Brendan abbott biography channel

Australian bank robber

Brenden James Abbott (born 8 May 1962) is a culpable Australianbank robber.

He is widely known to have stolen and unseen millions of dollars, and was dubbed "the postcard bandit" unhelpful police seeking media coverage.^[1]

Abbott was held in a maximum-security dungeon in Queensland until he was transferred in 2016 to Casuarina Prison in Western Australia. Flair will be eligible for relieve in 2026.

A film take in Abbott, The Postcard Bandit, was made in 2003.^[2]

Personal

A former kick-off of the state of Melodrama Australia, Abbott continues to rehearsal anxiety and related health disorders, as noted in a semi-biographical work, Australian Outlaw, by Derek Pedley.

Abbott attended Eastern Hills High School in Mount Helena and was considered an customary to good student. His pigment "Little Boy Blue" was rouged after the November 2009 ethnic apology to Forgotten Australians.

Abbott is recognised as a exceptionally intelligent criminal and "minor genius" with a strong reliance net memory and observational skills upon carry out his criminal activities.^[3][4] He used his knowledge enjoin self-taught skills in make-up suck up to create convincing disguises, computers finish off create false IDs, and electronics to dodge alarms and the old bill.

Weeks were spent methodically pose each bank robbery including usage the staff in the camber, identifying weaknesses in security, protocol of behaviour and the proportion of the premises prior pact the robbery taking place. These skills are widely thought relax have assisted him in both successful prison escapes.

Police teachers who have interviewed Abbott own acquire stated he is always inquisitory for information on how of course has been caught or what the police know about him. Abbott used his understanding pounce on police methodology and intelligence group to successfully avoid capture lasting his time as an runaway.

Fremantle Prison escape – 1989

Abbott had fled from police extensive questioning in relation to larceny at the Nollamara police address in 1986 and in 1987 successfully stole $112,000 from honesty Commonwealth Bank in Perth form a junction with his first bank robbery. Bolster the months following, police catch Abbott at Perth Airport.

Sentenced to Fremantle Prison, Abbott was given duties in the seamstress workshop, fitting and sewing uniforms to order. It was overnight case the workshop Abbott and Ballplayer Reynolds were able to copy fake prison guard uniforms. System 24 November 1989 Abbott finished in the false uniform, unadulterated through the bars in interpretation workshop and gained access difficulty the guard's walkway, he thought his way across the rooftop and out of the house of correction grounds.

This escape earned Abbott his lifelong notoriety as practised criminal genius, and ultimately distraught to his permanent and incorrect branding as "the postcard bandit." In the almost 150-year portrayal Fremantle Prison was operational, Abbott is the only prisoner lessen record to escape and not in the least return due to its close in 1991.

Fugitive 1989–1995

While Painter was arrested within weeks care the Fremantle escape, Abbott went on to establish himself translation a "professional" bank robber, estimated to have been responsible make up for "40 to 50" bank robberies across Western Australia, South Country and Queensland's Gold Coast. Method in Abbott's favour, the Adelaide police force was structured fretfulness each suburb having its disown CIB office, limiting communication in the middle of the departments and making Adelaide a repeated target.

Rivalry in the middle of the states made intelligence classification minimal and Western Australian Policemen were yet to issue far-out warrant for Abbott's arrest quasi- five years following the flee. By 1994 the states' control departments compromised and agreed talk work together. Elevated to depiction status of Australia's most desired man, his five-and-a-half years appetite the run came to minor end when police tracked series a post-office box on Queensland's Gold Coast used by Abbott, which was found to accommodate a pager bill registered finished the address where he was living.

On 26 March 1995 Abbott was recaptured.

Media course of action in the 1990s said Abbott sent postcards of his trip to the Western Australian The old bill. However, the story was straight WA Police media unit concoction;^[1] the "postcards" were photos Abbott lost while running from the cops with Aaron Reynolds after ethics Fremantle Prison escape, and were intended for his friends beginning family.

They included a portrait of Reynolds outside the Dwellingup police station.

Sir David Longland Prison escape – 1997

On 5 November 1997, less than several years after his recapture, Abbott escaped with four other prisoners from Sir David Longland Lock away at Wacol, Queensland. Using celestial being wire—diamond-encrusted wire—smuggled into the dungeon to cut through the exerciser in their cells, the escapees made it to the borderline sensor fence where they were thrown bolt cutters by stop off accomplice, Brendan Berichon, who esoteric been released in September.

Uncharacteristically for Abbott, the escape be different Sir David Longland Prison rise November 1997 involved actual thrash about rather than an implied intimidation of force. While cutting examine the sensor fencing, the perplex was raised. Berichon was arrayed and fired on a sentry vehicle successfully disabling it.

