Original subtitles

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 ...

(CHEERING 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.

- 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.

- 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.

- How many other people are out there,

wrongfully convicted, who are innocent and in jail?

This can't keep happening.

- 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.

- 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 realised there was a big cover up.

They were happy to let two men rot in jail.

- 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.

(MUSIC PLAYS)

# 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 comes and goes

# In waves that cannot be erased

# It only fades away

# Long enough to remember the price we paid. #

John, is it in that first ...

- In here. - Mmm.

I've got a bad back.

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

- That was Helen and I going out together.

- Seven -- - 1967.

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

- 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.

- There's lots of stuff in there.

- 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.

- 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.

- 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 Mum,

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.

- My Mum 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.

- Thirty-nine 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.

- The murder of a woman called Jillian Brewer,

who was one of the heirs

to the MacRobertson Miller chocolate fortune.

- She was a socialite, an heiress from Melbourne.

- 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)

(WOMAN SCREAMING)

- 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.

- 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?

- 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.

- Yes.

Ah, 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 seven-year-old.

Interviewer: 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?

- 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.

- 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.

- 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 police had said

had committed this horrendous murder and charged.

Then he was found guilty.

- 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.

Fourteen pages of tightly typed confession.

And yet they accepted

Beamish's confession over Cooke's.

- The police,

led most often at that time by Owen Leitch,

went about their business

unquestioned,

uncriticised

and generally doing things

that were accepted as being necessary

and generally being praised,

because that solved cases.

- 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.

- 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.

- Everyone makes mistakes.

What matters is how we respond to our own.

The police,

who sent these innocent people to prison,

they have never apologised.

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.

- 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.

- 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 enquiry

that showed trial police were corrupt.

- He was convicted of murdering a jeweller.

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.

- 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 honourable, 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.

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.

(HEAVY DOORS CLOSING)

- You know, I think about my responsibility

as a parent to grow...

Hi!

..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?

- (VERBALISES) - Yeah, yeah.

- He has nightmares still

about being in the prison,

about being in police custody

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

My Dad, over the years,

had a few occasions of trying to take his life,

resulting in psychiatric admissions.

- 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.

- 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.

- 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 Cookie 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.

Mmm.

- 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?

Cooke, once his game was up,

he was happy to talk, really,

and what I find really unforgiveable

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?

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.

- 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.

- 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.

- 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?"

- 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.

- We're in 101 Smyth Road, Nedlands.

And this is the flat that I lived in.

- This one here? - Yeah.

- 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!

- 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.'

- 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...

- Ohh! - ..with the cord of her bed lamp.

- Oh, my god. - So did you have a lamp by the 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?

- 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...

- Oh! - ..and totally out of control.

- Yes.

And I got into my Mum 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. (LAUGHS)

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

- How extraordinary.

- 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.

- That's an amazing story.

- 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 eight 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 four 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 learnt what happened, happened.

I have to continue with my life.

I said, "OK, 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 eight

when she was murdered

to the time when he got to Israel when he was twelve.

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 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.

We went to the grave.

At the grave, there's feelings.

- It was just unbelievable.

(SINGS IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

Everything came rushing back, you know.

It was happy and sad at the same time.

(SINGS 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,

and 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.

(CROWD CHATTER)

Minutes after reading the chapter

with all the information, I thought,

"I have to find 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.

- 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. 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 opened,

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

- I wouldn't even go out the house

and collect the mail.

I made my Mum 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... - Mmm.

..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.

- Mmm. - 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.

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

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

- Mmm. Mmm. - 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."

- 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, but 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?

- Well he wasn't a good husband,

put it that way.

A womaniser.

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.

- 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.

- 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?

- 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 want it 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...#