Latest / Real Crime with Adam Shand / The Cost of Speaking Up | Steve Beanland Part 3

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The Cost of Speaking Up | Steve Beanland Part 3 · Real Crime with Adam Shand

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Approache Production. Welcome to Real Crime with Adam Shand. I'm
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: your host, Adam Shand. I've had an enormous response to
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: my two part interview with former Victoria Police detective Steve Beanland,
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: his twenty five year career and the impact on him
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: of the nineteen ninety eight murders of his police colleagues
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Rod Miller and Gary Silk. There are extra elements in
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Steve's story that we didn't cover in much detail and
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: that I now feel deserve another episode. After his work
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: on apprehending the killers of Silk and Miller, Steve was
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: working at the police Academy and raised serious allegations of
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: misconduct by trainers, and this set off a chain of
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: events that put Steve at loggerheads with Victoria Police and
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: led to a short period of imprisonment and deep depression.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: If anything in this episode causes you concern, please contact Lifeline.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: I've put the contacts in the show notes. Steve Beanland,
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Welcome back.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: To Real Crime. Thanks, Adam, appreciate it.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: This is our third go and the feedback on the
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: first two episodes was huge, and I think just about
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: all of it very positive. What's it been like for you?
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Putting your story out there and getting all that feedback.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: Honestly, it has been overwhelming. I've had a lot of messages,
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: phone calls, daily, lights and lots, and they've all been good,
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: and I've tried to respond to just about all, but
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: it does. They're replying a lot of the replies that
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: I'm getting on social media, they tell a story about
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: their own lives and how they were mistreated or not
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: understand wood and to take all that in and then
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: respond takes it out of you emotionally. And I've got
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: a lot of people that left numbers and I've rung
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: them all back. Some answers summed in, so, yeah, it's
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: taken a lot out of me actually be on it. Yeah,
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: I'm sure it has. And it's been a remarkable response.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: And I think it's not just been next police officers
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: who've got involved. It's other first responders, it's just people
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: generally in life. You've gone through a hard time and
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: you know, of course, the background of this for those
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: who haven't listened, and you should to Steve bean Lamparts
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: one and two, is that Steve was a detective in
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: the arm robbery Scott Victoria Police twenty five year career,
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: which unfortunately coincided with the murders of Silken Miller back
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety eight and the subsequent investigation called Lorimer
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: where the perpetrators Bandali Debs and Jason Roberts were apprehended
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: and convicted of murder. Unfortunately, Jason Roberts was Eventually his
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: conviction was quashed and he's on the streets again after
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: twenty two years in custody. But of the feedback that
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: I've got.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: Steve, one thing came out a couple of times from people,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: and that's why I've got you back, is that we
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: talked a little bit about what happened when you were
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: working at the police Academy. We sort of glossed over
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: the detail of it, and it was kind of my
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: decision because I didn't want to go into what was
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: very painful for you. But I think equally now, because
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: we've gone to this extent, it's worth just filling in
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: the details of what happened. I think it's because I
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: think recovery from post traumatic stress, from any kind of
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: mental health issue is rarely a straight line, and I
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: guess in those two episodes we did painted as more
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: or less a straight line happy, ending with this little
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: piece in the middle, which I think bears talking about.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: This began when you were working at the Police Academy
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: at glen Waverley and some students came to you.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: With an allegation of corruption. What was it, Well, I
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: never classified it as corruption. Basically it was I was
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: in an area called probationary phase. That's an area where
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: the police have graduated and they come back to the
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: police academy for three separate weeks of further law. So
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: they come back at twelve months out, they'll come back
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: for another week, eighteen months they come back for another week,
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: and nearly two years they come back for another week,
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: and once they've done all those exams and other training,
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: then they're confirmed as police. So I was in that area,
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: and there's another area upstairs which was dealt with the recruits.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: That's their recruit training Savilians. They haven't graduated yet. So
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: these guys and girls were coming to me because they
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: knew of me through the Salt Miller inquiry. There was
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: a book out that my partner wrote, One Dawn, One Missing,
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: in which I was virtually mentioned on every page, so
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: they knew who I was and Because of that and
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: the lectures that I gave them, I guess they felt
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: they could trust me, and a few of them came
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: to me in that period and told me what had
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: happened in their recruit training two years earlier, and that's
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: how it all began. So when I heard what had happened,
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: I asked them, do you want to make this complaint
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: because it's quite serious? And I said no, we just
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: want someone to know because they hadn't told anybody that point.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: I said, okay. So I kind of wrote lots and
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: lots of notes about what they said, and then I
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: started poking around upstairs in the recruit area. I married
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: up their squads with certain instructors. I got out their
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: files and could see certain things were missing, or certain
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: things were added, etc. And at all fell into place.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: So then after that I went to my boss Peter
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: given told him, good boss, senior sergeant, let's take.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: One step back though.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: Here.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: The allegation was that these instructors had inappropriate sexual relationships
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: with recruits.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: Correct, that's right. Basically, there was two males and one female.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: The female was the worst offender who would stand over,
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: I guess is the best way to put it people
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  Speaker 2: that were struggling in the squad go to them and
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: say you need to have sex with me, or I'm
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: going to fail you. If you do, I will push
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: you through. And it all married up because I was
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: in retention. I'm assessing them as police officers on the
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: street now, And a lot of the phone calls I
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: was getting were from senior sergeants and inspectors from all
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: around Victoria calling me because I knew them, and they're
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: saying to me, Steve, what is Adam Chan doing here.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: He's come from the academy. He's not up to scratch.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: And I'd get a lot of that, and they'd marry
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: that person back to the file, back to the information
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: that I got originally, and so it all married up.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: When I saw my boss, he said, what are you
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: intending to do? I said, well, ethical standards or as
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: I call them, internal affairs. They need to investigate this.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: They need to be charged. It's that simple as that
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: is that corruption. Look, I've had a look at the
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: definition of corruption. It fits broadly. But when people think
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: of corruption, it's money and drugs and exchanging and all
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: that stealing and all that sort of thing. Well, this
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: wasn't that, But they had committed offenses because they're in
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: positions of power over the student. It's like a school
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: teacher standing over a school student for the same thing.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: They're in a position of power and they're like coercing
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: or in some cases forcing that to occur. And that's
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: an offense in the Crimes Act.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: It probably falls under misconduct while in public office.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: I'd imagine it's an offense in the Crimes Act. Rights
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: simple as that. Now, is that corruption? You know? I
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: don't know.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: Just let's just call it that purposes of the exercise.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: But the rule book on you know, there's a massive
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: set of rules when you go there as an instructor.
