All language subtitles for The.Night.Caller.S01E04.WEBRip.x264-ION10

Court of Criminal Appeal Matter
number 122,

Button against the Queen.

I have concluded that
the verdict must be regarded

as unsafe and unsatisfactory
on the grounds...

[Cheers and applause]

-This is your vindication.
-Well it is, yeah.

But our job
was nowhere near done.

We had really only
just scratched the surface.

The Button case has shone an
uncomfortable searchlight

on police practice,
stretching back many years.

Jim: Police, they were prepared
to cut corners

if they were convinced
in someone's guilt.

John Button wasn't
the only case.

Reporter: 19-year-old Beamish
said he was tricked into

signing a confession.

Estelle:
Two young men were sacrificed

so that the police
could keep their careers.

I think the Police Department
are only part of it.

The judicial system,
the community, and the press

all combined to ensure

that neither of those guys
ever had a prayer.

Bret:
How many other people are out
there, wrongfully convicted,

who are innocent and in jail?

This can't keep happening.

Estelle:
And the police files were
full of crimes

that Cooke had confessed to.

Young women, home alone, in bed,
were being attacked.

By stabbing, by strangulation,
and by shooting.

Estelle: As well as hit runs.

One minute he was
coming down the road,

the next minute
I'm flying through the air.

The police kept it quiet

because there was a pattern
to many of these crimes.

That's when I realized
there was a big cover up.

They were happy to let
two men rot in jail.

Man:
It's like a stone in a pond.
The ripples don't go out.

Everyone suffers.
-It's made me nervous.

Probably never, ever felt
safe at night again.

Why did he run me down?

The rampage of death.

All of a sudden you lose
a mother.

I see it as a private holocaust.

It only belongs to me.

♪♪

♪ So you run, run, run

♪ From everything you are

♪♪

♪ And you're lost

♪ With every scar

♪♪

♪ And you say my name
like it's a game ♪

♪ But you can't hide

♪ I see you there

♪ Behind the lies

♪ You never know the pain

♪ It comes and goes

♪ In waves that cannot
be erased ♪

♪ It only fades away

♪ Long enough to remember

♪ The price we paid

♪♪

Helen: John, is it in that
first...

-In here.
-Mm. I've got a bad back.

But I don't want you doing it
with the back surgery on yours.

John: That was Helen and I
going out together.

Seven...
-1967.

In '67, yes, after I came
out of prison.

Helen: When --
when I was up at the studio.

-Yeah, yeah.
-And you asked me for a dance.

I said, "I'm not
dancing with you."

[Chuckles]

That was Rosemary.

She's, ah, just turned 17.

Helen: There's lots
of stuff in there.

John: Rosemary's still part
of my life,

and it affected my life
with my wife

and it's been very hard
for her to basically

be stuck in a marriage
where there's --

there's three of us.

Helen: Very sad times,
when you look at it, John.

Pretty tough.
-Yeah.

It is very sad at times,
to be honest with you.

Very sad.

You know, there's times
he'll talk of her,

and you don't know whether
it's really worth the effort.

That's the detectives
with Eric Cooke.

Eric Cooke took them out
to where he had hit Rosemary.

Helen: There has been times
that I've been thinking,

"I'm going to leave him.
I'm just going to walk away."

He builds her up.

It's this absolutely perfect,
perfect girl,

and I just think,
"Well, I haven't been perfect."

Um -- Yeah, and it's hard to
swallow...

...at times.

So you just have to go on.

Keep going forward.

Hmm.

But I think as
I'm getting older,

I'm finding it harder
to go forward.

Really do.

I can see the love and tender
care my Dad holds for my Mom,

but I think they lose sight
of each other in that

because there is
this big gaping wound.

It is just...
it's just me.

Naomi: My Mom finds it
really difficult

because she lives
in the shadow of Rosemary.

Yeah, I'll have a bit
of time out, if you don't mind.

Estelle:
39 years on, the teenager,
now a grandfather,

was no longer a murderer.

With that in mind, I started
looking at another man in prison

for a crime
Cooke confessed to.

And I discovered corruption in
the justice system was systemic.

John Button wasn't
the only case.

