Dancing with Demons

by Tim Watson-Munro

His sense of triumph was supreme.

  Not so for the young lad.

  ‘Th-th-that woman,’ he stammered. ‘The one in the striped dress?’

  ‘Yes mate. That one.’ The arrogant smirk was irrepressible.

  I sensed a faux pas.

  ‘You a-a-a-a-arsehole,’ the young man stammered. ‘Th-th-th-that’s my f-f-fuck’n mum.’

  No rules at the races. After I had delicately separated the parties, I decided it was time to leave.

  However, as fate would have it, my calculated exit would prove to be not so easy. After negotiating my way onto Epsom Road, the abrasive tooting of a car horn interrupted my drive home. Headlights flashing, it was accelerating towards me from behind at lethal speed before lurching into the adjacent lane and drawing parallel to my motor. Eyes right, I saw the unmistakable half-crazed visage of Jason Moran grinning wildly and signalling for me to pull over.

  ‘Hey Doc,’ he screeched as he ran towards me. My heart skipped another beat. Our association had always been cordial and professional, however, I did wonder if he bore some grudge.

  ‘Hey mate,’ was my meek reply.

  By this stage my window was open, gaping wide. I was vulnerable.

  ‘Hey Doc, how are you?’ he laughed, before producing the largest reefer I’d seen since university days. Pot was everywhere at university in the ’70s, but I never liked it.

  ‘Here, have a drag of this.’ He thrust the joint into my mouth.

  How to refuse Jason Moran without offending him? It called for fast, nifty footwork.

  Luckily, I was saved by the bell. Well, the ring of my car phone actually. A Motorola brick it was my constant companion and distraction.

  I politely returned the joint and gestured I could be a while. Moran understood. After all, some days he too would be on the blower for hours, discussing important legal matters with his brief.

  And so, with a friendly thumbs up, he decamped. Gone in a flash, his driver hurtling down the road at breakneck speed.

  And, for the curious, I did not inhale.

  Jason Moran was eventually slaughtered point-blank in a family van in June 2013. His kids were playing in the back seat. It was a Saturday morning at Cross Keys Reserve, North Essendon. It was a seemingly safe place occupied by innocent, everyday families. They were there to see their children play footy. A rite of passage for young boys.

  In this respect, Moran was no different to any other proud dad. He loved his footy and his family. He didn’t see it coming. Not there. There were unspoken rules of engagement in the underworld. One of them being, never in front of the kids. This callous murder was a vicious and personal execution.

  Much has been written of Jason Moran. Thug, standover man, drug entrepreneur, a seemingly endless list of pejoratives. His behaviour is a matter of public record. However, as so often is the case, the soft underbelly of the gangster is never really discussed.

  It is not my intention to eulogise him, nor indeed the others who were murdered during this brutal period of Melbourne street theatre. Rather, to make the point that there is always another side to a person’s public persona.

  During that underworld war, Judy Moran’s family was obliterated – a husband and two sons murdered in stone-cold circumstances. Whatever the public perception of Judy Moran, only the most heartless could not empathise with the enormity of her grief. For me, the harrowing footage of a distraught mother arriving at the crime scene of her youngest son’s slaying, overwhelmed in her grief, will never be forgotten.

  I have known Judy professionally for years. After a protracted, very public trial for the murder of her brother-in-law Desmond ‘Tuppence’ Moran, for which she maintains her innocence, I compiled a comprehensive psychological report on her which was tendered to the Victorian Supreme Court.

  Nearly twenty years on, writing this memoir causes me to frequently reflect on those days. Were those men bad? Were they mad? In truth, both. I endeavoured to treat all of them with humility, respect and non-offensive candour. In return, I was gifted with honesty, respect and a road map to the dark side. It was a privilege to enter the psychic realm of these blokes. Even though, ultimately, the knowledge and insights I garnered would prove to be my undoing.

  DEPRESSION

  The year 1996 had been momentous. I was involved in some of Australia’s biggest, most notorious cases, and Carla and I were expecting our third (my fifth) child. We were overjoyed. And yet, despite this beacon of hope, I was starting to realise that I was suffering from a serious depressive illness.