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  Speaker 2: You can't even have a cup of tea with the class.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: You can't do that, so, you know, and they're out
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  Speaker 2: there in hotels, you know, on the weekend.
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  Speaker 1: So these students said to you, we don't want to
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: make a complaint. They were just telling you, correct, why
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: did you take it upon yourself? When they were prepared
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: to make the complaint directly.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: They didn't want to make it because from their point
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: of view, they're brand new. They've been out eighteen months,
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: maybe they've done their two years they don't want to
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: rock the boat. However, they had never told anybody ever,
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: and I understood that. I took it on and I
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: thought someone needs to stand up for this because it's unacceptable. Basically,
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  Speaker 2: that's it now.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: Before the interview, we were talking about the background of this,
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: and you said to me you were just back at
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: work after taking some time off over the stresses of Lorimer,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: correct the current the investigation into the Silken Miller murders.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: And I said to you, if I was back there,
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: I would have said leave it alone too. A lot
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: of people said to you, leave this alone. You're coming
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: back in the job. Why would you want to take
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: on this burden, particularly when the students didn't want to
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: take it on. Why did you feel so strongly about it?
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: I just couldn't let it go. I've been on the
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: street for a long time, mate, I've seen a lot, right,
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: but that's all I do with defenders and bad guys, right.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: This is staff, this is staff, police members, sugeans. No,
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: and most of them hadn't burned anywhere, most of them
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: hadn't worked the day in their life. So No, couldn't
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: let it go.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: So you felt it.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: Was almost damning their careers to have been handled like
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: this right at the beginning, even before leaving the academy,
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: and that it would affect their quality and that would
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: put words in your mouth, but would affect their careers
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: as police.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: Officers, the constables.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: You made, yeah, yes, So what was the response?
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: Well, as I said, I went and saw my boas
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: and he said, what do you want to do? I
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: told him and he said, well, that's that's a big step.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: I said, yeah, can't let it go. And he said,
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: just can't see the superintendent because you know internal affairs
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: will be crawling all around here. Just give him the
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: heads up. So out of courtesy, and so I went
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: and saw him straight from Peter, I went upstairs, saw
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: him and I said, Boss, we need to have a
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: talk out in the car park under the cool bar tree.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: What's it about? I'll see out there. And so he
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: came out and I told him, and he will put
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: it this way. He was trying to dissuade me, very
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: very strongly from doing it. All he could say was
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: we're worried about you. We're worried about I said, there's
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: nothing to worry about me. I have got a green
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: tick to come back here. I got a green tick
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: to come back, so there's nothing to worry about me.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: I'm good. Oh, you don't need you, don't do it.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: Don't do it. So I smelt the rat really from
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: the start. The thing is, when you do do this,
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: when you do this close shit like this, they're supposed
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: to support you. They're supposed to help you. That's what's
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: in the rule book. But nah, that didn't happen. Mate.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: What happened next. Next thing was I made I'd already
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: greased the wheels at internal affairs. I'd already run a man.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: I knew. I said I'm coming in tomorrow, which I did.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: I went in. I was in there for four or
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: five hours on a taped all taped. It was audio tape.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: I think I've got the audio at home. But I
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: was angry about it, about a lot of things actually,
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: So yeah, but I made that complaint, which is pretty extensive.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: That was it there with.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: Them, and you understand how to put together a brief.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: You understand the elements of evidence, and so you felt
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: in the notes that you'd taken from those recruits that
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: there was enough to sustain a charge.
