Episode 70 - Matthew Leveson

0:14 Welcome back to Crime Besties. After a couple weeks break, we

0:18 are back for another episode and we really appreciate you guys

0:22 joining us today. Absolutely.

0:24 After a break. Really appreciate everyone and

0:26 like the beautiful messages online when we put out there on

0:30 Instagram and, and our socials that, you know, we were taking

0:33 the break. So I really, really appreciate

0:36 that. Unfortunately, had my dad pass

0:39 away just a couple of weeks ago so or just barely even not Even

0:44 so it's and it was very unexpected.

0:47 So we sort of had to scrap what we were doing with this,

0:51 obviously, and focus on other things and family and, and, and

0:54 do that. So, and I just wanna say I

0:55 really appreciate the beautiful messages that came through on

0:58 all of our socials. I actually really overwhelmed by

1:01 how incredible everyone was. So thank you for sticking with

1:04 us over these last two weeks where we took a break.

1:07 We're back and I am not focused, but I.

1:11 No one expects you to be. I know that well, I know my dad

1:15 would want me to be here doing this because he he not that he

1:18 was a listener of the podcast cause technology.

1:20 Oh, but Oh well, my mum is an avid listener and he would often

1:26 like go, are you talking to me on the phone?

1:27 Like no, I'm listening to her podcast.

1:30 Does she not listen to it with earbuds?

1:31 It's like out. Oh no, God, no.

1:35 Technology is not there yet. No, yeah, sorry.

1:38 I know. But I know Dad was very like

1:39 happy with me doing this. So it's definitely something I

1:42 needed to get back to and it's refocusing my brain somewhere

1:45 else. So I apologise that I am

1:47 definitely the Co host today. Like I am like, you know,

1:49 backseat driver here. Not at all.

1:52 Not at all. I think, you know, all your dad

1:54 wanted was to see you happy. And he saw that, how happy this

1:57 made you. Yeah.

1:58 You know, a bit of a passion project on the side of there's

2:01 everything else in life. Which I definitely a trade of my

2:03 dad's. So yeah, I'm here to bring on

2:06 the passion objective, Yeah. And something else, you know, in

2:09 the extra projects that you have, you add to your life.

2:10 So I, I very much want to be here and doing this.

2:13 And I know that I'm doing the right thing by him to be here.

2:15 So 100% yes. Just can't promise the brain is

2:19 with me. And it doesn't need to be.

2:21 We'll be, we'll be. Look, we were just saying before

2:24 we hit record, we've been less prepared before so.

2:27 Yes. I feel like we're gonna.

2:29 You're gonna do great. I know you're gonna do great.

2:32 I know you're gonna do great. No, I'll be here with you.

2:36 No, not at all. Not at all.

2:38 Just to shift the subject slightly, I just have, I do have

2:41 a little bit of a humble brag today.

2:43 Oh, yeah. All right.

2:44 So I think we might have even discussed this last year around

2:49 Christmas that I am a massive Black Friday.

2:53 Get all your shopping done. Kind of a gal for Christmas.

2:56 Yeah, ask me how many more Christmas presents I have to

2:59 buy. Don't even.

3:01 I don't even want to know. One and it's my work KK and I'm

3:06 waiting for you don't. Even know who you've got yet?

3:08 Do you? I just found out.

3:10 I literally just found out yesterday.

3:11 Yeah, I'm gonna say it. Fuck.

3:14 You, I mean, you've got a really good excuse I'm.

3:19 Feeling really under the pump this year because actually life

3:22 has gone. On I've been on the pause for a

3:24 few. Weeks, Oh my God, by Friday

3:26 sales this weekend I need to go out and the last thing I want to

3:27 do is from going to the shop. Okay so another thing, I've only

3:30 been to the shops once. Yeah, I am definitely online

3:34 shopping this year. Like even I'm always avid online

3:36 shopping. Yeah, but even more so this

3:38 year. I just can't face the shops.

3:40 But I have. There's one particular gift that

3:42 I'm like, I'm gonna have to go into those shops.

3:45 You wanna go and see it? I wanna go and speak to someone.

3:47 I wanna make sure I'm getting the right thing.

3:49 I'm. I'm gonna need to go in and

3:53 actually find a person who works so he knows what they're talking

3:55 about. Oh good.

3:56 Luck. Oh, good luck.

3:57 Like. Yeah.

3:58 Do they exist? I'm not.

4:00 I'm not. I'm really not sure because also

4:03 you get all the Christmas casuals around this time of year

4:06 and and you're like, do you actually actually know what's

4:09 going on? Been here for a couple of days,

4:11 have you? Yeah.

4:13 Yeah, so if you hear my doorbell ringing at any point.

4:16 It's all I love that I finished all my shopping, now I'm just

4:20 waiting for it to all arrive. Quite literally, I actually just

4:24 before I had three notifications to say I'm getting stuff today.

4:27 Wow. And the other day Adrian, my

4:30 neighbor was saying she's like the Amazon van came here today

4:35 and she's like, I can't believe how many boxes it got.

4:38 Okay, Amazon is great and I like, I'm conflicted about

4:44 Amazon though, because I'm like, do I really want to be giving

4:46 Jeff Bezos all of my money? Like he doesn't need more money,

4:49 but at the same time well done to you because it's fucking

4:51 great. Really also like we've got

4:53 prime, so most stuff comes either that day or the next day

4:57 and the. Simple fact of that is what

4:59 makes me go if I can get this on Amazon, I don't have to pay

5:01 shipping. I will go looking for it there

5:04 and as well as wherever else I. Found it.

5:05 So almost everything I bought it was cheaper on Amazon.

5:10 Yeah. So not that this is an ad for

5:12 Amazon, although Amazon if. You would like to sponsor?

5:14 Actually, we love you, Jeff Bezos.

5:16 You. Would not say no to that.

5:18 You would not say no. But yeah, I just so yeah, I am

5:21 actually expecting to start. Love the forget the Ding Dong

5:25 doorbell in the in the background just as Christmas

5:27 presents arriving. And they'd better come today

5:30 before the kids bloody get home from.

5:32 School, this is the other thing, it's getting the deliveries pre

5:34 children arriving. Home, it's fine.

5:36 In an Amazon box, that's fine because I just like, no, you're

5:39 not opening or not opening it now.

5:40 Yeah. Some of the things that we've

5:41 ordered, yeah, they'll come in packaging that identifies what's

5:46 inside. We need to normalize, especially

5:48 around the Christmas time. Definitely making it look very

5:51 boring. Boring packaging.

5:52 Yeah, yeah, no logos. I did one the other day where

5:55 and I've only I've used this once now.

5:56 Now I don't know if I can use it again, but a package arrived and

5:59 it was one that was a really good one that I'm like, oh God,

6:01 you guys can't see that. And so I'm actually gonna pick

6:03 it up from fucking post office as well.

6:05 And I'm like, so the boys actually come in with me to get

6:07 it and I'm like, it's my hair, it's my shampoo, my conditioner,

6:10 because I ordered that online. But I'm like, I ordered it like

6:13 three months ago, which I normally it might last way

6:15 longer than that when I do order.

6:16 And so I'm like, no, no, it's just my champagne and

6:18 conditioner. Like, you know, like it's

6:19 nothing exciting. You don't need to unpack it for

6:21 me. I'll unbox like when I'm ready

6:24 for it. Thanks though.

6:27 Yeah, yeah. So how many more boring things

6:29 can I say I'm ordering? Yeah.

6:30 Oh. God.

6:31 Oh, it's just close for me. Yeah.

6:34 I don't know. Yeah, I usually tell them like

6:36 things like, Oh no, that's presents for their cousins or

6:38 whatever. Yeah.

6:40 But yeah, it's only so many times you can get away with

6:42 that. Yeah, yeah.

6:43 Have you put up your Christmas tree yet?

6:45 We did last week on Monday, actually.

6:48 We did that after school. Yeah, that was.

6:49 Fun. Oh, how fun.

6:51 In what way was that? Like fun or fun?

6:53 How does something so freaking joyous turn into an absolute

6:59 shit show? What was the shit show about?

7:01 Was it about putting the star on the?

7:02 Christmas star on the tree is always like the biggest thing.

7:04 And like, So what I do right is every year now, I write on a

7:10 piece of paper, you know, like I've written for this, you're

7:12 like 262026. Brody will be putting the star

7:16 on the tree, that kind of thing. If you go and have a look in my

7:18 Christmas box right now, I have that exact piece of paper.

7:21 So write a huge piece of paper and shove that in the the bauble

7:23 box and so that when you get it out the next year, we know who's

7:27 doing that. We'd be prior to us getting that

7:30 piece of paper out. Brody was adamant.

7:33 It's my year. It's my year.

7:34 I'm doing. I know it is.

7:35 It's my year and I'm like, well, I'm not answering this because I

7:38 don't know. I legit write that piece of

7:40 paper and that information exits my brain.

7:43 Yeah, because you don't need. To I don't need to remember

7:44 because I've written it down. It's in the bubble box.

7:46 Yeah, we get the ball box and as soon as I saw the piece of paper

7:49 saying it was based. You knew it was going to be a

7:51 shit show. Here we go.

7:56 Oh, Yup, yeah. Yeah, OK.

7:58 And. I mean, everyone's a bit

7:59 heightened in my house at the moment, so that just created.

8:02 So much, so many. Emotions.

8:04 Yeah. And yeah.

8:05 So that was Yeah. I mean, we, we, I just like,

8:08 kept trying to drown them out with mom, you know, Christmas

8:10 music. Just turned Michael Bublé up a

8:12 bit. Yeah, Mariah Carey helped a

8:14 little. For a while.

8:15 Oh, Mariah Carey always helps. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

8:20 I love this. I have to.

8:21 Tell you this, I'll go. My work colleagues who some of

8:24 them listen, one of them is well, well, she's cheers.

8:28 She will she'll be leaving at the end of the year, right.

8:30 And so the rest of my staff are obsessed with her have said that

8:32 to replace this person who is beyond amazing.

8:35 I'm not naming her because she's not allowed to be named on this

8:37 podcast. She hasn't made us go viral.

8:39 It's go viral, yeah. So, but she, so to replace this

8:42 amazing person, they've said to me, you know, the normal

8:45 criteria of what we're looking for, for a, for a new staff

8:48 member, we need to add to that list of things that person can

8:51 do to be able to replace this person.

8:54 And one of the key criteria this person needs to have is know all

8:58 the dance moves to Mean Girls Jingle Bells Rock Dance.

9:05 Have you put that in the job ad? Oh no.

9:06 They're like, they're like adamant that it has to go in the

9:08 job ad this person must know every dance move to join in with

9:11 them at, you know, doing it every year.

9:14 Oh I love. It and every day, because this

9:16 person does it every day for them.

9:18 It's literally her. Like we start our day at this

9:20 time of year and she does her Jingle Bell rock dance.

9:23 Oh, my God, I need to see this. I actually need to see this.

9:27 So yeah, she is the best. She is great cheer.

9:30 Yeah, she is fantastic and irreplaceable.

9:33 Oh, absolutely. I really don't think you're

9:34 gonna be able to find somebody who's got that kind of vibe

9:37 about them. No, unfortunately.

9:39 Absolutely, Yeah. There's a few other things

9:43 mentioned, but that was. That was Well, yeah.

9:47 So tonight we'll let's I'll let you know next week how the the

9:50 putting up the decorations. I just love it.

9:53 I. Love it, may the Force be with

9:55 you is all I can. Say, I, I did say to the boys,

9:59 I'm like, we'll probably get take away for dinner tonight as

10:01 well. So have a think about it.

10:03 Like we all obviously need to agree on what we're gonna get.

10:06 So that's gonna cause issues as well.

10:08 But I'm like, at the end of the day, Dad and I have final say.

10:12 Yeah, yeah. I just feel like it's just when

10:15 do I get the final say? Yeah, you've got to demand the

10:18 final. Say I know dictator, I can do

10:21 it, yeah. Iron fist that nothing says

10:24 Christmas like rolling with an iron fist.

10:30 All right, so that we do have an update as well on the easy

10:32 Street case. I don't know if you saw this

10:34 yesterday, but Perry Crumbles has been ordered to stand trial,

10:39 so there's a directions hearing scheduled for the 17th of

10:42 December. He's in custody waiting for

10:45 that. Yeah, they have dropped the

10:48 carnal knowledge charge, which would be a rape charge in

10:50 today's language because there wasn't enough evidence tended to

10:56 support that. But I, I guess they're, they've

11:00 obviously got more to go on in terms of the double homicide,

11:03 so. Yeah, we.

11:04 Will sort of see how that all plays out.

11:06 I think it'll be. I thought they I thought the

11:08 rape charges what they had the more more evidence on to be

11:10 really honest, they. Did, but I think due to like

11:12 there was some degradation in the in the samples and that kind

11:16 of thing. I think more, more will

11:17 probably, I mean we actually probably won't hear a lot about

11:20 the the rape. Yeah, in the trial, but let's

11:23 wait and see when the trial ends up being scheduled for.

11:26 Prove that he was there. Yeah.

11:27 Can that still be used in that? Well, we don't really know a

11:30 huge amount of I, I haven't been able to find a huge amount about

11:33 like what evidence is going to be tended for the trial.

11:35 So we'll wait and see. But our our good mate Ronnie

11:39 Dulles did testify at the at the hearing and about finding the

11:46 finding the knife and in the boot of his car.

11:48 He was like a real. Young cop, he was a brand new

11:50 cop. It was his first station.

11:52 So crazy that he was. Involved so crazy.

11:55 Love that. Love it.

11:56 Anyway, we'll keep her, keep you guys updated on that.

11:59 It's a really interesting one. It really is.

12:01 That is, I hope they get someone for it.

12:03 That's. Me too, we do have a few shout

12:06 outs for today so we have had some coffees bought for us.

12:09 So we've got SBT, Mani, Cherie and Mim Bosch have all bought us

12:16 coffees in the last couple of weeks.

12:17 So thank you very, very much for that.

12:19 All wine. I mean, well, let's be honest.

12:21 Especially when someone doesn't make me a coffee when I get here

12:23 for my record. This.