  The seeds of my malaise had been laid years before. By the time the Hoddle Street case finished, my sensitivities were nigh on destroyed. I was having flashbacks to the forensic material – detailed photographs of cadavers mutilated beyond recognition, and the testimonials of witnesses to the horror.

  And then there was the politics of the case. Those who were close to me at the time could see I had withdrawn and that my wit had acquired a caustic edge. I was frequently prone to bouts of emotional flatness, often accompanied by prolonged sessions with my companion, Dr Scotch.

  ‘Plumbers have lousy drains,’ or so the saying goes. The same could be said of the mental health profession when it comes to attending to their own problems. Certainly this was true in my case. I had been experiencing symptoms of sleep disturbance, poor appetite and reduced levels of energy for some time, in varying degrees of intensity. In addition, I was plagued with self-doubt.

  My achievements over the years did little to alleviate my strong feelings of futility regarding the future, chronic feelings of worthlessness and recurring thoughts of ending my life. Such intrusive thoughts gradually became the bread and butter of my daily existence. And yet I was in denial, refusing for nearly a decade after the Hoddle Street case to recognise – let alone acknowledge – the depths of my despair.

  I would camouflage my restless feelings of emptiness by working even harder, up to eighteen hours a day. Textbooks of psychiatry describe this behaviour as ‘manic defence’. It is a typical coping mechanism for depressives who have not quite hit the wall. Mine was a classic case of depression and denial. Each new ‘big case’ diverted me temporarily from my malaise. Each conclusion of a big case would see me plummet even further into what the author William Styron has described in his classic essay on depression as ‘Darkness Visible’.

  Finally I saw my GP and confessed my concerns. He recommended a psychiatrist. I knew nothing about this particular doctor but was grateful he could see me at short order. I had spent the preceding day and night tearful, angry and afraid. My despair was palpable.

  The initial meeting was standard fare. My symptoms were obvious. The doctor took as detailed a history as time and circumstances permitted. At the end of the hour he pronounced I was suffering major depression and recommended Zoloft, a powerful medication, as the first line of attack. A further appointment for the following week was arranged.

  I left feeling a little fortified, believing that I had taken a big first step in acknowledging I was unwell. I also knew the process would be long and tortuous.

  Although I had surrendered to the reality that my condition was one I could not heal by myself, I nonetheless found being the patient unnerving. By that stage I had spent nearly twenty exhilarating years climbing the ladder, enjoying recognition and being in control. Trust is a key element in the therapeutic contract. But my life experience, the nature of my specialty, and my depression itself all made it hard for me to trust.

  And yet, paradoxically, I was highly trusted by my clients. I carried the secret stories and lives of others, which would make most people’s blood run cold. Forensic psychologists are not protected by legal privilege in the way lawyers and priests are. And yet we act as a confessional every day.

  Years ago, a psychiatrist colleague told me during a long colourful lunch, ‘Mate, we are nothing more than highly paid dunny bowls.’

  ‘Quoi?’ I responded, unsure whether it was his quirky humour or something more serious. He
was well fortified.

  ‘Think about it,’ he continued. ‘People visit me three times a week. They feel safe and disinhibited. Their emotional shit has been building up for years. They struggle with their constipation and, finally, they experience the joyous moment of relief as they release.

  ‘I sit there, unabashed, while they take a long dump. Gallons of crap, every session. I block my nose, I listen, absorb and then assist to wipe their arses. And they leave, relieved for a moment until the next visit.’

  ‘Really?’ I wasn’t convinced yet.

  ‘Sure thing. We digest other people’s effluent for a fee . . . We are their psychic toilets. That’s what we do.’

  I felt it was perhaps time for him to schedule an appointment with a fellow toilet-professional as he was clearly very depressed. Indeed, many mental health professionals I have known over the years are depressed, and often prone to substance abuse.

  I decided if I was to have any chance of recovering from depression, I had to take a leap of faith and trust the doctor. And so I persevered. Over the next eighteen months or so, I saw him on a weekly to fortnightly basis. With time a bond of sorts grew, although I remained sceptical. Sceptical primarily because I felt I wasn’t improving. I was also concerned that his solution was to increase the dosage of my meds to near-lethal levels. This anti-depressant made me ill. I was suffering from chronic nausea, anorexia and other appalling side effects. The good doctor wrote copious notes about all this and yet failed to change anything. But by that stage I was in no place to argue.