♪♪

Man #1: The murder of a woman
called Jillian Brewer,

who was one of the heirs

to the MacRobertson Miller
chocolate fortune.

Estelle: She was a socialite,
an heiress from Melbourne.

Man #2:
He had watched Miss Brewer
through a window

in her flat,
entered through the back door,

and hit her on the head with
a hatchet as she lay sleeping.

[Woman screaming]

♪♪

Estelle:
Darryl Beamish had confessed
to killing Jillian Brewer.

♪♪

Here we've got
Beamish's confession.

"Did you get blood on you?"

"No."
"Why?"

"I put a blanket
over head of lady."

"What did you do with scissors?"

"I put scissors on the table
and I run away."

The witness is Owen Leitch
and Jack Deering.

Beamish, he was convicted
after a confession

he gave to
Detective Sergeant Owen Leitch,

and he was serving life
in prison.

But what the cops
did in fingering

Beamish was probably
their lowest move.

Reporter: If you'd look
at the document for me.

It's written, "Yesterday,
you took us and said

you'd killed a lady
at night."

And then,
"Is that right?"

And then someone's
written, "Yes."

Did you write that?

Interpreter:
The CIB actually wrote
a copy out first,

then asked me to copy it
in my own writing.

So they asked you
to copy out the answers

that they'd written
on another piece of paper.

Interpreter: Yes.

Darryl's deaf.
He's totally without hearing.

I mean, absolutely, totally.
He can't --

some deaf people can
hear something with assistance,

but he can't.

A 19 year old with the verbal
understanding

of a 7 year old.
-Right.

With that in mind,
there's no way he could possibly

have understood
what was going on,

when Leitch was attacking him?

-No.
-But he was forced.

Leitch had a hand
on the back of his neck

and a hand forcing his hand
to write this out.

So when they wrote,

"Did you kill the lady?"
You wrote, "Yes"

but you were just copying out
what they'd written?

Interpreter: Yes.
The CIB wrote it,

and like I said, they said to
me, indicated "Yes."

Did you at any point turn
to the interpreter

and ask her to tell the police
for you that you didn't do it

and to clear
up the confusion?

Yes, I did.
I said to her,

"Look, I didn't murder.
I didn't murder anyone."

And she just basically
kept her mouth zipped.

♪♪

Jim: Beamish.

The same issue was raised
as to whether the police

were too enthusiastic
to get a conviction,

and they took someone
with disabilities

and took advantage
of those disabilities.

Man: The police were behaving
in a way

where they took justice
into their own hands

and determined guilt
without proper process.

Did the police cut corners?
No one said those things.

No one talked about
Darryl Beamish's rights.

He was simply a man
who the police had said

had committed this
horrendous murder and charged.

Then he was found guilty.

♪♪

Estelle: The confessions,
Darryl Beamish's confession,

four pages of handwriting.

Very, very light on detail.

And yet this is what he was
condemned to death on.

This is the confession
to murdering Jillian Brewer

by Eric Edgar Cooke.

Great detail.

14 pages of tightly-typed
confession.

And yet, they accepted Beamish's
confession over Cooke's.

Brian:
The police, led most often
at that time by Owen Leitch,

went about their business
unquestioned,

uncriticized and generally
doing things that were accepted

as being necessary
and generally being praised

because that solved cases.

Man:
Leitch raced up the promotion
ladder for Commissioner,

largely on the strength
of the Beamish case.

Publicly, he was a hero.

That's hard to believe,
isn't it?

It was an appalling thing to do.

And it has ripples
right through the family.

Merle: You're never at peace.
Your mind's never at peace.

At night time you lie in bed
there and think and think.

And I have to get up
and walk about

and then perhaps take
some tablets to go to sleep.

I can't lie any longer,
it's on my mind so much.

We'll do what we can to get him
out of that jail

because he doesn't belong there.

♪♪

Reporter: Darryl Beamish
has spent more than four decades

trying to clear his name.

Reporter: Mr.
Beamish spent 15 years in jail.

This is his sixth attempt at
having the conviction quashed.

Reporter: Allowed
by the state government

because of new evidence.

The evidence includes a
confession by Eric Edgar Cooke

that he murdered Jillian Brewer.

