Vicki portrayal under fire

Updated November 7 2012 - 12:30am, first published September 12 2008 - 12:04pm
FIGMENT: Jim Hunter is disappointed that Underbelly writers have fictionalised Vicki’s story.
FIGMENT: Jim Hunter is disappointed that Underbelly writers have fictionalised Vicki’s story.

THE truth may never be known about what happened on that notorious Long Gully night in 1999, but Jim Hunter is determined not to let television fiction be Vicki Jacobs’ legacy. Ms Jacobs was murdered in her Wood Street unit while sleeping with her six-year-old son Ben on June 12, 1999, in an unsolved crime that shocked Bendigo.The circumstances of the killing, which was suspected as payback from the Hells Angels for Ms Jacobs turning state’s evidence, has been used for episode three of the controversial television drama Underbelly, which begins this weekend But Eaglehawk resident Mr Hunter, legal guardian of Vicki Jacobs’ son, said the program had unnecessarily taken elements out of her tragic story and embellished it with the sordid interest of Melbourne’s subsequent underworld war.‘‘They took the highlights of Vicki’s true story, changed the names and turned it into fiction,’’ he said.‘‘The truth is the truth, and some of the show is a fantasy, a figment of the imagination of the writers.’’He said the original work on the crime by The Age writer John Silvester - Leadbelly 3 - was accurate but the Channel Nine production created by Screentime had simply plucked out some facts and embellished them to fill in an episode.‘‘They have taken her story and put it in with Williams and all these other characters, which is completely phoney.‘‘And they have made her out to be a hooker, which is the part that perhaps concerns us more than anything else.’’ He said attempts to contact Channel Nine and the writers have met with no response.‘‘They have given no consideration whatsoever for Benjamin, for Vicki’s family or her memory.‘‘And I am extremely disappointed that they could be so insensitive to a young boy who has come out of this, to use this story simply to 'sell' their television station.‘‘The impression that it put out was totally false.‘‘Anyone who knew her here in Bendigo will tell you right away she was working really hard to build her life here.‘‘She was studying computers at La Trobe, she loved it and really wanted to succeed.‘‘She had no boyfriend and was just a great mum working hard to get by.’’Ms Jacobs had come to Bendigo to start a new life with her son, after implicating former husband Gerald Preston and the Hells Angels motorcycle gang in the 1996 contract killing of two men in a car repair shop in Adelaide.Preston accepted a $10,000 contract from a member of the Hells Angels in Melbourne and is serving a 32-year sentence that he began in 1998.Mr Hunter said that in contrast to the sordid scenario that Underbelly created, the decision that cost Ms Jacobs her life was extremely courageous and reflected her strength of character.‘‘She saw the news on television about the killings in Adelaide and she knew right away it was Gerald,’’ he said.Ms Jacobs had agonised over the decision and discussed it with Mrs Hunter, who had become one of her best friends. ‘‘Vicki said 'I went home and drank half a bottle of scotch and called the (Crime Stoppers) number because I knew it was the right thing to do'.‘‘And that’s what drove her.‘‘At that point she decided in herself that what was right was right, and what was wrong was wrong.’’If she knew something she had to speak up.Mr Hunter said Ms Jacobs was well aware of the risks of the decision.‘‘The truth was, Vicki didn’t go into witness protection. ‘‘She knew enough about Tognolini and the inner core and who they had on the payroll, and she said 'It doesn’t really matter if I took WP, they’d get me anyway'.’’She then went straight to her lawyers to arrange a will.‘‘She knew there was a fair chance someone was going to get her.‘‘They are nasty people and they don’t like being ratted on.’’Mr Hunter said Ms Jacobs had a wild youth tainted by drugs, risk-taking behaviour and a stint in jail for armed robbery.But her life changed after the birth of her son.She left Preston in 1994 when he continued his criminal lifestyle, and she became close friends with Mrs Hunter after the couple visited her in prison.‘‘We talked about what it meant to live a Christian life and Vicki decided at that point that was the way she wanted to live.’’A spokesman for Screentime, the producers of Underbelly, said no character called Vicki Jacobs appeared in the program.

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