My weekly visits with Shannyn and Sarah were my lifeblood. It didn’t take long, however, for my ex-husband to start complaining over the phone that he didn’t have a life anymore and that I should start to consider exactly what I had done to him. Soon, the weekly visits with the girls became fortnightly. The familiar feeling of being trapped and at his mercy came flooding back. Surviving incarceration wasn’t a prisoner’s only concern; you still needed to manage all the shit that piles into the space you left behind on the outside. A lot of it relates to money.
Paul Galbally had handed his initial $50,000 bill to my family. All of my assets – primarily the house in Healesville – had been frozen and I was uncomfortable that my siblings had been asked to bear the cost. I knew that all of this was my problem and I should solve it myself. In such a bind the average citizen might apply to Legal Aid. After all, they defend anyone. But prisoners know better. Legal Aid runs on a bare minimum of funds, which translates to a bare minimum of legal representation. It was common for women to sit in prison for a year and not meet their lawyer until the day they walked into court. I was also determined not to use Legal Aid because I didn’t want to be accused of wasting taxpayers’ funds on a defence. In any case, the title of my home was still in my name so technically I was liquid and not entitled to Legal Aid. I needed Paul Galbally.
If I wanted to get out any time soon I had to come up with a plan.
I drafted a five-page letter outlining the legal limbo I was in and then rewrote it twenty times. When I was finally happy I got hold of the Yellow Pages and addressed twenty envelopes to every high-profile Queen’s Counsel listed within. I figured if I could secure a prominent QC to act for me pro bono, I would direct them to Paul Galbally in the hope he’d go pro bono too. I got five responses. In the end Philip Dunn QC and my warrior Paul Galbally both agreed to take on my case completely free of charge.
I was striking up more and more friendships with the girls in Remand and had become the A5 ‘billet’ – the inmate responsible for looking after the women and overseeing the food orders.
Food supplied for meals from the prison kitchen to the lock-down units was reasonably good – probably the cheapest meat from Flemington Markets, but prepared by crims in the kitchen it became quite tasty. In ‘the cottages’ – where the long-term crims lived – women ordered the food and vegies and cooked for themselves.
The fare sold at the DPFC canteen was usually sweet – biscuits, lollies, Coke and soft drink, chocolate, chips, and other sugary rubbish. Thank Christ they also sold toothpaste, shampoo, soap, basic toiletries, cards, stationery and stamps.
Prisoners never handled money. People on your visit list were allowed to deposit up to $120 per month for you to use on phones or at the canteen, which was credited to your account. You would carry your ID number and card all the time and always knew your balance. You also had a weekly allowance – payment for the work you did – which was paid into your account. If you didn’t have someone on the outside to drop in extra money each month, you lived off your allowance of $22–36 a week.
The longer we were locked up together, the more protective many of the women became of me. Deeper connections had started to grow. As 30 July rolled around, it brought with it my fortieth birthday. All fifty-two women in A5 threw a surprise party for me. They’d baked two enormous birthday cakes and they all bought a little something from their own funds to put into a birthday box. One girl, Maryanne, had gone to the trouble of having her brother drop $120 into the prison, which she proceeded to spend on me. She stuffed the box full of stamped envelopes, writing pads, toiletries, perfume, lipstick, foundations, mascara, blushers, eye pencils, Milo, cigarettes and one of everything available at the canteen. They organised the barbecue to be brought from the main kitchen and convinced the officers that they should supply the meat. It was as big a night as one can have in a maximum-security prison and I was deeply humbled.
One weekday afternoon I was called to the Visitor Centre where a man was waiting for me. ‘Are you Kerry Tucker?’ he asked in a reedy, officious voice.
‘Yes, I am,’ I replied.
‘I am here to serve upon your person a Supreme Court writ.’
‘Serve upon what?’ I queried, scrunching my nose.
‘Your person,’ he re-stated.
‘My person?’ I echoed, unable to resist mocking him.
‘Yes, your person,’ he confirmed.
‘Would my person be … me?’ I quizzed.
‘Yes, it’s you, alright? You,’ he said getting agitated.
‘What is it?’ I asked, moving on.
‘It’s something that you need to treat seriously or you could find yourself in a lot of trouble.’
‘Oh, really?’ I took a long, careful look around the Visitor Centre and then fixed my eyes back on him. ‘Do you think I work here?’ I asked flatly. ‘I live here. You’re standing in a maximum-security prison. Do you think it’s possible to get more serious than that?’
‘Anything related to the Supreme Court is serious too,’ he said and got up to leave. ‘Consider yourself served.’
The writ notified me that my home was going to be sold and all proceeds, plus all my other assets, would be confiscated. I hadn’t even been sentenced. So there I was, forty years old, with no real way of having a proper relationship with my children, no kind of partner to speak of, no home and nothing to show for myself but a box of goodies from a prison canteen. But, as they always say, life begins at forty.
I can’t pinpoint exactly when it happened but sometime during that first year in DPFC I realised I was pretty comfortable being a prisoner. In some ways I felt completely at home. Having never fitted in anywhere else, I somehow clicked in prison. I was useful behind the razor wire; I had responsibilities and a purpose, and people relied on me for help. Not the ‘can you grab some milk while you’re out?’ kind of help – I mean real help, of the ‘please don’t let me die’ variety. In spite of the screaming, the bullying, the violence and the human misery all around me I even felt secure in prison. I came to like being locked up. Eventually I came to need it. None of this is to say I was happy.