Reporter: But in the wake
of the Button decision,

his lawyers want swift justice.

And we're hoping that
the government will see fit

to grant him a free pardon.

♪♪

In the end, the evidence
we gathered cleared the name

of not only John Button,
but Darryl Beamish, as well.

Reporter: Darryl Beamish emerged
from the Supreme Court,

surrounded by family and friends
who've helped in his fight.

It means everything.

We've lived with it
for so many years.

We exposed the truth.

Cooke had committed both of
these crimes,

and the police
let the wrong men pay for them.

The court should have made
an apology to him.

Said, "We're sorry
for what's happened.

We're sorry
what happened to you.

We're sorry what happened
to your family

and we're sorry
we got it so wrong."

I'm just hoping today's other
innocent people

that are still in prison

won't have to wait
as long as we have.

♪♪

[Birds chirping]

Estelle:
Everyone makes mistakes.

What matters is how we respond
to our own.

The police, who sent these
innocent people to prison,

they have never apologized.

Eric Edgar Cooke,
he'd finally told the truth.

And Sally Cooke,
she has taken responsibility.

But the West Australian Police
have never been accountable.

But the Button and
Beamish exonerations

did lead to some change.

Jim: Based upon my concerns
about integrity in policing,

I promised a Royal Commission
into police corruption

with historic cases where people
still protested their innocence,

and about which there was
considerable controversy,

of whether the convictions
were proper in the first place.

In its first week,
the Police Royal Commission

has heard evidence
of corrupt police,

stolen drugs,
falsified documents,

verballed witnesses or...

During the investigations,

a number of these historic cases
kept coming forward.

Reporter: Ray Mickelberg
was locked up for eight years,

his brother, Peter, for six.

Their many appeals costing
taxpayers nearly as much

as the value of the gold
they're accused of stealing.

The Mickelbergs, who were
three brothers,

spent a significant number
of years in jail.

Reporter: To the police,
they were the obvious suspects.

Jim:
One of the arresting officers
came forward with a confession

that the evidence against
the Mickelbergs was fabricated.

The next case was a major one.

Mallard.

Reporter: Andrew Mallard
received a payout

after spending 10 years
in prison,

following an inquiry that showed
trial police were corrupt.

Jim: He was convicted
of murdering a jeweler.

Police and the DPP
withheld evidence

which would have
exonerated Mallard.

All of these cases point
to a measure of malpractice

by the police,
and that Royal Commission

did establish the Corruption
and Crime Commission,

to deal with police corruption
generally.

And hopefully these
sort of things,

well, certainly on this scale,
would not happen again.

♪♪

Estelle:
Beamish, these days, would have
had a second interpreter,

one interpreting for him
as well as for the police.

There is videotaping
of police interviews now,

but there isn't enough.

The issue is, wrongful
convictions still go on.

And as it stands, if you get
fresh evidence, as I did,

and you want a new appeal,

you have to apply
to the Attorney General,

a politician.
Currently in Western Australia,

there's possible legislation
to change this,

so these applications
are going to go before a judge,

not a politician.

But this legislation is being
held up in the Upper House,

and this is legislation
we need to go through.

We West Australians, we pride
ourselves on being honorable,

stand-up citizens
who do the right thing.

And we expect that of everyone
around us,

especially the people we charge
to protect us.

That's what we're fighting
to protect.

And so, I want you to make
your voice heard,

to lobby your Member
of the Upper House,

to tell him this is important,
because we are all responsible

for how we shape
the tone of our communities,

so we can avoid corruption
in the justice

and the police system
and innocent men in prison,

like Button, like Beamish.

Thank you for coming.

[Applause]

♪♪

I'm so angry the police
got away with it.

Estelle Blackburn, I'm so
in admiration

of the research that she did

and how she understood
that there were patterns

that weren't made public
at the time by the police.

We should,
in the Western Suburbs,

take some responsibility

because we'd put the pressure
on the police too much.

If there's any injustice
going on now,

we have to ask as many questions
as we possibly can.

The police, I don't think
I would ever trust them ever,

ever again.

Interviewer:
Do you remember?
There was an exoneration.

