Episode 34 - Adrian Perez - I don't even know what my Daughter's look like ?

Episode 34

Guest - Adrian Perez

In one of our most confronting and emotionally powerful episodes, Adrian Perez shares the unimaginable reality of being separated from his daughters through parental alienation. With remarkable honesty and vulnerability, he recounts the events that led to losing contact with his children and the profound grief that comes from missing years of their lives.

Adrian speaks openly about the emotional rollercoaster of navigating the family court system, the financial and psychological toll it has taken on him, and the heartbreaking moments of watching precious milestones pass by from a distance. He reflects on the feelings of helplessness, isolation, and despair that so many parents experience when they are denied meaningful contact with their children, while also discussing the importance of maintaining hope in the face of overwhelming adversity.

Throughout our conversation, Adrian highlights the long-term consequences that parental alienation and high-conflict family disputes can have—not only on parents but, more importantly, on children. He shares the coping strategies that have helped him continue moving forward, the lessons he has learned through his journey, and why he believes awareness, reform, and open conversations are essential to protecting families.

This episode isn't simply about one father's heartbreaking story. It's a conversation about resilience, unconditional love, mental health, and the enduring bond between a parent and child. Adrian's courage in sharing his experience sheds light on an issue that often remains hidden behind closed doors and offers hope to others who may be walking a similar path.

Whether you're a parent, grandparent, legal professional, mental health practitioner, or someone wanting to better understand the human impact of family separation, this episode is both thought-provoking and deeply moving. It serves as a powerful reminder that every family has a story, and every child deserves the opportunity to have healthy, loving relationships with the important people in their lives whenever it is safe to do so.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Adrian's journey through parental alienation and family separation.
• The emotional, financial, and psychological impact of prolonged court proceedings.
• The devastating effects of losing contact with his daughters.
• The importance of resilience, mental health, and finding purpose through adversity.
• Why greater awareness and meaningful conversations around parental alienation matter.
• Adrian's message of hope for parents facing similar challenges.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Fathers podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal advice. If you're going through the family law court process, particularly as a father, then this podcast may be relevant to what you may experience. Some things we discuss in these episodes may be triggering, and if you suffer from any form of mental health-related conditions or subject to domestic or family violence and need any assistance, then please call 1-800-Respect in Lifeline. The views and experiences discussed by people on our show are not necessarily the views and opinions of Broken Fathers podcasts or their guest speakers. We strongly advise you seek your own independent legal and professional advice as the Broken Fathers Podcast will not be liable, answerable, or accountable for any loss or damage or litigation resulting from discussions on our platform. Right, this podcast is now in session. Hold on guys, the judge is running late to court. So whilst we wait, I'd like to take this moment to acknowledge our platinum sponsor, Straight Up Construction. At Straight Up Construction, they take pride in delivering high-end work across every trade. From new builds to renovations, no job is too big or too small. Director Luke Miller and his dedicated team tackle every project with integrity, hard work, honesty, and a commitment to delivering superior quality results every time. Straight Up Construction is built on the belief that strong foundations matter just as much in the bones of a home as they do in the heart of one. Families should stand strong and every loving parent should maintain their right to be a part of their children's lives. Straight Up Construction believes that in true Aussie spirit, everyone deserves a fair go. That's why we're proud to have Straight Up Construction as our platinum sponsor. With their support, we continue to produce the Broken Fathers Podcast and shine a light on the struggles of men who have been let down by the system. Good morning, listeners and viewers, and welcome back to the Broken Fathers Podcast, Australia's first and only podcast dedicated to addressing family call issues from the perspective of fathers. I'm your host, Percy. Now, before I introduce my next guest, just a reminder, the link for my podcast Emerging Diets is in our bio on Insta, Facebook, and TikTok, or just go straight to fkvx.au. Now, today's guest has lived through a journey that many would find impossible to comprehend. What began as a complicated relationship spanning more than 15 years ultimately led to a battle that has consumed over a decade of his life. Since 2015, he has faced more than 36 court appearances across two states. Over 20 arrests, time spent in custody, and legal costs ex exceeding $70,000, all while maintaining that he has never been convicted of or charged with a criminal offence. At the heart of his story is the loss of contact with his two daughters, whom he has not seen since 2018. He says his attempts to maintain a relationship with his children resulted in ongoing legal battles, intervention orders, and a warrant that remains active today. Determined to better understand the system, he found himself fighting against, he completed a diploma in crime and justice and has spent years researching the legal processes that have shaped his life. Despite everything he has endured, he has rebuilt. Today, he is happily married, runs a growing real estate business, works part-time as a chef, and recently celebrated ten years of volunteer service with meals on wheels. His story raises difficult questions about family law, intervention orders, parental separation, and what happens when allegations and legal proceedings reshape a person's life. Today he's here to share his experiences, his perspective, and why he believes his story needs to be heard. Please welcome today's guest, Adrian Perez. Hey Percy, how you going? Mate, thank you for coming. Um thank you. Mate, like all my guests, first of all, thank you for taking your time out of your day. You've actually helped me behind the scenes um with this episode, so I appreciate that. That's okay. And um, yeah, like all my guests, before we crack into you know the circus of court, I'd like I think it's important to get to know a little bit about my guests and what life was like for Adrian growing up.

SPEAKER_04 4:00

Yeah, okay. Well, uh, I grew up in Adelaide.

SPEAKER_02 4:02

Oh, Adelaide, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:03

Yeah, it was it was brilliant. Uh I was an Adelaide Crow supporter. Yep. You know, so um you just leave and breathe football. And um, I love growing up in Adelaide. I think Adelaide was like the the perfect way to grow up because um it's such a small city that all my mates were from all over the world, you know, English, Irish, Italian, Aussie, Vietnamese, um, Polish, and uh so there's a uh a little bit of everything, you know. Um I was a bit of a naughty kid, yeah, and went to like uh I think seven schools altogether, got expelled a couple times, but for doing stupid stuff, cracking jokes. I'm I'm a goofball.

SPEAKER_08 4:39

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 4:39

Yeah, um, parents had a bakery, and so that meant I was a baker, whether I liked it or not. You know, school holidays working in the milk bars and stuff like that, and um and then just grew up doing music and so left Adelaide when I was 23, um, a year in Sydney, a decade in Melbourne, uh, where I met the girl's mum. Mate, your surname, what nationality are your parents? Um, my dad's from Uruguay and my mum's from Nicaragua. Where's that? Uh Nicaragua, Central America, you know, the Panama Canal. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So um, yeah, they both left because of uh, you know, politics and dictatorship and violence and all that came to Australia in 1974. And I was born here, so don't ask me anything in Spanish. It's bad.

SPEAKER_02 5:21

Um is your parents still together today?

SPEAKER_04 5:23

No, my mum passed away um last year. Yep. And um, unfortunately, I don't have a relationship with my old man. Yeah, okay. You know, that's been strange since I was like 11. Um I'm gonna be 50 soon. Yeah, okay. Yeah, so um I've probably spoken to him three or four times in the last 10 years. Yeah, yeah. Siblings? Yeah, I've got a sister. Yep, don't have anything to do with her. Yeah, yeah. So you know, um, unfortunately, um, in our family dynamic, there was just four of us, and it was kind of like me and my mum, and my dad and my sister, and when my mum passed away, and uh just things that we were going through, um, I really had no reason to be involved with my sister and my dad. I mean, that's a that could be a whole other episode, couldn't it? Yeah, but I loved growing up in Adelaide. I loved um living in Melbourne for a bit, and uh as soon as I came to Queensland, it was home.

SPEAKER_02 6:12

I've never been in Adelaide. I hated Melbourne, uh, lasted there 10 months, but um mate, what what was your first job? What or job at for fresh out of school?

SPEAKER_04 6:21

Fresh out of school was I was a baker.

SPEAKER_02 6:24

Yeah, that's right. So you but you you you you would have ate well, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 6:26

Yeah, yeah. So like um like on five foot six when you're 85 kilos and five foot six, your parents have a baker. No, it wasn't muscle, it was all jelly, it was all jelly. So no, it was um it was enjoyable, you know. Uh, but yeah, I was a baker. I didn't I didn't finish school, you know. I I finished year 10, that was it. Um, and then just worked uh as a chef and as a baker. Um a full-time job for seven years was as an entertainer.

SPEAKER_01 6:53

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 6:53

So just singing and dancing and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

Yeah, nice.

SPEAKER_04 6:57

Um, I really loved doing that, and that allowed me to travel around Australia and a couple times overseas. Yep. Yeah, um I didn't make any money from it because I wasn't very good. So, you know, I always say to people I spent probably $250,000 on demos and lessons and all that just to make $250,000 back. Wow, yeah, but I don't regret it. It was so much fun.

SPEAKER_02 7:17

I was gonna say, what type of dancing were you doing?

SPEAKER_04 7:19

Yeah, that was just boy band stuff.

SPEAKER_02 7:21

It was it was yeah, like I thought you might have been you remember Jamie Dury, the guy that uh what's it called? The Australia Thunder or something with? Yeah, no, you did muscles and hype for that.

SPEAKER_04 7:31

I didn't have either, yeah. But yeah, no, I was that was my life. It was really, really good growing up. Yeah, you know, like um I didn't have the family dynamics I wanted, you know, like Sunday meals together, or uh dad wasn't present, um mum was always working, and my sister and I didn't have a relationship, but I had a great time, yeah. You know, playing soccer, footy, my mates. Um, it's it's everything that we say it used to be for Gen X. Yep. You know, like playing in the street and you come back when the the night lights come on. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:03

I remember those days. Yeah, so you moved to Melbourne for uh from Avalade?

SPEAKER_04 8:06

Yeah, so I moved to Melbourne, that was for music.

SPEAKER_02 8:08

Yep, and then and then how how old were you there?

SPEAKER_04 8:11

I was uh I was 23. Yeah, or 21 the first time, it didn't work out, and then um moved back again at 23 and then stayed there and uh for a few years, and then moved up to Queensland. Yeah, I I came here the first time I came here, I was like home. That's it. I remember giving my boss six weeks' notice in Melbourne. I was like I found home. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:30

So straight to uh where sunny coast?

SPEAKER_04 8:32

Yeah, no, Brisbane for like uh I think uh 16, 17 years now.

SPEAKER_02 8:37

Where where I'm born and raised in Bridgie, whereabouts in Bridge where you live in? Uh Stafford Heights uh term side around that north side.

SPEAKER_04 8:43

When I when I lived here, I couldn't believe the whole south side. Yeah, because the first suburb I moved to was Mount Gravat.

SPEAKER_02 8:50

That's yeah, that's where I'm from, the south side there. Yeah, around there.

SPEAKER_04 8:53

And then I moved to the north side. I reckon the north side kills the south side.

SPEAKER_02 8:58

Give me the give me okay, why? Tell me, give me one point why.

SPEAKER_04 9:01

Okay, well, I don't feel like I'm gonna come back to my car with the titles, you know.

SPEAKER_02 9:06

But that's a nice feeling north side, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:08

And and the cafe's a nicer, it's a it's a bit more bloody da.

SPEAKER_02 9:11

I think look, from Brisbane to Gold Coast, which is the south side, I think there's a lot more options. Yeah, from Brisbane to North to Sunshine Coast, yeah, I don't think there's much going on.

SPEAKER_04 9:20

Yeah, my wife agrees. She would she would move here to the Gold Coast in a half.

SPEAKER_02 9:23

Is she from Brisbane originally? Yeah, and she loves the Gold Coast. Yeah, was she south side or north side?

SPEAKER_04 9:27

She was south side, right? You know, that's um brains. Yeah, no, um we live sunny coast now and I love it.

SPEAKER_02 9:35

I love sunny coast too, but I love it seems more, would you agree, more low-key, quieter. 100%, yeah, more sort of retirement type if you yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_04 9:43

Yeah, if you want quiet and you just want the beach and places to hike, cafe culture. If you want shopping and nightlife and um or also like what you just said, you know, there's more options if you come you come here. Yeah, yeah. But I lived here for a year, didn't like it? Yeah, it was everyone was orange. Yeah, I was going to the gym a lot. Everyone was aroids.

SPEAKER_02 10:03

What year was this?

SPEAKER_04 10:04

This would have been 2011.

SPEAKER_02 10:06

Yeah, well, yeah, that was the prime like what 2000. When did when did the games come? Um, because you know, obviously Goldcast was very like bikey, heavy at one point, and but then then that then they've they've cleaned it up, they brought up the laws, and yeah, um, but yeah, 2011, yeah, everyone was on fake uh what's it called? Fake 10.

SPEAKER_04 10:24

And yeah, and I was working right in in Surface Paradise in an Italian restaurant. I'd have my part-time job. I lived at Broad Beach in an apartment on my own, and I moved here to get away from everything, and it was just you know, like you know, it's it was like nightlife drinking, gym, yeah. Yeah, it was it was yeah. If you wanted to be into that lifestyle, I picked the right place. Yeah, but I want to be left alone. So then from there, I uh that's when I went to um went back to Melbourne.

SPEAKER_02 10:54

Oh, so you you left Brisbane and went back to Melbourne for a bit?

SPEAKER_04 10:57

Yeah, I just went there just for like a year, yeah, you know, um, just to sort things out, you know, and stuff like that, and then come back here. So it's been a complicated relationship with the girl's mum. Yeah. There's been a lot of back and forth.

SPEAKER_02 11:10

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SPEAKER_04 12:40

I met her in 1998. Yep. We were both 21.

SPEAKER_02 12:43

So where in Melbourne.

SPEAKER_04 12:46

Yes, uh, I went to Melbourne at 21 for the first time, like I told you, and it didn't it didn't work out. And I went there for music, and I was there for like, I don't know, three or four months. And in that three or four months, I met her. Um, you know, we're both 21. Um, she's working a part-time job in a fish and chip shop, you know, like Pauline Hanson. How you going, Pauline? Shout out, Pauline. Shout out, yeah. And um, and yeah, we just got on like a house on fire. And the great thing is our first two, three months hanging out together, it wasn't um it wasn't any uh kind of relationship or whatever. We were just mates, you know, we'd go out drinking and dancing and talking and cracking stupid jokes. And then I was like, okay, I'm going back to um going back to uh Adelaide. And um I knew we were gonna stay in touch. Unfortunately, she she thought that was the end of it, but you know, it probably should have been the end of it. We ended up staying in touch back and forth for the next 15 years.

SPEAKER_02 13:38

Okay. Yeah. So just trying to do your timeline. Uh you you obviously return at some point because obviously you guys have kids together.

SPEAKER_04 13:46

So like uh Yeah, so my my firstborn was uh sorry, my first child was born in 2013, like 15 years later. Oh yeah, wow. Right. So um for the timeline, uh we met in '98, and then we went back and forth. And what I mean by that is like, you know, she lived in Melbourne, uh, a bit in Adelaide, a bit in Brisbane, a bit in London. I lived a little bit in Brisbane, Adelaide, Sydney. Okay, yeah, you know, uh, we traveled all over the place. We weren't in a relationship, we're just going back and forth, you know. You know, it's like if we were single, we went out, trying to make it work, it didn't work out. We'd go out with other people, wouldn't see each other for a year. Did it get to a certain point where you sort of did sort of stay stay together for quite some time or uh no, um to tell you the truth, uh by the time we were back and forth and we were like in our mid-30s, uh, that's when I had said to her, Listen, um, I don't think you're my soulmate. Um sorry, I'm not in love with you. I care about you a lot. We didn't have any children, uh, we didn't have uh house together or anything. I just thought, you know, we're both um you know, 36 years old and that's it. Yeah, and uh the reaction was not good.

SPEAKER_02 15:01

Okay. So was your first daughter planned accidentally?

SPEAKER_04 15:04

Yeah, unfortunately, um it wasn't planned.

SPEAKER_02 15:08

You know, so um and did that happen after this conversation took place?

SPEAKER_04 15:12

Yeah, so um she said she was going to we were living together in Brisbane, uh she said she was gonna go back to um to Melbourne. And um yeah, it's a convoluted story, unfortunately, and it's a bit embarrassing. No, no, no. You know, and I went, yeah, sure, not a problem. And um the the last two months that uh we were living together, um, she was kind of making it hell for me. Uh just giving me an attitude every day, abusing me, playing little games, you know, hiding my items, you know, stealing my items, breaking them, stealing a bit of money.

SPEAKER_02 15:45

Being a bit bit petty and spiteful.

SPEAKER_04 15:47

Yeah, just non-stop. And uh just kind of like, you know, you wasted 15 years of my life. And you know, I've procrastinated about saying this on the show because I know that I want the girls to see this one day, but you know, I've got to be honest. You know, she was she was screaming at me, you know, um, you owe me babies, you know. Oh yeah. It's just like full-on yelling, just screaming at me, you owe me babies, you owe me babies. Actually, what she screamed was, you owe me brown babies. And you can you could edit that because that's actually what she would scream at me.

SPEAKER_02 16:21

You owe me, you owe me brown babies. What nationality is is she's Australian.

SPEAKER_04 16:24

She's Australian. Yeah. Um I'm Australian, but obviously she's like 10th generation Australian or whatever, you know. And um, so then she left and um you know, went back to Melbourne, and then 11 weeks later I got a phone call. Um two and a half months pregnant, and I was like, okay. My reaction was one of shock, uh, and then I just exploded into happiness.

SPEAKER_02 16:49

Yeah, nice.

SPEAKER_04 16:50

I did, yeah, yeah. Um, because I always wanted to be a dad. Yeah, nice.

SPEAKER_01 16:53

You know, how old were you at the time? 36?

SPEAKER_04 16:55

Yeah, I was 35, 36, yeah, 36, I think. And um it was 20 and uh 13 when I was told, and um, I just said, look, this is amazing, you know, like we're we're mates, and you know, our beautiful little baby was conceived in love, and we're gonna be great parents. Uh, but straight away it was just no, but we should be married, we should be together, we should try and give it a go. And I was like, okay. So we we try to give it a go, but a baby's never gonna bring two people together if you're not together before.

SPEAKER_02 17:29

Yeah, you know, I mean that's some people think that though, yeah. Um so you moved back there while while while she was pregnant?

SPEAKER_04 17:40

No, so we had a business um I had a business, my my pizza business and stuff like that. Uh she actually owned 50% of it because we both invested in it, which made things complicated as well. Yeah, you know. Um, and the business started flourishing. Um she moved back, you know, we got an apartment, and uh straight away um I was looking after everything financially, and all I wanted was to be able to be a part of my beautiful daughter's life. Um straight off the bat, tell me if I'm going all over the place. No, man, you're good. Okay, so um straight off the bat, um the relationship was put under a lot of pressure. It's like I'm here now, you know, we we've had a child together, when's the ring going on my finger? Which is actually the the way she would say it. You have to put a ring on my finger, we have to get married.

SPEAKER_02 18:31

And you and you sorry, Katie, and you know what? I feel there's I hear a lot of stories like this. Yeah. And I feel like marriage should just naturally happen. When I say naturally happen, like the man should just naturally propose when he feels the time right, like you can you have those conversations, but yeah, when when when a woman is demanding it, it kind of defeats the purpose of the does that make sense to me.

SPEAKER_04 18:53

Oh, it does for me. I mean, I had this vision in my head. The reason I broke up in the first place is because I wanted to have the meet someone, get to know them, move in, propose, buy a property together, have a child. I wanted it in that order. A lot of people out there know that that just doesn't happen, you know, and it doesn't matter if it doesn't happen in that order, just as long as there's love involved in every step. Yeah, you know, if the child comes first, then the marriage, then the house, who cares, as long as every step is with love. But this was more of a kind of, hey, it's um it's happened. I didn't plan it, you know. I was planning on kind of like I don't know, partying hard and going out and running amok for another year or two. I was having a great time with my pizza shop, it was just smashing it out the door, you know. Great employees, great friends, lived in the best state in Australia, yeah, you know, and um, and then it got changed, you know, and I was trying to make the best of it. And then when my daughter was born, oh my god, like life changing, yeah. But the thing is, it was completely natural to me. There was no nerves. I was like, I'm gonna be the best dad in the world. And I held my daughter, I was like, How you going finally?