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: Look, there was enough to go and have a look,
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: it would have been very easy for them to do that.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: There was things that they could corroborate or not in
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: the material that I gave, many things. But what they
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: decided to do and this I found this out in
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: the future was firstly, let's let's go into the future
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: with that investigation. And we're skipping a lot here. But
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: finally I got a letter said to me at home,
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: because at that point it wasn't at work, and it
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: was a one page letter saying this, we've investigated this
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: and we found it's all not unsubstantiated. Love internal affairs.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: That was it through it in the it was not substantiated,
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: not substantiated. After that, I got a call from a
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: friend who worked in that area, not in the investigations area,
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: but internal affairs in another spot. He rang me, he's
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: a squad mate, He said, I want to see you
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: up another warning. Hadn't heard from you for years. So
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: I went to another Warning and we had a cup
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: of coffee. Said what is it, mate, and he said,
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: I just want to let you know that they didn't
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: investigate what you complained about. I said, what do you mean,
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: tell me what happened?
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: Said? What they did was they instead of going out
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: and actually talking to them and speaking with them and
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: interviewing them. This is the suspects so called, No, the recruits,
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: the complainants, yep, because the whole squad knew will happened,
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: and it was just that these few came to me.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: The whole squad knew, right. But no, there was few
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: squads involved, you know, probably seventy people involved that they
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: had to don't speak to didn't do it. What they
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: did was they generated a generic email to send it
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: to those let's say it was seventy to send to
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: those seventy and all it said was, we've become aware
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: there was issues back in whatever, blah blah. If you
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: have any issues or complaints or anything similar, please call
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: us on this number Love Internal, so that hits all
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: their emails. And what do you think happened from there? Nothing?
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: Because none of the people involve the complainers, they're not
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: going to say anything over an email or a phone call.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: They needed to go out to speak to them because
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: they don't want to rock the boat. Now they're confirmed police,
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: you know, and this happened you know, three years ago now,
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: so do they want to rock the bat?
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: No?
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: I get it. I get it.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: So you're now completely isolated out on the limb.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so nothing happened, they Yeah, that's that's the bottom line.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: That's how it all panned out. So Internal Fairs covered
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: their asses by they could always say, oh you we
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: certain this email no one responded. But what they should
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: have done is gone out and spoke to them face
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: to face interview. Then they would have got the information.
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: But they didn't do that. They didn't want it too political.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: Can you imagine that'd be all over the all over
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: the front page. You know, it's happened in New South Wales.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: Police academy instructors sacked sexual world, you know, just I
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: can imagine yep, yep. So it was all swept. I
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: just say swept, mates, whole things swept and along the
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: river I went into deep water. What happened next, Well,
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: after I made that complaint at Internal Affairs, a couple
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: of days later, I was playing football with my daughters
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: in a park. They were young, and my eldest girl
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: kicked the ball to me, and she's got their good
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: footballs and she kicked the ball to me and I
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: marked it and the point of the ball hit my
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: index finger and the bone went through my skin. So
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: now I've got a complex sort of injury, compound fracture,
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: compound fracture, and I had to go to the hospital
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: to get it put back in and splintered, et cetera.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: So how old was your little girl this time?
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: Probably five or six.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: So you're a three hundred gamer and a five year
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: old girl kicked the ball out. Now that's a confession
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't be making.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: I pretty much got through on a few breaken eagles,
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: but anyway, here the five year old was after Yeah,
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: So because of that, I had the next day off
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: because I couldn't put my arm down, I had to
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: have it up. But the day after, which was a Friday,
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: I remember that clearly. I rang the office and spoke
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: to my offsider. I was in a section at this point.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: I wasn't back at my I wasn't working at my area.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: They'd removed me from that my area put me in
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: another area that's a different that's another story. So I'm
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: now in a different area of the academy and we're
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: working on the semi hang. The semi semi automatic han
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: guns are being introduced.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: I was Mills being brought to the clock.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: So I'm working with New South Wales boys on a
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: training game that we were going to introduce here. That
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: was my job at this new area. They removed me
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: from my normal job because of this complaint and all
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: of that. Anyway, I'm getting off the point. So I
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: rang my partner because he couldn't progress what we were
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: doing unless I gave him what I'd done the previous week,
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: otherwise would be a wasted day. So I said to him,
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: I'll come up. I'm going. I'll get all all those
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: files and send them to you so you can work
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: for the day, all right. So I went up there
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: early in the morning, eight thirty nine o'clock whatever, and
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: I did that. While I was in my office, phone call.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: It was the superintendent, the one that i'd seen under
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: the cooler bar tree, and he said, Dave, I want
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: you to come and see me. On my head. Did
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: he even know I was here because I was supposed
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: to be on day off? I called him to do that.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: What is it? He said, oh, you know, blah blah,
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: bushy bullshy, just come and see me. I'll come down.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: So I smelled a rat big time. At this stage,
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: I've been you removed from my normal job. B he's
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: calling me down again. So I put a tape on
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: and ran it up. I had tracksuit pants on and
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: put a tape on and rang the wire up and bloody,
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: you know, I had a microphone on and that ship.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: So I went down there and he's in his office
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: with another superintendent. His name was Carl Feltham. He's dead now.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: And I sat there and Carl says to me, I
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: got all this on tape. Stave with you. You're a
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: fantastic cobble mike. You know, you do a good job.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: You had a great career, but there's better fuses. And
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: then the other blake says his name is He said,
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: you know, he said, Stave, we're worried about you. We're
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: worried about you. He said, why are you worried about me?
