| Mark Brandon Read | |
|---|---|
| Born | November 17, 1954 Melbourne, Victoria |
| Alias(es) | Chopper Read |
| Conviction(s) | Armed robbery Assault Kidnapping |
| Spouse | Mary-Ann Hodge (divorced) (1995 - 2001) Margaret Casser |
| Children | tomBold text |
Mark Brandon "Chopper" Read (born November 17, 1954), is an Australian former-criminal, author, and celebrity. Events 284 - Diocletian is proclaimed emperor by his soldiers Year 1954 ( MCMLIV) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1954 Gregorian calendar) For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Australia topics. In the sociological field, crime is the breach of a rule or Law for which some governing authority or force may ultimately prescribe a Punishment An author is defined both as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created A celebrity is a widely-recognized or famous person who commands a high degree of public and media attention Convicted of many crimes including armed robbery, firearm offenses, assault and kidnapping, Read spent a mere 13 months outside prison between the ages of 20 and 38, then went on to become a successful author of crime novels, selling in excess of 500,000 copies of his works. Robbery is the Crime of seizing Property through Violence or Intimidation. A firearm is a Tool that projects either single or multiple Projectiles at high velocity through a controlled explosion Assault is a Crime of Violence against another person. In some Jurisdictions including Australia and New Zealand, In Criminal law, kidnapping is the taking away or Asportation of a person against the person's will usually to hold the person in False imprisonment A prison, penitentiary, or correctional facility is a place in which individuals are physically confined or interned and usually deprived of a range of More recently, he has also found success as a recording artist.
In 2005, Read embarked on a tour of Australia performing a series of shows titled I'm Innocent with Mark "Jacko" Jackson [1] and later toured Sydney in a stage show with a new co-star, former Detective Roger "The Dodger" Rogerson. Year 2005 ( MMV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Mark "Jacko" Jackson, born 30 August 1959 is a former Australian rules footballer who played professionally for several teams including St Kilda, Roger Caleb Rogerson (born January 3, 1941) is a controversial former Detective-Sergeant of the New South Wales Police Force.
Read married Australian Taxation Office employee Mary-Ann Hodge in 1995 while imprisoned in Risdon Prison in Tasmania for the shooting of his friend Sidney Collins. The Australian Taxation Office (ATO is the principal revenue collection agency for the Australian Government. HM Prison Risdon is a prison facility located in Risdon Vale, Tasmania, Australia. Tasmania is an Australian island and state of the same name It is located south of the eastern side of the Continent, being separated from it by Bass The marriage produced one child, Charlie. They later divorced in 2001. Year 2001 ( MMI) was a Common year starting on Monday according to the Gregorian calendar. On January 19, 2003, he married long-time friend Margaret Casser. Events 1419 - Hundred Years' War: Rouen surrenders to Henry V of England completing his reconquest of Normandy. Year 2003 ( MMIII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. They have one son, Roy Brandon.
In 2001, Read was featured in an advertisement on behalf of the Pedestrian Council of Australia warning of the dangers of drunk driving. Driving under the influence of alcohol ( driving while intoxicated, drunk driving, drinking and driving, drink-driving) or other drugs Read is seated at a kitchen table and undoes his shirt, and while pointing to the numerous scars and injuries on his body, says:
| “ | When I was in prison… I got slashed in the face… my ears cut off…. . my eyebrows trimmed and a butcher’s knife here, an icepick here - NOT FUN AT ALL, etc… If you drink and drive and you're unfortunate enough to hit somebody, you ought to pray to God that you don't go to prison. An icepick is a tool used to break-up pick or chip at Ice. It resembles a Scratch awl, but is designed for picking at ice rather than wood | ” |
In 2006, Read featured in another commercial speaking out against violence against women. Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. On March 13, 2006, Read released a rap music album titled Interview with a Madman. Events 1138 - Cardinal Gregorio Conti is elected Antipope as Victor IV, succeeding Anacletus II. Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. Interview with a Madman is an album from infamous Australian criminal Mark Brandon "Chopper" Read. Read also appeared in the 2002 Australian comedy film, Trojan Warrior. Trojan Warrior is a 2002 Australian comedy film starring Stan Longinidis.