SPEAKER_02 20:06

Well then if you don't mind me asking us one of my guests, did um did your did the mother of your child give birth naturally? And then were you able to witness it?

SPEAKER_04 20:14

Yes, yes. So I was our our relationship, um, even though it was different, it was healthy. And what I mean by that is we weren't screaming at each other, there were no arguments. I was talking to the baby bump. We didn't want to know um the agenda, we didn't want to know the gender. You know, we would crack inappropriate jokes with a baby. I was like, you gotta get used to that, we've got a warp sense of humor, you know? And um, and then when you know, my beautiful daughter was born. Oh man, like just and I saw her every day for the first two years and four days of her life. Exactly. After that, it was mayhem, yeah, you know. Um once the my daughter was born, um maybe it was happy vibes for about a month or two, and then that's it. It was just where's the ring on my finger? I miss my family, I've got no friends here. Um and there were just comments that were being said, and I really honestly I started to freak out. Like hand on my heart, Percy, I started to freak out by some of the behavior. You know, I'd be playing with my daughter and I could I could feel the the death energy.

SPEAKER_00 21:24

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:24

She was just staring at me, and then I'd look at her and she'd say something like, you know, you love her more than you love me. Like comments like that, you know. Um, I'd I'd go and take her away and you know, for the morning. And I wouldn't want to hang out with my my partner, I just want to take my daughter out to Brecky, you know, little baby chino, little little pancakes and whatever, hang out at the park with her and uh, you know, bring her back by twelve. And like, yeah, I'd bring her back at twelve oh five. She'd go on about it like I just crashed her car, you know. Um but it was just non stop.

SPEAKER_02 21:55

And it gets to a point where it's just yeah. Very toxic, very unhealth um because you were you still living you l you l living under the same roof at the stage?

SPEAKER_04 22:07

Yeah, but it was um it was me walking on eggshells all the time.

SPEAKER_02 22:09

Yeah, that's what I mean. So you're coming home to your what should be your safe haven, your home, if you've been at work all day and you're supposed to be coming home to your safe round where you relax, but really you're coming home and you you're you're you're not, you're you're tense.

SPEAKER_04 22:22

It was quite normal for me to have everything packed up in the pizza bar by 9 30, and I'd stay at home, I'd stay at the pizza bar until 10:30, 11 o'clock watching TV on the screen on the wall, just because I didn't want to come home. Yeah, you know, and so um then when I did come home, I would either get my daughter handed to me straight away because she was crying and I was like over the moon, and then I would just go, you know, chuck on a movie and she'd bang in my arms every time she was out 30 seconds, bang. You know, I would just hold her, I would just because I had this really calm energy, you know. And I just figured this isn't gonna go on forever, you know. In the process, because I'm irresponsible and I've got to be accountable for my actions. Um, I you know, we had um our beautiful second daughter.

SPEAKER_02 23:05

I thought to assume that you were gonna say that, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 23:06

Yeah, and the second daughter, it was completely different dynamics.

SPEAKER_02 23:10

Sorry to poison that what was the time frame between um daughters?

SPEAKER_04 23:13

Uh they're 19 months apart. 19 months, yeah. 19 months apart. And I was not allowed to be involved in that in any way, shape, or form. I was not ever allowed to speak to the belly, uh to her beautiful tummy. I was not allowed to be involved in purchasing anything. Um, I've never ever spent a solitary minute alone with my second daughter, never. Where with my first daughter, um, you know, like uh a hundred times.

SPEAKER_02 23:37

So just confirm you're still living in the same house, right? Well, when you're when she's pregnant with your second daughter, but yeah, it's different this time. You're not allowed to talk to the baby, the to to the baby bum, you're not allowed to be involved, can't go buy clothes, etc.

SPEAKER_04 23:51

That's right. I wasn't involved in any way, shape, or form.

SPEAKER_02 23:54

Um where do you reckon this mindset of hers came from? So is it because the the still you haven't put a wedding ring on her finger yet?

SPEAKER_04 24:02

Yeah, that's right, you know, and um it was just it's funny because I've never spoken about this before. It's just always in my head, the memories and this and that. And as I'm speaking about it, it's I'm overwhelmed um with a feeling of embarrassment because it's like, how did I let that happen?

SPEAKER_02 24:19

We've all been there.

SPEAKER_04 24:20

I know, but even as I was speaking to you, it's like, oh, wait a minute, there was like a million red flags. Yeah, you know, you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:26

Look, people ask me that too, you know. But you know, in that point in time, you're in a different state of mind, you're blinded by love, whether it's for your child or you know, doing it for different things, but yeah, yeah, it was it it isn't till we get older we reflect and look back and go, oh well, yeah, those signs were there, but I've obviously pushed them to the side for you know other reasons.

SPEAKER_04 24:46

But I mean I've made plenty of mistakes in past relationships, and I'll be honest, I'll get over it really quickly, but there's no children involved. That's right, you know, emotion, yeah, and that's where it's it's um unfair because um it's that's when the game starts, you know. Like this this um person, you know, the mother of my children, you know, she'd she'd thrown a glass at my head before my girls were born. She'd cheated on me before my girls were born. Um, I'm not into drug culture, I've never done it before. She dabbled in that and had an alcohol problem before the girls were born, you know. Um she she'd been fired from God knows how many jobs, like in the time that I was with her, all the time for bullying other people. Oh, really? You know, um, I'd never been fired from a job in my life. Yeah, so like multiple red flags, you know. And so I had said to her, I don't want to have children with you. I'm I'm sorry I'm not in love with you. You know, we're not each other's soulmates, we're just really good mates. Two beautiful girls get brought into our world, and I can't be the dad I want to be. Um, and then that's when just scary behavior started happening. Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:55

Let's talk about so your second daughter's born. Were you at the hospital for that one?

SPEAKER_04 25:59

I was, technically, uh, but I wasn't involved um in there. Like I was in the room, but it just wasn't the same.

SPEAKER_02 26:07

And literally, she wouldn't let you hold hold the baby.

SPEAKER_04 26:10

Yeah, like I held the baby, but it was just cold. It was just a cold, you know, like with cold experience compared to the first one. Yeah, like the first one, it's just like a Hollywood movie. It's like, oh my god, it's time. I'm at the pizza bar, um, I get a phone call, we go to the hospital. Um, the the doctor says to me, Listen, you can go back to work. This baby ain't coming for another like, you know, 12 hours at least.

SPEAKER_06 26:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:31

I jump in the car, I drive out of the car park, I get a phone call. You know, I hadn't even left 10 minutes. It's coming now, you know? And then we're rushing and it's just happy, you know. Yeah. Um I named my daughter, both of them. I named their names. Um, is that is that how you say it? I gave them their names. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know that I gave them their names. Um, it started straight away, like 30 minutes, the games 30 minutes after my first child was born. Wow. I looked at the birth certificate and the name was spelt in a Gaelic way, and I didn't recognize it, and it had her surname. And I said, What's this name? She goes, Oh, that's the way we're going to spell it, and that's my surname. And I said, Oh, but it's supposed to be boom boom. You know, we made this decision like six months ago, you know. Uh, we both agreed on it. And she was like, nah. Like, to have that conversation when my daughter's 30 minutes into the world, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:20

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 27:21

And the doctor kind of pulled me to the side and it's like, believe it or not, I've seen this happen before. He goes, just not this isn't the place to argue. And I was like, all right.

SPEAKER_02 27:29

So your first daughter has your surname?

SPEAKER_04 27:32

No, no, neither of them do.

SPEAKER_02 27:33

But but okay. Um, so let's talk about let's talk about the home life now. You've had your second daughter, you go home. Yeah. Comparing those your first experience with your first daughter to now your second daughter. What's some of the differences and changes?

SPEAKER_04 27:54

Um, I wasn't allowed because I didn't live there anymore now.

SPEAKER_02 27:57

Okay, so yeah, had you moved out just before she was born? Yes. Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_04 28:02

So I moved out just before my daughter was born. Um, it was just nonstop um negative energy. Um, I don't argue, I just grab the keys and leave. Yeah. I just don't. Yeah. I'll argue with a bloke, you know? But if she's just gonna argue with me and it was just around in circles, just walk off. I just walked off. And what happened is, and this is really important, and I speak about this to guys all the time, especially guys that don't have children. I go, don't text your ex or your girlfriend an abusive message because that's all they need. Yep. Right. So my um my ex would scream at me, like veins popping out of the neck, red face screaming at me, swearing in front of my beautiful little girl. And my little girl would be stressed out and scared and look at us, and I'd look at her and go, hey, everything's okay, everything's fine. Mummy and daddy are just playing. And she'd like come up to me, I'd be on the floor talking to my daughter, she'd nudge me in the back with her knee, you know. She'd give me a little slap across the head, she'd swear and scream at me. No problem acting like that in front of our daughter. And I'd be like, everything's cool, everything's cool, and then I would just leave. I'd have to leave. Then when I would leave, I'd be outside on my phone going, you ba ba ba ba, you see, you f and this, f and that. I can't believe you act like that in front of our daughter. Bam! There's the foundation of the DV. She started collecting. Yeah. Then trying to leave a footprint. Then we were um, you know, they they joined the mother's group, and uh, um, you know, they're tough sometimes because you've got to there make fake friendships with the dads. So sometimes I'd catch up with the dads, and then the dads would be like, hey, you know, um, you gotta let you gotta let her go out and hang out with the with the mums. I'm like, what are you talking about? It's like, well, they invite her out all the time. She always says she can't because you're making her work at the pizza bar, right? This is a thing that used to blow me away, Percy. Is when she used to walk into the pizza bar, my employees didn't even know who she was. She was never there. But that's not what she told everyone. Oh, I have to work all the time in the pizza bar, the way he makes me work. Well, I'm like, okay. And then I would be over sometimes, and I remember once a message popped up on a mobile phone. It was like, you know, something like, Hey Dal, I've just made a trail lasagna, and uh me and the girls, they're all coming over with a couple bottles of wine, you know, join us. And so I would say, and it was like a Friday night, I'd say, Hey, listen, why don't you go and do something tonight? I'll take a night off from the pizza bar, and then I could just hang out with our beautiful little girl. Nah, I don't have anything to do. I was like, just call one of the ladies from the from the group, knowing that she'd just been invited. She's like, nah, they don't like me, and I don't like them either. And I was like, but do something, yeah, you know? And so then I would say to the dads, I know that your wife invited my wife over for lasagna and bottles of wine. I know that your wife invited my wife to the movies, and then she tells all of you, oh no, I can't go. Adrian's not letting me. I'm like, well, I don't understand that.

SPEAKER_02 31:07

Yeah, I don't know. It's the second was she very controlling in regards to not letting the girls out of her sight. Yeah, yeah, big time. That was her, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:16

If I was dating someone, they'd get a they'd get a rude message from on Facebook as if it was from me, sometimes from her, you know. Um, I remember going to a mate's wedding and she got offended because she wasn't invited, you know, and my mate didn't like her.

SPEAKER_00 31:33

Fair enough.

SPEAKER_04 31:34

So on the day of the wedding, she'd hidden my shoes, my black shoes and the suit. So I went to to Myers and bought another pair. Then when I came back, there were my shoes. Then I get abused for spending an extra hundred dollars on shoes. You know, my glasses, I can't find them. Then I find them and they're smashed under the couch. 150 bucks in my wallet, then it's only only 50. Um, just constantly gameplay all the time, you know. And um, I always just copped it on the chin. Just yeah, okay, no worries, yeah, okay, no worries, you know. But um what happened is we got to about August 2015. My youngest was born in May, so she would have been, I don't know, like four months, five months old. The abuse was just going next level. Other people were telling me things about her behavior with the girls when I wasn't around. Um the house wasn't being kept. Um, I was giving her about twelve to thirteen hundred dollars every week. Wow. All right. And I was taking home the rest, you know, which was anything from 500 to 1,000. And I was there all the time. Because we had a food business as well, Percy, there was there was never any any um shortage of anything. Yeah, you've got as much money as you want, you've got your new your new little SUV, the rent's always paid. Uh, the girls have access to everything they need, clothes, food, whatever. And you could order whatever you want because it was a food business. Yeah, just if you want $300 worth of food, done. And you want nappies, this, done, whatever. And um I just said, listen, I need you to go back to Melbourne for a month or two, come back with a smile on your face. Yeah, mum and I are on the phone all the time. She's asked me a couple of times, you know, is my daughter suicidal? And I was like, Oh god, I hope not. She's like, You've got to let her come back to Melbourne to visit us. I'm like, what are you talking about? Like, if it's for me, she goes every two weeks, you know, like we've got money. Yeah, she can do whatever she wants. And um, you know, she she started crying, thank you so much, Adrian. I'm like, what's going on here? You know? And she left on October the 6th, and that's it. October the 6th, 2015. That's it.

SPEAKER_02 33:53

And that's the last time you've seen them.

SPEAKER_04 33:55

Yeah, well, legally. Legally, yeah. On the 23rd of December that year, so two and a half months later, that's when the DV, um DV started in the police two days before Christmas. Yeah. And it's been like that since, well, it's gonna keep going.

SPEAKER_02 34:12

All right, let's talk about the so she's gone. Does she break, does she block communication straight away, or is she still communicating a bit for the it started 48 hours after she left?

SPEAKER_04 34:22

So when she left, I lived with my mate um in Everton Hills, and she had the house in McDowell. And so when she left, everything was still there because she was gonna come back in seven, eight weeks. And she actually even said she was like, you know, um, I might get sick of my family after two, three weeks and come back. And I was like, I hope so. And I remember I started crying because she goes, Why are you crying? I said, I feel like I'm not gonna see the girls again. I was scared, deep down, you know. I was scared, yeah. And um, you know, I tried so many things, like I yeah, actually, can I go back Of course, bro? This is your story. Okay, so so this is really huge. And I don't know how I'm going to talk about this with my first daughter. And I've got the proof, yeah, right. And I'm happy to go on a polygraph test with my girls, but the mother won't. I used to finish work on uh Friday night, like around 9 30, 10 o'clock. And uh anyone that owns a hospitality store, you know, uh takeaway store knows that Friday night you usually do about 35-40% of the whole week's turnover, and I had a great time. I love my business, and it was always busy, like a quiet night in my joint was busy, and it was 7.30, it was almost 7.30 at night on a Friday night, and I was like, wow, like we're dead. And I had eight employees, nine employees there. So I was like, hey guys, I'm gonna leave early. First time ever, you guys, you know, do what you gotta do, and I'll come back around 9.30, 10 o'clock, check everything. So for the first time ever, I left early on a Friday night. I left at, you know, just before 7:30. She was 10 minutes away. I was like, great, I'm gonna spend Friday night with my little girl. So I go there and I knock on the door, she didn't answer. I called, she didn't answer. I had a key, you know, which was for emergencies. I open the door, I go in, all the lights are on. I walk downstairs, I'm calling her name, I'm calling my daughter's name, nothing. And I can hear a bit of noise. So I go into the master bedroom and the door is closed of the two bathrooms, and I can hear her singing, there's like a bit of noise in there, right? And I open the other bathroom door, and my daughter is in the bathtub face down, struggling to breathe. Right? Uh this is this is the turning point. I quickly grab my daughter and she's struggling to breathe, and she's got a broken leg. It's not actually a broken leg because she's not even 18 months old. Uh she's I think 15 months old or 13 months old, and obviously the bones haven't formed yet. So I'm I'm saying a broken leg for anyone who understands you know the medical side of it, anyway. She's got a broken leg and she's struggling to breathe. I pick her up and I bang on the other door, I open it up, and she's there, music blaring, hair, hairdryer on singing. Now, unless you're a complete idiot.

SPEAKER_02 37:17

Yeah, you wouldn't have let your daughter out of your side when in the in the bath.

SPEAKER_04 37:20

That was an attempted murder. I don't care, I'll argue with anyone about this, I won't run out of breath. Right? As I'm telling this story, like my skin, I'm breaking a sweat. Like, you know when you said face down, I was like Because I usually would see her at 10 o'clock at night. She'd be dead. Yeah, you could 100%. And I scream at her, what the hell, right? She's like, Oh my god, I'm so sorry, I forgot, I thought she was in bed, blah, blah, blah. And it's the only time I spoke to her like this, and I will revisit this again and say something a little bit controversial about it, and I'll stand by it. I quickly grab, grab my daughter, jump in the car. She's in my arms, she's fine, she's awake, but she's screaming in pain because she's got a broken leg. You know, I've just got her wrapped up in a towel and I'll just drive straight to the hospital. Um, she obviously jumps in the other car in her car and follows us. I walk into the hospital. It's Friday night, it's packed, right? I go, my daughter, I just found her in the bathtub, struggling to breathe, broken leg. They're like, Oh, sorry, sir, you've got to wait. I go, nah, I don't care. I kick the door down, I go straight into the back room and I just layer in a bed. They're like, I don't care. I was like, call the police, I don't care what you do. Right? Bang, bam, bang, they'll deal with her. My my ex comes in, and in front of, which I didn't know at the time, in front of doctors, nurses, everyone in the waiting room, and a police officer, I turn around and say, Don't come anywhere near us, I'll knock your block off. Right? I did not leave my daughter's side, and the dirty looks that I got from every single female nurse, doctor, the police, everyone. And then she got pulled aside, and that's when the games began. That's when it really began. I don't know what happened. He just came into the room with her and a broken leg. I'm scared of him. And then they feed, they feed the the victims. Did he hurt you? Are you scared of him? Do you want to be alone with him? Is this the first time he's behaved like this? You know? And she had to go into um the x-ray room or whatever and have like a little x-ray or something. And the greases that I was getting, yeah, but you know, that's when I should have called the police and gotten a lawyer. And she begged me, please don't call the police, please don't tell anyone, please don't tell your mum, please don't tell my family, don't call the police, don't call the police. And I said, You've got to go and see someone, you've got to go and get help.

SPEAKER_08 39:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 39:53

You know, you're screaming stuff like suicidal stuff at me. I'm coming home and there's old food in the fridge, there's bags of dirty nappies at the door. You want it, you want a uh a maid to help you? No, you don't want a maid. Oh, but you don't want a pretty maid. Uh, you know, um, you need more money, your rent's not paid, but I give you the rent money, then your landlady's calling me. You're busting my chops 24-7. You know, but that I'm so angry at myself for not calling the cops and taking my daughter.

SPEAKER_02 40:25

Has she the most of your child has she got some sort of childhood childhood trauma maybe that plays a part to the way she she is today or the way she was at that point in time?

SPEAKER_04 40:34

I don't know. She's never shared that with me. And unfortunately, as you asked me that question, my internal dialogue was like, I don't give a shit. Yeah, yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_02 40:41

You know, I I man, I I I I totally agree with you. I will man, but when you when you told me you found her face town like straight away, I was like, oh, and then I mean, I I would have been fuming, I would have lost my temper and I would have done the same thing straight to hospital, and I didn't and I didn't care what anyone said, like I would have done the same thing, um see treat my daughter near, you know what I mean so and that's uh that father protective instinct, you know.

SPEAKER_04 41:06

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 41:07

What's awful about that is that when you're with a partner who is um uh sorry so real quick before I forget, so I work at at uh at the hospital, and this is a pet hate pet hate of mine is a patient will come in and the patient will say, Oh, I've got a DVR on my ex, you know, I think he's might be in the waiting room. Everyone runs around frantically, and I say, Stop everyone, whether it's the nurse, protective service, officers, doctors, whoever. And they go, She said, She the she's got a DVR on the ex. I said, Are you just taking that this on hearsay? But the people running around frantically, and they'll find the father out there and they'll treat him like shit. I'm thinking, hold on a sec, everyone just calm your farm. Yeah, you can't just take what she said on hearsay. Yeah, you know, there's no one in this hospital that can actually look up to see if that's true. You have to find a QPS officer to and ask them whether they'll do it or not to search this person's name on Kubeprom to find out. But just based off what the pages said, everyone runs around friends here and then everyone judges this file. There might be there, but there might not be. But you can't just oh tell them to go outside, tell them can't do this. So whoa, like where's the hard evidence? Show me where there's paperwork, you know. But people will just judge straight away. Oh absolutely straight away off a hearsay, you know, here say anyway. But um, yeah, sorry, what are you saying?

