{"id":145,"date":"2016-03-28T22:26:00","date_gmt":"2016-03-28T22:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/diane.eklund.abolins.net\/blog\/index.php\/2016\/03\/28\/kidnapped-the-crime-that-shocked-the-nation-by-mark-tedeschi-australia-2015\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T14:38:33","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T04:38:33","slug":"kidnapped-the-crime-that-shocked-the-nation-by-mark-tedeschi-australia-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/diane.eklund.abolins.net\/blog\/kidnapped-the-crime-that-shocked-the-nation-by-mark-tedeschi-australia-2015\/","title":{"rendered":"Kidnapped: The Crime that Shocked the Nation by Mark Tedeschi, Australia, 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I <\/span>was a teenager when Graeme Thorne was kidnapped <\/span>for ransom (his parents had won the Opera House lottery)<\/span>, but I still remember the <\/span>horrifying <\/span>effect it had on the whole country, <\/span>and w<\/span>hen I saw th<\/span>at a <\/span>book <\/span>had been published on the topic<\/span> I was <\/span>naturally <\/span>drawn to it. <\/span>The kidnapping by Stephen Bradley, and subsequent events, <\/span>was in many ways the crime that propelled Australia into the brutal world of greed and violence, which unfortunately has become so much the norm for societies everywhere. <\/span>Up until the kidnapping, Australians, on the whole, trusted and respected each other; houses were often left unlocked, and, when not at school, children spent their days <\/span>beyond the limitations of parental control, often<\/span>exploring. No one worried about them, because there was no reason to worry. After Graeme Thorne things <\/span>slowly <\/span>began to change. The kidnapping <\/span>became a line between innocence and the loss of innocence.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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<\/a>Mark Tedeschi QC was also a child at the time of the kidnapping and <\/span>was obviously affected by the crime. His book, written with the added perception of his many years in the field of law, is <\/span>balanced, well presented, well researched, <\/span>well written<\/span> and, at all times, <\/span>interesting. <\/span>He goes to <\/span>great <\/span>lengths (both <\/span>in <\/span>the Preface and in the chapter entitled Hypotheses and Syntheses) to explain that there are certain aspects of Stephen Bradley’s story that no one can possibly know for certain and <\/span>that <\/span>he <\/span>therefore based<\/span> Bradley’s motivation and thought processes on what he managed to learn about the perpetrator, together with his own years of experience in dealing with the criminal mind.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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There will be many readers of <\/span>Kidnapped <\/i>who, like myself, <\/span>kn<\/span>o<\/span>w the main points of the story before opening the first page, <\/span>and yet<\/span> I would imagine that <\/span>Tedeschi manages to sustain both <\/span>their <\/span>interest and <\/span>their feelings of <\/span>suspense. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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A book I would recommend, especially to anyone who <\/span>lived through those weeks when the kidnapping was front-page news <\/span>but also for anyone interested in what it is that can motivate an ordinary person to commit a heinous crime<\/span>.<\/span>As Tedeschi writes at the end of the book: ‘Murder for greed is essentially a crime born of an abject fear of nothingness’.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Photo of Graeme’s parents from\u00a0<\/span> <\/span>www.news.com.au<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n
Photo of Stephen Bradley from <\/span>www.dailytelegraph.com.au<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n
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I was a teenager when Graeme Thorne was kidnapped for ransom (his parents had won the Opera House lottery), but I still remember the horrifying effect it had on the whole country, and when I saw that a book had been published on the topic I was naturally drawn to it. The kidnapping by Stephen … <\/p>\n

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