Read allowed use of his name to Australia's heaviest alcoholic lager called "Chopper Heavy". Lager (storage camp bearing etc is the more popular of two main types of Beer; the other being Ale. Chopper Heavy 6% Australian Lager is named after Australian ex-con Chopper Read. The beer is produced in Rutherglen, Victoria, a town associated with Australia's most notorious outlaw - Ned Kelly. Beer is the world's oldest and most widely consumed Alcoholic beverage and the third most popular drink overall after water and tea Rutherglen is a small town in north-eastern Victoria Australia, near the Murray River border with New South Wales. Edward "Ned" Kelly (3 June 1855 &ndash 11 November 1880 was an Australian Bushranger, and to some a Folk hero for his defiance of the colonial
He contracted Hepatitis C during his time in prison through using a blood-stained shaver. Hepatitis C is a blood-borne infectious disease that is caused by the Hepatitis C virus ( HCV) affecting the Liver. [2]
Contents |
Read's Criminal Life
Read was born to an ex-army father and a mother who was a devout Seventh-day Adventist. An army (from Latin Armata "act of arming" via Old French armée) in the broadest sense is the land-based Armed forces The Seventh-day Adventist (abbreviated " Adventist " Church is a Christian denomination which is distinguished mainly by its observance He was placed in a children's home for the first 67 months of his life, as his mother was either unwilling or unable to care for him. Read grew up in the Melbourne suburbs of Collingwood, Thomastown, Fitzroy and Preston. Collingwood is an Inner city Suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Thomastown is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It is well known for sharing its area with Westgarthtown, a historical settlement Fitzroy (sometimes referred to as South Fitzroy is an Inner city Suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Preston is a residential and industrial suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, located 10 km north of Melbourne's Central business district He suffered from bullying at school, claiming that by the age of 15 he had been on the "losing end of several hundred fights" and his father, usually on his mother's recommendation, beat him often as a child . Read was made a Ward of the State by the age of 14, and was placed in several mental institutions as a teenager, where he was apparently subjected to both Deep-Sleep and Electroshock therapy. In Law, a ward is someone placed under the protection of a Legal guardian. Deep Sleep Therapy (or Deep Sedation Therapy, DST) was a psychiatric treatment based on the use of Psychiatric drugs to induce a Coma Electroconvulsive therapy ( ECT) also known as electroshock, is a controversial psychiatric treatment in which Seizures are electrically induced
By his mid teens, Read was already an accomplished street fighter, and the leader of the Surrey Road gang, made up of himself, 'Dave the Jew', Cowboy Johnny Harris, Terry the Tank and various other affiliates. Cowboy Johnny was killed in a street fight, protecting Chopper, during this period. Read and Dave The Jew had him cremated and sprinkled his ashes in a local swimming baths after closing time, in accordance with his wishes. Dave the Jew is the only ally from this period of his life who Read does not go into personal detail about in his books, stating only that Dave is a slightly-built, upper-class Jewish man who suffers from several undiagnosed mental conditions, and despite being a ruthless toecutter and murderer, is completely unknown to the police. Chopper remains good friends with him to this day.
Read's criminal career began with the robbing of drug dealers, based in massage parlours in the Prahran area. The illegal drug trade or drug trafficking is a global Black market consisting of the cultivation manufacture distribution and sale of illegal Drugs He later graduated to kidnapping and torturing members of the criminal underworld, often using a blowtorch or bolt cutters to remove the toes of his victims before killing them (Hence the slang term "Toecutter", used for Headhunters).
While in Pentridge prison's H division in the late 70's, Read launched a prison war. HM Prison Pentridge was an Australian prison built in 1850 with the first prisoners arriving in 1851 and located in Coburg, Victoria. His gang, dubbed 'The Overcoat Gang', because they wore long coats all year round to conceal their weapons, were involved in several hundred acts of violence against a larger opposing gang during this period. Around this time, Read had a fellow inmate cut both of his ears off in order to be able to leave H division temporarily. Whilst in his early biographies Read claimed this was to avoid an ambush by other inmates, his later works state that he did so to "Win a bet". Several other members of Read's gang also cut off their own ears in a similar fashion after this incident. Read was ambushed and stabbed by members of his own gang in a sneak attack, when they felt his plan to cripple every other inmate in the entire division and win the gang war in one fell swoop was going too far. Read lost several feet of bowel and intestine in the attack. Ironically, one of the attackers was James Loughlan, a longtime friend of Read's. Read was, at the time, serving a seventeen year sentence after attacking a Judge in an effort to get Loughlan released from prison.