  Carla’s pregnancy was progressing well and it continued to give me some hope for the future. All this changed on 19 February 1997. Carla had attended a regular review with her gynaecologist. All was not well. The following day we found ourselves at the Women’s Hospital in sixteen gruelling hours of hell awaiting the stillbirth of our son. Even now, as I am writing this, I feel the raw emotion of that day. My hands are trembling. My eyes well with tears.

  I made an urgent call to the doctor. Back then, I had no mobile phone, so I waited in a queue for a payphone. It was Melbourne summer, a filthy, abrasive dry heat embraced the city. A metaphor for the internal hell both Carla and I were enduring.

  The doctor was understandably concerned. During our last session, he had asked me whether I felt suicidal. I hedged my response, although my body language had said it all. He urged me to see him as soon as possible.

  Following the ‘birth’ we named our little boy Billie. We wanted a proper funeral, which was organised for later in the week. The chaplain was amazing in her support. A stark contrast to the detached, clinical approach of the specialist who had assisted with the birth.

  ‘Dispose of the body, go home and, if you want, try again.’

  I came close to knocking him out.

  Following the loss of Billie, my mood tanked even further. The doctor’s solution was to increase the meds. My dose had quadrupled from 50 milligrams to 200 milligrams. I felt like the walking dead. The side effects were horrendous. I complained, but at no stage did he listen, nor suggest an alternative.

  I trusted that the doctor knew his stuff. ‘Maybe if I sleep a few more hours,’ I mused, ‘perhaps then I’ll feel better.’

  But no, alas, as the months drifted on my mood dipped even further. I couldn’t sleep at night and I was constantly retreating to bed during the day. Guests would visit our home on the weekends. After the usual pleasantries, I would retreat to bed. In my mind, there was simply no joy to my life, and very little purpose. And then there was the incessant nausea. Due to my lack of appetite, my weight dropped. There were times, however, when I would rally and, for a day or so, life seemed to be normal.

  And so the roller-coaster hurtled on. Good days, bad days, impossible days. Good sleep, bad sleep, no sleep and horrifying nightmares.

  Just when I thought things could not get worse, they did.

  I was sitting at my desk, attempting to be normal, when the call came through. It was the doctor.

  ‘Any chance you can come in this arvo, mate? I’m unavailable next week.’

  I was happy to oblige, being in the comfort of my shrink’s suite seemed much more appealing than coping with my demons alone.

  ‘Sure, mate, I’ll see you in an hour.’

  Following the session, the good doctor advised me that it was our last meeting. No forewarning, no empathy and no arrangement to refer me on.

  ‘I’ve decided to retire,’ he calmly advised. ‘I’m tired and I plan to shift to the Tyrol to grow grapes.’ He chortled. His clinical insensitivity was astonishing.

  My reaction was a mix of bewilderment, sadness and rage. ‘This is very abrupt, mate. When did you know this was on the horizon?’

  ‘Just this week, I plan to leave work in three days.’ He was highly distracted. I was in no state to read, assess or analyse the cues. And so, in the twinkling of an eye, the trust, rapport and reliance, which I had developed with the doctor over the past year or so, was irrevocably destroyed.

  The doctor shook my hand, provided me with a script and then, with a few shallow words of reassurance, bade me farewell.

  I was gutted. Where to now?

  Several nights later, I attended a dinner party hosted by Julian Burnside QC and his delightful partner, Kate Durham. Over aperitifs she blurted out my doctor’s name and asked if anyone had heard the news.

  My ears bristled. My appointments with him had been a tightly held secret. Was the word out?

  Before anyone could answer, she continued. ‘He’s been struck off! It was on the news tonight. He was sleeping with a number of his patients. He’s evidently bipolar.’

  My sense of betrayal was overwhelming. Not only had the weak prick lied to me about moving to Tyrol, he was also disturbed, manic and, in all likelihood, making poor clinical judgements.

