Crimes That Shook Australia - The Port Arthur Tragedy

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on the 28th of April 1996 the historic tourist site of Port Arthur in Tasmania became the scene of the largest massacre ever to hit Australia Aussie officials are calling it the worst massacre in over a hundred years it was one body on the doorstep Toby's shot pouring out of me within minutes a gunman rampage through the site shooting at innocent people they have not seen injuries like there there is such destruction from this sort of weapon the mother was carrying the three-year-old baby when they were both shot the scale of the deaths and injuries that was to follow rocked the world those scenes were simply horrific and and I have an extraordinary amount of admiration for everybody that had to confront those scenes on the day 35 people were shot and killed and 23 wounded but I could think of nothing they would describe an incident such as that inside this place as the product of war I felt when I left for data that I had to do something the devastation wreaked by the mass murderer and the colossal change the tragedy provoked makes this a crime that shook Australia [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] I was working I started at 9:00 that morning because there were wasn't many staff on it was a really busy day the picturesque tourist site of Port Arthur sits on the Tasman Peninsula an integral part of Australian history ever since the British convicts were first shipped there in the 18th century back in those days the equivalent of Guantanamo Bay it was a military reserve you weren't allowed on the peninsula unless you had business there it was run by the soldiers and governor Arthur the historic site is relatively beautiful in the sense that much of it still survives some of it's been restored so is that interesting combinations of trees and plants that you would find in the United Kingdom that of course a lot lated in Tasmania Port Arthur is always on the list of places to go with anybody that visits us [Music] [Music] [Applause] on the morning of the 28th of April 1996 Ian Kingston along with 30 staff at Port Arthur were preparing to welcome many tourists there was a lot of a measurement side of the organization were at a seminar on the east coast of Tasmania Bishan oh and it's how come I ended up here on the day it became obvious by about 11:00 that it was going to be more busier than what they predicted think about 14 couches ended up coming in car parking was getting a bit of an issue because visitor centers there now wasn't there in those days everyone used to park under the oak trees and you know it was pretty limited one of the tourists visiting the site that day was Peter cross well after Thomas stack nature of an organization called Kay quality support program for kids with cancer and their families Peters role that day was to look after other people visiting from the organization they chose a day out at Port Arthur we had one team at that particular time that's a development program that based in Sydney and lag actually come over to test mania to do their first tour here and it so happens at that way Kim they've been here a week and we're in the primary schools and they want to get Jenna pulled out so I took them down there for the day just three kilometers of the road from the tourist site a local man Martin Bryant arrived at seascape a popular guest house run by David and Sally Martin [Music] as people started to filter into Port Arthur Ian one of the site support staff fielded the many vehicles packed with tourists all sort of coordinating parking there in lunchtime when Brandon Bryant drove in Martin Bryant was a 28 year old man from Newtown Hobart like all the other tourists that day Ian Kingston believed he was there to have a look around [Music] didn't recognize him he'd been around in the area when he was a kid growing up and he was entirely different to what he used to be you know he'd grown up and with children when he drivin on the day he wanted to park down near the jetty and what pointed out to him that he couldn't do that because those already pet ID catches there so he said I'll come up park in front of the Information Center and so it's better if you park all out of the trolleys under the actuaries you want to get on the 130 ferry I said well you'll have to get a boarding pass Information Center you try to get on the boat couldn't get on so he got back in the car and went and parked down in maxed all coaches where we didn't want him to park anyway I watched him do that he sat there for half a minute he got out of his car on the back seat of his car he headed up like a golf bag type of thing they thought that is he driving anyway knocked around the back seat got this bagger but on his shoulder yeah well I didn't really take a lot of notice off anyone in the boot he's muck around in the boot of the car it took him a couple of minutes fiddling they don't what every entity then he walked up to the cafe the Broad Arrow cafe was situated just up from the carpark and the water's edge across from the main penitentiary ruins he went in the front door he was probably in there for a few minutes Bobby came 15 sir as Ian continued to help other tourists Bryant eighties meal on the deck and then went back inside what was to happen next would change Australia forever lava