All language subtitles for After the Night s01e04_English

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...#