The nickname 'Chopper' was allegedly based on the protective Bulldog from the cartoon series Yakky Doodle, due to Read's habit of protecting the small and innocent from harm. Yakky Doodle is a Fictional character created by Hanna-Barbera Productions. Read once claimed to have served two years for GBH in 1978 after attacking a local pimp and drug pusher who was attempting to force a 13 year old school girl into prostitution, claiming "It was worth it". Inflicting Grievous Bodily Harm (often abbreviated to GBH) is a phrase used in English Criminal law which was introduced in sections 18 and 20
Described variously as witty, charismatic, sadistic, and frightening, Read admits to being involved in the killing of 19 people and a further 11 attempts. The Witty worm is a Computer worm that attacks the firewall and other Computer security products written by a particular company Internet Security The word charisma (origin from the Greek word χάρισμα (kharisma, "gift" or "divine favor" from kharizesthai, "to favor" Many of his associates in the underworld claim that Read is prone to making up numbers to increase his own notoriety and the sales of his books. Read himself has stated on numerous occasions that he would "never let the truth get in the way of a good yarn. "
Bestselling author
Read's first book Chopper: From the Inside was collected from letters he sent while incarcerated in Melbourne's Pentridge Prison. It contains tales and anecdotes of his criminal and prison exploits in 1991. For other uses see Anecdota. For a comparison of anecdote with other kinds of stories see Myth legend fairy tale and fable. Further biographical releases followed in a similar vein. However, with the advent of Chopper 5: Pulp Faction, Read began writing fictional tales based on his experiences of criminal life. Attempts were made to ban a children's book written by Read titled Hooky the Cripple. Hooky the Cripple is a 2002 Novel written by Mark Brandon 'Chopper' Read, illustrated by Adam Cullen published
The 2001 film Chopper, starring Eric Bana as Read, was based on stories from Read's books and independent research, leading to events portrayed on screen which somewhat contradicted Read's version of events. Chopper is a 2000 Australian film written and directed by Andrew Dominik and based on the semi-autobiographical books by Mark Brandon "Chopper" Eric Bana (born Eric Banadinovich; 9 August 1968 is an Australian Film and Television Actor. For instance Read claimed in early books to be vehemently anti-drugs, however the film portrays him as a casual drug user. Chopper stated that "You have to hate something if you have tried it".
Bibliography
- Chopper: From the Inside (1991), ISBN 0-646-06543-2
- Chopper 2: Hits and Memories (1992), ISBN 0-646-10987-1
- Chopper 3: How to Shoot Friends & Influence People (1993), ISBN 0-646-15444-3
- Chopper 1992838553753875: For the Term of His Unnatural Life (1994), ISBN 0646210149
- Chopper 5: Pulp Faction: Revenge of the Rabbit Kisser and Other Jailhouse Stories (1995), ISBN 0-646-25065-5
- Chopper 6: No Tears for a Tough Guy (1996), ISBN 0-646-29637-X
- Chopper 7: The Singing Defective (1997), ISBN 0-646-33923-0
- HI(1998), ISBN 0-9586071-0-9
- Chopper 9: The Final Cut (1999), ISBN 0-9586071-4-1
- Chopper 101⁄2: The Popcorn Gangster (2001), ISBN 0-9579121-0-2
- Hooky the Cripple: The Grim Tale of a Hunchback Who Triumphs (2002), ISBN 1-86403-165-4
- The Adventures of Rumsley Rumsfelt (2003), ISBN 0-9579121-7-X
(ref: [1])
May 02nd 2008 - Eric Bana has agreed to again play the part of Mark Brandon 'Chopper' Read again in the sequel to 'Chopper', the real Chopper Read has also refused to deny reports that he will have a cameo in the film. Hooky the Cripple is a 2002 Novel written by Mark Brandon 'Chopper' Read, illustrated by Adam Cullen published
Discography
- Interview with a Madman (2006)
Public commentary and political views
