the run when he met your mom.

How did they come into contact with each other? >> I’m pretty sure it was just through a relation of other friends.

So, we I had some childhood friends that we grew up with basically and I think dad knew knew the father.

Um, so I’m pretty sure that’s how they came to be.

I haven’t really got too much information on that though, but I know they had a close close connection with the this family.

>> And were you aware as a young child of who your dad was? >> Not really.

Mom never kept anything from me.

She’s always honest about it.

But me being a kid obviously wasn’t something that I actively thought about.

I had a stepfather around.

So I’m just a kid.

I don’t really know much about, you know, people in jail.

She say your father’s in jail.

I wouldn’t have thought twice about it to be honest with you.

>> And do you remember meeting him when you were young? >> Uh I do like the first time I went with my grandmother when I was probably would have been maybe seven or eight, I think it was.

I remember that was the first time she ever took like took me up there to go visit him in the prison.

Um, and I remember going up for that visit cuz I remember throwing up all over the visiting the visiting room.

So that was a wasn’t one of my finest moments, but >> kids just doing kids.

>> Yeah.

Well, at that stage back then with visits, the um prisoner could buy chocolates and lollies and chips and everything for the the guests.

So I um being a kid obviously just had a whole bunch of stuff in front of me.

So I just kept eating and eating and eating until had nowhere else to go but back out.

So yeah, dad dad found it pretty amusing cuz the prison guards had to clean it up.

But yeah, I wasn’t feeling too crash hot.

>> When do you think you became aware of your dad’s reputation? >> Uh it’s probably more so my early to mid20s.

like I knew as I got to like a later teenager, I understood it all and everything too, but I didn’t really have much thought of it or really much interest in anything.

But um I think it was around the time 2016 when he actually got transferred from Perth uh from Queensland, sorry, to Perth is when I kind of just took a step back and I was like, I really need to try and you know, put some effort and time into because he’s always tried with me as much as he could.

Has he ever spoken to you about his reputation and the fact that he is quite often referred to in media reports as the most notorious bank robber in Australia? And obviously the mantle of the postcard bandit has stuck around even though it’s not really as true as what we know.

But how does he feel about having that? >> Yeah, look, it’s for him it’s like it’s not something he ever wanted.

Like he just want to rob banks basically to have money.

It wasn’t anything.

he was trying to build some sort of no authority for himself and uh be well known down down the track which pretty much what it’s come to now as far as the the name the postcard abandoned he hates it hates it but this was something that the media have created and a lot of people still stick by that’s you know what they’ve been told like oh he used to send postcards so there’s been numerous times where people have mentioned that to me and I correct them I’ve heard of that many times and I guess the point is someone does bring it up I don’t even bother saying anything >> well Glenn can we address that because James is right.

You can read a ton of media reports and the majority of them will say that he’s notorious for taunting police by sending postcards from the various locations he was on the run in.

But that’s not true.

And in fact, it was the police who created that story in order to get media coverage.

Do we know whose idea that was? >> Well, let’s um let’s be specific specific about that issue.

It was the photograph was in a roll of film found in the back of a stolen car which had Brendan um and Reynolds had dumped um after a shootout with police.

And so that film was developed and in that film there’s a picture obviously Reynolds standing outside and many other photos of what they were doing but outside the dwelling up police station.

They were released to the media and one of the media outlets was the Australasian Post and they um ran with postcards sending postcards.

The thing the police didn’t do is they didn’t correct it because immediately as as a you know an investigator you’d see this wow you know this is going to get coverage across the whole of the country because now we’ve got someone who’s robbing banks um and sending postcards that’s going to get media coverage which means more media coverage the more chances going to be identified and that’s how that rolled along.

I don’t think it was a specific decision by anyone, but certainly the police did allow it to run.

>> To get some perspective, Glenn, how many banks do we know for sure Brendan Abbott robbed? >> Well, it’s the number he was charged with, which off the top of my head, um, is not the number that we suspected him of.