SPEAKER_04 42:27

No, I agree with you. It's yeah, the way you get judged is incredible. I've been to court so many times, and the way I get spoken to and look down by the lawyers and and the judges and stuff like that, and like I'll say to my wife, you know, these these people, they've got all these fancy titles and this higher education, but that doesn't make them immune from making a stupid decision.

SPEAKER_02 42:47

Oh, there's plenty of judges making stupid decisions.

SPEAKER_04 42:50

I always say to people, if you want to be in a room with a really smart, dumb person, go to family court.

SPEAKER_02 42:54

Yeah, yeah. You know, I used to think um sorry, if I drink this, it'll pick it up. Yeah, that's fine. You know, married at first sight, they talk about the ratings you know through the roof. Forget married at first sight. Put put a TV crew in family court. Yeah, the ratings, you want to you want ratings? You want everyone to from whether channel seven, channel nine, channel ten, you put family court at 7 p.m. on a Sunday night, everyone's gonna tune in. Yeah. Because they're gonna not gonna believe what goes on in there.

SPEAKER_04 43:21

Well, it's funny that you mentioned those um channels and stuff like that. Do you notice there's never any stories on TV about male domestic violence fiction? Yeah, no. Like you might find one or two, right? Yeah. Well, I've pushed so many times, which is why I really appreciate that you know you give me the opportunity to tell the story for what you're doing. Because um I've written hundreds and hundreds of letters to all the TV stations, you know, uh ABC, 789. No one gets back to 10, whatever, there's so many out there. And I've had a meeting at Channel 7 here in Brisbane, and I've had a meeting at Channel 10 in Melbourne, right? And both times they told me we'll never do a story on. You right, and they didn't work, they weren't rude about it, they were like, you know, sorry, Adrian, we won't do a story on you because it'll affect our advertising budget. And so the the guy from channel seven told me straight out, he's like, if we have a car manufacturer that'll spend so much money, you know, to be on prime time, and we do a show like this, and they pull their budget because the backlash that we get from our female audience, and the channel and Herald Sun journalists told me the same thing, and um channel 10, you know, and because I was busting to get my story out there.

SPEAKER_02 44:33

But I wish I was like, if I was the B-naire, I'd be putting every male DV story out there, you know. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like I'd I'd fund everything, like, yeah, anyway. Um, but that unfortunately that doesn't surprise me.

SPEAKER_04 44:48

No, and the thing is, I'm like the way I presented my story when I'd give them my treatment and give them like two, three pages on on the story and and how I want to present it and stuff like that, it's not like a it's not a woman bashing segment. All I'm saying is, hey, DV's a problem, and let's put a spotlight on all the perpetrators and put a spotlight on all the victims. That's right, you know, because if if D V's like a leaking bucket, you got a hundred holes in that bucket, and just say 90 of them are like female domestic violent victims and 10 are men, and all you do is patch up those 90 holes, it's gonna be a leaking bucket forever. That's it, you know? And you know, my wife said to me, you know, because she's a very, very wise woman, she said, when you talk about it and you listen to all these things, she said, I notice a lot of the times men don't talk about being accountable for their actions. And I get defensive, which I shouldn't be. And I that's what I want to talk about. I want to talk about us being accountable for what we do. Because I figure as a community, if all the dads are accountable for what we do, then we almost have a right to continuously say to women, you have to be accountable for what you guys do. I don't see any female advocates coming out and discussing parental alienation.

SPEAKER_02 46:12

No, there is one, Amanda Silas. Have you heard of her?

SPEAKER_04 46:15

No, I'm gonna look her up now.

SPEAKER_02 46:17

Yeah, yeah, uh Innie Minnie Money Mo. Um, she's a mother female, she's uh advocate for parental alienation, both sides, you know. So that is one person. Uh I've actually had her on the podcast, unfortunately, we um we lost the footage.

SPEAKER_04 46:31

So oh no, really?

SPEAKER_02 46:32

Yeah, yeah. Um, so I'll I'll have to get on again. But um, but yeah, sorry, I mean going back to you taking accountability.

SPEAKER_04 46:40

Um yeah, just taking accountability because what's my accountability? My accountability is I was going back and forth for 15 years, and um, you know, did I waste um my excess time? Probably did. Could I have told her what I told her at 35 at 25? You know?

SPEAKER_02 46:59

It's like life's a journey, probably alone. You know what I mean? Like it's a for me, I look at life as a roller coaster. You got your ups and downs and your your plateaus, and yeah, and you just gotta embrace the ups and survive the downs and you know, learn. I know, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 47:14

Yeah, so I I reckon I'm an expert at uh at uh what is it, surviving the downs now?

SPEAKER_06 47:20

Downs, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 47:21

And one of the reasons when I reached out to you is that, you know, uh the second half of this year, I want to present myself in Melbourne again and uh get my warrant removed, and I don't want to fight it, I just want to do my six months in jail. Yeah, you know, yeah, and that's it. And yes, I'll be going to jail for doing absolutely nothing.

SPEAKER_02 47:41

It's crazy the amount of people that are in jail for doing absolutely nothing, and um, I know that for a fact, and uh, I've said it many times before, but the big one is the the breach of a DV. So, like the ex will put a DV on you, no contact, but then as soon as the but she'll still text you, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:59

Say, hey babe, what are you free this weekend? Oh mate, well, yeah, I'm free. Breach.

SPEAKER_02 48:04

Yeah, yes, and yeah, hold on, that's entrapment. You've put a DV on him so that you're scared for your life, blah blah blah. But why are you texting him?

SPEAKER_01 48:12

Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_02 48:13

Didn't you just go to the police station you're scared for your life? Yeah, but you've put it, but then you've texted him. I'm sorry, that's entrapment. And then he's replied, yeah. Like he hasn't even replied any profanity, no death just replied, oh yeah, yeah, I'm free this weekend. Breach. And there's people sitting in prison right now for because you know, when people hear preach a DVO, they think, Oh my god, he's gone and attacked her. No, he replied to a text message, yeah. Just it it got I'm just gonna smack me in.

SPEAKER_04 48:41

But and not just that, but when you send a text message, that's a breach. And I send text message like, Hey, how are you? Send, I'm gonna do this today, send, I'm send. That's three breaches, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:54

Right, yeah, and then there's another one. Oh, probably word this wrong. If the if there's so many, I don't know if it's so many phone calls after another or messages, that's classed as uh it's it's it's a form of DV, you know, um, because it's repetitive. I can't remember that what it is. I think it's so many phone calls in a day, you know. Okay, that can be a couple of things. You might call yes, or you might call it and pick up, but it's emergency, and then yeah, you've done so many oh, you know, DV, but yeah. I know the DV things just the other day, Peter Melanarkis has brought in no stamp duty for DV victims.

SPEAKER_04 49:28

I know, oh my god, like seriously, I was ranting all day about that.

SPEAKER_02 49:35

And and you'll get some people like, oh, it says all DV victims. Like, read the article, it says for women, yeah, women only it's just like man, like tell tell me that's not gonna open the floodgates for more false DV because who wants to pay stamp duty? No one.

SPEAKER_04 49:50

I'll walk into police stations sometimes, like Broad Meadows, yep, and on the wall they'll have we're here to protect all women and children from domestic violence. And I'm just like, you want to change that sign?

SPEAKER_02 50:01

Yeah, I know, right? We're supposed to be all about equality, yeah, you know. Oh man, it's yeah, the the DV climate system needs changing. Um and yeah, like I had that guess from DV Connect on.

SPEAKER_04 50:14

Um yeah, that was interesting.

SPEAKER_02 50:16

Yeah, well, there's a uh email circulate circulating about me and that organization as we speak, um, with the link to the podcast, and uh they're well aware of it. Still haven't heard anything from them, yeah. Um, but uh yeah, you know, they're just letting all their employees know that, you know, as you'd be aware, we don't conduct ourselves in this manner, and that's yeah, blah blah blah.

SPEAKER_04 50:37

Um they're they're so shonky. Oh they just are, unfortunately. There'd be people in there trying to do the right thing, and they'd be uh, you know, surrounded by people who aren't. Yeah, and I remember I got a letter um, you know, and I wanted to bring the letter today. Uh, you know, I'll send it to you via email. I got a letter from um Centerlink, you know, Mitchelton office, uh, you know, and uh I caught up about it. Oh, sorry, I think you've got the wrong person. And she was so rude to me straight away on the phone. I get dads calling all up all the time, you know. You you sent this to the wrong dad. And I'm like, you're out you're selling me that I have to give my ex $427 a month, and why am I not giving her $427 a month?

SPEAKER_02 51:16

Wait, is this center link or child support?

SPEAKER_04 51:17

This is center link with um child support. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:21

Sorry, with a single mother benefit payment or something like that.

SPEAKER_04 51:24

And so they sent me a letter, you know, why are you not giving her $427 a month? And I was like, Well, I'm not giving her that because I'm giving her $6,000 a month, right? And I said, Will you be there tomorrow? I go, okay, cool. So I rock up tomorrow with a stack like this from Suncorp, just showing every single week. $1,200, $1,250, $1,300, $1,350, $13,013, $13, $13.

SPEAKER_02 51:45

Let me guess. They said because did you put a reference on that transfer? No, I didn't. Did they say something like because you didn't put a reference saying child support? We can't take that in, we can't factor that in.

SPEAKER_04 51:55

No, the letter I'm gonna send you, right, is a letter from them saying you no longer have to give the mother any money anymore, she doesn't want any from you. Oh, and the only reason they did that is because she was double dipping, yeah, and she was gonna get in trouble. Yeah, and when I said to the person, listen, are you gonna investigate this? She just looked at me and said, Why would you want to do that to the mother of your children? And I'm like, She's clearly just fleecing the system. Yeah, you know. I mean, I could go on about it forever, but it was just the double standards were just so annoying. And I'll be honest, in the first two, two and a half years, I was cracking it left, right, and center. Like I'd I'd get off my phone, the amount of phones I went through. Kick a table this and that, you know. It's not a table one because I'm small, you know, I was so annoyed, you know. And now, oh my god, I just kind of shrug my shoulders. I think it's a pathetic existence being a fake domestic violence victim.

SPEAKER_02 52:53

Yeah, yeah, it is. Like, and I I get it. There's people manipulate the military system, they'll fake PTSE, they get a payer. Like people just doesn't matter what industry you're in, people will learn a system and they want to manipulate to their advantage. Yeah, but you know, this system when you manipulate the DV system, that the domino effect, oh, you can't see your kid, you lose your job, you lose, and then just like, man, it's just such a it's it it kills people, it kills it. Oh, yeah, you know, like a job lose this reputation. Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 53:26

My inner circle really worried about me for the first couple of years because they would do, you know, they would read about statistics of uh men's, you know, uh suicide and all that, which is just awful, you know. Um, what is it, something like between 2,300 and 2,500 every year, you know. And the statistic always is that about 75% of that, those men are going through a family court system. There's parental alienation involved and all that. And this is another thing I would I would like to discuss is that the word narcissist gets thrown around a lot. Uh yep. And there's different levels of it, right? I've got a very healthy dose of narcissism. I really do, right? And there is such a thing as a healthy dose of narcissism, right? And everyone should have it, just a little bit, you know, just confidence, self-belief, all that kind of stuff, and self-awareness. So as I'm going through that, I'm talking to my mates and going, oh yeah, there's no chance that's happening. Right. Right. I've got I've got a huge journey to to live out, you know. Um, and so as someone that had that after my ridiculous behavior for the first two years of cracking it and smashing phones and throwing things and swearing and screaming at the sky, I was just like, what the hell am I doing? You know, I want dads when they listen to these stories to go, hey, listen, I don't have to survive this to then start my life. Because I'm in the middle of it. You know, I'm not even at the halfway point, Percy. You know? And I still decide to go, you know what? Why am I avoiding women? Because I think I'm not the best version of myself and I don't want to meet someone who's incredible, you know? Finish school, do a course, go back to the gym, you know, rekindle those friendships with your mates, go to the movies, go hiking, buy yourself those pair of shoes you wanted to buy. Like start enjoying life. Yeah, because if you're gonna sit there just looking at old videos on your phone and then cry when you watch a movie and then like hate it because Father's Day is coming and you just know your ex is gonna use it to annoy you, man. Just do something else, dude. Focus on yourself.

SPEAKER_02 55:36

Yeah, I've been in, I've been there. I know exactly what you mean.

SPEAKER_04 55:40

Well, was it how was if you don't mind me asking?

SPEAKER_02 55:43

Ask me anything you want, bro.

SPEAKER_04 55:44

Well, how was the first Christmas where you couldn't see your beautiful girl?

SPEAKER_02 55:48

Uh awkward because we broke up um October 10th, whatever, October. And that was her first that was going to be our daughter's first Christmas. And we had Christmas booked at QT Hotel, buffet, you know. Um, and I had family, you know, flying up from Sydney, you know, there was like 12 of us all up at the sitting at the table. And then obviously, you know, um the DV court started what November, she cut communication, and then it was just this awkward Christmas because everyone flew up, no one knew knew what to say, no one knew what to ask, and no one wanted to bring it up because you know, and it was just yeah, it was it was shit, you know. So and I didn't court family court didn't start till April next next year, you know. Um no photos, no communication, no nothing, you know. Um so it was shit. And the next Christmas missed out on that one. Did the next Christmas I had her for th uh was it five hours or three? Um I think it was five at that point. So we had her for five hours on Christmas Eve, sorry, which was great, you know. We got it. Uh it was one I won't forget. Um and then yeah, then obviously m months later my family court came to an end, and yeah, she's been relocated back to England, which all she was allowed to do. Um, and so yeah, she just turned five, but I've just opened a line of communication now with the mother of my child, which is going great. Every Sunday I get a FaceTime call. And I'm looking at flying to England soon, which she's agreed to. Um, and I said I want to fly to Christmas to England in Christmas, you know, and she's like, Yep. So um I haven't I haven't asked a lot of people yet. Um, sorry, I haven't told people online yet. Because I feel um it's so many people have been on the journey with me along the way, which I appreciate. And some people go have been asking, you know, how did the reconnection happen? And you know, when I I you know, whenever I do Christmas or her birthday, I always leave a message on my social media for my daughter because my plan was in the future if she ever looks me up or she'll see the paper trail messages I've done I've left online. And you know, I did the two-year anniversary since I've seen her or heard from her, and I just saw the father's comment, you know, haven't I haven't seen my kids for two years, four years, eight years, twelve years, and I was just like, man, like I don't know if I can keep doing this, you know. So I just um found I've never met anyone from my ex-partner um family because they're all from England, but you know, I know her surnames and I knew her siblings' names, so I found her brother and her sister online. I just sent a polite message. So, can you pass this on to um the mother of my child? And she reached out to my dad a couple of days later on Facebook, and my poor dad, like I'm sending him messages to pass on, and he doesn't know how to click copy-paste the message. You know, he's 70 something. He's like, and I said, Listen, just tell her to unblock me. And she unblocked me, and then she messaged me, and then I said, Look, I think can we have a phone call one night? Just me and you, and um, we spoke for 40 minutes all about my daughter, updated because my daughter was high-level needs, you know, so there was so much to catch up on her progress, and and um it was weirdly strange because you know, this is a woman, we went to war against each other for three years, and then we just had this peaceful call, all about my daughter. And then uh I remember it was on a Friday night. I said, Can I have a scheduled FaceTime call once a week? I said, You I'll work around your routine, doesn't matter if it's three o'clock in the morning, my time, I'll set my alarm. And she just said, Yeah, Sunday, 7 30 p.m. my time. Does that work? I said, Yep. And I had a FaceTime call, and I I knew it was gonna be emotional. I just said, Um, when you FaceTime me, can you just just me and you FaceTime for five minutes? I'll need to compose myself, you know. And then um, yeah, we spoke, and then she showed me my daughter, and it's hard to get her attention because she's she's she's autistic. Um, and you know, I was I was broken down, I was crying, but I was so happy to see her in her room. And um yeah, there's one thing I always did at handover, it was I just sung the same song all the time. Old McDonald had the farm, you know, and she would just cross my ears, she had sensory processing disorder, and she just would bob back back and forth. And I was trying to call her, um, and she wouldn't look at the phone. And um, as soon as I sang that song, she just stopped and looked at the phone, bro. My heart just sunk. I was like, thank you. And then um, yeah, and that went for an hour and a half, man. Like, and you know, you hear these crazy um stories from fathers that can't, you know, they only get a minute FaceTime and they hang up, and it was that hour and a half. And that's why the mother of my child just you know follow my daughter around the room, and and now we're just building on that, you know, building every Sunday. And during the week, she might just randomly send me some photos and videos. I don't I thought thank you, thank you, you know. Um, but um yeah, sorry, a lot of people ask, well, how come it's happened now? I said, Well, I think it's just look, I could have sent I could have reached out a year ago, it might have been too soon. You know what I mean? Like, I don't have the magical answer. I just happened to have thought I'd reach out now, and it it's happened, you know. And she said, you know, she's moved on. Um, and she said to me, I don't think you've moved on yet. And I said, you know, that's probably a fair point because I'm still somewhat living in the nightmare, like you know, you wake up with our daughter every day and you've got your that's a fair point. Yeah, and and that's fair. I'm not arguing, but I probably haven't moved on, you know. Um, but I've accepted that um England is her new home now. Yes, she's born here, I fought to keep her here, and I I broke and I got to a point where I couldn't keep fighting, and I've accepted that England's her new home now, and and and she is a good mum to my daughter, like she takes care of all her needs, and she's not out partying or anything, she's you know, very focused on my daughter, which I appreciate. But um I said it well, you know, um I want to come there, you know, and see my daughter. She's like, Yep, no worries. So, you know, as time goes on though, I think um I don't know if I can just move go there once a year. Obviously, this is something that I need to uh speak to the mother of my daughter about, but you know, I want to probably look at moving there if I can.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:39

Yeah, I was just gonna ask, would you ever move there?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:41

Yeah, absolutely. But you know, at the same time, I need I need her blessing because I signed over full parental rights in the end. So um she has full parental rights, and you know, I just said to her, like, um obviously it's early days. I we I still just won't want to get there first and you know, yeah, see my daughter. And but you know, um, if I do move there, I need you to work with me here. Like, just you know, I I don't want to pat on the back or thank you. Just don't make my life, don't make me sell here, move there, and then you're not gonna let me see my daughter. You know what I mean? I need you to work with me here. Yeah, so um, but yeah, man, sorry. No, that's massive. No, that's huge. It's huge, yeah. Because I'll the my state of mind was um I guess I had to change my state of mind to concrete to help me move on with life to say I'm not gonna see until she's 18, at least. Because that's that state of mind. I had to otherwise I was waking up every day depressed, and you know, um, but life throws you curveboards, some good, some bad, and now this has happened, and and I'm embracing it. And I've definitely got a kick in my step now. I'm I'm functioning a lot better because man, I'm getting photos and videos, you know. You know, and I know that's not not all fathers get that, and so I'm just embracing it, you know. So um hopefully it just keeps building, you know, and um I I keep getting the photos and videos. Um, so yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:01

That's the thing, is that I don't know if I would want a photo of my daughter now if I knew there was no guarantee of me getting another one.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:08

Yeah, it well the old you know what I mean? Like I know that feeling because um maybe a week ago, I think she sort of she she got I don't know, she backpedaled for a bit and she's like maybe maybe you shouldn't come because she's you know her routine and maybe it's easier if she doesn't know that she has a father and you know she was having a moment and I just thought, you know what? So one thing I've learned is there's no point messaging now because back when we were together, we would have just gone back and forth overheated. So I said, listen. She messaged me on Wednesday, I think. And um I said, Listen, my our scheduled f Feton calls this Sunday. I'm just gonna say one thing and I just want you to sit on it for a few days and then we'll chat again on Sunday. I said, uh uh, you know, I'm prepared. There's fathers out there that don't want to be in their kids' lives, but he is our daughter's father that wants to be in our daughter's life. You know, I'm happy to relocate and move there next year if if you give me that blessing, because I want to be in my daughter's life. But just just sit on that, just know that you know our daughter has a father that wants to be in life and help out. She's she's high-level needs as well. So and she goes, and she goes, okay, because normally it would be back and forth. So I think you know, we've both um matured in the in that in the communication aspect. And then she called Sunday and she goes, Yep, yep, you know, I agree. Sorry. She goes, I just had a moment. I said, It's fine. And I uh there probably are gonna be a few more moments, you know. We we haven't we went to war against each other for years, we haven't seen each other for years, and I'm sure there's gonna be a lot of doubt. We have to build on that communication and trust and can learn how to co-parent and stuff like that, and that's gonna be a journey in itself, but for now, just just give me that chance to come see my daughter, at least, and then we can go from there.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:55

