Chopper Unchopped by Mark Brandon "Chopper" Read

and upmarket drug dealers still operate and control their businesses from behind bluestone walls. A host of bank robberies are planned, put together and ordered from behind bars and carried outside by friends or helpers.
    The amount of crime that is carried out on the orders of men serving sentences is amazing. The amount of crime controlled from behind prison walls would stagger most people. Most drugs deals outside are done over the telephone, so what’s the problem? Over the years half the nut cases in Melbourne have consulted me in prison re killing this one or that one, how to make a body vanish, arson, kidnapping, extortion and a host of other serious crimes. I might add, I won’t enter into anything, or advise anyone unless it is related to the criminal world itself.
    There are petty criminal vendettas and gang wars going on all the time and sooner or later one of the sides comes to me. I have advised both sides on how to kill each other without either side knowing it. I only enter into these things every now and again and I find it to be a good mental exercise and nine times out of ten there is a good drink (payment) in it for me.
    The average crook involved in these criminal war situations has no flair or imagination. If they are prepared to listen and follow my advice I’ll help.
    I love a good criminal war or battle situation and I am only ever consulted on matters of violence and death.
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    I do believe that anyone stupid enough to be convicted of murder deserves to hang. However, for all the limp wrists who think that hanging is a barbaric page of history from the dark ages some conditions should be made.
    I believe the penalty should be re-introduced for anyone offending against children. Anyone who has kidnapped, raped or murdered a minor, if convicted should be hanged. No question. Anyone who disagrees with that, in my opinion, bears watching. Anyone who would not applaud the death penalty for such offences is suspect.
    It appears that the murder, rape and abduction of children has become the Australian national past-time. The hangman and only the hangman can bring an end to this foul practice.
    Just because I am a criminal, or should I say a retired one, doesn’t mean I agree with the actions of the human filth who offend against children. As for the hangman, if I had been convicted of murder I would have saved him the trouble and necked myself.
    I am the only crook I have heard of who believes in hanging. On my right forearm I have these words tattooed, ‘who dares wins’, ‘Kamikazi’ and ‘Bushido’. A host of so-called tough guys say they believe in these words, but will not live up to them.
    I have always kept suicide as my final option, the final laugh at my enemies who feel that they have defeated me. A man who doesn’t fear death, who holds his own life as an option, a man willing to take his own life in the face of final defeat, cannot be beaten.
    My enemies have fallen, weakened and run because they have placed more importance on their own lives than I did. Don’t misunderstand, I don’t want to die. I want to live as long as God allows. But I don’t fear death. As long as my death has a certain amount of style, flair and dash involved, I don’t mind.
    A life sentence in jail is to my mind, the final defeat, the final laugh on me and I couldn’t take that. I would have no way out except to take my own life. I would welcome the hangman. I don’t think there is a sadder, more lonely lost sight than the face of a man who has just been given a life sentence. Everyone I know in the criminal world will disagree with me here but as far as I am concerned the hangman is kinder than old age in prison.
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    I haven’t spoken much about jail and the mental and emotional effect that long years in H Division and Jika have had on me. It has numbed my senses, no-one could ever judge what I am feeling from the expression on my face as I would smile at my own mother’s funeral.
    A smile is just my