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: I'm fine? He said, no, no, we're worried about you.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: He said, the way you broke to me under that
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: coolaba tree, I think you're ill. I said, do you
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: you were doctor? He goes no, but I think you're ill.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: I said, why is that? And he said, because you
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: were tense. You were you know, you nast your teeth,
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: gnashed your teeth. Yeah, I gnashed my teeth. You do
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: that all the time? I stretched. I was in I
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: was in a pair of rugby sorts. Mate, I just
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: come from the gym. I said, yeah, so what he goes,
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: well and you were angry? I said yeah, I was.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: I was angry and he said, I think you're ill.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: He said a bit of paper. So he gets through
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: the paper and it was a stand down notice and
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: said you stood down officially from vic Pole. You can't
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: go to any police stations. You can't do this, you
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: can't do that.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: Blah blah blah.
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: So I get that and I said to them, is
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: this a wind up or what what's going on? Oh no, no,
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: we're worried about So we're standing you down pending an
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: appointment at the Police Medical Office to be assessed if
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: you are capable of being a police officer. I couldn't
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: believe it. I just I was in shock. I thought
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: it was a dream, you know when you're in those situations.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: But anyway, it wasn't. I walked and before I could
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: stand up and even get a little bit angry because
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: it was brewing inside of me big time, two senior
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: constables are standing behind my chair and then says, these
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: two guys will escort you off the academy, premises, Can
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: I go and get my things out of my life?
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: They've already done that. It's in a box at reception.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: I got to scored it out that day to my
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: car with a box of shit. That was my last
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: day in Victoria. Police I drave, my car had stop.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: I was in fucking tears. I had to pull over.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: Couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it. Who do I
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: fucking ring? Now? You know that particular night, that Friday night,
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: I was in a bad way at home. I called
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: a friend who came over. He's a cop. I worked
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: with him over the years. He was also an instructor
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: at the academy, so he knew the situation. I told
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: him what had happened, and I was in a bad way.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: I was full of anger and hate. I was drinking.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: I can't remember, I was drinking beers, you know whatever.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: But he said, you need help. So he called the
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: CAT team, the Buddy Crisis Assessment Team. They came and
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: I had a fifty minute I take that fifty minute
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: talk with them. All I wanted from them was a
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: fucking pill. So I could my brain would stop working
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: and I could sleep, but they wouldn't give it to
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: me unless I told him the story for fox sakes,
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: So I told you know. That took an hour, you know,
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: and then they gave me one pill, so I got
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: a fucking night sleep. Yeah, that's what happened that day.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: And really things went from bad to worst there because
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: you're already nursing the long term mental health impacts of
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: LORIMA and this was sort of laid on top. And
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: I've seen this over the years talking to a number
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: of ex members, where the lack of support in these
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: situations tends to compound the impact of post traumatic stress disorder. Yeah,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: that feeling of being cast adrift by superiors who should
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: have your welfare and the welfare of the police in mind.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: Well I fell into a different category, mate, because I
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: hadn't been diagnosed with PTSC at that point and I'd
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: made this complaint.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: So did you seek help after that?
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: They stood me down pending an appointment at the police
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: medical office, which took months. So I get on Monday
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: now because they shut after all this bullshit on the Friday.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: I ring him on Monday. Oh we can't fit in
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: for I think it was seven months. What are you
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: fucking kidding me? I've been stood down to see you
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: seven months. The pmo's office was in disarray, complete fucking disarray.
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: I jumped up and down, and they brought me forward
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: four months, so I had four months to wait. Best
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: I could do, I had to wait four months. In
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: those four months, obviously I'm super suspicious. I'd heard I'd
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: done something inquiring myself, and I thought, fuck this, I'm
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: going to throw our punch back. So I rang a
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: journalist who I didn't know her, but through another detective
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: said you can trust that. Wish I hadn't, but I did.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: I got onto her and I said, I want to
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: meet you and I want to tell your story. Eventually
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: we met. I hired a room. I got a room
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: at the Grand High because I was going to stay
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: the nine in town after all this. She came to
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: the room and I told her story. She took you know,
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: she was there for a couple of hours. I took
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: all the n and I said, what do you think?
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: She said, it's a hell of a story. I'll take
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: it to my editor and she said I can't promise
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: anything but big story. I said, yeah, and it's been
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: fucking hasn't been investigated. They've swept it all under the carpet.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: So and I'm the one who's paid the price now.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: So she went away. I went. I flew to Miami.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: I have a good trend in Miami. I needed a
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: break from all this shit. Right when I came back,
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: it all continued. It just kept going. So what happened next?
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: Eventually I saw the PMA and I told her the story,
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: and she asked me a lot of questions, which I answered.
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: At the end of it, I said, what do you think?
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: And she said, she said, I can't see any issues here.
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: You're you seem fine to me, no issue.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: Were you feeling fine?
