Free Bali 9: The Untold Story by Madonna King, Cindy Wockner Page A

repairs on her home. He was a good son, even becoming a member of the Salvation Army when he was younger.
    Michael Norman found looking after three young children a full-on task, especially when he was also trying to hold down a full-time job. He took long-service leave for several months, and tried to get to know them all over again. The children were still a few years off becoming teenagers, and they had to learn who their father was again too. Some days were tough; others almost impossible. Matthew could be hesitant, withdrawn sometimes, and didn’t always trust people easily. But other days were action-packed with fun, and as time went on, the fun ones dominated.
    Michael, his two daughters and son would go on family outings and share all the household chores, even the cooking. That was, until his daughters thought his kitchen creations weren’t quite as good as their own, and Michael escaped that task from then on. So did Matthew, who burnt almost everything he set about to cook—none of them really sure whether or not it was intentional.
    Time passed quickly as the children raced through upper primary school and into high school. Matthew never stood out in any bad way. He was a respectful child, built his spare time around the sport he played, and was a fairly accommodating brother to his sisters. After the initial settling-in period, the three children gave Michael only rare moments of worry. Indeed, the pivotal moments in their teenage years proved to Michael that they had been brought up to know whatwas right and what was wrong. And they would never be involved in taking drugs.
    When Matthew was just fourteen, a friend’s mother almost died of a drug overdose. It was a terrible thing for a young teenager to witness, Michael Norman says: ‘Matthew and this other guy saved this woman’s life. That’s where Matthew got introduced to hard drugs, and from that day he’s had nothing to do with drugs.’ Michael’s trust in his son is absolute. He says he can read him like a book, and knows when he is telling the truth. For that reason, the controversy surrounding Matthew’s friendship with Leif Ibrahim, the young man who sold the ecstasy tablet that killed Sydney teenager Danielle Chalon—a revelation outed in the media as Norman sat in his Indonesian jail cell—riles Michael. Sure, he says, his son had struck up a friendship with Ibrahim, whom he had also met several times. That’s what children do at school—mix with other boys. But that friendship died ages ago, he says, with Matthew not having seen Ibrahim for more than eighteen months.
    Matthew and Michael seemed to share a similar relationship to most other fathers and sons, with ups and downs usually generated by household budgets, curfews and meeting family obligations. Michael met many of Matthew’s friends as he passed through his teenage years, eventually moving out to live with friends. But he still had a room in the Quakers Hill home his father shared with his two sisters, and he would pop home at least twice a week. They would all look forward to that.But sometimes that, too, would be a bone of contention, when Matthew would use the home phone to dial up a costly phone bill. Early in 2005 Michael had to chip his son over his phone use. Matthew was spending between $60 and $100 a month, and while he did contribute to the phone bill, he didn’t pay rent for any of the times he crashed there, and that was far too much money being wasted. Michael Norman told him so—all youths need to take responsibility.
    It was another phone call, though, that shook Michael, his ex-wife and their daughters to the core. Michael was out at a first-aid course in Parramatta, in Sydney’s west, when his daughter Cheryl took the call. She gave her father the message late that day, soon after he arrived home: someone from the government was trying to contact him. Michael thought it related to a query over child support. Things relating to custody and children seemed