Button and Beamish were both --
-Yes, you're -- you're right.

They were found to be
not guilty,

and it was
Cooke after all.

No.

I can't bring my mind
back about that.

Do you believe Button
and Beamish were both innocent?

Well, Darryl Beamish, I
couldn't imagine him doing that.

But I never did believe
Button was telling the truth.

♪♪

Naomi: You know, I think
about my responsibility

as a parent to grow
and care for my child.

♪♪

Hi!
Hi.

I remain in a position
of personal challenge

because I need
to teach my son respect

and trust in authority...

Shall we go
and have a look?

...when I don't hold that,
entirely, myself.

You see this one?

Let's go in there.

I stand here, knowing that
my dad was put in this space

because as a 19 year old, he had
a confession beaten out of him.

How do I teach my child to trust
in a system that I don't?

Yeah, yeah.

♪♪

Helen:
He has nightmares still about
being in the prison,

about being in police custody.

And John's gone through
the deep, deep, deep depression.

Naomi: My dad, over the years,

had a few occasions
of trying to take his life,

resulting in psychiatric
admissions.

John: Helen left me on my own
for the weekend.

I took a few too many
sleeping tablets

and went for a drive.

I finished up falling asleep
at the wheel of the car,

felt my whole body shaking,
and when I opened my eyes,

I was flying over
a freshly ploughed paddock.

Naomi: I love my dad so dearly,

but he lives a life
of chronic psychological pain.

The impact of Cooke's crimes
created tremendous

and extraordinary pain.

[Birds cawing]

Estelle: The police did not
do their job properly.

The irony is, if they had,

Eric Edgar Cooke would've
been caught a lot earlier,

before the Australia Day
shootings, before Rosemary died.

Two men would not have been
wrongfully convicted.

After Jillian Brewer
was murdered,

police investigated
known offenders first.

They went through the usual list
of sex offenders,

and Cooke had been picked up
many times as a peeping Tom.

So they went around
and interviewed Cooke.

♪♪

And Cooke, he said,
"I didn't do anything wrong."

The door crashed open,
and Mrs. Cooke arrived.

And she took over.

Interviewer: What did Eric Cooke
say on that day

following
the Jillian Brewer murder?

He'd been reading the paper
in bed and he called me in,

and he said, "Look at this."

And I said, "Oh, how dreadful.
Another murder."

And he said, "Yes."

He said, "Now you know
the record I've got?"

And I said, "Yes."

He said, "Well, if anybody
comes checking up,

would you please tell them
that I was home early

and that we spent the night
with relatives?"

He said, "Because with my
record, they won't be fussy,

they'll pin it on me."

She said he was home
at 1:00 in the morning

and got out of bed
and fed the baby.

I told them then what Eric
had told me to say,

because it went through my mind,
"Oh, they're doing

exactly what Eric said
they'd do.

They've caught him
for prowling,

and they're going to pin
this murder on him."

Interviewer:
Eric asked you to
give him an alibi.

Oh...
alibi?

To say he was home
the night of the killings.

Yeah, but I -- he was
a thief, see.

I thought he was
a stealer.

God, I wouldn't have had
him in the house

if I'd have known
he was a killer.

I would have been
too scared, you know?

Well, I think she knew
more than she said.

Mm.

Estelle: She gave him an alibi

probably because she was worried
about her husband.

She had suffered a bit
of violence in the home.

She was probably scared.

If it weren't for that alibi,

which had sent them off
in a different direction,

who knows what other murders
might have been prevented?

♪♪

Estelle:
Cooke, once his game was up,
he was happy to talk, really,

and what I find
really unforgivable

is that there's no doubt
in my mind

that the police did believe
Cooke's confessions,

but they didn't want that out.

They were happy to let
two men rot in jail.

And when the detectives took him

on a tour
of the Western Suburbs,

something happened
that confirmed this for me.

We got him in the car
and drove around.

He had a bloody good memory.

He'd say, "Oh yes,
I was in that house,

breaking and entering,
stealing."

I thought, "Well, I'll go up
past Jillian Brewer's place

and see what
he'll think about that."

I said, "Hey, Cookie,
what about Jillian Brewer?

What about that?"