12:24 Morning. God, that was that.

12:26 You know what? That was 100% my bad.

12:28 I went to make myself a coffee before and I have no milk.

12:32 I'd have a black coffee. Oh, did you actually go the

12:35 black? Coffee.

12:35 I mean, I actually don't mind a black coffee, to be honest.

12:37 I don't know if I could do that, but I I do.

12:41 I was gonna make a Milky coffee. Yeah, I was gonna make a latte.

12:44 But yeah, I ended up just going along black, which was fine, but

12:47 I know you're not into that, so I couldn't even offer you a.

12:50 Coffee. I mean, I've, yeah, I have drunk

12:52 them, but like, I'm, yeah. If you're gonna have one, you

12:55 want it to be nice. Yeah, I get that.

12:57 So yeah, sorry, we might have to go and grab a coffee after this.

13:00 Or a wine and then we've got 2 new Patreons as well.

13:04 We've got Lisa Porter and KXS 04/1.

13:08 So perfect welcome guys and we really appreciate your support

13:13 over there as well. We.

13:14 Do particularly, we've had a couple of weeks of no episodes

13:16 being put out, so that's amazing that people are still supporting

13:19 us incredibly well. So yeah, yeah, amazing.

13:21 We've also had so I think Mim, who has bought us some coffees.

13:25 She actually said that she found us about 3 weeks ago and she's

13:29 listened to her entire back catalog in three weeks.

13:32 Yeah, I'm like, well, sorry, that's a lot, That's a lot.

13:37 But we do really appreciate the support.

13:39 And I just sent her a message, Jay, saying, oh, we're recording

13:41 today. So we've got a new episode

13:42 coming out next week. So you don't have to wait too

13:45 too long for that. No, that's right.

13:47 We'll be, we'll be regular. I mean, we'll have a break over

13:49 Christmas, but you know. Yeah, yeah, we'll probably let

13:53 you guys know what our Christmas schedule is.

13:54 In the coming week, that's a good idea.

13:56 We'll put on the socials what the plan is so you know how to

13:58 plan yourself out. If you are not following us on

14:01 the socials, which I believe from a couple of messages we've

14:04 received because we put out the message about having our couple

14:07 of week delay a couple of weeks off on the socials.

14:11 I from some messages we got through Spotify.

14:13 I think that we do have some listeners who don't follow us on

14:16 the socials. So please go ahead because we do

14:18 do our updates over there. You can see all of the case

14:20 notes that Meg pops up and all of the pictures.

14:22 It's a really good way to sort of visualize what it is that

14:26 we're talking about. So go and follow us on Instagram

14:29 at 2 Crime besties and you can follow us on Facebook as well.

14:33 We post everything over there. We also have a TikTok at 2 crime

14:36 besties so follow us on everything on YouTube.

14:40 Well, yeah, YouTube's there too. Yeah, YouTube's there too.

14:43 It's a bit of an afterthought, but YouTube is there, All right?

14:46 Should we get into today's case? Let's jump right in for it, so.

14:50 Today we are discussing the death, the murder of of Matthew

14:58 Leveson. And this case really gets me.

15:03 And it's because of his parents, his dad in particular, his mom.

15:07 Absolutely. Like they are just salt of the

15:10 earth, you know, the loveliest, most genuine, down to earth

15:14 people. Yeah.

15:15 And I, I cannot, you cannot fault them for what they have

15:21 done for Matthew in the wake of his disappearance and subsequent

15:26 death. Yeah.

15:27 And I just think, oh, my God, they are an inspiration.

15:32 I yeah. When I think about them, it

15:34 actually makes me feel really emotional because of what

15:37 they've had to do and what their life has become because of,

15:40 because of all of this and everything come of it.

15:43 Yeah, they like they've had to step up too, because

15:46 unfortunately there were failings in this and the fact

15:49 that I think if almost any other family this would happen to,

15:52 this would just get lost into the ether and they have not

15:55 allowed that to happen for their son.

15:57 They have fought every bit. They have learnt a lot

15:59 themselves. They have done so much

16:01 themselves so that they've not ended up, you know, broke on

16:05 everything in terms of trying to manage all of this from every

16:08 aspect. Yeah, they are.

16:10 They are. They are impressive people.

16:12 Very much so. Very, very much so.

16:15 Yeah. So Matthew Leveson was born on

16:18 the 12th of December in 1986. He was actually born a day after

16:23 his older. So his older brother Peter's

16:26 birthday is on the 11th of December, which is also my

16:28 brother's birthday. That's funny, but it's the the

16:32 story that Faye tells about his birthday is actually really

16:35 funny. So she actually went into labour

16:37 with him two months before he was due.

16:39 Yeah. And they went to, apparently

16:43 they were quite a ways away from the hospital, and she'd gone

16:46 into labour, obviously, very, very early.

16:49 And so Mark tells this story of, like, speeding down the highway

16:52 to get her to the hospital. Got her to the hospital.

16:55 And they ended up being able to stop labour.

16:59 And Matt was then born. They ended up inducing Faye a

17:03 couple of months later. And they booked the induction

17:05 date for the 11th of December, which was their oldest son

17:08 Peter's birthday. Yeah.

17:09 And she's like, all I had to do was keep my legs crossed until

17:12 after midnight. I did not care.

17:14 About once she's not. She's like, after it was

17:17 midnight, it was fine. He was able to come, but I had

17:19 to really, you know, really try not to.

17:21 And anyway, she succeeded in that.

17:23 Yeah. And, and Matt was born on the

17:25 12th of December and he, Faye was saying that she made sure

17:33 that they always had Peter and Matt always had separate

17:35 birthdays, separate parties, separate cakes, separate

17:38 everything. I just love that.

17:39 Love that 'cause I mean it. Just shows what kind of a person

17:42 she is. Absolutely.

17:43 I mean, that's a, it's, it's a lot to, you know, to have your

17:46 kids birthday parties and things and when they're that close

17:47 together, I mean, it sometimes just makes it easier do it all

17:50 together. I know I've done it one year and

17:51 joined my kids birthday party together and they love that

17:54 birthday party. Like, you know, 'cause my kids

17:55 aren't that far away in terms of their birthday dates.

17:59 So it's, it's, yeah, it, it can be pretty tricky managing that.

18:03 So I'm good on it. I mean, she's, it's hard work,

18:05 yeah. But she is that type of person.

18:07 Like, I can totally, totally see it.

18:09 Yeah. Yeah.

18:11 She's. She's very, very funny.

18:13 So they then went on Faye and Mark then went on to have a

18:17 third child by the name of Jason.

18:19 So they had three boys. They grew up you.

18:22 Know energetic, energetic. They grew up in Sydney and in

18:26 NSW in did Cronulla and Cronulla or is it?

18:30 Yeah, OK. That was where living and this,

18:31 yeah, and everything I researched, but I didn't see

18:34 anywhere else that they moved from.

18:35 Was it Hollywood? Oh yeah, that was mentioned,

18:38 yeah. Yeah, Anyway, they, they went to

18:41 the same local primary school. Once Peter left primary school,

18:44 they actually moved the boy, the two younger boys to a different

18:46 primary school because that they were just some issues with the

18:50 with the their first primary school.

18:51 And Faye says that Matt really blossomed once he moved across.

18:56 He really found his people and he found like some really

19:01 lifelong friends and he really fit in.

19:04 Whereas I don't know that that was necessarily his experience

19:07 at their their first primary school.

19:09 They then went on to go to the same high school as one another.

19:13 And I think Matt was maybe not the most studious necessarily in

19:18 that. I'm not saying he wasn't

19:19 studious. I think he was driven.

19:20 Yeah. But Fay said that he wasn't

19:24 really good at spelling. Mm Hmm.

19:25 And that kind of ended up holding him back a little bit.

19:28 He thought he might wanna study. I think it was biomedical

19:31 science or. Yeah, that's pathology.

19:33 It was something to do that pathology.

19:35 Yeah. And he did part of the course

19:38 and then failed an exam and it was all because of the spelling.

19:41 He tried again, unfortunately like missed out by 1.

19:45 Mark, it was something so close and so then he like gave it

19:48 away. Which was like.

19:49 I felt for him like, I mean spelling it's.

19:52 Hard. It's bloody hard.

19:53 And I feel like in this day and age that probably.

19:55 Won't, honestly, that's what I was thinking too, I reckon too.

19:57 And potentially if there was some sort of, I don't know,

20:00 dyslexia with that or whatever, it might have been more picked

20:02 up these days and he would have been able to go on and do that.

20:04 But yeah, yeah, that's really unfortunate for him, I felt.

20:07 For him. Yeah, Yeah.

20:09 So in, in leaving that though, he basically, well actually when

20:14 he was doing his HSE, let's go back.

20:16 So doing his year 11 and it was actually his year 12.

20:19 Year 12, yeah. And he was very comfortable in

20:22 high school, he'd had a girlfriend.

20:24 They were together for a little while and then they kind of

20:27 broke up but remained extremely good friends and and he so this

20:34 friend of his, this ex-girlfriend, best friend of

20:37 his, Matt ended up coming out to her first.

20:40 And he really sort of then started telling more and more of

20:45 his friendship group and it was coming up to his final exams in

20:48 year 12 and I guess he must have felt like it was hanging over

20:51 his head well. I think he like he, you know,

20:53 with the exam situation, he was in a lot of stress on him for

20:58 the exam situation and that that was hanging over him as well,

21:02 that he hadn't told his parents that information.

21:04 I think that the combination of the two was like, if I tell my

21:06 parents this, I can focus on my exams better.

21:09 Like I can get that off my chest, you know.

21:11 So I think that was where it was sort of sitting for him was I

21:14 need to get this out of my head and move on from it.

21:17 Like because he didn't know what the reaction would be, which I

21:20 think I find interesting that that he find that.

21:23 Interesting. Yeah.

21:24 So he ended up writing a letter to his mum and dad and he left

21:28 it on the kitchen bench. Sent them a text message saying

21:31 kill him, fuck I'd kill him. Left a text message on the sent

21:36 them both a text message to say I've left a letter on the bench

21:38 for you, can you please read it? Oh my God.

21:42 And then he went to his friend's house and waited there until so

21:45 Faye said. She was just beside herself and

21:47 then she read it and she was like, oh, is that all it is?

21:50 Yeah. I love that.

21:51 That was like, you know, like, yeah, like we kind of knew,

21:53 like. Well, she said from the time he

21:54 was four she knew. Yeah, it wasn't a surprise and

21:58 nor did it matter to them. It was not an issue to them at

22:01 all. No, Faye did say that she cried.

22:03 And it wasn't because Matt was gay, it was because she, at the

22:08 time, gay hate crimes were really prevalent and she was

22:12 scared for him. She was just worried.

22:13 For that stuff. And I think as a parent I can

22:16 understand that. But yeah, just like wanting your

22:18 child to have their best life and not have to worry about that

22:23 shit, which is just as awful, like, you know, so I can

22:27 understand where she was coming from with that like.

22:30 But I mean, yeah, but they they clearly need their mum, their

22:33 parents. And what was interesting hearing

22:34 that, I think it was her parents or that, yeah, that's right,

22:39 sorry, Mark's parents had passed away by this stage.

22:41 But he said his parents would have accepted Matt for being gay

22:43 100%, whereas her parents I think were still around and that

22:46 that's that wasn't something they were gonna be able to

22:48 accept. Really.

22:49 Well, basically tell her they just didn't tell them.

22:51 Yeah. And I mean, we can get to how

22:55 that all came out to them later, but so.

22:58 Yeah, he was just living his best life at this point, I

23:02 guess, getting that off his chest, doing the HSC, and then

23:05 he ended up obviously getting into this pathology course and

23:08 all of that sort of stuff. Yeah, you know, beyond that.

23:10 So once the pathology course was no longer, Matt ended up getting

23:15 a job at the NRMA call centre or even.

23:18 Before that big, WE loved to work WWI.

23:19 Think he was doing that while he was at uni maybe, which I mean,

23:23 we've all had those part time jobs.

23:25 It's it's a very relatable. Yeah, he yeah.

23:28 So he then started working at the NRMA call centre and he

23:31 worked from Tuesday to Saturday. Yeah.

23:33 And he actually really made a couple of really he was friends

23:38 with everyone. It sounds like he was just a

23:40 really lively, bubbly, happy person.

23:43 Yeah. You know, one of those people

23:45 that everyone gets along with And.

23:47 But in particular, he made friends with two people.

23:49 Mm. Hmm.

23:50 And in particular, a girl by the name of Carrie Anne.

23:52 Yeah. And they would see each other

23:54 outside of work, but then also when they were at work, they'd

23:57 have lunch together and all of that sort of stuff.

23:59 And by her account, he loved his job.

24:02 He never called in sick. He was always there, really

24:06 helpful, great with his, you know, customer service, good at

24:08 doing what he did. And it afforded him the life

24:12 that he wanted, which at that time, he was 20 years old at

24:14 this time. Mm Hmm.

24:15 And he wanted to party. He wanted to go out and have a

24:18 great time and have fun and meet new people and dance and all of

24:22 this sort of stuff. Yeah, I guess just really

24:25 quickly around this time or just preceding his job at NRMA, Matt

24:30 did have a, a boyfriend, yes. So I think they were together

24:34 from year 12. So it was a little bit before

24:36 Matt came out to Faye and Mark and his brothers and they were

24:41 together for quite some time. And he was a lovely boy.

24:44 They got along really, really well.

24:46 They travelled a lot together. So they would go, they went

24:50 internationally, they went into state, they'd get apparently

24:54 they used to go on the computer, you know, midnight on it to get

24:58 like tide US Tuesday flights. Yeah, yeah.

25:00 Sail flights. That's right.

25:01 So that you get really great, you know, like $50 flights like

25:04 Tassie and stuff like that and just jump on a plane and go,

25:07 yeah. What a life like.

25:08 Totally. Only a 18/19/20 year old could

25:11 do that. Yeah.

25:12 So, yeah, they, they really, you know, they loved spending time

25:16 with one another, but it kind of got to a point where I think

25:19 they were both looking for, to explore something else.

25:21 They were both so young. I don't think anything happened.

