The story of Christopher ‘Badness’ Binse, one of Australia’s most dangerous and colourful criminals
HAD Christopher “Badness” Binse been a cowboy, he might have rivalled the likes of William H. Bonney and Butch Cassidy for the title of “Most Wanted”.
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- BOOK EXTRACT: ‘Badness’ tells of great prison escape
- OBSCENE SPRAY: ‘Badness’ unleashes sweary rant on judge
- $400K HAUL: Binse admits to armed rob spree
- LIVES SAVED: ‘Badness’ foils terror plot, swaps guns for books
- SIEGE LINK: Binse stalked enemy before 2012 crimes
- TRUE CRIME: More features, and law and order news
HAD modern-day outlaw Christopher Dean Binse been born an American cowboy he might have rivalled the likes of William H. Bonney and Butch Cassidy for the title of “Most Wanted”.
A bandit and a gunman with a joker’s streak, Binse robbed banks and money guards and has fired nearly as many gunshots as he has jibes towards police.
“According to his mum,” a well-versed detective once told the Sunday Herald Sun, “even when he played cops and robbers as a child, he always wanted to be the robber.”
Former hard-boiled armed robbery squad boss Ray Watson likens Binse more to a bushranger than a cowboy, but the imagery is similar in theme.
As knockabout a folklore character Binse liked to play, he is, rightfully, regarded as one of Victoria’s most notorious — and tragically institutionalised — career criminals.
Now in his early 50s, he’s only been out of custody for four years since he turned 13, clocking up 96 convictions by the time he was just 24.
In true wild west style during the 1990s while at the height of his career, he gave himself a nickname that would resonate in the papers and rabbit-punch his armed robbery squad adversaries whenever he sent them a signed note or Christmas card.
He called himself “Badness”.
Badness, a cunning criminal who liked to play the game
During his lifelong career as a professional criminal, he has been called many other things.
A maverick.
A lout.
A charismatic romantic.
A menace to society.
A dangerous and devious individual.
An urban terrorist.
Truth be known, Chris Binse was an intelligent crook with a penchant for flair; not a typical dull bottom feeder like some of his criminal brethren.
But as Mr Watson told the Herald Sun: “Most offenders brought into the St Kilda Rd offices of the armed robbery squad were criminals who were either aggressively confrontational or slippery individuals wishing to appease detectives and seek any advantage for themselves.
“Christopher Dean Binse was a combination of both types. He was sometimes alarmingly confrontational if he thought he could bully an investigator.
“On other occasions he could display mute arrogance and would just as quickly portray his role in a comedic sort of way. He played the game of a caged tiger, all the while planning his escape from custody.”
And Binse was a top escape artist.
To date he has managed to break out of a secure hospital wing and several prisons.
He enjoyed playing what he called “just a big game” with the fearsome armed robbery squad.
An inmate who once “bronzed up” (smeared himself in excrement) in a filthy form of jail protest, Binse is infamous for baiting armed robbery detectives with what he called “cheeky” taunts to keep “one step ahead” of his “opposition”.
One day after committing a holdup, he placed an advertisement in a major newspaper stating “Badness Is Back”.
He sent the squad notes signed with “Badness” and Christmas cards showing Father Christmas carrying bags with dollar signs drawn on them.
Binse put personalised “Badness” numberplates on his car, he signed off on letters with “Lord Badness” and called a property of his “Badlands”.
The moniker “Badness”, he said, was just “something I have picked up along the way”.
Binse was a crook who once told a court that while he didn’t consider himself anything like Robin Hood, he did like giving small amounts of stolen money to churches, drunks and homeless people.
He said he once splurged stolen money on a four-hour limousine “mini tour” around the city with mates on his birthday — they all ate fine food and drank beer and champagne.
“He enjoyed his notoriety and media coverage he received,” Ray Watson says.
“He enjoyed taunting detectives … He was a sinister individual; a bullyboy who saw himself as a misunderstood outlaw.
“There was a touch of Ned Kelly about Binse, as he saw it.”
But Binse’s mum, Annette, disagreed.
“He is not a violent person,” she said back in 1995.
“Yes, he has committed a number of armed robberies and, yes, he has attempted to escape on a number of occasions … He is very remorseful for the crimes he has committed and feels deeply for the people he has hurt.”
