Damian Leeding 10 year anniversary: Retired Detective reflects on cop killer’s ‘cold-blooded’ past
Career crook Phillip Abell had aspirations to move to Thailand and teach martial arts as he tried to navigate a way out of prison.
Police & Courts
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CAREER crook Phillip Abell had aspirations to move to Thailand and teach martial arts as he tried to navigate a way out of prison.
Instead, he would go on to kill a police officer during a botched armed robbery.
Abell dreamt of a career in martial arts while serving eight years, six months’ jail – a portion in maximum security – for the armed robbery of a Brisbane National Australian Bank in 1995.
He had been released on parole for similar offences only two weeks earlier.
In prison reports in the early 2000s it was stated that Abell had set himself goals.
One was to achieve a world title in kickboxing. Another was to learn the Thai language as he wanted to move to South East Asia, though prison authorities warned it was highly unlikely.
Plan B was to be a builder’s labourer.
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“He has told staff that nothing will get in the way of his daily exercise regime,” court documents state. “His set goal in life upon discharge (release) is to go overseas to Thailand and teach martial arts. However, after discussing the reality of such an event occurring, the prisoner said he could work as a builder’s labourer.”
Prisoners were “fearful of him” due to his name and martial arts ability.
Court documents state that Abell had “demonstrated a propensity for behaving violently and aggressively in both the community and in the correctional system”.
He told a psychologist that he “takes very little notice of any law” and that the bank hold-up was “not serious as no-one was injured”.
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In a coronial report into the death of a man in prison he was named as a suspect. He was charged over the death but it was later dropped when a prisoner refused to give evidence.
A senior psychologist noted in February 2000 that the nature of Abell’s offences “whilst violent in nature do not appear to be motivated by anger”.
Court documents stated that Abell’s behaviour improved upon release into the general population jail. His full-time release date was in 2004. Seven years later he would murder father-of-two Damian Leeding.
‘He’s lucky he didn’t kill them’: Cop killer’s ‘cold-blooded past’
THE man who would go on to murder police officer Damian Leeding would have killed his parents had he not cut down the gun barrel, a retired Detective says.
Phillip Abell shot his father in the face and mother in the back with an altered shotgun in Labrador.
Abell told police on the night of his arrest that he cut down the 16-gauge shotgun rifle so that “the bullets would spread out more” and did so to be “sure of a hit”, according to 7News.
The interviewing Detective, Robert Guteridge, who described Abell on the night of the shooting as “cold blooded”, told the Gold Coast Bulletin this month that the decision to alter the firearm saved his parents’ lives.
“I think he was very lucky that he didn’t kill them,” said Mr Guteridge, who retired from the Queensland Police Service in 2015.
“The fact is, had he not cut the barrel of that gun and used that shotgun in one piece, he definitely would have killed them. Absolutely.”
In the police interview, Abell told Mr Guteridge that when his mother took the dog for a walk, he got out the gun, “sawed it off with a hacksaw” and “also got the cartridge out”.
“Dad was sitting in the lounge room reading a book. I got the gun out then I shot my dad. I raced out the back door and down the stairs, loaded the gun again and then I raced back and shot my mum.”
Abell is serving a life sentence in Woodford prison for the murder of Damian Leeding during a botched armed robbery at Pacific Pines Tavern on May 29, 2011.
Reflecting years after Abell shot his parents, Mr Guteridge said the career crook “certainly had no reason to lie” and was “very forthcoming with the answers he gave”.
“His demeanour certainly wasn’t agitated, he didn’t show any remorse, he wasn’t sorry for what he did, from what I could see anyway.
“It seemed to me that he was just pretty much cold-blooded. He just had no compassion in him at all.
“He didn’t try to hide it … the coldness of it.”
Abell was charged with attempting to unlawfully kill, unlawful wounding and possessing a firearm.
The charges were dropped and he was sentenced to the unlawful grievous bodily harm of his parents.
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