25:24 Nothing bad happened, but they decided to part ways and sort of

25:27 go their separate ways. I believe they remained friends

25:30 and remained in contact and around.

25:34 Well, around this time, actually, Matt met a man by the

25:40 name of Michael Atkins. We're going to call him Atkins

25:44 because that is the way that Mark and Faye refer to him.

25:48 They don't want to give him his, they don't want his first name.

25:51 They don't want to use it. They don't believe in it.

25:54 So I think we'll we'll probably continue down that same track.

25:57 So Atkins it is. Now, Atkins was significantly

26:02 older than Matt. Significantly like, was it 25

26:07 years? 25 years older.

26:09 Yeah. Yeah, it's a lot.

26:10 So being that Atkins was 25 years Matt senior, he'd actually

26:14 only been out as being a gay man for about four or five years

26:18 prior to meeting Matt. They met, yeah, they met in

26:20 early 2006 and Atkins was a door security person.

26:27 Mm Hmm. At the Sutherland Sports Club

26:29 and before that, he worked as a security guard at Star City

26:33 Casino in Sydney. He also, Atkins also had like, I

26:38 guess to make a little bit more money, he had like, arcade

26:41 machines in different places, like.

26:44 And one of the places, yeah, that he had a machine in will

26:50 become relevant later on in the story.

26:53 Yeah, but. Were they vending machines or

26:56 arcade games? I think.

26:57 There were arcade games. Vending machines.

26:59 OK, cool. I think it was like a basketball

27:01 game. Oh, OK.

27:02 Right. Yeah, yeah, right.

27:03 So I mean, yeah. OK, so he was 1/3 Dan Black belt

27:09 in ninjutsu. Yeah.

27:11 And in the 1990s. So the fact that even in the

27:14 1990s he was working just says a lot.

27:16 Yeah. But in the 1990s, he owned a oh,

27:22 what was it like a a Dojo? Yeah, right.

27:26 Because like, that's like he was like at a level of like beyond a

27:29 black belt. Yeah, it was.

27:30 It was like. You.

27:31 Like levels. Oh, my God.

27:32 That was my doorbell. Just in case you heard it.

27:34 That was delivery number one. Yeah.

27:36 So that was. Yeah.

27:38 So he was like beyond a black belt.

27:39 So he. He's able to have his own Dojo,

27:42 I think, because of that. Yeah.

27:44 Don't know what happened to that business, but he wasn't doing it

27:47 at the time of Matt's death. He was actually working as an

27:50 electrician for a large electrical company.

27:52 Yeah. So.

27:53 So Atkins really enjoyed socializing with men of Matt's

27:58 age group. Yeah, he's been known to have

28:02 relationships with men as young as 17 or boys as young as 17.

28:07 Being a 45 year old man, it's just, it's disgusting.

28:12 Yeah, I really can't get my head around like that at all.

28:18 I really struggle with that. Imagine if there were 17 year

28:21 old girls. This is exactly it.

28:24 Man, like there's. Not enough outrage of it,

28:26 Predator. Yeah, I I agree.

28:28 Because if this was yeah, just say if this was mixed gender, it

28:31 would be outrage. But what, because they're gay

28:34 men? There's not as much.

28:35 And I find it. I feel like, no, I have the same

28:37 rage. I'm 100%.

28:39 I don't I don't like it. It's it's gross how imbalance is

28:43 there and it's not OK. Oh, and his behaviour is

28:46 predatory. The fact that he's going around

28:48 seeking out young boys and young men like I, I, you can't tell me

28:53 1819 year olds with a 45 year old.

28:57 No, no, I don't. That's an absolute hard no.

29:00 No. And I mean, I get where like,

29:03 like where his parents were coming from in that they

29:05 struggled with that and trying to like, have conversations with

29:08 Matt about it in that I guess it's very new to them of like,

29:12 managing this whole scenario of like, you know, their son is gay

29:14 or what have you. But I couldn't have handled it.

29:16 I couldn't have not spoken up more.

29:18 Have you said something like, have you heard Faye and Mark

29:20 talking about this? Yeah, that so from very early on

29:24 in their relationship. Yeah.

29:25 First of all, Faye and Mark had no idea how old he was.

29:29 Right. Yeah.

29:30 OK, so they met well, but he. Lied, didn't He did lie about

29:33 his age so. He said he was.

29:36 He was 34 when he was in fact 45.

29:38 Too old. But it's better, it's 11 years

29:42 better, but it's still not good. No, but that to me the fact that

29:46 he lies shows he knows it's not right.

29:48 This is it exactly. Right.

29:50 So when Faye and Mark met Atkins for the first time, they all

29:55 went out for dinner at some restaurant in Cronulla, and Mark

29:59 says Matt walked in with an old man.

30:03 Yeah, they call him an old man, and that to me was like, well

30:06 then, Lil, it's gross. And but, you know, Matt had said

30:10 he's 34 and Mark was like, well, you know, he was definitely

30:13 closer to our age because he liked the same.

30:15 Music, same music, all those sorts of things.

30:17 He was more that era like he was.

30:18 Only in the end, Well, again, we'll get to how they found that

30:22 out. But he was only, in the end,

30:24 five years younger than Mark and three years younger than Faye.

30:28 No, Yep. Oh, vomit.

30:30 Yep. Vomit.

30:31 No. Total, total vomit.

30:32 No. So Matt and Atkins, they so when

30:38 they first got together, obviously there was a little bit

30:40 of I feel like Matt probably knew this wasn't kosher.

30:46 Like if you you know he's dating an older man.

30:49 At one point, Matt actually went missing in that he.

30:55 Went early on in this year. In their relationship, he went

30:57 and stayed with Atkins for a few days, wasn't contactable.

31:01 I think Faye and Mark had maybe let their feelings know that he

31:04 wasn't really, they weren't really approving of the

31:09 relationship and Matt kind of pushed away.

31:11 They were unable to contact Matt at this point.

31:14 So they actually did end up going to the police and

31:16 reporting him missing. Yeah.

31:18 And, you know, eventually, a few days later, Matt's made contact

31:21 with them. They've started communicating

31:23 again. Obviously they've let the police

31:25 know that Matt's being found and he's all good and well.

31:27 Fine. It's all OK around about that

31:31 time as well, Matt decides to move in with Atkins.

31:36 And even this I find really bizarre because Matt obviously

31:41 really wanted that, and Atkins also wanted that.

31:45 Atkins wanted him to himself. Yeah.

31:47 And but then Faye talks about how after Matt's death, they

31:51 actually discovered that Matt hadn't moved straight into

31:56 Atkins house or Atkins apartment.

31:58 He had actually been essentially living out of his car.

32:01 He wasn't allowed to move any of his possessions into the unit

32:04 for months. Wasn't allowed to be there

32:06 unless Atkins was there. And so then he would have to

32:09 let, he'd get home from work and wait in his car until Atkins got

32:13 home so that he could so he could go in.

32:15 So I wouldn't know what the arrange.

32:17 I mean, I'd love to understand was the arrangement from Atkins,

32:20 you're moving in with me. But these are the rules.

32:23 You have to abide by them. Or was Matthew like, oh, my

32:27 parents aren't happy with me seeing him, but I need to commit

32:30 to this, you know, And so I'm going to say I've moved in with

32:33 him, but I haven't. And I'll push it so that Mark,

32:36 so that Atkins will let me move in.

32:39 I feel like that could actually go either way.

32:41 But yeah, my gut feeling on it is it was the first.

32:44 Same. Yeah.

32:45 And that makes it even more awful.

32:47 Yeah, for sure. That is.

32:49 So that's coercive control. 100% and look I, I think the more we

32:54 talk about this, the more you'll see you guys will see that or

32:56 hear that there was so much coercive control involved in

33:00 this relationship and it is not OK.

33:02 It is never ever OK. So they in, in all of this, I

33:09 guess event actually, Matt did move in in an official capacity,

33:13 got a key. Yeah.

33:14 Was able to move his clothes into part of a wardrobe.

33:17 Yeah. And, you know, they were

33:19 essentially living together then.

33:22 What Faye says is that after Matt had gone missing that first

33:26 time, he said to her, I will never, ever do that again.

33:30 I am so sorry. I understand how how awful that

33:33 was. Genuinely got how upset his

33:35 parents were and that he promised he'd never do it again.

33:38 Yeah. And Faye, of course, believed

33:40 him, like, because he was so genuine.

33:43 He saw how distressed he was. He didn't want to upset his mum

33:45 and dad. He was, he was still figuring

33:47 things out. And the fact that he was now

33:49 with this much older man who, and as you pointed out, Meg,

33:53 there was a massive power imbalance right from the the

33:57 early stages of this relationship.

34:00 Yeah, Matt probably didn't really know where he stood.

34:04 No, no, I think, you know, these people that managed to do this

34:09 are incredibly manipulative. He had some hold over him that

34:14 will never understand. And that I'm not saying that to

34:16 be like, you know, that. Oh, Matt should have seen it

34:19 because in those incidents, when they can do that to you, it's

34:21 incredible how much you are blinded by what's going on.

34:25 And the fact that he could potentially, I do lean this way

34:29 that, yeah, that he could potentially say to him, you

34:30 know, yeah, you've moved in with me, but you can't be in my

34:33 apartment on your own. I mean, that should be a red

34:36 flag entirely to someone. But in these situations,

34:38 there'll be a way that that was put to him of like, no, no, this

34:41 is what I deserve or this is how this is how this works in this

34:45 world. That's what happens.

34:47 It's my apartment. Yeah, you're.

34:48 I'm just letting. You be letting you be here and

34:51 you're you should feel privileged for that.

34:53 I don't know how they do it because I'm not that way

34:55 inclined, but they've got language they to be able to make

34:57 you feel that that's what is OK and that you're supposed to just

35:02 OK. Like it doesn't, it's like it,

35:03 right? But OK.

35:04 All right. Well, I guess the benefit

35:07 outweighs the negative here somewhere.

35:08 You need to be grateful for the little, for the little crumbs

35:11 they're Dang like giving to you. Yeah, so shit.

35:14 Matt and Atkins, their lifestyle was, well, they'd work.

35:20 They were going to work, going to the gym, and they would party

35:25 at the Ark nightclub in Flinders St. in Darlinghurst on a

35:28 Saturday night. They, well, when I say Saturday

35:31 night into the early hours of Sunday morning because they

35:33 often would party until 5:00 or 6:00 in the morning.

35:36 Yeah. Now, Atkins being 45 years old,

35:39 I'm 40, I could not do that. But anyway, day drinking is my

35:45 new favorite hobby. There is nothing better than a

35:48 day drink. So I had a normal 8 at 8:00 PM.

35:53 And did you have a really good sleep?

35:54 Yes, obviously. Nothing beats it, nothing beats

35:57 it. So they would then generally

35:59 spend the following day, like at friends places recovering.

36:03 And then Matt would then go out again on a Sunday night because

36:06 his weekend was Saturday, sorry, Sunday, Monday.

36:10 So he could go out on a Sunday night because he didn't have

36:14 work on a Monday. Yeah.

36:15 And often Atkins wouldn't attend or he would attend for.

36:19 What do you let him go without him?

36:21 Occasionally. Okay so well this is Atkins

36:25 story though so we don't actually know.

36:26 Although friends of his did testify that they would

36:29 sometimes have time with Matt especially early on.

36:33 OK the further their relationship got on though.

36:35 The less that less that happened, yeah.

36:38 They were sorry. In the trial, the friends of

36:42 theirs were. Their pseudonyms were given as

36:45 Jack Smith and Sally White, and they would go back to their

36:50 house and party there, sometimes on a Sunday as well.

36:53 They would take drugs like party drugs, MDMA or ecstasy and GHB

37:00 and it came I guess to be that Atkins was selling GHBI think I

37:09 don't know if he was selling ecstasy.

37:10 I believe it was just. GHB.

37:11 Just GHB. Just GHB, but I believe it was

37:14 GHB and they'd sell it in those little fishies, you know, the

37:17 little soy. Sauce, fish, things are in there

37:19 and. They were make, yeah, that they

37:21 were making like an absolute fortune from this.

37:26 Like they will make. Well, when I say they Atkins was

37:28 making fat stacks of cash selling ecstasy it at the

37:32 nightclub. And well, I think, I think Matt

37:37 would sell it as well. Now, would he have done so had

37:39 he not been involved in a relationship with Atkins?

37:43 Who knows? But obviously being involved

37:46 with him and this was just something that they did that

37:48 was, yeah, that was definitely something that they would do on

37:51 a Saturday night at ARC. Yeah.

37:54 They would generally take Matt's car to ARC and Atkins would

37:59 drive normally. So Matt had a Toyota Corolla,

38:03 green Toyota Corolla, and it so Peter had had an old car and

38:10 that had a massive stereo system in it.

38:11 Yes. And then he upgraded his car or

38:13 got a new car and the stereo system didn't fit.

38:16 So he gave it to Matt. Yeah.

38:18 And helped him install it in his Toyota Corolla subwoofers, which

38:21 apparently took up like 75% of the boot.

38:25 Now a Corolla boot isn't massive massive anyway, but like for it

38:30 to take up 75% of the boot it must have been.

38:33 Huge. Oh, it was just like the style

38:34 at the time. Yeah, like I.

38:36 Remember, I wonder if you had one of those cars plates?

38:38 That oh the faceplate took off and take with you.

38:40 I know I had one of those. Yep, I think we all did that was

38:44 and my shitty. Car was like the stereo was

38:46 worth more than my car. Yeah.

38:48 Oh, same, easy, same. I don't know, I used to use a

38:50 club lock on my car sometimes too and I could use the club

38:54 lock key to unlock my car. That's.

38:56 Not right. It helped in a pinch.

39:02 You couldn't start the car with the club lock key though, you

39:04 could just open it. OK, that's Yep, that's not great

39:09 then, because then you can get in the car and unlock the car

39:11 blocks. Yeah, that's right.

39:12 And then, I don't know, it was such a shit box.

39:15 No one was ever gonna steal that car a little.

39:20 I can know my shittest car that I had and it got stolen.

