"Violence flared again in Brighton-Le-Sands," "Cronulla, and Maroubra." "Gangs smash cars and shop fronts along the city's suburban beach strip, leading to the arrests of 11 people." "A member of the so-called Bra Boys surfer group from Maroubra Beach says most residents are sick of the attacks." "Premier Morris lemma insisting the people behind the riots have declared war on society." "Police are licking their wounds after a vicious brawl outside a club at Coogee on the weekend." "44 off-duty officers were hurt in the fight with a notorious beach gang." "A professional surfer has been charged over an underworld murder." "Bloodstained drag marks led police to Mistral Point at Maroubra." "The victim was shot and dumped over a cliff." "Police are of the view that this body was in the water for anything up to four days." "14 kilometers from Sydney Harbour and five beaches south of the world-famous Bondi Beach lies Maroubra Beach, a suburb with a poor history but one of rich characters." "In 1770, after passing through the Pacific Islands," "Captain James Cook sailed into Botany Bay and discovered and unexplored continent of Australia." "As he entered the bay, wild, pounding surf exploded onto the rocks around the entrance, and Cook viewed natives from the local Yorta Tribe swimming and fishing in its waters." "Upon anchoring and landing," "Cook was confronted by two natives and ordered his crew to open fire." "He claimed the unexplored land for England, and the British returned to the same spot" "18 years later to colonize Australia as a jail." "It was a harsh beginning for the first convict inhabitants of modern Australia and for the native Yorta people, whose lands included the nearby beach of Maroubra, a name meaning "place of thunder."" "100 years later, Sydney, as the city became known, saw many of the poor forced to live amongst the persecuted aborigines in the bays and caves around the Maroubra area." "By 1930, dilapidated beach camps around the Maroubra area housed up to 1,000 poor and unemployed families." "To limit the growth of the camps, the government purchased land adjacent to the bays and relocated these poor communities into government housing estates." "Next came the building of the biggest sewage plant in the southern hemisphere, with the beach bordered by a rifle range, and Australia's biggest jail built on top of a hill, which from its hilltop location served as a constant warning to the community below." "Maroubra, with its challenges, saw many of the younger members of the community born into an environment rife with domestic conflict, parental neglect, and drugs." "Over the decades, the beach and the surf has been their savior." "At the core of this story are the Abberton brothers:" "Sunny, Jai, Koby, and their younger brother, Dakota." "Both Sunny and Jai have surfed professionally, while Koby is now regarded as one of the best big-wave surfers in the world." "They, along with their childhood friends, were raised by the beach tribe at Maroubra." "Bra Boys, as the tribe is now known, have grown to be one of the most infamous and recognized surf tribes in the world." "For years, authorities have battled to disperse the beach tribes, but as the centuries passed and the tribe names changed, their culture has survived." "This is their story." "I would honestly say, without a doubt, the most localized surf community I've encountered is Maroubra." "You guys at Maroubra, you ain't nothing but trouble." "No, I don't think we're all bad." "We were just cheeky little grommets, mate, you know?" "You can have a big community that all sort of, you know, kind of hangs out." "These guys all hang out, and they've got each other's backs, no matter what." "You got to have a brain that will allow you to take off on a wave like that, and that's where these guys differ a lot from most every surfers." "He pulled out his knife, and he stabbed me twice." "I lived in a house where my mom was a heroin addict and my mom's boyfriend was a bank robber." "And they didn't really control the house." "Me, Sunny, and Jai pretty much done whatever we wanted to do, went to school on whatever days we wanted to." "And the beach was our life." "That's all we that's all we had, really." "And we didn't have much money." "We ate Corn Flakes and Rice Bubbles every night, which we loved when we were kids." "Home life for me and my brothers was pretty hard." "It was four of us, and we pretty much had to fend for ourselves." "None of us knew our dads." "We grew up with our mom." "Me and Jai have got the same dad." "Koby and Dakota got different dads." "My brothers were definitely my male role models." "They took care of me, you know, took me to the beach every day, and my brothers' older friends and stuff." "There was a hard period that when I left to go on the tour," "I was only 15, and Koby was still very young." "My other younger brother had just been born, so, you know, in one way, you want to succeed through surfing, but on the other hand, it was still very hard leaving your brothers behind to the home life that we were living." "Not only was he a father figure, but he was my hero as to the way he would surf in the contests;" "whereas me and Jai have lived with each other for a long time, so me and Jai would just fight a lot." "But still, it seems to be the person you fight with the most, you loveyou know, you're really close to." "We lived up in the housing commissions, which we were lucky that we lived there in a housing commission near the beach and not a housing commission out in fucking Liverpool or something." "So we lived there, and we used to just go down there." "Our grandmother lived one block from the beach, so we were very lucky to have my grandmother live there, and very happy." "She used to look after us a lot at that early stage." "My grandma Mavis Abberton, who we all called Ma, she had a big house at the beach." "And back in the day, there was a lot of the kids from around the area were from broken homes, and, you know, so she used to let us all leave our stuff there." "You know, we'd sit there in that garage for the five days on end, you know, hanging out at the house and just just swim in the pool, hanging around." "And she'd just take care of us all at all times, make sure we were all all right, every time we ever needed anything, give us whatever we wanted." "Ma's house was like a clubhouse for all theyou know, the Bra Boys." "She was pretty much the grandma to Bra Boys." "If anyone started Bra Boys, it was her." "I've never met another lady like her, who's a lady who could handle little kids running around screaming in the backyard." "We all left our surfboards there." "I hung there for 15-odd years." "So the boys were more kind of just like a family and that." "Maybe they had shit going on at home or something, or maybe, you