Sadly the true crime shelves in most bookshops are inhabited by paperbacks of dubious quality containing cliche-ridden chapters on reheated topics. I should know as I have written many of them.
And so when yet another book package landed on the Naked City desk (why don't we get free wine?) it was opened with a distinct lack of enthusiasm.
![Christopher Binse in police custody after his two-day siege at Keilor in 2012.](/web/20160829122748im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/i/w/c/k/l/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gr0qor.png/1472272561146.jpg)
Inside was Mayhem – The Strange and Savage Saga of Christopher 'Badne$$' Binse, by Matthew Thompson. This sparked our interest as Binse is one of Australia's most interesting and dangerous crooks – an intelligent and charismatic character whose life has been wasted behind bars.
He is the last of the old school bank robbers and one of Australia's most prolific escapers. He is also living proof that hard jail time has little to do with rehabilitation and just spits out the seriously unhinged into society.
![Binse is one of Australia's most prolific prison escapers.](/web/20160829122748im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/n/4/i/5/m/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gr0qor.png/1472272561146.jpg)
Binse is one of those crooks that makes you wonder whether he was born bad or was twisted by a brutal upbringing that would leave anyone with psychological scars.
His mother Annette recalls in the book that in the supermarket, "I turn around and here's Chris, aged four, stuffing a Little Golden Book under his shirt. I smacked him. You wouldn't think a four-year-old would think like that would you?"
Binse says that from the age of around nine he started to study the routines of bank guards delivering cash. "From that time on I dreamt of robbing them."
Little wonder as he was brought up in a family where violence and crime were normalised. His father, Steve, beat his mother and was an opportunistic thief who demagnetised Binse's moral compass.
![Julian Knight, left, being taken away by police after the Hoddle Street shooting.](/web/20160829122748im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/z/s/a/n/h/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gr0qor.png/1472272561146.jpg)
"My dad at an early age encouraged me into petty theft from work sites. He was a subcontractor carpenter, and would have me keep cocky when he ventured into the garages of those jobs he was at, and lift items." Yet his younger brother Barry didn't become a crook, despite living with the domestic violence.
Binse was an uncontrollable juvenile delinquent, so much so his mother made him a ward of the state when he was 13, a move her son would never forgive. "At this tender age I was subjected to bashings by staff in the Warrawong punishment block. They told us kids that the bashings were deter us from coming back to the section."
![Julian Knight in 1986, age 18.](/web/20160829122748im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/1/0/4/j/o/b/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gr0qor.png/1472272561146.jpg)
By 17 he was transferred to Pentridge Prison and within weeks he was stabbed by another inmate. From there the die was cast and by the age of 24 he had 96 convictions.
There is probably no inmate in Australia who has done as much hard jail time as the man known as Badness and it only made him worse. He escaped six times, once while under guard using a smuggled gun and made several more unsuccessful attempts. As a result he has spent much of his time in solitary confinement and in the 1990s was shackled hand and foot for up to 23 hours a day.
![In March 2012 Christopher Binse pointed a shotgun at two Armaguard officers outside the Westside Tavern in Laverton and ...](/web/20160829122748im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/p/8/8/b/8/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gr0qor.png/1472272561146.jpg)
As he refused to behave prison authorities used brutal tactics that he says crushed him and left him suicidal. Here is the problem. Binse could not be trusted and so he was locked in solitary, which made him angrier and less controllable.
This is not a humanitarian argument for jail reform but a practical one as when these types are released most are programmed to re-offend. For those who demand longer and tougher sentences they should remember that most are eventually released and if they have been brutalised on the inside then we will pay on the outside.
![Christopher Binse has spent the majority of his adult life behind bars.](/web/20160829122748im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/n/4/e/0/9/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gr0qor.png/1472272561146.jpg)
We should declare Chris is no fan of this column, once writing, "You are a gutter, low-life rodent", adding he would love to see me incarcerated in a cell near him. "A wonderful thought in having you ... on this side of the fence. Real nice."
It should be pointed out this is highly unlikely as while Binse has served more than 30 years in adult jails I am being served a ham and cheese croissant in The Age's groovy cafe.
