Home Australia Packed to the Rafters star’s rapist brother went on a crash diet and managed to squeeze through the bars to escape Sydney’s Long Bay jail. Now we can reveal he’s out AGAIN

Packed to the Rafters star’s rapist brother went on a crash diet and managed to squeeze through the bars to escape Sydney’s Long Bay jail. Now we can reveal he’s out AGAIN

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Serial rapist Andrew Cole is seen under arrest at Maroubra Police Station three days after his extraordinary escape from Long Bay Prison via a 'strict diet'. Cole is the brother of Packed To The Rafters actress Denise Roberts, who based the role of Hugh Jackman in Corelli on him.

EXCLUSIVE

The serial rapist brother of TV star Denise Roberts has walked free from jail despite being a high-risk criminal who likes to hurt women and has a potential diagnosis of “sexual sadism.”

Andrew Cole, also known by a variety of names including Robert Cole and Andrew David Robertson, is a convicted rapist and armed robber who made national headlines for going on a crash diet to break through the bars and escape the notorious Long Bay Prison. in Sydney.

He was recaptured three days after his extraordinary escape in January 2006.

Then, aged 36 (and 14kg lighter than the 70kg he weighed when incarcerated), Cole was locked up, again, in maximum security at Silverwater Prison. Cole was finally released from prison in June 2008.

The following month, he committed a serious sexual crime against a woman whose house he broke into at 2:30 in the morning and forced his way into the bedroom of her children, aged four and seven.

This was the last time so far that the sexual predator, who has repeatedly reoffended while on parole, was out of jail.

Serial rapist Andrew Cole is seen under arrest at Maroubra Police Station three days after his extraordinary escape from Long Bay Prison via a ‘strict diet’. Cole is the brother of Packed To The Rafters actress Denise Roberts, who based the role of Hugh Jackman in Corelli on him.

Cole's cell in Long Bay, where he lost 14kg while breaking bricks and then slipped between the bars, leaving prison guards to find a pillow, clothes in laundry bags and socks filled with tissues on his bed to simulate a body.

Cole’s cell in Long Bay, where he lost 14kg while breaking bricks and then slipped between the bars, leaving prison guards to find a pillow, clothes in laundry bags and socks filled with tissues on his bed to simulate a body.

Chilling sexual assault

In what a judge would later describe as “chilling” and a “serious violation,” Cole tightly bound the woman’s wrists, A.C., blindfolded her, and threatened to harm her family if she did not perform a sexual act on him.

According to a NSW Supreme Court ruling, Cole asked AC’s daughter to show him where her parents were and she agreed. AC woke up and heard Mr. Cole say, “Be quiet and you won’t get hurt.”

AC saw Cole standing next to his daughter and holding the family’s pet dog. Cole told the daughter, ‘get on the bed face down.’ Don’t look at me,’ she then demanded money from AC who gave her $30 from her purse.

Mr Cole then tied AC up, covered his mouth with a gag and blindfolded him. Mr Cole threatened AC and said: “Don’t be a hero, you have a young family, you don’t want them to get hurt.”

Andrew Cole is a serial rapist and violent criminal whose prison romance was the basis of movie star Hugh Jackman's breakout role in the television series Corelli, written by Cole's actress sister, Denise Roberts.

Andrew Cole is a serial rapist and violent criminal whose prison romance was the basis of movie star Hugh Jackman’s breakout role in the television series Corelli, written by Cole’s actress sister, Denise Roberts.

AC freed her arms but when she tried to call 911 on her cell phone, he threatened her, tying her up even tighter again, so that when Cole agreed to untie her due to the pain, he couldn’t do it and used scissors.

He kept AC blindfolded and sprayed what smelled like bleach around AC’s house because he didn’t want his DNA to be detected.

He told her that if she did not agree to a blindfolded sexual act, he would “do it with his children,” and then demanded that she remain with him for hours.

Around 6:00 a.m., she asked him to leave, saying she would not call the police. Refusing to leave her children behind, she took him to Hunters Hill and then immediately to a police station.

Cole was sentenced for offenses of taking/detaining to obtain advantage and aggravated sexual assault for a maximum of 14 years expiring on July 30, 2024.

Judge Peter Berman said “it was difficult to imagine a more serious crime.” “There were children present…and (Cole) took advantage of that by threatening them with sexual assault to get the complainant’s cooperation.”

Last year, the state of New South Wales requested that Cole be placed under a three-year extended supervision order upon his release, with strict conditions.

NSW Supreme Court Justice Dina Yehia held hearings to determine whether Cole posed an unacceptable risk to the community of committing a serious crime.

Actress Denise Roberts (above in Packed to the Rafters) wrote and produced the 1995 television series Corelli based on her brother's prison affair with a prison psyche.

Denise Roberts (above in Packed to the Rafters) based Hugh Jackman's role in her TV series Corelli on her convicted criminal brother.

Actress Denise Roberts (left and right in Packed to the Rafters) wrote and produced the 1995 television series Corelli based on the Cole prison affair, starring Hugh Jackman and Deborra-Lee Furness.

