Original subtitles

I cut my ears off and I was considered quite normal.

I don't want to get married and raise a brood of children

or lead a normal life.

Personally, or in company, I put off about 19 people.

Je ne regrette rien. I regret nothing.

They happened, they had to happen.

I was never quite the psychopathic murdering madman

they had me down as being.

I have.

"Chopper" Read has been my cartoon character.

I'm telling the truth now.

Mark Brandon, "Chopper" Read.

you know the name, you know the face but do you

truly know who he was?

A psychopath, a murderer, a conman.

Was he all, some or none?

And it could go some of the way to perhaps explaining why

a violent criminal became and remains

to this day a national fascination.

Please give it up for Mark Brandon "Chopper" Read!

Best-selling books, a blockbuster movie,

sold out speaking tours followed

but where and how did the "Chopper" circus begin?

Mark Brandon Read was born in Melbourne on 17 November 1954.

His mother was a deeply religious Seventh-day Adventist,

his father a former soldier.

Read's youth was spent in and out of children's homes,

foster care and even psychiatric hospitals.

By his late teens, he had begun his true descent into crime...

..learning how to become a stand over man,

on the streets and inside prison...

..as he served time for assault and robbery.

But it would be for a brazen, audacious,

or according to some stupid, Australia Day crime in 1978

Read would be sent down for a long stretch,

as he tried to kidnap County Court Judge Bill Martin

in an attempt to get a mate freed from jail.

He just casually walked up to the judge

and all of a sudden he just walked up,

wrapped his left arm round the judge

and pulled the gun from underneath his jacket

and held it at the judge's head.

I attacked Judge Martin in the County Court on January 26, 1978.

I was trying to get my mate out of jail, where they were at.

But I was apprehended and brought to Pentridge

and they gave me 17 and half years

for my trouble and it has been going on ever since -

trouble, trouble, trouble.

And it would be from within prison,

no less than Pentridge's infamous 'H' division...

..where "Chopper" truly began his rise to notoriety.

One of the most violent and most feared prisoners

in the Victorian prison system...

Notorious 'H' Division prisoner...

Mark "Chopper" Read.

Inside jail Read's legend grew, as stories emerged during

a vicious fight for control among inmates,

and Chopper's ability to tell a tale only added to his growing mystique.

What would motivate you to get involved in that gang war?

I did not like the faces of the people, of the opposition.

When I arrived in 'B' Division

they seemed to have everything under control,

they were making all the home brews

and getting all the dope in and organising everything

and run around the place like kingpins.

And so I thought I would rectify the situation

and we had some home-made axes made up down the engineer's shop.

And there was me and a couple of friends.

I made them wear overcoats and we had axes up our sleeves

and we went around and dealt with the situation.

And it would be Read and his feared overcoat gang

who would come out on top,

but along the way his list of enemies had exploded.

"Chopper" was forced to take drastic action

in an attempt to get away from them and out of 'H' division...

..describing the act which he arguably remains best known for,

getting another prisoner to remove his ears

in horrific but compelling detail.

Cutting like a piece of bread,

just cutting through and the blood spurting out,

and he got that one off and then he proceeded to be sick.

The blood was spurting out and I put my hands over my ears

and it sounded like I was listening to trickles of water.

I heard all these trickles of water,

it was trickles of blood coming out through my hands.

I just can't seem to do anything right,

everything I say do they say that's faithfully sane.

I cut my ears off and I was considered quite normal.

Quite normal.

Normal.

Normal or not it didn't work.

"Chopper" stayed in maximum security and it caught up with him.

He was eventually cornered, stabbed by members of his own gang.

He lost part of his intestine but he survived.

How do you think the other prisoners would see you?

They hate my guts, I'm as popular as a porkchop in synagogue.

Even in the darkest of places talking about the darkest of subjects,

Read could spin it into a joke and it was perhaps here

where he began to sow the seeds for a persona he would come to promote -

an Aussie Robin Hood who only terrorised criminals,

the nation's underbelly.