In 2014, Supreme Court judge Justice Terry Forrest threw Binse back in the bin for at least 14 years for armed robbery, reckless conduct and major firearms offences.
Justice Forrest said Binse would most likely serve the majority of that sentence in relative isolation in Barwon Prison’s high-security Acacia Unit, for his own safety and that of other inmates.
Sadly, Binse was probably thankful.
Even back in 1990 his mother had said of him: “It (living the life of a free man) is mentally too overwhelming for him and too confusing. He is used to the routine in Pentridge.”
As Justice Forrest told him: “You have spent 28 of the last 32 years in some form of custody … I consider that you are thoroughly institutionalised and suffering from a range of psychological consequences that impact on your capacity to deal with unrestricted prison life, or for that matter the outside world.”
School of hard knocks taught Binse his bad ways
AS a young teen Binse’s father taught him to steal and by age 18 he was doing time in Pentridge’s notorious H Division as a management unit prisoner.
At age 23, while on remand for armed robbery, Binse was stabbed in jail and taken to the secure wing at St Vincent’s Hospital.
While recovering after emergency surgery, he got hold of a smuggled handgun and threatened two prison officers.
Wearing a green hospital dressing gown and thongs, he placed the handgun to one of the guard’s heads and said: “I don’t want to be here any more.”
He then stole a car and fled to New South Wales, where he committed two stick-ups.
Within a week NSW major crime squad detectives arrested him and he was remanded in custody at Parramatta Jail.
Just over a month later, he cut through a metal grill in his cell block and, using tied bedsheets, lowered himself to the roof of an adjoining complex.
From there he used a piece of rope to swing over a barbed wire fence and then jumped into the back of an awaiting utility truck, which sped away.
Three months after his escape, Victorian detectives tracked him to a safe house at Glenlyon, near Daylesford, where he was hiding out with a woman and another notorious crime figure — a gunman and robber named Edward “Jockey” Smith.
Victorian police were unaware of Smith’s identity, even up until the point when a road patrol officer, Sen-Constable Ian Harris, pulled him over for driving a stolen panel van from the Glenlyon property.
Binse had reportedly given Smith that vehicle.
Smith, who was on the run from NSW police at the time, fired several shots at the officer and was about to execute him when a hero motorist intervened by driving into the fray.
That gave Sen-Constable Harris an opportunity to draw on Smith, 51, and shoot him dead.
Members of the Special Operations Group, meanwhile, moved in and arrested Binse and the woman back at the Glenlyon property.
Binse was injured during that arrest and, after attempting a hunger strike in jail, was sentenced for the armed robberies committed in Victoria before his escape from St Vincent’s.
Those holdups — committed at banks in Glen Waverley, Noble Park and Doncaster between January and November 1991 — netted him $278,661.
A court was told Binse, armed with a sawn-off shotgun and wearing a Drizabone coat, told staff “thanks very much” and “have a nice day”.
In February 1993, he was sentenced to seven years and six months’ jail with a five-year minimum term.
Justice Forrest again: “The learned sentencing judge noted that by then you had accumulated 96 previous convictions over 27 court appearances. You were then just 24 years old.”
In May 1993 Binse pleaded guilty over the hospital escape and was sentenced to a further eight months’ jail.
In November that year, Pentridge authorities thwarted a bold escape plan involving Binse and many others.
Less than two years later, in June 1995, he and a convicted double murderer managed to cut their way out of their high-security cells at Barwon Prison, only to be found two hours later hiding under building materials within the jail confines.
For that attempt he was forced — between June and September 1995 — to wear leg irons, handcuffs and a body belt while out of his cell.
Crimes catch up with slippery outlaw
The following year it was NSW’s turn to deal with him, as he was extradited there to face outstanding armed robbery and kidnapping charges.
He’d terrorised staff and customers and, during one of the hold ups, held a gun to a security guard’s back.
In court, he claimed he was unaware of the personal trauma he’d caused.
“I didn’t think I had put them through that,” he said.
“I have had guns put to my head ... it really had no impact on me. These people weren’t as strong as me. I feel sorry for them.”
He said he intended to change his ways after serving his impending sentence.
“I want to do something productive. I have had enough of it, Your Honour. I have tried that lifestyle. It’s no good.