His Honor’s judgment noted that Cole and Denise Roberts grew up in Papua New Guinea, had an alcoholic and abusive father and were abandoned by their mother when Cole was young.

He became involved in drug and alcohol abuse, fighting and truancy as a teenager, and after leaving school he worked as a waiter in a bar, on a cattle station, in a hardware store and as a day labourer.

The famous prison relationship

“In the 1990s, the defendant began a relationship with a prison psychologist,” Judge Yehia’s ruling says, and Cole “reported that the psychologist provided him with nude photographs of herself to help him develop more appropriate sexual fantasies.”

“The defendant has a history of inappropriate interaction with female custodial staff, including exposing himself and propositioning female staff.”

Denise Roberts, known for acting in the medical soap opera GP and the series Packed to the Rafters, wrote and produced the 1995 television series Corelli based on Cole’s prison affair with the prison psychologist as a story of love, intrigue , betrayal and murder.

Denise Roberts wrote, produced and starred in Corelli with Hugh Jackman and Deborra-Lee Furness, who married a year after starring in the television series based on Roberts' brother's prison romance.

Denise Roberts wrote, produced and starred in Corelli with Hugh Jackman and Deborra-Lee Furness, who married a year after starring in the television series based on Roberts’ brother’s prison romance.

After meeting in the 1995 series Corelli, Hugh Jackman and Deborra-Lee Furness married, had two children, and then separated in 2024.

After meeting in the 1995 series Corelli, Hugh Jackman and Deborra-Lee Furness married, had two children, and then separated in 2024.

Louisa Correlli (Deborra-Lee Furness) is recruited into an all-male prison where she forms a connection with Kevin Jones (Hugh Jackman), a hardened criminal. Denise Roberts participated in it as prison warden Helen Buckley.

A famous romance broke out between Jackman and Furness. They married in 1996, adopted a son in 2000 and a daughter in 2005, until their highly publicized separation late last year.

Andrew Cole, now 54, has an extensive criminal record since he committed his first sexual offense in 1988, when he grabbed a woman who was walking her dog by the throat at knifepoint at 11:25 p.m.

He asked her if she wanted to be raped, threatened to cut her neck and face and kill her dog, and ran the blade of the knife across her right cheek and forehead before she escaped.

Two months later, while awaiting trial for that assault, he broke into a woman’s car and forced her to drive for nine hours until 6 a.m., then repeatedly raped her and forced her to withdraw $1,500 in cash. cash from a bank.

Arrested days later, he escaped the following year while being taken to Westmead Hospital for treatment, but was recaptured almost immediately.

Robert Cole, as he was known then, lost 14kg and slipped through the bars of Long Bay Prison to achieve one of Australia's most daring escapes.

Robert Cole, as he was known then, lost 14kg and slipped through the bars of Long Bay Prison to achieve one of Australia’s most daring escapes.

He served his sentence six years before his release in December 1994 and during this time he had the relationship that inspired Corelli.

In April 1995, while on parole, he committed three robberies in company, was sentenced to three years, released in 1998, and again while on parole committed armed robberies, using a replica of a black pistol.

Denise Roberts continued to support her brother while he was incarcerated, visiting him at Long Bay Prison Hospital, where the brothers conversed in Tok Pisin, the PNG language they learned in their youth.

On January 18, 2006, he placed a pillow, clothes in laundry bags, and socks stuffed with tissues on his bed to simulate the shape of a body.

He had removed the Perspex pane from his window and had cut a section of the brick wall below the window with a tool while losing weight in the weeks before his escape.

After passing through a small gap between the brick and the iron bars, he climbed onto a roof, scaled a seven-meter-high wall and cut himself through the barbed wire.

At the time, Cole was blonde, with a skull tattoo on his upper left forearm and an Indian tattoo on his right back.

He was arrested on January 21, 2006 at the Oxford Street shopping center in Bondi Junction, in the city’s east, despite an attempt to disguise himself by painting a black goatee on his face with mascara.

Three days after his famous 'crash diet escape', Cole was arrested in Bondi Junction, returned to jail, released again and then committed the chilling rape of a woman in front of her young children.

Three days after his famous ‘crash diet escape’, Cole was arrested in Bondi Junction, returned to jail, released again and then committed the chilling rape of a woman in front of her young children.

Accused of escape, he was released in 2008 and reoffended against AC, a mother of two, eight weeks later, committing the sexual assault that kept him in prison again until last year.

In evaluating Cole for release, a psychiatrist said he had “alcohol, cannabis, stimulant and opioid use disorders, as well as an antisocial personality disorder of which “deception and impulsivity have been chronic features.”

The psychiatrist also “raised the possibility” of a diagnosis of sexual sadism.

A second practitioner said Cole had “a high level of psychopathy and represents a high risk.” It takes a very rigorous approach to managing those conditions, and I think substance abuse is so central to him that if he’s using substances it’s an “act now” situation.

Cole has been released on a December 2024 order with multiple conditions, including wearing an electronic monitoring anklet, not using prohibited drugs, not possessing a weapon or pornographic, violent and classified material.

He must also not change his name from Andrew Cole and must be photographed within a week if he significantly changes his appearance.

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