So but it is like you have to have like God like patience.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:00

Man, it's you know um how would I say this? Um I've I've never had to make so many big decisions these last few years. I've just had to re-home my dog who's you know, man, he's been he's born two days after my daughter. Um and I gave them to to now my ex-partner because she's a um amazing woman. My ex-partner who I've just recently broken up with. Um she actually helped me pivot my mindset and help reconnect with um my daughter. But um once I opened up a line of communication with the mother of my child, she's you know, she that took a She didn't know how to pivot her mindset and she asked started asking questions like, What are you guys speaking about? And and I was just like, Man, all I'm speaking about is my daughter. And she said, Oh, you know. What if she messaged you during the week? I said, Well, if she messaged me during the week, I'm gonna reply to the mother, my daughter, like I'm gonna get photos and videos. And she just started to feel I in my opinion, she started to feel like she was putting controls and limitations on the line of communication with my daughter. And I said, Please don't do that. Like I've you know, she asked, I did you tell Did you tell her about us? This was after our first phone call, and I said, Well, no, I didn't. I mean, it's the first phone call I've had in years. All I was talking about was my daughter, and if Yeah, and I wouldn't have brought up a relationship either.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:28

Exactly. I mean, yeah, that's just me, but yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:30

And I said, if the phone call went for 40 minutes or four hours, it would it would have been the same. There's so much to talk about, you know. Yeah, and um unfortunately, you know, bless her because she she's an amazing woman. I'll never bag her out. She's and you know, I'll take my hat off to her. You know, dating a broken father is not easy, you know. I have the times where there's days I don't just don't want to be around anyone. I'm down and out, and um, you know. And she's helped me mature as a person. I'll forever be grateful that she came into my life. Um, but unfortunately there was dramas with me having a lot of communication with my daughter. She wasn't stopping me from um you know, seeing my daughter. Obviously, I haven't seen her yet, but just started to put in controls and limitations, and she did say to me she felt threatened by the mother of my child. I said, listen, she lives in on the other side of the world. She doesn't um live in Brisbane. And uh yeah, unfortunately just you know, and she just got her charity registered. I think uh you know, unfortunately, you know, I'm working two jobs and doing the podcast and fighting for this fight coming up, and now she's got this charity registered. We're just both busy people as well. Maybe just the timing wasn't right either. So um and I've decided to leave my dog with her because I'm hardly ever home. You know, she has a house with a yard with her dogs, and you know, I decided to um give give my dog to her. So um but yeah, you know, it's it's unfortunate because she uh she's played a big part to get to to where I am today, and I'll never speak a bad word about her. Hope that didn't come across bad. She's um a a very good person, very good woman. Um but unfortunately, just you know, I just now that I got a line of communication with my daughter, I just really don't want anything coming between that, you know.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:14

So and also it sounds like the two of you are doing stuff where you're absorbing a lot of people's negative energy.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:20

Well, that's how we met through the podcast, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:23

Um yeah, no, I I'm pretty sure I I felt like that first episode that episode that you're discussing was a first date. Oh, really?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:33

That's what my editor said. My editor said the same thing because he was editing it.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:37

Um and you know, she does, you know, and some people have asked me, like, oh, you guys not together anymore, but we feel bad if we're speaking. I said, No, not at all. Yeah, keep I'm not one that support her, back her, get behind the charity.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:50

When you were catching up together after you'd both been doing your separate things, were you sometimes deflated from energy?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:57

Yeah, yeah. Look, you know, I she has a lot of fathers reaching out to her because her charity is called Men's Emotions Matter movements. You know, that's how we I got on the podcast, and she gets flooded, and she's a very spiritual person, she gives all her time and it taxes her, like she's an empath, you know, like she she wants to heal everybody, which is you know, um, such I take my hat off to her. But there's days where I get flooded and I just can't like I'm I'd I'd do my best to get back to everyone, you know. I'll look at the camera and say this, and I'd like to put my hand on my heart and say, I've least gotten back to like 90% of people, but there's days where I just can't get back to everyone, you know. The email, boop, boop, boop, boop. If there's a day where I've got the energy, boom, great. But there's days where I might not have energy and the messages get too far behind, I just can't catch up with everyone. Yeah, you know, it just and um some are just asking too much of me. And I just I have to remind fathers like I'm not a police officer, counselor, psychologist, standby legal aid, and some of them crack their shits at me, like you don't care, you don't reply. It's like brother, like I've got my own life too, you know. Like, you can't just expect me to drop what I'm doing. And they'll send like I do a lot of voice notes, like which is because it's easy, I'm always on the go. Some guys will send me a voice note, voice, and I can see how long it goes for seven minutes, five minutes, and I'm like, shit, yeah, I'm gonna catch a lot of this, yeah, you know, yeah, and um, you know, I guess I didn't factor that in. I when I did the podcast, I just thought I'm gonna do the podcast to let father tell a story. I didn't realise what that would entail, and just boom, like every father in the country just trying to reach out to me.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:28

Yeah, I put a few videos up on Facebook, and um, you know, nothing like the reach that you have, but it was just like a few dozen dads, and then some of them would want to be mates and hang out, and this and that. When I'm I'm like, I've got my own inner circle that has taken me ages to look after. And to be honest, the last thing I want to do when I'm hanging out is talk about this.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:49

Bro, is that bad? No, no, because some days I'll I'll get back, and like you know, my partner just broke up with recently. We have to make a rule, like once we're in home, let's just talk about us. Because you know, if I've come to the podcast or I go to work, people want to talk about family call, family call, and then we go home and it's like work, she's getting emails. I'm getting emails about family call, and we seem to just be constantly speaking about it. We have to kind of put a barrier there to just you know, um, put that divide. But I have met up with people before and I've said, listen, I'm gonna be in this location at this time, I'm not gonna meet other people at the time, yeah. And then, like, I've I've gone to lunch and like someone's trying to talk to me, and everyone's cutting over each other because everyone wants to tell me this story, and then then they're just trauma dumping, like anyway, and then she said this, and it's like and it's like oh my god, yeah, man. That's a lot, it's a lot, and I just feel like shit, man. Like, and I get burnt out, man. Yeah, you know, so and I say that I do, but it burns me out. Like, I'd I don't have the magical answer for everyone, you know. Yes, I'm here to help you get your story out, but at the same time, I'm I just can't be your you know, counselors get paid for that, psychologists, you know. Yeah, I know, yeah. They're trained in it. I'm not, yeah. I'm not trained, I don't get paid, like so, yeah. But you know, I feel for them, but sorry, bro, we've gone on track, gone off track.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:08

No, that's what I mean. Like, I wanted to hear about this, yeah. Man, yeah, yeah. I'll charge you later.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:13

I'll get the invoice later.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:15

No, because that's what I mean, is like I I just sometimes I'm watching your your shows because I love listening to them, like especially because I spend a lot of time in the car, yeah. So they're easier to listen to while I'm in the car. And sometimes I kind of want to hear your perspective on it, yeah, because um that's what I'm hoping for one day, yeah, is the is baby steps. I truly believe I'm never going to get that because of them of the person I'm dealing with, their mum, because I don't think you can go from you know um accusing someone of saying, oh, and by the way, all of it's untrue. Oh, he called me fat, he controls my money, he um he laughs at me and abuses me to then um he tried to get a gun. I think he wants to murder the girls to then um he raped me.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:01

Like what's the next progression? Yeah, and I know what the next progression is, right? Is child abuse. Yep. You know? Yeah. Where I think the only way that she will be able to justify to my daughters about why they didn't see me is I found your dad doing something to you. I mean, that's the natural progression because I told people years ago it's just a matter of time before I get accused of rape.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:24

Well, yeah, I faced child uh child safety. Uh me and my lawyer had to go down there and sit sit there with this Bible full of allegations. Um child protection, they emailed me first. I freaked out, I was like, whoa. And I was forwarded to my lawyer, the lawyer called them squashed. Then child safety came in. Separate department, and then I had to go sit sit, go, I had nothing high. I said, Yeah, sure. What do you want me to do? Come down and and and and be interviewed, sure. Went down, did that. They pulled application that was on me, you know. I answered everything I need to, okay, no concerns here. But you know, still shit feeling.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:04

Oh yeah. How did you react to it when when they were asking you, like, were you angry or were you done?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:09

I didn't like the way they are that yeah, I didn't like it either. The way they welcomed me. It wasn't welcome. It's they set the tone. It's like, you know, they looked at me like I was a piece of shit, you know. Um and yeah, just the way they questioned me. And I remember like I've said this before, the first supervision contact center I went to, she was amazing, it was respectful. It was when you do the consoles just one on one. The second supervision contact center, I did not like. There was three females around me interrogating me about these. I'm like, hold on a sec, is this how you normally operate? Because the last contact center I went to, the console was just one on one. There's three verses around me throwing questions at me, like you know, and I was just I I didn't appreciate that. You know, so um but you know it's uh I feel like I got a good army army mate. He filed in 2019, he's still going and he updates me, and I just get shivers. I'm just thinking, man, I don't know how you've been gone so long. I cracked three years, I've I cracked, you know, I I I broke. You know, he's six years still going, and you you just remember all the con constant correspondence back and forth, affidavits and emails, and go you do this call. And then you just think, oh man, that just sucks a lot of life out of you.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:25

Oh, it does. Yeah, I wasn't enjoying life at all. No, yeah, no, no. Um when I was going through that, I had this bad um thing, my lawyers would always tell me off for it. I laugh, like if someone makes a ridiculous thing, I just start laughing. And I've even been in court where I clap my hand and I go, well done, right? You know, and um, like I've done a couple really goofy things in in court, and um, because I just don't know how else to react to it. Yeah, you know, like I remember, and this is rude, but it's just the truth. But this is the part that blows me away, which is why I said to you, my case is just in limbo. Um, you know, side side story here, because as you know, it goes civil and then it goes criminal. But I remember on one occasion, I was I had my my criminal date at the uh at the Supreme Court and the uh civil case, the magistrates' court, and they were on the same day. And I knew this two months in advance. And for two months, I was like, guys, it's on the same day over and over and over again. I wrote letters, I went down there. Not so on the day from 9 a.m. until 4 15 in the afternoon, I was just like a tennis ball back and forth, walking across the road. Have they done that yet? No, well, we're the Supreme Court, so you got to tell them to make that decision. It's got nothing to do with us. Oh, okay. Boom. No, bang, bang, bang, bang. And now you've been to court. What would happen if in front of the judge you grabbed your jacket and went, I've had enough of this, and I walked out. That dragged you back in. Yeah, you get told off. They didn't drag me back in.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:59

Really?

SPEAKER_04 1:16:59

Yeah, because they knew I said, I've had enough of this, and I just walked out, and then I walked out of the other one, then they walked me back in and I went, I'm not calling you your honor, I'm not calling you whatever. I go, this is all day, all night. I said it's not costing you any money. Like it didn't cost me $70,000 in legal fees, it cost me $1.5 million in my business. You know, people say the word literally a lot.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:21

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:22

Right? Okay, I literally walked away from my business. Like my my business was like it's like a $350,000, $370,000 setup in West End. I had my other store in Ashgrove getting put together.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:36

West End Brisbane.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:38

Oh, yeah, that's where I grew up. I went to Brisbane old school, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:40

Yeah, so my store was all there, ready to go. My my uh pizza store, I had three locations. It was called Pizza Emporium.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:47

Where whereabouts in West End was it?

SPEAKER_04 1:17:49

You know, uh the glass factory, which is now NYC Bagels.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:52

Okay, it's been a while since I've because I've lived in the garden.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:55

Yeah, well, I had everything going, and um what happened is that we had organized that every like I wanted to say goodnight to my daughter every night, but I couldn't. So she would say, I'm gonna call at uh, you know, say seven o'clock at night. And I said, Why can't you call any time during the day? I go, I'm a chef. I work at nighttime. The place opens from 4 30 to whatever, and I open at lunch. Why can't you just call at three o'clock in the afternoon or eight o'clock at night or whatever, you know, so eight o'clock in the morning. No, no, you're not gonna tell me when I'm gonna call. I'm gonna call at seven o'clock at night, and that's it. So I would have my phone in my hand the whole time. So I would put a couple extra employees on so that they could take care of that workload game.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:38

Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:39

And then the phone would ring and I would answer, oh, hang up. That was the phone call for the day. So then she could say I technically called I called. Right. And so then I was in tears, and um, I actually just went to my landlord and said, Listen, I go, I'm going to Melbourne. I have to see my girl, I have to try. And it's like, you just signed the lease. Like, if you it's like, you know, we're gonna sue you for like six, seven hundred thousand dollars. I was like, I don't care, right? And so I told the other one in Ashgrove, you can keep my fit out. I lost 120 grand and you can keep that fit out, 370,000, and closed up my other business. I literally put the keys in the landlord's thing with a I'm I'm off to Melbourne, do whatever you want with my name. And boom, just went. And two and a half years, uh 36 times in court, I had 15 female judges and four male judges. The four male judges all reduced um my uh, you know, my my when when I say what's the right word? Like I'd have to go into the uh station and kind of sign in. Sign in. Sign in. Yeah, they go, Why are you doing that, Mr. Perez? I was like, no, I'll get rid of that. Then I'd go to see a female judge, put it back in, put it back on, but then increase it from two to three, you know? Um, and so it went back and forth. And the female judges always increased it and then adjourned it, and it would be adjourned for eight weeks, three months, four months. The male judge was like, Why has this been adjourned so many times? Are you busy this Friday, Mr. Perez? No, okay, well, you be back in this Friday. Then I'd go in on Friday, female judge. Why? You were just here two days ago. Yeah, no, adjourned eight weeks. So it's been adjourned non-stop. I've never had my day in court, right? And I got called in to the police station and they said, Adrian, your uh ex-partner said that you just drove past her place. You can't be within 500 meters of her place. And I said, I haven't been in that postcode for about four or five years. I live 40 kilometers away. And at the time that you said I was doing that, I was working. You know, I had a full-time job working um as a car salesman for Mazda, and I worked part-time in a as a pizza bar. And um, you know, I've heard a lot of fathers say this we work two jobs or we keep ourselves busy in clubs and organizations seven days a week just to keep ourselves busy. So I said, impossible. I've got all these witnesses, there's CCTV cameras. We don't really care.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:56

Yeah, I can't stand that.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:57

And I was like, I've got proof that I was nowhere near that place. They don't care, they don't care. And uh that this happened multiple times, by the way. So they call me up on a f on a Sunday night and say, Adrian, can you just come into the station just to have a word? And I went, yeah, sure. And uh I was living in a Baldwin at the time, so my local station was five minutes away. So it was on a Sunday, so they took me in and they released me 11 days later. Wow, I was in the same clothes, no phone call, nothing. My flat mates, my girlfriend at the time, my my mum, my work. I just got a promotion to as well. The new job was starting on a Wednesday. Um, no one knew where I was for 11 days. So Sunday and then Thursday, a week and a half later. You know, I had a full-blown beard because as you know, when you're in the cells, you can't shave. I was in there with all sorts of blokes. Some were like acting tough, then I'd found out they were in there for parking fines. Other blokes were in there for assault, burning a car, drugs. It was hard. Like, and I kept it cool as Percy. I couldn't believe how cool I was the whole time. I was just like, you know, the whole time. And uh on the 11th day, I was like, hey, listen, after 12 days, you get a criminal record number. Like, what's going on? And they released me on the 11th day. I went to see the judge, it was the same one that had seen me previously that you know was saying to my ex-partner, and I just want to commend your bravery for you know speaking up. I'm like, what's brave about talking crap?

SPEAKER_02 1:22:30

Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:31

Like, if if talking crap is brave, I'm the bravest bloke in the world. Tell a lie, yeah. You know? Um, and so you know, she said to me, I remember, um, you know, was it worth it? Because I'd try to see my daughter at a daycare center. She goes, Was it worth it, Mr. Perez? I was like, What, like 10 days in jail to see my daughter for for 10 minutes? Like, yeah, sign me up tomorrow. So she says to me, uh, you can do four months in jail or you can be on a good behavior bomb for two years. And the two years is you know, got to sign in at the station, got to do a men's behavioral course, and got to do 200 hours of community service, blah, blah, blah. And I said, I'll just take the four months in jail. Yeah, right. Yeah, like absolutely. Yeah, you know, and then they go, No, you've got to do the two years. And if you contact the mother again or go to the daycare center again, it'll be my pleasure to throw you in jail straight away. Okay, so I breached the 329 times. Yeah, I went to the daycare center 25 more times. I went to the local supermarket uh again, and I sent about 300 odd text messages. None of them rude.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:33

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:34

All of them just like, hey, how the girls going? Hey, do you want some money for the supermarket? In that time, I saw the girls a couple times. Saw them at Carlton Park, saw them at uh uh, you know, the the local park, all that kind of stuff, you know. Um but yeah, like I didn't care. And that's that's the beauty of this, which you will understand and other fathers will understand. When a judge says to you, we're gonna punish you, it's like I'm already punished you, clown.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:03

Yeah, I'm already in hell.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:05

Yeah, like jail, that's not a problem. You want to put me in jail for four months, six months, one year? That's not the punishment. The punishment is me missing out on my first daughter's crawling on her first steps, her first word. 10 birthdays for one daughter, 10 birthdays for the other daughter, 10 Father's Days, 10 Christmases. Um, you know, the the pleasure of of seeing them laugh because you're a goofball, watching all the Pixar movies with them, you know, um, making them a birthday cake because I'm a chef, you know, teaching them how to ride a bike their first day at school, you know, making sure that you're the one that brings them up when they've had their feelings hurt, being there when they've got a cold, you know, like you know, do they need braces like their dad? You know, all the things I could waffle on about it for real. I miss all of those things. You think jail time is the punishment, you stupid, stupid person. I know, right? You know, and so it makes you tough. Yeah, I I've lost my empathy and compassion, and my wife has really brought me back around. You know, I still don't have it the way I used to, but like hats off to you for what you're doing. Yeah, I think so. Because honestly, I probably got 10% of what you've got as far as the empathy tank goes. Yeah, you know. Um, I'll listen to a dad once, twice, three times, and in the end, I'll be like, dude, I'll go, you've got a million options. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:28

Yeah, unfortunately, um I think fathers can uh and I won't judge them, can get stuck in that that rut, that cycle, you know, instead of going, you got options. And um because I used to be like that too, you know. I was just like waking up every day and just like fucking poor me, poor me. And yeah, and I thought, you know what, I need to find some purpose. Um, and I thought, I'm gonna do a podcast, you know. You you you use pain as power, you know.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:59

That's how I found your podcast.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:00

Oh, did you?

SPEAKER_04 1:26:01

Yeah, because I said to someone, I'm gonna do something, no one else is doing it. I'm gonna do a podcast. And then they go, Oh, there's one called Broken Fathers. Yeah, but I'm gonna do it differently.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:07

I'm gonna be a bit of like rah-rah-ra-r-yeah, that's how he is. Okay, what am I gonna do next?

