The Brutal Upbringing that Prepared Susan Norman to be a Prison Guard

Australian True Crime

Meshel Laurie

True Crime

4.6 • 979 Ratings

🗓️ 18 October 2023

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This is a "Shortcut" episode. It’s a shortened version of this week’s more detailed full episode, which is also available on our feed.

Susan grew up in the UK, enduring years of highly abusive relationships at the hands of her mother and her pimp husband.

In her thirties, she moved to Australia and begun working at Brisbane's infamous Boggo Road prison.

At the prison, she handled everything from breaking up fights to initiating new prisoners, drug busts and suicide attempts.

In 1990 she was witness to the murder of Debra Dick committed by the infamous murderer Storm Brooke. This is Australia’s only murder in a women’s prison.

Diagnosed with PTSD, Susan left Boggo Road in 1993.

You can read more about the twists and turns in Susan's life by reading her recent memoir, "The Pimp and The Pork Sausage"

For Support:

Lifeline on 13 11 14

13 YARN on 13 92 76 (24/7 crisis support phone line for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples)

1800RESPECT: 1800 737 732

CREDITS:

Host: Meshel Laurie. You can find her on Instagram

Guest: Susan Norman

Executive Producer/Editor: Matthew Tankard

This episode contains extra content from Chanel 9 News and Channel 7 News

GET IN TOUCH:

Follow the show on Instagram @australiantruecrimepodcast and Facebook

Email the show at [email protected]

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/australiantruecrime.

Become a subscriber to Australian True Crime Plus here: https://plus.acast.com/s/australiantruecrime.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	We're bringing Australian True Crime live to Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne this July,
0:04.3	and I have to tell you that Brisbane sold out already.
0:07.4	Good for you, Brisbane, so we've quickly added a second show.
0:10.3	Now we can't keep adding more shows, so please make sure you get your tickets. Our special guests,
0:15.2	our forensic criminologist Santee Mallet in Brisbane and Sydney and the one and only Charlie Bazzina in
0:19.9	Melbourne. There'll be a Q&A of course so you can ask your own burning questions on the night but you have to book quickly.
0:25.8	This is a true crime podcast as the title suggests.
0:29.1	So please consider this your warning that it's not suitable for children and it probably will
0:33.8	contain content that may be triggering to some people. Also it's an Australian
0:38.4	true crime podcast so Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
0:42.0	listeners should be aware it may contain the voices of deceased people.
0:47.0	The producers of this podcast recognize the traditional owners of the land on which it's recorded.
0:59.0	They pay respect to the Aboriginal elders past, present and those emerging.
1:07.0	Prisoners were coming down and there was a lot of chattering and it just didn't feel right. Then Stormbrook and Amale,
1:17.2	they got the Carling forks and they're stabbing herously, both of them crazy.
1:23.7	I know it was them because I saw them.
1:27.4	If you've ever asked yourself what kind of person makes a great prison guard, then this is the episode for you.
1:37.0	Although you might find the answer unexpected. I know I did.
1:41.0	Like so many before her, Sue Norman arrived in Australia, having barely survived a childhood of cruelty and deprivation in the east end of London.
1:51.0	Her adulthood hasn't been particularly easy either, but none of it has made her an angry or a hard person. It's definitely made her a fascinating person, and I'm so glad she's written a book about her life called The Pimp and the Pork
2:05.0	Sausage, which is available now.
2:08.1	Susan joins us on Australian True Crime to talk about her incredible life so far, which includes witnessing a murder inside Brisbane's
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Meshel Laurie, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Meshel Laurie and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.