I identified him in an Identi-kit in the newspaper

I was living in a little duplex flat in Beldridge, Perth, Western Australia in Tasman Way in 2004. Living next door was an odd couple. She was an Aussie with Italian descent and he was Thai. He had natural black hair but he had dyed it dark red and he had a goatee, also dark red. He looked like Fu Man Chu at a gay Mardi Gras. I cannot remember his name but we will call him Bruce. His wife was a tall, solid brunette with wavy mid length hair and was a typical Italian beauty. Mary was bubbly, forthright and friendly she was also careful not to get too close, Italians are like that. I was working full time in a concrete plant making railroad sleepers. Mary was a student, she was studying psychology I think, she would have made a good school teacher, too pretty and friendly to be a psychologist, by the way I don’t like psychologists, they are too sneaky.

Mary would say gidday to me either as I left or came home from work, but that was about it, we had had a few short casual conversations but we kept to ourselves. Bruce was a smoker and quite often he would stand out the front fagging while I worked on my car or watered the garden. He was a talkative little bugger and I didn’t trust him. There was something oddly deceptive about him, I am a good judge of character, except when it comes to partners and this bloke was off somehow, I could just sense it.

Bruce drove a little four cylinder car which he always parked in the driveway out the front and one day he turned up in this Hi-Lux mini-van. Bruce tells me that he crashed his car and he had to borrow the mini-van off Mary’s Dad. Now I was a graphic designer all my life, and took a lot of notice of Bruce’s borrowed van because it had design decals on it. On the front driver’s door was a green Kangaroo about 50 centimetres high, leading from the Kangaroo along the entire length of the van was a thick yellow and green stripe. This van was to be Bruce’s undoing as well as a lot of bad luck, he was living next to a very observant fellow in the form of my good self.

Bruce had told me that he was a printer ribbon salesman, very boring stuff, as a matter of fact Bruce was so boring I cannot remember anything else he told me, all mundane stuff really, when you have lived the life I have you need to be telling me some seriously exciting shit for me to take notice. We were both living our dreary existence, Bruce selling ribbons and me making concrete railway sleepers but one day that changed.

I was reading the local community newspaper when I came across a page three article about a teenage girl who had been abducted, she was dragged into a white van kicking and screaming and had managed to escape, the perpetrator had then approached another young girl and done the same thing for the same result.

 There was an identi-kit picture of this bloke and bugger me it looked a whole lot like Bruce next door. Not only that, but the offences occurred less than two streets away, about a kilometre in distance on Hoddle Drive, Heathridge. They had a picture of a white van too and it was just like Bruce’s except it didn’t have the kangaroo and stripes. I took the article to the people across the road and the neighbours on the other side of me and asked them if they thought it looked like Bruce, they all said that Bruce was too nice to try and rape a young girl, I wasn’t convinced but didn’t want to look like a dummy in front of the cops and Bruce if I got it wrong, after all I had to live next door to him.

Imagine the embarrassment, “excuse me Bruce, we’re the police, the nice man next door told us you might be a kiddy fiddler come rapist”. And I can just imagine Bruce replying, “No officer at the time in question I was at driving underprivileged family’s home in my van after being at a  disabled children’s function raising money, so that a kid with cancer can go to Disneyland before he dies”.

For these reasons, I did nothing until the following week when there was another article in the paper on the same crime but this time they add that they are looking for a van with a green kangaroo on it. I was eating my tea and nearly choked on my t-bone. Why didn’t I ignore all the straight-back punters who said it wasn’t him and follow my instincts. I went tearing down the police station and spoke to Detective Wayne Davies. I gave him all the information I knew and with that they arrested him.

 A few months later it all went to court. The police put me up in a nice hotel room for a couple of days with all meals and expenses paid, care of Her Majesty. When I arrived in the foyer of the Fremantle court the detectives were with the young girls whom Bruce had tried to abduct and their mother’s but I was not allowed contact with them. The girls were to give evidence along with me.

The Asian offender Bruce pleaded not guilty and when I gave evidence against him his lawyer produced a picture of the van involved in the attempted abductions. The picture was supplied by Bruce’s Father in Law, Mary’s Father, and had been photo-shopped. The driver’s side door now had an advertising sign on it mentioning something about Computer Printer ribbons. Big fucking mistake! I am a graphic designer with a sound and complete knowledge of the programs and methods used to photo-shop photos. I was very familiar with the process and could tell a doctored photo.

I was able to give expert evidence attesting to the fact that the photo was forged. Bruce’s Father in law testified that the sign was always on the van door. In giving my evidence I was careful, adamant and solid, and the defending lawyer, Bruce’s lawyer could not shake me on anything.  He had stupidly introduced evidence that proved Bruce’s father in law had attempted to pervert the course of justice and perjured himself and this is what he was charged with at a later date. Two birds killed with one stone!

 Bruce in the end was found guilty and got five years. When he did his time he was to be deported back to Thailand. Bruce’s Father in Law was found guilty also after being charged with perjury and perverting the course of justice. He too got five years and was deported back to Italy.