Vivid memories for the ‘hostage six’

Mr Ryall, camp leader John Elliott (father of former Australian Test cricketer Matthew), Phil Downie, Glenda Rogan, Jan Thompson and Valda King spent two hours as hostages of the prisoners on April 19, 1983.

All the while the 64 students remained unaware of the situation unfolding only metres from where they were sleeping.

The 1983 Churinga booklet sparked my memory of the situation and revealed some familiar names, as I was in Year 8 at Kyabram High School at the time.

Among the students who were in 7A, B and C at the time — the classes on camp — were former Kyabram Free Press journalist Kim Mawson, Jason Nagle, David Powell, Brett Cox and two students who shared their memories of the event — Melissa Campbell (now Heywood) and Renee Howell (now Thomson).

About 11pm on the second night of the camp the teachers were sitting in front of the fire in the recreation room when the men barged into the building.

The prison escapees had a sawn-off .22 rifle and knives, and immediately threatened the teachers and told them not to raise the alarm. They then helped themselves to the pantry and stole camping equipment before departing in Mr Ryall’s Holden Jackaroo.

They left the teachers tied up in front of a fire to which they had added wood before leaving, to ensure the high school staff did not get cold.

Prior to the school camp incident the four, all inmates of Pentridge’s maximum security J Division, kept a family hostage for 13 hours in Hurstbridge — the second of their three hostage situations after the escape.

A man, his wife and two children were the second group of victims of the escapees, who had earlier stolen a car at knifepoint from Chadstone and left its owner tied to a power pole.

That Chadstone crime occurred about two hours after their escape and signalled the start of a series of hostage events that continued until they were apprehended soon after dumping Mr Ryall’s car at Merton (less than 200km from the school camp site).

They escaped from Pentridge using detailed layout plans and machinery stolen from the prison workshop.

It was the seventh escape from the jail in a four-month period, but by far the most elaborate.

In a movie-like scenario, the men used a fake backdrop on a stage in the recreation hall to hide their escape plans (shades of Tim Robbins’ character Andy Dufresne in Shawshank Redemption).

They used a hydraulic ram to bend bars away from a ventilation duct in the wall behind the false stage, then climbed into the ceiling and made their way down a 14-metre wall before using a home-made wooden ladder to climb the seven-metre-high bluestone wall.

One of the four who confronted the Kyabram teachers at Axedale was armed robber Peter Kay Morgan. He and his identical twin brother, Douglas, were known as the After-Dark Bandits.

Douglas Morgan was not part of the escape, but among the others were Norman Bloomfield (serving a life sentence for murder) and armed robbers Anthony Burleigh and Trevor Bradley.

A book was later written about the twins, by Herald Sun crime writer Geoff Wilkinson, titled Double Trouble: The Amazing True Story of the After Dark Bandit.

The brothers terrorised banks and TABs from one side of Victoria to the other, robbing 24 of them in a two-year reign as public enemy number one.

It was only after his arrest that police discovered he was also public enemy number two — the bandit was a composite villain, with identical twins Peter and Doug Morgan alternating in the role.

Mr Wilkinson was the man behind Australia’s first Crime Stoppers program and detailed two years of armed robberies by the Morgan brothers — mostly country TABs and banks and always near closing time, before they disappeared into the bush.

The book was launched outside the bank that was robbed on three occasions by the brothers, also the site where they shot a Victorian police officer twice — launching an 18-hour manhunt, which resulted in an arrest.

In an extraordinary twist, one of the Morgan twins, who had just robbed a Heathcote bank, was picked up by Mr Ryall’s mother, Joan, just outside the town. It was later revealed hitch-hiking from robbery sites was a common tactic by the brothers.

The Morgans had robbed the same bank in Heathcote three times.

“Mum unknowingly picked up Morgan and knowing her, would have been asking plenty of questions while she drove to Bendigo,” Mr Ryall said.

“He would have been carrying a bag full of money at the time and my sister (29 at the time) was also in the car.”

Mr Ryall said his mother had later discovered whom she had driven to Bendigo.

In a further hostage-related twist, the 30-year teacher became a close friend and cricket teammate of well-known former Kyabramite Rob Hunter.

“Rob was also involved in a hostage situation, six years earlier (in 1977). He wrote a book called Day 9 at Wooreen,” Mr Ryall said.

Mr Hunter, who later taught at Dawes Rd and is now living at Ocean Grove, was a 20-year-old when he was abducted at gunpoint with nine primary school students from Wooreen State School.

He was the sole staff member of the Gippsland school and was just nine days into his first posting after three years at teachers’ college when a Geelong Prison escapee armed with a handgun and wearing a balaclava with a Collingwood emblem confronted him.

The book, which tells an extraordinary tale of a school hostage situation that expanded to another six people being taken prisoner, was published in 2019.

For Mr Ryall, reading the account of Mr Hunter made him thankful for the calming nature of Mr Elliott — who had pleaded with the four escapees involved in the Axedale hostage situation not to involve the children.

“They were all family men and John appealed to them not to involve the kids,” Mr Ryall said.

“They understood, and despite the kids being only a stone’s throw away they were not aware of what was happening.”

He did explain that Mr Elliott, during the hostage situation, did mention that the teachers could probably overpower these guys.

“John was a fairly big guy and Phil (Downie) was a pretty athletic bloke. That didn’t eventuate,” he said.

Mr Ryall said it was fortunate the teachers were a “fairly calm group”, and by speaking so nicely to their captors the situation remained as convivial as could be expected.

“John spoke very nicely to them. He told them we all had kids and families,” Mr Ryall said.

Mr Ryall said it was the second night of the camp and on the Wednesday the second group of Year 7 students was due to arrive.

That camp was cancelled as a result of the hostage situation.

At the time of the hostage situation Mr Ryall’s wife was pregnant with the couple’s son, Steve.

He said life went on pretty much as normal after the event.

“I remember we were expected back at school the next day and I remember I had to fight with the insurance company to have the vehicle cleaned and repaired,” he said.

The students were informed on Wednesday morning by another teacher, Neil Hindson, who had travelled to Axedale in a mini bus to collect the students.

Mr Elliott and Mr Ryall became public property, featuring on the front pages of the Bendigo Advertiser and The Sun once the media was allowed on site.

Mr Elliott now lives at Bendigo, while Mr Ryall has been in Echuca for the past eight years.

“Valda King is at Port Arlington and we unfortunately lost Phil Downe to pancreatic cancer recently,” Mr Ryall, a former agricultural science and maths teacher, said.

Two of the students on the camp at the time, shared their memories of the hostage situation, Renee Thomson (née Howell) and Melissa Heywood (née Campbell), Ms Heywood a little embarrassed to admit that — at the time — she was more upset about the fact that the teachers’ captors had stolen all the lollies.