The Matriarch

by Adrian Tame

  For a woman of her reputation and standing in the underworld, Kathy has spent remarkably little time in prison—less than two years in total. The first forty of her sixty years of life, in fact, were spent as a cleanskin. She has no real horror of losing her freedom; she regards imprisonment as ‘just another part of life’, and counts among her happiest memories the good times she has shared in Fairlea and Pentridge Prisons.

  The individual cell in which Kathy, like all prisoners, was locked each night provided her with a sanctuary, and clearly represented a form of peace and privacy from the outside pressures of Dennis and the family.

  I was so pleased I had been in Pentridge. I was so pleased I had been through what my kids had been through. Now I know what it’s like. Much better than Fairlea. You get locked up at twenty past four. The door closes, you’re on your own, you’ve got your own room, your own TV. I used to think it was grouse.

  It was while she was working in the massage parlours that Kathy first came before the courts. In March 1975, at the age of thirty-nine, she was fined $40 for indecent language, but both the conviction and sentence were quashed on appeal six months later. As she recalls the episode:

  Well the constable or who ever came said something, and I went to close the door and he kicked the door and it hit me in the knee, and I swore: ‘Fuck you!’ So, indecent language, right, and he puts me in the van. I appealed against the $40 because I was in the end flat of the block and how could people have heard? It was quashed.

  So it wasn’t until she was forty that her criminal record began. By this time her son Dennis, sixteen years her junior, had already amassed convictions for rape, assault and a multitude of lesser offences. He and his brother Peter were then in prison serving sentences of ten and fourteen years respectively.

  Kathy’s first real conviction came in February 1976, when, under the name Lee Kirk (one of her many aliases) she was fined $60 for using premises (The Black Rose) for prostitution. Four months later she received her first prison sentence—three months for harbouring a known criminal, Joe Tongalini.

  I knew Joe Tongalini from when he was in Beechworth gaol, a good bloke, staunch. I don’t know what he was in for, you never ask that, you never, it’s bad form unless they’re willing to tell you. He used to mow the lawns at the gaol, and he told me he wanted to see his parents ‘cos they were old or something, very ill. I had the parlour in West Melbourne, and he come there, and I sent him down to the butcher’s shop, and he got some osso buceo. I cooked that, and then the cops kicked the door in.

  Today she has no memory of fear or shame at the moment sentence was pronounced. The three months was reduced, on appeal, to two weeks, and she served just nine days in Fairlea.

  Okay, I didn’t know what to expect when I first went into gaol, but I wasn’t scared. The message had already gone into Fairlea from Dennis and Peter to look after their Mum. As soon as I got in there a big tall thing in overalls, I didn’t know if it was a man or a woman, came up to me and said: ‘Have you got any weed?’

  ‘No,’ I said, so she got me a packet, and I tried to roll a cigarette, but I didn’t smoke. She said: ‘You ain’t smoking cigars now, Kathy.’ And she rolled me a little skinny cigarette, we used to call them greyhounds. By the end of nine days I was able to give her everything back she’d given me.

  The same year, 1976, she faced other charges of unlawful possession, unlicensed driving, assault, hindering police and using premises for habitual prostitution. The offences arose from an incident when she and a friend without a driving licence were picked up while he was driving Kathy’s car. ‘Yeah, I probably hit the cops, but they always throw that in anyway,’ she laughs.

  The following year, 1977, she was back inside. This time the offence was obtaining property by deception, involving a cheque book and $4,000. She received fourteen months, with a minimum of two months. Six years passed before Kathy’s next prison term, but in the interim period she was fined $125 on charges of indecent language and using premises for prostitution. In March 1983 she received twenty-eight days for five charges of assault and assault by kicking, but the prison term was reduced on appeal to a fine.

  I was a bit drunk and we went to the Whittlesea swimming pool right on closing time. They accepted our money and Vicki jumped in the pool with her clothes on. Next thing there was a whistle and this butch lesbian and a couple of blokes that looked after the pool comes down. So that was it. The police handcuffed me and had me in the office. They nearly broke my arm putting the handcuffs on behind me back, because I was kicking ’em with bare feet.