39:24 Oh, that's right. We've talked about that on the

39:25 podcast before, I think. Yeah, yeah, Oh my God, that was

39:27 a piece of shit car. But I loved it with my car, yes.

39:31 Anyway, so he had this subwoofer in the back and they would drive

39:35 away from Arkham. Everyone, people would know that

39:37 they were leaving because they could hear the music.

39:40 Yeah. And the bass from the as they

39:44 were driving away at like 5:00 in the morning.

39:47 So I guess is there anything else you want to talk about in

39:50 relation to like leading up to this point?

39:53 I don't think so. I think you're covering it so

39:54 well. Thank you.

39:55 Not at all. No, I think, I think you've,

39:58 you've covered up very well. If there's anything else we can.

40:00 Always, yeah, we always come back, but I think you've got it.

40:02 OK, so on Saturday the 22nd of September in 2007, Matt and

40:08 Atkins arrived at the Arc nightclub with Jack Smith, who I

40:12 was talking about earlier. So he was one of the people who

40:15 they'd often party with and who they would then go to their

40:18 maybe for recovery on on Sundays, they arrived at about

40:22 midnight again. Oh my God, showing my age but

40:25 arriving at midnight. That's I'm home in bed by

40:27 midnight. And nothing good ever happens

40:29 after midnight, people. That is.

40:31 That's my lesson for all the young people out there.

40:33 Good. Point.

40:34 Good point. We'll have to instill that in

40:36 our children soon. They left the club on Sunday the

40:41 23rd of September, so the next morning, early the next morning

40:45 between 2:15 and 2:30 AM and which was unusually early for

40:49 them. The last sighting of Matt is

40:53 recorded on the ARC CCTV footage.

40:56 The footage was recorded at like on the timestamp on the footage

40:59 says 2:11 AM. Yeah, but it was actually 2:20

41:03 AM because the time was out by about 9 minutes on the on the on

41:06 the CCTV. OK, so a couple of unusual

41:10 things. First unusual thing is that they

41:13 left so early and that was very not like them.

41:17 They, I mean, they'd only arrived at midnight.

41:19 They would. They were.

41:20 They were almost always one of the last to leave at that sort

41:24 of five or 6:00 AM, So it was really unusual that they'd left

41:27 a little bit earlier. Yeah, apparently during the

41:31 night. So Peter had been Peter, Matt's

41:33 older brother, had been at Ark nightclub that night and had

41:36 seen Matt and Atkins. He noted that they weren't

41:40 together for a lot of the night and that he, like Matt, seemed

41:46 happy and it all kind of looked OK.

41:50 He did notice that at one point Matt and Atkins went out onto a

41:55 balcony and he thinks something might have happened out there

41:59 because then there was a bit of tension between them.

42:02 But Peter didn't really think that much about it.

42:05 Not even enough to say to Matt, hey, what's going on?

42:08 I don't think so. You know, they.

42:11 That's kind of where things are at.

42:14 Yeah, the lot. So after they've Matt and Atkins

42:20 have left Arc nightclub, Matt texts one of his friends.

42:25 At what time was that? 3:31 AM on Sunday the 23rd of

42:29 September. He sent his this text to a

42:31 friend named John Burns. That's another.

42:33 After they've left. After they've left.

42:35 Yeah, after they've left, yeah. And it basically said, actually,

42:38 I've got it written down what the exchange was because it's

42:41 interesting, quite interesting. Yeah.

42:42 So Mr. Burns sent Matt a text saying, hey, babe, where are

42:45 you? Matt replied.

42:47 Mike's having a fucking cry. He's taking me home and won't

42:50 stay. Fucking cunt, Mr. Burns replied.

42:54 Oh shit, that's no good, Matt replied.

42:57 He needs to get over himself, Mr. Burns responded.

43:01 Oh well, I'm sure you'll be all right.

43:03 And that was the end of their text exchange.

43:06 I. Think the last sort of sign of

43:08 life that we have of Matt from that night then, yeah.

43:11 That's exactly right. It's.

43:14 Clear from those messages that things were not OK between him

43:19 and Atkins, but it also to me says that Matt was Matthew was

43:26 clear thinking. Yep, agreed.

43:28 In that he was able to text that there's not spelling errors.

43:32 I don't believe in the text when I've seen.

43:33 That there's like nuances in, you know, like the way you text.

43:37 Like fucking this FKN yes. Oh no, like, but to me that's

43:40 actually using like, you know, your brain in terms of like

43:44 actively thinking about sending messages.

43:47 Like that's how you know, you text.

43:49 You're not just texting like when you're drunk kind of text

43:51 kind of going, you know, like he was doing his usual

43:55 abbreviations, all those sorts of things of his text messaging

43:58 style. Yep.

43:59 So to me he was because I guess we get to the point where, you

44:02 know, Atkins, like it says that they left because Matt was too

44:07 drug induced at one stage. Anyways, one of his stories that

44:12 that that message, those messages don't to me correlate

44:14 with that the way they've the way, the way they've written and

44:18 the way and the fact that he's responded back and forth with

44:20 someone. You know what I mean?

44:22 100% And Peter also says that in his interactions with Matt at

44:26 the nightclub, he's like, yeah, he was on something, but he was

44:29 by no means like incapacitated or anything like that.

44:33 He was just having a good time. Yeah, though they, he was known

44:37 to take an EKI down here in that.

44:38 Yep. But like, and so it wasn't

44:40 unusual for him to have been, to have had drugs in his system or

44:42 something for that. Yeah, but not to the point of

44:44 where he was incapacitated and needed to get home because he

44:47 was, you know, in a bad way out with drugs.

44:49 Exactly. Yeah, exactly.

44:51 So I mean that I guess it's really hard now to sort of know

44:56 exactly what happened because we still actually have no idea.

45:00 No what I get. There's an interaction when they

45:05 as they leave, too. So yeah, yeah.

45:07 So they that Atkins takes Matt to the car, puts him in the car,

45:12 and then he returns back to the nightclub to talk to.

45:16 Is it Jack? What?

45:18 What I think it is that he interacts with back at the

45:21 nightclub and he goes to him and has another conversation with

45:24 him and I think this is seen on CCTV that he is there for about

45:28 like 30 minutes and then returns back to the car and leaves.

45:33 So again, if he's taking Matt home because he's so drug

45:39 induced and he's out of control, like needs help for this, how

45:44 much drugs he's had, you're gonna leave him in the car for

45:47 30 minutes on his own and go back in and go and do things.

45:50 There was also a text message exchange between him and Matt

45:52 saying I need more of the GHB drugs.

45:55 Well, that's right. He needed to get more.

45:57 So he needed to get more off of him to be able to go back to

46:00 this Jack White with a bit of a stash of those.

46:03 So it doesn't correlate in terms of when they.

46:06 Left even with it enough to be able to be like, yeah, I'll get

46:10 that together for you and give it to you like.

46:12 Yeah, you know, because according to Atkins, they would

46:16 keep a stash in the car. They wouldn't take everything

46:19 into the nightclub with them. They would keep.

46:21 They would go back and forth between the car, pop the cash

46:24 back. Yeah, take some more in.

46:25 Whatever. Yeah.

46:27 And that's what he said he did at this point.

46:29 But if they've like CCTV, CCTV footage shows that Matt left the

46:35 nightclub at 2:20 AM, then you can actually see there.

46:39 I believe there was other CCTV footage that showed you could

46:44 see the car driving past Arc nightclub and that was at like

46:47 3, 30 or three something AM. So yeah, you're right that that

46:52 fits with that time that. I think it could have been up to

46:55 almost 15 minutes or something like that.

46:56 But he went back in after putting that in the car.

46:59 So to me, there's been more of a, you know, there's been a, an

47:03 argument between them. They're like, he's like, and

47:06 look, he's quite a jealous man from what I could read about.

47:09 Absolutely. To me, there's been an

47:11 interaction where he's like not happy with Matt in like terms

47:13 of, you know, someone else interacting with him.

47:15 And so he's gone up. That's it.

47:17 You're out of here. You go stay in the car.

47:18 Let's go get the more drug. They are the drugs and you can

47:20 stay there because, you know, you're flirting with someone or

47:22 someone's flirting with you. And so he sat in the car while

47:26 he's gone back in for like 50 minutes.

47:28 Like that's not someone who's then going I need to get Matt

47:32 out of here. He's not.

47:33 Hearing about his partner in any way.

47:35 Yeah, well, Matt had worked on that Saturday at the NRMA call

47:40 center and Carrie Anne, his bestie from work, her

47:46 recollection of that day was that Atkins was calling him

47:52 non-stop all day. And Matt would not answer, did

47:57 not answer. And to the point where at

47:59 lunchtime they were sitting together and she saw that that

48:02 Atkins name came up on Matt's phone and he was like, fuck off,

48:06 Mike. Yeah, I just, so I think, like,

48:10 I'm just looking at this from an overall perspective.

48:13 I think Matt had had enough. He'd had enough.

48:17 He'd gotten to the end of his tether with the controlling

48:20 nature of this relationship. Yeah.

48:22 He'd mentioned to Kerry Anne and to another friend that he wanted

48:25 to cash out his leave at an RMA and go over to London and not go

48:30 overseas for a little bit of time, just to get some distance

48:33 between him and Atkins. Would have been a really good

48:35 idea. He probably felt like there was

48:37 no other way out. This is it.

48:39 And whether he'd communicated that with Atkins, and Atkins

48:42 knew he wanted to leave and wanted to go overseas without

48:46 him, I don't know. But I just wonder.

48:48 I yeah, really wonder because he was losing control.

48:52 Yeah, his mum also says there was just their prior, their last

48:56 meeting of each other they had he had Matt had kind of lingered

49:00 a little bit more and like Pete Atkins had went and he was left

49:05 with his mum for a few minutes that she tried to approach him

49:09 to have a bit of a try and have a conversation of like, hey, are

49:11 you happy in this relationship kind of chat.

49:14 And she felt like she was going to be able to get somewhere with

49:16 him And Atkins appeared and it just and ended it and it was all

49:20 done and couldn't be spoken about again.

49:21 So I think. Faye and Mark tried on so many

49:24 occasions to have that conversation, but it actually

49:27 got to the point where they they couldn't, they couldn't get mad

49:32 on his own one day. So Faye and Mark, or Mark is an

49:37 accountant, and they owned their own accountancy business.

49:41 Yeah, that Faye also worked in. And one day they asked Matt to

49:45 come to the office because they thought that might be a way that

49:47 they can get him away from Atkins because why could Atkins

49:50 want to go to the accounting firm?

49:52 Yeah, of course Atkins rocked up with Matt, and then they

49:56 actually got the receptionist to engage in a conversation

50:00 without. Trying to distract.

50:01 Him to try and yeah distract him took Matt into the kitchen yes.

50:04 Of the of the of their office workplace, I think yeah,

50:09 workspace. And Faye was starting to try and

50:13 again introduce that same sort of conversation.

50:15 And she said in an in a moment Atkins appeared and I couldn't I

50:20 couldn't do it. There was no way she could even

50:23 have a a solo communication yeah with her own son.

50:28 I think that is disgusting like that is so controlling like

50:32 yeah. And the fact that he was willing

50:34 to do that in front of his parents, Yeah, imagine what

50:38 things were like behind clothes. This is the thing I can only

50:41 imagine if that's how controlling it was blatantly

50:44 enough in front of others. Holy shit.

50:46 Yeah. Yeah, what he would do behind

50:48 closed doors. Oh.

50:49 It's it's a scary, scary thought, yeah.

50:52 So what we do know then is so the Sunday they've gone home in

50:59 the early hours of the morning somewhere around 3:00, 3/30 and

51:03 then we don't really know anything else until the Tuesday.

51:09 So Matt is due at work at his call centre job.

51:11 As I said before, he very rarely if ever called in sick.

51:15 He certainly wouldn't not show up for work without calling in.

51:20 Jason, Matt's younger brother, was actually at home with

51:23 glandular fever at the time. And Mark and Faye were at work.

51:28 And the supervisor at NRMA actually phoned the the Leveson

51:34 household. Jason answered the phone and

51:37 said, do you know where Maddie is?

51:39 And Jason was like, Nah, don't know.

51:41 Don't know where he is. He doesn't really live here

51:42 anymore. Yeah.

51:44 And so Jason didn't really think that much more of it when Faye

51:48 rang to check I love this rang to check on Jason because he was

51:51 at home with glandular fever during the day.

51:54 Jason just sort of said, oh, by the way, actually Matt's work

51:58 supervisor called and said he hadn't shown up for work today.

52:01 Immediately, Faye knew. Something was wrong.

52:03 Yeah. Yep, Yep.

52:05 She rang the supervisor. The supervisor told her that

52:08 Atkins had phoned twice that morning to see whether they knew

52:13 where Matt was, which was odd. Weird.

52:18 And so Faye then contacted Atkins.

52:20 He didn't answer his phone for a little while, but eventually he

52:24 did call her back and said I don't know where he is.

52:27 I thought you might know. I thought he'd at least rock up.

52:30 I assumed he'd been staying with friends.

52:32 This was his first story. I assumed he'd been staying with

52:35 friends and I just assumed he'd rock up to work.

52:38 So that's why I rang to check. Yeah, his, his initial story was

52:42 that you had gone out on the Sunday.

52:45 He, I think Atkins said he would, he stayed, he stayed

52:49 sleeping. He slept until like about 3:00

52:51 in the afternoon or something. And Matt, and this is where I

52:54 like go. Well, this is bullshit because

52:55 he, he said that like, yeah, that Matt had gone out on his

52:58 own Sunday night with friends. And then so that was the last he

53:01 saw of him was before he went out to go with his mates that

53:05 night, which you know, as we still, we know he wouldn't have

53:08 let Matt go somewhere on his. Own.

53:09 Not at that point, not at. That point, absolutely no.

53:12 So yeah, he tried. I mean, again, it was him sort

53:14 of trying, I think make out as if he would have, but there's no

53:16 way he would have. But he changed his story three

53:20 times in the 1st 12 hours of this being known to people that

53:25 he was missing. Yeah.

53:26 He's yeah. Oh.