Sutton's of you this bang bang bang I could see dust coming out of the building were from where I was looking what's going on I start to make my way up there and still going I thought oh that's be a bloody electrical fault you know I ran in the building and that's the one in the door there was one body on the doorstep obvious shop about calling ahead of him tasmania's main tourist attraction Port Arthur is under siege Ian Kingston one of the staff members has been helping tourists throughout the morning as the site gets busier after hearing loud noises from the cafe he rushes to investigate and could never have prepared for what he was confronted with I got inside the building and this broad standing with his gun and beside him I'll grab it and he had his big bag did you head on his back and I could say in the bag that there was something how the gal of some description Ian faced an unprecedented situation Martin Bryant had opened fire with a semi-automatic weapon in the busy cafe giving the innocent customers and staff little time to react Peter cross well was also there with his party you can't comprehend the is sitting on this beautiful April day that's quite cool seam down for a cup of coffee and in some ways that are coming shooting people that doesn't make sense [Music] the cafe and adjoining gift shop were crowded with more than 60 customers and staff when Bryant opened fire it takes time to react to it he can't think it's rude you just react to it there's some people reacted by running other people reacted by hiding cabins as the cold-blooded killer indiscriminately shot at anyone in his path Peter made the split-second decision to try to shield his colleagues from the gunfire I reckon in a different way there's a lot of weakness lost strength it's just the way you react given that and a lot of the people that were killed were older people they didn't have a reaction time and they were very shocked with our set as Peter took cover and the gunman continued his rampage Ian Kingston witnessed the horror from the doorway there was a person to the left of main I went to move and he turned around and shot the guy and then while I was there was a chap behind him ended up with his chair he turned around and shot two more people then while he had his back to me I got out in the space of just 90 seconds Martin Bryant had shot and killed 20 people injuring a further 12 as Ian rushed away from the cafe to warn others and get them to safety some tourists hadn't yet realized a killer was on the loose well that torn we had it cut without slides of American tourists and I thought it was just some sort of a show and they're all flocking from out on the eyeball and around the outside to see what was going on and like I was sort of didn't know what to do with no signs of relenting bryant continued shooting in the cafe and gift shop what as many as I could together in the bank and we start to make it way up through government gardens past the fountain to the parsonage where I was bringing them to was pretty safe as Ian desperately gathered as many people as he could to run to safety the gunman started to move outside where many unwitting tourists still had no idea what was happening I looked around and I saw in command of the cafe and he came out and he shot got the shots across the over the aisle towards the penitentiary tourists and staff tried to take cover as the cold-blooded killer headed back towards the car park in just seconds he took aim at people as they run for their lives or hid for safety on the parked vehicles nobody was spared meanwhile Ian Kingston could see the tragedy unfold as he battled to get his group to safety Oh bringing all these people up to the past agent we had the Nick X with us she decided she didn't want to be part of our group was too dangerous she was going to leave the side anyway at that point I saw him come off the bus and I said to her stay with us he's getting in the car now she said I'm gonna run up the road the macaques were a young family Nanette and her two girls Madeleine aged three and Alana six visiting the site that day despite IANS desperate pleas Nanette was frantic to get her children to safety and took the decision to try and escape alone the meek ex they wanted to get home and that was where we lost them they just veered off and unfortunately went the wrong way as the family run out of Port Arthur Bryant also made his way off the site he had just shot at eleven innocent people in and around the car park and jetty the carnage and devastation left many severely wounded and others dead got in the car drove out hit it up out of the Sun the top of the sort that used to be told the toll booth was there with everyone told him and he's been halfway up and he had just haven't seen him he's probably shot the kid somewhere ian's feared for the safety of the macaques having made the decision to leave at the same time as Bryant they were right in his path the gunman drove up to the family just a few hundred meters from the exit and stopped beside them shooting the mother dead before turning the gun on Madeline and Ilana how dare someone murder two little kids after murdering their mother and chase one of them round a tree to kill her it just beggars belief [Music] the enormity of the massacre was now unparalleled a lone killer had started a callous rampage with apparently no motive