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: She said? I just wanted to go back to work.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: I get it. That's all I wanted to do. So
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: I left there. It took a fair while for her
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: report to land at the Academy. When it did, I
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: get a call from my inspector, Paul, with whom my
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: name very well, and he said, Bennie, come up, said
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: this report's fucking landed. I went up and he let
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: me read it. Page two. Well, had all these a
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: h There was eight conditions of my return to work.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: Pretty basic once you know, not to carry firearm or
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: we don't carry firearms out there anyway. That was at
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: the academy. Yeah, abide by your doctor's fucking instructions, which
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: I was, you know, blah blah, get stand up the
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: eighth one. And it said he's not he's not currently
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: fit to work with female recruits. That's what it said.
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: And he said, where does that come from? I said,
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: I don't fucking know. I've got no idea he's not
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: currently fit to work with female recruit. He said, did
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: she ask you about this? I said no, no, I've
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: got no idea. We wracked our brains and I said,
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: if you pulled my fire there, he said, yeah, there's
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: nothing in there but good reports, fucking shit lads of them.
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: There's nothing about females or anything. I said, I can't
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: understand that at all. So this is a stitch up.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: A number of weeks past and I get asked to
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: come in for a return to work on this particular Monday,
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: but not where I was working. At the OS place.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: What I mentioned before, operational strategy with it operational survival
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: training exactly when they deal with all the firearms and
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: tactics and things so I go to this I'm there.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: It's the Monday that on judo. I've been off X
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: amount now and I go to this meeting. There was
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: a couple of inspectors there myself. I was whired up.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: I was taped up and taped up everywhere theres I
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: don't trust anyone. So she says to me, what's going on, Steve,
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: what's with this female yetlah? Blah blah. I said, I've
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: got no idea. Maybe you can tell me. She goes, no,
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: I can't, and so she milked me and I said,
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: I've got no idea. Then she produced a pair of
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: pink trick Shop panties with bells on them on the table.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: I said, what are they? She said, you tell me.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: I said, there's a pair of pink trick shot panties.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: What do you want to know? I've never seen them before.
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: She said, is that right? I said, if you've got
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: something to say, say it. And she said, well when
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: you had that squad, because I did a recruit squad
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: ages ago for the last part of their training, that's
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: the only time I was in recruits I had. I
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: had them for three months last part of their training.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: Good squad and whatnot. Anyway, they all got through bar
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: one I think. Anyway, the last day came and they're
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: graduating that day. It's a big day for them and
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: had they had a couple of lectures in the morning,
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: and I think one was from homicide the other one
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: was from Bloody whoever. And I was around doing admin
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: for the morning to make sure they all or the
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: admin behind the scenes a lot of it. So I'm
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: doing that. I walk in in the morning just to
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: give them the peppart, just to pull your heads in
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: for the day, you know, don't don't be too rowdy.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: That was all and well done. You all passed and
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: it was good.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: You know, coaches address.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: When I walked into the room, the squad leader Marty,
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: he had a like a Scottish bid on a false
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: bid that you could buy from the trick shop, and
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: a cap, you know, trying to be Scotsman. And he's
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: got these pink pants on over his uniform. He's having
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: a laugh in front of the squad like walking and
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: I'm having a laugh with him. I said, right, he've
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: had your phone, get that sheet off and tune in
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: for the day.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: When you say the squad leader, he's also a recruit
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: is a recruit squad leader.
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: Yes, so he's the leader of that of that squad, Marty,
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: he's able. It's actually Bev is the coach of Footscray
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: Western Mulldogs. It's his brother anyway, Marty Mardy bevery So
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: I said, put that sheet away and they'll be here
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: in two minutes. Smart enough. I'll see you at like
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: three o'clock in the afternoon. So I piss off and
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: do the adm Well, one someone and it doesn't matter
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: who put those pink peny things on a We had
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: a big television up there that we used for lectures
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: and things on the bracket and was just hanging on
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: the bracket as a bit of a laugh. Right, So
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: they all graduated and we went out that night to
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: their function and whatnot. Well, sometime on the weekend they
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: holire out these rooms to severne groups. Sometime on the weekend,
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: you know, Women against Gay Whales were there, you know,
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: having a lecture from some greenie whatever, Right, and they
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: see these pink underpants hanging from the TV. Yeah, they
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: call security, They come around and take them. And that's
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: where all this came from. Right, So she's produced them.
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: I didn't know any of that. And she said, well,
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: you're the you're the sergeant in charge of that squad.
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: You should know all this stuff. You should have them,
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: you know, doing the right thing. They're under your control.
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: I said, no, I was around doing admins for the
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: rest of the day. Thing to do with that, so
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: fuck off. I didn't say that, you know, but basically
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: that's what I said. Yeah, And she.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: Goes, well, because of that, you can't give in this teasing.
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: It recruits and we're going to have to put you
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: out there ost So that's how that all occurred. And
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: then I sort of went to ost right, And to
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: cut a long story short, I wasn't there long mane.
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: I was there maybe four weeks. I enjoyed what I
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: was doing. But now there's a superintendent, that Feltham, who
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: initially stood me down. He's investigating me now because of
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: these pink fucking underpants. So he produces a fucking ten
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: page report about me and this pink underpan bullshit. But
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: most of it was about me and my relationships at
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: the academy, which were all good. But he threw some
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: shit there as well. Like he said, he said shit
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: like it was a cold day everyone had a jumper
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: on except Stay. He's getting round of his police shirt.
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: I don't feel the fucking cold, mate, Shit like that.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: Can you believe that it was down at the granular level?
