Port Arthur massacre: Survivors share never-heard-before stories
PORT Arthur massacre gunman Martin Bryant described the tragedy as a “Hawaiian holiday” during negotiations with the police.
DISTURBING phone calls between Port Arthur massacre gunman Martin Bryant and Tasmanian police’s former lead negotiator have been aired highlighting the mental state of the gunman at the time.
Terry McCarthy described a “dull” voice on the phone line when he was tasked to talk to Mr Bryant as he holed himself up in bed and breakfast property, Seascape, where he had gunned down David and Noelene Martin earlier in the day.
“A dull voice answered the phone and the negotiation process didn’t take place as I expected it to take place,” Mr McCarthy told Ray Martin in a special episode commemorating the tragedy.
“I expected that somebody that had been involved in the shooting of a large number of people would have been highly agitated.
Terry McCarthy: It’s Terry again, how are you?
Martin Bryant: I’m fine.
Terry McCarthy: How’s things going in there mate?
Martin Bryant: Fine, couldn’t be better, just like on a Hawaiian holiday.
Terry McCarthy: Hawaiian holiday?
Martin Bryant: Yes, that’s correct sir.
Terry McCarthy: I’m sorry I don’t understand what you mean by that?
Martin Bryant: I don’t know myself, no. I’m making up some sandwiches ... these people have got some salad and some bacon in them.
Terry McCarthy: Right ...
Martin Bryant: I’m going to fry up some bacon and eggs for them.
Terry McCarthy: Mmhmm.
Martin Bryant: Hey I’ve got to go ‘cos kettle’s squealing downstairs and I’m making a cup of tea now for the hostages.
Yet McCarthy and police were convinced the hostages had already been killed, a hunch that turned out to be correct.
“We were fairly convinced that nobody was alive there at the time that we were actually talking,” Mr McCarthy told ACA.
“It was the terminology he was using, the type of language and words he was using to convey an impression as to where those people were or what they were doing just didn’t ring true.
“It was a game where he really didn’t have any exit strategy.
“This fella had gone and killed a large number of people. He had attempted to encourage police to become involved, he wanted a shootout.”
The victims, the villain, and the Prime Minister who made sweeping changes to Australia’s gun laws were covered in both A Current Affair and Australian Story in separate specials.
It was here, in Port Arthur, where Australia lost its innocence. #9ACA https://t.co/E3QOuF0EjP
— A Current Affair (@ACurrentAffair9) April 11, 2016
“I’m seeing parts of the wall being chipped away and I’m seeing him with a very long gun. “There is no yelling, there is no running, it’s not like in the movies,” Carolyn Loughton, who lost her daughter in the attack and was shot herself, told the ABC.
“The person firing that gun had earphones on, it was very, very rapid fire. You can’t run that fast. It was truly, truly frightening.”
Pauline Grenfell, who witnessed Nanette Mikac and her daughter’s Madeline and Alannah’s last moments, told Australian Story: “A mother and her two children saved us because in effect that’s what they did, they saved us.”
“I was just always so sorry we couldn’t save them, because they gave us the precious seconds to move away. So, yes, we were lucky and we were fortunate but that doesn’t take away the pain of what happened. That stays with you.”
In another devastating reflection, survivor Lynee Beavis recalls, “One of the hardest things I remember is finding a young girl that was of similar build to my daughter and similar age to my daughter.”
Port Arthur survivors break silence 20 years on #AustralianStory Tonight, 8pm https://t.co/obi1QkfVHm | @ABCTV https://t.co/pM3rTjFCkC
— ABC Australia (@ABCaustralia) April 11, 2016
Ray Martin returned to the scene at the historic Port Arthur prison colony site where 28-year-old Martin Bryant gunned down 35 people and wounded 23 on 28 April 1996.
Among those who appeared were Keith Moulton, whose daughter and granddaughters were eating at the historic site’s Broad Arrow cafe at the time. They were among the twelve people were murdered in the space of 15-seconds at the site.
Then there’s Dr Bryan Walpole, an emergency specialist at Royal Hobart Hospital, who was greeted to an “avalanche of dead and wounded bodies”.
“We all thought afterwards this is the sort of end of innocence for Tasmania,” Dr Walpole recalled.
Meanwhile, former-Prime Minister John Howard reflected on the time and his consistent opinion on gun control: “It’s far harder to kill ten people with a knife than it is to kill ten people with a gun.”
“I was horrified at the scale of what had happened,” he said on Insight.
“Here were 35 innocent men, women and children - Australians - others who had been murdered and others very, very badly, seriously injured, and a whole community tarnished.
“There was an added bleakness because it happened at Port Arthur. Because it had a history as a penal colony. That was the personal shock. I thought to myself: I’ve got to do something about this. I felt that I should.”
Tasmanian journalist Judy Tierney, who reported on the Port Arthur massacre at the time, is returning to the screen for an ABC News special.
Australian Story will “lookback at the legacy of that terrible day - the impact it had on survivors, witnesses, some of whom are talking for the first time, and the nation at large.”
The massacre remains one of the deadliest shootings by a single person worldwide.
Last month, taped police interviews, never before seen outside of court, were aired on Seven’s Sunday Night program, detailing the chilling words of Mr Bryant.
“You see if people didn’t do these unfortunate things, you guys wouldn’t have a job,” Bryant told detectives.
“It’s a sweet little gun,” he says in a disturbing scene where he looks at one of his weapons.
In 2013, former police officer Phil Pyke, who was handed the grim task of guarding Australia’s worst mass murderer Martin Bryant in the hospital after the massacre, reflected on his time with the killer.
“I saw his behaviour change from being completely childlike to that of an evil killer many times over the day,” Mr Pyke wrote in an editorial for News Corp.
“Having been heavily involved on many levels over this incident, I know Bryant undertook this act of violence alone and the trigger was his perceived hatred for the specific people in his life.”
According to a 2015 News Corp exclusive, these days, Australia’s worst killer “is a grossly overweight loner who pays other prisoners with chocolate bars for attention and has violently attacked several jail workers”.
“At 48, Martin Bryant is unrecognisable from the tall, slim blond man who 19 years ago killed 35 innocents and injured 23 others in the Port Arthur massacre,” the article reads.
“Some jailers refer to him as “Porky Pig” and he has ballooned to 160kg at times. His weight fluctuates up to 30kg, from obese to morbidly obese.
“Some who have encountered him say Bryant rarely leaves his cell and is drugged to point of being “almost a vegetable”. Others talk of a violent and unpredictable predator who targets the most vulnerable of his fellow inmates.”
Bryant is serving 35 life sentences for the shooting deaths of 35 people.
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