By Karen Kissane and Kate Hagan
He is not too bright and can't read or write well. He worries that he is too thin - that's why he took the steroids that pumped him up mentally as well as physically. And he's long been a loser; apart from the occasional labouring gig, he has relied on his dad to support him the past few years.
But Christopher Wayne Hudson, the city shooter, put on a good front in the Supreme Court yesterday. He puffed out his chest and held his handsome head high as Justice Paul Coghlan ordered him to stand to hear his fate: life in prison, with a 35-year minimum. The 30-year-old Hudson did not flinch.
Maybe it was partly about impressing the gang. Half-a-dozen Hells Angels sat in the back row behind him. They stood to greet him when he entered the court. He gave them a smile and a thumbs up, and one gave him a fist-on-heart salute in return.
They were a big part of his problem, his psychiatrist had told the judge. The bikie culture and the drugs he abused were, in the end, the only explanations for the bloody attacks in the heart of Melbourne on June 18, 2007, in which
a drunken, meth-crazed Hudson left one man dead and three other people seriously wounded.
A report by consultant psychiatrist Danny Sullivan had been tendered at Hudson's plea hearing. Dr Sullivan found Hudson was of low intellect but had no psychiatric disorder: "Although anabolic steroid abuse and the lifestyle led by Mr Hudson suggests narcissistic and antisocial features, it is more likely that he was seduced by the lifestyle offered by joining motorcycle gangs, and that his peer group and lifestyle encouraged self-centred and aggressive attitudes."
Hudson, whose spree included savagely kicking a dancer in the face at a nightclub he had frequented, had a history of violence against women that was echoed in his city attacks, in which he shot two men who had tried to help a woman he was assaulting. In 2003, Hudson had beaten his then partner and attacked a security guard who had tried to help her.
He had been taking anabolic steroids, which he knew made him moody, for more than a month before the shootings because he was concerned that people said he was looking "skinny". He had also been taking large amounts of amphetamines and that night was drinking heavily, mostly beer and Bacardi rum.
"He was, as a consequence, much more paranoid than usual," Dr O'Sullivan said.
In front of the dock was Hudson's father, Terry, dressed as if for a funeral, his face grim as the judge recounted again the tale of that morning.
It began when Hudson attacked Autumn Daly-Holt, a dancer at the Spearmint Rhino club in King Street where he had spent the previous night. He left her lying unconscious on the street and turned his anger on former girlfriend Keara Douglas, forcing her at gunpoint to walk with him.
Solicitor and father-of-three Brendan Keilar, 43, was walking to work when he and Dutch backpacker Paul de Waard, 26, saw Hudson dragging the distraught Ms Douglas away from a taxi by her hair. The two men asked Hudson what was going on.
Justice Coghlan said. "They did not even so much as touch you. You took out your handgun and shot both of them. You also shot Ms Douglas. They fell to the ground. You shot Mr Brendan Keilar once more while he was on the ground. You executed him.
"You shot Mr Paul de Waard once more while he was on the ground.Your gun was then empty. You and others ought be grateful for that."
Mr Keilar died at the scene.
Most of the rest of Hudson's life will be spent in jail. His victims feel they have life sentences too. Ms Douglas lost a kidney. Ms Daly-Holt has been left with permanent nerve damage to her face. Mr de Waard can no longer enjoy the surfing, swimming and snowboarding he once loved.
Justice Coghlan found Hudson to be remorseful, but discounted witness accounts that he had tried to commit suicide after the shootings - the gun was empty by that stage.
He was given a non-parole period only because he had pleaded guilty to the charges of murder and attempted murder, Justice Coghlan said.
Hudson will be 65 when he is given his freedom.