  The cops put me in the divvy van, and I screamed out to everybody coming out of the pool: ‘That lesbian in there attacked me.’ I said it was PMT [pre-menstrual tension] because that had just come out. The jack [detective] laughed and he said: ‘I’m not putting that down.’ I said: ‘Well, it’s true.’ I got to the court case, right, and I said: ‘Where’s the old bloke that I’m supposed to have kicked nearly to death?’ The jack said: ‘He’s in hospital, he’s had a heart attack.’ By the time it come to the case he was dead, not from me. They only give me four weeks because I had to mind Lindy and Jade [Kathy’s granddaughters].

  In March 1984 she was fined for possession, as a prohibited person, of an unlicensed pistol, a magnum, and three months later she was fined $150 for assault on police.

  The Enforcer [Dennis’s principal minder] was there at Stephenson Street sitting on a gun, and I’m ironing, right? And Victor and Trevor’s there. Well there was a raid and the police tipped The Enforcer’s chair up, and the bloody thing falls out. So I’m waiting for someone to take it. Well Victor and Trevor didn’t step forward, and neither did The Enforcer, and the cop said: ‘Your house, your gun, you’re going.’ And I’m ironing.

  So Victor comes in and bails me out for $500. Trevor’d hit someone over the head with the gun in the morning, and forgot to tell me, and they’ve run in at lunchtime and arrested me.

  She was sentenced twice in 1986 for possession of a firearm, and drug offences. She and Trevor were charged with possession and trafficking of eight ounces of heroin, with a street value of $200,000, dug up by police in the backyard of 35 Stephenson Street, Richmond, one of a number of houses purchased by Dennis from the proceeds of his drug dealing. When the cases came to court, the trafficking charges were dropped, and Kathy received an eight-month gaol sentence, and Trevor, then aged twenty-two, was sent down for seven months. Each time she spent five months of her sentence behind bars.

  Three years later she was on committal on charges of conspiring to traffic heroin, trafficking in heroin, and possession of heroin. Police had kept the Stephenson Street houses under surveillance during January 1988 and as a result raided the premises, allegedly finding heroin and cannabis. Trevor, who was living there with Kathy at the time, was also charged.

  When Kathy came before the Magistrates Court for the committal in March 1989 all charges against her were dropped. The magistrate sitting accepted there was no evidence against her.

  Most recently, in 1993, Kathy faced fifteen charges, including six of trafficking in a drug of dependence and possession of a pistol. These were eventually whittled down to one count each of trafficking in heroin, amphetamines and cannabis. She received an eighteen-month sentence, half of it suspended for two years. She served the remainder.

  So, despite being a relative stranger to the system, Kathy enjoys respect both from inmates and, in many cases, from prison authorities, from governor level on down. This attitude is caused by her prevailing optimism:

  Look, you see it was easier for me ‘cos I was older and I didn’t have to worry about children. That’s the real killer, not knowing what your kids are up to. I didn’t have that. The other thing, what’s the good of being morose and sad. You can still have fun in there.

  The other positives Kathy has on her side are her pride in any work she is given behind bars, and her consistent support for the vulnerable—the weak or elderly who are all too often seen as fair ga
me and preyed upon by other prisoners.

  This is illustrated by her last physical encounter in 1994, when she was fifty-nine. Kathy has never denied she has a fearsome temper, and that her lack of ability to control its periodic outbursts has consistently caused trouble for her and considerable suffering for those on the receiving end. But sometimes that suffering can be deserved.

  * * *

  Margaret Raby was one of the more tragic cases to come before a Victorian court in recent years. On 22 November 1994, fifty-one-year-old Raby was sentenced to gaol by Mr Justice Bernard Teague, sitting in the Supreme Court, after a jury found her guilty of stabbing her husband to death. The charge was manslaughter, and the circumstances leading to Raby’s decision to end her forty-six-year-old husband’s life came after weeks of physical, psychological and sexual abuse at his hands.

