Back To The Wall

They are sometimes called maniac factories. The juvenile homes of New South Wales in the 1970s attracted “perverts and sadists” according to the boys who went to Daruk and Mount Penang. What was happening inside and who was invited to visit?

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In the mid 1970s, the so-called heavies or thugs were the people to be avoided: they were the ones who guarded the door at the clubs and who stalked the streets of the Cross. A lot of these guys had something in common: but who were they working for?

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The Royal National Park was hiding a lot of secrets in the 1970s and bodies were turning up, presenting an issue for police. That’s around the time Johnny and others were threatened, “you’ll be buried in the park if you talk”. He was not the only one who was walking around with a lot of information about some of Sydney’s most influential people.

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It’s the 1960’s and there is one place to go if you’re a kid whose home hurts. Kings Cross is where you can go to party and make money. And if you’re invited up the stairs, there is a whole other world waiting in a small club on Kellett Street.

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By the early 1970s Ivan Milat had already been in prison, but he would be spared longtime lockup on two major charges - even after going AWOL in the middle of a trial. What was he doing in those missing years and what was he doing on his visits to Kings Cross?

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Camille Bianchi is a journalist and podcaster who has worked on a number of acclaimed crime series, including The Nurse, Inside the Tribe and Rotten Apple.

Her latest project is a little different.

Introducing Back to the Wall.

Serial killer Ivan Milat’s story is one of the most infamous in Australian history. So why are there still so many unanswered questions about his movements in the lead-up to his arrest in the 1990s?

Could his crimes have been covered up for decades? What was his connection to Kings Cross?

As those questions are examined by a New South Wales inquiry, Back to the Wall returns to the mad, bad old days of Sydney’s red-light district to explore where these claims came from.

Through the eyes of the street kids who were there, we hear about the QCs, the kids who lined “the Wall”, and the friends they never saw again.

History is told by the winners. But what if it wasn’t?

Get the first two episodes of Back to the Wall ad-free and early with an Apple Podcasts subscription from Monday, October 12. 

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