SPEAKER_02 1:26:15

I mean, it it comes with a lot, it comes with a lot, but um I don't know if you watched recently off topic. Uh there's a podcast called The Reset Podcast.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:24

Now tell you the truth, I actually only watch yours and everything else is cooking or music.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:27

Well, that real quick, there's a mother that's pretty much because you know it's unheard of, you know, it's unheard of to hear a mother go through what fathers have been through. Yeah. And um, because you know, I'll say it, I think the family cord's very one-sided, but anyway, but this mother has pretty much been through what me, you and your father's been through, and even that host, like it's unheard of because this normally happens to the father, and she's suffering parental alienation, and um, you know, her father's taken off with the kids. But um, where was we gonna that story? Oh I said um I think she might be doing her own podcast about mums, but I'm surprised which or or two, but I'm surprised a mother hasn't come out and started a broken mother's podcast, you know, just sort of piggybacked off my name, which I honestly wouldn't care. So if a mum did it, go or go for it. Yeah, it doesn't bother me. Um but uh you know I think a lot what a lot of people don't realise is you know when you do it, you can do a podcast on football NRL, but when you do one on family court, it it comes with a lot of heat, you know. Um cease to the sis emails and yeah and stuff like that. So which you know I don't give a fuck about. Um but yeah, anyway.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:37

Yeah, no, uh I know what you mean. You you actually don't care. Yeah, no, it's I remember the cops came to my pizza shop once and they handed me another intervention order, and right in front of them, because I was cooking at the time, I just put it in the pot and lit it up, took a picture, sent it to um my ex's mum, you know, and this is sidetracking, but I remember he was really tall, the police officer, and a goofy looking bastard, and she was very, very tough female police officer. And I'm not into kickboxing or anything like this, whatever. Um, but I said something to them, and he was offended, and she took it as a compliment. I said, Whatever Will Ferrell and Rhonda Rousey get their father. And she was like, Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:12

Yeah, I'm Rhonda. I'm Ronda.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:15

Yeah, he got a little upstairs. She's like, ah, don't worry about it. She's just all happy because I caught her Rhonda Rousey. But yeah, like you just don't care anymore.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:22

You know what's funny? I actually I was speaking to two of my guests. There are a couple, I'm caught up on last night, real quick. And um they live uh they they won't care, but I won't say the town. They they live in a small town, and since doing the podcast, they've had the cops pull them up, like walking, and they're like, man, we watch the podcast. You know, thanks for doing that because it's it's it's opening our our eyes on what was really going on in your because they obviously had to handle them at some point. And it's um I actually have heaps of cops message me. They buy my merchandise. Some have sent photos of them in the patrol car, they're like, look, don't post it. You know, like yeah, that's real, I won't post it. But um, they're like, you know, we're big supporters. Unfortunately, given our job, we we can't publicly comment on your podcast to support you, we'll lose our job. Would I said, Would you come on the podcast? We would, but we'll would we'd lose our job.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:16

That's what's so annoying though, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:18

I know, and I had a cop from New South Wales, um, you know, uh, he emailed me, I gave him a call, and he's like, mate, just to let you know, like you've got a lot of backing from cops down here. Like, we unfortunately we won't tell you online, but yeah, because we know about the bullshit DV crap that goes on, and we're the ones that have to fucking deal with it. Yeah. And when when they says deal with it, like we there's only so much we can do. Like, we know we're gonna go so put a DV on this bloke. We know that we shouldn't be doing it, but we're we're we're bounded by our our our legislation and they do know, and that they do know, and they're like, fuck man, we're gonna have to go put a DV on this bloke when we know we shouldn't be doing it, but we're gonna turn this bloke's life upside down. And some of Tony, we left the job because of it. I'm like, you know what? Good on you, good on you, because some of them have morals and they're like, man, we're sick of dealing with it.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:05

Oh, some of the police I've dealt with though, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:08

Oh, I've had good ones, I've had some ways.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:10

Me too, good ones and bad ones. Um, one incredible story is uh, you know, when I had the DV on on me, all the intervention, all the stuff, blah, blah, blah. And I was at home at Avondale Heights in Melbourne, and the mother called me. And, you know, we're not supposed to have communication. And she said, Listen, I'm gonna drop off the kids at 10 o'clock in the morning and I'll pick them up at 12. And this is the first time she was gonna drop them off at my house, and I was elated. You know, I was so happy. I was like, Yeah, she goes, I'm just gonna go to the supermarket. I was like, Great, I'll take them to the park. She goes, No, you're not allowed to take them to the park. And I go, the park's like literally 50 meters down the street. It's a beautiful day. She goes, No. She goes, You're not to take them to the park. I was so scared of her. I was like, okay. And I had a big house with a big backyard. We're playing games, this and that. She dropped them off. She was being a bit rude to me, and I was like, Oh, don't come here and drop them off with an attitude. You can stay, you know. And I was like, Don't be like that. And she left. Boom. It must have been 15, 20 minutes later. Two police cars and a paddy wagon, six police officers rocking to my house. She had gone there crying in hysterics, going, I just dropped them off, and then he pushed me out of the house, and I don't know if they're safe. I was told to get out of my own house, right? And then my daughter, like it would be like in a movie scene. My daughter's on the other side of the screen with her hand there. She goes, Hey daddy, what? You know, like why are you outside? And I was, she goes, Can I come outside? And they wouldn't let her outside. I go, listen, I go, I'm just playing hide and seek with the police officers. And I trusted the male police officer there, like he had an all right vibe. And I was like, you know, this gentleman, he's gonna look after you, right? Anyway, eventually the male police officer let my daughters come out, and then they had to interview me. Now, I don't know if this is a thing, right? But I was getting interviewed by a male police officer for the civil case, and then straight away getting interviewed by the female officer for a criminal case. They were right next to each other. I was sitting down in a chair, and my youngest one, my second daughter, was climbing all over me like I was a play equipment and laughing and giggling. In his report, he writes things along the lines of went there, the girl seemed to be happy and safe, told him that he had broken the law, blah, blah, blah. He knows he's got to go to court. Something like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:15

Female.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:16

The female one wrote, Adrian was not taking my questions seriously. I think he was under the influence of drugs. Now, mind you, I've never even had a cigarette in my life. I wouldn't even know what drugs look like, you know. Um, and so I went to the station and I said to the male officer, look, this is the report she wrote. And he goes, Yeah, I'm disappointed with that. I was like, Well, you could easily just say, because you were right next to her that this is crap. He's like, Yeah, no, I can't do that. And so he got upset because I called him a dog. But what are you if you're if you're not with you were right there, you could do something to assist me. He goes, Yeah, no.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:46

Do you know who Bettina Arn is?

SPEAKER_04 1:32:49

No.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:49

Oh, I've I'll we're gonna upload some of her content later. But anyway, she's um she had two whistleblower cops come on. Um, she interviewed them, blurred out their face, gave them a different name. But these cops were actually partners, as in partners in the job. And they said that they got called out to a s an altercation. Um the female had called the cops, said there was an altercation, DV, they rocked up, they did an assessment, and both the female and the male cop believed that the the male was actually the victim. And they took away the female. And she's like, What are you doing? You can't take me away. I called you guys for help. And they said, Well, no, we actually believe you're the perpetrator. We've done an assessment, we've spoken to both for years, and blah blah. Went back to the police station and um they got in trouble from the OIC because yeah, they said no, well you should be taking the you should have brought the uh the the mail in. You know. And I've had a s another cop tell me, QPS cop, tell me that, and I've said it many times before. He said, We are trained to take away, even if we believe the male is a victim, yeah. We are trained to take away as a perpetrator.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:00

I know, that's incredible.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:02

And even when I had the DV Connect um guest on, they said that you know in their training policy manuals, it it they are told if a male calls up as a victim, you are trained to coerce them or ask them questions like, Well, but what did you do to her for her to act like that? You know, to try and put it back on him, you know, to convince them that you're actually the perpetrator.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:22

And it's funny that you say that that's a line that every single bloke hears. If you start dating women and they know you you become vulnerable and share your story, they'll use it against you. Yeah, no, how many times do you hear they do, but how many times do you hear, yeah? But what did you do? You must have done something. Yeah, I must have done something.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:39

Yeah, look, I'll you know I've you know, I'll I'll get those comments because I'm I I'm open about it. I I went to a supervision contact center, I shouldn't have been there, but that's the way it happened. Yeah, you know, the TPO got put on me, they put my daughter's name and I had this in my daughter and thing. And um people like, oh well, he must have done he must have done something to be in Supervision Contact Center, or you know, it's like alright, mate, you know. Yeah, and I'm old shooter I had like all my you know, because I worked overseas for a long time. I've got all these re replica um, you know, M4s and all my gats that I use overseas in in like a military memorabilia type frame with my metal. And you get all these dickheads like, oh look at all the weapons on your wall. No wonder you're not allowed to see your kids. Oh my god. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04 1:35:21

But you know what, you cannot have those weapons, you still get stupid commentary, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:28

Well that's one guy said, um something like you know, how you allowed real weapons on your wall, and like something like that. I I don't bother replying because then you're gonna just tiggy back and forth. But I'm just thinking, mate, if they were real, like one, sir, it would have kicked in my doorbind here. Yeah, yeah. They're not real. Yeah, you know, like it's just uh anyway.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:49

Um that's the thing with me as well. When I was accused of like trying to get a gun, I'm like, I don't even know where to get a water gun. And I'm sure you've got to fill up paperwork. Yeah, you know?

SPEAKER_08 1:35:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:58

Oh, do you think sorry I'm sidetracking? No, man, go for it. Do you think that we should be allowed polygraph testing in family court?

SPEAKER_02 1:36:06

Uh so uh yeah, but they don't use it, so they don't take it serious for whatever reason. So I had a gentleman on called Nick, he's actually Vic Pole Copper. He actually has he runs a lie detecting business, but it's the the uh the days of the polygraph over. Now it's the reckoner, so it's some sort of machine. I've never done it, but it has like I think 89 or 91% accurate rate. It reads the reckoner of your eye. Um I'll probably explain this wrong. Sorry, Nick. Um, but nice guy, but yeah, he travels around Australia, people pay him. Some couples will just like a married couple, they might have been married 30 years, and you know, they want to find out if she ever cheated on them or stuff like that, you know. Um, and um it yeah, so I think it's like a goggle, and like you ask the question, apparently it's the reaction time from your reckoner or something. So if you got you know, is your name Adrian? You know, you say yes, but if there's a pause or something like that, it will it will read the delay time or something like that. But just with the eyes, not like with the apparently this is more accurate than the the than the polygraph.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:05

I had an ex-girlfriend with a lazy eye, she would have got away with it. Oh, really? Yeah, no.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:09

I I don't know, but it's uh he man, he famous people get him to come for whatever reason, you know. I reckon it should be introduced. Yeah, look, it's um I'd gladly participate. Well, why they don't use it, I don't know. But um I've heard through multiple sources that they don't take it seriously.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:27

Yeah, yeah, I've I've heard that um you know you could present it to a a judge if there's not a jury, they can choose to look at it or not.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:35

But let's be honest, I've presented real hard evidence to judges and they still didn't take it on board. So why are they gonna take a polygraph on board if you're not even gonna take on board real hard evidence?

SPEAKER_04 1:37:46

Like it's just annoying because I don't understand the process. So when I went and did the diploma, and you know, um I'm going into into law part-time as well, uh, is to understand the process. And I remember um one of my teachers saying to me, um, if you're angry now by the end of the year, you'll be just as angry. Yeah, you know, because you won't understand it, you know. So you go. Oh, no, I was just gonna say, um, if I've, you know, and I hate saying the word rape, it's horrible. But if I've been accused of rape and that's good enough for them to go, yeah, we won't let you see your girls, shouldn't that actually be investigated?

SPEAKER_02 1:38:22

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:23

You know? So this is what happened when I was in Victoria. They said to me that, and once again, I'm going all over the place, apologies.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:30

No, don't miss it.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:31

Um, they said you're gonna go to jail for four months because you you've breached it so many times. That's what I was told. So um, we can't give you a time limit, but they kind of knew me. And they were we can't give you a uh time to do your stuff. We could we could arrest you at any time. So um I said, great, just give me a week to finish my two jobs, pack up my house, put everything in my mate's garage. This is when I was in Melbourne. So I did all of that, had a big dinner with my mates, goodbye, see you later. I'll be back in four months, maybe six months, I'm not sure. I pre my mate um Jeff then took me to uh the Camberwell police station on a Sunday night. And this is exactly what happened. I present myself about 7:30, 8 o'clock on a Sunday night, and they told me present yourself on a Sunday night, not Friday, because then you have to spend the whole weekend there.

SPEAKER_06 1:39:18

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:20

And they go, Adrian, we got a problem, we can't process you right now. And they I go, why not? And they go, Did you try and see your daughter on Friday, just two days ago? I went, Yeah, I did. And they go, Yeah, so we got to start this all over again, right? And I sat there for a couple of hours and they said, Listen, you've got to make uh present yourself on the uh something like the 14th of January. And I said, It's like the first week of October, you know, we're talking like three and a half months away, you know? And I go, what am I supposed to do with that? And then the two senior police officers that had dealt with me the whole time, they go, give me a phone. I give them my phone, they walk outside and they go, peace off to Queensland, don't come back. And I go, what? And they go, We know what this is, and you're just gonna keep getting yourself in trouble. We know we know you're a good bloke. Just peace off to Queensland, don't come back. I handed my phone back. I said, that was it. You know, but the warrant's just been there forever. When I knew I was gonna come on this show, the first thing I did was call every single police station I've had um something to do with, which is about eight, right? Just asking them about my warrant. So when I've gone to Stafford Heights, um, you know, here in in uh Queensland, they go, Yeah, we know you got a warrant, but we're not gonna do anything about it because it's just on breaches. No one seems to be concerned. Yeah, we're and then you call Avondale Heights, Mooney Ponds, Essendon, Broad, Broad Meadows, Campbell in in Victoria. Yeah, no, it's it's been here. You got four. When are you coming back? I'm not. Well, no worries, mate. Take care. Yeah, well. Now, this is the part that should freak out women. If I really was a person that was a perpetrator of domestic violence, the Victorian police are going, Well, can you go to Queensland and be their problem?

SPEAKER_02 1:41:04

You're right, right. Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:05

Like, if I really was a rapist and really did try and get a gun and really did do all these things, the Victorian police are saying, too hard basket, just go to Queensland.

SPEAKER_06 1:41:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:14

And then some poor female meets me in Queensland having no idea I've been to court 36 times and been arrested and spent 11 days in jail and all this and that. How is that happening? I know, right? By the way, my my wife's watching. I'm not those that guy. Nah.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:34

Yeah, look, it's uh it's a whirlwind, man. Like, um, and I think there's gotta be so many questions asked. Like, are the cops backlogged? Are they undermand? Um, do they know that the system needs improving? Do they care?

SPEAKER_04 1:41:50

They are when we finish, I'll I'll just show you a little questionnaire I've got in the back of the car, and I actually kind of um highlighted Pauline Hansen's um guest appearance on the show, yeah, where I think she said to you, um, you know, 75% of police inquiries.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:04

Do we whatever?

SPEAKER_04 1:42:05

So I photocopied it, went to about a dozen police stations. I was hoping it to have a um meaningful one-on-one with a few police officers to be able to bring something into the show, but they didn't want a bar of it. But I just asked them all one thing. I go, could you I ask you one thing? Pauline Hansen said this 75%, every single one of them cut me off before the sentence was finished going, oh, it's so much more than that. No, it's like 90% or more. That all said at three different police stations, they went, Oh, it's so much more.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:30

Did did they say whether they believe whether they said it mo how many of them are genuine or or or how many how of them they think are fake?

SPEAKER_04 1:42:38

Yeah, no, I couldn't, I couldn't even get more than a one-minute conversation. You know, that's just no one wants to touch.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:44

Yeah, I've had a cube, my he's he's still he's in the he was in the army, he's in the he's a cop, and you know, he warned me, he said, mate, don't don't talk about the DV. He goes, They'll come for you. Yeah, I said, What? He goes, mate, it's a cash cow. Yeah, it's a cash cow. It is, it's an industry. It's an industry, it's actually a business. It's a business.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:00

Like, you know, if you actually said to the government, oh tomorrow, all DV is gonna cease to exist, there'd be lawyers and politicians up in arms.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:08

Yeah, who's who's paying them? Who's making money? Yeah, courts are gonna be dead.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:12

Yep, it's it's an absolute industry. It's a shame. You know, I'm I'm worried about you know, when I eventually, because I know eventually I'll meet my girls, I'm worried about how am I gonna tell them this? Because as I'm speaking to you, I'm actually finding this really hard to tell a story, not from an emotional point of view, it's because it's all over the place.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:30

Yeah, well, that's um like for me, I'm embarrassed. What no? That's not I am though, you know. Uh let's um did you say you you've done time?

SPEAKER_04 1:43:42

Yeah, so I just did the uh I did one one day uh at one station and then the um 11 days at whatever. But on the record it shows one and ten, and they said one more day and I have a criminal record number for the rest of my life, which obviously I don't want. Yeah, that's what I was told. I don't know if that's correct. Is that right? 12 days. I have no idea. Yeah, so I think that's what it is, but um, you know, I'm worried about like when I meet my girls, are they gonna be emotionally um broken? You know, because I would have had no influence on them and you know, not to besmirch the mother's entire family. Actually, stuff it, right? Is that I'm all about laughing and singing and dancing and food and running amark and being outside and all this kind of stuff. And they're all about, you know, like I I struggled to be in that household because it was all like about screaming at each other, paying each other out. If someone was talking about wanting to chase a dream or achieve a dream, they'd be like, you know, pull your head in, you know, you're not better than us, you're not you're not gonna make it, you know. Um, like the girl's mom, she wanted to be a vet or an actress or or do all these different things. And if she ever spoke about daydreaming about something, man, she always got knocked down. You know, I remember she had a brother once that he was good enough to play AFL, but you know, just no encouraging words, you know. And I want my daughters, if they want to chase something, I want to be able to know that they've got a parent going, yeah, go for it. Yeah, you know, give it a go. Yeah, but I'm worried about when they ask me, um, you know, because I've got 550 or 560 odd letters that I've written to them that I want to show you later, you know. But I'm gonna give it to them. And I've got all these presents and stuff and little memorabilia I've given to them. Um, what do I say when they say, Dad, why why weren't you around? Because if I tell them the truth, it's brutal.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:37

Well, I mean, how old are they now? Sorry.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:40

They're they are um my my uh youngest just turned 11 a couple months ago, and my uh eldest is going to be 13 in October. You know, speaking about being left alone, uh both of their birthdays are on the second of a month of a certain month. On that on their birthday, oh shut down.

SPEAKER_06 1:45:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:58

Uh my phone off.

SPEAKER_06 1:45:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:59

I'll go to the movies, I'll go to the gym, I'll grab a burger. Yeah. I just want to be left the hell alone.

SPEAKER_02 1:46:03

Yeah, oh I I get it. I get it. Yeah. You know, for me, uh my you know, I'm blessed that my my scenario's changed just of the last month. That's amazing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm happy for you. Yeah, and I hope um I don't know how I'm gonna um like do I do I do I film the journey going there? Because uh not to um because you know, hopefully it restores faith uh or gives hope to follow out there going, shit, like Percy somehow, you know, reconnected. I mean still I haven't gone there yet, but I'm hoping that communication line stays away.

SPEAKER_04 1:46:37

Are you scared about the move if you don't mind me asking?

SPEAKER_02 1:46:39

No, no, no, I'm just scared that um I mean no one moves to England for a better way of life, right? They won't they will move here. Yeah, but that's where my daughter is. Yeah, it doesn't matter if she's in Afghanistan, like you know, so that it doesn't um if that's where she is, that's where that's where I would go. Um now, you know, people that don't know the context of what's talking about. How come you didn't have the age? You go, well, if you you gotta know the context behind it all and um you know um now that I didn't think I was gonna get a line of communication until she was 18. Am I scared of moving that? Absolutely not. Um I'm just scared that uh sorry I'm scared of one thing, it's just I don't want to move there and then and then you know, for whatever reason, I get blocked from seeing my daughter. You know, it's like you know, pack up and move and move there. Hey, I'm here, I'll get be a I'll be cleaner on the street, I don't care, I'll rent a room, I'll get a job somewhere. Just I just want access and time to my daughter and be able to help out, you know, help, you know, take her to her s her uh oh, you know, oh OT sessions or her specialist sessions, stuff like that. I want to be able to help our daughter have a better life, but I don't want to move then like you change your mind, like, oh actually I you don't have access. It's like uh that's what I'm scared of.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:49

Well, yeah, and that's a much bigger move than going to Melbourne. When I went to Melbourne, I went there with a small belief that if I lived there, you know, the mother made me believe that I'd be able to see them, like, you know, even if it was once a week. Oh god, once a week, two hours. Yeah, it sounds awful, but I would have taken it. Yeah, take it, take what you can get. And then, yeah, no, um, no, it's just it's just awful how it played out, you know. And um, oh, the fake smile in if I had a dollar for every fake smile, and and I come across easy going, and so then someone's like, you know, how's your dad going? Oh man, you wanna believe that we can have it. I've got a flat tie. And I'm like, oh yeah, how about you? Oh my dad was worse my air conditioning.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:34

I know.

