Richard Pusey is neither a killer, rapist or child molester, yet history will regard him as one of Australia’s most despised individuals.
When four police officers were killed on the Monash Freeway on the evening of April 22 last year, Melburnians were gripped in the middle of its first COVID-19 lockdown.
It was a time when news reports were littered with images of ordinary Australians hoarding food and fighting in supermarkets – a nation divided by fear.
Richard Pusey has been dubbed ‘Australia’s most despised man’ after he filmed a dying police officer
Richard Pusey’s Porsche is towed away after the horrific crash that killed four police officers. They had pulled over the speeding Pusey who escaped the wreck after he jumped the fence to urinate
Senior Constable Kevin King (pictured, far left), Constable Glen Humphris (second from left), Leading Senior Constable Lynette Taylor (second from right) and and Constable Josh Prestney (far right) all died in the crash
As the sun rose the following day, so too would a new monster who outraged a community already deep in disgust.
What Pusey did that night has been blanketed across mainstream and social media platforms for the past year as his case moved from courtroom to courtroom.
The mortgage broker had earlier been pulled over for speeding and only avoided being struck by the killer truck because he was urinating off the side of the road.
Senior Constable Kevin King, Constable Glen Humphris, Leading Senior Constable Lynette Taylor and and Constable Josh Prestney all died.
While the man who drove the truck, Mohinder Singh, slipped in and out of court with hardly a headline, Pusey would be rightly paraded by Victoria Police for what he did to those fallen officers in the seconds and minutes after the tragedy.
At Pusey’s filing hearing a detective made a point of reading the entire summary of his offences to the court to benefit ‘accurate reporting’.
‘There you go. Amazing. Absolutely amazing. All I wanted to do was go home and have my sushi,’ Pusey said as he filmed Leading Senior Constable Taylor clinging to life.
‘And now you f**ked my f**king car.’
Victoria Police’s then commissioner Graham Ashton struggled to contain his anger at Pusey’s behaviour.
Richard Pusey would take his mates for a spin around the race track (pictured) in his Porsche. He would also be filmed driving at high speeds in the same car along the highway where four would die arresting him
Pusey during his arrest a day after the fatal crash. A homicide squad detective would go to court and outline to the media exactly what Pusey had done
Pusey would enjoy a short stint of freedom on bail, but was quickly back behind bars after an ugly incident that saw him ranting from the roof of his home
‘If I wasn’t wearing the uniform of Chief Commissioner, I would give you far more colourful language,’ he told reporters.
On Wednesday, Pusey was finally sentenced in the County Court of Victoria.
With time served, he will likely walk free sometime over the next week.
Like every criminal that has sat in the court prison dock a convicted man, Pusey has a story dating back to his formative years.
When Pusey’s name began filtering through to reporters the morning after the crash, news editors across Melbourne mocked their scribes for being sold a pup.
‘Richard. Pusey. Dick Pusey. That was not a real name.’
It was a curse provided by his naive parents at birth and it would turn Pusey into the twisted soul he remains to this very day.
Raised in Frankston, in Melbourne’s southeast, Pusey attended six primary schools as he struggled with bullying mostly associated to his birth name.
By the time he was a teenager, Pusey was already broken.
Anyone who knocked his name would promptly have their teeth knocked out.
He would become known among parents in the community as the child with whom to avoid social contact.
To look back at a young Pusey now, parents might feel some pity for the boy.
Despite his perhaps justified rage, Pusey was also a hard worker – something that in the years to come would make him a millionaire.
Mohinder Singh was jailed for more than 20 years for ploughing his truck into the four officers.
Leading Senior Constable Lynette Taylor was still hanging onto life, crushed behind Pusey’s Porsche, when he filmed her on his mobile phone. His commentary would shock and disgust the nation
Richard Pusey will remain behind bars upon his current sentence expiring over allegations he made his wife watch him tie a noose around his own neck during an ugly incident before Christmas (pictured)
Pusey got his first job as a paperboy when he was just 10 years of age.
He worked at takeaway shops in his teens before being employed as a train station assistant where he worked for three years.
After completing a TAFE course in nursing, Pusey worked as a nurse for two full years.
It is hard to imagine.
After completing studies in financial management, Pusey worked successfully as a finance broker for 16 years.
In his element, Pusey was regarded as a hardworking, and perhaps gifted, finance manager.
He could be professional, but scratch the surface and Pusey was still a raging teenager with a chip on his shoulder.
In his own words, Pusey had a history of being ‘hot-headed, impulsive and volatile’.
He admitted to such traits to his own doctor, but would rationalise it even when it was self-evident that his reactions were often excessive and unreasonable.
Here was a tormented soul who would take in abandoned cats and care for them, yet treat people he took a dislike to with extreme prejudice.
Those that have spent time with Pusey say he is generous to his friends and would go out of his way to help them.
He would take them on outings to the race track, where he would legally thrash the very same Porsche that was destroyed on the Monash.
Richard Pusey had a deep hatred for police, and had appeared to have scrawled abuse directed at them underneath the doorbell of his own home
Pusey would soon become the hunted and had death threats painted on his garage door following the tragedy
His friends and family all knew he had issues, with many still standing by him today.
His wife of 12 years continues to support him as do his long-suffering parents.
But Pusey’s underlying mental issues were never going to end well for him.
Long before the Monash crash, Pusey’s life was spiralling out of control.
The death of his brother from cancer in 2008 had hit him hard – his second brother would suicide while he was in jail.
Pusey began using drugs and driving on ordinary roads as if they were race tracks.
By 2018, after a series of violent incidents that saw Pusey charged with stalking and assault, he copped his first taste of jail.
He also lost his finance licence, which forced him to branch into property development.
Pusey spent much of the COVID-19 crisis in a protection unit by himself in the Melbourne Assessment Prison.
He had the money to take on the charge of outraging public decency, but ultimately folded his cards and took his medicine.
Richard Pusey upon his arrest on April 23 last year. He has spent most of his time behind bars in a protection unit
Richard Pusey’s life began to spiral out of control in 2018 when he was jailed and lost his finance licence
Richard Pusey is likely to be released from jail in the coming days and weeks
His expressions of remorse to the families of the fallen officers have fallen on deaf ears.
Free on bail in December, Pusey said he felt for the families of those lost in the crash.
‘I hope they’re coping,’ he said.
While Pusey was sentenced to 10 months in jail, only three of those were for his outrageous behaviour on the Monash Freeway after the crash.
Perhaps more time would have made his apologies seem sincere.
Pusey, for now, remains behind bars while he awaits an assault charge to go through a system he now knows all too well.
He’s accused of forcing his supportive wife to watch him place a noose around his own neck during a meltdown before Christmas last year while he was released briefly on bail.
Pusey will apply for bail again on his current sentence expiring.
Again, the life and times of Richard Pusey will be played out in open court.
And for a little while longer, a nation will look on in quiet disgust.