now more than 20 people lay dead and over a dozen wounded and the nightmare didn't appear to be ending on seeing the brutal killings of the macaques other tourists quickly hurried to get out of Brian's path warning anyone they could to turn back by now the gunman was already back in his car and making his way to the toll booth at that point heard small shooting the top of the hill you know I ringtail bowes-lyon was in there and told her you know lie on the floor sir all the man who were counting the monies when I sit down regretting bloody money just get down because he's coming back so she just lied on the floor Martin Bryant had in fact murdered four friends at their car pulling their bodies out of the vehicle and into the road before stealing it the killer then drove to a local service station targeting another car that was about to leave the couple in the vehicle had no chance to escape the female passenger was shot as she tried to flee whilst the man was forced at gunpoint into the boot of the stolen car Bryant now had a hostage [Music] an unprecedented tragedy has happened at Port Arthur in Tasmania a lone gunman has opened fire at the popular tourist attraction shooting innocent visitors and staff dozens lie dead and severely injured as the killer continues his rampage out of the site and along the road at a service station what happens was that after Brian left and continues his shooting rampage operating is still he's a gun shots and the gunfire could be heard across the site as Ian rushed to get his group away from the danger the other party would be about 300 meters from the cafe as long as 300 meters ever walked in my whole life it was a bit of an issue to get everyone up there as quickly as we could there's the afternoon went on the whole phone network got clogged it was hard and was hard trying to pacify visitors that we hear that couldn't ring out I was couldn't get along trying to tell people their families overseas they're all I can as the survivors waited for help bryant was still on the loose after taking a hostage prisoner in the boot of his car he drove to a place he had already been to that day seascape guesthouse by now emergency services have been alerted to the tragedy and were rushing to the numerous crime scenes unfolding Terry McCarthy was a trained negotiator with Tasmania police the initial call I got was extraordinarily brief it said something along the lines of twenty days at Port Arthur get here now my initial task was to try and make contact with seascape to establish who was there and perhaps ascertain what was going on while officers were getting into position news of the horror was filtering through to forensic psychiatrist Ian Salem I heard vaguely this news flash about shootings at least 200 police have surrounded Port Arthur all roads in have been blocked my heavens is happening here I knew because I don't occasionally call out swifty police negotiator squad I've got a telephone call from a police officer I know how to ask if I could come in and lend a hand information was now trickling through to Terry and Ian about the enormity of the killers rampage at this point they had no idea of what to expect from this gunman he had already callously murdered dozens of people and showed no signs of stopping he talked about a vehicle that was burning on the property and sort of Jude asking why we aren't we doing anything about it and it was like he set that fire to force a police to come in to investigate what was going on and of course he'd set himself up to to ambush those police officers should they go in there with a burning vehicle in front of the building Terry had to be mindful not to rush in and put officers lives in danger the police also faced another challenge two of my colleagues were stuck in a ditch across the road and under fire and part of my role of course was to keep riot occupied engaged in in conversations so that some sort of action could be taken to perhaps get those guys out the trapped officers had been the first on the scene at the guesthouse unaware of the scale of the danger they had to take cover as he shot at them from inside the house it was difficult to work out exactly what what weapons brought had but certainly the vehicle that he traveled down to the historic site was subsequently located and it was established that there were a number of weapons still in the in the boot of that vehicle along with a significant quantity of ammunition so we knew he had access to high-powered high-capacity magazine firearms but as to where they came from we we weren't sure at that particular stage he was able to fire significant numbers of rounds in the general direction of police officers on the ground as Terry tried to get any information from Bryant investigations were underway to try and find out who this gunman was and what possible motive he could have to cause such heartache I had never heard of Bryant before the day and on the day the information we got in they were able to eventually identify who he was and then they were able to identify family members but the information that family members gave us was confusing we were initially told that Bryant had schizophrenia but the conversations that he was having with the police certainly didn't suggest schizophrenia and it's not a sort of incident you would expect a person with schizophrenia to cause but nonetheless