SPEAKER_04 1:48:34

I know I'll I'll tell you what was bad as well, is the dismissive way I was like with um with just friendships in general, you know. I was just very, very easy just to be able to walk away from anybody.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:46

Yeah, and I found it's not their fault. Like when I was going through it, you know, people like, oh hey, um, we're having a baby shower, or it's our kids' birthday, and it kind of like it's not their fault. It's like that's the last place I want to be. Yeah, you know, I'm going through family court, I can't see my kids, uh my daughter, sorry, and um, you know, they're just being nice. Hey, do you want to come to our beat? And it's like, no, that's that's the last place I want to be. Yeah. Because you know, it just reminds you of what I don't have or what I'm not getting and stuff like that. So that's not their fault, they just don't realise.

SPEAKER_04 1:49:15

Um I was happy for my friends, and when I got to be invited for stuff like that, what I didn't like is if I was out in public and I would see a dad with their kids and the dad was ignoring their kids, like they're on the phone the whole time, or they're just like, Leave me alone, go play. And I was like, Oh dude, you know? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:32

And that's why let's just say I I do move to England. Um I do with the podcast because when I do go there, I just want to give all my time to my to my daughter of catch up time.

SPEAKER_04 1:49:45

Yeah, I was gonna ask you that if this had a has an expiry date.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:49

I don't know what to do. Do I retire? Do I hand it over to someone else? And I put a lot of time and energy and money into it. Do I Do I just let it sit here for now and go to England? See what happens because I mean if I do do it, I mean I'm I'm in England. Do I interview England fathers? I know they they're systems terrible. Do I do it via webcam? But at the same time, you know, I feel there's this thing called digital dementia, 60 minutes of the thing, and I think it's a legit thing. They're talking about teenagers now that are have signs of dementia because we're zombies on a phone. And some days I feel like because I have a podcast on all different platforms, the notifications come in. I have OCD, so I have to I have to wipe the the notifications. I can't just have 200 email notifications. Like I have to zero everything, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And so my mind is always I I admit I'm I'm bad, I'm always on my phone. But when I go to England, well I don't want to be on my phone. I'm gonna so maybe it's best I just hand it over to someone else and um you know because I don't want to be on my phone. And there's some days I I can't string a sentence together. I've got that. Yeah, but and you know, and I think it's from always being on my phone. Yeah. I just feel like I'm a zombie, and sometimes I wake up and I'm I'm just using the most basic words and because I just can't even string a sentence together. I just don't feel like I'm in a zombie mode, you know. So and when I go to bed at night, I turn my phone on airplane mode because I need my mind to switch off. I might wake up at three in the morning, go hang a piss, come back and what I do. Instead of going back to bed, I turn airplane mode on or off. Ding ding ding ding ding. Ding ding ding. Yeah, it's bad. Yeah, that's an addiction.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:29

That is, yeah. And I'm going to and I it just yeah, it's it's bad.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:34

Like I I admit that's a problem. But uh, yeah, so you know, if I do go to England, I'll just, you know, I don't know, retire the podcast, hand it to someone else. I don't know, but all I know is I hope you I hope it doesn't get retired. Well, you look, I don't mind, you know, maybe find the right person to take over.

SPEAKER_04 1:51:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:51

Because I want it to continue, so far as can think, but I just hope fuss can understand that you know when I do go, I I my daughter's my priority now. And um, you know, I'm sure there's some fash that might be might feel let down for me, but I gotta make up for lost time. I just want to give all my time to my daughter in the world.

SPEAKER_04 1:52:07

Oh, to tell you the truth, I don't I don't think anyone who's fair dinker would be let down. Yeah. No, not at all. Like serious, freaking massive, like what you've done, you know, and having the conversation the way you have it as well, because everyone else has it in a diplomatic way, walking on eggshells, this and that, and it's just it's boring, it doesn't achieve anything at all. Um, I find it quite irritating when I have a debate with someone about it.

SPEAKER_08 1:52:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:52:32

Um, because they find the conversation polarizing and you kind of have created a world here in this podcast where it's not polarizing. Yeah. It's like, let's just have a chat. Yeah, it's true. You know, the first time you listen to it, if you don't know about it, it would sound really like like harsh. I don't want to use the word polarizing again, but you know, but then you you start to listen to it over and over again. And the fact that you've had uh legal practitioners on and and uh you know Pauline Hansen and uh uh counselors and stuff, and the people with the hood of voices, you know, but it's it's powerful stuff, yeah. But people have to understand, they'd be celebrating that you get to go back to England and see your daughter.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:13

Yeah, yeah, they are, and I appreciate like I'm sure I mean I see it, where you're having second doubts, or like some of my kids, they come in and they go, Man, I nearly turned around because you know they've had to some of them's their journey finished long time ago, but they've had to some of them redug the affidavits and they're going, oh, and you know, they didn't want to have to relive the the trauma again, which I totally get. So I appreciate all my guests who come on, but I feel that um a lot of them, once they tell this story, they're going, oh, it's a way off the shotgun because they go, you know what? I've told it. That's my story, that's my chapter, I'm moving on with life now. So in the future, people might ask them or they ask me, Hey, what's the go? They want to ask me questions. I was just like, hey man, if you're that interested, I'll just send them my episode. I'm not gonna tell a three-year, three-year court journey to you right here, right now. If you would really that and truly, here's my episode. It's done. There it is, there.

SPEAKER_04 1:54:03

Okay, so that's what I could do now. Yeah, yeah. Well, what's going on? How can you not see your girls?

SPEAKER_02 1:54:07

Like, well, that yeah, press the link. And and hopefully that that that that's how you feel afterwards, you go, you know what? I've told my story, you know, and you know, if if my girls come looking for me one day, that's where it is, you know.

SPEAKER_04 1:54:19

Oh, I can't wait. Yeah, you know, I'll just be blown away. I'll be the happiest man in the world when I see it.

SPEAKER_02 1:54:23

Well, bro, you know, if they Google your name, this that episode will come up and see.

SPEAKER_04 1:54:28

I don't even know if they know my name or what I look like or who I am, you know. Um I I hope they do, and you know, with my girls, you know, I hope that they know that they could just call me and I would drop everything for them, you know. Like I would easily give up a year of my life just to see them for one day. Yeah, like it, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:54:48

Real quick before I forget my mind goes up. Did you have to do the men's behavior? I I I had to do it. Did you have to do the men's behavioral programme course?

SPEAKER_04 1:54:54

Uh yeah, but I didn't complete any of it. I didn't complete the none of it.

SPEAKER_02 1:54:57

That that's the biggest trap that one. So there's no woman's behavioral course, surprise, right? But you know what they do is so they get you to do it, and it's it's like it's an admission that so they use it again to go, oh, so you've done the course, so you admit that you've got a problem, it's like no, that's why I didn't finish it. Yeah, I just did the course because you told me to do it to go see my daughter. So my lawyers actually tell me, goes, just so you know, because I said, if this is a hurdle that's going to stop me, I'll do it. And they go, Okay, we'll do it. But they sent an email to the other side saying, Mr. Purcell will do this course, but in no way, shape, or form is this an admission that he has committed or or has a anger problem or stuff like that. Because I was like, Why do we need to say that? He goes, 'Cause that they'll use this against you. Once you do the course, I go, Oh, so Mr. Purcell, you've you you've admitted that you've got a problem because you've done the course. I'm thinking, huh? I just did the course because you give me all these courses I have to do to you know, see my daughter.

SPEAKER_04 1:55:50

But yeah, I stopped after I think I went twice.

SPEAKER_02 1:55:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:55:53

Because the guy that was running it, the clown that was running it, was like, Adrian, I've been doing this for 15 years. I can spot a DV perpetrator from a mile away, so let's cut the games. Just tell me what did you do and how how are you not going to do it again? And I was like, I'll tell you what I did. I go, I went back and forth dating someone for 15 years because I was an idiot. That's it.

SPEAKER_02 1:56:14

My guy was actually really good. And um he was like, uh um, I won't go into detail because in case, but yeah, he was he was actually really good. He said, Yeah, I you don't need to he goes 50% of the people that come here don't need to be here because they're just being here because the course the court the call to make them do this course to see the kid. But yeah, and he was honest, you know.

SPEAKER_04 1:56:36

So it's so frustrating. It is frustrating.

SPEAKER_02 1:56:40

But if you think, right, if you go to family court, family court's the pizza. The big pizza, you know. Don't worry, I understand that. Family thought is a big pizza. Yeah, everyone takes a slice now. One slice is um, you know, uh sewerage and contact centre, one slice is the independent children's lawyer, one slice is the barrister and the law firms, one slice is the men's behavioral program, all these slices of the big big pizza because everyone's making money from the system, you know? You know, that's why if if if in the future, like I've always said now that I've been through it, if someone put a DVO on me or TPL, it's like I'm not even gonna bother going trying to appeal it. Yeah, I don't want people to take that advice from me. It's just because no, I went to DV trial, cost me 70 grand, went for what took 14, 16 months or something in to win, only for another one to be put on me one month later. I was just like, well, oh yeah, and it's so it's easy to put on, it's hard to get off. You know what? Pull one on me because I'm not gonna fight, it's gonna be time, energy, money. But I don't want fathers to take that advice from me because you know it well when you do have one, depending on what you do for work, you can still down and lose your this, lose your loss, lose that. But yeah, but um, I'm not fucking doing that shit again.

SPEAKER_04 1:57:57

If I if I end up going to jail, I have to close up my real estate business, you know. And I've had to talk to my wife multiple times about the decision of going to Melbourne, which I will be doing. Uh, they'll technically arrest me, um, read out my warrants, they'll then remove the for a few months and then say this is when you've got to go back to court. Um, I have no intention of going back to court with a lawyer because I can't afford it. No, it's as simple as that. Yeah, I can't, right? And um, and then when I go to court, I'll probably lose because uh the statistic is something like uh if you can afford the legal fees, 1.5% of men win, and the men that can't afford it 100% lose. And it's it's similar in Victoria and Queensland. So if I'm gonna go there, I've got a 1.5% chance. Or no, I'm gonna lose. That's it. You know? Um but like I had the warrants, and they used to um police from Stafford Police Station would come to my uh house or call me and go, hey, we've got this for you, this is your next court date. Bam, bam, bang. I went 36 times. The warrants, three of them, are because I didn't go the last three times. When I call them up and I say, Hey, listen, what's going on with the correspondence? They just refuse to answer the question. I said, I haven't been called, emailed, no posted letters, Stafford um police station, all the other police stations, haven't received any correspondence. Um I've got the same driver's license, phone number, and email, and I've got a PO box. You know? Um, so this one time they said, Listen, we can't send you the stuff not via email or post. You've got to come here and get it. And I said, Yeah, but I live 1850 kilometers away. And they go, it's not our problem. I called back and forth, back and forth. Eventually I found a good cop. And they go, Listen, when can you get here? And I said, She goes, Oh, I'm gonna go on holiday next week, but I will be here on Tuesday, and with the other officer you spoke to, we're happy to help you out. Can you get here between 7 pm and 9 pm next week on Tuesday? And I yeah, okay. So I drove 22 and a half hours, 1850 kilometres, from Brisbane to Campbellwell Police Station just to get technically arrested, spent two and a half hours at the police station, sign the thing, sleep in Melbourne for a couple of nights at my mate's house, and then drive back. And the reason why is because they said I said, Can I just fly? And they go, Well, we don't know if you will come up in the system because you've got multiple warrants.

SPEAKER_02 2:00:28

Okay, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:00:30

And I go, so if you come up in the system, you'll get arrested at the airport, be taken straight to Broadmeadows Police Station, and you'll be processed there. Where if you come to us and they go, We know it's unorthodox, but that's your only option. Well, go shout-out to them for two-hour window, yeah. So I've always called Campbell Police Station. That's the same station where the two cops said, you know, go to Queensland and don't come back.

SPEAKER_02 2:00:52

Shout out to them then.

SPEAKER_04 2:00:53

Yeah, so all the other ones like Broad Meadows and Mooney Ponds and Esset and all that, shame on you guys in Avondale Heights, yeah, they can get stuffed. And also, and I don't know if this will be played, but Kooperoo Police Station here in Queensland. If there's ever a police station, it should be closed down. That one? Oh my god, seriously, and Constable Jared White gets stuffed, eat a dick. Seriously.

SPEAKER_02 2:01:18

I'm training now to Koobaroo Boxing Gym. So where is where is Kooperoo Police Station?

SPEAKER_04 2:01:23

I don't know, in some hole there in Kooperoo. But um is it on uh Old Cleveland Road? No, Jared. I told my wife, I'll go, I'm gonna be the only guest that goes on on Percy's show and not swear.

SPEAKER_02 2:01:35

Nah, we really actually might the my the two guests that I caught up with last night, they've been there a couple. We dropped um well that they dropped the cop's names. We were actually laughing last night because we were talking about their names. Yeah. Because I had one cop from that area message me saying, Oh mate, that that cop that you dropped last night, he's actually a good guy and worked. Well, he didn't reply, but um yeah. No, I broke up with him. Uh yeah, there's a oh there's a guy, um, there's a cop now. I'll I'll I'll give a good cop a shout out. Um, his name's Matt Pryor from Coomer Police Station. Um he handled my case, got evidence straight away, and he was he was awesome. Surface Police Station, um Constable Ryan McEnmore, you can go fuck yourself.

SPEAKER_04 2:02:21

Yeah, that's the thing, like some of the you know, there's there's uh and a female police officer, you know, called ones and bad ones Stephanie Hogman, she used to call me on a private number in her own personal time and just mock me.

SPEAKER_02 2:02:34

Bullshit, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:02:35

And she was the one that actually started like saying to my ex, oh you know, has he tried to get a gun? You know, because my ex said she was the one that brought up the gun thing. And you know, she was the one that interviewed me saying, Have I ever, you know, done certain things to my daughters? Oh, cracked it, you know. But the police station at Kooperoo, I broke up with someone, and I was so cool, karma collector, when I broke up with them, you know, and I was just like, Can you get out of my house? And I was packing up and you know, yelling at me. And I was like, that's all right, just get out, just get out. Anyway, they started harassing me and this, all this, and that, and blah, blah, blah. And uh then went to the police station, made a fake TV claim, went to court once, twice, three times. The whole process took five and a half months. I spent uh $36,000 on lawyers and the barrister. The barrister was six and a half grand just for the day. Half a day or day, yeah, yeah, four hours or something. Right. So, you know, and I had affidavits from a few ex-partners saying, no, Adrian's not like this, la la la. They all said that they were gonna rock up, but my lawyer said that that was pointless. But you know, I had a lot of support on the day, right? We're in the courtroom, we've got the screens ready to go with footage, we've got all the recordings, all the audio. My barrister's gonna clean them up. I'm looking forward to it. Um, we've got really chonky footage in Koopero Police Station of Constable Jared White not doing his job and being all flirtatious with the girl, you know, and um they go, because you know they call each other friends sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 2:04:06

Yeah, and my my uh yeah, yeah, what's the my my dear friend or something?

SPEAKER_04 2:04:11

Yeah, so the police prosecutor um was addressing the court and speaking about my barrister and go, oh this is the very first 30 seconds, Percy. Uh Your Honor, I've just spoken to my friend and I've just let him know we're withdrawing the case because we don't have enough evidence. Did I get my money back?

SPEAKER_02 2:04:30

No, no.

SPEAKER_04 2:04:31

He asked once, oh, can he get the money? No, uh, how about like my feet? No, okay, Norris. I'll try it, Adrian. Right, you know, and I was like five and a half months, right? And 36 grand just like that for it to be withdrawn because someone wanted to get back to me because I because I um I I broke up with them. But this is a real kicker. That was four years ago, and I still get stalked every month by the same person.

SPEAKER_02 2:04:57

I I must give a shout out to my barrister, um, Chris Wilson. He's um I think he's retired now. Um absolute gentleman. He got he because I've I've heard, and I could be wrong in saying this, it's pretty unheard of to get awarded costs. That's that's what I've heard.

SPEAKER_04 2:05:09

Yeah, I've heard like it's like one in a million.

SPEAKER_02 2:05:11

He got me costs awarded back. Um, but the way it worked was it wasn't for the whole, it wasn't from the day the DV journey started, it was from I think when we won the appeal to uh to to to the end or something like that. But I I was awarded cost. But in saying that, it took six months to get the cost awarded back because my lawyer then had to go to the court. I I I didn't have to go, but had to go to court and to justify all the invoices that I paid, and they went, no, we'll accept the one, not accept the one. Oh really? Yeah, and then like that took six months, and obviously they had to take a cut from the six months of work to prove what invoices to get back, you know. So, you know. I'm in the wrong thing. Yeah, I exactly.

SPEAKER_04 2:05:55

Yeah, oh look, it's it's a scary process. It's a process I'm not interested in giving any more money to. Yeah. You know, I'm just not, and um, I wish that I could just carry on.

SPEAKER_02 2:06:06

Do you reckon AI will take over? Um, because I know a lot of people, I don't know nothing about AI, but um, you know, I know a lot of people now using Chat GPT that to write affidavits and to get advice. Do you reckon um AI or anything will put put lawyers out of business?

SPEAKER_04 2:06:26

That's a good question.

SPEAKER_02 2:06:28

Look, uh, someone brought up the other day, mechanics aren't gonna be put out of business, AI. Mechanics are hands-on kind of thing. Yeah, but in regards to writing affidavits and statements, I'm thinking, oh, I wonder if this is gonna occur.

SPEAKER_04 2:06:38

So I I reckon half the real estate agents in the country won't exist in five years. Why is that because of AI?

SPEAKER_02 2:06:44

How?

SPEAKER_04 2:06:44

So how how does that work with to like because AI will be able to kind of like give a vendor, someone who's selling their house, give them honest feedback. Yeah, where as an agent, we're sometimes holding it back. There's a bit of smoke and mirrors.

SPEAKER_02 2:06:59

Bro, see, I don't know, you've seen, I don't even know to turn the cameras on. Like, you know, I'm not very people think you do a podcast, you're supposed to be tech savvy.

SPEAKER_04 2:07:07

Like, I thought you were tech savvy, pretty disappointed.

SPEAKER_02 2:07:09

No, I'm not mate, I'm not at all, you know. Yeah, um, so like some reels I will use Cap Cut, although that's as about as good as I can get, but obviously, you know, the reels that we use for the episodes that the edits here will take care of, but yeah, I'm not tech savvy at all.

SPEAKER_04 2:07:22

I think that I think AI will take a big chunk of it away because a lot of the uh work that you're paying for is stuff when they're doing like research or going through legislation or this and that, whatever, and they'll be like, hey, listen, uh, you know, $15,000 of your legal bill was me having to research everything. I mean, imagine if you could just go research this.

SPEAKER_02 2:07:40

I was having a play the other day and I put um who is Jared Purcell? Holy shit. Was it just on you or Jared Purcell's all over the world? On me. Now, I don't know if it's because I put it on my phone and because my phone it has broken fathers. Like, I I didn't say anything about a podcast. Yeah. Joe Purcell is advocated for Broken Fathers podcast and had military deployed to this country, and then I was just but obviously it must pull stuff from I don't know, I'm just guessing. It's pulled stuff from stuff that I've talked about in my episode and other episodes, but mate, it took knew everything about me.

SPEAKER_04 2:08:13

And that's the thing, your daughter's gonna look that that up one day. Like I hope. And I was just gonna say, I I hope they know my name so they can look me up.

