Chopper Unchopped by Mark Brandon "Chopper" Read
Authors: Mark Brandon "Chopper" Read
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fantastic fellow. And there was a beautiful female singer who also sang for us — Dianna Lee — a lovely blonde lady. We all shook hands and Jimmy got a kiss on the cheek. Johnny O’Keefe was a real knockabout to talk to — and knew quite a few crooks. I guess big stars like him know a million people. Anyway, as we walked away, my tomahawk dropped down from my belt and fell out under my overcoat and clanged on the floor.
Nobody said anything for a long moment, and then Johnny said, dry as you like, ‘I’m bloody glad you liked the show Chopper … I wouldn’t want to be here if you didn’t’. Everyone roared with laughter.
His death was a great loss. He was a top bloke.
Chapter 10
Betrayed
‘To be stabbed by the same bloke that I tried to get out of jail is a good lesson … but a hard way to learn.’
While most of the underworld hated Read, he did have his allies. The man who was his closest friend for many years was armed robber, escaper and violent criminal, James Richard Loughnan.
Loughnan was Read’s lieutenant in the Overcoat Gang. They were inseparable. They hatched revenge plots together, and even tried to break out of jail as a team. Loughnan escaped from Pentridge twice and broke both his ankles in a third bid. He was serving 12 years for armed robbery during the height of the prison war.
After one escape in 1974, Loughnan was shot in the back by Box Hill gunsmith, Gordon MacDonald, during a failed armed robbery attempt. In 1978 Loughnan, Read and John Price escaped from H Division and sat on the roof of A Division in a jail protest.
In 1977, while Loughnan was recovering from his broken ankle in H Division, Read was released from jail. He had promised Loughnan he would hatch a plot to get him released. Read marched into the County Court in early 1978 and held Judge Martin hostage at gunpoint, demanding the release of his friend. It was a plan even Read knew was doomed to fail before he began.
For his show of loyalty, Read was sentenced to another 13 years jail. Ironically, the friendship was soured when Loughnan stabbed Read in H Division when even he thought Read was going too far in the Overcoat Gang war.
Read said later that after the stabbing he vowed he would never fully trust another man.
Loughnan was one of five inmates who burnt themselves to death in the Jika Jika Division fire in October, 1987.
WHEN Jimmy Loughnan, Johnny Price and I broke out of H Division a prison officer hit me over the head 15 or 20 times before the baton broke.
I said ‘you’d better carve me up Jim, I’ll go to J Ward Ararat’. I said, ‘if you put enough blood on me yourself, then the screws won’t bother flogging me’.
Looking back, it was a very foolish thing to hand a psychopath a razor blade and ask him to carve me up. He went in so deep it nearly went through to my lungs.
He was a friend of mine, poor old Jim. He died in that Jika fire. What people don’t know is that he was one of two people who stabbed me: he ended up turning on me.
There was an ice pick and a knife used in the attack on me. Poor old Jim hung the ice pick in, but he’s dead now so it doesn’t matter.
Loughnan was a hard man, a real hard man; he was in my gang years ago. Maybe I was going a bit too crazy for them. Back in those days there was a rather mad plan hatched by the Overcoat Gang to literally take over H Division.
We were going to grab the whole division. There was me, Jimmy Loughnan and Amos Atkinson. We were going to take over the division because every enemy we had at the time was in the division in 1979.
We had ice picks, knives, everything. I said right, we’ll grab the whole division, we’ll lock all the prison officers up in the scullery, and we won’t hurt any of them.
This was just after I attacked that judge, so I had 17 years to think about it. I was only 24, young and crazy. I said we’ll take the whole division over, then we’ll grab the keys and go to every cell, pull each enemy out one
Nobody said anything for a long moment, and then Johnny said, dry as you like, ‘I’m bloody glad you liked the show Chopper … I wouldn’t want to be here if you didn’t’. Everyone roared with laughter.
His death was a great loss. He was a top bloke.
Chapter 10
Betrayed
‘To be stabbed by the same bloke that I tried to get out of jail is a good lesson … but a hard way to learn.’
While most of the underworld hated Read, he did have his allies. The man who was his closest friend for many years was armed robber, escaper and violent criminal, James Richard Loughnan.
Loughnan was Read’s lieutenant in the Overcoat Gang. They were inseparable. They hatched revenge plots together, and even tried to break out of jail as a team. Loughnan escaped from Pentridge twice and broke both his ankles in a third bid. He was serving 12 years for armed robbery during the height of the prison war.
After one escape in 1974, Loughnan was shot in the back by Box Hill gunsmith, Gordon MacDonald, during a failed armed robbery attempt. In 1978 Loughnan, Read and John Price escaped from H Division and sat on the roof of A Division in a jail protest.
In 1977, while Loughnan was recovering from his broken ankle in H Division, Read was released from jail. He had promised Loughnan he would hatch a plot to get him released. Read marched into the County Court in early 1978 and held Judge Martin hostage at gunpoint, demanding the release of his friend. It was a plan even Read knew was doomed to fail before he began.
For his show of loyalty, Read was sentenced to another 13 years jail. Ironically, the friendship was soured when Loughnan stabbed Read in H Division when even he thought Read was going too far in the Overcoat Gang war.
Read said later that after the stabbing he vowed he would never fully trust another man.
Loughnan was one of five inmates who burnt themselves to death in the Jika Jika Division fire in October, 1987.
WHEN Jimmy Loughnan, Johnny Price and I broke out of H Division a prison officer hit me over the head 15 or 20 times before the baton broke.
I said ‘you’d better carve me up Jim, I’ll go to J Ward Ararat’. I said, ‘if you put enough blood on me yourself, then the screws won’t bother flogging me’.
Looking back, it was a very foolish thing to hand a psychopath a razor blade and ask him to carve me up. He went in so deep it nearly went through to my lungs.
He was a friend of mine, poor old Jim. He died in that Jika fire. What people don’t know is that he was one of two people who stabbed me: he ended up turning on me.
There was an ice pick and a knife used in the attack on me. Poor old Jim hung the ice pick in, but he’s dead now so it doesn’t matter.
Loughnan was a hard man, a real hard man; he was in my gang years ago. Maybe I was going a bit too crazy for them. Back in those days there was a rather mad plan hatched by the Overcoat Gang to literally take over H Division.
We were going to grab the whole division. There was me, Jimmy Loughnan and Amos Atkinson. We were going to take over the division because every enemy we had at the time was in the division in 1979.
We had ice picks, knives, everything. I said right, we’ll grab the whole division, we’ll lock all the prison officers up in the scullery, and we won’t hurt any of them.
This was just after I attacked that judge, so I had 17 years to think about it. I was only 24, young and crazy. I said we’ll take the whole division over, then we’ll grab the keys and go to every cell, pull each enemy out one
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