How I quit the
Peter Perkins wanted to be a gangster when he was just 12. But he was horrified when his own son picked up a knife. Jo Lines-MacKenzie discovered how he turned his life around for the sake of his kids.
PETER Perkins was worried about his son’s behaviour. Gang signs to classmates at intermediate. Playground fights. And one day, the youngster took a knife to school.
But worst of all, Perkins, sergeant-at-arms of the Bandidos motorcycle club, only had to look in the mirror to see who was setting the example.
Perkins, 37, looks like a guy not to be messed with and gang slang rolls off his tongue. But he is engaging company in his Hamilton home as he tells of his upbringing, his decision to chase the gangster lifestyle, and then part ways with it when he saw the effect it was having on his boy. And how a pamphlet from his daughter’s school changed his life.
Perkins blames himself for his son’s behaviour, because of the example he set.
If one of his gang mates was attacked, he’d prepare for war.
‘‘I would be grabbing my s---, leaving the family in the middle of the night and riding off on my bike with my patch on and all my weapons in my bag – somy son saw all that.’’
And the 11-year-old son would come running down the drive, saying ‘I’m coming dad, I’ve got your back’.’’
Perkins was a similar age when he fell in love with the gang scene, growing up in Auckland where he was introduced to the gang life at 12 years old.
‘‘I was running with a lot of street gangs and doing a lot of things when you are in that lifestyle: taking cars and stealing.’’
There were other paths, but they couldn’t compete with easy cash and cool outfits.
It was a life his parents could never afford but one his father’s gypsy-like existence in the music industry had predisposed him to.
He started smoking marijuana at school, but as the years passed, the mellow fug of pot changed to the frantic drive of
I was trying to teach my son to be someone I wanted him to be, yet I was living this other life.’ PETER PERKINS, ABOVE
methamphetamine, his addiction lasting five years.
Perkins has now been clean for eight years after seeing what his drug habit was doing to his family. It wasn’t an easy process to kick the drugs. He needed legal medication to get off his illegal drugs.
Despite his early infatuation with gangs, he didn’t become a patched member for a long time. And although he served three stints in prison, he says it wasn’t for big stuff.
After jail, Perkins went straight for about 10 years, working as a scaffolder. But motorbikes were always his first love and when the Bandidos came to town with their throbbing machines the temptation was irresistible. The club, founded in Texas in 1966, is international. Its motto: ‘‘We are the people our parents warned us