There's nothing for me in the future, there's no great...

I'm not motivated by money, I don't want to get married

and raise a brood of children or lead a normal life.

I've got no interest in that.

I'm stuck with what I've got.

After the better part of a decade behind bars,

Read was eventually released but soon found himself under arrest again...

..after Melbourne drug dealer

"Sammy The Turk" Ozerkam

was gunned down outside a St Kilda nightclub in 1987.

He'd been shot in the left eye from less than a metre away.

Someone with a .410 shot gun.

Lying face up on the concrete.

Read didn't deny shooting Ozerkam but at the time

claimed it was all in self-defence,

describing what happened with chilling composure here to police.

It's like, "Show me your gun, show me your gun, show me your gun."

Crazy, man. And what did you do?

I reached behind here.

(GUN NOISES)

So you have...

I had my shot here, at the end of that here.

A jury believed his story and Read was acquitted of manslaughter.

He didn't remain free for long, though,

returning to Pentridge once again for shooting

a second drug dealer and burning down the house of another.

He would be behind bars for two more years.

After his release from prison in 1991,

he left Melbourne and his perceived enemies behind,

heading for the hills in Tasmania, vowing to go straight,

but would it be a promise he could keep?

I like Tasmania, it's a really very nice place.

If people want to come looking for me it's one-way traffic.

We'll tell you, soon.

Lead a normal life, I've got no interest in that.

I'm stuck with what I've got.

There's nothing for me in the future.

But the future was here...

..and Mark "Chopper" Read was free after years

in one of the toughest prisons in Australia.

Read had amassed plenty of enemies in and outside of jail.

So less than a week after his release in 1991,

Read and his partner Margaret Cassar left Melbourne for greener

and supposedly safer pastures in Tasmania.

I like Tasmania, it's a very nice place. It's a lovely place.

Apart from that if people want to come looking for me

it's one-way traffic,

They come down here, it's a hard state to get out of.

They just cannot jump on a train,

the planes only leave a couple of times a day.

If people want to get me, they come down here...

..they're virtually trapped.

I've never really thought about anyone coming after him

but there are hundreds out there he's not very popular with,

but I'm not afraid of it.

I'm afraid of losing him, yes,

but I just don't think about that.

It was here Read decided to write his first book,

a confessional or an embellishment.

Whatever it was, it was a bestseller and it gave ordinary Australians

a rare glimpse into a murky and violent world.

The criminal world is controlled by blood and guts,

it always has been controlled by blood and guts,

it always will be controlled by blood and guts.

When you say blood and guts, what do you mean?

People with the greatest capacity to inflict violence,

murder and mayhem on others.

Bloodthirsty stories but told with a lot of flair

and perhaps a lot of dramatic licence.

Personally, or in company, I've put off about 19 people.

You've killed 19 people? Hmm.

So how do you feel about that?

They'll all criminals, they're all big enough and man enough

to look after themselves.

It's the world they lived in, it's the game they decided to play.

They got beaten at their own game.

Je ne regrette rien. I regret nothing.

The "Chopper"'s style had arrived...

Like a blowtorch.

The smell of burning flesh in the air. (LAUGHS)

..somehow attempting to make a tale of torture tolerable.

To make whoever it was we had more cooperative.

It never failed? No, you can say once. Once.

What happened then?

We shot him in the head.

'Cause he wouldn't part with the cash?

He was the toughest bastard we ever come across.

He was a Scotsman, come from New South Wales and all he did,

we did everything to him.

He just abused us and spat his own blood at us.

"Chopper" and the crooks and killers he mixed with and targeted

lived by the dark code of Australia's underworld.

Tough and obscene to the rest of us, "Chopper" had his own interpretation

that to him seemed perfectly normal.

The one who wins the game is the bloke who lives the longest.

The graveyards are full of rich crims

but these cokers can be knocked off every day of the week

and they get knocked off by blokes like me.

To "Chopper", it was a parallel universe but he had no qualms

about giving us a front row seat.