know, seeing as we weren't as comfortable at home, we said, "Well, I'll just go to the beach every day to be in the water."" "The older crew was Ma's Hell Team in those days." "And they were all just, like, the best surfers, charging the biggest waves, and, you know, doing all the stuff that you want to do when you're a kid, you know, so we looked up to them." "You know, we were young kids;" "we were young hoodlums, and we named our gang after her, you know, Ma's Hell Team." "And then the younger kids named their gang after her." "We started our own little gang called Ma's Madness." "She gave us her house, and that was the headquarters," "Ma's Hell Team headquarters." "Along with Ma being that central figure in their lives, there are also a number of older guys who were to play significant roles in their upbringing, like Steve "Blackie" Wilson," "Brad Johnson," "Larry Blair, and Marty Lee." "But the one who would later have the most dramatic influence on the family's lives was Anthony Hines." "There'd been gangs of different groups of guys coming down and targeting surfers or fighting with surfers since the early 50s or as long as anyone can remember." "But around the early 1990s, the gang violence really started to increase, and we started to get weekly attacks of different gangs coming to the beach to fight surfers." "We'd had a lot of stabbings and a few shootings." "It just became a part of our daily lives, you know." "Just saying, we had to always be ready, because you never knew when it was gonna go down." "There was other gangs around, you know." "At the time, that's when the gang mentality was kind of starting to take off, you know." "And then it was just starting to happen all the time, you know, dances, and, you know, down the beach, or even coming down here and starting to do it." "We justand then you know, and as we grew up and got to go into the pub and stuff, then it started happening there." "Growing up, I mean, we had a lot of crazy things happen, like guns held to ours heads, chased down the street with people shooting at us." "You know, we were in a car one night, and people shot up the car, all sorts of things." "It's good." "It turns us into what we are." "Have you ever been stabbed or shot?" "Yeah, shot." "When we were when I was 14, 15." "I was stabbed there, just on the left arm there." "Not to be a coward and run away." "I had a bat down me pants, and if..." "I only had one of my other boys there with me." "Why'd you have a bat down your pants?" "I don't fucking know." "When we were growing up, there was always homeboys and that, you know, creeping around down the beach." "Always had to be prepared when you walk around by yourself." "Pulled this nice silver gun out of his shoulder holster." "Stuck it right in me chest, and as I backed off and went to grab it, he let it go, and the round ended up going through both me legs." "Bullet, like, entered through that one there and then came out through that one there and then just ended up going straight back into me knee here." "Did the police ask did they ask you to identify the guy?" "Yeah, yeah, yeah, they asked all that." "And did you?" "No, no way in the world, no." "He pulled out his knife, and he stabbed me twice and then went to stab me again but missed." "The knife went in there that's from the operation and once in there." "It felt like I just got winded pretty bad, and then I grabbed me stomach, and I felt a handful of intestines hanging out." "Now that I look back on it, it's the day that I walked in and found my mom shooting up heroin, and then my mom's boyfriend hit me." "Like, I come into the house, and I caught them all in there shooting up heroin." "I said, "Get out of the house,"" "and then my mom's boyfriend jumped up and hit me with a baseball bat, told me to get out of the house, and I went flying down the beach, saying "Sunny."" "And Sunny just gave me a big hug and said," ""Look, you know, we've got our own family of friends."" "And from that day forward, I think it really it made us all realize that, you know, the family life at home can finish at any time, but the boys will never die, you know?" "The boys will always be there for you." "And that's how it felt." "I think, from that day, it started." "In those early '90s, everything seemed to be falling apart." "Koby had just been thrown out of home;" "the gangs were coming down and attacking." "Then, you know, our only real structure was Ma's and Ma's house, but Ma had a stroke, and she was left paralyzed and speechless down one half of her body." "So we knew at that stage that, as a group, to survive and to get through it that we really had to do something." "And we knew that by uniting together that it would be the only way that we could get through it." "And that's how it come about." "Sunny actually said, "Oh, let's all what about the Bra Boys?"" "We were like, "Yeah, the fucking Bra Boys."" "We just came up with a handshake, and it was just like more of, like it's just a brotherhood for us." "The Bra Boy grip is like that." "The Bra Boy grip is like that." "It's pretty much the strongest handshake you can possibly do." "It's in the tat." "And anyone who's a Bra Boy, that's how they shake hands and say hello." ""What's happening?" "What's going on?"" "It's called slappin' it up." "We were just in Ma's garage, just talking about it, and then we're like, "Fuck, we'll just" ""we'll go up, and we should get a tattoo." "We should get a tattoo," you know." "Fuckin', whoever's solid won't be scared to, you know, put their hand up and say," ""Yeah, I'm a fucking Bra Boy," you know." "The next thing, we're all just covered in ink." "Before we knew it, we were like 50 out, you know?" "And then blink again, and there's 100." "You know what I mean?" "Not anyone could just roll up and get a tattoo just because you're a good surfer, you know." "You had to be, like, a standout type of man, you know." "Like, you had to earn your spot;" "that's for sure." "You get a Bra Boys tat just by being with the boys for a good, you know, five or ten years and showing you're worth it." "You know what I mean?" "Showing you're not gonna mess up and getting the older guys to approve it." "There's this responsibility with the brotherhood." "You drop everything and turn up, no matter what it is." "Your boys ring you, you turn up." "It's a brotherhood, but sometimes it gets you know, as we've seen, it gets a little ugly." "You know, it justit turns into tribal warfare, localism, whoa." "Some people have a real bee in their bonnet about localism and stuff, but if you took localism away, the whole thing would just disintegrate." "You're taking away the fact that people are actually proud of where they come from." "You just can't do that." "To have that tight group of guys that you grew up with and, you know, you hang around