Tough Nuts 2

Episode Six of TOUGH NUTS 2: AUSTRALIA’S HARDEST CRIMINALS premieres on Thursday, November 24 at 7.30pm AEDT and profiles murderer, drug dealer and kidnapper extortionist DINO DIBRA, also known as ‘The Sunshine Boy’.

Dino Dibra was born in 1975 and grew up in the tough working class suburb of Sunshine, Victoria, where he became lifelong friends with a group of boys, including Benji Veniamin, all who would go on to make their mark on Melbourne’s notorious underworld.

Starting out as a petty criminal, Dino eventually befriended druglord Carl Williams, becoming a high-ranking distributor for him. With the position came wealth and influence and Dibra deluded himself into believing he would one day control the Melbourne underworld.

Dibra was fearless to the point of recklessness. He refused to bow to Melbourne crime figure, ‘Mad Charlie’ Hegyalji and waited patiently in his front yard to shoot him dead one night as he returned home.

Dibra, the gangster wannabe, had become the real thing, and rapidly became known for his spontaneous, almost pointless, outbursts of violence.

Dino Dibra was finally murdered by his old schoolmate, Benji Veniamin, outside his home in Sunshine. He was just 25 years old.

Presented by bestselling crime author Tara Moss, this episode of TOUGH NUTS features compelling interviews with psychologists, police detectives and investigative journalists and offers a never-before-seen look at what made Dibra one of Australia’s most notorious – and tragic – underworld identities.

TOUGH NUTS 2 is produced by Bryan Cockerill at The Full Box and is exclusive to Crime & Investigation Network.

The 8 x 1 hour episodes profile the following criminals: Nikolai Radev, Stan Smith, Ray Denning, Tilly Devine, Jockey Smith, Stewart John Regan, Dino Dibra and George Freeman.

Thursday, October 27 at 7.30pm on CRIME & INVESTIGATION NETWORK

Tough Nuts: Australia’s Hardest Criminals returns with Season 2. Presented by bestselling crime author, Tara Moss, this explosive explosive eight part series blows the lid off Australia eight part series blows the lid off Australia s’s criminal underworld and reveals the real story behind what made criminal underworld and reveals the real story behind what made and shaped the most notorious figures in Australian criminal history. This world premiere series features the real stories of the complex and violent relationships between Australia’s most infamous criminals.

Featuring never before seen interviews with psychologists, police detectives, investigative journalists, former criminals and friends and associates of the men in question, combined with cinematic dramatised scenes of pivotal points in the criminals lives, Tough Nuts exposes the facts behind the fiction and offers a revealing and often shocking insight into what these criminals were really like.

Jockey Smith was one of Australia’s most prolific armed robbers, who shot first and asked questions later. He was a master of disguise, whose one-man crime spree encompassed an audacious prison-break and cold-blooded murder.

Actress Toni Pearen makes a welcome return to the small screen with her dramatic turn as Australia’s first lady of crime, Tilly Devine, in the next episode of TOUGH NUTS 2: AUSTRALIA’S HARDEST CRIMINALS, premiering on Thursday, September 29 at 7.30pm AEST on CI Network.

Episode four of the hit documentary series will expose the true facts behind the fiction and delve deeply in to the colourful life of Tilly Devine, from her birth in England right through to her death in Sydney in 1970, offering a revealing and often shocking insight in to what made Tilly become one of Australia’s most vicious underworld identities.

Presented by bestselling crime author Tara Moss, this episode combines compelling interviews with psychologists, police detectives and investigative journalists – and Pearen is almost unrecognisable as she transforms herself in to Tilly Devine in a series of remarkable dramatised scenes.

Born in 1900, Tilly Devine was Australia’s most notorious female underworld figure – a drug dealing brothel madam and a criminal sociopath who violently clawed her way to the top of Sydney’s sex trade with a razor in her hand, establishing a criminal empire that spanned right across the mean streets of Sydney.

Growing up as a child prostitute in London, Tilly met Jim Devine, an Australian soldier, during World War One. After moving to Australia and spending five years working the streets of Sydney, she and her husband began building a network of brothels around the Palmer Street area of Woolloomooloo in inner city Sydney.

As gang members reached for their cut-throat razors in gang fights, which proliferated in the 1920s, Tilly did the same, slashing the face of any man who got in her way. Her propensity for violence and impulsive bursts of rage never left her and Tilly remained in a sea of explosive anger until the day of her death in 1970.

Tilly survived two World Wars and the Great Depression and became incredibly wealthy from the proceeds of her sex and drug empire. Like the gangster Al Capone, Tilly’s empire collapsed when she was exposed by the tax office and handed a fine of 20,000 pounds.