You're watching a snakepit and you're seeing

one snake kill and eat the other snakes.

You sit... What do you think to yourself?

Are you angry at the snake that's winning?

I am in a world that's got nothing to do with you, right?

The only people I hurt are people that you couldn't care about anyway.

Sounds like you're just offering excuses

for some fairly heinous crimes.

I am offering excuses, bloody good excuse though isn't it, eh?

'Cause let's face it, you don't give a shit what I do.

I've never really felt too sorry about it.

With perhaps a glint of honesty, perhaps a crack in the facade.

A tiny breach in the bravado.

There's a few things we all regret in our life

but generally speaking I regret nothing.

I didn't grow up wanting to be in the criminal world,

my mother brought me up to be

a strict Seventh Day Adventist until I was 15.

Religion can drive you mad.

This reflection came at a time when he might have found

a little righteousness in his life....

..but then this man came along.

Sid Collins, Chief of the Outlaws biker gang.

"Chopper"'s finger was back on the trigger.

How would it end?

Bang. Find out next.

The only people I hurt are people that you couldn't care about anyway.

For Mark "Chopper" Read, that way of thinking

had been his licence to shoot.

But he had spent a long time in prison and as he walked to freedom

he pledged he was quitting his life of violence...

a resolve that lasted just a matter of months.

Old habits die hard.

Because he was the National President of Outlaws Motor Club

I was supposed to donate $8000 to his bloody wedding.

So all the people that were coming to the wedding,

the main people, had to bring eight grand.

I'm not giving him eight grand for his bloody wedding,

I don't even know how to ride a motorbike.

With his bloody bike,

he's gonna invite me to their bloody wedding,

and you've got to bring bloody large amounts of money.

Stick it up your bum.

And is that why you shot him? Yes.

What more do need? Bang. Get a bit of that into you.

(LAUGHS) (LAUGH REPEATS)

But it wasn't an underworld assassination.

In "Chopper"'s eyes it was simply a warning shot

albeit one in Collins' stomach.

Then you had him driven to hospital.

Well, I said, "You want one to the brain"? "No."

I said, "You're going into the hospital,

"you're telling people?" "No."

"You're not telling people." "Yes." "Won't give me up?" "No."

"Alright, good.

"So we can take you to hospital and you remain silent."

"Yes."

"Word on that?" "Yes."

"I believe you. Rightio, take him to hospital."

But Sid didn't stay silent.

"Chopper" was found guilty.

Classified, highly dangerous and sent back to jail.

The Hobart Court heard Read used a handgun

to shoot the former head of the Outlaws biker gang,

Sidney Collins, as he sat in the back of his car in Evandale

near Launceston last May.

As it would later unfold, and as you will see later,

Sid Collins would again haunt "Chopper".

They had unfinished business,

business "Chopper" would claim involved a buried body...

..somewhere in the country.

First though there were long years to survive behind bars,

time that would cost him his relationship with the one person

who had stood by him for so long.

I don't really believe I know the "Chopper" Read,

I know him as Mark Read.

I see a very gentle person and I see a lot of warmth in him

where others may not have been able to reach him in that area.

After Read was locked up in Tasmania's Risdon prison,

Margaret left returning to Melbourne.

"Chopper" was looking at potentially a lifetime behind bars.

The jury found Read guilty.

Now Read could remain in jail for the rest of his life.

But while he was incarcerated

Read would meet and marry Mary Ann Hodge,

who would be instrumental in his bid for freedom.

We just want to have a normal, happy life together.

We'll just be a normal, average couple I think.

After another half decade on the inside and not knowing

if his enemies would come after him,

"Chopper" went to ground after his release,

living the quiet life for a short time on a farm in Tasmania.

I don't want to get married and raise a brood of children

or lead a normal life. I've got no interest in that.

And it would be there where he would become a father for the first time.

Suddenly the man who held other people's life so cheaply

was starting to value his own...

..but that time out of the spotlight wasn't to last.