But there’s also a point that, you know, look how long he’s inside for for the banks and the escapes he’s done.

I mean, how many more banks would you put on the fella and it makes no difference? Um, and of course, you know, robbing banks, people go in there with disguises.

It’s happen.

It’s over in two or three minutes.

Your witnesses are struggling to come up with anything um concrete to identify someone, unless you see a tattoo on a neck or something like that we’ve seen in the old black and white um bank photos or you get an informant.

So really, you just go with what you’ve got.

But I mean, there’s a figure banded around that possibly 40 banks.

I I find that really high.

Um WA at the time that Brendan was running was the bank robbery capital of Australia.

It was not uncommon to go to, as when I was in the armed robbery squad, uh to go to four or five banks in a day that had been robbed at gunpoint.

So, you know, it’s not it was not an unusual offense or an incident.

Um so, yeah.

Did Brendan’s interesting way of robbing banks, that idea of hiding in the ceiling and then dropping in on the staff as they arrived in the morning when the vault was open, did that spur any kind of copycat criminals to try the same thing? >> Not that I’m aware of.

I mean, it certainly was an ingenious way of doing it and increased his getaway time by doing it because, you know, the guys who run through the front door rob the banks.

As soon as they go through the door, the alarm goes off.

cameras start rolling and so on.

But if you drop through the ceiling, then invariably it’s unlikely the the cameras are going to go off, um that the alarm goes off if they’re quick enough to stop the staff from doing it.

There’s no uh uh customers in there.

So, it kind of makes it easier for him.

And I think that was probably his thinking is that this is a more efficient way of robbing a bank.

Um, and of course your bank robbers generally were addicts who were not very good at what they did.

Um, and certainly no one got the amounts that he did.

I mean, if you were talking about the average bank robbery, they might get5 to $10,000.

I mean, you look at the difference of what Brendan got by going through the ceiling because he was able to get access to the vault without the worry of police coming there.

I think it was it was a smart way to do a Hollywood heist.

Did that change bank security? You think? Are you across that? Because obviously that’s maybe a flaw that they didn’t really consider was how easy it was to infiltrate the ceiling and then be able to spy on the staff and see when that vault door was open.

Did that change things in WA? >> Look, it it did.

It made people certainly more aware of it.

And I’m not saying they didn’t put um things like movement alarms in ceilings and so on.

Um bank banks changed the way they operated.

the importance of banks meant ultimately that bank robberies just don’t occur anymore.

Um the ‘9s was the time of the bank robbery.

Um and I think by the late 90s that had really trailed off and it turned into things like video stores and so on.

Plus I think also the gun buyback and had a bit of a impact on the availability of guns to criminals and so instead of seeing guns as much as we did and they were everywhere prior to that was more like knives and syringes.

syringes became the the weapon of choice.

>> Can we talk through his second escape from Cajarina in Queensland? Because it feels like there was a whole lot going on that allowed those five men to escape that day.

So they’ve had diamond wire smuggled in.

So they’re cutting through the bars slowly over a period of time.

And then it seems that the prison is understaffed.

They notice that.

They have the go-ahad from Brendan to break out.

They all, five of them at the same time run.

No alarms go off until they get to a perimeter fence and start cutting through it.

Someone’s chucked wire cutters in over the fence, so they have access to that and a gun, which no guard has seen happen.

They’re cutting through several layers of fencing and it’s only really when they get to the the very final perimeter that a a guard in a vehicle spots them and gets shot at.

That seems like an awful lot of things to be lined up for them to essentially just kind of and there’s a getaway car standing nearby.

Like that feels like there’s a lot of planning that’s happened there, but there was a lot of things happening that made that a bit too easy.

>> Um, in sense, yes.

So I mean prisons like every major government department are underst staff.

They always are.

They have been for years.

It’s not a modern phenomena.

Um you know and getting the funds to maintain prisons must be extremely hard.