  Raby, a state registered nurse from Keilor, had originally pleaded not guilty to murdering Keith Raby on 6 October 1993. But when the charge was reduced to manslaughter she was convicted and gaoled for twenty-eight months with a minimum of seven. Because of time already spent behind bars awaiting trial, she was ordered to serve only an additional fourteen days.

  Raby had been married to Keith for only eleven weeks, but his previous wife gave evidence of twenty years of abuse at his hands. Starting on their honeymoon, Raby raped, beat and tortured his second wife, Margaret, on an almost daily basis. Despite this Margaret Raby loved her newly wed husband ‘more than anything in the world.’

  So by the time she went into Fairlea awaiting her trial on a murder charge, Margaret was middle-aged, terrified, grief-stricken, and entering an environment about which she knew nothing. She also weighed a little over forty kilos and was four feet ten inches (147 cm) tall. ‘I was on my own, I didn’t know why I was there,’ she says. ‘Prison is a world within a world, it’s so alienating. I didn’t know what to do. There was not much kindness.’

  Like other prisoners Margaret was supplied with two pairs of tracksuit pants and other prison garments. But this didn’t stop her trying to maintain some brave semblance of life on the outside. She insisted on washing one pair of tracksuit pants every day, so she always had a clean pair, and she refused to wash her clothing in a machine being used at the same time by other prisoners. This, inevitably, led to trouble.

  Margaret was taking an educational course from 9a.m. to noon at the time, and one morning had her clothes in the wash when the course started. A young prisoner called Linda agreed to her request to put them in the drier for her when they were finished. But when Margaret returned from her lessons her clothing was still in the washing machine. Unwisely she made a derogatory comment about Linda, not realising she was within earshot.

  ‘She was in a cubicle and heard me. She jumped me, grabbed me by the throat, and threw me up against the door. That’s what my husband used to do. She thumped me and yelled and swore. All I could do was to run out and hide in the kitchen under the table. I crouched down.’

  Later Linda overheard Margaret talking on the phone to her lawyer, mentioning the attack. The result was a second beating. By now Margaret had been in Fairlea for a month, and unknown to her, Kathy was about to join her. ‘Kathy was so gentle. She said: “I’ll look after you. We’ll show them, love.” I was in a cottage with Kathy to look after me. Nobody ever questioned Kathy. It wasn’t so much that they were frightened of her, I think it was respect for her. She grew ten foot tall if she was provoked. It put me off limits to people like Linda, it was well known, and it made me feel a lot better. I didn’t do much without Kathy, she taught me who was okay to talk to.’

  Kathy was aware Linda had been standing over Margaret, and let her know the violence must end. Linda ignored this and assaulted Margaret again. Then she sent a message to Kathy which became the final straw. Kathy’s cooking was popular with prisoners, and their favourite dish was her corned beef and cabbage with mustard sauce, which she generally prepared for Sunday evening’s meal. Linda’s messenger told Kathy the girls were fed up with her corned beef and didn’t want it. Kathy snapped, and launched a vicious attack on Linda, who was half her age, and much larger and fitter.

  Me brain snapped. I’d put up with months of this tart, and I ran down from my bedroom, and I jumped over the couch, how I did it I don’t fucking know.

  I took a running leap down the passage. Well, I got stuck into her and I blacked out, and I remember the girls pulling me off. I knew she’d done that to Margaret. If the girls hadn’t pulled me off her I wasn’t finished with her. I wouldn’t have killed her, but I would’ve given her the best hiding she’d ever had. And I said to the thing: ‘My fucking name’s not Margaret Raby either.’

  Well the next morning on the muster line she’s got a big black eye. I give it to her, but I got pulled off. So this lady screw says to me: ‘Do you know who gave Linda a black eye?’ I said: ‘No.’ She said: ‘Well, pat ’em on the back.’ And I never said another word, but the whole gaol knew.

  Kathy and Margaret were together for six months in Fairlea, but later, when Margaret served her last two weeks, Kathy had been released:

  She used to write to me, and send cards telling me: ‘Keep your chin up, it’s not for ever, you will be home soon.’ When she was on the outside she always made a point of making sure people got cards at their birthdays and Christmas.