“There’s more to life than jail, Your Honour.”
He was not released until February 2005.
By then he was 37, and had served 13 years straight in various prisons.
Binse became a voice for prison reform — but was quickly sucked back into the game despite promising to holster his guns.
He was arrested in January 2006 after walking into Melbourne’s Spearmint Rhino strip club armed with a .32 handgun.
Searching for a man he believed was connected to the venue, he threatened staff and left a bullet as a message for the man he was looking for.
After pleading guilty to a raft of offences he was sentenced to four years’ jail with a minimum of two.
While in jail, he was assaulted.
He believed a certain fellow prisoner — a perceived enemy — had ordered the attack.
After being released on parole, the SOG arrested Binse in possession of a loaded pen pistol, a Taser gun and cocaine.
He was sentenced to further time inside, and walked out on September 28, 2011.
Binse was still paranoid about his perceived enemy, who had also been released from prison by that stage.
In October that year a number of men assaulted Binse and he was hospitalised with head injuries.
Attack on Binse’s bikie mate sparks meltdown
A month later a friend of his — former Bandidos enforcer Toby Mitchell — was shot and seriously wounded.
That attack on Mitchell forced Binse to go “to ground”, sleeping in his car and “staying on the move” while running surveillance on his perceived enemy — who, he was informed, wanted to kill him.
It was in this context, according to Justice Forrest, that Binse started using the drug ice.
Armed and dangerous, he unsuccessfully scouted for the enemy.
In March 2012, Binse went back to old business.
“On March 19, at about 10.15am, you drove to the Laverton Market,” Justice Forrest recounted.
“You entered via a rear gate and prepared to commit an armed robbery at the nearby Westside Hotel.
“You unloaded an off-road motorcycle from your white van and strapped a sawn-off single-barrel pump-action shotgun to the side of that motorcycle.
“You had previously cut a hole in a cyclone wire fence at the western perimeter of the hotel grounds to gain access to a small walkway that runs between the hotel and an adjacent factory.
“You had previously drilled 14 small holes in the high wooden paling fence that separated the factory from the hotel car park. You had already positioned a ladder against the fence and a deck chair nearby.”
Binse arrived at his hiding spot at 10.37am and lay in wait.
An Armaguard van arrived in the hotel carpark not long after.
Two guards collected $235,000 from the hotel and Binse — wearing workers’ gear, a hood, dust mask and sunglasses — popped his head up over the fence, his shotgun raised.
Binse ordered the guards to the ground, ran to them and stole their firearms and the full money bag.
He dumped his motorcycle and shotgun in a nearby dam.
Police quickly nominated Binse as a suspect and ran surveillance on him.
During this time he regularly visited a storage facility in Albion.
On May 20, 2012, four police officers approached Binse at a La Porchetta restaurant.
Binse pulled a revolver he’d taken from one of the Armaguard men.
After stealing a police radio he rode a motorcycle back to his Keilor East home and bunkered down.
Surrounded by a posse of police, including the SOG, Binse began a siege that caused residents to be evacuated.
At different times he fired a number of shots, some hitting a SOG vehicle with members inside and other rounds penetrating fences.
A close friend tried to talk Binse out.
“He’s of the belief that if he comes out it’s going to be all over,” the woman told the Herald Sun.
“I think he’s done his dash now. They’ll shoot him.”
And that’s exactly what police did.
After firing teargas into the house to force Binse outside, they took a bead on him and opened fire — and dropped him with bean bag rounds.
Police playing the waiting game and using non-lethal force was a new tactic compared with what Binse had been used to in days gone by.
“I consider the SOG members acted with moderation and restraint,” Justice Forrest stated.
After Binse was taken into custody, Assistant Commissioner Steve Fontana conceded police had experienced “a lot of anxious moments” during the 44-hour siege.
“Some of the discussion was whether he’d kill himself, blow the place up or come out and try and kill us in the process of trying to escape,” he said.
Binse was hiding a huge weapons cache
Police checked the Albion storage facility Binse was using and found an arsenal — a .357 calibre revolver, a loaded cut-down .22 calibre rifle with a silencer attached and modified to fire in full automatic mode, a loaded and cut-down 12-gauge bolt-action shotgun and a .45 calibre sub-machinegun.
There was a stockpile of ammunition.