So you’ve got a minimum staffing.

You’ve got people who you know may not be as watchful as they should be.

And then you got someone who wants to plan.

And I mean he had he had time to plan this escape from the moment he got there.

It was the same as what he did to Free Metal.

Um he watched and he waited and then the opportunities came up and the opport you know getting the diamond wire.

Well, he’s organized that to get in.

He’d organized his his uh co-offenders for people to run with.

Um having someone on an out on the outside was a a good a good way to plan it.

So you had your getaway vehicle, you had your guy lying uh Baron with the rifle waiting.

They knew there was going to be a vehicle response.

They also knew that if they pin that vehicle down with gunfire, that gives them a free reign.

So then they’ve got a time frame they’ve got to get over.

Um, so yeah, there I’m sure the the systems changed radically after that escape, you know, and we talk about Brendan Abbott being a bank robber, but Brendan Abbott is one, if the only one that I know of who’s escaped from maximum security twice, and that’s pretty amazing.

um you know and the authorities obviously took note of that when with the length of his um his sentences now and the way he’s been treated.

No, no senior politician or prison authority will ever want to give him any slack rightly or wrongly because for fear that he does it again and their head will be on the chopping block.

>> So that’s created that’s created a monster for Brendan as well.

Well, I was wondering that the lengthy sentences that he has been given and he’s done time in Queensland and now in WA, do you think partly that is a response for making the system look foolish? >> Oh, look, there may be an element of that.

There’s always politics involved, you know, when government officials get involved.

But if you look at the offenses he committed um across the different states plus two escapes plus also um finishing his original um original uh time terms of imprisonment it probably adds up close to where we are now.

However, there comes a point and I think this is where James and I will agree.

It comes a point that what good is occurring here and do we have a prison system or a system of incarceration that is what I would call civilized? >> Well, James, I wanted to ask you too whether you’ve ever spoken to your dad about this, but there’s been a lot of mention, especially from his legal team, that at some stage he was the longest held prisoner in solitary confinement.

And that was purely because they were terrified that he would escape again.

that that’s got to have such a major impact on his mental health.

Has he ever spoken about that to you? >> Not that it’s really impacted him.

Like as far as I’m concerned, when I speak to him, he seems pretty with it, normal.

Justin doesn’t really seem defeated.

Like he’s still got his, you know, his personalities, high spirits and stuff, too.

So even though no matter who you are, how strong minded you are, it’s going to have some sort of mental effect on you.

Like like I’ve said to people before, like look at us when we went through co people had access to the internet.

People had access to friends and family they could speak to on the phone, do whatever they wanted, but you weren’t allowed to leave the house.

People went nuts.

You couldn’t do anything.

And you were allowed to walk outside your house.

At least he was locked in a room 23 hours a day, probably no bigger than most people’s bathroom um with no access to the outside world at all.

Like me myself, like I’m pretty strong minded, but that would drive me insane.

Like I can’t stand just being at home for a day, not leaving the house.

So no matter who you are, it’s going to take some sort of toll on your brain for sure.

>> Now, I know you mentioned that he never set out to do what he did for the notoriety and that he doesn’t love being tagged the postcard bandit, but has he ever shown remorse for the trauma that the victims of his holdups have gone through? Oh, >> of course.

Like he’s mentioned before, too, like you know, at the time you’re not really thinking clearly.

You just got your mind set on the prize of what you’re after.

Um he’s told me before after he’s done a robbery and stuff, you know, the adrenaline will be there once it’s worn off.

He goes, you’d actually sit back and you’d have a strong feeling of depression over you thinking about what you’ve done and where you you know position you put other people in as well too.

But it’s just when you have that mentality where you you hungry for money and just want to do the wrong thing, it’s just you kind of have that moment and then you’ll go and do it again.

like he doesn’t he’s not happy with the things he may have done to people and the trauma he’s put people through and even myself too I’ve I don’t agree with it at all like you’re going to do those kind of crimes you deserve to go to jail my just argument is now like how long are you supposed to be serving for that though you know so like I don’t support what he’s done at all and I don’t support anyone doing that even myself I wouldn’t put anyone in that sort of situation but it’s happened now and just he’s just he’s he’s copying it actually for for all that.