I'll tell you what, you try getting from where you're sitting

to the front door.

'Cause I reckon I could shoot you from where you're sitting

to the front door.

If "Chopper" seemed larger-than-life,

the movie about his career as a criminal, starring Eric Bana,

would blow it up even further. The knuckleheads.

I could have shot them in both kneecaps

and finished a game of cards

before this crew of retards got their act together.

The film was an international success.

Suddenly everyone wanted a piece of Read.

For better or worse, he'd become a figure in Australia's modern culture.

His life told on the big screen,

his scarily mesmerising interviews on television

and the public curiosity had brought "Chopper"

to the peak of his dubious fame.

Perfect timing for him to take to the stage.

Let's give it up for Mark Brandon "Chopper" Read!

He drew an audience that had an appetite for the seamy side of life.

There was a bizarre edge to the evenings

and sometimes it was downright freaky.

Right!

Stab wound here, two there.

Across here, you can see them.

Here.

The back.

There was an appetite, as well, for "Chopper"'s writing.

His books could make you laugh and shake your head in disbelief -

all at the same time.

Titles like 'Road To Nowhere',

'Hits and Memories'

and 'How to shoot friends and influence people."

And there were also those who thought his skills could be put to use,

in a message to men who hurt women.

You will get dealt with, you will suffer.

We will break your neck, you low, gutless, weak mice.

Be afraid because if you come to jail

you're gonna have every bloody reason to be afraid. (CACKLES)

And there was a road safety advertisement.

Read did it his way.

People come down, they want to do a drink-driving commercial.

You know? What am I supposed to do,

run around the house with a feather duster

singing 'The Sound Of Music'? Like...

They wanted something with a little bit of impact

and I think they got it.

Killers on the road were hitmen too, he growled.

You're no different than I am.

You're the same as me.

You're a murderer and maggot just the same as I am.

It was classic "Chopper" logic behind his message.

Linda Lovelace is a campaigner against pornography.

No-one's having a go at her.

But...you're asking people to take advice from a hitman?

Yeah, well, I reckon they should be well advised now and again

to take advice from someone like me.

You know?

Whether you take advice from all sorts of people,

you can take advice from me. Might live a bit longer.

Some were outraged at the self-confessed killer's role

but he had an answer for them.

Maybe the ad might save a life or two.

What happens if the ad does save a life or two?

Do they say, "Oh, well..." Is that what you hope?

I hope it does save a life or two.

I got a little kid now.

I don't want anyone running into my car blind drunk.

Whoo! Ahh!

And there lies the catalyst for the change

that was coming over Chopper -

his son with Mary-Ann, Charlie, was growing up fast.

Charlie...

What are you going to tell Charlie about Dad when he grows up?

I don't know. (SIGHS)

That's a tricky one. Are you worried about that?

Yeah, I am a little bit, yeah.

Can't really clean it up when you've got books out...

No, no.

..describing the whole sort of tale, have you?

No. I have thought of that, yeah.

Most little boys want to emulate Dad.

Well, maybe if I become a better person,

try and do a few good things...

Thoughts of redemption...

Chopper showing remorse...

Chopper the family man...

Perhaps.

But with reservations.

If you're hoping for a profuse apology

followed by a tearful rendition of 'Danny Boy',

you're going to be a long time waiting,

because I don't regret anything.

I'm not sorry about nothing, and the things that happened years ago,

they happened, they had to happen.

That's the way it was.

That's the world I was in.

Chopper's relationship with Mary-Ann didn't last,

and he returned to Melbourne,

where he was reunited with Margaret.

Margaret's everything. She means everything to me.

She saved my life, you know.

They married and Chopper had a second son, Roy.

It meant those niggling questions he faced with Charlie,

he was facing again.

My little boy, seven-year-old little boy, he said to me,

"How many people have you shot, Daddy?"

I said, "Not nearly as many as people think."

He said, "How many people have you killed?"

I said, "Not nearly as many as people think."

I said, "Where did you get hold of that question from?"

