10 Red Flags You're Living With a Dangerous Man

**Meshel Laurie** (0:03)
This is Australian True Crime with Meshel Laurie, and I have two special guests to help us kick off this week. Producers Matthew Tankard and Ruby Bartzis.

**Ruby Bartzis** (0:11)
Hello.

**Meshel Laurie** (0:11)
Guys, we are here because we're sort of in between two guests who are related.

**Matthew Tankard** (0:17)
Yes.

**Meshel Laurie** (0:18)
Last week we had Pete Bates on, and this week we have his misses, Belinda Bates.
These two met, I'm going to say they met at work, except one of them wasn't allowed to go home at the end of the day, and that's because the workplace was a prison. Pete was a prisoner, he was serving time for murder, and Belinda was a guard, a prison guard, and she was there as part of a addiction unit.

**Matthew Tankard** (0:42)
Yes.

**Meshel Laurie** (0:42)
Pete was a mentor because by that stage he had overcome addiction in prison. It's a great story. He front-foots it.
He is a guy who says, yes, I committed a murder at 19 It was the worst thing anyone could possibly do, and I feel sorry.

**Matthew Tankard** (0:57)
He was in a brawl, right?

**Meshel Laurie** (0:59)
Yes, he was in a brawl.
Go back and let him explain to you what happened. Obviously, we're not excusing it. He's not excusing it. But what he has chosen to do with his life now, he and his wife Belinda, is to advocate for people in domestic and family violence situations. Because Pete himself grew up in a very violent household. One of the things he does is he writes these books, short books, short manuals that you can find on his website. They're either free or very, very cheap. This one caught our eye.

**Ruby Bartzis** (1:31)
This one is free.

**Meshel Laurie** (1:32)
I think it's incredibly valuable. It's 10 Red Flags. What's it called?

**Ruby Bartzis** (1:36)
10 Red Flags, You're Living With a Dangerous Man.

**Meshel Laurie** (1:39)
I mean, we in Australia have had a hideous couple of weeks in terms of violence, intimate partner violence against women.
So what better time to talk about this? Because I always say, the first thing I always think of is who's next week's victim. We know roughly a woman a week ordinarily dies in Australia at the hands of a partner or a previous partner. Who's next week's lady? Does she know she's at risk? Well, this is the kind of thing that maybe can help people understand when they're at risk and maybe avoid it, avoid the risk. The first red flag, Ruby, Normal Things Now Feel Dangerous.

**Ruby Bartzis** (2:14)
Yeah. So Pete writes this as like the basic needs now require his approval. So not Pete's approval, the-

**Meshel Laurie** (2:22)
The man in your life.

**Ruby Bartzis** (2:23)
The man in your life. And then it just breaks it down to like eating, resting, speaking, leaving the house, seeing people. These are the basic needs that don't feel simple anymore.

**Matthew Tankard** (2:32)
I remember Pete saying growing up that his dad would look at the odometer on the car. And so if his mom would go to the shops to go pick up some groceries, he would then look at it and be like, did she add an extra K? Did she go elsewhere? Like that kind of surveillance.

**Meshel Laurie** (2:48)
Yeah. He knew how far away it was. And I mean, God, these days with phones and, you know, there's lots of ways to track a loved one. Normal things now feel dangerous. Do you feel like, oh no, I'm going to be late home. This is going to be a drama or, oh no, if he finds out my friend came over, things like that.

**Ruby Bartzis** (3:04)
Yeah.

**Meshel Laurie** (3:05)
You shrink to stay safe. What does that mean? That's flag number two.

**Ruby Bartzis** (3:09)
Your voice gets smaller, you speak less, you change your tone, you stop bringing things up. And he says this is not because you're naturally quiet, but it's because your body already knows the cost of setting him off.

**Meshel Laurie** (3:20)
Yeah.
We get to another one of similar to that later on down the list too, where he talks about subtle signs your body's giving you, which I think is really interesting. Flag number three, the rules change daily.

**Ruby Bartzis** (3:31)
So like what was fine yesterday is now a big problem today.

**Meshel Laurie** (3:35)
Flag number four, silence is weaponized.

**Ruby Bartzis** (3:37)
So this one, they say he does not need to yell to punish you.

**Meshel Laurie** (3:41)
Oh God. It's making me feel, it's making me squirm in my seat these. Yeah. Just thinking about them.