>> Well, let’s look at where he currently sits because from initial reporting he was due for parole next year.

>> Y >> but is that now no longer the case? >> That has been changed.

So I think there was some mis uh misinigning up with the numbers and stuff there too.

So we’ve gone to court now um trying to look at time serves.

A lawyers come through that and said like you know I think there’s some way here we can say you your time should have been served already.

But in the process of doing that, it’s made someone go over the numbers and have a proper look.

We realize that the 2026 wasn’t actually the correct date anyway.

So in saying that though, even if nothing we hadn’t put anything through to the courts now, someone would have obviously gone over this closer to his parl and gone, “Hold on, this date is incorrect.

” The original time was 2026 parole and 2033 was full term, I believe.

Uh, it’s now been changed to 2030 fullterm and 2029 for parole date, which is only a year apart, which is I think it’s pretty ridiculous.

Usually parole dates are a fair bit before the actual full term.

>> Um, so he’s just finished up a court case now and it’s kind of not ruled in his favor, but the jud the lawyers did know that that was what was going to happen.

Um, so where it stands now, I think he’s had his high security high security escort status has been dropped now.

say he’s gone down to low security.

So that’s basically the process of someone getting closer to being released back out into the into the system.

>> So I know that his lawyers have been talking about the fact that they feel that he’s now being unfairly kept behind bars.

What are they asking for? And because I understand there was some legal precedence for the amount of time he’s been given that might have come in after he was actually sentenced for those things.

So it can’t >> Yeah, >> I’m not quite sure what the legal terminology is for that, but it shouldn’t have been applied to him at the time because his crimes are done before that >> Yeah.

>> law came in.

>> I like I said, I walk into those courtrooms when all this stuff’s going on and someone might as well be speaking Chinese to me cuz I got no idea what is happening.

It’s just they try and dumb it down for me a little bit.

Um so yeah there’s some so when he was first locked up and then he broke out of prison there was some legislations or something that changed and when he came back the time they gave him they’ve tried to put him under the some new rule.

I don’t understand it completely but the lawyers are trying to look into something saying that the way he was charged shouldn’t have been shouldn’t have applied to him because he was already it was already it was just an esco basically.

So I think Glenn may know a bit more about that.

I’m not too sure, but it’s just yeah, it’s just it’s a scramble process and there’s just so much to understand unless you’re an actual lawyer yourself and it take you weeks to try and get your head around it properly.

Like I’m pretty switched on and pretty smart and even me myself, I’m kind of yeah, just thrown around from it.

>> Glenn, can you shed some light on that for us? Like what sentence should he be in handed? >> Well, the legal system’s always been a a strange monster that most people can’t understand.

Look, the the big issue here is that there’s an accumulative effect of all the different sentences that Brendan’s caught and it becomes I think James is dead right becomes a mathematical nightmare and I think that it is just I mean these these sentences on paper and and the accumulation is something that’s probably technically correct.

The sad part about it is it doesn’t take into account that that uh a man who’s committed the the offenses that aren’t murder aren’t at the you know the we talk about rape and murder and those type of things is the worst of the worst.

Uh they’re still bad what Brenda’s done, but he’s copying it more than the people who have done those offenses, which to me as you know, I’m a retired person now, I just look back and go, is this really fair? Um, and this is where, you know, I think that the amount of time that Brendan has done, um, is probably, well, all the amount of in the isolation he’s had, the the fact he was under strict security for so many years because there was a there was a a possible a warrant in South Australia, didn’t allow him to have any rehabilitation and so on.

I think there there needs to be a look at that.

