Australia's most fascinating criminal. 13 things you may not know about Mark "Chopper" Read. 1. Read spent the first five years of his life in a children's home, and was made a ward of the state by the age of 14. Read says he was certified mentally insane three times - at ages 15, 19 and 23, and that he was given "60 serves of shock treatment in six months". 2. Read earned his reputation as a hard man first by ripping off drug dealers in Melbourne, then making his living kidnapping and torturing