Tilly was forced to liquidate everything and lost her empire overnight. By the time of her death in 1970, Tilly had become an embarrassment – an historical anomaly, a ghastly monster of a past that the people of Sydney no longer cared to dwell upon.

TOUGH NUTS 2 is produced by Bryan Cockerill at The Full Box and is exclusive to Crime & Investigation Network.

The 8 x 1 hour episodes profile the following criminals: Nikolai Radev, Stan Smith, Ray Denning, Tilly Devine, Jockey Smith, Stewart John Regan, Dino Dibra and George Freeman.

Thursday August 25 at 7.30pm on Crime & Investigation Network

Tough Nuts: Australia’s Hardest Criminals returns with series 2. Presented by bestselling crime author, Tara Moss, this explosive eight part series blows the lid off Australia’s criminal under nder orld and re eals the real stor behind hat made and shaped the most notorio s fig res in A stralian criminal world and reveals the real story behind what made and shaped the most notorious figures in Australian criminal history. This world premiere series features the real stories of the complex and violent relationships between Australia’s most infamous criminals.

Featuring never before seen interviews with psychologists, police detectives, investigative journalists, former criminals and friends and associates of the men in question, combined with cinematic dramatised scenes of pivotal points in the criminals criminals lives, lives, Tough Tough Nuts Nuts exposes exposes the facts behind the fiction and offers a revealing and often shocking insight into the facts behind the fiction and offers a revealing and often shocking insight into what these criminals were really like.

Episode 3 explores Ray Denning’s life of crime. Ray’s criminal career began at the age of 15. He continued breaking the law by stealing cars, taking place in an armed robbery, malicious wounding and would later escape Grafton high security prison.

Episode Three of TOUGH NUTS 2: AUSTRALIA’S HARDEST CRIMINALS, premieres on Thursday, August 25 at 7.30pm AEST and profiles brutal killer, armed robber, prison escapologist and prison reform campaigner, RAY DENNING.

Ray Denning was a man who spent his whole life running – running from the law and running from his own tortured life.

A serial escapologist, armed robber, heart-breaker and killer, Denning would spend a large portion of his life institutionalised, with few moments of freedom that were often filled with the brutal fury of armed robbery. His claim to fame in the criminal fraternity would come not just come from his crimes however, but from his Houdini-like nature to escape prisons, making him one of Australia’s most wanted criminals.

Born in the steel town of Port Kembla, south of Sydney, on April 8, 1951, Denning was the son of Jack ‘The Hat’ Denning, a thief who, for most of Denning’s childhood, was in and out of prison.

In 1961 at the age of ten, Denning witnessed his first death, that of his mother, who after years of domestic abuse committed suicide in their family home by setting herself on fire. This was to prove a catastrophic moment in Denning’s life as he went on to spend his teenage years in and out of reformatory schools and on the streets, eventually drifting in to a life of crime in the 1970s and 80s.

By the age of 18, Denning had graduated to the brutal world of armed robbery.

Caught by police and sentenced to 13 years in prison, Denning tried to escape from Parramatta Jail. During the escape attempt, Denning bashed a prison guard almost to death with a claw hammer. 

Sent on to Grafton Jail, one of the toughest prisons in Australia, Denning became the only man in history to escape from its walls. After his escape, he fled to Sydney where he became an unlikely crusader and poster boy for prison rights.

Denning was a serial escapologist, who broke out of Maitland and Goulburn Prisons, and spent over two decades in prison or on the run, before stunning police and criminals alike when he became a police informer.

After he was caught planning a robbery in Melbourne while on the run again, he stunned the prison fraternity by turning police informer. He dobbed on his old partner Russell “Mad Dog” Cox and later turned on every criminal he had ever had dealings with.

Denning was finally released from prison in 1993. He only lasted a few weeks on the outside, dying from a heroin overdose that some close to Denning believe was actually murder.

Presented by bestselling crime author Tara Moss, TOUGH NUTS 2 combines compelling interviews with psychologists, police detectives, investigative journalists and associates of the criminals profiled – and brings the characters to life in cinematic-style dramatised scenes.

Each episode delves deeply in to the psyche of these terrifying crims, offering a revealing and often shocking insight in the lives of some of this country’s most vicious underworld identities.

The 8 x 1 hour episodes profile the following criminals: Nikolai Radev, Stan Smith, Ray Denning, Tilly Devine, Jockey Smith, Stewart John Regan, Dino Dibra and George Freeman.

TOUGH NUTS 2 is produced by Bryan Cockerill at The Full Box and is exclusive to Crime & Investigation Network.