every day, that'sthat'syou know, that's what Australian surfing's about." "You know, you look at the way the coast is made." "It's broken up into headlands." "Places, there's a long stretch between beaches." "So it's natural." "Surfers have grown up in their tribes." "That's the way it is." "And you always thought of the tribe over the hill as the enemy." "It's the unspoken lore." "And, you know, you can look at the radical cases like the Bra Boys, you know?" "The Bra Boys, man, they live in an urban society." "I mean, they're surrounded by heavy shit." "How do you fight something like that?" "With heavy shit." "The whole reason why it escalated to where it did around here is because we just stood our ground." "You know, and that's what the whole thing was about for us, was standing our ground and not being walked over by anyone, because this was our little place, you know?" "We didn't go out and bother anyone else, so we didn't expect for people to come down and bother us, so..." "Like, we've got this reputation as being troublemakers or instigators in fights." "I'm not saying the boys are angels or you know, or anything like that, but it always seems to happen that way." "We always seem to just be defending, you know?" "The situation at Maroubra was really starting to become news." "The situation at Maroubra was really starting to become news." "The defense of the beach and the formation of the Bra Boys had earned the area a fearsome reputation, which over the next few years would cause a lot of tension with the local police." "This tension finally reached boiling point after one particular incident." "On December 22, 2002, professional surfer and Bra Boy member Mark Matthews celebrated his 21 st birthday with 300 of his mates at the Coogee Randwick RSL." "Some 200 to 300 off-duty officers from the local Waverley Police Station were celebrating Christmas just one floor above." "Police are licking their wounds after a vicious brawl outside a club at Coogee on the weekend." "44 off-duty officers were hurt in the fight with a notorious beach gang." "I didn't know what was going on." "There was just some older people, probably 4040 years old, hassling a few of the younger guys." "Some of those people attempted to gate-crash the police party on a number of occasions and were quite well aware that there were off-duty police officers there." "And we sort of walked over and said," ""Come on, what's going on?"" "And then I seen a few people running behind me and this and that, and then there was this there was a bit of a ruckus, and then it was just on." "Two to three bodies high of people on the ground." "On top of them was like a massive mosh with just punches flying anywhere." "It was the only, really, way we could get out of it was to fight." "There was no other way out of it except just fight your way out of it." "And that's that was the end result." "Spilled out the front door here onto the front street." "All the uniform coppers ended up turning up." "Mate, there was helicopters with floodlights on." "There was paddy wagons." "There was police dogs." "It was justit was one of the most hectic things" "I've ever seen or been involved in." "Fuck." "Eight Bra Boys were arrested on various charges, but all were later found not guilty." "No police were charged." "The affect it had on the community probably just like, just bred more hatred for the police, I think, than there was before, you know?" "Like, they say, likelike, people were getting off without getting convicted, and all the charges were dropped, but it was still costing, like, friends of mine" "$30,000 to go to court, you know?" "They were losing the deposits for their home loans and stuff, like, and they act like we got off scot-free, you know?" "The thing I was dirty on with the papers and everything was, you know, we get labeled a gang;" "we get labeled this;" "we get labeled that." "There wasn't one knife pulled;" "there wasn't one gun pulled." "It was just a good old-fashioned brawl, you know?" "They call us a gang." "They call us all these names." "And, you know, it wasn't a gang." "We're not a gang." "We justit was a fight, and weyou know, we won, and they're all licking their wounds." "That's it." "There's always been tension between the police and the local surf community, but I think after the Coogee Randwick RSL, it seemed to get personal." "It seemed to get personal." "Whether it's been the community's attitude towards the police or the authorities' attitude towards the surfing community, but for over 100 years, there's been a real strong conflict between the surf community and the local authorities." "Surfers were, like, the bottom of the were the scum of the Earth, you know, vermin." "You know, the police really gave them a hard time." "There's no doubt that the media always saw surfers as a easy shot, you know." "Like, they still do, you know?" "Inside Australia, we're still, like the stigma was alive and well." "Outside Australia, it was like, they'd" ""Oh, yeah, those surfers, man, they can ride the big waves." ""They're hardcore." "They charge." "That Australian surf animal is something to be respected."" "Inside Australia, we had to completely continue battle just to hold our head above water in society." "Conflict started as early as colonial times with the banning of city's aborigines swimming in the surf." "When surfers returned in the early 1900s, they were again banned from the hours of 6:00 a.m. To 6:00 p.m., as these hours were thought to be reserved for those in meaningful employment, and not for scoundrels who shamelessly bathed in the surf" "instead of working." "Maroubra's local council were the first in Australia to pass such laws that effectively drew a line in the sand between the establishment and the surfers." "This saw the birth of Australia's first counterculture surf movement." "As surf culture exploded in the '60s, surfers were made to pay to surf." "If you couldn't afford the board registration, you were, in effect, unable to surf." "The surfers' invasion of the beaches was deplored and seen in much the same strain as farmers deplored the invasion of their paddocks by grasshoppers." "But the most ridiculous law to keep them off the beaches was when the authorities made surfers wear skirts while in the surf." "The ludicrous nature of the law required an equally ludicrous response." "Thousands of larrikin surfers turned up to the beach in skirts, bonnets, and bows, and within weeks, the law was dropped." "This is the same larrikin attitude that perhaps is still at the heart of the conflict today." "The Aussie surf culture has always had larrikin characters in it, you know." "I guess, when we were growing up," "I guess, when we were growing up, like, maybe it was different than a lot of beaches, but we didn't have, like, a lot of money, you