Postcards FROM A BANDIT!

Brenden Abbott did his best to evade capture by travelling across Australia

In the outlandish case of Brenden Abbott, the great myth that surrounds the man notoriously known as the Postcard Bandit is far greater than the simple truth.

At one time in the 1990s, Abbott was the most hunted criminal in Australia and our last famous bank robber.

He committed around 40 robberies across three states, and is today an inmate at Perth's Casuarina Prison.

Now 60, he is completing a 25-year sentence and will be eligible for parole in 2026 but the truth surrounding the legend isn’t all it seems.

The legend goes that the Postcard Bandit, Abbott, was having such a great time after escaping from prison and being on the run for five-and a-half years he sent postcards to the police to taunt them with his travels.

One picture was said to be of him stopping in at Adelaide and Darwin, another flying over Kakadu and then others living it up on the Gold Coast.

ON THE RUN

The truth, however, isn’t quite as glamorous, insists his biographer Derek Pedley. The Adelaide-based author tells Woman’s Day that Abbott never sent any postcards, and the holiday snaps taken on his journeys were found in rolls of film in two cars he had used.