SPEAKER_02 2:08:20

Well, that was the plan, you know. Um, that's why I did the podcast. So far as can leave the jour um journeys, time and date stand for the kids to look for in the future. Now I'm I'm blessed in the fact that and I hope it stays that way. I've got a re I've been re-reconnected now, so you know, um, but regardless, you know, um oh so sorry, yeah. In regards, because people are like, Oh, you're gonna you're gonna shut the podcast down, like nah, because I mean I've got all my guests on to tell their story. I want it to stay there forever. Like, I'm not gonna shut the podcast down. I'll I'll either pass it on the song or or retire it, but it it's gonna be there for you know, your kids and all the kids from all my other guests to see see their journey later in life. But um I didn't know where's coming with that story. I was waffling on.

SPEAKER_04 2:09:02

Um, because you were saying that maybe your daughter will look it up one day.

SPEAKER_02 2:09:07

Yeah, yeah. Oh, AI, yeah. We're talking about AI, and uh, yeah, I put it in. I was like, man, this is crazy. All this stuff. Did you like everything you found though? I was scared, I was like, how does it not and so talk about the deployments I was on, certain countries I've been to, people I've looked after. I was like, Yeah, and some of that stuff will go on, I've never spoken about that. Where did it get that from? Yeah, so it's pretty scary, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:09:29

Yeah, no, I I do think it's gonna like um I think it's got its positives and its negatives. I think the the really scary thing is imagine another 10 years when people actually have the ability to make a fake DV video.

SPEAKER_02 2:09:43

But I've said that. So we've I've this is exactly what I've said. AI is gonna be used to get you see the stuff on Instagram, these I'm thinking, is that real or not? Like they could make a a 10-second video of me and you punching on. Yeah, and uh, you you could just go, look, this is Adrian punch him and go, oh shit, that's evident. Yeah, exactly. And I'm just thinking, man, that didn't happen. You can see some of the AI you can tell, some of it's not like the you know, the the arm goes through the through the door, or you know, it's not exactly 100% crazy.

SPEAKER_04 2:10:11

But in another five years, it's gonna be incredible. It's crazy, yeah. It's gotta be, yeah, exactly. So, you know, I I do get worried about that because it's just gonna like um kind of uh put more smoke and grey areas when it comes to people telling the truth. You know what's awful about all this that we're discussing, it's all got to do with people just not telling the truth.

SPEAKER_02 2:10:31

Yeah, I know right that is it.

SPEAKER_04 2:10:32

So they're using AI to create some sort of truth, which is like when I read the affidavit, I know that my ex didn't write it. I know she didn't write it because she couldn't string two sentences together. I don't mean to be mean, but she got someone else to write it. And I read it and went, man, like if I didn't know me, this is bad.

SPEAKER_02 2:10:51

Yeah, yeah, I know, you know, and yeah, putting in you know, I was joking the other day, someone's like, Oh, you know, people like, yeah, wound, you gotta go call it, you gotta throw on the oath. Like, mate, that doesn't mean shit. It doesn't, doesn't mean at all. In the Bible, Quran, whatever you think. Affidavids supposed to be some sworn legal document, right? Affidavids.

SPEAKER_04 2:11:09

Because I've heard you discuss um, you know, like perjury.

SPEAKER_02 2:11:12

Perjury, yeah. Oh my god. And so perjury, people are saying bring back perjury. What I found out through I think Tracy McMillan, who I had on, she said no perjury is in place, they just don't use it.

SPEAKER_04 2:11:23

Yeah, I heard that podcast. That was great.

SPEAKER_02 2:11:25

Yeah, she was great, she's awesome. Yeah, Tracy McMillan.

SPEAKER_04 2:11:27

That is right. I've always known that perjury is is there, it never gets activated, it doesn't get used, like never, right? Like, I'd be surprised if a mother's ever been caught out for perjury.

SPEAKER_02 2:11:37

I think Tracy McMillan referenced one case, and I think Pauline Hansen referenced the same case where a woman did get done for perjury. I should look it up. Uh, I think it was in Western Australia, but um, yeah, well, they don't use it. I don't know why.

SPEAKER_04 2:11:51

Okay, so here's another uh thing to discuss, right? Well, you'd never be able to like you know get a mother who's A perpetrator of parental alienation and has lied non-stop, you'd never be able to get them to do jail time for that, right? And the truth is, if someone came up to me and said, Listen, you'll get your your daughters back next week, and we've just found out that the mother's been lying for the last decade.

SPEAKER_07 2:12:18

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 2:12:19

You know, we're gonna put them in jail for a decade. I wouldn't want her to be in jail for a decade.

SPEAKER_02 2:12:24

So there's Tony Um, there's a guy called Robert Gazza in America. I don't know if you've heard of him. He's a father leading the way.

SPEAKER_04 2:12:30

Is that the guy with the suit all the time? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:12:33

So I've spoken to him. Uh well, I'm looking at getting him via webcam, but the lawyer that had on earlier this year, Nicolik, I think he's the first episode I dropped this year. He flew to America, met with Robert Gazza, got his, I think, like a bill or the amendment bill that he put across the line, and it's called Time Taking Time Back. Now, what it is is let's just say you've missed out on three years of seeing your daughters because of allegations that the mother made. Yep. Three years later that they found out that those allegations are too are false, you are then awarded that it's called time taking time back. So they will then give you those three years that you missed out on and take it off the mother. That if that makes sense. So um, which you know, because they're trying to put in place if they're not gonna use perjury, not gonna use this, let's put in a some sort of um not tool, what do I say? Some sort of uh I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 2:13:23

A deterrent something to determine. Not a punishment, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:13:26

But you know, so it's like oh because what's that gonna do? Well, that's gonna make an example out of someone, and they're gonna go, oh geez, that that mum got found out to be lying.

SPEAKER_04 2:13:37

Oh, it would only happen happen a few times and it would change the it would change the trajectory.

SPEAKER_02 2:13:41

And that's what they're trying to put something in place that's gonna, you know, change because they're not using perjury. And then there's another one called the three the three-tier system, yeah, yeah, three tier system, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:13:51

I reckon that's a great system. Great idea, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:13:53

Yeah, um, but yeah, so uh Tony Nikliuk has he's done a lot behind the scenes. He's handed it over to Malcolm, Senator Malcolm Roberts, I believe, to try and he's tweaked it a bit to I I don't know what to say, Australian version, to get across the line. So um I know one nation are really pushing hard against Famicom. I've spoken to Senator Toro and Witten. Um he was the one that asked Penny Wong in Parliament recently, he said, Well, there's no if there's an office for women in this country, why isn't the office for men? Yeah, I saw that video. Yeah, so I've spoken to him, absolute gentleman. I really I I think he's a he's a leader of this country, you know, he's a big advocate for for fathers and males' rights in this country, and you know, um, so he's looking at coming on, but um he given the fuel prices and he's in Western Australia, uh he said, Look, it's I can't just fly there for a podcast, you know, it's not it it's not a good look either. It's especially fuelist. That's fine. I said, Can you just let me know next time you're over here for work and then we can get you on? Otherwise, we'll do it do it via webcam. Ideally, I like to be in person, I've never done a webcam. Yep. Um but um yeah, sorry, back to that, yeah. So the perjury, you know, um time taking time back. I think that that that's a good one.

SPEAKER_04 2:15:02

So yeah. When when I write, when I write to my daughters, I just let the pen write whatever I'm feeling. And out of the 500 odd letters I've written, 450 of them, I'm in a good mood. That's when I want to connect to them. When I'm feeling strong and I'm feeling in a good mood, because this is what I'm up to. I wonder what you're up to. I miss you, blah, blah. But 40 or 50 of those letters, I'm fiery as. Yeah, you know, and I write there sometimes, and I don't know how I'll be if this ever happens, but I write in there if you girls are ever going to get married in the future, don't even think about inviting me to the wedding if I have to be in the same room. Yeah right. And then I'm like, I don't know if I'll be like that. But the thing is, the idea right now, as I'm sitting here speaking about this with you, of being in the same room with a woman that has done what she's done to me, but also to us, uh the three of us, uh, you know, my two girls, um, there's it's just confusion. Like, how could you turn so dark? You know, how could you be so evil? You know, I think lying about anything that is in the realm of domestic violence is disgusting. But how could you go so far?

SPEAKER_02 2:16:15

Oh, to that extent.

SPEAKER_04 2:16:16

And especially the person that I am, like, I just love my daughters. I just it's funny because like I don't I always kind of am careful about not saying anything negative. For example, I've never called their mother, I've never said anything about her weight. Yeah, right? And one of the things that she's repeated hundreds of times to anyone who's willing to listen is Adrian calls me fat. Adrian has called me fat. And I've never said that once for one main reason is I actually don't care. I don't care if someone's skinny or fat. Yeah, you know. But I used to be called fat by her, which was hilarious. But she would say it. Oh, you're wearing that top, it shows your gut. Oh, you look ridiculous in that. You've got a gut, you're fat, you're fat. And I'll be like, okay, no worries. But if I was to say that now, oh listen, their mother's fat. She would like to see, and suddenly it gives credence to all the other times see the hundreds of times I said your dad said it, see he said it now. So I don't want to say something now because I'm angry now as a 50-year-old man, you know, but I do want to say to my girls one thing for sure when you meet me, right? Is one of us is lying. Either your mum or your dad, one of us is lying, right? Now, there's not one part of me that you're gonna believe didn't want to see you for the last 10-15 years. I've got all these letters clearly showing that every single week, every month, every year, I was thinking about you. There's so many things in my life, from like passwords for my laptop to uh, you know, um things in my life that I actually name after the two of you, you know. Um, once you discover the truth and you meet also my friends, you know that saying, show me your friends, I'll show you who you are.

SPEAKER_03 2:18:03

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 2:18:03

Right. Once you meet my friends and you see us, and I'll go on a polygraph test for both of you, you've got to ask the question, hey mum, we've met dad. What's the go? Like, what's the go?

SPEAKER_02 2:18:13

That's the story, right?

SPEAKER_04 2:18:14

Because I was never a domestic violence perpetrator before I met her, then suddenly I was, and then I'm not anymore. Out of like three, four billion women in the world, I just decide to be a perpetrator in my late 30s, early 40s.

SPEAKER_02 2:18:30

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:18:30

It doesn't make any sense. Like I know I'm awfully non right now.

SPEAKER_02 2:18:34

No, no, but you know, I hear I hear these people say to me all the time, you know, your kids will see it, you know, um, when they're older, they'll see it for what it is, and and um you know, I've had fathers tell me, you know, what happened was they reconnected with me when they're older. And you know, and I'm but you know, I won't lie, I do have some fathers that say they never reconnected. You know, they were brainwashed, you know. That and that's why, you know, I can't tell every father that they're gonna get that happy ending again, you know. Um and I don't have the magical answer. You know, pe like I said before, people said how did you reconnect? I just at the two year mark that I hadn't seen, I'd send a message, you know, and it it happened. If I sent a year earlier, would it have happened? No, you know, I think it's just good gut feeling, timing, universe, I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 2:19:24

But um you know and go and that's going back to like if that's gonna be your journey and there's no guarantee to a happy ending, man, start enjoying life.

SPEAKER_02 2:19:34

Yeah, that's right. You know, like well that that's yeah, and you know, I tell Faths to say one thing I do say is like you know, be bit if I was to rewind a bit before I reconnected with my daughter, um you gotta get on with life, and that I'm not saying you don't forget your kids, but you it lets you say your your your kids come back in ten years' time. Do you want them to see the your dad actually been in the same for the last 10 years down in the dumps, you know, what about this, what about that? Or do you want your kids to come back and see you fuck look at that with my dad? He's strong, he's fit, he's working, he's he hasn't forgotten about years, but he's just he's been the best person that he can be. Yeah, so that when you do come back in life, you're gonna be, oh, that's my dad I'm I'm proud, that's my dad, you know.

SPEAKER_04 2:20:18

I know, yeah, like that's what I want, you know. And yeah, and I'm not saying this to be funny, even though it's gonna sound like I'm I'm saying it, you know, to be funny, but I do feel sorry for my girls the way they're being brought up. Like, you know, um, first of all, the whole family's Collingwood supporters, boo, right? You know, and um then that I don't like the suburb they're growing up in, I don't like the the the lifestyle they're gonna have. Their their whole lifestyle is just gonna be about, you know, every weekend's about Collingwood for six months of the year, you know. Um, and I'm not saying this to be funny, right? But like I'm a real foodie and I'm a chef, like qualified chef for like 30 odd years. I love to cook. Um, food means a lot to me. Uh I know that the food in the outside has got to be average, you know. It just is. Um, I I love to laugh and dance and this and that, whatever. Also, my wife and I we get cancelled for the jokes that we crack. Like it's full of we like you know, we make Family Guy look like Mary Poppin' this uh comedy, you know. It's uh I'd hate it if I cracked a joke with my daughters and they're like prudes, you know?

SPEAKER_07 2:21:22

Yeah, I get you, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:21:23

But um, and I just want to say as well, um I'm so lucky to have met my wife, you know. Um, but I did meet my wife, any of the dads out there who are single and looking to meet someone amazing. I did meet my wife once I allowed myself to be happy, once I got rid of all the bad people in my life, yeah, and not necessarily bad people, but they weren't healthy people, you know. Every everyone in my life, whether it was a a work associate, a male friend, um, um, a female I was hanging out with, everyone was there just for like using you for something or wrong reasons. Yeah, it was like, oh, that person's entertaining on Saturday night, that person's good to have a drink with, that person's good to have a laugh with, that person, but none of them were really like authentic, and they were using me for the same reason. As soon as I got rid of all those people, worked on myself, started like doing healthy stuff again, whether it's reading, exercise, whatever. I met my wife. Yeah, and even then, my wife, after a few months, was like, Hey, listen, pull your finger out if you want to keep me. But I just want to say a big thank you to her because um her family, her entire family, and um, you know, my wife have just shown me like something that I always wanted.

SPEAKER_02 2:22:30

Just beautiful love, you know.

SPEAKER_04 2:22:33

I mean, you saw her today, she's just all smiles. She's actually like that all the time. We never argue.

SPEAKER_02 2:22:38

We have to uh I say this all the time. We have to we have to have a bad apple to find the good apple, or to know what a good apple is, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, man.

SPEAKER_04 2:22:47

The bad friend ved shop, you know, seriously. Like I've I've had some bad friends, bad acquaintances, bad relationships. Yeah, and I was that's why I'm embarrassed.

SPEAKER_02 2:22:58

But yeah, but you know, 38, you know, I'm still learning, you know. So um yeah. But uh in in regards to the court journey, have we have we missed any? I I know there's not enough house in the day. Um obviously you've mentioned how many times you've been to court, um, the warrants, um one day and ten day inside. Um, you know, did they ever make you do a hair follicle test? Drug hair folder test? Well, I said no. Was there any allegations of that? No. Of like drug use. So obviously I had to do once. Oh no, yeah. No.

SPEAKER_04 2:23:34

It's usually uh To tell you the truth, that'd be laughable for me. I think the strongest thing I've ever had in my life is a Red Bull.

SPEAKER_02 2:23:40

Yeah, I think I think it's more the get the the other side tells the bum to you know, say this because it will slow the process down, you know, it'll stop them from seeing the kids. I have to do this first before they have to do that.

SPEAKER_04 2:23:51

I'm I'm not scared of going through that process. I'm just scared that um it go it takes so long.

SPEAKER_02 2:23:57

Yeah, yeah, it's crazy. Like my mate, what type tell me what type of system this? He filed in 2019, it's 2026, he's still going. Yeah, the system hasn't sorted out yet. Well, it's not a system. What how embarrassing would that be? Like, imagine imagine you owned a pizza business and it said, Oh, hey mate, it's gonna take me six hours to make this pizza. It's like six hours? What type of pizza? You know, like Yeah, I know. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04 2:24:24

Like, it's it's almost like they're it's almost like they're hoping that you'll give up.

SPEAKER_02 2:24:27

Well, yeah, you know, you when you book a trial, like uh when I went to trial, that that the court I went to trial and they said, Oh sorry, the court courtroom's been used. It's impossible. I'm booked in today. I had that happen too. Yeah, and you know what? The the lawyers tell me goes, Yeah, you are booked in today, but they're so backlogged. They're the double booky, triple booking, hoping that they've either got the the previous case wrapped up or it's fallen through because they're trying to catch up, but they're so backlogged. But hold on a sec. So I I got turned away for the day, even though I'm booked in. So I still gotta pay for my my law firm, my barrister. That's bullshit. That shouldn't be allowed. I've rocked up here on time on the date that I was supposed to be, and you've told me that the courtroom's been used. Yeah, well, but I still gotta pay all my my my my law firm for not doing anything. Yeah, that's crazy, man.

SPEAKER_04 2:25:16

It's oh it's it's so annoying, and you can't express yourself. Like I've been kicked out of court so many times just for you know, not swearing or screaming, but just kind of calling the the lawyer or the the judge, you know, dumb or a donkey or something like that, you know, because I'm like I just gave up my day.

SPEAKER_02 2:25:33

And yeah, that's right. And the daytime, money, and I've I've had the obvious m multiple barristers, and you know when I you know when I can tell when the barrister gets up and the judge starts talking, they the the judge just has it. I can tell whether that barrister's fierce or not, and uh when I see that barrister cow down real quick and not not even get a word in, I think today's gonna be a waste of time.

SPEAKER_04 2:25:59

Have you ever gone to Supreme Court or any court just to watch for the day? Nah, it's bloody entertaining, it's really sad too. But that that's obviously criminal proceedings, not family court. Yeah, like going to Supreme Court and you can just see what cases they have, and you can just sit there, you've you just got to sit there and be quiet and just watch. That's when you know how stuffed up the system is. Oh, yeah. Because I remember one guy was there and I went with my TAFE class and I got kicked out. And then the TAFE teacher made me like he wrote the apology letter, like told me to write it because I refused to write it and then made me sign it, which I still regret doing. Yeah. Anyway, um, we went there and this person had um 9,000 child pornographic videos and pictures on their laptop that they had collected over four years.

SPEAKER_02 2:26:41

Let me guess nothing at all.

SPEAKER_04 2:26:44

Of course. Nothing. Oh, listen, we got a letter from his employer at a tire place for you know, he's been an exemplary employee for two and a half years.

SPEAKER_02 2:26:51

But if you reply to a to a message on the DVO, Brit prison. But meanwhile, old mate with 9,000 fucking child porn, uh, it's right let him off. Yeah. And I you watch the news, you know, the oh the pedophiles walking out of court and that because the judge didn't want to um didn't want to didn't want prison time to affect his re rehabilitation. So they've they're not sending to prison because they'll it would interfere with his rehabilitation.

SPEAKER_04 2:27:19

When you started any of those rehabilitation things, whether it's like you know, the um men's behavioral health course or you had to do something or whatever, I don't know if you've ever done community service or whatever, blah, blah, blah. Um, did you go in there with uh I'm gonna go in there with an enthusiastic good attitude just to smack it on the head and get it over and done with?

SPEAKER_02 2:27:36

No, I went in there with uh, mate, this is bullshit. This is bullshit. So did I, I couldn't help it. I shouldn't be here. I'm being I'm here because I want to go see my daughter, and this is another hurt off the job. And on top of that, and I said, you know, I said to him, I said, I'm not doing this once a week for the next three months. We're gonna sit here today. Yep. Or have like, and I'm gonna do the express package, whatever that the express like. Yeah, he goes, okay. And uh yeah, so yeah, because when I went and saw my I walked in the law firm, I handed him the certificate, he goes, How the fuck did you get this certificate so quick? He goes, I know fathers that uh I said, mate, if I want to get something done, I'll get it done. I want to see my daughter, yeah. You know, she's just bullshit.

SPEAKER_04 2:28:20

Okay, yeah. So that's the other thing. My lawyers just said, just admit to everything and the process of you get having visiting rights and you'll be able to see them. And that's the problem. Lots of fathers are admitting to stuff that then becomes the statistic, and then becomes a problem later on used against them. That's right, but it also becomes the the statistics. So you get politicians or you know, university students doing their uh their whatever um projects and stuff like that, and going, oh, you know, the statistics you show that you know, one in four women are this or whatever, and like, no, they're not, and you know, 75% of men do no, they don't, right? We just go, yeah, okay. And I didn't want to. And if that's like if that's backfiring, I'll I'll find out in the future. But I was like, I was never gonna admit to DV.