  I think she is the most wonderful person. She guided me the right way, she told me what would happen at the trial. When I went to court, or even the dentist, she would come to the gate with me, and see me through the gate. She was like a mother. I love her like a mother, a friend, and everything else.

  Another point Margaret remembers about Kathy was that she always found out when a new prisoner was due to arrive, and would make contact early on and, if they were newcomers to gaol, would offer to teach them the ropes.

  * * *

  Kathy’s hunger strike in 1977 over the treatment of the prisoner in solitary confinement was an incident that won her widespread approval among inmates, and, unofficially, among a percentage of prison officers at the time. The author visited Kathy at the end of her period without food, and can testify to the extent to which it cost her, both physically and emotionally.

  But it wasn’t the discomfort that finally came close to breaking Kathy. It was the loss of privileges, or one in particular—the right to see her children.

  This Mothers’ Day, in particular, I wasn’t allowed to have visitors, and I could see them coming with the flowers and that. As you know you could bring flowers in those days, until people started to put the smack and that in them. And I’m left there in this dormitory and there’s nine beds in it. If I could have got a sheet over that beam I would have hung meself that day, I was that upset. Because I couldn’t see me kids.

  In 1986, the year Kathy finally made it to Pentridge, the Federal Government instituted a drive against social security fraud. A number of recently arrived immigrants, who had attempted to gain illegal payments shortly after their arrival in their new country, were flushed out and convicted, and ended up in the women’s division at Pentridge.

  I get called up to the office, and I think: ‘What have I fucking done now?’ And the chief is there pulling his hair out, and he says: ‘They’re [the social security frauds] all yours.’ And I said: ‘What do you mean they’re all mine?’ He said: ‘You look after ’em.’ I said: ‘I don’t have to, but all right—I want eight new mop heads.’ He said: ‘Eight new mop heads?’ I said: ‘All right, you mind ’em yourself’ So I get the eight mop heads, fix ’em on the handles and give ’em out to the new ones and stand ’em in a row and say: ‘Come on, let’s make out we’re an army.’ I get ’em in a kitchen and we scrub the floor and things like that. And we’d have a lot of laughs, it wasn’t all sorrow, right? You had a lot of fun.

  After the dole cheats, the next new arrival to come under Kathy’s wing was a Chinese girl convicted of bringing a kilo of heroin into Australia. She couldn’t speak a word of English, and Kathy instantly felt sorry
for her because of her treatment at the hands of customs officers who had removed the heroin from where it was taped to her body. ‘She was still red raw. My heart went out to her.’ Kathy christened her Suzi Wong and embarked on her education.

  The first word Suzi learnt was ‘screw’. Kathy took one from the hardware section, showed it to Suzi and mouthed the word, and then pointed to the nearest prison officer. There were hitches, however, as Suzi began to pick up the language. Kathy had insisted she stand up for herself, and not jump when the prison officers summoned her. So, for weeks, every time an officer spoke to her, Suzi would respond fiercely: ‘What do you?’ ‘No, no, no, Suzi, “What do you WANT?” ’ Kathy would shout in the background.

  Kathy preferred Pentridge to Fairlea.

  At Fairlea you have to listen to everyone else’s problems. I mean you have girls come in screaming all night. They’d be screaming and knocking on the doors. The screw would sing out: ‘What number?’ and we’d all be listening, ‘cos we had a rule: after you got your medication that was it . . . go to sleep. So we’d hear: ‘What number?’ and they’d sing out. And next morning we’d get ’em. Give ’em a biffing.

  It was while she was in Fairlea that Kathy received some unusual medical advice.

  Olivia Newton-John’s brother was there. So he’s told me to get my frustrations out by standing on the football field and screaming out. So I used to. I’d stand there and scream out: ‘Vegemite!’ at the top of me voice. Well screws would come running from everywhere with their walkie talkies. They didn’t know what was going on. When I was leaving they said: ‘Why did you do that?’ I said: ‘Because Dr Newton-John told me to.’ They said: ‘I wish he’d fucking told us.’