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: Fucking unbelievable.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: So what was the upshot of that?
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: Support? Though? What actually happened over that? It went to
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: my psychiatrist because I'm now seeing a psychiatrist out of
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: all this, and this had a lot to do with
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: my daughters. It gets complicated, mate. But I was only
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: at OSD for a short time and because of that
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: report that caused me. I knew where all this was
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: going and it affected me and I can't remember exactly
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: why I left there, but I couldn't continue. Craig Wilsh
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: was the inspector. He said, you can't stay here now
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: with all this shit, you know, So I needed to
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: find next thing. I'm at home again and I was
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: trying to find another job. It was up to me
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: to find another job. No one was helping me. Whilst
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: I went to natter Wadding, who my old Boston Carton
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: was working now. I went saw Trevor and I said,
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: can you give me a job here? You know? He said,
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: we'd love to have you here, mate, you know we'd
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: love to. So he'd organized all the admin and everything
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: for me to go there. At least I was working
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: at the police station and it also applied for Doncaster
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: uniform and I got the job at Doncaster, like I
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: got the actual vacancy with all this shit going on,
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: I still managed to get that with all this bullshit
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: in the background. So I got the job at Doncaster.
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: I was due to start there, came in in the
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: police orders officially, but I never started there. What happened
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: was I get a call from the academy superintendent and
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: he said, I need to see you up here. I've
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: got to work out all your leave, long service, all
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: the thing. We've got to work out what's going on.
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: Who's going to pay you white black? Because I had
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: none left. I was virtually not getting paid this day.
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: I felt that I should be rebursed for all this shit,
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: but there was a war going on and admin more
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: right with all this because this is out of the box.
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: No one knew what the fucking do with me. I
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: go up and see him and he he says, I
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: want you to come into this room. So he opened
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: the door in I go and he closes it behind me.
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: I walk in as an ambush. Dave Clayton's there, Simon
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: Overland's superintendent, and Russell Barrett, inspector. Anyway, I walk in,
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: there's a video going over there. What the fox is? Ambush?
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: Sit down? Mate, No, I'm not sitting there unless you
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: tell me what's going on. Sit down, We've got to
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: talk to you. I sit down. And it was an interview, discipline, interview,
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: possible criminal whatever. And now I didn't know what the
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: allegations were, so they start. It's an interesting type of
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: interesting video. But anyway, what it was was when I
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: saw the journalist and I flew to Miami. I was
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: waiting for the headline. I was checking the website every
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: night or every Saturday. No headline, no headline. Finally I
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: emailed her and I said, you know what's going on
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: with this story? As she rat back and said, oh, Beanie,
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: I've spoken to my editor and no, we're not going
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: to run the story because A it's consenting adults, and
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: B we've heard that you're ill, so we can't. We've
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: got you've got no credibility. I said, first thing, don't
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: call me beanie. My friends called me that you're not
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: my fucking friend. This is from Miami or email, and
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: I was angry, mate. I would write a good two
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: pages back. I said, are you fucking kidding me? No?
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: Are they consenting? I told you the whole story. You're done,
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: fucking bitch. And see I'm not mentally ill at all.
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: You've got you don't know the story? And so she responds, right,
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: and then yeah, fuck off, and then I respond a
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: bit of back and forth. So all that email chain
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: was sent. Who was involved in this story that I
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: told her about? He gives it to ESD Internal affairs
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: and they come out to interview me about communicating with
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: a journalist, which is some kind of a defense. And
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: so I read through the REGs and I said to them,
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: I do the same thing again. What have I done wrong?
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: It's not about operational matters. So I disagree with that,
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: And I mean, like on street having a coffee, trying
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: to enjoy the sun.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: You're in Cartland, You're a cafe owned by the Arico family, correct,
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: of which Rocco is a well known underworld figure in Melbourne. Yes,
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: he was jail for road age and other matters and
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: possibly even murder. He's been connected to a couple of murders.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: But you knew him, ye, and you had a conversation
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: with him.
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, of ninety for years since Brunswick Brunswick days when
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: I was there as a detective. That was early days.
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: You know. He was starting to get involved in assaults
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: and stealing cars and things like that. He was in
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: the outs ib officer fair bit, and I just said
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: to him one day, mate, pull your head in. It's
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: going to get worse. You're going down the wrong ride,
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: you know. And he was smart, very intelligent, wasn't a
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: drug user or anything. But I had that respect for
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: him and he did for me. So yeah, I knew
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: the family well. So he mentioned that about his grandmother
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: and the fact that you was soon to pass away.
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: So I went back home and it just dawned on
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: me maybe I can help him, which is what I'm
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: all about, right, So I thought, yeah, I'll write a
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: reference to the ProBook. So I did at home on
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: playing paper, not police letterhead. So I had to He
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: questioned me about that about giving a criminal a reference.
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: I said, so, well, that's against the rules, said, is it.
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: Cops give evidence for crooks or criminals at court all
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: the time. I have seen that. Is that against the rules?
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: Have you given evidence? Again? I said, no, I have it,
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: But I've written many letters to judges ship lights over
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: the years.
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: That is quite common. Actually, could I could name a
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: couple that come straight to mind?