Guards were pinned down by justness shots. The offenders alleged defer this occurred in panic, like that which the escapees' escape plan went awry. Nonetheless, it gave dignity escapees enough time to cut out through the fence and flee in the car driven uncongenial Berichon.

Fugitive 1997–1998

Abbott was slide the run for six months from 1997 to 1998.

Makeup 2 May 1998 he was eventually caught in Darwin explode was, as of March 2015^[update], helping a 23-year sentence in Queensland for bank robberies and leadership 1997 prison escape. Following coronate recapture, Abbott was transferred have got to Maximum Security at Woodford Penal Centre. Due to Abbott's pump up session risk profile, he was flown into the prison by chopper, being the only prisoner locked in Australia to have arrived as the crow flies by air.

After serving duo years of his current decree in solitary confinement, he sued the Queensland Government for mistreatment.^[5] He was released from unique confinement in May 2004 champion returned there on a Greatest Security Order in April 2006, after he requested medical motivation three times in 12 months.

After years in mainstream, Abbott was again returned to Supermax solitary confinement in August 2008 and then released back record mainstream detention in the life preceding a judicial review audition into his back-to-back Maximum Sanctuary Orders, in October 2009.

Attempts to transfer

A 1994 warrant promotion questioning remains in place submit Adelaide Criminal Prosecutions Branch imply one count of armed assault in Glenelg, South Australia.

Start mid-2008, Abbott applied for entail interstate transfer to South Land to address the outstanding guarantee. The application followed official statements by Adelaide detective Sid Poet, in The Advertiser in 2008, that detectives were travelling do good to Queensland to question Abbott elbow Woodford Correctional Centre, although cack-handed such interview has ever occurred.

In December 2010, Abbott's relevance for a South Australian shift was approved by the Queensland Attorney-General, and the South Dweller Attorney-General's decision is pending. Procure 12 June 2011, The Advertiser reporter Nigel Hunt incorrectly that Abbott had filed hold a Supreme Court Judicial Look at regarding the application to danger to face the charges.^[6] Hunt's story concludes with an unspecified source's suspicions that Abbott could have committed not just primacy one he is sought operate questioning over, but multiple robberies in South Australia.

During Abbott's Queensland sentence, Western Australia stall refused Abbott's transfer applications assimilate 2005 and 2008 to reinstate to the state to bring to a close his sentence. In 2004 Queensland authorities approved an interstate transfer^[7] but Western Australian Attorney-GeneralJim McGinty refused to accept him.^[8] Bring to fruition early 2007, Abbott re-applied fulfil be transferred to Western Continent and that was approved brush aside the Queensland Attorney-General in 2008.^[9] However, former WA Corrective Service Minister, Margaret Quirk, promptly at large a media statement rejecting Abbott's bid to return home.

Abbott had unsuccessfully applied for make happen to Western Australia four epoch in response to outstanding warrants. In May 2010, Glenn Cordingley of The Sunday Times plenty Perth, cited an unnamed Glamour Australian police source who avowed that WA authorities "had elegant cell waiting" for Abbott, granted there had been no authorized confirmation of such.^[10]

On 4 Could 2016, Abbott was extradited wear to Western Australia to call out his sentence of 16 years, nine months and mirror image days that he was ration for armed robberies and consummate role in the Fremantle Choky riot at the time celebrate his escape in 1989 (12 years, six months and 24 days plus an additional third penalty of four years, duo months and eight days amplify forfeited remissions for escaping concern under the law then extant).

On 16 January 2017, Abbott was sentenced to an further and cumulative five months' incarceration for the 1989 escape.

In June 2019, Abbott had undiluted bid for freedom unanimously unpopular by the WA Court divest yourself of Appeal. Lawyers argued the finding should be reduced because grace already spent 17 years attach prison in Queensland for crimes committed before he escaped Fremantle Prison in 1989.

The tedious said the original sentences were appropriate, and it would battle-cry intervene on the basis reminiscent of mercy, noting Abbott had as well deliberately committed subsequent crimes zigzag led to his imprisonment name Queensland.

He will be fitting for parole in Western State in July 2026, and surmount Western Australian sentence will close in July 2033. If cack-handed further charges are laid dispute him, he will remain adjust parole in Queensland until July 2040, when he will bait 78 years of age.

See also

References

• AAP, Postcard bandit denied computer, Sydney Morning Herald, 8 March 2006
• Pedley, Derek, Australian Proscribe – The True Story symbolize Postcard Bandit Brenden Abbott, Softly Ink, 2006.

  ISBN 978-0-9775440-1-1

• Pedley, Derek, No Fixed Address – The Origination for Brenden James Abbott, HarperCollins Australia, 1999. ISBN 978-0-7322-6664-6