Interviewer:
But Darryl Beamish
was in the prison for --

Yeah, yeah.

Why did you think that he might
have done Jillian Brewer?

♪♪

[Chuckles]
Well...

...you --
you get your idea

about what certain crims
do and Darryl Beamish,

he was a minor thief.

[Woman screaming]

But not that.

I'd go and...

I'd go you that.

Not right.

Brian: In 1983, when I became
Premier,

I found Commissioners were
generally hardworking, honest.

But one of the things that
police always tried to avoid

is having convictions
that they've provoked, upset.

The worst by a country mile
was Owen Leitch.

He intimidated his officers,
in my experience,

and he was a frightening person
to deal with.

There was no one more fervent
in his efforts

to keep innocent people in jail.

He wouldn't have a bar of the
view that Beamish was innocent.

Reporter: Former Commissioner,
Owen Leitch,

the arresting officer
in the case,

couldn't be contacted today,
has always maintained

that Mr. Beamish confessed
to the murder

and has had his day in court.

Estelle:
Incredibly, Darryl Beamish
wasn't the only deaf man

that Leitch framed
for one of Cooke's crimes.

A friend of Darryl Beamish's,
Alan Ellis,

spent two years in prison

for supposedly assaulting
a woman in bed.

Bret: There it is.
Mrs. Peggy Belleville, 21,

made her attacker release her
when she punched him twice.

He fled through the rear door
of the house.

So I interviewed the victim.

She described her attacker,

and it was clearly
not Alan Ellis.

I mean, he was taller,
he had brown hair,

not black curly hair,
and it was clearly --

it was clearly Cooke.

Interviewer: How'd you feel
when you discovered that?

Well I must say, I felt ill,
you know.

I thought, "How many other
people are out there?"

Estelle: And the police files
were full of crimes

that Cooke had confessed
to in great detail,

but the police had done
nothing about them.

The police kept it quiet

because there was a pattern
to many of these crimes.

Young women, home alone, in bed,
were being attacked,

and if this information got out,

it wouldn't take long for people
to start to see the similarities

with the attack
on Jillian Brewer,

and that would put
a big question mark

on Darryl Beamish's guilt.

This meant the other victims,

they didn't know
what had happened to them.

So I thought, "I'm going to have
to find these women."

So I hunted them down.

♪♪

Carmel:
We're in 101 Smyth Road,
Nedlands.

And this is the flat
that I lived in.

-This one here?
-Yeah.

Mollie: So whereabouts
did he get in?

So down here, and there's
about six foot up,

there's a little
tiny window. So...

-Right.
-But look how tiny it is!

Mollie:
No, you wouldn't think anybody
could get through that.

He must have been
quite a skinny bloke.

Here I have Eric Edgar Cooke's
confession

to his attack on Carmel Reed.

"I climbed through an open
window

on the side of the premises.

I walked into a bedroom and
disturbed a young woman in bed

by flashing my torch
into her face."

Carmel:
I'd been out that night
to a 21st birthday party.

I woke up and I thought,

"What the heck is going on?"
-Right.

This figure appeared
at the door with a torch.

"I picked up an umbrella
and stabbed or jabbed

at the woman two times.

I did not assault her
in any other manner."

I just kept kicking out and
started screaming more and more.

And he took off.

So of course I started belting
on that wall there

and said, "Get the police!
Get the police!"

Yeah, well,
not long after,

Lucy Madrill, she had woken up
when he was stealing.

He then just strangled her...
-[Gasps]

-...with a cord of her bed lamp.
-Oh, my God.

So did you have a lamp
by your bed?

-No, thank goodness.
-But also you jumped out...

-Yes.
-...so you were fighting

and running.
-But do you know...

So I think that did save --
possibly save your life.

Cooke, why did he do
what he did?

Estelle:
Eric Edgar Cooke was very badly
treated as a child.

A violent, alcoholic father.

Beaten physically
and emotionally.

He had a cleft palate
and he had quite a mumble,

so he was just ridiculed
by the kids at school.

He'd been disempowered
as a child.

He went to the Western Suburbs,

where the really affluent,
powerful people lived.

So suddenly, he found the power.