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: Actually? Yeah. Anyway, so I said, you know, fuck off,
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: you're going to charge me with that. It's not on
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: police letterhead. Do your fucking best. And I started a
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: rag up there as well, and they had another go
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: at me for the third thing, which I've tried to
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: remember this morning, but I can't recall it. It doesn't matter.
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: But the third day then they said, right, I will,
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: We're going to investigate this and recommend charges and blah blah,
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: we'll get back to you. I said, yeah, fuck off,
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: and I left the academy. Yeah. So, but before I
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: left the academy had a little bit of a win.
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: There was a certain office that was open, and it
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: was after four point thirty. Everyone's gone home. I thought,
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: I wonder what's in that draw? So I went through
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: it and I found a couple of CDs and they
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: looked pretty tasty, and I thought, I'm going to fucking
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: take them have a look, which I did. Why did
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: you do that? It was out of desperation. I wanted
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: to get some dirt on this person, so I took
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: them that was on them. I had a foilder. I
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: got a man at the academy, and I was excited
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: to get them home and have a look, which I did. Unfortunately,
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: there wasn't anything on there that was worth me disclosing
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: or using. Unfortunately, but I thought, I'm not going to
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: return them. There was a lot of fucking a lot
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: of information on them, shiplights, but not what I was
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: looking for. So what am I going to do with him?
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to return them. Fuck him, I'll keep them.
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: So I did. A good maid of mine who's now passed.
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: I went to school with him. Him and I were
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: hanging out and he's a bit of an identity, not
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: a criminal, but he's a waiter up and down like
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: on street. He knows or all the lige on street
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: people whatnot. Good man. I went to school with him,
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: great guy. We were hanging out and he knew what
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: I was going through. And I said, Mick, I want
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: to throw some punches back, mate, and he goes, what
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: do you want you want? I said, I want you
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: to make a couple of calls from a phone box.
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: And this is a script which I wrote out for him.
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: And we went to Ashwood, Hunningdale actually, and he made
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: these calls for the phone box and there was no
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: cameras or anything in this particular area, and he made
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: the calls, yeah, to two people, and that was pretty
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: much it. That might have been on the Thursday or whenever.
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: About four days later I was arrested by ten members
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: from Internal Affairs at home with a search one. They
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: were looking for CDs and there was an issue with
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: a couple of phone calls. Okay, So Graham guy was
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: the saying, Sergeant, this is at six am. They're going
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: the other nine are tipping my house over everywhere fucking
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: looking for these things. He takes me out in the balcony.
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: He goes Steve, we've never met, but I've heard a
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: lot about your mate, and he said, you know how
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: it is, mate, where's the fucking c d's. I said,
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: I've got Frank Sinati in concert and Elvis Presley plays
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: fucking Memphis. Go for your life, mate, and mate, I'll
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: tell you what. It was the hardest thing I've ever done,
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: pretty much, because my heart's I'm trying to be cool.
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: I'm in a dressing gann, but my heart was doing
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty beats a minute because if they
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: found them, he said, if we find them, you're going
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: You're going in tonight. You know that. I'm like, I'm
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: going to jail. I knew that, and so it was
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: fucking hard. They were there for about four hours, look
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: fucking everywhere. Fortunately I put them in a place where
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: I'd never searched myself in a search WORR. I racked
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: my brains wherever I never searched. There was one place
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: I'd never searched, underneath the washing machine. Not not to
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: the bowl because I have tipped over machines, but between
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: the bowl and the frame there's a spot there. I
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: put them up there with blue tack. Anyway, they never
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: even looked on the machine. They looked everywhere else. So
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: they didn't find them. So I had them. I had
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: a win. I was arrested anyway for the phone calls
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: a few other things. That was a hard day. They
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: had me from six am all the way through till
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: I reckon. It was five something like that five pm.
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: Long day. Heaps are questions. Allegation was that my friend
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: Mick had made these calls. I said, your phone was
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: pinging over there, and so what they could pin that
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: day or that needs nothing? Fuck off, could be anyone.
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: But it's been getting around me. So what did Nick
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: make the calls? And you've got a voice of it?
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah we have. We'll go and do a fucking voice
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: you go and do that. Have we done that? Now
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: we haven't? Best you got fucking do that. I stood
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: on the ground. You know. It was a hard day, mate,
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: And in the end, Emma Dunn was the assistant commissioner.
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: I know I met pretty well. Unfortunately he never came
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: down to speak with me, which disappointed me. Piss week.
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: He's upstairs in his office. He's the Assistant Commissioner of
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: Internal Affairs. Graham goes up at the end of all
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: his stay and says, well, he's not playing ball. He's
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: not giving us the CDs. They want. The CD's back
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: real bad. It's causing a lot of anks behind the scenes.
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: And of course I said, I haven't got them. So
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: he comes back down and he goes, this is the
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: go can you get those CDs? I said, I think so?
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: How I said, well, I know who's got him. I
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: haven't got him. I'd have to talk to three or
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: four blocks to get to that other one, and maybe
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: I could get there that way. I was told about them.
