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Tough Nuts: July 29

Tough Nuts looks at Frederick ‘Chow’ Hayes, a convicted double murderer who was sentenced to hang in 1952.

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Episode Two of Tough Nuts: Australia’s Hardest Criminals airs tonight, delving in to the life of Frederick ‘Chow’ Hayes, a convicted double murderer who was sentenced to hang in 1952 for the brazen killing of standover man and former boxer, Bobby Lee.

Foxtel’s publicity notes brand Hayes “Australia’s first gangster,” but I’m not sure what Squizzy Taylor would have to say about that. Or even Ned Kelly?

Hayes’ sentence was subsequently reduced to life in prison and he was released from jail in 1978 during the final decade of his life. At the time of his death, Chow had served almost 40 of his 74 years in prison.

Hayes’ criminal career reads like a social history of the Sydney crime world in the 20th century, from the razor gangs of the 1930s, to the post-war booms in sly grogging, brothels and illegal gaming, to the criminal networks founded on drugs.

In his later years, Hayes became a celebrated crime figure: he was the subject of a biography by crime writer David Hickie and also a chilling portrait by artist Bill Leak that was short listed for the Archibald Prize in 1991 – the portrait shows an elderly man who still possessed the eyes of a killer.

Tough Nuts charts the course of Chow’s life, beginning with his formative years as the son of a WWI veteran who was broken by his experience of the bloody conflict. Chow was nine years of age when he first set eyes on his father, who was straight-jacketed in an asylum.

Did this episode fuel Chow Hayes’ murderous rage and his complete lack of regard for humanity that saw him the most dreaded figure in Sydney’s underworld?

Featuring never-before-seen interviews with psychologists, police detectives and investigative journalists as well as dramatised scenes of some of the pivotal moments in Hayes’ life, Tough Nuts delves deep in to the psyche of Frederick Chow Hayes and offers a remarkable insight in to the boy, the man and the criminal.

Presented by bestselling crime author Tara Moss, Tough Nuts is an explosive eight-part series that blows the lid off Australia’s criminal underworld and reveals the real story behind what made and shaped the most notorious figures in Australian criminal history.

It airs Thursday, July 29 at 7.30pm AEST on Crime & Investigation Network.

One Response

  1. Interesting point about Squizzy Taylor, David. The reason Hayes has the title of ‘Australia’s first gangster’ is because he literally copped the title first – on his rap sheet. The term had just been coined in the USA for Al Capone and Lucky Luciano and Hayes was the first Australian to have the term gangster written up on his police record. I think the producers are hoping to profile Squizzy in a future episode, and Kate Leigh or Tilly Devine, too, I hope. It was an interesting time in Australian history.

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