HE WAS the creepy older guy who liked threesomes with young men, taking and selling dangerous drugs and who was trained in restraint techniques.
Michael Atkins was a sexually indiscriminate then-45-year-old predator who sought trysts with teenagers, who he sold or gave away ecstasy and the ?date rape? drug, GHB.
When his lover Matthew Leveson vanished, presumed murdered, in 2007, Mr Atkins was tried and acquitted by a jury of killing the handsome, blond 20-year-old.
But now as Matthew?s family oversee the grim business of digging up the vast Royal National Park in the search for his body, the seedy world of Mr Atkins has been laid bare.
And the evidence that couldn?t be put to the trial jury, which included Mr Atkins? pursuit of young men in the days following Matthew?s disappearance, comes under the spotlight.
On one assignation, Mr Atkins arrived in clothes covered head to toe in ?ashy dirt?.
Last week, Mr Atkins led homicide detectives to a parking spot along a narrow meandering road in the 150sq km park, 26km south of Sydney.
The sensational development in the nine-year-old case followed the exchange of legal immunity for possible disclosure of the body?s location, which may see 54-year-old Atkins clear of any further legal action over Matthew?s death.
But the ageing electrician?s sordid past life has been exposed, as has startling evidence which the jury did not hear when they tried him for murder.
Mr Atkins pleaded not guilty to Matthew?s murder and at Mr Leveson?s inquest this year suggested his former lover could be living in Thailand.
The cadaver dogs and police have gathered around an excavator amid the forest of giant eucalypts as Mark and Faye Leveson watch on, tense yet hopeful, for a sixth day.
The Levesons say they have come to this spot before, at night, digging for their son, emulating the time they believe Matthew?s body was disposed of in the hope of finding his skeleton.
The extraordinary immunity deal, which is conditional on police actually finding Mr Leveson?s remains, was signed off with consent from Mr Leveson?s parents.
?We?ll be here until he?s found ... we?ll be here to the end,? said Mrs Leveson, who added: ?We made a promise to him nine years ago, nine long years ... until we bring him home.?
More than nine years ago, Faye Leveson had been accepting of her son?s homosexuality although she did not approve of his much older lover.
In the months before Matthew?s disappearance she had noticed her ?beautiful boy? had become guarded and that Mr Atkins would ?not let Matt out of his sight?.
What she didn?t fully realise was that Mr Atkins was heavily into the drug scene, promiscuous and a narcissist.
Days before he went missing, Mr Leveson complained to a female friend that he did not want to have threesomes with his older lover who thought he was ?God?s gift to men?.
?He wants me to pick up young boys when we are out and have a threesome,? Matthew told his friend at the NRMA call centre where they worked, according to evidence given during Mr Atkins? 2009 trial.
Matthew said he had ?had enough of Mike and his bulls**t ... he thinks he?s God?s gift to men and he can do anything but if any man talks to me he gets the s**ts. He wants threesomes but I don?t want it.?
Matthew told the young woman that he and Mr Atkins had argued and Mr Atkins had pushed him into a wall or a tree.
?Have you seen his arms?? Matthew said, ?That?s why I have to go to the gym all the time and keep up with him.?
Evidence was given at an inquest hearing last year that Matthew and Mr Atkins were small-time suppliers of GHB and ecstasy, and that in 2007 the couple had moved in together in a flat at 1 Tonkin Street, in the southern Sydney suburb of Cronulla.
A man who was 21 when he met the couple three months before Matthew?s disappearance said Mr Atkins sometimes used his lover to procure younger guys for group sex.
In August 2007, after taking GHB from a cup, he watched Mr Atkins have sex in the Cronulla unit and then had sex with Mr Atkins himself.
He wanted to have sex with Matthew but felt Mr Atkins would become jealous. Mr Atkins told him, ?If I wasn?t with Matt, I?d be with you.?
The man remembers Matthew, on the last night of his life, initially happy and upbeat in ARQ nightclub in Darlinghurst near Sydney?s Oxford Street gay strip.
But then Mr Atkins and Matthew appeared to have a fight and when Matthew?s brother Peter saw him, Matthew said ?I don?t want to talk?.
Another young man told last year?s inquest that Matthew had appeared badly affected by drugs, probably GHB.
That man?s girlfriend, given the pseudonym ?Sally White? gave evidence that they frequently went back with Mr Atkins and Mr Leveson for parties after ARQ.
Mr Atkins, she said, would get angry if teased by Matthew. She once saw Mr Atkins hit him with a clenched fist.
Another young man, given the pseudonym ?Bradley Johns?, gave evidence that he met Mr Atkins via an online gay chat room in 2006, and the two would engage in masturbation via webcams, during which he could see Matthew moving around in the room behind Mr Atkins.
Certain facts of what later happened between Bradley Johns and Mr Atkins would never be heard at his 2009, but they would prove shocking evidence at the inquest into Mr Leveson?s death.
On Matthew?s last known night alive, he went to ARQ nightclub with Mr Atkins.
Matthew took GHB and Mr Atkins later told the inquest that his partner had taken too many drugs and was ?making manky faces?.
But Deputy state coroner Elaine Truscott would later suggest that Mr Atkins had left the nightclub because he needed to go to the car to get more drugs to sell.
At 2:15am Mr Atkins sent Mr Leveson a text saying: ?I said sorry three times! I need more jollies. I sold out.?
Mr Atkins then returned home just before 5am.
In a subsequent police interview, he told officers that he and Matthew had woken up together ?about two o?clock, two or three and we just sort of had a lazy Sunday afternoon?.
He told police that he had gone for a walk to the mall, but asked whether he bought anything he replied, ?don?t think so?.
That interview took place on the evening of Thursday, September 27, the day that police had located Mr Leveson?s green Toyota Corolla at Waratah Oval, a gay beat in Sutherland.
In the back of the car, they found a Bunnings docket for a mattock and duct tape.
It would prove to have Mr Atkins? thumb print on it, and police would later obtain CCTV of Mr Atkins at Taren Point Bunnings purchasing the mattock and duct tape at the time when he said he had been sleeping.
Matthew?s family would also query why Matthew?s giant sub woofer speaker, which he loved driving around with on full volume, was absent from the boot.
But that did not emerge at that stage of the police investigation, and what police didn?t know was what Mr Atkins had done prior to the interview.
It was September 25, 2007, two days after Matthew?s disappearance.
Mr Atkins had arranged to meet Bradley Johns for their first physical encounter, and driven 170km to Newcastle to have sex.
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by Lazarus
