Former Risdon prisoner and safe cracker Tony Bull talks old habits, SBS Insight program

After spending 20 years of his life in jail, Tony Bull found it hard to break old habits – he folded the blankets on his bed, didn’t open doors, stayed in his room a lot and still doesn’t own a watch. HIS STORY >

Tony Bull at Hobart waterfront. Tony is to be featured in an upcoming SBS special. Picture: Linda Higginson

After spending 20 years of his life in jail, Tony Bull found it hard to break old habits – he folded the blankets on his bed, didn’t open doors, stayed in his room a lot and still doesn’t own a watch.

When he was released 12 years ago the burglar and safe cracker says the lack of routine, made life confusing.

Mr Bull, 58, first went to prison as a 17-year-old and says he suffers the effects of institutionalisation.

Tony pumping iron in his prison days. Picture: SBS

“You do exactly what you’re told at exactly the same time every day,” he said.

“I never in all the 20 years of prison once cooked myself a meal. I never once opened my own door. You didn’t have to do anything, your letters were handed to you.

“Your social skills are non-existent because the system does everything for you.”

Mr Bull will appear on SBS’s Insight panel discussing habits. During filming he struck up a friendship with Dave Hughes who talks about giving up drinking and smoking when he was 21 which he believes allowed him to begin his comedy career.

Working as a fisherman 15 years ago, he said, was a defining time in his life.

It was 4.30am and he was on deck “staring at the stars in the black sky”.

“That was the first time that I actually looked up for a very, very long time. In prison you don’t tend to look up because you only see the bars to the freedom you’re searching for.

“That morning on the boat I made up a little saying for myself caught between the blue sky and the blue ocean and everything else in between is whatever you want it to be.”

Mr Bull, who’s lived alone for five years, still tends to “shut the door and ignore the world” but has a group of friends he meets at a Hobart hotel and enjoys being a prison advocate.

He joined the debating group at Risdon Prison and the shy lad soon became confident. He was not nervous on the SBS program because “once I open my mouth I can’t shut it”.

“Down the track I want to develop a program for people leaving prison and call it Beth after my mother. It will stand for belief, empathy, trust and hope.”

Mr Bull is a board member of JusTas and involved in the Prisoners Legal Service.

Service chair Greg Barns SC said Mr Bull was “the first lived experience person we have had involved in the PLS committee”.

“He is an inspiration. Tony understands the inherent limitations of prison and how we need to move away from it and address offending from a therapeutic angle.”

He appears on SBS’s Insight episode on Habits on Tuesday June 13. at 8.30pm.

Originally published as Former Risdon prisoner and safe cracker Tony Bull talks old habits, SBS Insight program