know?" "Not many of the people did back then, so..." "We would just find stuff to do to keep ourselves entertained, you know, just writing off when there was no waves." "Light yourself up!" "Can I use that, Kobe?" " What?" " Your six-eight." "No, you'll break it." "You've got a six-ten, don't you?" "Dakota, run this back up." "That's your six-eight." "I got my six-eight." "Pushing social boundaries is not really new to the boys." "It's that same carefree, perhaps careless, attitude that sees the boys push the boundaries in the surf." "You know, there's just nothing better than being with your brothers and your friends and all psyching each other up to see who's gonna charge the hardest." "It's how we first came about surfing a break which was supposed to be unsurfable." "In early 2003, we had heard rumors of a wave in Botany Bay which broke right in front of the cliff face, and it only worked on really big swells." "It was just that crazy of wave, and we just used to watch it." "You know, people would call me, like, a wuss and that, but I never really thought of surfing it." "It was just too close to the rocks." "It was a good wave to watch, but I never thought it'd ever get surfed." "And then I saw the fellas and the guys, like Koby and that, riding it." "But those guys are just crazy, so it doesn't surprise me." "The wave's just one headland across from us." "After checking it out, it looked pretty good." "So we named it ours." "Look at this." "Had a big crew of, like, 50 guys on the rocks, just cheering, you know." "Like, fucking everyone hanging out, having lunch, just, like, cheering the boys." "It's just, like, shift after shift." "Like, one surfer would come in." "The other boys are out there going mad." "And then we get back out there, and just all day is just crazy surfing." "Did you get my two?" "Yeah, it was your two." "Bang one off for the boys, eh?" "Bang one off for the boys." "Still got it, eh?" "It was really heavy, because, I mean, we're charging it so hard that everyone was wiping out." "But no one knew how you know, how hard you can push it before you get washed over the rocks." "Fuck off!" "Who's had the best wipeout you've seen out there?" "Without a doubt, Richie Vas, without a doubt." "That kid got just whomped." "It's about the heaviest wipeout I've ever seen in my life." "I was falling, and I fell backwards and twisted around, sort of knocked all the wind out of me, and I hurt me shoulder and I bruised all my ribs." "You know, I got sucked back over and bounced across the reef." "Keep filming." "Oh, my God." "Richie, Richie!" "He's still under." "Richie!" "I was gonna roll around, you know, as me board just jabbed me in the neck." "Chicks dig scars." "Should I show a little more?" "Yeah, go up." "Oh, it'sthat's oh, it'syeah." "Is that the shot?" "Yeah, that's the shot." "Okay, keep your head down." "My mum let me have the day off school so I could come and surf here, yeah." "Good opportunity." "Jess." "Yeah, it was good fun out there." "Is that your first time surfing out?" "No, my second but... there the first time I've got barrels and that." "Yeah." "Fuckin' A, I was nervous." "I was shittin' myself." "Got that drilled, hit the rock, and that." "Touched the bottom." "The boys make it heaps better too, because they psych you up more." "They just got you into it." "It looked just so round and perfect, you know, when I come out." "What about being out here with Koby and the boys, mixing it up?" "Yeah, it's sick being with Koby and that." "They give you the good waves and that, so it's good." "We take the younger guys away on trips and try and push them in the surf because that's exactly what the older guys did for me, Jai, and Koby and our other friends that were growing up." "And without that, we would have never found a life of surfing, so we are trying to pass that back down to the next generation." "Jess comes from a housing commission background, and he is hungry to do good for himself." "I've taken him away on some trips, and he's charged as hard as he possibly could every time." "Yeah, we just watch the swell maps, and if we see a big swell coming," "I just ring up Jess and ring his mum and dad and say," ""Porky, Debbie, we're going here or there." "Jess is coming."" "They say, "No, no, no," and I say, "Yes, yes, yes."" "Every time we go away, Koby's got a rule, like, if you don't charge, you've got to get your own way home." "The whole point of me taking him away on the trips is just letting him have the life that I've had." "There's nothing like it." "You can earn massive money and do something you love." "I picked him because he's respectful and he wants to do it." "He doesn't sit back and, you know, run off our reputations." "He wants to make his own name for himself." "The only reason I do go on trips with Koby is because I'm focused, and he has already told me that if I play up that he won't take me away." "Because Koby is paying for me to take me away and that, and I don't want to let him down." "Whoa, brother!" "Oh, he stole it!" "The surf has saved so many kids around here, you know, and led them to a lifestyle in the ocean instead of a lifestyle in crime." "Maroubra beach has definitely been moms and dads to so many kids in Maroubra." "I mean, you go down there, and you know you are going to be taken care of." "Any kid can come down there, and in a strange way, Maroubra Beach will take care of you." "I had my doubts." "First of all, I was worried about the drug situations and all the fights and all this, with all this gang talk." "But now I'm not at all, not at all." "I'm not onefrightened, not one bit scared of my son hanging with the boys." "Confident in it." "It's great." "Oh, only when he first started hanging down here." "I didn't really know what to expect." "He was so young, and then there was the grommet treatment." "I would come down, and Joel would be tied up, screaming, "Ma!"" "You know tied to Jessie or something, eating dog poo and things like this." "Or he'd be holed up in a phone box." "And then I got to know everyone, and I have no issues whatsoever." "As Deb said, they treat them with respect, the kids." "They look after them." "And I think his life is down here." "Joel just loves it." "There's always been a sense of mistrust with the police in the area." "There is a lack of communication between the two, and inevitably, some of the younger kids get targeted by the police." "This inevitably leads into them receiving small fines for things like loitering, which can stack up quite heavily, while they are in their mid-teen years." " What happened, boys?" " Busted." "In Australia, the fines are built into the driver's license system." "So by the age of 16, these kids can owe" "$2,000 or $3,000 in fines." "What that means is that they're prevented from getting a driver's