53:28 Yeah, yeah. It's it's, I mean, it's, it's,

53:34 it's revolting. Yeah.

53:35 So bad. Really, really so, so bad.

53:38 So basically this is on the Tuesday sort of morning ish that

53:43 that Mark and Faye have figured. Oh my gosh, We don't actually

53:47 know where Matt is. Yeah.

53:48 They tried calling his phone. They've messaged him.

53:51 They've called his friend, all of his friends who they know and

53:54 they are quite familiar with a lot of his friends because they

53:58 were that kind of family who they were very close and they're

54:01 in. Between the brothers, you know,

54:03 like kind of thing, They, you know, they were friends with

54:05 them as well a little bit. And so it was like if you know

54:07 that Peter would know some of his mates and you know, so it

54:10 was yeah, made it a lot easier, I think, for them to get around

54:12 to friends and go right. Well, what's going on here?

54:14 Where is he? Exactly.

54:15 Right. Yeah, exactly.

54:17 So that's sort of where they started.

54:20 And you know, as I said, Atkins did call back, but he, you know,

54:26 he's saying he doesn't know anything.

54:28 Faye and Mark giving my guests the benefit of the doubt early

54:31 on. But by the time 9:00 PM comes

54:34 that night, Mark and Faye were like, we have not been able to

54:37 find him. We don't know where he is.

54:38 We don't know where his car is. Yeah.

54:40 They'd gone driven around to actually, Peter and his

54:43 girlfriend had gone driving around looking for him, looking

54:45 for his car, just looking like all the places he would normally

54:49 go. Yeah.

54:50 And Oh, by the way, actually. So this was on the Tuesday.

54:53 Yeah. On the Sunday one day, Peter and

54:57 his girlfriend were shopping at Woolworths.

54:59 Yes, and they'd seen. They bumped into.

55:03 Atkins. At Woolworths, Yeah, without.

55:07 Without Matt. Matt no.

55:09 And they did, They had a conversation with him.

55:11 They did, you know, like interact.

55:13 They were able to tell the police in the end what he what

55:16 Atkins was wearing at that point.

55:18 A lilac shirt. And a cargo camo shorts.

55:23 Yeah. So they were able to tell the

55:24 police a bit about this interaction on the Sunday, which

55:27 it really sort of sets it up a little bit, I guess.

55:29 I guess because that that already says, well, your story

55:32 that Matt was with you Sunday is bullshit because we saw you on

55:37 Sunday at Woolworths, too. So he had to keep trying.

55:40 He had to keep changing the story because people were

55:44 finding things, like new things, Yeah.

55:46 Yeah, what a fuck. Weird dickhead.

55:48 And so yeah, Peter Leveson called Atkins as well and was

55:51 like, hey, like what's the go? Because also, it's not like

55:56 Atkins said anything to Peter at Woolworths that day about Matt,

56:00 no. Or that anything that he didn't

56:02 know what that where Matt was or that he hadn't come home or that

56:05 he'd gone out and he didn't know where he was.

56:06 Nothing was mentioned like that at.

56:08 All. So this is now back to the

56:12 Tuesday evening. Mark and Faye call Atkins, and

56:15 they say meet us down at the police station.

56:17 We're reporting Matt missing. Yes.

56:19 Atkins. Atkins.

56:21 They had to call him three times before he agreed to go down

56:24 there and meet him. And Mark basically said to him,

56:27 you were the last person to see him.

56:29 You need to come. You will be there.

56:31 So they met. Wouldn't you want to?

56:33 Oh, my God. Exactly.

56:35 Yeah. Why would you resist?

56:37 They go down to to the police station at 11:00 PM that night,

56:42 on Tuesday night and report map missing.

56:44 And this is where Mark and Faye learn how old Atkins is because

56:50 they have to fill out a police report and part of that is

56:53 giving identification. Mark and Faye hand over their

56:56 licenses. And Faye says, in a really

57:00 bizarre turn of events, he, Atkins, had written down on a

57:05 piece of paper his details. Right.

57:08 So he didn't have to say it out loud and passed it over to the

57:11 police officer who was taking down the statement.

57:14 That's. Even more evidence that he knows

57:15 how wrong it. Is 100% but Mark says even

57:19 though I have really shit eyesight, I actually could see

57:22 his date of birth on there and I realized he's 45, not 34.

57:29 Sickening. Disgusting, and so obviously

57:31 that immediately alarm bells. Alarm bells for them.

57:35 Yeah. I think for Faye, she already

57:38 had a lot of bells about him big time.

57:41 I love that, you know, and I love it about him.

57:43 But Mark was a little bit more, oh, you know, like it's just how

57:48 things go and, you know, and that loved him and.

57:51 Yeah. Accepted the fact that this was

57:53 the person that his son had fallen in love with.

57:55 Where? His mum.

57:57 I'm on to you. She, she, her.

58:00 Her gut instinct was kicking in immediately.

58:01 I think from when she first met him, yeah, That things weren't

58:04 right about him. That's it.

58:05 Yeah. So the very next day.

58:09 So part of that, they've obviously said that they've

58:12 reported what Matt's car is, make and model and all of that

58:15 sort of stuff. So it was actually on the

58:16 Thursday, Thursday, the morning of the 27th of September, the

58:20 police located Matt's car and it was parked at Waratah Oval.

58:24 Yeah. Now in Sutherland, now This site

58:28 is significant for for a couple of reasons, but the main reason

58:32 is that these arcade machines that Atkins housed were at the

58:40 facility at this next door to this Oval.

58:42 And you can see where at where Matt's car was parked from,

58:46 where his machines, these machines that he tends to, you

58:50 know, every fortnight or whatever.

58:52 Yeah, you could see where my car was parked from there.

58:55 Wow. So the police have done a search

58:58 of the car and they found some empty food wrappers on the floor

59:02 near the passenger seat. Faye and Mark had said that in

59:07 the boot there was this massive subwoofer.

59:09 So they've opened the boot to sort of have a look and see what

59:12 was what was the going there. The boot was empty.

59:15 Besides, not completely empty. Aside from one little thing.

59:18 Yeah, and that was a Bunnings warehouse receipt.

59:22 Mm hmm for 12:20 on Sunday the 23rd of September.

59:25 And what was on the receipt, Meg?

59:27 There was 2 items purchased. Mm hmm.

59:29 From Bunnings, there was a, we'll call it a pickaxe,

59:33 basically attic. Yeah.

59:36 And the other thing was some duct tape, some fairly heavy

59:38 duty duct tape. Yeah, like, like gaffer tape,

59:41 gaffer tape, Yeah, like really heavy duty gaffer tape.

59:43 Yeah, they were able to. Then from that receipt, the

59:46 police did go down to the Bunnings where it was purchased

59:49 from. Because it was purchased in cash

59:51 too? Yes, it wasn't purchased with

59:52 the credit card. Credit card, so they went down,

59:54 they're able to get the CCTV from that Bunnings and on it

59:58 they could see that that. Those items were purchased by a

1:00:02 person wearing a lilac T-shirt and cargo shorts that were camo.

1:00:08 Exactly how Peter and his girlfriend had described Atkins

1:00:12 that day on the Sunday when they had bumped into him shortly

1:00:14 after this. So he was buying things like at

1:00:18 Woolies that day as well. So on the CCTV they were very

1:00:22 clear that that was him, like there was no question.

1:00:24 Apparently it was like some of the clearest CCTV footage, yeah,

1:00:28 ever, because it was at a cash register.

1:00:30 Yeah, it's close. You can close face.

1:00:32 It's not like, oh, could that be him?

1:00:34 Yeah, it's not a distance. If someone is walking in a car

1:00:36 park situation, it was it was up close.

1:00:38 They knew it was him, but also matching not only like his

1:00:40 facial like which is yeah, dough, you can tell it's him,

1:00:43 but also then the clothing that two separate people have

1:00:46 identified him wearing like from another time at that same day.

1:00:50 Crazy. Yeah, so they were.

1:00:52 I had that CCTV footage. They then pull in Atkins for a

1:00:57 chat. Now, at this point, he's

1:01:00 cautioned he's not arrested. He is not a suspect.

1:01:04 At this point. This is a conversation they're

1:01:06 going to have willingly with him about what he knows of Matt look

1:01:10 missing. So he can leave at any time, He

1:01:12 was cautioned as a witness, yes. Not as not as a suspect.

1:01:16 So they start to interview him and they bring up with him the

1:01:21 Bunnings and were you at Bunnings?

1:01:23 And he flat out lies. No, wasn't at Bunnings.

1:01:27 So the cops know he's lying. So at that point he becomes a

1:01:32 suspect, but they do not take him out and recaution him as a

1:01:39 suspect so that he is under full understanding of what he's

1:01:43 obligations here are and that the fact is that he's now being

1:01:47 looked at in a different way. That change Lee changes legally

1:01:50 how he is looked at in the courts.

1:01:53 So basically the fact that the the police now have changed

1:01:57 their opinion of him means that the courts now need him to

1:02:00 understand that for him to be for that what he gives us

1:02:03 evidence to be able to be used in court.

1:02:06 But they don't do that. They continue to interview him

1:02:10 and ask him about this, which he continues to deny.

1:02:14 He they do offer him to see the CCTV footage, which at first he

1:02:18 does agree to, but then as they talk a little bit more and get

1:02:21 to it, he deny. He says no, don't want to see

1:02:23 it, don't need to, it's not me. He also, I think because they

1:02:27 said to him, anything that you say or do while you are watching

1:02:30 this footage can be used against you, right?

1:02:32 And so he decided, Oh no, say it.

1:02:34 Then but they but he wasn't formally cautioned of those

1:02:37 things like as in, you know, he wasn't taken back out to where

1:02:39 he needs to be done. That needs to be done out

1:02:41 separately to the custody manager.

1:02:43 Yeah, yeah. So yeah, it's it's really crap

1:02:47 at this. This is where I'm unfortunately

1:02:50 this case, there's so many failings from this point onwards

1:02:54 of the from the police, yeah, that it's so this is where the

1:02:58 Levesons are just not dealt with how they should be.

1:03:00 Yeah, unfortunately, but yeah, so he.

1:03:03 Didn't talk a little bit later about why we think that is.

1:03:06 Yeah, I mean, this is, this is a procedural failure.

1:03:09 That's I, you know, OK. That's not good.

1:03:13 Yeah. It should never have happened.

1:03:15 I can see that. But then as things go on,

1:03:17 there's other failures that I'm just like, why did this happen

1:03:21 to this person? Yeah.

1:03:23 To this family. Yeah.

1:03:24 I wonder. Yeah, it's very interesting.

1:03:28 Yeah. So basically in this interview,

1:03:30 he completely denies that it's, it's him at Bunnies, but the

1:03:32 cops are very aware it's definitely him and he's and that

1:03:35 the items that he's purchased, I mean, I'm very suspect, like

1:03:40 very suspect on that. He does eventually say that he

1:03:44 did purchase those items for creating a vegetable patch back

1:03:48 at his apartment where there's only a communal garden.

1:03:53 And even though he had never sought like the the permission

1:03:58 to be able to do that there. He had some zucchinis that he

1:04:01 was growing out on his deck that only on his balcony, which he he

1:04:05 was sort of said he was going to plant them there.

1:04:07 And like, well, like, like, what with the gaffer tape.

1:04:12 And also it was very close to the beach there in Cronulla, so

1:04:15 the sand would not have required a pickaxe or a Matic Turk.

1:04:18 You could dig with your hands. Yeah, it was very sandy soil.

1:04:21 So a pickaxe wasn't really required for that.

1:04:24 Yeah. So they did.

1:04:25 And so they did go hard on him in this interview in terms of

1:04:27 that information. But unfortunately, because he

1:04:29 wasn't cautioned around it, it is now unusable.

1:04:32 And. Admissible.

1:04:34 Unfortunately, yeah, his his story at this point to the

1:04:36 police was that they'd obviously gone to Arc Knight Club.

1:04:39 They'd left early because they had a bit of a tip.

1:04:41 Yep. And he was very adamant on this

1:04:44 word Tiff rather than he kept they would use the word argument

1:04:47 or and like, did you have an argument you're.

1:04:49 Like, oh, we have a tiff little. Tiff.

1:04:50 So he was really trying to minimise it big time.

1:04:54 Absolutely. So he said that they'd gone to

1:04:57 sleep at about 5:00 AM and woken somewhere between 2:00 and 3:00

1:05:02 in the afternoon. He thought that Matt had gone

1:05:04 out to arc with friends on the Sunday night because they'd left

1:05:07 the club early the night before. Yeah.

1:05:09 And he said that at about 8:30 PM, he was with Matt on the

1:05:12 couch watching television. And then he and then Atkins fell

1:05:15 asleep. Yeah.

1:05:17 He woke at about 1:00 AM on the couch.

1:05:19 On the Monday is he saying then? On the Monday morning and Matt

1:05:23 wasn't home, so he described he he said, oh, I just assumed Matt

1:05:27 had gone out to the Ark night club again.

1:05:29 Yeah, without me. On the Monday night before I

1:05:32 went to work on Tuesday. No, this is on the Sunday night.

1:05:36 On a Sunday night? Yeah.

1:05:37 OK, Yeah. Yeah.

1:05:41 He, I mean, obviously he told so many lies during this first

1:05:45 record of interview about denying going to Bunnings.

1:05:50 So the, but just before the police brought him in on the

1:05:53 Thursday, they actually phoned him to say, we need to speak to

1:05:57 you. He was at work.

1:05:59 Well, sorry, he told the police he was at work at the time, 2

1:06:03 hours away. Yeah.

1:06:04 And so he said to them, Yep, happy to come in, but I'm gonna

1:06:07 have to, like, finish work. And then it'll be take me two

1:06:10 hours to drive to the police station for an interview.

1:06:13 By this stage, the police were already on to him.

1:06:15 Yeah. And obviously he was already a

1:06:17 suspect. He's he's the person closest to

1:06:19 Matt. He he should be a suspect.

1:06:21 In any investigation, you always start with the people.

1:06:24 Close. And when you can't rule them

1:06:25 out, you know, quickly. Yep.

1:06:27 Yes, absolutely. That's on top of that.