we were faced with that sort of information and trying to make sense of that with the limited information on this volatile character the police were desperate to get answers from brand and to try and stop any further bloodshed but Terry McCarthy didn't receive the response he anticipated you're expecting a structured conversation and a belief by the other the other person that they have some some goal that they want to achieve whereas we just seem to be going through motions it was clear that Martin Brian really didn't have a plan and as a consequence of that the negotiations didn't develop in the in the direction that one would expect them to develop so our focus became to establish whether there was anybody in the stronghold with him and to convince him to surrender himself without some any further harm as the siege at the guesthouse appeared to be at stalemate the hours since the initial shootings were passing by and news of the mass killings was now spreading as medical teams desperately battled to save the victims it was about half past 2:00 or 3:00 in the afternoon and my wife told me that the switchboard at the wall had rung and that there was a major disaster Steve Wilkinson was head of surgical specialties at the Royal Hobart Hospital at the time we knew that at that stage there were going to be multiple casualties so we formed small trauma teams we had to clear out an entire ward of patients that already there we had to either sinan home or move them out to other wards we didn't know how many people were coming in it could been 10 or could have been 100 we just didn't know with the hospital on red alert casualties soon started arriving with varying degrees of wounds Peter Cross well who had shielded his colleagues in the cafe was taken in to be treated there were a couple of us like myself from what to Wing Knights who got fragments of bullets and all that type of stuff in trying to save his friends and dodge the gunfire Peter was shot the place was so somebody can imagine it was was like being in a war in the hospital was shocking but not me people stayed there for very long I think there's two or three of us seen there for four or five days as Peter was treated Steve Wilkinson and his team were trying to establish the scale of everyone's wounds I've got to say that I have not seen injuries like they're you know a lot of we see gunshots and stabbings are from time to time but there is such destruction from this sort of weapon that you know just lots of tissue so you know there was a lot of you know major sort of surgery required meanwhile 95 kilometers away at seascape guesthouse the negotiation team was trying to establish if Bryant had injured anyone else inside David and Sally Martin the two owners hadn't been seen for hours during those limited communications we heard no sounds of life other than than Bryant and it's one of the reasons you have these negotiations he's trying to work out what else is going on in in their environment Bryant mentioned how he was preparing food for hostages but the negotiators couldn't determine whether he was bluffing or telling the truth and other information he was providing just didn't add up the way he spoke was more like a young teenager rather than an adult male he was telling his stuff that was completely false he said he'd been out surfing or something like that and it was complete nonsense so there wasn't anything useful happening in their communication we didn't establish that rapport because there was no report or establish he was in denial as to what had occurred in terms of he wasn't even making reference to what had occurred at the historic site he was talking about some fanciful event that he claimed had occurred at another location at Fortescue Bay which is also on the on the peninsula it was like a bad script that he was operating on and the situation was about to get worse what we weren't aware of at that particular time was that the only phone within the seascape property was a battery-operated port was fun we were aware that he was using that phone but we had we didn't have the knowledge that it wasn't a backup landline phone that he could pick up in the event that that went flat so that created us has created some problems for us when of course it was apparent that the battery gone flat the difficulty of course is how do you get a telephone into a situation like that safely after hours of attempts to get some breakthrough with Bryant the telephone line had gone flat they were no closer to a peaceful resolution and had no idea if the hostages were safe when the communications broke down was decided that the negotiator unit would move down to the place called Khurana which is about five or six kilometers north of seascape and they set up a operations area there and various attempts were made to try and get their communication going again with Bryant but they were all unsuccessful like they they weren't able to find a way as daylight broke the following morning the killer had been holed up in the guesthouse for 18 hours what happened next was to stun the officers as Bryant made his next move the next morning he decided to set father the property Port Arthur in Tasmania has just experienced one of the worst human atrocities in Australian criminal history a lone gunman Martin Bryant has walked into a tourist attraction with a semi-automatic gun