It was the stuff that happened on the outside that caused me to develop a reputation as being an angry pocket rocket who used her meat cleaver of a tongue to emotionally dice anyone who caused me unnecessary headaches. The situation with the girls’ father had become incredibly strained and I’m not proud to say I carried it with me on the compound. Every time I passed a prison phone I’d kick it. I’d had a gutful and I started to become adamant there would be no more caving in – for anyone. If women were being bullied in A5 I took it upon myself to step in and end it, no matter how big or strong the bully was or who her mates were. I had totally shed my sissy-girl, newbie skin.
News about my success in getting a QC to represent me pro bono had caused a stir, and word got around that I possessed an almost magical talent for writing legal letters. ‘She’s the fucken best – un-fucken-believable,’ Tracey testified on my behalf. ‘When we were being shat on by the pig dog motherfuckers at Moorabbin cells, Kerry wrote to the Ombudsman! And guess what? The fucken Ombudsman came out and interviewed us. Un-fucken-believable.’
This growing folklore soon resulted in my being approached by every girl in A5 who needed a letter. I had some little successes early on, too; an order granted here, an application accepted by a court there. This only brought more girls in from the compound, and within a month I was preparing letters for nearly half the women ahead of the next visit by the Parole Board. Many of these poor ladies had been robbed of any chance of a formal education and had no idea how to address authority figures. Parole hearings took place three times a year and were a big deal; just like a court hearing complete with judges, magistrates and members of community organisations like Rotary sitting in judgement. Girls would go into the room uneducated, unprepared, ill-informed, grumpy and possibly withdrawing. They felt as if they were on trial all over again, so naturally it didn’t take much for them to tell the Parole Board to go and have sex with themselves.
The Board would hear from forty girls per sitting and the success rate was around ten per cent; usually only four or so applicants got released. I was livid when I heard this. I couldn’t believe women’s sentences were being stretched through nothing more than a lack of organisation and preparation. Some languished behind bars, needlessly, for an extra year!
I took it up with Brendan Money, the General Manager of the prison. He was a genial and warm man in his forties who was always dressed in a suit and tie and clasped his hands neatly in front of him whenever he walked around the prison grounds. He not only knew each inmate’s name and details of their history, he knew the names of their children. He radiated goodness, fairness and warmth. I went to him if I needed assistance with anything major or to ensure he was aware of an issue, and he always heard me out.
When I discussed the parole hearings, he agreed there was a problem but explained that he had no internal resources to address it. Fortunately I’d been giving the matter some thought. ‘Would it be possible for the women to give written submissions to the board?’ I ventured. He didn’t see why not.
‘OK, tell me your entire life story,’ I’d say to the girls during little chats in my cell-cum-office. ‘Tell me what happened to you. How did you end up on drugs? How did you wind up committing crimes?’ Those interviews would form the basis of our letters (at which I was getting better and better), outlining each individual woman’s complicated history and putting a case for why she should be allowed to rejoin society. I’d walk with them to the parole hearing room and wait outside like a nervous parent at a child’s tuba recital. ‘Remember, be polite and hand them copies of the letter to read,’ I’d instruct. ‘Do not speak until they ask you questions. In you go. Good luck.’ Of course, I never discussed their personal histories with anyone.
Out of the next group of forty applicants, thirty-eight were granted parole and released. As the years rolled on I would sometimes get forty out of forty, but I never dropped under thirty-seven. Almost overnight I became a very important figure in day-to-day prison life. If anyone needed an argument put forward, they were sent to see me. I started doing letters for women’s Family Court cases, pleas for leniency, DHS negotiations and Children’s Court issues. Sometimes there would be a queue of four or five people milling at my cell door.
Some inmates, however, would prove harder to help than others.
I’d been on an errand in another unit when a brand new first-timer arrived in A5. She was absolutely terrified so the officers asked me to help settle her in. They did not, however, brief me on what had taken place in the thirty minutes I’d been gone. Apparently she had no sooner landed in the unit than she had been physically frisked for smokes and stood over by three different predators. I didn’t know this and, when I found her, she was sitting in a corner shaking with fear. I knew just what to do: ask her to go outside so we could have a cigarette and a nice reassuring talk.
‘Hello, my name’s Kerry and yours is …?’ I asked her softly.
No answer. Hmm. Definitely time for that walk in the fresh air and a cigarette.
‘Have you got smokes?’ I asked, thinking I’d get her some if she didn’t.
I never got an answer. In an instant the girl leaped off her chair and ran from the unit with blood-curdling screams. I bolted after her and so did the officers, but she was as fast and nimble as a hare. She bounced here, she darted there, screaming at the top of her lungs the whole time. She spotted a gap in A5’s main gate and slipped through it. Now on open ground, she hit top gear and sprinted straight to the outer fence, threw herself onto it and scurried to the top where the razor wire hungrily grabbed hold of her. I could not believe what I was seeing. The girl was now screaming even louder while officers untangled her from the sharp steel rings and took her straight to Medical. The poor thing’s arms looked like they’d been put through a food processor.
‘What the fuck did you say to her, Tucker?’ the officers wanted to know. I explained what I’d said – and intended by it – and that’s when they told me what had happened earlier on. She must have thought I was going to do the same thing; the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. Oh, the irony of her being terrified of me – the one inmate in the whole place whose job it was to protect her.