And his mother had let him watch the 'Chopper' movie,

and I thought that was a silly thing to do.

For a man who never had regrets,

Read was certainly having major doubts.

Was the fame he had originally craved...

..helped create and cultivate...

..becoming a curse?

You need a download some Chopper on your phone!

I've become a cartoon character, I have.

Chopper Read and Mark Brandon Read are two different people.

Were Chopper's ghosts finally catching up with him?

How would he react?

All that still to come,

plus the exclusive, never before seen footage of Mark 'Chopper' Read.

For a man who had arguably chased fame,

Chopper was now finding it more trouble than it was worth.

With fame came the trappings...

or not.

A life of crime and a life talking about those crimes...

So he literally kicked his arse in...

(LAUGHTER)

Anyway... Anyway...

It's a comedy evening and I thought that was a funny story.

..suddenly wasn't paying.

Money passed through his hands,

but none of it seemed to stick.

I should've been tied up, locked and kept in a cupboard

when they were handing out credit cards.

His stick ups, his stand-over tactics with drug dealers,

then getting paid to talk about it all...

But for a guy with street smarts, he was not very sharp with cash.

And he thought plastic was fantastic, almost magic.

I wasn't prepared to be given an American Express card.

I should've been tied up, locked, kept in a cupboard

when they were handing out credit cards.

I should not have been allowed anywhere near a credit card.

I thought they was just manna from heaven.

I thought, "Credit card?

"Oh, money, money, money!

"Free money!"

He racked up astounding bills and soon found himself bankrupt.

Bitterness was also building about those who were stealing

his mystique and cashing in on the legend of Chopper,

which he was perhaps also starting to regret.

Everyone I seemed to come into contact with had a good idea

for how to help me make money,

and they seem to have made money out of it

and I haven't made money out of it.

The rip-off king felt he was now being ripped off.

Chopper Read's become a cartoon character,

and Chopper Read and Mark Brandon Read are two different people.

I don't know what Chopper Read's doing at the moment,

but he's having a much better time than Mark Brandon Read's doing.

Anger at the blockbuster movie's portrayal of him

and Margaret was also growing.

Was he trying to finally start setting the record straight?

I was never quite the psychopathic, murdering madman

that they had me down as being,

and Margaret wasn't a prostitute or a junkie.

More legal dramas followed, but, by Chopper's standards,

they were minor -

careless driving, a familiar court appearance.

But there was one thing missing...

..Read's usual swagger.

Courtrooms always put me to sleep.

Ah, rubbish.

I bumped into some car and that's it, you know, rubbish.

One of the more less eventful...

Waste of time even taking me to court.

Rubbish. See you later.

If anyone was going to give some insight into the real Chopper,

it was Chopper himself...

..through an unexpected medium - his paintings.

Hi, Mark. Good to see you again, mate.

How you going? We've come to pick out our painting.

They were big, bright, and brawny,

like Chopper himself.

Here we go, the first one. Yeah, this is the first one.

Oh, the Collingwood boxer, awesome.

Sweet. That's terrific.

Yeah. Signed on the back, no less.

And is it any surprise Ned Kelly was one of his subjects?

Other artists might have sold their works through an art dealer

or a gallery.

Chopper used a mate who owned a pawn shop.

Honest Frank Deany, an honest trader.

Painting was a deeply valued escape for a man who had spent

so much of his life behind bars.

And those prison bars were now way in the past.

Chopper had been Mark Read, the painter, husband,

father and mate for a number of years now.

And if anything was going to show this,

it's these shaky, rough and ready videos from a friend's camera

that have never been seen before.

They're intimate, unscripted...

Picturesque car, surroundings with rolling hills...

..moments among mates...

(LAUGHS)

..at home... Hello, how are you?

..on the road...

Supposed to see some wild hillbillies

and something out of 'Deliverance'.

This is quite lovely.

..and having a laugh...

Having trouble, as usual.

You can tell Chopper's been on a farm recently, can't you?