Um, and but no government is going to do that because quite frankly they’ll be terrified of the fact that what if he does escape again? What if we do let him out and he he commits an armed robbery? The thing about that is we have to accept that.

That’s our system.

Um, you know, I can’t say with a crystal ball that he won’t commit a further offenses, but I can’t say he will.

So that’s our system.

We there should be an element of enough is enough.

James, have you talked to your dad about life potentially on the other side of the prison bars? And I mean, it would be he’d be hardressed to find a bank branch to rob these days, let’s be honest, with so many of them shut down across the country.

But has he allowed himself to think or hope or look beyond his prison sentence at this point? >> Look, he we do have conversations sometimes about what we’ll do when he is to be released.

So, the plan is for him to come over to Sydney and live with me for a while.

But, [clears throat and cough] um, he does want to do a bit of traveling.

He wants to go catch up with some old friends and stuff like that, too, which I said I will go with him for, and he wants me to go.

Um, the whole thing of being released, he’s he’s passed that life of crime.

Like, even a rob bank these days, it’s not even worth it.

I try to go to the bank sometimes.

We draw $10,000 out and I got to give them 48 hours notice to get my own money.

So, >> yeah, >> I don’t think robbing banks these days is the way to go.

Um he’s like he’s done his 60 63 now going on 64.

It’s just he’s past that that point of doing everything like that.

I think he’s kind of supposed to have a chilled life now.

Me and him get to know each other.

Like I said like once he is released it’s going to be just like meeting someone basically.

Like we’re best mates now but there’s obviously a lot to be spoken about time time to hang out together too.

So it’s like over the whole my whole life I’ve spent wouldn’t I couldn’t say maybe in more than 20 hours with him like um people people watching listening so just having that time alone with him is something he’s looking forward to.

>> Do you think he’s prepared for the potential amount of attention he’ll get when he’s released? I mean he is known by all these titles and he’s very notorious.

Do you think he would sit down for interviews with people? Do you think he would talk about his past himself? >> Well, he’s he knows that kind of stuff’s going to happen.

Um, he’s going to be coming out of jail over 60 odd years old, mid60s.

He’s going to need some sort of income.

So, these these kind of things are going to be beneficial to him financially, I guess.

So, he’d be an idiot not to really take advantage of that.

Um, when it comes to doing all this stuff, I don’t think it’s something he would want to rush into straight away.

This is the world has changed a lot like since he’s been inside.

the amount of people on the street like it’s going to be very overwhelming for me.

There’s going to be too much too much going on.

So, I think he might have to slowly ease his way into that.

>> I’ve uh spoken to a few people who’ve been released from prison and they all said that uh stepping into the modern age is really weird because everyone is so busy and frantic.

Yeah.

>> All the time everywhere.

So, I guess it’s going to be a pretty big transition for someone to step into that for the first time.

Really? >> Look, he’s going to be very overwhelmed with everything that’s happening.

Um, like just me myself, I hate going to shopping centers and stuff.

Like I don’t like big big crowds of people and I’m around people all the time.

Um, I think it’s I never really have any understanding of it until he’s actually put in put in the end of it.

Put like really right in the center.

Glenn, is there a chance you mentioned that there was an outstanding warrant for him because he did rob banks in South Australia and he’s done no time in a South Australian prison.

Is there a slim to any chance that if he was to step foot over the South Australian border that he could be arrested again? >> There’s always a chance of that.

It depends on on the uh obviously we have to have evidence.

Um but we’re talking 30 years now.

Witnesses um recollections decay very quickly.

30 years later is going to be really really difficult.

And there’s also a public interest um you know and that’s that’s for um directors of public prosecution and so on to decide.

I don’t think anyone will be running in or rushing in to charge Brendan Abbott um if he crosses any borders but if I was him I’d go from here to Sydney >> straight over the top.

Uh Glenn James, thank you so much for joining us and for chatting about Brendan.

And hopefully we can check back in with you guys uh when he’s finally released.

We appreciate you both giving us some of your time.