In sentencing 45-year-old Binse to a whopping 18 years’ jail with the 14-year minimum for the Laverton armed robbery and Keilor East siege, Justice Forrest said Binse’s fears for his safety did not excuse his “anti-social conduct”.
“You accumulated an arsenal at the storage facility,” the judge said.
“For a prohibited person to possess one firearm is serious enough. For a prohibited person to possess a loaded pistol, a loaded cut-down rifle, a loaded cut-down pump-action shotgun and a Thompson sub-machinegun makes this rolled-up charge a grave example of its kind.”
The armed robbery was said to have been “planned and executed with precision”.
Justice Forrest said it was his duty to jail Binse for a long time.
“I consider that a purpose of this sentencing exercise is to protect the wider community from you Mr Binse.”
Former Binse adversary Ray Watson backed the lengthy sentence.
“Binse is an evil recidivist criminal who would stop at nothing to commit his crimes,” Mr Watson told the Herald Sun.
“His current period of incarceration is about right — and you can bet your last dollar he will be back at it again on the day he is released.”
The jury is still out on that one.
Postscript: More bad deeds come to light
IN true Binse fashion, this year, the notorious and colourful criminal has attempted to both wash his hands of the past, while at the same time making things even worse with his shoot-from-the-hip approach to everything.
His most recent appearances before the courts in November included one to issue a grovelling apology to his nemesis — Justice Forrest — for unleashing an obscene tirade aimed at him in the Supreme Court.
“When they said I was going before T. Forrest I thought I don’t want that c —. He smashed me out of the ballpark last time,” Binse said during the previous hearing.
In February, Binse pleaded guilty at the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court to seven armed robberies that occurred in 1988, 1989 and 1991.
And just to remind you of Binse’s 80s and 90s crime spree, that included:
* May 30, 1988, Altona — robs a sports store of five firearms
* May 31, 1988, Keilor East — steals $21,688 from the State Bank of Victoria
* June 17, 1988, Moonee Ponds — robs a TAB of $5326
* June 17, 1988, St Albans — attempts to rob the Commonwealth Bank
* August 29, 1989, Noble Park — robs the Commonwealth Bank of $23,757
* October 25, 1991, Moonee Ponds — steals $55,000 from the State Bank of Victoria
* November 8, 1991, Maribyrnong — robs a security company of $80,234 and two guns
* Discharges a gun towards a member of the public on the same day
* December 10, 1991 — robs the Commonwealth Bank of $207,500.
Binse, who has converted to Islam and now goes by the surname Pecotic, told Justice Forrest that he had come forward to “just cleanse my soul”.
The 47-year-old had earlier this year failed to appeal against his 18-year prison term (with the 14 year minimum) over the armed holdup of an Armaguard van and a 44-hour suburban siege in 2012.
To keep himself busy, Binse is busy writing. He’s published Mayhem, an account of his wild life, but also children’s stories that he’s struggled to get published.
“I want to tell my life (story),” Binse said as he represented himself in court.
“I want people to know and learn, not Badness, but the person who was moulded from Badness.”
READ AN EXTRACT: The strange and savage saga of Badness Binse.
He also used his recent appearance to apologise to all his victims and continue his “passionate” campaign for prisoner rights and the “damaging impact” of isolation.
After he pleaded guilty to more ‘80s and ‘90s hold-ups in November, Binse was asked to name his last occupation and with a smile, he replied: “Financial solutions consultant.
“It’s true,” he said.
“I’ve got the business cards to prove it.”
Binse said he was pleased Justice Forrest was dealing with his plea hearing on January 30.
“You’re a good judge, I don’t fault ya,” he said.
He brought a bundle of documents with him to court and promised the judge he would present a good case.
“Instead of looking at Chopper Read, we’re going to see Picasso,” Binse said.
He’s expected to represent himself, and the courtroom is certain to be filled with interested parties keen to say what Binse is going to say next.
— with Angus Thompson, AAP and Matthew Schulz
This article is an amended version of a report first published in 2014.
BOOK EXTRACT: ‘Badness’ tells of great prison escape
OBSCENE SPRAY: ‘Badness’ unleashes sweary rant on judge
$400K HAUL: Binse admits to armed rob spree
LIVES SAVED: ‘Badness’ foils terror plot, swaps guns for books
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