Can't even open the bloody gate.

..even holding guns and shooting at targets on a farm.

(BANG)

The threatening Chopper is nowhere to be seen.

It's simply Mark from Melbourne with his mates...

That is Blondie.

You can see why they call him Blondie, can't you?

..suffering the same everyday problems we all do,

like car trouble.

Now let's tell the truth, Mr Read.

What's happened here tonight?

Brownie's bad driving has seen us yet again with the guts ridden out

from underneath the car and a flat tyre on the back.

With his life now filled with relative normality,

Chopper would look back on his years in prison

with strange sentiment.

He might have come out of Pentridge Jail...

..but he couldn't seem to get Pentridge Jail out of his system.

Well, back home, Mark, home away from home.

There's B Division there.

That's where I got stabbed through the heart with an ice pick.

7.5 inch screwdriver through the heart here.

And they took me to hospital.

The doctor who cut my ears off, Professor O'Brien,

pulled the ice pick out like that and they just stitched me up,

two stitches, and took me back in the same yellow cab

they took me to hospital with in the first place.

Prison - it almost felt that was where he was happiest,

telling tales from a time when he ruled H Division.

That's Jimmy - Jimmy - Jimmy Quinn's window there.

That's the first window with the iron bars.

He used to sit there.

He used to sit there with his feet up against the window,

throwing stones at people.

It's hard to believe you spent something like 23.5 years

in places like this.

7.5 years in a place like this

and five years down at Risdon Prison, Tasmania.

My enemy didn't even like being in jail.

I loved it.

My enemy didn't like being in H Division. I loved it.

My enemy didn't like having to get up every Monday morning

and watch for a low-flying pocket knives or low-flying hammers

and whether they're going to get an attack that day,

and who did I have to attack that day to survive.

I loved it, right? Did you really love it?

Well, I loved the cut and thrust

of all this sort of stuff going on in jail.

However, the flipside of those so-called happy memories

was never far below the surface.

As he started batting ill health,

Chopper was certainly re-evaluating his life.

But he couldn't resist dredging up a name from the past -

Sid Collins, and a new, startling story.

That and more incredible confessions coming up next.

So you make and enemy in jail, it seems to go on forever and a day.

You never get rid of it.

Enemies that last for a lifetime.

The life and crimes of Mark 'Chopper' Read reek

of bloodshed and brutality.

There has long been a hypnotic fascination about him...

(APPLAUSE)

..fed to a great extent by his self-claimed crimes,

and lack of remorse.

How would you explain Chopper Read to a stranger,

someone who didn't know the legend of his outlaw life?

Detectives, judges and wardens

all at one stage or another tagged him dangerous.

And his victims must have known

they were in the hands of a man with little mercy.

I'm just the bloke who killed him.

I don't know why and I couldn't care less.

Behind Chopper's brutally frank confessions, it's hard to know

whether he ever comprehended the brutality of his actions.

He seemed outside the normal parameters of morality

and behaviour most of us live within.

Torture and murder barely seemed to bother him.

Chopper was in some ways a prisoner of his own myth and legend.

Mark 'Chopper' Read never believed for a minute he would die in bed.

I never used to think about getting old in the past, no.

I wouldn't think further than tomorrow.

Convinced I would die with a gun in my hand in some sort of shootout.

I was always hoping I'd die with a gun in my hand.

I didn't want to get shot without carrying a gun.

I didn't want to get shot unarmed.

Now it looks like I'll probably die

of being killed by an outraged wife, you know?

Chopper thought his health, at least, was bulletproof.

I've got a 1.5 good and bad cholesterol.

I've got 1.5. 1.5 cholesterol reading.

That's amazing, isn't it? And I do nothing.

I do no physical exercise. I don't drink, but I smoke.

I smoke like a chimney. I eat fatty foods and sugar.

I drink... You know.

They give me an angiogram not long ago

and he said I had the heart of a 19-year-old.

He said, "I'm always willing to put into writing

"that you'll never die of a heart attack."