Read has made public comment about a number of criminal cases, including the Ivan Milat backpacker murder and the Port Arthur massacre. Interview with a Madman is an album from infamous Australian criminal Mark Brandon "Chopper" Read. Ivan Robert Marko Milat (born December 27, 1944 in Guildford New South Wales) is an Australian Serial killer, convicted of the murder The Port Arthur massacre of 28 April 1996 was a killing spree which claimed the lives of 35 people and wounded 37 others mainly at the historic He has frequently appeared on radio and television talk shows to promote his books and discuss his views on many issues. For a short period of time, he also had a column in Ralph magazine. Ralph is a monthly Australian magazine published by ACP Magazines, a division of Publishing and Broadcasting Limited. He also was a regular columnist for the British lad magazine FHM. Lad culture (also Laddish culture and Laddism) is a Subculture commonly associated with Britpop music of the 1990s FHM or For Him Magazine is an international monthly Men's Lifestyle magazine. He currently has a column in Zoo Weekly. ZOO is a weekly lads' mag in the United Kingdom. It was launched on January 29 2004 as the second weekly men's magazine in the UK (the first being the His success in selling tales of his criminal past, and a number of recent attempts by other criminals to do likewise, has prompted widespread calls to amend the Federal Proceeds of Crime Bill (2001) — which confiscates the proceeds of drug deals and robberies — to also apply to indirect proceeds of crime, including book sales, TV appearances, and the like. Read has described his political beliefs as "to the right of Genghis Khan". Genghis Khan ( or;, Chinggis Khaan, ʧiŋgɪs χaːŋ Činggis Qaɣan; 1162–1227 born (meaning "ironworker" was the Mongol founder In his book Chopper 2, he lists American conservative G. Gordon Liddy, of Watergate fame, and Bruce Ruxton, a critic of Australia's immigration policies and leader of the Victorian RSL, as his political heroes. George Gordon Battle Liddy (born November 30, 1930) was the chief operative for the White House Plumbers unit that existed during several years of The Watergate scandals were a series of Political scandals during the presidency of Richard Nixon that resulted in the Indictment of several of Nixon's Bruce Caryle Ruxton AM, OBE (born 6 February 1926) is an Australian ex-serviceman and former President of the Victorian Returned The Returned and Services League of Australia (often abbreviated to RSL) is a support organisation for men and women who have served or are serving in the Australian He also remarks that he makes a certain Neo-Nazi acquaintance (axe murderer Dane Sweetman) look like a "gay commie. The term neo-Nazism refers to post- World War II Political movements Social movements and ideologies seeking to revive Nazism, Communism is a Socioeconomic structure that promotes the establishment of an egalitarian, classless, stateless Society based " He believes in capital punishment for child sex offenders. Capital punishment, the death penalty or execution, is the Killing of a person by judicial process as Punishment.
Cultural references
A character named Chopper Read recently featured in several sketches on The Ronnie Johns Half Hour. The Ronnie Johns Half Hour (full name The Ronnie Johns Good Times Campfire Jamboree Half Hour Show (Now Some of these sketches, such as Harden The Fuck Up! have gained a kind of cult following amongst Chopper fans in Australia and across the world. Chopper was portrayed by Heath Franklin. Heath Franklin is a Sydney -based comedic performer improviser and writer
Acclaimed science fiction author William Gibson based a character (Keith Blackwell) in the final two books of his Bridge trilogy on Mark Brandon "Chopper" Read. William Ford Gibson (born March 17 1948 is an American - Canadian writer who has been called the "noir prophet" of the Cyberpunk subgenre In the second book of the trilogy, Idoru , Gibson wrote in his acknowledgments:
"Anything I know about the toecutting business, I owe to the criminal memoirs of Mark Brandon "Chopper" Read (Chopper from the inside, Sly Ink, Australia, 1991). Idoru redirects here For the Japanese phenomenon see Japanese idol. Mr. Read is a great deal scarier than Blackwell, and has even fewer ears. " [3]
References
- ^ News and Gossip
- ^ I have Hep C, Chopper Read reveals | Herald Sun
- ^ Gibson, W. (1997). Year 1997 ( MCMXCVII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1997 Gregorian calendar Idoru. United Kingdom: Viking Press. ISBN 978-0140241075.
External links
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