"I can get back at you.
I've got the power over you."

This is the confession
on Mollie,

and it's just one of many house
breaks and enters.

"When coming back in, the back
door slipped out of my hand.

Girl woke up, about 16 or so,

so I hit her
with something handy."

Interesting.
I woke up in the middle

of the night with concussion.
-Oh!

So I was staggering around
the house and vomiting...

-[Gasps] Oh!
-...and totally out of control.

Yes.

And I got into my mom
and dad's room,

and then I was taken off
to the doctor the next day,

and I was found to have
a hairline fracture...

-Oh, my hat.
-...in my head.

When did you find out that
it was someone

who'd actually been
in the house?

Well, I didn't find out until
Estelle contacted my father.

Golly!
So 30 years,

and you just
fell out of bed...

-Yeah.
-...you believed.

That's right,
that's right, yeah.

How extraordinary.

Estelle:
You were right in this
crime wave.

I do remember being
in the flat one day,

and these two men appeared
on the front lawn here

with a small man
between them...

-Really.
-...in the middle of the day.

And I thought, "What are those
fellows doing out there?

There's something going on."

And suddenly,
it occurred to me.

I thought, "My God,
that's the bloke!

That's the bloke!"

And I just stood there
and watched them.

Well, they walked around
the flat and off they went.

Mollie:
That's an amazing story.

Estelle: Knowing the truth
is very powerful.

It can't undo what's been done,

but it's good for the person
who's suffered,

and I'm very proud
of what we achieved.

But I still had some
unfinished business.

♪♪

In 1959, Pnina Berkman
was murdered in her bed.

♪♪

The police had
convinced themselves

that her boyfriend had done it
and fled home to Greece.

In fact, this was Eric Edgar
Cooke's very first murder.

He gave a detailed account
of how he had done it.

While the police accepted
his confession,

they didn't inform
any of the family.

Small photo.

Which meant
that Pnina's son, Mark,

who was 8 at the time,

had no idea
what had happened to his mother.

♪♪

I spent years trying to
find him, but I couldn't.

♪♪

♪♪

-"Patricia Vinico Berkman.

Died 30th of January 1959,
aged 33."

Deeply mourned by
her son Mark."

I was sleeping
with another family.

It was a school holiday,

and I don't know
what happened that night.

Oh, this is dear Mum.

I had a Polish father

and a lot of his family
perished in the Holocaust.

At the age of 4,
they divorced,

so my mother just took me,
and we went off to Perth.

♪♪

Ah, here are old photos of Mum.

And then all these articles
which are not fun to read.

"The Rampage of Death."

All of a sudden,
you lose a mother.

One day you see her,
the next day you don't.

And you don't know the reason,
and it doesn't really matter.

I see it as a private holocaust.
I got a private one.

It only belongs to me.

There was a funeral.

I wasn't at the funeral.

My father, I suppose, was there,
and a few other people,

and he took me to Melbourne
and life started in Melbourne.

But again, it didn't start,
because he put me

into an orphanage
for another four years.

♪♪

Luckily, he had another
two brothers in Israel,

and they pushed him
to leave everything

and come over to Israel.

The same day I started
going to school,

I met my wife,
and we're together ever since.

[Chuckles]

In 2004, we decided
to go to Australia.

We met our third cousin, Diana.

She said, "You know what?

There's a book that they wrote
about you.

'Broken Lives.'"

And I read
about the whole story.

I nearly fainted, because it was
the first information

that I received,
reading the book.

Where it was.

Who did it.

I was angry at him,
at what he did.

But I learned what happened,
happened.

I have to continue with my life.

I said, "Okay, now we have
to meet Estelle."

One day, out of the blue,
I got this contact.

It was an e-mail.

"Good day, my name
is Mark Berkman."

Whoo!

"Dear Estelle Blackburn,

I would like
to introduce myself.

I am the son of the late
Pnina Berkman

and with your permission,
I would like to write to you.

Thank you, Mark Berkman."
How formal.

And I'm screeching with delight.
[Laughs]

I just opened up
the White Pages,

found the telephone, called her.