license precisely the time that they need one to become a fruitful member of society." "I was only 13 or 14, and I was trying to sell Ecstasy pills." "And a guy put a gun down my throat, and I still didn't give it up." "So I basically put my life in front of those tablets." "Started stealing, breaking into houses and that, just to sort of support my habit type thing." "Started using other drugs, like ecstasy, cocaine, stuff like that." "Stopped surfing, stopped training, stopped football." "I used to play req football and that." "But now it's just all gone downhill sort of thing." "And then ended up in juvi, juvenile justice center sort of thing." "And when you're in there, you get locked down in a cage six hours a day." "Was there a message from the older guys down here at the beach?" "Yeah, there was." "Can't smoke." "Don't take drugs." "Just surf, just, you know, train, get fit." "Did they think you were going to end in jail?" "Lots of them said that to me, yeah." "Lots of the boys said, "Watch out,"" "you know, "You're gonna" ""you're only gonna go one place," you know." "A few of the boys had already been there;" "you know, they'd done that." "And you get back out into the community, it's sort of like it's sort of likeyou know, it's justit's just weird." "And it's like you don't fit in sort of thing, you know, because you are used to being inside and that." "And it's just not the way to be, man." "It's no life to live at all." "How old are you now?" "I'm only 15, just turned 15." "There has always been a fork in the road for youth growing up in Maroubra." "It's no different for today's generation." "They can either choose a path to glory through the ocean or a path to destruction and fall off the rails." "All dressed in black, black, black." "With silver buttons, buttons, buttons all down her back, back, back." "Being a local member of the community for over 30 years," "I saw a lot of the older crew who got into crime end up in Long Bay Jail, which was practically in our backyards, in particular, a violent standover character by the name of Anthony Hines, who I knew from his early teenage years." "Hinesy ended serving five years for rape." "After Tony served his time, he triggered a series of devastating events that would change the course of the lives of the Abberton family, who I also knew since they were kids." "Hinesy was always dark." "There was always something dark and brooding about Tony." "And he was okay to talk to one-on-one, but he was just on another planet as far as, he's in the community but not really part of it." "He had his own thing happening in his head, and it certainly wasn't to do good by people." "Tony Hines had something in his mind about Jai and two other blokes having slept with his girlfriend." "Out of the three guys that Hines had this obsession with he wanted to get revenge one of the guys is now dead;" "another guy has been bashed within an inch of his life and his sanity, he was that batted around the head by Hines." "And thirdly, Jai was the next guy in line." "That seemed to be Hines' plan." "What you got to realize was," "Tony was a really good friend of mine since a young age, you know?" "For me, I was feeling that such a good close friend put me in a situation like that." "Hinesy just followed them up to this girl's car and told Jai to get in the back." "The girl drove off with Hines in the front seat." "Hines pulled a gun, put it behind his head, and whispered to Jai, "We're gonna do this."" "What Jai knew Hines meant by "we're going to do this"" "was to rape that girl in the car." "Gun came out." "Jai just acted instinctively, grabbed the gun." "It went off as they were grappling with the gun." "Jai just said he shut his eyes and just kept that trigger squeezed." "Bloodstained drag marks led police to Mistral Point at Maroubra." "20 meters below the cliff, they found the naked body of 37-year-old standover man Tony Hines." "Koby's older brother Jai Abberton has been charged with the murder." "When we first found out about Jai getting arrested after the murder, we just didn't know how to act." "You know, it was just that uncertainty of what to do next." "You know, what now?" "How is this going to affect our lives?" "And will our lives ever be the same again?" "Six months into Jai's incarceration," "Koby was arrested by police for refusing to assist with the investigation." "He was charged with accessory to murder after the fact, hindering a police investigation, and attempting to pervert the course of justice." "When Koby was arrested as well, I think it just put it made me feel totally just numb." "You know, like, it was incomprehensible to maybe lose two brothers to a prison cell for the rest of their lives." "But I think it was it made the whole community feel numb, the whole extended family, you know." "Koby faces the Supreme Court and is granted bail just days before an international surfing contest at Maroubra beach." "When Koby was released three days before the pro contest and he drew Kelly Slater in his first heat, the whole atmosphere, the whole tension on the beach, it was just it was electrifying, you know." "Here was his chance to say "You want to have a go at me?" ""You want to take my livelihood away?" ""You want to lock me behind bars?" "Well, give it your best shot."" "The sponsors tried to pull his wild card." "His own sponsors threatened to dump him." "But he was at his home beach, in front of all of his friends and the people who mattered, surfing against the world champion." "This was it." "This was game on." "Who's going to win?" "Kelly or Koby?" "Koby." "Kelly or Koby?" "Koby!" "Good on you, mate." "Good luck." "I had a funny feeling when I came down for the Snickers contest, because I don't remember exactly what people were saying, but it was just, you know, like," ""Koby is gonna kick your ass," and all this stuff." "Andand, you know, I'm almost turned around, going," ""Yeah, well, fuck you too," you know." "And Koby is just, like, laughing." "But at the same time, he's kind of serious, because he wants to beat me in the heat." "And it was just a funny little scene." "When he won and came down to the water, the whole beach surged forward and just formed a big tunnel for him." "And it was just it was amazing, you know." "He'd done it." "With his back up against the wall, he was representing him and the whole family and the whole beach against the world's best." "And it was amazing." "It was amazing." "Koby beat me in that first heat we had." "And then the next day, or maybe that afternoon," "I was surfing, and somebody left a note on my car." "It said, "Koby is going to kick your ass again tomorrow,"" "and, you know, "Fucking beat it, Slater,"" "or something like that." "And I just thought it was so funny." "I was facing 15 years in jail if I was found guilty." "I