10

The Many Lives of Fred Many

Frederick Glen Many was a career criminal who specialised in armed robbery and rape and had it not been for the fact that he was deaf in one ear, his crimes would most certainly have included murder. Many spent so much time in jail during his life that he knew the system backwards and devised methods to exploit it and get time off his sentence. His favourite was informing on his fellow prisoners. Another time, in prison folklore, he allegedly saved a prison officer from being bashed.

Fred Many was born into a decent, hardworking rural family, none of whom had ever been in trouble with the police. After Many began his career as a thief he was in and out of institutions at first, and then jail, for every crime in the book, including drug offences, common assault, robbery with assault, rape, car theft and armed robbery.

On 11 July 1986, Many was released from prison while he still had seven years to serve of a 22-and-a-half-year jail term for a combination of serious crimes. It seemed that Many had saved the life of a prison superintendent who was being viciously attacked by another prisoner, Raymond Hornby. Many had dragged Hornby off the incapacitated officer and if it wasn’t for his intervention – something that is heavily frowned upon by inmates who believe that whatever happens, let it happen – there seemed little doubt that the officer would have been killed.

Fearing for Many’s life in jail given that he had intervened – and also due to his unselfish act of bravery – his sentence was dramatically reduced and he was allowed to go home on parole seven years early. After Many was released, Hornby admitted to police that the attack was in fact a set-up between himself and Many, to make Many look good so that he would get early parole. We can only wonder at what would make a man do that, and get more years on his sentence, to get another man off early. We shall never know. And as it sadly turned out, letting Fred Many back out on the streets wasn’t a good idea.

Upon release, Many moved to the NSW Central Coast with his younger partner. Seven weeks later, on 2 September 1986, he offered a 15-year-old schoolgirl, who was walking home from the beach, a lift to the nearest bus stop. Against her better judgement the girl accepted and sat in the passenger’s seat. She had no way of knowing that Many had earlier offered two other girls lifts but they had refused.

Against her will, Many took the young girl to a deserted bush area where he sexually assaulted and tried to strangle her. Lying on the ground with her head buried in the sand after Many had bashed and repeatedly assaulted her, the teenager pretended to be dead, daring only to breathe faintly and not ruffle the sand near her nostrils. Many accepted that he had killed her and, convinced that there was no living witness, left her for dead. If Fred Many hadn’t been deaf in one ear he surely would have heard the faint breathing coming from his victim and finished her off. But the young lady lived to identify her attacker, who was back behind bars within three days.

Charged with rape and attempted murder, Many set about finding the crims in jail about whom the authorities would like to know things. Having found his targets, he endeared himself to them in order to find out useful information that the National Crime Authority (NCA) and the New South Wales police would be interested in, in exchange for favours and a reduction in his sentence, which by now had been set at 20 years.

And if Fred Many couldn’t find anything in which the authorities would be interested, he would simply make it up. Over his years in jail Many had learnt that it was easier to get by if he told people what they wanted to hear, truth or otherwise, rather than not telling them anything at all. With this principle in mind, Many began passing on information about several of his fellow prisoners to the NCA, one of whom they were especially interested in.

While it couldn’t be said that Fred Many was rocket-scientist material, it could at the very least be said that he was game. The main bloke that Many elected to ‘allegedly’ inform on was none other than Tom Domican, or ‘Tough Tom’ as he was known, the toughest guy in the joint, who was both respected and feared by villains and law enforcement agencies alike.

Domican was on remand in custody on the charge of shooting at hitman Christopher Dale Flannery and his wife and children with a machine gun in a drive-by shooting at Flannery’s home. Although Flannery survived, since the incident occurred he had mysteriously gone missing, presumed dead.

Fred Many told the NCA that he was Tough Tom’s best mate and that Domican was confiding all sorts of juicy tidbits in him. Anyone who knew Tom Domican would tell you that he would sooner pull out his own toenails with a blowtorch and a pair of pliers than part with his secrets, let alone confide in the likes of a halfwit such as Many, who was the type of weak individual that Domican despised.

But when Fred Many told the NCA that Domican had told him not only about his attempt to assassinate Chris Flannery, but also about two other murder plots, and that Domican had actually solicited Many’s help on one, investigators almost choked with glee. Many gave evidence in court against his ‘best mate’ Tom Domican. The evidence was unreliable and full of holes and Domican was exonerated; despite this fact, Fred Many still had his sentence reduced by eight and a half years.

This was also despite a solicitor stating that Many had told her he had often lied in court. It left those who chose to believe Many’s lies and knock the time off his sentence looking very stupid.

Many served most of the nine years of his 20-year sentence looking over his shoulder for fear of reprisals. It was only his rat cunning that kept him alive. Amid uproar that such a beast should be released, let alone 11 years early, he was set free on the eve of the 1995 New South Wales election that voted in Bob Carr’s opposition Labor Party, which had campaigned heavily against Many’s release.

No sooner was Many out of jail than his former partner told police of two armed robberies he had committed during his seven weeks of freedom before he raped and almost murdered the schoolgirl nine years earlier.

Charged with the robberies and on bail, Many prolonged his trial by appealing that he wouldn’t get a fair trial due to his notoriety. But before it ever got to court, in September 1997, Many died while watching TV in his western suburbs home. The story goes that Fred Many died of a sudden heart attack when he awoke in front of the TV and thought he saw Tough Tom Domican through the window knocking at the front door, wanting to have a word with him.