 He was adopted at the age of 13 months, along with another brother and sister, into the famous Darrell Lea family in Toorak.At the hands of his adoptive mother, Lea suffered and ran away from home at the age of 12.After a series of criminal charges in his youth (including being homeless which was a crime under the Vagrancy act) led to stints in boys homes, and finally entered juvenile detention at Turana where he first started to write poetry.