was facing 15 years in jail if I was found guilty." "I'm just ringing up to see how that swell is in Tahiti." "I just thought, "Fuck it." ""In between all these court appearances," ""I'm going to go and surf the biggest waves I can, the biggest waves in the world."" "I took Mark with me, and we surfed some of the maddest waves ever." "When Koby was going through this court, and him and Mark were just all over the globe surfing crazy waves, that's definitely when he shone, and it shows through all the covers he got." "It's not because he was going through court." "It was because he surfing crazy waves and stepping up above everyone else." "And him and Mark were sort of just going at it, you know." "I mean, like, hammer and tong, everywhere they went, they just got the best shots." "Me and Mark, a good rivalry." "It's dangerous, but it's good." "Mate, no one stepped it up more than Koby, you know." "He was like, "This is it." ""I'm gonna go out with a bang." ""I'm going to throw it all on the line just in case I never get the chance to do it again."" "And after his performance at Jaws," "Koby teamed up with big wave legend Laird Hamilton, who would go on to tow him into one of the biggest barrels ever ridden in Fiji." "Koby had his thing going." "It was his birthday." ""It's your birthday;" "today's your birthday."" "You know, and he was like he was gonna get his present." "So he got his present." "I was glad to be the fortunate one to be able to give it to him." "I enjoyed it." "It was nice." "And I had a front row." "I was looking straight in the barrel at him." "And it's funny;" "I listen to Koby talk, and he thinks a lot like I think." "When you get to meet people like that, those are the people you want to spend some time with." "So when he opened up, you know, an invitation to me to come Down Under and do some surfing with him and, you know, his boys, I was," ""I'm going to take him up on it."" "The period that me and Mark were chasing those really big waves," "I've been waiting for that my whole life." "And it was really fulfilling." "It was a shame that I had so much bad stuff going on in my life, because I really didn't get to appreciate it." "That was the best one all day." " Huh?" " That was the best one all day." "100% of the times whenever I was in court, there was a big swell." "And I would just be sitting in court, wouldn't even be watching the judge, just going," ""The waves are pumping." "I've got to get out of here."" "Just throw my hat in, you know, walk out the door, and get on the next flight to wherever I had to be." "People don't understand that when I'm in court thinking about these big waves, that's what I do." "That's my job." "You know, I'm not thinking about going surfing." "I'm thinking about going and doing my job and getting paid and supporting my family and doing what I do." "Koby was so angry and frustrated and had all this stress on his mind." "And when he got in the surf, he was just, you know, that kind of "fuck it" attitude." "You know what I mean?" "Like, he would just put all that anger and aggression and all that frustration into his surfing." "Koby leaves Tahiti with his final court appearance in less than 24 hours." "How do you think that will affect the surf community if Koby does go to jail tomorrow?" "Fuck." "It'll really suck." "It'll affect you know, I mean, hopefully it doesn't happen, but if it does, you know, we're just gonna lose one of, you know, surfing's biggest psycho charging pioneers." "You know what I mean?" "Definitely one of the heaviest guys to come out of Australia and one of the heaviest guys in the world." "And one of the heaviest guys in the world." "My last day in court." "So this afternoon, I'll either be in jail or be a free man." "We'll see how it goes." "I'll be happy just to get on with my life again, start trying to do good things for my family, make money and buy houses and, you know, sell them and get my little brother a good education" "and help out the family with money, because before this, we were doing really good, better than my family had ever gone." "It's okay." "Koby will receive a maximum of 15 years behind bars if found guilty." "Yeah, brother." "All right, Koby." "Congratulations, man." "How do you feel, Koby?" "Feel good." "Well, what happened today was, the Crown prosecutor has formally withdrawn the charge of accessory to murder." "And he did that on the basis that they felt that they just couldn't win that charge." "There simply wasn't the evidence there." "And what's left are some what are known as backup charges." "There is a backup charge of pervert the course of justice and also hinder police." "And I think what will happen in the fullness of time is that they'll probably go away as well." "But we won't know that for about another four or five weeks." "Guess what." "I got off court today." "Beat all the charges, Ma." "Not guilty." "I'm a free man, Ma." "Are you happy?" "Thrown out of court." "We went to court today." "Threw it out." "How good's that, eh?" "No jail for your favorite grandson, eh?" "Good relief, eh?" "One down, Ma." "We got one down." "One to go." "Jai's six-week trial is nearing an end." "He has already spent 20 months in jail." "I got off the accessory to murder charge, which is a really big charge." "But then I was still really worried about Jai, because he had a 30-year sentence, you know?" "The last thing I wanted to do was to see Jai go to jail for the rest of his life." "Everyone was stoked and really happy." "It's like sort of one chapter is over, but it was kind of still in the thick of the book." "So we've still got a lot to go through." "Did Tony Hines threaten to rape your girlfriend?" "It was a bad situation to be put in, you know." "But I'm not going to sit here and run Tony down and say, "Oh, he's done this,"" "because it's a fine line between telling the story and telling on someone." "The only person I the only people" "I had to tell the story to was the jury." "The jury knows the story." "I don't have to explain the story to anyone else." "Tony had a lengthy criminal record," "Tony had a lengthy criminal record, including entries for violent sexual assaults and other serious violent acts on totally innocent people." "He was a very complex character." "He could be charming, and that was part of his danger." "Through his charm and his intelligence, he could put himself in positions that would make the people who were around him in serious danger without realizing it." "Just nervous." "Jai is really feeling the pressure after." "It's been a four-week trial." "He's lost 10 kilos during the during the trial." "So, you know, we're just really feeling for him and anxious on a result." "Obviously, a good result, but... pretty much got a feeling that we want it to be over, you know?" "We're just praying that justice