1:06:29 Really. Yeah.

1:06:29 So they had a surveillance car on him, so they knew he wasn't

1:06:32 two hours away at work. He was actually in the next

1:06:34 suburb across. Yeah.

1:06:36 And what he did when he finished work was he went home.

1:06:40 They had another unit waiting at home at his house.

1:06:44 Yeah, his apartment. And so they intercepted him

1:06:47 before he was able to go inside. At this point, they've then

1:06:50 taken him down to the police station and performed this first

1:06:53 interview. So this is where that really

1:06:55 frustrates me a lot in terms of that fact that he wasn't

1:06:59 cautioned properly. Although there were reasons to

1:07:02 suspect him. Yeah, this is it.

1:07:04 There's reasons to suspect him from the get go.

1:07:05 I can understand kind of going look, let's cautiously just do

1:07:08 the witness to begin with. But the but we're but we're

1:07:12 thinking more suspect in the back of your mind, in the back

1:07:15 of your mind, you should have known that you were basically

1:07:17 going to be recautioning him. Yeah.

1:07:20 But the fact they just pushed through that interview as if

1:07:22 they've never been trained. Yeah, that that really, really

1:07:25 freaking does my head in. Yeah, it's.

1:07:28 It's a lot. Yeah, it's a lot, yeah.

1:07:32 What else did he lie about? I mean, he was, he lied about

1:07:37 driving Matt's car. He lied about.

1:07:39 There were just so many things that he lied about that were

1:07:41 then later able to be proved that he did.

1:07:45 You know, there was a lot of CCTV footage of him doing things

1:07:49 at this point. He refused to speak with the

1:07:52 police after this because. So this was at the point where

1:07:54 they're like, we've got CCTV, CCTV footage of you at Bunnings.

1:08:00 He refused to see that. He sort of stopped talking to

1:08:02 the police around that time. Yeah.

1:08:04 He exercised his right to silence, and he ended up getting

1:08:08 himself a lawyer. Yeah.

1:08:10 And at this point, he was actually.

1:08:13 So what date was that? On the 19th of August he was

1:08:16 charged with Matt's murder. In October of 2009, an 8 week

1:08:21 trial by jury was held and he I guess how do we go through this?

1:08:30 There was a lot of evidence given, a lot of witnesses.

1:08:33 The trial was incredibly complex.

1:08:36 It was very demanding on the Leveson family.

1:08:39 Yeah, most especially Mark. Yeah, Matt, Matt's dad, because

1:08:44 he was one of the last people to give evidence, which meant he

1:08:47 was unable to be in court. Faye, Jason and Peter were very

1:08:52 early on in giving testimony. So they were actually, once

1:08:55 they, once you give testimony, you can then sit in the court.

1:08:57 Yeah, to watch the rest of the proceedings.

1:09:00 So they were able to do that without the support of Mark.

1:09:03 And he really felt that that was incredibly impactful to the

1:09:07 family, something like last or third last.

1:09:09 Or something like crazy like that.

1:09:10 They like the the, you know, the other family members were like

1:09:13 within the first, you know, six or seven or something.

1:09:16 And then Paul, Mark wasn't until like the 20 something, you know,

1:09:21 giving evidence. So yeah, apparently that really,

1:09:24 really separated them as a family because they couldn't

1:09:26 communicate about what was happening in the court.

1:09:29 And there was a lot happening in that.

1:09:33 His lawyer, Atkins lawyer was pretty awful to Peter

1:09:37 particularly. I'm calling Himalaya and Jason

1:09:40 for that matter, when they got them on the stand and gave their

1:09:42 evidence because Peter was giving evidence in terms of like

1:09:45 seeing him at Woolies and and seeing him on the night of at

1:09:48 ARC. But also, Jason had an example

1:09:51 of when, sorry, when Matt and Atkins, we're having an argument

1:09:57 at a party, he saw prior to all of this occurring, sort of

1:10:01 establishing that this was a pattern.

1:10:04 And the lawyer just straight out was like, you're lying about

1:10:06 that. You're just making that up now.

1:10:08 And there was also where the police hadn't interviewed Peter

1:10:11 early enough. They kept putting, he, Peter

1:10:13 wanted to go to the police very early on and tell them this

1:10:15 information and they kept putting him off.

1:10:18 And so it wasn't his fault that the statement wasn't taken

1:10:20 immediately. It was taken like I think maybe

1:10:23 a month even later. I think it was like 5 or 6

1:10:25 weeks. Yeah, it was something, Yeah,

1:10:26 really, it was a long time. So that's poor.

1:10:28 Policing, but on the stand then the the lawyers telling him

1:10:32 that, Oh no, you made that story up at that point.

1:10:35 You've got a because you had a month.

1:10:36 You knew to think about it, Yeah, No, he wanted to tell it

1:10:38 the day it happened like, but it, you know, it wasn't taken by

1:10:42 the police and his. Story didn't change over that

1:10:45 time at all. But there's no evidence of that

1:10:47 in respect to the police's documentation of it 100%, which

1:10:50 is where. So they were using all that

1:10:52 against them when it was poor policing was the issue.

1:10:56 And so I can understand the family being absolutely so

1:10:59 distraught by this not falling into place as it should have.

1:11:03 Yeah. Everything was lined up for them

1:11:05 to get a slam dunk, I think, if the police had done their job.

1:11:09 Yeah. Because the other bit of

1:11:10 evidence that had been overlooked, I think at this

1:11:12 point even was on this, there was CC, there was, sorry, not

1:11:16 CCT three, there was footage of the of Atkins place being

1:11:20 searched, including the storage unit.

1:11:22 So there was the apartments and they all had a community like

1:11:25 storage units at the bottom of where they, it's quite common

1:11:29 that happens, you know, have a gate where there's cage where

1:11:32 you have all your things in store, things outside of your

1:11:34 apartment. And when they did a video of

1:11:37 that, you could see inside that little unit was the subwoofer

1:11:43 was in the in that, in that storage unit and that was never

1:11:48 picked up by the police. It wasn't even documented as you

1:11:50 can see it in the video, but it wasn't documented on the list of

1:11:53 things that they had. Had found.

1:11:55 So it was basically like the thought process from like even

1:11:58 the Leveson's and should have been the police's thought

1:12:00 process was that the car was found without that in it.

1:12:03 Now, everyone knows that he drove away from that nightclub

1:12:06 that night with his normal music blaring out of that car, people.

1:12:10 So you knew the subwoofer was in there on Saturday night.

1:12:13 Yeah. Yet we get to Thursday when that

1:12:16 car is being found dumped and the subwoof is not in there.

1:12:20 Why? Yeah, maybe to fit a body in the

1:12:22 boot. Oh, you reckon?

1:12:23 Maybe. Why else would you take that out

1:12:25 other than to fit some fit something big in there because

1:12:28 that took up so much of the boot.

1:12:29 Like it's a permanent fixture sort of thing, a subwoofer,

1:12:32 isn't it? It's not something you can

1:12:33 easily take in and out of a car. And it was noted that that what

1:12:37 when they searched the car, that when they found the receipt,

1:12:40 they found wires. Well, what were those wires

1:12:43 meant to be attached to? There was no connection by the

1:12:45 police to make that thought process of like, hang on a

1:12:49 second, what was meant to be here that these wires were

1:12:52 attached to? That isn't there now?

1:12:54 Yes. Oh, it's that.

1:12:57 Whoa, get angry. It's it's it's infuriating.

1:13:00 Yeah, actually infuriating. During the trial, Atkins decided

1:13:03 not to give evidence, which is absolutely his right.

1:13:06 He exercised his right to silence.

1:13:09 And after deliberations, the jury actually came back to the

1:13:14 magistrate and said that they were unable to reach a finding,

1:13:18 a unanimous finding. Yep.

1:13:20 And so the judge said that OK, in that case I will allow a non

1:13:27 unanimous finding. But it had to.

1:13:29 So there were 12 jurors. It had to be 11, had to have the

1:13:32 same verdict. And so eventually they came and

1:13:36 they after their deliberations and they came back, they'd

1:13:40 reached a verdict of not guilty. Now I can almost in a way

1:13:46 understand this because there was enough reasonable doubt, I

1:13:50 think in the defence's case that they couldn't.

1:13:55 They no one even to this day knows exactly what happened.

1:13:59 So what the defence said was that Matt had actually staged

1:14:04 his own disappearance because things were kind of getting a

1:14:08 little bit too much and he wanted to leave the

1:14:10 relationship. They admitted to that.

1:14:12 And so there was, even though there were no signs of life, as

1:14:17 in, you know, his Medicare card hadn't been used.

1:14:19 He hadn't accessed any of his money.

1:14:21 He hadn't made contact with his family.

1:14:23 There were no signs of life. But the jury still had no proof

1:14:28 that he'd actually died or body that he hadn't done something to

1:14:32 himself. And the prosecution did

1:14:35 unfortunately, pull out some random sightings of Matt that

1:14:39 that people had put forward, which as we know with these

1:14:42 cases, you know, you put up a, you know, a call line for like

1:14:47 these sorts of things that people do ring in and they do

1:14:49 think they see these people because they want to help.

1:14:51 But unfortunately, when you don't know someone, you probably

1:14:54 don't really know what they look like when you see them out in

1:14:55 the wild from just a photo. So who knows how how accurate?

1:15:00 Well, I mean, we know they weren't accurate sightings.

1:15:03 They were of of map around the place.

1:15:06 Yeah, too. So unfortunately, they did put

1:15:10 forward prosecution enough reasonable doubt.

1:15:13 Yeah, to be able to put that there.

1:15:14 Yeah. So and as you and the cops

1:15:16 didn't have their ducks in a row properly as they should have.

1:15:19 So, yeah, the the possible sightings, they had 11 witnesses

1:15:23 who testified to possible sightings.

1:15:25 Yeah, they also had Atkins give evidence before the actually,

1:15:36 no, that's actually pertaining to the inquest.

1:15:39 So yeah, at this point Atkins hadn't actually they they did

1:15:43 put forward his record of record of interview as part of the

1:15:46 evidence in the trial, but it didn't really say much and that

1:15:51 it could only be used up until that point where he wasn't then

1:15:58 cautioned again. So all of that stuff beforehand

1:16:00 didn't really have any necessarily any sort of bearing

1:16:05 on on the outcome there. Yeah.

1:16:07 So unfortunately he will sort of walked.

1:16:10 Free. He acquitted, yeah.

1:16:11 Now, around this time, Gary Drublin comes on the scene, Yes.

1:16:17 And he had actually just come back from some extended leave

1:16:20 from the police force. Now we know Gary Drublin.

1:16:22 He's got his own podcast as well.

1:16:24 Yes. And he was also the one of the

1:16:28 lead investigators in the William Tyrrell case for a

1:16:30 while. So he's, you know, very well,

1:16:32 very. Well known, very seasoned, very

1:16:34 investigator in this. But also like so prior to him,

1:16:38 though, there had been so many changes as to who was leading

1:16:42 this case that I think that's another issue again with this,

1:16:47 that I get it, people move around in the police force.

1:16:49 I totally understand that. But I don't know, the Levesons

1:16:52 have said this the entire time looking at this case.

1:16:55 They were so concerned that all of a sudden this was going to

1:16:58 become a cold case and get dropped and just left and

1:17:00 nothing else was going to get done with it.

1:17:03 Which I think they were so grateful for Gary to come along

1:17:05 because he was like a dog with a bone and he wouldn't let it go.

1:17:08 And that was what they needed, and they didn't have that prior

1:17:11 to him. Apparently the first

1:17:14 investigator they had, the first informant they had, police

1:17:17 informant they had, she was amazing, she was incredible.

1:17:20 But then she got moved to a different station and so they

1:17:23 got someone else who was less than incredible.

1:17:26 And so that really stopped the investigation in its tracks.

1:17:29 And you know, they would ring every month and try and get an

1:17:33 update and there was never any updates.

1:17:35 And so when it came to the point that Gary Jubal and took it on,

1:17:39 nothing had been done for over a year for a long time.

1:17:43 And what ended up happening was that I mean, thank goodness for

1:17:48 Jubal and but it ended up going. Well, there was a coronial

1:17:54 inquest yet that had already started prior to Gary carrying

1:17:58 on board. Well, it started prior to Atkins

1:18:00 being charged, but had been suspended when he was charged.

1:18:05 So I mean, obviously because you think, OK, we've, we've got

1:18:07 someone here that we've now got enough evidence.

1:18:08 We don't, we don't need the coronal inquest necessarily.

1:18:11 They didn't like sort of just cancel it.

1:18:12 They suspended it just to see what would come of that.

1:18:15 So thankfully once in that, you know, well with him being

1:18:18 acquitted, they did manage to have the inquest brought forward

1:18:22 again. So this happened on it started

1:18:26 on the 31st of October in 2016, Yeah.

1:18:29 So Matt went missing in 2007, Yeah.

1:18:34 It's this is it. There's such a it's so much

1:18:36 time. I mean this poor family this

1:18:38 whole time. They don't know what's happened

1:18:39 to Matt at all. Like, and if you're thinking

1:18:42 that, OK, Atkins has been acquitted, not that I mean, we

1:18:47 all think he did something and still to that, you know, in that

1:18:49 terms of like that, but you know that.

1:18:53 But he's got to, you've got to start thinking as a family and I

1:18:56 and that, OK, if it's not Atkins, then what else happened

1:18:59 here? And I you know that I mean, cops

1:19:02 shouldn't be tunnel visioned on somebody, but you also need to

1:19:05 make sure you do dot the IS and cross the TS of everyone that

1:19:09 you do suspect. And I don't feel that was done

1:19:11 with Atkins before they even went to trial.

1:19:14 So let alone now they're looking at OK, well, we kind of can't

1:19:18 look at Atkins in that he's been acquitted.

1:19:21 But to find out answers for the family, you need to look at him

1:19:25 still, but also look broader in case there is more to this.

1:19:29 It would be so heartbreaking for the family to be like back there

1:19:32 if going now we know nothing again.