and shot at innocent people in an attack lasting 15 minutes over 30 victims have been killed and dozens injured more than 18 hours on from the tragedy the killer is still hiding in a guest house nearby with possible hostages negotiators have lost communication after the phone line went flat and whilst they trying to re-establish connection Bryant changes tack once more they set fire to seascape and then was eventually forced out by the fire I I'm not sure why he did that I suspect he was trying to have police take some action that didn't occur of course and as a result he I think he found it a bit difficult inside from perhaps getting himself burnt it was arrested a short period of time later when he escaped from the house with seascape in flames emergency services rushed to the aid of any hostages that might have been inside whilst Bryant was taken to hospital personally I was keeping an eye on the news and we saw that the house that he was holed up in went up in flames and that had been captured and so we knew it was coming we wound up the burns unit to receive him and he was brought in under very tight security we gave the medical and nursing staff the option of treating him or not being involved in his treatment he had quite significant burns and that took a while to sort those out back at the guest house officials battling the blaze were to encounter more devastation as three bodies were discovered one victim was Glenn pears the man he had taken hostage at the service station the others were David and Sally Martin the owners of seascape he broke off communication at one stage and said he was going to prepare food for the hostages but I suspect in retrospect where the hostages were were dead by then officers were to also discover that Brian's rampage had begun before arriving at Port Arthur visiting seascape on the morning of the tragedy and killing the Martins but why had he singled those out lately held a grudge against the people who ran dbm Bay and that's probably where it started that Rancho I suspect that he helped them in part responsible for his father's death [Music] the death of his father is probably the central better his father committed suicide in farm damn and the family say that he was distressed by this [Music] I believe that he suspected his father died because of a dispute with the people who owned seascape I think that's probably the heart of what what happened and it started off as revenge towards them [Music] Martin Bryant's father Morris had previously tried to buy the guest house yet the Martins secured it first allegedly creating stress for the Bryant family but if this was the catalyst in sending the gunmen over the edge why did he target all the other innocent victims - I think that what happened then at Broad Arrow he expected to be stopped he thought just like Hollywood that there'd be some hero with the gun there who cut him down but it didn't happen there was no one there so this was an incident but once he got that far he wasn't able to stop it was it wasn't scripted for him and III just think it sort of got there by accident he didn't know what to do and just kept on going as Bryant was treated for his burns Ian sale and colleagues tried to dig deeper into his background for any insight laymen were able to retrieve his hospital record and we learned from that that he'd recently been in hospital for quite a serious injury in a motor vehicle accident and they had noticed some odd nurse about his behavior but have been assured by family that he's got schizophrenia we also went to the house in Newtown where he'd been living but that was confusing too he'd been living there with this rather eccentric woman and the house was certainly eccentric she was a hoarder and a collector and that showed in the house it was a very very weird house to be honest the woman who Bryant had lived with was Helen Harvey a friend who had died in the car accident that injured Bryant four years before her death resulted in him inheriting a substantial amount of money for various reasons he come into a lot of money he was unrestrained the people who had some degree of control over him his father mrs. Harvey with whom he lived they were both dead it was mayhem because he could do whatever he liked and he did Bryant had in fact inherited an estate worth millions of dollars but this didn't answer the questions now being raised on how he managed to get hold of the guns in the first place as far as I'm aware Bryant bought one of his weapons through a classified ad another one he bought from a dealer who had a shop about two blocks away no one knew that he had these weapons Bryant had bought an array of semi-automatic weapons with ease no questions asked he held no licence or authorization for them his trail of devastation had ended the lives of 35 people and caused horrific injuries to 23 victims the number of people left affected by his crime would be too high to count days after the mass shooting the country was trying to come to terms with their loss it shocked the nation it shocked the world but it really shocked Tasmania and you know people were just numb I think for for days weeks and months after I got a message from John Major the British prime minister he recalled that the massacre in Dunblane in Scotland claimed 27 lives and John said he never imagined that within a few weeks the number killed there