SPEAKER_02 2:29:03

I just couldn't do it. And you know what? Like, do it, do I trust these people that are doing the statistics? Or like you know, like I don't know, like the the way this country's going, I'm I'm over like maybe move like I was gonna say, maybe maybe moving England's a good idea, but England's far worse off than us at the moment with the immigration and everything else. But um yeah, I just um I don't I'm very anti-government uh and uh by that I just mean like I mean look at the way the country's being run, but I just don't trust any system, whether it's family court, criminal court, you know, just anything in general. I'll be being the media, I don't trust the media at all. Um you know, I've had people hit me up, we should get the media. Like if I was to get media in here to talk to me about my podcast, it'd there'd be one condition. I'd choose what media it'd be. Um I I'd choose um channel seven, not the final edit, and you get the final edit? I'd say you can film interview me, but I will have my editor and my film crew here filming the fourth episode as well. Just in case you try and edit, chop it up because you I know how it easy it is, people can chop stuff up and make you look like an idiot. You can you'll come and film me, but I'll have my film crew here and we'll film the full episode too. Just so I've got my copy version in case you try and stitch me up, you know.

SPEAKER_04 2:30:21

So um you have to as an insurance policy, right?

SPEAKER_02 2:30:24

You know, and you know who I learned that off? Um Andrew Tate. So yeah, yeah, because the BBC came in and they tried to chop him up and make him look like, but he had his own crew there and film it, you know.

SPEAKER_04 2:30:36

So um yeah, no, there's um there's a lot of stuff out there, it's got its own agenda, it's got its own narrative. I think DV has its own narrative, it has to be changed. Um one of the debates I did uh once, because you know I I get involved in that occasionally, is the the debate of um I said that we've got to stop saying, and I'm not advocating any kind of behavior, but we have to stop saying there's no excuse to hit a woman. Right? The truth is there's no excuse to hit a good woman, right? And I've never hit a woman, I've been hit multiple times, you know, uh in the neck, scratches, bruises, things thrown at me, this, that, whatever, right? But my big regret is that on the few occasions that I've seen mothers like beat up at their kids and the fathers don't do anything because they're too scared, you gotta jump in. And and I just want to say, like, one of my mates is a is a lawyer, he disagrees when I say that comment because he says it sounds dangerous, it sounds horrible. I said, if you came home and you saw a woman beating up your wife, you'll jump in. If you saw a woman beating up your daughter, you would jump in and you'd whatever, right? But the narrative is the commercial shows a lady that's like Mary Poppins cooking dinner, you know, and then the husband comes in and just explodes. You know, um, you know, it'll shows a woman there sleeping in the car with her kids or whatever, blah blah blah. You know, it's it's a BS narrative.

SPEAKER_02 2:32:11

So I'll I'll support what you're saying here and I'll look at the camera and say it. So my um you know, I'll I'll never hit the the the mother of my child, regardless if you know she was attacking me. Because it's situation dependent, right? So I do pr I do protective service at the hospital. We deal with cra cra crazy males and females all the time. It's a different state of mind. If there's a female patient attacking me, I'll take it to the ground easy. You know, it's part of my job anyway. Yeah, I but people say, Oh, you know, um you know the the I I I don't want to bring it up, but you know, there was a time where the the mother of my child was was attacking me, you know. And people say, Well, why why didn't you hit her back? I said, because it's I mean it's different. Is she she is she holding a knife? No, she's not holding a knife, but you know, she's the mother of my child, and and you know, at that point in time I I loved her. So it it there's there's a lot of different moving parts. Whereas now, like if there's a people would say to me, Oh, you'd never hit a woman, I can assure you, if a woman walked in this room right now with a knife, I will break her fucking jaw if she's trying to attack me. Yeah, because she's holding a knife, all it's gonna take is her to to c cut me open, I could bleed down 30 seconds. So I'm not gonna just sit there and let her stab me because she's a woman, you know. I'll I'll easily just throw an elbow breaker thing, or if someone's attacking my daughter, I don't care what gender you are, you can identify as a man, trans, female, I will fucking break your jaw and I'll say that on camera because you're attacking my my child, you know.

SPEAKER_04 2:33:34

And that that's the that's the narrative that I said. I I know it's like dangerous territory saying that, but you know, like I'm very protective of my wife. It's the first time that I'm in love and I care about someone more than myself, you know. And uh, you know, like to be accused of that kind of stuff when you've never done it, and then you kind of think, you know what, you guys are getting away with everything. Yeah, that's right. The accusations, they know that controlling the narrative, you know, you've heard stories. Stories before it's not that hard to find where there's been male uh commercials about male domestic violence victims, the uproar, yeah, and then they have those commercials have to be taken off. Mind you, the one where it's showing the female victim that'll get three years run on TV.

SPEAKER_02 2:34:16

There's a couple that did a survey, like a uh experiment survey, and they're a legit couple, but they went out in public, and um, you've probably seen us on YouTube, and um the guy starts you know raising his voice out her, and people are like, hey mate, calm down, and he starts pushing around. Every man and dog gets involved. Hey, mate, we're calling the police, or blah blah. Then they go to another location in the public, they they change the roles. She starts pushing him around, everyone's laughing, walking past, pulling out their phone. She starts pushing him and grabbing by the throat. People, no one's getting involved. Yep, no one's asking if he needs help. People are pulling out their phone, laughing, filming it, putting on Instagram. So, you know, it's yeah, it's it that takes a piss.

SPEAKER_04 2:34:54

That that's what I mean. It's like, you know, we're just not putting the spotlight on all the all the perpetrators. No, that's right. And it the spotlight on female perpetrators of domestic violence, yeah, it might be small, but the spotlight on female perpetrators of parental alienation, that would be huge.

SPEAKER_02 2:35:10

And people send me articles all the time. Just recently, a mother killed a four-year-old daughter or something, and you'll it'll get media, like there might be one or two media outlets that that publish it, but it's not but when you know they they do the comment section is turned off. But if it's the father that kills the kid or the partner, uh every channel's got it, comments turned on, bum, bum. But when a mother does a female, it's restricted.

SPEAKER_04 2:35:34

It's because it's more it's it's more of a sensational story. Um sorry, you know, not saying sensational in a good way, sensational as in let me start again. It's when a father does a crime, like some of the crimes that have been done, it's disgusting. And sometimes I feel like um female perpetrators of domestic violence, it's just a paper cut. It's just thousands and thousands of paper cuts. They're just you know, each thing isolated doesn't sound like a massive deal. Like me, like when I was speaking about my ex-partner hiding my shoes or taking my money or breaking my glasses or sending someone a text message, each of those things isolated isn't worthy of a jail sentence. But those things every day, dozens of times, just the you look fat, where you're gonna go, hiding my stuff, um, you know, you owe me babies, um, you know, swearing at me, yelling at me, um, you know, those things every day, day in, day out. And then a man might react and he will react really badly. And I'm not condoning it. He might react by punching her in the head half a dozen times and this and that. And that's what the focus is on. By the way, I don't condone that at all. I think if you're a real man, you just get up and leave. Yeah. Right? But when there's kids involved, it's hard to get up and leave because you want to leave with your kids. But my, I guess I'm because I'm waffling on again. My point is that female domestic violence can look like just them nudging you all day long, every day, just busting your chops every day, talking badly about you behind your back, right? Um, you know, uh character assassination, where man's family violence is really horrific sometimes, and then that's what makes the headline. You know, and then what happens is that guy that hurts that woman in a really awful, evil way, he's not doing us any favors.

SPEAKER_00 2:37:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:37:29

It's like, dude, we're all going through DV just like you. We handled it by going to have a beer.

SPEAKER_00 2:37:33

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:37:34

Or some guys, and I'm not condoning this either, but they'll go in and have an affair.

SPEAKER_00 2:37:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:37:38

Or they just walk out. Yeah, they do something, they don't go and murder their partner, you know? Yeah. I don't know if any of that makes sense. No, it does.

SPEAKER_02 2:37:46

It does. It does.

SPEAKER_04 2:37:47

And so I felt like the girl's mum, my daughter's mum, it was just paper cuts every day with me. Just constantly just going at me, winging. And then what really annoyed her more is that I'd go and out with my mates, I'd go out on the weekend, I'd go and play sport, take a dance class, go to the movies. I was still having a great time. Yeah, it wasn't affecting me. So when she saw that it wasn't affecting me, Percy, what did she do? I know how I'm gonna get him. You can't see your goal, your daughter. Sorry, I'm fumbling. That's right. But you know, you can't see your girls, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:38:19

You know, using kids as pawns, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:38:22

But anyway, thanks a lot. You know, guys. No, don't be silly.

SPEAKER_02 2:38:24

Listen, uh, we've got we've got 20-15 minutes left, but I've got some conclusion questions. But before I ask you the conclusion questions, I just want to make sure. Have we missed anything?

SPEAKER_04 2:38:36

I know, I felt like I was going all over the place. It's much easier practicing at home. And also, no offense, I enjoyed looking at Sonia while she was pretty pretending to be you.

SPEAKER_02 2:38:48

Um well, look, I've got six questions, but I want to make sure because this is your time, your episode. I mean, um, you know, we've talked you haven't seen what year was it? 2015.

SPEAKER_04 2:38:59

It was 2015 when they left October 2015, October the 6th, 2015. The last time I saw them illegally was the uh 26th of August 2018. Yeah, I just um, you know, walked into the supermarket, um, they were there, and I just had a great time. I filmed it as well. My daughter was going ballistic, daddy, you know, she didn't want to let go of my hand, and she was like, Daddy, can you come to my fifth birthday?

SPEAKER_02 2:39:22

And well, you know, what's that eight years now? What are we to you know? Like I'm only at the two-year mark, so I can't imagine what eight years feels like, you know.

SPEAKER_04 2:39:31

Yeah, believe it or not, the first couple of years was the hardest.

SPEAKER_02 2:39:33

And then I suppose you you concrete that mentality, right?

SPEAKER_04 2:39:36

Well, that's the part where it's like, hey, I'm just hurting myself. Yeah. Uh all of your friends, everyone in your inner circle, they all have different limits of how much they can listen to you and watch you as you keep falling. Some people they'll exit after a month, other people are there the whole time. Yeah, but that was all on me.

SPEAKER_02 2:39:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:39:52

So, you know, I can only control how I react and the way I decide to react is to win while I'm losing. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, man. I'm gonna have a great time. And when my girls look me up, you know, I hope that they're like, damn, dad's like, you know, he looks really interesting. I kind of want to wanna see him. And I know that when they come into my life, Percy, I have to be really patient. Yeah, I can't just sit there and go, finally, yeah, your mom's a nasty piece of work.

SPEAKER_02 2:40:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:40:17

I know that I won't be able to run up to them and hug them. Yeah. Because to them it'll be like a strange man hugging them. And I know they're not gonna call me dad straight away. Yeah, you know, and I'll be like, hey, what would you like to call me? Do you want to call me Adrian or do you want to call me dad? You know?

SPEAKER_02 2:40:32

Yeah, yeah, it's gonna take some time.

SPEAKER_04 2:40:33

It's gonna take so many things to navigate, but I've got all the patience in the world.

SPEAKER_02 2:40:37

Well, you know, that's what I've gotta, you know. Is my daughter gonna remember? I I like to think she is, you know, she remembered me singing that song and that, but there's still gonna be mixed emotions, scared, excited, anxious. Yep. You know, will she will she hug me, will she not?

SPEAKER_04 2:40:52

But you know, we'll and that hug is priceless when you get it. Yeah, you know, the way you were saying that your daughter did something like my little girl used to hug me and just always go like this on my neck, squeeze your neck, right? And then just like kiss me, yeah, and stuff. And my my second daughter, um, she won't have any of those memories because we just never did anything. Yeah, but yeah, one one day. Yeah, one day, you know, I'm pretty excited. Yeah, girls, when you're watching this one day, I kind of like to beat you.

SPEAKER_02 2:41:17

All right, mate. Okay, conclusion questions. Yep. You probably already know what they are if you've been watching the episode. Yeah, I do actually. Mate, the first one, any advice for fathers knowing what you know now, would you have changed anything during the court process? During the court process? Yeah, or you know what, just during your process at all.

SPEAKER_04 2:41:35

During my process, um, I would have um I would have conceded that this was going to be my new journey because no one in the history of DV has ever gotten an intervention order and then had the whole thing work out by the end of the week. Yeah, it takes months or years. It takes years.

SPEAKER_06 2:41:56

It does, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:41:57

So my advice to dads is if you're going on an intervention journey right now, just straight away focus all your energy on positive thinking. Like get that inner circle strong. Don't send any text messages, don't don't even bag anyone, just concentrate on yourself. Okay, this is gonna last a while. Yeah, what can I do to keep myself busy? Join a dance club, gym, go to the gym, you know.

SPEAKER_02 2:42:24

Keep yourself busy doing good things, don't you? That's it. Gambling or drugs or pain or not stuff like that. Yeah, no good one, like that one. How do we change the system?

SPEAKER_04 2:42:34

This is a tough one, you know. Like, um, I think if we all band together, because I've tried to get uh things moving by myself, I'm sure you have as well. I think things like your podcast, um, you know, there's other things out there like uh, I think one's called um uh Mr. Perfect and stuff like that, where men meet up on Sundays and all over Australia having barbecues. Uh just actually participate in those things. Yep, it might be emotionally exhausting, and if you're not ready for it, then don't. But when you participate, don't just like watch something, like it, subscribe, sign the petition.

SPEAKER_02 2:43:12

Yeah, I like that one. Um, funny one. You're on death row, the guard comes and asks you what you want for your final meal, drink, and dessert. It's gotta be a pizza, right?

SPEAKER_04 2:43:21

No, no, it won't be actually. It's gonna be uh chicken pesto fettuccine. Oh chicken, pesto, cream, pettuccini, white wine, semi-dried tomatoes. Dessert would be my wife's tiramisu. Okay, good. And a drink, it would be a scotch and dry.

SPEAKER_02 2:43:38

I mean, I've had so many people on recently. Oh, I wouldn't have a sweet tooth on my wife.

SPEAKER_04 2:43:41

Oh god, that's the best part. Yeah, yeah. But if it was gonna be a pizza, it'd be uh yeah, yeah. What's your prosciutto, bocconcini, fresh bezel, sliced tomato, how about you?

SPEAKER_02 2:43:51

Mine's um so Pepsi Maxx on tap, like post mix something. Yeah, really? I'm hooked, but I'm hooked. Um I like Pepsi Mix and Can, but post mix is just a thing. Yeah, um, sticky date pudding. Um yeah, extra extra ice cream, extra topping. Yeah, and it uh I always go gusmin, like, but you know, it's either like an Italian dish or Lebanese dish or or Greek, you know. Like uh what's your heritage? Yeah, so I'm I look Greek, especially when I'm at the beard. Mum's Aussie, dad's Kiwi, grandma's Fijian, grandfather's Samoan.

SPEAKER_04 2:44:22

Oh wow. But you've got a look that you could pull off anything.

SPEAKER_02 2:44:25

Yeah, I can pull off Mexican Lebanese if I go to the beard, Afghan, like oh my god, yeah, man. Yeah, bit of a lucrature.

SPEAKER_04 2:44:34

Yeah, no. The last meal thing, if it's not that I'll love a palmy. I know we're palming, yeah. Can't go wrong anyway.

SPEAKER_02 2:44:40

Palma palmy. Um, if you're in a room with every single person you met or interacted with on this journey, who is the first person you'd be drawn to and why?

SPEAKER_04 2:44:48

I'll be honest, my wife.

SPEAKER_02 2:44:49

Yeah, nice.

SPEAKER_04 2:44:50

Yeah, and um, you know, the the reason why is because um when I discuss things with her, she's the very first person I've ever met in my whole life where she actually listens.

SPEAKER_02 2:45:00

She listens and understands.

SPEAKER_04 2:45:01

Is she doesn't necessarily understand, but she listens and she's present. And then if she thinks that she could add something positive to it, she does, but she's not one of those persons that listens just waiting for me to stop talking because she knows what she's gonna say, which I'm guilty of sometimes, right? She just listens and that safe space. And um, I wish I had known her at the beginning of the journey because she would have made it easier. Yeah, but yeah, like I didn't meet anyone in the beginning that I thought was um, you know, my mates were fantastic, uh, they really were, but I feel sorry for them to be honest. Yeah, they used to listen to me just rant and rave.

SPEAKER_02 2:45:35

Well, yeah, and I think I I I've reflected since you say that, and I think, yeah, like there must be some mates of mine that go, shit, like fucking obviously I'm different now. I've you know I've got a bit more clarity coming at the other end, but during that time, like oh negative Percy's probably same story, same, you know, same view.

SPEAKER_04 2:45:52

So um and sometimes that view just because you want to you don't care about who you fan, you end up slandering a whole gender. Like yeah, before I met my wife, I was like, oh, women are the same, get stuffed.

SPEAKER_02 2:46:02

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:46:03

You know, yeah, and now um I don't think that, which is lovely. Yeah, it's good.

SPEAKER_02 2:46:08

It is, yeah. Um what sh strategies or tips help during the process that you could recommend to any listeners?

SPEAKER_04 2:46:15

To tell you the truth, Jim. Yeah, gym and music, that really helped me a lot. And I feel sorry for someone who doesn't like exercise or doesn't have a hobby they can get into. Yeah, like it doesn't matter what it is. If you like playing, like my wife and I, we love playing chess, you know. Um, but the gym, oh my god, I'd have weeks while I was going there 12, 13, 14 times a week.

SPEAKER_02 2:46:33

Yeah, yeah, sometimes twice a day. Yeah, exactly. Do it sorry, Clay. Doing pad work for me is great. I just hit the pads, just feel fresh afterwards.

SPEAKER_04 2:46:42

Yeah, I did boxing for a couple of years as well. That was great. And allow yourself to get angry while you're doing that, you know? Yeah, but just just whatever you do, just it can be, you know, I don't think gaming is that healthy, you know. But I've never been a gamer, I've never been a gamer, that's why.

SPEAKER_01 2:46:57

But I've got mates like even now, they'll go they're 40 and they go home, they game until two in the morning.

SPEAKER_00 2:47:02

It's it's the right, I just don't get it.

SPEAKER_04 2:47:04

I know, but whatever you get into, just like I write, I'm a prolific writer, and that helps. And you don't have to like I don't, I'm not Shakespeare. Yep. So some of my letters are just stupid. Yeah, you know, woke up, had a coffee, I'm at this cafe, going to work today, you know, one page.

SPEAKER_02 2:47:19

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 2:47:20

Anyway, I'm giving you a lot of answers. Sorry.

SPEAKER_02 2:47:22

Nah, man, that'll be silly. Well, you know what the last one is? Any message for your children?

SPEAKER_04 2:47:27

Yeah. Uh to my beautiful girls, I can't wait to meet you.

SPEAKER_02 2:47:31

And uh oh man, I know, trust me, but I was gonna say I was gonna say take your time, but I thought he he might have concreted his mind here because now it's just gone.

SPEAKER_04 2:47:44

Um we'll take your time, man. So to my eldest daughter, I can't wait to meet you again. Um, I'm hoping that when I sing the song that I used to sing to you when you were little, it uh it uh reignites some kind of connection and memory. And uh I know that a part of your heart and soul is gonna wake up when you meet me because uh you know, I think that uh we would have a lot in common as far as our spirit goes. And so I can't wait to to hug you and uh just hang out with you and listen to all your stories. And to my second daughter, my my youngest daughter, I can't wait to meet you for the first time. And I can't wait to find out who you are, and then for you to kind of like suddenly see parts of yourself in me. And uh I can't wait to hang out with you. I can't wait to take both of you out and just shopping and eating and laughing and dancing and acting like clowns and introduce you to the um the beach culture of sunny coast. Yeah, that's it. I just I love you both so so much. I miss you both so so much. And you're gonna meet a champion when when you come back into each other's lives.

SPEAKER_02 2:48:50

Beautiful, bro. Thank you so much. Um mate, how do you feel? Very good. Thank you so much. That was bro, thank you for so much for coming on, bro. Appreciate it.