1:19:35 I guess the benefit of going to a coronial inquest is that the

1:19:38 coroner actually has different powers to that the coronial

1:19:41 court has different powers to that of the the Criminal Court,

1:19:45 I think. That was the only way they could

1:19:46 get answers in this. That's.

1:19:47 Right. And so the coroner can compel

1:19:49 somebody to test. Yeah.

1:19:53 And they ended up having to do that with Atkins.

1:19:57 So it's called. They they it was an induced

1:20:00 statement. Well, prior to that even it was

1:20:01 a Section 61 OK certificate which so the first part of this

1:20:06 is that he was told that because he refused to give evidence.

1:20:10 So the the coroner was able to yet do this Section 61, which

1:20:15 compels him to give evidence. And so he's still in that and he

1:20:20 was lying like when he was giving that evidence.

1:20:22 So he continued. He did give a lot more, but

1:20:26 certainly not enough. Well, he, he said in, in one of

1:20:30 them. I I think it was at this point,

1:20:32 yeah, that he thought that Matt was alive and living in

1:20:34 Thailand. Yeah, yeah.

1:20:35 And they get that's one of the ones then when they they grabbed

1:20:38 him on that and said it's the already the coroner already has,

1:20:41 we've already agreed that's not what's happened.

1:20:44 We all agree. He's dead.

1:20:45 He's. Deceased and you know, now we're

1:20:46 trying to find out where he is and what's happened.

1:20:48 So because he's perjured himself, they then were able to

1:20:53 enact the induced statement situation.

1:20:56 So that was where they basically said to him, OK, you've perjured

1:21:00 yourself, you're going to jail. We we can prove that you've

1:21:02 perjured. And I believe that the term for

1:21:05 perjury, the maximum term is 10 years.

1:21:08 Yeah, that would like that he wouldn't have gotten much and

1:21:10 that this is where the family had to make really tough

1:21:11 decisions around this because already with the with getting

1:21:16 him to do the the other section 61 that gave him that he could

1:21:21 give evidence and would not go to jail.

1:21:23 So basically and he said that that's that stand and he'd

1:21:26 already been acquitted anyway, but basically he could say

1:21:28 anything on that stand and he wouldn't go to jail for it.

1:21:32 But he didn't do that, he lied. So because he's perjuring

1:21:36 himself, they went back to him again and were able to say to

1:21:39 him, right, you've perjured yourself, you are going to do

1:21:42 jail time now. So if you don't want to do that

1:21:45 jail time, your best option now is to give us where the body is.

1:21:49 So if they he could give them and literally they had to find

1:21:53 the body for this to be, you know, enacted in full that then

1:21:57 with that, if he gave an induced statement for that, this is

1:22:01 outside of the coronial inquest. Really this is separate to that.

1:22:04 If you could would give us an induced statement and tell us

1:22:06 where to find the body and we find the body, you will not be

1:22:09 done for perjury. So it gave him immunity to that.

1:22:13 Still kind of two stages to it, but so that one, that's what was

1:22:16 so shit. The family thought that they'd

1:22:18 already given away all they had in the first one and still

1:22:22 didn't get what they wanted. Like, you know, in that they

1:22:24 just want to Matt. They want to know what happened

1:22:25 to him, where he is. And as I said, put him, put, you

1:22:28 know, him somewhere, bury him, give him the respect he deserves

1:22:31 for them to be able to, you know, have that.

1:22:35 And this asshole still wouldn't give it to them on the stand.

1:22:37 Even though there were zero consequences.

1:22:40 Yeah. Admitting when I say 0

1:22:42 consequences, 0 legal consequences.

1:22:45 Yeah. As in he wasn't going to go to

1:22:47 prison for this. He just had to say what

1:22:50 happened. Yeah.

1:22:51 And where Matt's body was, Yes. So in this induced statement, he

1:22:54 says that basically his story then changes to the fact that

1:22:59 Matt overdosed, he died at home, and he worried.

1:23:02 He was worried that something bad would happen to him, that to

1:23:05 Atkins. He was worried that his mum

1:23:07 would find out that he was. Gay, that's what he says.

1:23:10 Yeah. And that people would think that

1:23:12 well or no, that he was, he was drug dealing.

1:23:16 Yeah. That was his that were his two

1:23:17 concerns. Yeah.

1:23:18 With finding his dead person he really loved bullshit lover dead

1:23:23 from a drug overdose is what he's what he claims to have

1:23:26 occurred. Yeah.

1:23:28 Gary Dublin believes that story. I know, I know.

1:23:31 Do you? No, I don't.

1:23:32 I don't. I don't.

1:23:34 I don't even for a minute. And this is like, so Mark and

1:23:38 Faye, they say they've got so much respect for Gary that they

1:23:41 respect his opinion. They respect that that's what he

1:23:44 thinks. But they actually can't believe

1:23:47 that that's what he thinks. Yeah, because.

1:23:49 I mean, like his, his reason for believing it is that he he

1:23:53 thinks that no one would be stupid enough to come up with

1:23:55 that and use that as an excuse. But I'm kind of like, I think.

1:23:58 That's it, I think. I think that's no.

1:24:02 Because at the end of the day, hey, in the scenario of, you

1:24:06 know, your lover has gone missing, it was always going to

1:24:09 make a bit of a headline somewhere, wasn't it?

1:24:12 That you know that you're attached to this story of a

1:24:15 person going missing, you're the last person who saw them alive

1:24:18 or around, whether they are dead or are alive missing.

1:24:22 So what's the difference like in terms of like that?

1:24:25 Story yeah, it doesn't add up. It doesn't add up.

1:24:28 It doesn't add no at all. At all, no.

1:24:32 So basically then it's now up to Atkins to say where he's buried

1:24:37 the body. Yeah.

1:24:38 And so he takes them to the Royal National Park.

1:24:42 And this is like a massive it's not the park, it's a national.

1:24:47 Park a National Park. Huge.

1:24:49 Huge. Yeah.

1:24:49 And what he says to the police is that he thinks he carried

1:24:53 Matt's body about 70 meters off a particular track.

1:24:57 So they drive around for ages looking for whatever it is he

1:25:00 thinks he finds where it is. And.

1:25:03 We should say, like prior to all of this, well prior to this,

1:25:07 Matt's family believed that that's where he'd been taken

1:25:10 from other aspects of this. Story.

1:25:12 Well, you know how they figured this.

1:25:15 So. Mark being an analytical mind,

1:25:19 yeah, when they found Matt's car, Yep, they were able to look

1:25:24 at his credit card and see when or bank card, bank statements,

1:25:28 see when he'd last filled up with petrol.

1:25:30 Right. He then worked out how far the

1:25:33 car could have driven. Wow, being an accountant, he

1:25:36 knows. Yep.

1:25:37 He knows his numbers. And so they drew a radius around

1:25:40 where they found the car and however many kilometres he

1:25:42 thought that could have carved in there and back, Right, Right.

1:25:45 And then they were like, Oh well, the Royal National Park

1:25:48 makes up a big chunk of that radius.

1:25:50 And that's somewhere that you could would go to bury a body.

1:25:53 So that's how they thought that that's probably where Matt was.

1:25:57 Buried. They used to go out there and

1:25:59 dig. Every weekend.

1:26:00 And look for him every week. My heart.

1:26:03 For 10. Can you imagine this?

1:26:07 The brothers would go, Mum and Dad would go and they would look

1:26:11 for him. That's.

1:26:14 God, I know. Oh, I know, this piece of shit

1:26:17 knew all this the whole time. Could have given, could have

1:26:20 told. Him that, given him that, Yep,

1:26:22 10 years. He held onto it.

1:26:24 Yep, fucker. Fucking piece of shit.

1:26:27 Yeah. So it comes now that they're

1:26:31 trying to find Matt's body. And, you know, he says it's

1:26:35 about 70 meters down this track. And the police, like, really?

1:26:38 Because Matt Wade, you know, wasn't.

1:26:40 Big, but he wasn't still big. But he weighed like 75 or 80

1:26:43 kilos, Yeah. Are you sure you were able to

1:26:45 carry a body or carry a body that So they actually got him a

1:26:48 weight that was the. Mannequin.

1:26:50 They got a mannequin of that and weight that light that weight.

1:26:53 And he was like, Oh no, there's no way I could have done.

1:26:56 He realized no. Yeah.

1:26:58 So he's like, it probably was about this fast.

1:27:00 So they've then cordoned off this area.

1:27:03 They've brought in all of the police excavators, like I'm

1:27:05 talking heavy machinery because this is dense bushland.

1:27:08 Yeah, that at this point had been been dead for 10 years.

1:27:11 So you've been there for 10 years.

1:27:14 And anyway, they're looking, I think they had three weeks left

1:27:18 to the end of the time. So they're looking every day,

1:27:22 seven days a week, massive amounts of police resources out

1:27:25 there. And obviously they're looking,

1:27:28 looking, looking. It comes to the final hour of

1:27:30 the final day and an excavator accidentally backs up and knocks

1:27:36 over a sago palm. And with that they're like, Oh

1:27:42 well, it's been sort of knocked over now let's go and have a

1:27:44 look. And they found, AI think they

1:27:47 found a hip bone. And they're like, oh, my God.

1:27:53 And anyway, they ended up up excavating the site, and there

1:27:57 was a full, full skeletal remains of an adult male, which

1:28:00 was then later on tested and found to be that of Matthew

1:28:05 Leveson. Yeah.

1:28:09 I can't even imagine how that must have felt for Mark, Faye,

1:28:14 Peter and Jason, and the extended family and friends of

1:28:18 Matt's. But for Mark and Faye, this was

1:28:22 what they wanted. They wanted Matt's remains.

1:28:25 They wanted to be able to lay him to rest and to give him the

1:28:30 send off that he deserved in the lead up to his death.

1:28:34 It was leading up to his 21st birthday, and Faye was saying

1:28:39 that, you know, before he'd met Atkins, she knows he would have

1:28:43 had a cocktail party. He would have had music and fun

1:28:47 and it would have been amazing. But, you know, he would.

1:28:50 He'd been with Atkins at this point long enough that he kind

1:28:53 of really dulled himself down a lot.

1:28:55 And Atkins was like, oh, we'll just have a barbecue in the

1:28:57 backyard with a keg for his 21st.

1:28:59 And he was like, he was like, Matt didn't even drink beer.

1:29:03 Like, what the fuck? You know it was it was, you know

1:29:07 that the end of his life was so burdened by Atkins actions that

1:29:14 he just. Did you say it wasn't dulled him

1:29:17 down? And that's not who he was and

1:29:19 that's. You know, that's described by so

1:29:21 many people. You see photos of him and you

1:29:23 think, oh absolutely, he was this he.

1:29:24 Would have been so much fun. He would have been so.

1:29:26 Much fun. He was kind.

1:29:28 And he was a really attractive young man.

1:29:30 He was. You could tell he was the laugh

1:29:32 at the party had that, like, the biggest smile, you know, hair

1:29:36 exactly, you know, perfectly coiffed or, you know, Yeah.

1:29:39 You know, you could see that a lot of time had gone into making

1:29:42 it look the way it looks. Well maintained.

1:29:44 Yeah. Yeah.

1:29:46 And Atkins robbed him of all of that, of everything.

1:29:50 And. And what what is, in the end,

1:29:52 his skeletal remains found in a National Park?

1:29:55 Just it's just not what he deserved at all.

1:29:59 No, no. Not at all.

1:30:01 So Faye and Mark and the boys did hold a funeral format, a

1:30:08 memorial format, and it was incredibly well attended.

1:30:11 Yeah. And, you know, so many people

1:30:13 spoke so highly of him. And I've got some quotes that I

1:30:17 can I can talk to about that. Sorry.

1:30:22 It wasn't a sego palm. It was a cabbage palm that his

1:30:25 body was found. Under I wouldn't know the

1:30:26 difference. No, you wouldn't.

1:30:29 So one of his friends, Rachel Sanky, said that he had the most

1:30:33 amazing, huge and contagious smile.

1:30:36 When he smiled, it would just light up the room and you

1:30:38 couldn't help but smile too. His personality just captured

1:30:42 the entire room. When I think about Maddie, the

1:30:44 first thing that comes to mind is laughter and feeling happy

1:30:47 and all of the wonderful times we had together.

1:30:51 And what I think is absolutely lovely is that the community

1:30:55 really rallied around Faye and Mark at this time.

1:30:58 And lots of people donated their time to redo their garden, and

1:31:04 they brought that cabbage palm home and planted it at home.

1:31:08 You know, Face and Mark both say that that cabbage palm was

1:31:12 nourished by Matt's body and by his remains and belongs.

1:31:16 So it belongs to them and it belongs to him.

1:31:18 And it really is a source of comfort to them having that at

1:31:22 home. So yeah, that's.

1:31:25 I didn't read it anywhere because they did speak about in

1:31:29 a lot of things that I talked about that I read that they've

1:31:31 got a lot of tattoos, even like so Mark and Faye, including the

1:31:35 the the brothers, but, and one of them in particular I'm going

1:31:39 to talk about. But did they end up getting a

1:31:40 palm tree tattoo? I believe, I think so.

1:31:42 I believe so. It's another one of Mark's

1:31:45 tattoos that I think sums up this case, unfortunately.

1:31:48 An 100%. Hits me hard.

1:31:50 Yeah, he has had this tattooed on himself and he made sure that

1:31:53 police officers saw this. It's on his arms on that reason.

1:31:56 So he can, you know, pull it out and show people because and make

1:31:59 sure people see it without really, you know, putting it

1:32:01 glaringly obviously in people's faces.

1:32:03 And it reads, it's not a justice system, it is just a system

1:32:09 because this family didn't get the justice they deserved and

1:32:12 Matt didn't get the justice he deserved.

1:32:14 Atkins walks the streets and continues to do exactly what

1:32:18 he's done in the past, and that is prey on young men.

1:32:23 Two weeks after Matt went missing, we now know he was

1:32:28 already deceased. But two weeks after he went

1:32:30 missing, he was already in a relationship with another 17

1:32:33 year old boy a week. The the following Sunday, Yeah,

1:32:36 he was at an event with a young man of like the age of 17 as

1:32:40 well. Yeah.

1:32:41 In particular. Oh, God, What's it called?

