The story of a life behind bars

Updated

Bobby Veen is a double murderer who has spent 40 of his 60 years in jail. He was released from prison last year after being diagnosed with cancer.

Bobby Veen is one of the Stolen Generations. He was taken from his family in Bourke when he was a baby and put in an orphanage in Sydney.

His real surname is Vincent, but he uses the name of the family who fostered him when he was about two.

It was the start of a short, happy chapter of his life.

Ben and Betty Veen of Albury had seen an ad in the paper looking for homes for Aboriginal children.

Mr Veen had moved to Australia from the Netherlands after World War II and he and Betty already had three young children of their own; Mary Ann, Bernice and Peter.

They were not overly rich or religious, but felt fortunate and wanted to share what they had.

After adopting Bobby they also took in Heather, another Aboriginal baby.

The adoption of the two "foundlings" made headlines, with local newspapers reporting: "Mr Veen, a 'new' Australian, wanted to do something for an 'old' Australian."

Bobby loved his new family.

"I was welcomed in there like any new kid. I took over Pete's toys, I put them in my cot. I can remember all that," he said.

"They were a beautiful family and I was raised up good. My father was stern, strict. My mother used to take us to church every Sunday."



Bernice remembers the arrival of her new brother well.

"I have a very vivid picture of Dad bringing him inside. He was carrying him and standing in the hallway," she said.

"Rob was instantly part of the family. We didn't use terms like "foster" or anything else, just brother-sister."

Bobby has good memories of those early years too; playing sport, learning to read and write and not really feeling any different to his white brothers and sisters.

The turning point

But when he was 11 years old, Bobby was the victim of a crime that would upend his life.

One afternoon, he was walking home from a football game, when he says he was abducted by three men in a car and molested.

He never told anyone what happened.

After that, Bobby started wagging school, prompting the Aboriginal Protection Board to remove him from the Veen family, and send him for a stint at the notorious Kinchella Boys' Home in Kempsey.

During his eight months at Kinchella, Bobby was abused by staff and older inmates.

"There was a lot of rapes going on in there, especially by the superintendent, he was molesting everybody," he said.

"Other times there were cold showers at 3:00 in the morning. I can vividly remember all those times."

Bernice says when Bobby returned to the Veen family, he wasn't the same.

"When he came back I remember Mum crying and saying how could they do that to a child?" she said.

He had sores on his legs, weeping sores. I think they were malnutrition sores [and] from being beaten.

Becoming a killer

By age 14, Bobby had left the Veens and moved to Sydney, where he started working as a prostitute in Kings Cross.

"I probably had only one meal per week. The rest was drinking alcohol," he said.

In 1975, he committed his first murder.

He was at a party and he says there were two young boys there aged around 11 or 12. They were in their underwear, drinking, and Bobby suspected they were being abused.

"I snapped, I just snapped," he said.

"I told the boys get dressed, piss off."

I sobered like anything and next minute a person walked into the room and that's when I stabbed him.

Bobby was found guilty of manslaughter and ended up serving eight years in jail.

His sister Bernice was devastated.

"I couldn't talk about it without crying for decades. It's difficult, it's a destroyed life," she said.

Just months after his release in 1983 Bobby committed a strikingly similar crime, stabbing another man to death.

Bobby says he recognised the man from his days working the streets of Kings Cross.

"I just stabbed again. I was angry," he said.

This time, he was sentenced to life in prison.

Bobby served in many of New South Wales' prisons, with long stints in Goulburn, Long Bay and Parramatta jail.

At times, especially when he was younger, he thought about taking his life.

But he eventually found ways to pass the time, playing football, listening to classical music, and drawing.

"It's just to beat the boredom in the jail system, so one day I picked up a pencil and started drawing full pages of things," he said.

The drawing symbolises freedom for me, that was my escape from the jail system. Bobby Veen

Bernice says the interest in classical music had a practical use.

"I asked him when he started listening to classical music and he said when he wanted to get rid of people, guys would come into his cell and hang around and he would put on classic radio and he would get rid of them quick smart," she said.

"They couldn't stand it so off they'd go and then he found he liked it."

While in prison, Bobby came into contact with some of his biological relatives and was able to get back in touch with his Aboriginal heritage.

"I started meeting some of my relatives in jail for the very first time, they related to me who I am related to and my other world started coming back, my other spirits," he said.

"I have a connection with my Aboriginal identity now."

Bobby's life sentence was up in 2003 but for 12 years, his requests for parole were refused.

Bernice said no official reason was ever given for why Bobby was kept locked up for so long.

No one wanted to be the one responsible for Bobby Veen, releasing him back into society and then having it happen for a third time.

Bobby's father Ben Veen died in 2011 but Bobby was not allowed to attend the funeral.

The Veen family was devastated.

"The family offered to pay for him to fly and pay the wardens' expenses for accommodation and in the last minute they didn't give permission," Bernice said.

"Just bureaucratic idiocy. An absolute lack of guts ... people in authority are afraid to make decisions."

It wasn't until last year, when doctors found a tumour on Bobby's oesophagus, that he was granted parole. He will stay on parole until he dies.

After spending two thirds of his life in jail, Bobby was released on June 16.

"It's the strangest feeling I've ever had, very daunting, emotional too," he said.

He is living with Bernice, keeping himself occupied with his drawing.

Despite the horror of his life, Bobby says he feels at peace now.

If my cancer comes back, I'm not going to have chemo or radiation anymore I'll just let myself go, go in peace.

But he says he wishes he could have given some advice to the young boy he once was.

"Don't keep it all blocked in. Get somebody that you can really trust and talk about it and get that weight off your shoulders, get that shame off your shoulders, get rid of it," he said.

Topics: law-crime-and-justice, crime, prisons-and-punishment, community-and-society, albury-2640, nsw

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