would be exceeded in Australia it was a tragedy that as the days went by it unnerved the country nobody could believe that something of this magnitude had happened in Australia these are the sort of things that happen in other companies they don't happen in Australia what thought Arthur did was to bring home the fact that there were gaps in the gun laws the Prime Minister at the time John Howard made quick decisive actions to alter the legislation that was in place on guns the magnitude of the tragedy in Port Arthur provided the momentum for change to occur the law as it stood meant automatic and semi-automatic weapons were readily available and legal to citizens across Australia with certain laws and licensing and ownership in place I looked at that character and I suppose I had to think why was it so easy for you to harm so many people relatively insignificant character simple minded but just had access to weapons that allowed him to do a heck of a lot of damage in a very short period of time the laws were reasonably strict but obviously they weren't too strict enough by the following month the government had made the biggest change in their weapons policy to date bringing in the National Firearms agreement the agreement was that we'd have a nationwide ban on automatic and semi-automatic weapons and we have strict rules about how you looked after the guns that you're entitled to have and then we said we'll to make it work we've got to have a buyback and that was part of it and I said that the federal government would fund the buyback and we bought back 750,000 guns I take my hat off to John Howard for doing what he did for having the guts to stand up to the gun lobby and as far as I'm concerned now it ought to be a hell of a lot tougher to own a gun the timing was certainly right after Port Arthur it was the right right seems to do though the way they approached it then they gained a huge amount of support for it it has been successful we've had since that legislation if you define a mass murder or homicide as more than five killed in the same incident we're not had any since then as people tried to rebuild their lives and readjust to the new gun laws the fate of the man who wrecked so many lives was being sealed he wasn't mentally ill in the usual sense he was fit to stand trial he understood that he was charged and and with 35 counts of murder and sundry other things at that stage when I met him interviewed him at the the prison he was still denying his involvement we wanted to ensure that the police case or the Crown's case was so so compelling and without flaw that we could successfully convict this individual for every murder that he committed he didn't change his mind until basically right at the end of the trial he suddenly decided to plead guilty Martin Bryan's plea of guilty was accepted for all of the charges and the Supreme Court of the day ordered 35 life sentences and his papers were marked never to be released [Music] Martin Bryant was remanded in Risdon prison Tasmania where he will spend the rest of his days but despite the heartache caused some people were intent on questioning whether he was the actual killer while people came in afterwards and a few of those people for whatever motivation came up with a different story they reckon either was Teegarden and right and Bryan didn't do it and the government set him up and all this crap that was put out it's all out of bullshit because it was nothing like that and I always hear us in the middle of it and I know exactly what happened and I don't know where these stories originated and how they get going it's just a lot of rubbish you know [Music] a poignant memorial now stands at the site where the Broad Arrow Cafe once was a fitting tribute to all those affected by the tragedy on the 28th of April 1996 the memorial gardens designed for people to go there reflect to think about things spend their own bit of time the the Bryant massacre just adds another layer the Port Arthur it's horrible it's awful but it's not something to keep people away I can't help but think the best way to remember it is to recall the fact that out of this terrible tragedy that country moved forward in gun control and you can't remember the good without remembering the tragedy these things are part of our history and there's no point in trying to we're brushing paid across from now is no longer the Peter crosswalk 15 seconds before Brian started shooting he's a totally different person and he's a better person and I convinced myself that was the case so I moved forward in life with Port Arthur massacre and veil she's in here we can in here in the story we can't just bury us pretend it didn't happen and didn't exist I say and those people deserve more the victims deserve more the survivors deserve more the families deserve more it is part of Australian history and I think we need to treat it as such [Music] you

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Channel: Crimes That Shook Australia

Views: 352,414

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Keywords: Official, Crimes that Shook Australia, Season, Australia, Full, Reality, Tragic, Episode, Crime, Tragedy, Documentary, Murder

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Length: 46min 21sec (2781 seconds)

Published: Mon May 16 2016

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