  No wonder he wasn’t listening when I complained about the side effects of my near-lethal doses of meds. I felt ill, so much so that I left before dinner, lamely excusing myself. ‘Must be a twenty-four-hour bug.’

  Carla comforted me during the short drive home. The impact was immeasurable. Despite suggestions from some of my peers that the nature of my work should be supervised so I could keep tabs on my own mental equilibrium, I lost all faith in the profession and foolishly resolved to go it alone.

  CARPETED BY THE BOARD

  By the time the Grollo case had adjourned for Christmas in 1996, I was exhausted. I had run out of energy and I was grateful for the break. I returned to work in January feeling somewhat rested. My secretary was still on leave and mercifully, as was generally the case at this time of year, my workload was not at full steam.

  After finishing with a fairly straightforward case, I went to collect my mail. Among the usual correspondence, I noticed a letter from the Victorian Psychologists Registration Board.

  ‘Probably my 1997 Practising Certificate,’ I thought as I carelessly tore open the envelope.

  ‘Holy shit,’ I exclaimed, my hands shaking as its content hit my consciousness like a sledgehammer. Instead of my practising certificate, the envelope contained a brief note from the board’s registrar seeking a response to an allegation of sexual misconduct received by them in writing several days beforehand.

  In that moment, my whole world changed. I knew that the client, a woman facing charges for stealing a doctor’s prescription pad and stockpiling pethidine to satisfy her addiction, had made serious allegations of sexual abuse in the past, including a claim that she had been raped by a specialist at a leading teaching hospital. And I knew that the filing cabinets of professional registration boards throughout the world were bursting at the seams with the allegations of those emotionally troubled individuals who focus their lifelong feelings of anger and resentment toward their therapist when the bottomless pit of their needs and demands are unable to be met. But nothing had prepared me for this.

  I immediately called Carla, followed in quick succession by calls to criminal lawyer Bob Galbally and my practice partner,
Dr David Sime. Neither man could be reached. I then called my friend Michael Brereton, who insisted that I see him as soon as possible.

  ‘You need the best medical defence lawyer in the business,’ he said as he walked me through the history of my involvement with the woman. ‘I’ll make some enquiries.’

  Several days later I was advised that John Snowdon was the best lawyer in the country for this type of case. John was a senior partner at Phillips Fox, a firm that had used me in a professional capacity on a number of occasions over the years. I nonetheless found it extremely difficult to make first contact with him, feeling a newfound humiliation in having to advise him that I was not ringing about a mutual client – I was in fact about to become his client. Provided, of course, that he accepted the brief. He and his associate, Natalie Franks, immediately swung into action. I established a solid working relationship with John and Natalie. She was amazing with her support, which continued over the entire period of the enquiry.

  John advised me that it could be an endless wait before there were any developments. In the meantime, by his account, I was supposed to keep up with my life, keep working as though nothing was going on and, just for good measure, tell not a soul about it. Keeping this one quiet will be impossible, I quietly reflected. It was a non-specific complaint, no particulars, and no opportunity at that stage to defend my reputation before my peers. Fantastic.

  The weeks and months passed. After a month I had heard nothing further. John’s occasional calls to the board to enquire about the progress of the complainant’s response were met with what seemed like indifference.

  Nevertheless I abided by his advice. The few people who knew about the complaint were sworn to absolute secrecy and as for the rest – my family and close friends – well, they were just kept in the dark. In the months to come they all wondered why I was becoming more withdrawn, sullen and obviously depressed.

  It wasn’t until seven months or so later that we finally received the further particulars that we had requested, the intervening period had seemed like an eternity. I was riddled with chronic anxiety, sleep disturbance, escalating depression and a deep-seated concern regarding my future career. Attached to the doctor’s affidavit was a notice of a formal enquiry, which the board intended to commence in early October 1997. Not only was I charged with sexual misconduct but, as well, the issue of my not charging the woman a fee and the whole issue of transgressing professional boundaries by seeing her away from my office would also be explored. The substantive charge amounted to ‘infamous conduct’, and, if proved, would inevitably lead to my lifelong deregistration. It was a very serious situation indeed.