![Christopher Binse at a press conference in 2005.](/web/20160829122748im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/n/4/e/1/q/image.related.articleLeadNarrow.300x0.gr0qor.png/1472272561146.jpg)
For a man who is remarkably physically tough he is surprisingly thin-skinned. In this book he is offended I suggested he gave himself the Badness nickname, stating he was dubbed thus in his prison division. "There is Good, there is Bad, there is Badder and then there is Badne$$ itself. Me." He then added that I am a "parasitic keyboard jockey". Thank goodness he doesn't host Media Watch.
Just for the record a police intelligence report states: "Badness is believed to be used by Binse as a self-imposed nickname."
Binse loved armed robberies almost as much as he loved taunting police. After one bank stick-up he placed a classified notice in the Herald Sun stating "Badness is back".
He named his Queensland country property Badlands and would send cards with cheery messages such as, "Wish you were here", to the armed robbery squad.
When finally arrested he told detectives he was motivated more by the thrill than the cash. He did the raids, he said, "for the excitement, the rush".
"It's like you on a raid, you're in control, your blood starts rushing, you feel grouse, you're hyped up. F--k the money. It's more than excitement, it's an addiction. "
To him it may have been a game but to the tellers and staff he terrorised, many would suffer lifelong trauma, which illustrates what is missing in the DNA of most criminals – a sense of empathy.
His sporadic time outside of prison was filled with revenge, guns and violence. The most recent in 2012 culminated with stalking an enemy he planned to kill, an old-fashioned stick-up on Armaguard officers that netted $235,000 and finally a dramatic 44-hour siege in East Keilor.
Binse refused to negotiate and so police ended the siege by blowing up half the house with distraction bombs and then tear gassing him. Even then he refused to surrender taking to the street armed with a handgun and wearing a bulletproof vest.
The Special Operations Group, armed with shotguns opened fire leaving Binse believing he was about to die. But the police were using disabling beanbag shots rather than deadly SG projectiles.
After he was shot several times and knocked off his feet, he was arrested and taken to a doctor on scene who found his pulse was a remarkably steady 80. Which means he was stressed less than your average motorist caught in a traffic jam.
Binse wrote to the SOG critiquing their work and asking for a beanbag shot as a memento. The request was denied.
Maximum security prisons are filled with violent men who live in unnatural conditions, which means they invariably fall out and Binse is no exception.
In the book he tells of his failed attempt to kill child killer Derek Ernest Percy (Percy killed Yvonne Tuohy, 12, in 1969 and was suspected of several more murders) when they were inmates in Beechworth Prison.
Binse threw a Molotov cocktail into his cell but it landed on the carpet instead of against the rear concrete wall and failed to explode. Binse also lists his enemies who include Russell Street bomber Craig Minogue and Hoddle Street mass killer Julian Knight.
He says of Knight (who in 1987 killed seven people and wounded a further 19): "He's just a coward, just a weedy little f-----g rat. Shooting f------g innocent people: older people, anyone on the road. And when he came up against the police he shit himself [and] surrendered."
After he punched Knight in Pentridge the two prisoners have been kept apart. Typically, years later Knight tried to exact revenge against Badness and curry favour with others by spreading unsubstantiated rumours Binse was paid $500,000 to turn informer over the 1992 murder of Prue Bird, 13, who was abducted from her Glenroy home.
This says more about Knight than Binse and proves the Hoddle Street killer is not as smart as he thinks, for if in the unlikely event he appears before the parole board such material will be made available to show he remains a risk.
When Binse did actually inform it was to save a life. After converting to Islam (and rejecting Islamic State terrorism) he told prison authorities a fellow inmate planned to take the Barwon Prison governor hostage and behead him.
Having been sentenced to a minimum of 14 years for the armed robbery and siege Binse continued to surprise, choosing to confess to seven armed robberies from 1988, 1989 and 1991 worth $390,000. He told police: "It's all or nothing, seriously. For me to make it right. It's got to be 100 per cent."
And so these are the crimes of Christopher "Badness" Binse, violent, vindictive, funny and twisted who as a career criminal must be judged a failure as he was always getting caught. But you suspect that was always the plan as the hellhole that is maximum security prison has become his security blanket.
While he detests jail and fought for freedom through court appeals or by escaping he barely functions on the outside. For that he must take responsibility, but what we need to examine is can we do better with the next generation of angry men?
Mayhem – The Strange and Savage Saga of Christopher 'Badne$$' Binse. By Matthew Thompson. Macmillan. RRP $34.99.