Peter Robert Gibb ran with Trevor John Smith, suspected killer of Fr George Scerri
PART 5: The wild life of the silver-tongued gangster Peter Gibb, who ran with Fr Scerri's suspected killer.
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PETER Robert Gibb's recapture after almost a month on the run from Pentridge Prison simply endorsed his notoriety as a hardcore career criminal.
Gibb was regarded as a violent and dangerous thug who had spent most of his adult life in prison.
As a 21-year-old in 1975, Gibb was sentenced to seven years for a violent bank robbery.
In the same year, he was also a key witness at the Beach Inquiry into police corruption.
Twelve months earlier he had been shot in the chest by police after pointing a gun at one arresting officer.
He had been wanted for a series of armed robberies in Melbourne and Sydney, and Gibb complained he had been unlawfully shot.
In mid-November 1981, he was back in Pentridge facing charges of murdering Stephen Kenneth Haines at Carnegie earlier in the year, and the armed robbery of $146,000 from a Hampton bank.
It was during this time the 27-year-old made an audacious grab for freedom, which astounded even the most experienced jail warders.
Gibb used a hacksaw blade in a makeshift frame to cut through two metal bars in the window of his second-storey cell.
He then crawled through a hole 30cm long by 20cm wide, replacing the bars after him.
Using a rope, he lowered himself into a B Division exercise yard and collected a grappling hook, hidden behind a boiler house. This was made from two meat hooks and three broom handles.
He scaled a wire fence and two bluestone walls using the grappling hook, before lowering himself into Church St.
Before fleeing his cell, Gibb had left blankets bunched up on his bed to make it appear he was asleep.
I chopped the bastard's legs off with an axe, and put them beside him
Pictures from Fr Scerri murder crime scene (graphic content)
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His month of freedom was mainly spent in St Kilda with Trevor John Smith, a Beechworth Prison escapee.
Smith had fled jail the previous month after a visit from Homicide detectives investigating the murder of the gentle Father George Scerri in Brunswick.
Smith had earlier "confessed'' his involvement to a fellow prisoner.
Gibb was recaptured while holed up with associates in a Coburg flat. Smith wasn't so lucky. He was fatally wounded while fleeeing police.
The month after his recapture, Gibb appeared at a Coronial hearing into Stephen Haines' death.
Security was understably tight. As well as being handcuffed, Gibb was also chained around his waist and the top of his legs.
There was an extra heavy police presence along with members of the elite Special Operations Group.
Gibb and two others were accused of murdering Haines, who they believed had informed police of their burglaries.
One witness told of how Gibb had laughed after the killing and said: "Another one bites the dust.''
She said Gibb and the others had wrapped Haines' body in a shower curtain and drove to a secluded area where they dug a hole.
"Peter said the hole was only three feet deep, and that it would not fit,'' she said.
"He laughed and said, `I chopped the bastard's legs off with an axe, and put them beside him'.''
He was committed for trial and found guilty of murder. He went to the Court of Criminal Appeal and was granted a retrial.
Gibb later pleaded guilty to manslaughter claiming he and Haines had been struggling when the gun went off.
He was ordered to serve a minimum of nine years' jail. It was bumped up to 13 years with a minimum of 10 when the armed robberies, burglaries and escaping from legal custody were taken into consideration.
But it was in March 1993 when Gibb would make national headlines, once again involving a daring jail break.
This time it with the assistance of his lover, prison warder Heather Parker, 30.
Parker was beguiled by the dangerous and sweet-talking Gibb.
Their illicit association had been the subject of rumours within the prison system and at one time they were seen going into a linen closet together.
In subsequent court hearings they were described as "star-crossed lovers''.
Gibb, 39, chose as his co-escapee the violent Archie Butterly, whose string of convictions included false imprisonment and manslaughter.
The pair fled the Melbourne Remand Centre by blowing out the second-storey window using an explosive smuggled in by Parker.
They then slid down to the ground using knotted prison-issue sheets.
Chased by a warder, the two ran to a waiting Falcon station wagon in which a small handgun had been stashed.
They drove at high speeds until crashing on the Montague St ramp of the West Gate Freeway. Both men were injured, Butterly seriously.
They then stole a motorcycle after its owner stopped to help but crashed again in South Melbourne.
Two police officers who arrived on the scene intervened. Butterly shot one twice, in the chest and the left arm.
Gibb took the officer's firearm and fled in the police divisional van, with the other officer firing at least seven shots at them.
At Riverside Quay they picked up a Pajero four-wheel drive registered in Parker's name.
Until then, Parker had been a cleanskin, a mother of two boys and married to a fellow prison officer at the remand centre.
The three fugitives then headed for the hills where they held out for six days. During that time they stayed at the historic Gaffney's Creek Hotel, 175 km northeast of Melbourne.
They left the next day but a fire broke out in the room in which they stayed, spread to the rest of the historic hotel and burnt it to the ground.
It is believed the trio torched the old hotel to cover their tracks.
Three days later their brief life on the run ended near Jamieson after a police shootout.
Police had discovered the Pajero in thick bush. Shortly after they were fired on.
A 30-minute gun battle ensued with bullets whistling above some of the officers' heads.
Gibb and Parker were captured as they tried to flee through the waist-deep Goulburn River.
Once they were in custody, police converged on the bush camp where they found Butterly face-down in the dirt with a bullet wound behind his right ear.
Forensic tests showed Butterly had been shot with the police revolver taken by the fugitives in Southbank during their getaway.
In court, Gibb and Parker did not hide their true feelings. On one occasion while the jury was out, the two spoke quietly to each other and even with a guard separating them, held hands.
They were each sentenced to 10 years' jail, during which they would write each other long love letters.
After their release the two lived together.
In 2005, career-criminal Gibb was arrested for the alleged burglary of a car dealership in Balnarring.
By this time their romance was beginning to sour.
And in 2007, Parker appeared in court for assaulting one of his girlfriends.
Two days before he escaped with Parker, Gibb had been sentenced to 12 years with a minimum of 10 for armed robbery.
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In 1995, he appealed the conviction in a retrial and won. If he’d stayed behind bars until then, he’d have been a free man and would not have needed to escape with Parker. Instead, he got 10 years for escaping.
Warren Treloar, the officer seriously wounded by Butterly, was awarded the Victoria Police Star in October last year in recognition of his courage.
And last January, the murder of Fr George Scerri came full circle when Peter Robert Gibb died after being assaulted at his Melbourne home.
Earlier he had been beaten by three men after placing a child in a freezer at a relative's house. He claimed it was a drunken prank.
An autopsy revealed revealed he had had a long-term heart condition, believed to have been exacerbated by heavy drinking.
No charges were laid against the men.
Their Bonnie and Clyde status was adaped into a telemovie, One Way Ticket.
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