is served, and Jai's gotJai's got a not guilty verdict." "It's just being away from your loved ones, being away from the ocean, you know." "All the young kids and that out there, you know, like, "they never will go there" kind of thing, like, for uswe're surfers and for any kids out there." "This was always going to be difficult." "The circumstances of the events themselves painted a poor picture." "But it was important for us to be able to get out the facts that are behind the events that happened." "Oh, mind fuck, that stressed." "I'm going to make phone calls to people to say looks like we're going to get one today." "How long you reckon it might be?" "I don't know, mate." "It's just fucking..." "It's just too much to bear right now, you know, to think about exactly what could happen either way." "You know, he could either be free or facing, you know, a long time in jail." "So it's just" "Fuck, it's just" "Don't worry about it, all right?" "Since I was a kid, I've never been apart from Koby." "Since Koby was born, like, the most I've ever been apart from Koby is maybe four months when he went on a holiday." "You know, three months he'd only usually go for so that I was never really apart from Koby." "So I'd see Sunny because he was coming out, and I'd see the boys would come out, so it was good, you know?" "But I'd miss Koby a lot, you know?" "From when we were kids, you know, we were always in the same house." "We were always together." "You know what I mean?" "Even though he was rumbling me every day and bashing me up, mucking around every day, it was still just me and Jai, you know, when Sunny was traveling." "When Jai went to jail, I wasinside me was aching." "I wanted to be with him so much, but you don't have to see someone to love them." "You know what I mean?" "And that person doesn't have to see you to know that you love them." "We had like ayou know, that's all I'm saying, that we knew that it doesn't matter." "Nothing can break us apart." "Seeing my grandmother too, you know, that was one of my worst fears." "You know, like, would this outcome happen before my grandmother passed away, you know?" "Would my grandmother get to see what really happened and stuff, you know?" "Silver buttons, buttons, buttons all down her back, back, back." "How are you feeling, Jai?" "Tell us how it feels to be free." "I'm on top of the world." "Have you been holding that cross for that whole time?" "I always had faith in God, always." "So those moments in that car, it must have been horrific for you." "No comment now, guys." "The family will be issuing a statement tomorrow." "This juryl mean, unheard-of scenes, as far as I am aware." "They stayed and hugged and kissed him after they delivered the verdict." "And if my recollection is correct, they even whispered in his ear that they were so proud that he had been as brave as he was." "I got a call, and I picked up the phone." "And I'm like, "Who's this?" He's like, "It's Jai."" "And I'm like, "What?"" "He said, "Yeah, well, I'm standing out in the front of the court house."" "He just started screaming his head off." "It was probably the happiest day of my life." "I could not believe it." "Well, I'd be surprised if any other lawyers or any other person who's had to go through the legal system as an accused has put on a party like the Bra Boys put on for us that night." "Here comes the legal team!" "Tunnel!" "The party was one of the most moving moments of my life." "They formed a guard of honor for us." "They cheered and shouted our names." "There were women and children there, all people from the community." "And it just really made me feel fantastic to have been able to do something like that for a person like Jai." "I thank God to this day, you know, that my grandmother got to be happy, you know, and my grandmother got to see me get cleared and see that." "And, yeah, it's the best thing in the world." "Now, the jury also had the alternative of finding him guilty of manslaughter if they thought that Abberton didn't think that the shooting was reasonable." "Instead, the jury let him walk away a free man." "I always knew that I'd be back in the water, you know?" "But I just didn't know whether the jury were gonna see it for what it was." "It was good to be back." "Had all my brothers there with me." "It was probably one of the best times in my life, just sitting back and being free again and kick back, surfing;" "it was good." "Tell you the truth, I never thought it would happen, so it's the best thing ever." "I used to fall asleep crying thinking about him, you know, not being able to surf with him again." "So you can see how happy he is too, so it's mad." "Every time I spoke to Jai when he was in trouble," "I didn't speak to him much, but he just really said to me," ""This is what we're going to do, Koby." ""We're going to charge big waves from now on." "That's our lives."" "So as soon as he got out, that's what we did." "We went and just charged big waves." "We got ourselves ready with a couple of little trips that just happened to be the heaviest waves in Australia anyway." "But we were pretty much getting ready for the grand final, which was Cyclops, which is renowned as the heaviest wave in Australia and probably the only wave in Australia that scares me." "We'd seen the wave and were starting to plan it." "And there was a massive swell came that we really had no idea where to go, no idea where it was;" "no one did." "We don't know if we go that way into it and right to there." "But then we don't want to go there." "We want to get to there, so if we're in between" "Face it like that." "That's how it is." " Yeah, we know." " The point is up there." "So when we couldn't go any further with four-wheel drives, we launched the skis, just went exploring." "And after about an hour and a half..." "Hey, there's full-on seals on the island, big albino dolphins." "It's hectic out there, bra." "We found this wave about 2 kilometers out in the ocean, just huge and just going..." "It's the sort of place where you take the wrong wave regardless of who you are you know, Kelly Slater, Andy Irons, Koby Abberton." "You take the wrong wave, and you're going to eat it." "And when you eat it there, it's probably about the worst place you could wipe out in the world." "I can't describe it much but saying it's barely surfable, you know." "And that's giving it a compliment." "It's just so heavy and thick and big and shallow and dangerous." "There's not much more a wave could be that's any heavier or more dangerous." "I mean, that coastline is really known for its sharks, white pointers in particular." "There are some beaches not far from there where there's four or five tombstones on the beach for people that have been eaten." "Cyclops is so scary because it's six hours from the hospital, a four-hour car ride