But suddenly death in bed was more and more likely.

He battled hepatitis C, and was then diagnosed with liver cancer.

That is the tumour. Look at that.

That is a pretty big tumour, isn't it?

Look at the size of the bastard.

In those final days, old faces were coming back to Chopper.

One was Sid Collins, the bikie chief Chopper shot,

then, incredibly, had driven to hospital.

Sid had broken the criminal code by going to police.

For Chopper, it was unforgivable.

You can't go dobbing people in.

You can't go giving people up just for a minor shooting.

Shot him in the guts and took him to hospital.

It was a petty offence.

Ten years later, Chopper said he settled the score with Sid.

We were in a casino, New South Wales, doing a talk night.

A talk night, me and Jacko doing a talk night!

Who do you think comes up to me after the talk night

and wants me to sign a piece of memorabilia?

"Hello."

"Hello, Chopper, you sign this?"

I can't believe it. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, bygones are bygones. You sign this?"

"No, I'm not signing anything with you.

"I'm not signing anything."

I can't even believe it, you know?

"I'll see you backstage, eh, come and talk to us backstage?"

He was there.

Couldn't believe it.

Man, idiot!

Completely insane. Off his head on cocaine.

Chopper gave a frank account of what he did with the body.

Went and stuck him in a hole

and then filled the hole in, as one does.

Whereabouts was that? Casino, New South Wales.

Can you be more specific? Casino, New South Wales.

I'm not going to go and dig it up for you.

I couldn't dig it up for you myself.

I would forget.

It was somewhere near a layby

on the other side of a big mound of bloody dirt.

That's all I remember.

The line between truth and fiction with Chopper Read

often seemed blurred.

There are other versions of what happened to Sid -

that he ran away, left the country, or was already dead and buried...

..and Chopper Read had nothing to do with it.

New admissions followed,

including one about the death of a waterfront worker.

What was your involvement in his murder?

I'm just the bloke who killed him.

Do you even remember why he had to die?

No, I can't really tell you why.

I don't know why, I don't know why, and, as I said to you now,

I couldn't care less.

Chopper also claimed he pulled off the killing of a child murderer

while in prison.

Me and Mad Charlie walked into his cell

and Charlie's belted him to the ground,

and I've jumped up on his bunk

and jumped on his head, from his bunk onto his head,

from his bunk onto his head, from his bunk onto his head, right?

And then I've gone from the bunk and I've slipped down off the head

and hit the chest, from the bunk into the chest, bang, bang.

And...

he wasn't dead.

He was sort of like...

And so I've taken his shoelaces off him,

tied his hands behind his back,

and then I've taken the sheets off him,

wrapped the sheets around his neck,

lifted him up with Mad Charlie, got the sheets around his neck

and I've tied the sheet up over the top railing of the obso gate...

pushed him down, and I've gone out of the cell

and I've closed the cell door. There was no one that saw us.

We were pretty quick in here.

And anyway, 7:00 that morning, they've opened his cell door

and found out that he had committed suicide.

But were these the honest dying confessions

of a callous and hardened killer...

..or the final performance from a criminal

still playing a role, putting on an act?

Don't question me about my bloody well words.

I'm telling the truth now. And he's gone.

Why are you laughing? Down he goes.

Stick it up your bum!

Mark 'Chopper' Read departed this life in October, 2013...

..farewelled with a modest funeral.

(MUSIC PLAYS)

There are people that are glad that he's passed away,

people who feel some sense of relief.

(BANG)

He left behind far more questions than he ever answered...

I've put off about 19 people.

Four, that's it. I haven't killed any more than that.

Don't try to make out that I have.

..a debated and disputed legacy...

The only people I hurt are people that you couldn't care about anyway.

You're a murderer and a maggot, just the same as I am.

..notorious criminal...

They happened, they had to happen.

Bang, get a bit of that into you.

I regret nothing.

..or great pretender?

I said he literally kicked his arse Ian.

Most likely something in between.