AFL border breacher Hayden Burbank: ‘It was the greatest night of my life’

Footy border breacher Hayden Burbank has opened up for the first time about his harrowing three months in one of Australia’s toughest prisons, claiming he’s “not built for jail”.

It’s the first question you get asked, every, single, time: “What are ya in for?”

But every inmate of West Australia’s maximum security Hakea prison already knew who the “Border Breacher” was.

It became Hayden Burbank’s jailhouse nickname for the longest three months of his life.

The Melbourne bar owner is speaking exclusively to the Saturday Herald Sun’s Page 13 for the first time since being arrested and thrown in the slammer for breaching Western Australia’s Covid restrictions and entering the state under false documentation to watch his beloved Demons play in the 2021 Grand Final.

Burbank doesn’t want a “pity party”. He knows he did wrong.

He spent each of those long 90 nights telling himself that on repeat. Telling himself over and over again what an idiot he’d been, as heroin addicts moaned and cried outside his jail cell looking for a fix.

Chapel St bar owner Burbank says he doesn’t want ‘a pity party’. He knows he did wrong.

He told himself what an idiot he was as he woke up to the sounds of fists and knuckles connecting with skin from mob bashings to make the whining junkies just stop.

Now he is opening up on those dark nights to try and put the past behind him.

“Lesson learnt,” Burbank says, trying to muster a self-deprecating laugh, from his Chapel St bar this week. It turns into more of a gulp.

“In all seriousness what I did was wrong and I own it.

“I’m not doing this for a pity party. I don’t want sympathy, or to make excuses. I own up for what I have done, I take accountability and I’ve copped it on the chin.

“If the state of West Australia says I need to go to jail for three months then that is what my sentence is.

“I do want to apologise to the health care workers Australia-wide who did put their lives at risk on the line. They’ve made some phenomenal sacrifices I genuinely feel bad for. It was basically kicking dirt in their face.

“It’s been a massive life lesson and let me tell you one thing: I won’t be breaking the law ever, ever again.

“It’s full-on in there.”

Burbank says days in jail are the longest days of your life. Picture: Mark Stewart

Prison was ‘the ultimate game of Survivor’

Melbourne’s bar and nightclub scene where Burbank flourished as the owner of Chapel St hotspot Morris Jones, a place where footballers, reality stars and socialites collide over white chocolate passionfruit martinis is all about peacocking, with a strong whiff of the “don’t you know who I ams”.

This attitude doesn’t go down well in prison. Locked up, you want to keep your head down. You want to remain the wallflower. The worst thing you can do in prison is draw attention to yourself.

Kind of hard after 10 days of solitary confinement following your arrest you take your first steps into Australia’s toughest prison. Doors are rattling amid screams and chants of “border breacher, border breacher” from some of Australia’s most menacing crims.

Kind of hard when one of the prison’s top dogs whose jail cell you just happen to now share, wakes you up each morning poking at you and hissing: “border breacher, border breacher.”

“You are reduced to a number and your rights and privileges are just stripped away,” Burbank explains.

Morris Jones owner Burbank dressed up his closed bar in Demons colours before his ill-fated trip to Perth.

“For me it was the ultimate game of Survivor. You have to form alliances and not do anything stupid and get through each day by day. They are the longest days of your life. I’m not built for jail. Nobody is built for jail.”

Jailhouse rules follow a different script.

Who would have thought football, our beloved sporting code and Melbourne’s unofficial religion, would be behind Burbank’s trail of bad decisions.

But footy was what he needed to survive when thrown into The Ghetto, the toughest wing of the prison.

“Let’s just say I was thrown in with one of the top dogs of the prison,” Burbank says, eyes darting around nervously. He doesn’t want to give up names.

“Fortunately he was a ripping bloke and a mad Sydney Swan supporter. One of the first things he said was he would have done the same thing if the Swans were playing.

“Border Breacher, I got your back.”

The Demons fanatic claims he’s not the ‘entitled Melbourne wanker’ he was labelled on social media.

‘I’m far from a snob, it was never about that’

The vacant stares stop when Burbank starts talking about the Melbourne Football Club.

