‘Dim, fat, angry’: Mass murderer Martin Bryant 25 years after Port Arthur massacre

A rare prison photograph of mass murderer Martin Bryant has emerged as well as details of his sad existence 25 years after the Port Arthur massacre.

Martin Bryant’s life in prison 25 years after he perpetrated Australia’s worst shooting massacre is that of a pathetic, obese, dull-witted middle aged man.

The mass murderer spends his life in Risdon Prison’s maximum security wing outside Hobart going between his cell and the canteen.

A new photograph, obtained by The Daily Telegraph, of the now 53-year-old shows a plump-cheeked inmate with dark greasy hair and a grey beard smiling vacantly at the camera.

Forensic psychiatrist Professor Paul Mullen, who assessed the killer after the rampage in which he killed 35 people including children, has told News Corp Australia Bryant leads a miserable life behind bars.

Professor Mullen said that far from being a threatening criminal who masterminded a massacre, Bryant is merely “dim, pathetic, angry”, The Daily Telegraph reported.

“This is someone who, the only way he felt he could be anything in the world, was to take revenge on the world and kill the helpless and the innocent,” Professor Mullen said.

The pitiful reality of his life a quarter of a century on from his ghastly deeds, is not much different from his past.

Bryant was a lonely 28-year-old misfit with an intellectual disability who had slept with his pet pig for company when he planned and perpetrated his murderous spree.

A former prison staffer told News Corp Bryant spent most of his time these days alone eating two-minute noodles and chocolate, which he sometimes exchanged for sexual favours.
He had become grossly fat and declined to take part in exercising in the prison yard.

“He’s got one of those stomachs that kind of hangs down between his legs,” the former jail employee said. “He’s a huge man.

“He would just sit at a table on the ground floor of the unit he was in with those picnic tables that are bolted to the floor.”

A plump-cheeked Martin Bryant seen in a rare prison photograph.

Martin Bryant age 28, a lonely ridiculed figure.

Martin Bryant three days before Port Arthur massacre.

The bodies of many of Bryant’s victims still lay in the Broad Arrow Cafe the day after he went on his 1996 shooting rampage.

Walter Mikac with his wife Nanette and daughters Alannah, 6, and Madeline, 3, who were stalked and shot by Bryant.

The yellow Volvo gunman Martin Bryant drove to the locations at which he murdered 35 and wounded 23 people in his senseless rampage.

Neighbours who knew Bryant’s family told news.com.au in the days after the massacre that as a youth they had called him “silly Martin, no sense, no feeling”.

This was because while growing up at Carnarvon Bay near Port Arthur in southeastern Tasmania he had shot dead birds, then riddled their bodies repeatedly with rifle slugs.

He was disruptive, aggressive and also made the news after he set himself on fire.

He later befriended 60-year-old lottery heiress Helen Harvey who he possibly killed in a car crash, inherited her money, then played the country squire, dressing up and roaming around with a rifle.

He planned the massacre in his home town of Port Arthur after the Dunblane massacre of 16 Scottish primary schoolchildren and a teacher by a lone shooter in March, 1996.

On Sunday April 28, 1996 Martin shot and killed David and Sally Martin at their Seascape Cottage guesthouse, stole their firearms, and drove to the Broad Arrow tourist cafe at the Port Arthur historic site.

After killing 24 people and wounding 20, he drove 300m and shot Nanette Mikac, and three-year-old Madeline in her arms, and then stalked and killed Alannah Mikac, 6.

Bryant continued his shooting, then stole a BMW and shot its four occupants, killed a woman driving a Toyota and ordered her male companion into the boot of his BMW.

Bryant drove back to Seascape Cottage and took his hostage inside to where he had left the Martins’ bodies.

Walter Mikac (centre) aged just 34 grieves outside St David’s Cathedral in Hobart after a memorial for his family and other victims of the Port Arthur massacre.

Martin Bryant pictured not long before he carried out his shooting spree at the age of 28 near the holiday home where he spent his childhood.

Aerial of Seascape Cottage which Martin Bryant set alight after murdering three people inside during his rampage through the historic tourist spot in April 1996.

Port Arthur killer Martin Bryant arriving at the Royal Hobart Hospital after getting burnt when he set a guesthouse alight.

When police arrived, he demanded a helicopter and during the next 18 hours, he shot his hostage and set fire to the guesthouse, getting burnt as he tried to escape.

Unlike the Dunblane killer Thomas Hamilton, Bryant did not kill himself after his deadly actions.

Bryant was treated for burns in hospital and as his trial approached he changed his plea to guilty.

Tasmanian Supreme Court Justice William Cox gave Bryant 35 life sentences, plus 1652 years in prison, without the possibility of parole.

Tasmanian authorities initially wanted NSW corrections to house Bryant as he was held in extreme segregation and reportedly attempted suicide several times.

He was moved into a secure mental health unit at Risdon outside Hobart, and in 2015, News Corp captured the first images of Bryant seen publicly since his incarceration.

Bryant’s weight had ballooned to 160kg and prison officers called him “Porky Pig”.

News Corp Australia recently revealed, Risdon staff secretly smuggled Bryant in and out of jail for medical treatment.

This included having his cataracts operated on at an external eye clinic to where Bryant was pirated from the prison was outside normal surgery hours.

“He was heavily guarded but they’d basically opened up the cataract clinic at whatever time of the morning he’d been taken in, I presume, around 5am …” an officer told News Corp.

Nicknamed ‘Porky Pig’, Martin Bryant pictured in the yard at Risdon in 2015, during an attempt by prison officers to get him exercising. Picture: Gary Ramage/News Corp

Bryant kicks a ball. Picture: Gary Ramage

The mass murderer, however, prefers to eat than exercise. Picture: Gary Ramage

Guard tower at Risdon Prison, Hobart where Martin Bryant is being held. Picture: Gary Ramage

“He’d been done so as to avoid any possible contact with the public and [not] run any risk of anyone seeing him.

“Ushered in, operated on, ushered out with no doubt a couple of patches on his eyes and then back to prison, back to his cell to recuperate.

“All under the cover of darkness literally, and all before the sun was up.”

Despite Bryant’s insignificant presence in the life of the jail, the officer said he could unnerve them by “staring” with his ice blue gaze.

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