and two-hour jet ski ride." "So if you hurt yourself properly, you're in a lot of trouble." "Through natural selection, there is only going to be a handful of guys that are going to be able to do it anyway." "You've generally got to be a pretty red-hot surfer to start with to be able to ride this stuff." "But probably the other thing is the mental aptitude." "You've got to have a brain that will allow you to take off on a wave like that, and that's where these guys differ a lot from most every surfers." "One of these things with these trips, that there is a lot at risk a lot of the time." "And when Koby cut himself on the third wave, sliced two veins in his arm, and we're in shark-infested water, we basically had to make the decision, you know." "Do we pack up and go?" "Or do we at least try and do what we came here to do, which is surf on one of the most dangerous waves in Australia, so..." "There's gonna be fuckin' ten great whites here in five seconds, bra." "Who cares?" "Let's go." "The whole water was just burlied up with blood." "We didn't see any sharks, but they were definitely there." "We hadthe wave was so shallow and so dangerous that you couldn't wear a leash to your board, because that would drag you over onto the rocks and then over onto the reef." "He's in trouble, man." "Oh, you got that." "All right." "Beef's got the first aid kit, but we'll get a towel around that now, mate." "No, don't, bra." "The best part of our lifestyle is that adrenaline part of it, you know." "Where it is an adventure, you are part putting yourself on the line." "That's how we do in the desert." "Nah, pretty good trip." "Yeah, it's good just to be surfing with my brother and my good mates." "It's just good to be back here surfing with the boys." "Bringing that up." "The boys were all just happy to be back together doing what they love." "But just when they were feeling on top of the world, they received a phone call from home which would again devastate them." "It's just sad to see such a lady who gave everything she gave us a house, the backyard, the pool." "There's a full clubhouse out the back." "You know, it was a lady who just opened the door to justyou know, just struggling kids." "That was a big heart-wrenching thing for us to see, that for Ma to die while Jai or Koby was in jail, you know, almost would have been like she'd failed." "So..." "Yeah, it was just it was just so important for Jai and Koby to be cleared, you know, before she passed away." "Ma played a big role in our lives, and after she passed away, we realized how much of an influence she was on us." "One of the many things she did teach us was not to judge people by how much money they had or by their skin color but by the type of person they were." "Perhaps it was Ma's wisdom that would prepare us for yet another dramatic turn in our beach community." "December 2005, nearby Cronulla Beach exploded onto newspapers around the world courtesy of a shameful exchange between the local surf community and Sydney's Lebanese community." "Claim back the beach!" "Claim back the beach!" "Claim back the beach!" "Claim back the beach!" "With police moving in to enforce a lockdown of Cronulla, convoys of youth from Sydney's inner suburbs staged retaliatory attacks on the surf community." "Yeah, as a matter of urgency, could all the St. George Highway Patrol OSC cars deploy to Maroubra ASAP, please?" "I think we might need some help here." "Maroubra Beach, although not part of the incident at Cronulla, was the target." "With word of the reprisal attacks circulating around the beach, the Bra Boys gathered to defend the area." "We only had a couple of minutes to prepare for the attack." "We started getting calls that there was 150 armed men heading our way, smashing everything in their paths." "They just ran down the hill, a whole bunch of them, you know." "Frog got to 'em first and said," ""Fuckin' take it easy, guys,"" "and they just fuckin' batted him down." "He just went straight at 'em." "He was the first guy to reach the whole fucking... the whole gang." "Next followed up, was a wave of the fucking jujitsu party." "Sunny and that, came up behind him." "By the time they got there, fucking Frog was gettin' pumped." "Fuckin' what?" "Hundred of 'em?" "Mate." "Fuckin'... nothin'." "And then it just got into a running race, you know?" "They took off up the hill." "The boys chase after them, caught up with a couple of them, and then, you know, they pretty much drove off." "But fuck, they left a path of destruction." "The following day, with sensational media reporting about a race war between Anglo-Australians and Lebanese-Australians, the Bra Boys used their association with migrant communities to work behind the scenes to help broker a peace deal between the warring factions." "Maroubra has had a very good relationship with the local Lebanese community here for around ten years." "We're calling for calm on the beaches." "And we've never, ever backed these things against the Lebanese community, never." "We never have, and we never will." "Is it true the Bra Boys were involved in protecting the police last night?" "We don't protect police, full stop." "It was a defining moment for the Bra Boys, so often criticized for their antisocial behavior and running battle with authorities." "There was some confusion about their role as peacemaker." "We called for peace in the race riots because, number one, we had nothing to do with what happened at Cronulla." "Number two, we've got one of the most multicultural beaches in Australia." "And number three, if one of the kids from here were killed, it would have spiraled out of control, and it would have been very hard to stop." "But, you know, the ironic thing was that half of people who defended the beach that night were ethnic, and three of them couldn't even speak English." "We think the beach belongs to everyone, but when people go to a beach, any beach around the world, they need to realize that there might be a whole history and a culture there spanning for generations," "and that should be respected." "After a three-year roller-coaster ordeal, the Abberton brothers and the rest of the Bra Boys are back together where they belong." "And as time goes on and the tribe names change, the ocean will continue to give solace to the youth of the place of thunder, and the next generations will fight to keep its culture alive." " Aboriginal." " Australian." " Cook Islands." " Lebanese." "Half Australian, and half-Samoan." "Half Italian, half Australian." "Half Aboriginal, half Danish." "Half Australian, half Rotuman." " Brazilian." " Australian." " Half Australian, half Czech." " Chilean." "Half Australian, half Nigerian." "Half Australian, half Chinese." "Australian, mate." "Who knows?" "Maroubra?" "Thank you!" "I'm glad you fucking came to Maroubra!"