It’s hard not to look at the man behind the headlines and think “entitled Melbourne wanker”.

But like him or loathe him, Burbank is a diehard.

He grew up part of the Melbourne cheer squad. Robbie Flower was his favourite player. Burbank held the banner, which he had helped make, in the ’88 Grand Final when the Dees got thrashed by Hawthorn.

Before his dad became sick with severe dementia they would attend every match without fail, whether it be at the ’G or interstate.

His younger sister Annabelle grew up with a disability and each week her mum, the Burbank family’s “rock” and “superstar”, would take her down to the Junction Oval to help out the cheer squad with the banner.

“Everyone at the club knows Annabelle,” Burbank says proudly.

Burnbank at the 1988 grand final.

Hayden Burnbank with the cheer squad at the 1988 grand final.

Christian Petracca’s family have taken Annabelle under their wing. They have become lifelong friends and Burbank likens the club to his extended family.

“I am far from a snob,” he said.

A lot of people on social media said Burbank thought he was above the law.

“But it was never about that. I was in the cheer squad.”

“I played in round-robin cheer squad matches against other clubs just to wear the jersey.

“We were passionate, we got in fights, we got our heads kicked in, it was full on, but I made lifelong friends with some of the guys and still hang out.

“I’m not someone who is elitist. Again, I’m no snob,”

Every year before his father got sick, the Burbank family camped out overnight in a tent at the MCG to secure tickets to the grand final.

“We get our tents and our sleeping bags and it is just tradition. We were always first in line.

“I’m fifth-gen Aussie and we have always been Melbourne supporters. I used to think it was a curse.

“But Round 1 of the footy was my favourite day of the year because it was a day of hope. I’d walk into the MCG feeling cockahoot because this was going to be our year.”

Despite his admission of wrongdoing, Burbank still describes the grand final as ‘the greatest night of my life’. Picture: Mark Stewart

‘It was the greatest night of my life’

Last year the hope was really strong. After Melbourne defeated Richmond in Round 6, Burbank was convinced his team were legitimate premiership contenders.

Then the lockdown hit.

“I will say we all went a little mad in lockdown, but I’m not using it as an excuse,” Burbank says. “But we all went a bit cray-cray and it was poor judgment on my behalf.”

It wasn’t until after the preliminary final thrashing of Geelong that a crazy pipe dream was hatched out while “hyper focused” in lockdown with his old mate from school days, financial planner Mark Babbage.

He says the ill-fated journey that followed wasn’t as premeditated and carefully planned as what has been made out.

“We had worked out a little loophole and straight after the prelim we said we have got to do it now. We just jumped on a plane and all systems go.”

They flew to the Northern Territory where they obtained false identification docs, which allowed them to enter Western Australia as NT residents and avoid quarantine.

Burbank on the ground at Optus Stadium after the Demons grand final win.

Burbank was invited into the rooms after the game and it was his undoing.

It was only then that it dawned on the duo that their plan might have repercussions.

“We had worked out a way of getting out, we rolled the dice and then we dug a deeper and deeper hole as we went,” he says. “We were getting deeper and deeper and thought shit there is no use turning back now.”

Arriving in Perth they stayed with friends. They woke up on Grand Final Day on top of the world. Burbank was in tears by midmorning watching a past player’s video sent to the team to fire them up.

“I was bawling my eyes out the whole way through it. Watching it I knew it was just impossible that we weren’t going to win.”

They kicked the footy out on the street, almost hit a few cars, and headed into Optus Stadium with blue and red scarfs wound hard round their necks. The fact they were breaking the law might have been the furthest thing from their minds.

It was furthest from his mind when he took that first sip of beer at halftime when Melbourne were down. Burbank doesn’t normally drink at the footy for fear of missing a “bump, a tackle, a mark or goal, I just don’t drink and footy.”

During the third quarter when there was a “rain of goals” and Petracca kicked a “Daicos-like goal” from the boundary line the tears started welling again. He knew Melbourne had it.

Burbank claims it was ‘a little loophole’ that got him and Babbage into WA.

Burbank and Babagge were invited into the rooms by one of Burbank’s acquaintances.