Not only did he know nothing
about his mother,

he had blanked out,
he'd forgotten,

everything from the time
that he was 8

when she was murdered
to the time

he'd got to Israel
when he was 12.

He knew nothing.
His life had disappeared.

We started to build up
a friendship.

And then she said, "I'm gonna
do this, we're going to do that.

You come over in 2006 again."

-I made a huge banner.
-Hey!

-Marky!
-Do-do-do-do-do!

Hey!
I was in tears, of course.

Oh, welcome, welcome.

Oh, you must be tired,
you poor thing.

Interviewer: Did she connect you
with your

former babysitter, with Daphne?
-Yes.

Going into the Millikan
family's house,

and we see photos of me
and mother on a memorial wall.

He just couldn't get over that
we had all these photos of him.

Where did that all come from?

And they told me,
they explained to me,

I was there that night,
and they have a memorial.

I was so pleased
that I had them.

Yeah.
It was wonderful.

Mark: We went to the grave.

At the grave, there's feelings.
-It was just unbelievable.

[Singing in foreign language]

Everything came rushing back,
you know.

It was happy and sad
at the same time.

[Singing in foreign language]

And we had a whole ceremony,
like you should.

A Jewish ceremony.

We had a prayer.

For her sake,
I vow this to charity,

now that her soul is remembered.

And that was really something.

That was emotional.

That was the best.

Now I think we have closed
the circle of life

where living and the non-living
are connected.

Thank you.
Another kiss for Michael.

And I want to say,
"I'm glad I was born."

I'm glad I had such a life.

And I'm getting to the goal.

I'm getting closer
to my childhood.

I'm getting closer to what
I wanted to achieve

at the moment in my life
is to know everything.

Everything, everything,
everything that happened.

And we're getting there.

Slowly, slowly,
things are getting there.

Bye.
See you next time.

Minutes after reading
the chapter with all

the information, I thought,
"I have to find Estelle."

Estelle: All these years on,
there are still people

who carry the scars of
the crimes of Eric Edgar Cooke.

So you've got lots of people
who understand,

who've gone through
the same experience.

So here's to all
of you survivors.

Far more people than
we understood at the time

really affected by his attacks
and the police.

No reference of the police
of ever charging him with it,

telling the family about it.

Estelle:
Their families, their friends.

There are a lot of people,
still,

in Perth sleep
with a light on at night.

I don't think I've ever felt
the same about windows at night.

I -- it really turned me on
to safety at home.

Yeah.
We're very careful.

Those sorts of things always
have an emotional effect

on people, always.

It's made me, probably,
nervous.

I'm a fairly nervous person.

I still have all the windows,
lots of windows in my house

open, but they've all got
a good security screen on them.

Georgina:
I wouldn't even go out
the house and collect the mail.

I made my mom put
the big wardrobe

in front of the bedroom window.

I was so, I was still...

-Yeah.
-...scared.

I still don't like being
in a house on my own at night.

It's...
it's still...

I'm --
I'm a scaredy bum.

It changed the way
that Perth people

lived forever,
I would say.

I probably never, ever felt safe
at night again, after that.

No.

♪♪

Interviewer:
How is life today?

I suppose over all the years,

I may finally accept
what has happened.

Just hope I've got the wisdom
to decide between things

that I can change
and things that I can't.

♪♪

The spot just down here
where I picked Rosemary up from.

-Quite sobering.
-It is.

What's playing in my mind
at the moment is imagining you

at 19 years of age
standing here, frightened,

scared, overwhelmed,
panicked, grief-stricken.

Well, it was
all of that, yes.

Everything all mixed up,
and not knowing what to do or...

And you've had to live
through it, haven't you?

Well, it's defined me...

-Mm.
-...as it's defined you.

It has. It's played a major
part in our whole life.

And the thing that saddens
me the most

is I'm not convinced that you've
totally found your freedom.

No, no. I'm still
tied to the past.

And I don't think you will
ever find your freedom.

-Mm.
-I think part of your freedom

was taken on that fateful night,
at this site.

-It was, yes.
-Yeah.

And yet the irony is had this
not occurred, I wouldn't exist.

That's, that's right,
yes,

because of the way
the cards fell.

But I really wish for you
that you hadn't had to encounter

the pain and suffering
that you have all these years.