1:32:43 There's a a big event. I've got it coming.

1:32:45 What was called now hold on, it was.

1:32:46 Called the Sleazeball. Sleazeball event.

1:32:48 That's right. So it was a fundraising event

1:32:50 for the Mardi Gras. Yeah.

1:32:52 I think actually Matt had bought the tickets to that and Atkins

1:32:56 still went because and then and when Faye asked him about it,

1:32:58 he's like, Oh well, I just wanted to see if Matt would show

1:33:00 up. You have the tickets, you fuck.

1:33:02 With and you took some 17, some other 17 year old.

1:33:05 Yeah, like he's an absolute disgusting piece.

1:33:08 Of way. So Atkins had been having an

1:33:10 affair pretty much throughout his entire relationship with

1:33:13 Matthew. Yeah, with an 18 year old man

1:33:18 and several other people were flings during that time.

1:33:22 The other thing that Atkins pressured Matt into was having

1:33:27 threesomes. This was something that Matt

1:33:28 wasn't interested in at all, but I guess he felt, so, I don't

1:33:35 know, controlled by Atkins or that he was going.

1:33:37 To lose Atkins if he didn't. Do this and Atkins would

1:33:41 actually make Matt go out and find boys and men of his age

1:33:46 bring them back to the. It's even.

1:33:48 Worse, man, it's it's so awful. It's so awful.

1:33:53 And I can't even imagine. Matt didn't want that.

1:33:55 No, he didn't want any of that. That's awful.

1:33:59 He just wanted a partner who loved him for who he was and

1:34:02 wanted to be with him and treated him well.

1:34:04 Yeah. And he didn't get that.

1:34:06 No. And that is not OK.

1:34:08 I mean, Atkins has moved to like, Queensland now.

1:34:11 He's not far out of Brisbane in another spot where it is, you

1:34:14 know, party central kind of thing.

1:34:15 Yeah. He's basically in like the new,

1:34:18 like the gay part of Queensland like.

1:34:20 Yeah, yeah. And so praying on young boys,

1:34:23 young boys again. And like he's now, you know, got

1:34:27 a fair bit older again and still doing this.

1:34:30 I mean, it's just awful. I do not buy that Matt Matt

1:34:35 overdosed and died and he just disposed of the body.

1:34:38 I 100% believe that there was more to that.

1:34:42 I think you. Know whether it was we've pushed

1:34:44 him and. I think, I think it was more

1:34:46 intentful than that. But the reason I say this is

1:34:49 because we've spoken about this on the podcast before, that the

1:34:53 most dangerous time to leave a coercive relationship, sorry,

1:34:58 The most dangerous time in a relationship, in a coercive

1:35:00 relationship is when you leave. And I think Matt was at the

1:35:04 point of leaving. Like, he'd spoken about plans to

1:35:06 move overseas for a while. He'd spoken about trying to get

1:35:10 out. He was non verbally telling his

1:35:13 mum and dad he'd had enough to buy these, like, extra lingering

1:35:16 hugs and really saying to them, I love you so much.

1:35:19 Like, really holding on to those relationships that meant so much

1:35:24 to him. Yeah, and this is what happened.

1:35:29 So I think that Atkins murdered Matt and disposed of his body in

1:35:37 a shallow grey for fuck's sake as well.

1:35:39 Like it's just horrible. There's, I mean, there's no

1:35:43 respect in any of this from Atkins of Matt when he was alive

1:35:47 or when he was. Dead.

1:35:49 And yeah, I, I, I guess I, I, I don't think Matt was in a state

1:35:58 that would have led to his death that night either.

1:36:01 I believe Peter Peter knew Matt more than anyone.

1:36:05 Absolutely. If, if he says that Matt wasn't,

1:36:09 you know, completely out of it. I believe that.

1:36:12 I same, I think his brother knew him better than anyone.

1:36:15 And I guess if Matt had overdosed, who, who gave him

1:36:18 that? So what Atkins says is that they

1:36:20 went home and Matt put a whole, like, free pour of GHB into a

1:36:26 glass and took it. That's what he says happened.

1:36:28 Yeah, we won't. We can't.

1:36:31 Nothing of that can be proven because there's no tissue left.

1:36:35 GHB is also something that's naturally produced in the body.

1:36:38 So unless you'd had a massive, massive overdose of it, it would

1:36:42 have been probably quite hard to detect days and days later even

1:36:45 if his body had been found. Earlier anyway, right?

1:36:48 So I don't know. It's it's just, it's all too

1:36:51 convenient. I cannot believe that that man

1:36:54 is walking the streets. No, I can't.

1:36:56 Believe it. And I I do blame the police for

1:36:58 that Yeah. It's their failings that have

1:37:00 led to that. I think if this was done

1:37:02 correctly from the get go, Atkins was of clear standout

1:37:06 suspect. And if he'd been treated as such

1:37:09 and the cops had actually been and I I OK I'm gonna go there.

1:37:14 I I hope I'm wrong, but I honestly feel like there was a

1:37:18 bit of homophobia in this from the Police Department in terms

1:37:22 of the way they treated this. I don't think they took it as

1:37:25 seriously as it should have been because of it being a young gay

1:37:30 man. I agree.

1:37:31 I think the timing in terms of being 2007, I think that that

1:37:36 wouldn't happen now and I buddy hope not, no, but I do think

1:37:40 that that was part of this. I think they did sort of go, Oh

1:37:42 no, we're just not going to deal with that as well as we would

1:37:45 have otherwise if this was, you know, heterosexual sexual

1:37:49 relationship as we said about the male female, you know, being

1:37:51 that the age. Gang, like you look at Matt,

1:37:53 right? He's a young blonde, really

1:37:56 stunning man. If that was a young, blonde,

1:37:59 really stunning woman. With a 45 year old man, this

1:38:03 case would have been front and centre and it would have been

1:38:06 all all resources pumped into it.

1:38:08 And it wasn't and I want to call that out.

1:38:12 I think it's absolutely disgusting of their on their

1:38:15 behalf and it just, it needed to be dealt with so much, so much

1:38:19 better. And I feel for the Leveson

1:38:20 family so much. For me too, they, as we said at

1:38:24 the start of this episode, they're incredible people.

1:38:26 They're incredible advocates. They don't want Matt's life to

1:38:30 be forgotten and they don't want anyone else to have to suffer

1:38:34 this fate. So they are still out in the

1:38:37 media. They still tell Matt's story to

1:38:39 this day. They assisted in a book that was

1:38:44 written about the case. They've been involved in

1:38:46 numerous podcasts and television appearances.

1:38:50 And they will not let Matt's legacy die.

1:38:54 And I, I really applaud them for that because that would be

1:38:58 really hard. Yeah, they're doing it anyway.

1:39:02 No, I wrote down here on my notes because my brain's not

1:39:04 working such a right notes, I'm going to read it.

1:39:06 I wrote down, I said the majority of the 10 year delay

1:39:09 came from early investigative gaps, lack of follow up and

1:39:12 failure leverage available evidence.

1:39:15 And I just think that that is what occurred here and it's

1:39:19 wrong. It's wrong.

1:39:20 And yeah, I don't know, there's no way of compensating the

1:39:23 family for that now, but the best way, that the only way to

1:39:26 compensate it in any remote way is to make change and do better.

1:39:31 Yep. And I really hope that that's

1:39:32 what's. Gonna happen from here on now

1:39:34 they've learnt like as in the police force, The investigators

1:39:37 have learnt from this, Yeah. And yeah, nobody will be found

1:39:41 in a situation like this again, no.

1:39:43 Way awful. That's horrible.

1:39:47 A podcast, I mean I don't know if you listen to was that long

1:39:50 form one Matty, which is really good.

1:39:52 If anyone wants to listen to real high level detail of this

1:39:56 case, that's a really good podcast to check.

1:39:58 Out. Yeah, yeah, it's fantastic.

1:40:00 Really well done. It's a Case file Presents

1:40:02 podcast, so it's very well produced.

1:40:04 Yeah. And it was it's hosted by Rachel

1:40:09 now, what's her name? God, She's the she is the

1:40:12 founder of MPAN, so the Missing Persons Advocacy Network.

1:40:17 And she, her brother Dan, went missing and was a missing

1:40:21 person. And she is an absolute advocate

1:40:24 in this space. She talks a lot about ambiguous

1:40:26 loss and how difficult that is for families and just how hard

1:40:30 it is to be the family of a missing person because it's a

1:40:33 it's a very particular type of loss.

1:40:36 Absolutely. And it's something that there

1:40:38 wasn't really support for, especially when her brother went

1:40:41 missing, which is what what prompted her to find and Pan.

1:40:45 Yeah. So if that's something situation

1:40:48 that hopefully nobody ever finds themselves in, but.

1:40:50 Fortunately, many people do. It's, that's right.

1:40:52 And people go missing for so many different reasons.

1:40:55 It's not just cases like this which are the ultimate tragedy,

1:40:59 but people go missing for lots of different reasons.

1:41:02 And it doesn't necessarily mean they're deceased.

1:41:04 You know it's not illegal to go missing.

1:41:06 And at the start of her podcast, I, I really resonated with it

1:41:09 because I've lost my child once. And she said, like, imagine, you

1:41:13 know, that feeling every mother has been through that like, you

1:41:15 know, and, and, and father, for that matter, you know, that you

1:41:18 lose, you lose your kid for a split second, you know, and oh

1:41:21 God, they're gone for five, you know, a few minutes, you know,

1:41:23 imagine that for an hour. Imagine that for a week and

1:41:25 imagine that then for 10 years, feeling like that, not knowing

1:41:28 where your child is, like it's just sickening, Absolutely

1:41:32 sickening. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:41:35 I couldn't, I don't know how they keep going and they, but

1:41:37 they did to the point of in the coronial inquest.

1:41:42 I found it was really fascinating that and so much

1:41:45 pressure on that family that they was told, you know, you

1:41:47 should get your own lawyer for the coronal inquest.

1:41:50 And the, the, the family, they were like, we can't afford to

1:41:53 pay someone 1012 grand a day to be here and it's lawyers are

1:41:58 kind of expensive. What did Mark do?

1:42:02 He went and got a bit of advice from league, from Legal Aid,

1:42:04 which they weren't eligible for, but he got some advice there and

1:42:08 he stood up and did that case on his own as their as their legal

1:42:13 representation. Holy.

1:42:15 Shit. Oh, he's such an impressive man.

1:42:17 To the point where someone said to Faye, geez, you're lucky that

1:42:20 your husband's a lawyer. Embarrassed and she.

1:42:23 Laughed. He's an accountant.

1:42:26 But he like, you know, he really educated himself and he was.

1:42:30 Read the ACT. He did all this stuff like did

1:42:32 the reading and got, you know, enough knowledge to get himself

1:42:35 through it. See, this is another failing in

1:42:37 our system, that they are victims.

1:42:40 And they've had to do that. Upon them to pay for their own

1:42:45 lawyer that. Should not happen.

1:42:46 That shouldn't happen in these situations, especially when you

1:42:48 get to the end of this and this is the outcome where that

1:42:52 asshole was able to pinpoint where he's that body was.

1:42:55 So he clearly did it and he's admitted to it because he said

1:42:58 he found the body or even what he admitted to, which I don't

1:43:00 think it's true. Yeah, he's admitted enough to

1:43:02 know that that's what happened. He he's responsible.

1:43:05 Yeah. Yet they would have had to have

1:43:08 forked out God. How?

1:43:09 No, because it went on for months.

1:43:11 Yeah, it was. It was 8 weeks, two months it

1:43:14 went on for. So I mean how much money that

1:43:16 would have cost them if they had gone with paying a lawyer?

1:43:19 You'd be bankrupt and that poor family.

1:43:20 Then yet another hit on them. Oh, it's just disgusting.

1:43:25 The system is so wrong. It's just a system.

1:43:29 It is just a system and it's a broken fucking system.

1:43:32 Absolutely. It's we've got to do better

1:43:34 than. We've got to do better.

1:43:36 Yeah. Like, you know, you think all of

1:43:38 this money that seized during crime, like, why can't that be

1:43:41 used for families like the Leveson?

1:43:43 Exactly. Or I don't know that there has

1:43:46 to be a better way. Speaking of money as well.

1:43:48 This is the other thing that Mark sort of and this is one of

1:43:51 the legacies that he still pushing to this day is reward

1:43:56 money for missing people. Yeah.

1:43:58 And or for for information that leads to the finding of a body

1:44:02 or the whatever. Yeah.

1:44:04 He was saying when Matt first went missing, they offered

1:44:06 $10,000. They had to fight to make it a

1:44:09 $100,000 and then he's like, it should just be blanket $1

1:44:13 million. Yep.

1:44:15 And he said it almost never gets paid out.

1:44:17 It never. Gets paid out.

1:44:19 But it gives the publicity to the case.

1:44:21 Yeah. If there's $1,000,000 around it,

1:44:23 you might get 10 bits of information from 10 cases that

1:44:27 add up to something. Or you might shake, you know,

1:44:30 especially 10 years later, you might shake someone out of a

1:44:32 tree that, you know, wouldn't have said something that time,

1:44:35 but does say if there's a no one's doing anything for

1:44:38 $10,000, no, that's a fucking kick in the teeth.

1:44:41 That's not. No, no.

1:44:43 So that's another one of the legacies that Mark's trying to

1:44:47 push forward is that, you know, a standard missing person reward

1:44:50 is $1,000,000. Yeah, well, pick because a

1:44:54 person's loved 1 is worth more than 10 grand.

1:44:56 That's just. That's it's awful, gross, Yeah.

1:45:00 Oh, wow. All right.

1:45:03 Thank you. You did an awesome job.

1:45:04 Today you did an awesome job. You're amazing.

1:45:06 You are absolutely amazing. All right, stick with us for

1:45:09 next week. We actually haven't even decided

1:45:11 which case we're covering yet. We'll get on to that and keep an

1:45:15 eye on the socials. We really look forward to

1:45:18 bringing you another episode next week.

1:45:20 Absolutely love doing this. This is great thank you everyone

1:45:25 and we forgot. Stay curious, crying besties.

1:45:27 Bye.