Breaking the law was definitely not at the front of mind when one of his connections texted to say they could get him into the locker rooms.

“I shouldn’t have gone in. It was stupid. So stupid. But given I had a little connection I decided to take up the offer. It has been my lifelong dream to celebrate with the team in the rooms.

“You know, it was the greatest night of my life. It was just phenomenal.

“I just got carried away on a wave of emotion. I was on cloud nine the whole day and night. The stars had finally aligned and yeah ... I lost my better judgment.”

By Monday they had driven to Margaret River for some much needed R and R.

Little did he know some WAGs back home were frothing after pictures of him celebrating in the rooms had made their way to the AFL’s official Instagram page. One WAG in particular was leading the charge with furious calls made.

“I never posted anything on social media. I was foolish for doing what I did, but I wasn’t stupid enough to do it on social media,” Burbank says.

Back in his hotel room after a fry-up brekkie, Burbank was getting set up for a surf.

“There was a perfect three footer offshore, I was just about to head out and the police came storming in.”

Walking the barbed wire around the prison walls became Burbank’s daily meditative ritual. Picture: Mark Stewart

A six-hour divvy van ride to Perth in handcuffs followed with Babbage sitting next to him.

“The seriousness of it dawned on us pretty early on and dramatically. It hit home what we had done and the severity of what we had been charged with.”

Their mug shots and exploits were plastered onto every news bulletin. The public wanted blood.

“Border Breacher. Border Breacher”.

Court appearances via Zoom and frantic calls to lawyers and family and friends, capped at 10 minutes, shaped prison life.

Walking the barbed wire fence around the prison walls became Burbank’s daily meditative ritual.

After the first “muster”, he signed up to collect the bins each morning. Doing work in prison was a way of getting better conditions.

“It’s the little things that mean so much in jail. You earn money and can buy food.”

Not that he bought much, he stuck to tinned tuna and tried to use his time to get fit. Kicking the footy became another ritual. But Burbank mainly just walked the 14 minute-lap around that prison fence perimeter over and over, day after day, fantasising about when he would walk out of those main gates.

“I’m an over thinker and just constantly dreamt about and fantasised about walking past those gates.”

Burbank knows he is polarising “people either love me or hate me. It’s my personality”. In jail, his gift of the gab and hustle helped.

Burbank says it was his lifelong love of the Melbourne Football Club that drove him to break the law.

Having a top dog bikie cellmate didn’t hurt either. Burbank said jail stereotypes of sexual assault and dropping soap in showers are a bit far fetched.

“But you’re always looking over your shoulder.”

The day when Cleo Smith’s accused kidnapper Terence Kelly was arrested in early November saw the prison erupt into celebrations. Inked-up meth dealers and murderers were in tears.

“Those types are really not liked in jail and everyone was just over the moon. It was something so unexpected to see that outpouring in jail, it was all anyone would talk about. Everybody followed that case.”

There were a lot of deep and meaningfuls and sharing of life stories over backgammon and table tennis.

“There were a lot of hugs in jail which was surprising. I never thought I’d be hugging out some bros in jail but we were all there for each other because everyone was going through the exact same thing.

“There was always bad news, people getting bad news. The people who would lend a hand a shoulder to cry on, you would never expect it. Some of the hardest crims were real softies at heart.”

The first thing Burbank did after walking out of prison was the fly home and see his ailing father.

Like everyone, Burbank had his tough days particularly after he was told his father had suffered a bad fall, which left him wondering if he’d ever see him again.

The first thing he did when he finally got to walk out those prison gates after 90 days was fly home to see his father.

“I’ve been able to sit down and show him the photos of the day and explain that we won the grand final and it has finally sunk through.

“I got him to say Melbourne are the premiers. I finally got him to realise we had won the flag, I got a smile out of him as he finally understood we had won it.”

Burbank is still having trouble sleeping with flashbacks to his prison stint, a nightly occurrence.

But he’s determined to move on. Part of that was attending the grand final rematch in Round 1 and planning an extravagant Great Gatsby-themed 50th birthday party next month. He’s dressing as Jay Gatsby.

“I’m apologetic,” he says with a rueful grin. “But I’d like to move on with my life.”