Mm. Yeah, there's been
a great tragedy.

But it's changed us all,
hasn't it?

-Mm-hmm.
-What happened.

I had always believed
the police told the truth.

The idea that the police
are there to protect you,

and nothing can ever go wrong

providing you do
the right thing.

That just isn't right.

And the only person that told
the truth was Eric Edgar Cooke.

Basically said,
"I've done something wrong.

By my confession, let me
try and put it right."

Nobody else has come forward
and said, "I'm sorry.

Let me try and put it right."

♪♪

Sally:
I shall make a cup of tea.

Right.

Interviewer:
What was the most
important thing

for you at the time?
What did you want?

I only ever wanted
to get married

and have a big pile of kids,
I used to say.

And I got what I wanted.

I worked in the markets
as a waitress in the cafeteria.

Loved every minute of it.
That's where I met my husband.

Eric was lovely.

I thought he was a very
clever person.

One of the school teachers
that had him at school,

she said he could
have been a genius.

He was so clever.

But he was made to leave school
at 13

and go out to work
because of his dad.

And his dad was a drunk.

I felt sorry in a way.
-Was he difficult?

Sally:
Well he wasn't a good husband,
put it that way.

A womanizer.
Always with other women.

The women that knocked on my
door after he'd gone and asked,

"Are you Eric Cooke's sister?"

And I said, "No, I'm his wife

and these are
his seven children."

And one girl cried.

She said, "He told me
he wasn't married,

he was looking after his sister
whose husband had died,

and she had a lot of children,"

so it was his responsibility
to look after me.

That was the story he gave.

[Laughs]
You gotta laugh.

I laugh now, too.

After he died,
I got a choice off me sister.

I either move away,
go to another state

and change me name,
and they'd keep in touch.

She'd keep in touch with me.

And I said, "Well, looks like
I'm losing a sister,

'cause I ain't going nowhere."

You've got to stay
and face things, and all my kids

I've taught that,
and they all live up to it.

I'm very proud of my family.

My family could've been a lot
different to what they were.

Not one of them took after him.

Tony Cooke.
-Yeah.

Sally: The eldest boy became a
social worker in the prisons.

And he was scared he wouldn't
be accepted in the prisons

because of his father.

-Yeah.
-But he was accepted.

And everybody loved him.

What was the impact on you
and your family at the time?

I'd have to say it has made
a huge impact on me as a person.

It guides me in what I do.

It's formed my values
and my attitudes.

It's given me the conviction
that what I should be doing

is working towards
a more positive society,

the sort of society that doesn't
breed people like my father,

in the most positive sense,

and that's why I do,
in many ways,

what I do in my private life
and in my public life.

Unions will not stand for that
type of action in our community.

Hugh: Tony became a very
well-respected politician

in the face of what seemed to be
almost overwhelming adversity.

Their son was
extremely successful

and a very good person.

He was all for the people, Tony.

We're here to defend
the average battler.

1.5 million people
haven't achieved

real increases in wages.

Who are going to be the victims
of this sort of legislation?

Sally: There was a walk through
town for the unions.

He was head of the unions
at the time.

The government, they said
he wouldn't get three people.

♪♪

And I was right behind him.

To my mind, that says one hell
of a lot for Sally Cooke.

I think she deserves medals,
frankly.

She did an amazing job
to bring up that family

under the circumstances

that she found herself in,
before and after.

She's done a good job,
obviously.

And I -- you can't take
that away from her.

I said, "No matter what happens,
don't run away from it."

[Clears throat]
"Stay and face it."

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪ I'm runnin' for your love

♪ I wanted to be right there

♪ But it won't change
a thing, I know ♪

♪ It's never enough
to say your name ♪

♪ And I think of all
the years we lost ♪

♪ I'm runnin' for your love

♪ I want it to be right there

♪ But it won't change
a thing, I know ♪

♪ It's never enough
to say your name ♪

♪ When I think of
all the years we lost ♪

♪ I'm runnin' for your love

♪ I want it to be right there

♪ But it won't change a thing,
I know ♪

♪ It's never enough
to say your name ♪

♪ When I think of all the years
we lost ♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