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: I've never seen them, I've never looked at it, but
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: I know where they are. Where are they? I'm not
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: telling you that. I can probably get it on that
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: a couple of weeks. Emmett wants to suspend you without pay,
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: and I said, will you tell em if he suspends
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: me without pay he doesn't get the CDs? Simple, if
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: I get suspended with pay, I'll fucking get them. I
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: can't guarantee it, but I'll try my hardest. So I
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: was released from there, pending a shipload, pending, pending. It
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: was all pending on the c ds. Of course, I
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: had them all the time, and I enjoyed that little
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: bit of power I had, so I let it go
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: to it. He kept ringing me every day. How you going?
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: You got it? I said, don't ring me, mate, I'm
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: still trying. I'm still in the trenches trying to find
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: these fucking things. Finally, two fridays have gone and I
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: left it for the friday, just the fuck him over
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: that little bit more, and I took a photo of
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: me out an austral post box posting the c d's
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: right with all the bullshit on it, and I posted
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: it and I've got those photos. So I rang him.
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: It's four pm on Friday. I said, they've been posted.
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: You said you'd bring him in, your car'd break down.
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: They're posted. So they had to wait the weekend again,
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: and they got him on Monday, on Tuesday, whenever the fuck.
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: So then he rings me. He rings me and he said,
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: thank goodness you did this. But there was still a
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: whole white pending that the phone calls, the internal bullshet
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: of the journalists, the Rocky Eurequa, a couple of other
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: fucking things I can't remember, but you know.
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: Ye're piling up and I might, I say, Moistens will
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: probably agree with me. By this time. You're very angry,
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: and you're doing things which looked to most people to
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: be self sabotaging. Is that a fair thing?
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: I felt like I was in a corner of a ring,
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: boxing ring, and they were throwing punches at me the
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: whole time, all right, and I was handcuffed, and that's
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: not a nice feeling. So I wanted to throw a
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: punch back at them, even though it was minor, because
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: I got treated so badly. Yeah, so you know the CDs.
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: What's that in the whole scheme of things. Nothing. It
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: didn't cause anyone any aren't. They got them back, no problem.
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: So and then I went and saw They said, you'd
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: better go and see the police doctor, the big doctor,
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: because you've got two choices to either you retire ill
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: health or try to get retirement ill health, or we're
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: going to charge it. You're going to get charged, definitely,
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: and you'll get sacked. So up to you went and
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: saw him. I'd had enough at this stage anyway, doctor
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: eating a nice black He knew the story before I
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: got there. They briefed him and he said, what do
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: you want to do? I said, I can't go back
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: after this, mate, I said, if you give me a
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: gun and go on the street, I can't guarantee well
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: you know what, internal because I want to go and
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: shoot him and her or him basically him. I've already
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: mentioned him in this interview. No, I don't want to
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: go back to anymore, not after this. I can't go
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: back and be loyal to the police after this. I
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: thought I've been through with it. Fucking can't do it,
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: not capable of doing it. I've given everything in the
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: fucking job, get treated. Likely can't do it, So he said, done,
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: So he wrote the reference or whenever it was, and
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: I was retired ill health day. I was taken off
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: the books and put on my pension, ill health pension.
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: That's when I flew to LA. That's when the Ala
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: shit which.
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: We talked about. With that, you went there, and listeners
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: will also remember this from part two where you had
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: a few ambitions. You wanted to do stand up and
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: you wanted to find a gun to take your own life.
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: And fortunately you met Jimmy the actor and met Jimmy
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: the actor who played you in telling them Lucifer was here.
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: The Underbelly files about Lorimer, so people are aware of
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: all that, and again we glossed over some of the
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: the what happened up to that, But there was another
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: confrontation which was much more serious, which landed you in
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: jail when you came back. Give us the background to that.
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: Well, it's pretty easy to explain this whole saga everything
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: that I'd explained. It was difficult for my daughters and
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: her mother, their mother, as you can imagine, and there
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: was a lot of time that I missed with them.
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: When I say a lot of time that I missed,
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: I was in a war mate and she was understanding.
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: You know, she knew. I think there were texting sms.
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: There were times I couldn't have the girls and she said,
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: you know, I understand, etc. Anyway, as I got better
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: that when I was in LA it was twenty twenty eleven.
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: Progress forward to twenty fifteen. I'd started to see the
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: girls more at that point and I'd arranged I believe
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: it was school holiday, so I had them half on
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: school holiday. I was going to go down to Portland
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: with seeing my brother and then all of a sudden,
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: for no particular reason, the phone contact withdrew and I
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: was getting no response, and I thought, fuck. You know,
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: I tried tried to contact the girls. They've got their
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: own no response email, no response from the mother, and frustration,
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: I suppose is the word got the better of me
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: one night. Because there's a lot of history with her
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: and I and this other man that she's with. So
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: and again, I'd never throw in a punch. When I
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: say a post, I mean i'd never retaliated. I guess
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: when she said no, you can't see the girls this weekend.
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: I just fucking you do. I've got a card order,
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: but they don't mean anything at the end of the day.
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: So this particular week leading up to this week, I'm
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: just trying to confirm it that we are going to
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: pull them. Getting no response. So new things were turning bad.
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: And one night, added frustration and a few drinks under
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: my belt, I must say, I rang her and I
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: left a very very abusive message. I called her every
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: name under the sun. Didn't a threatner. I was just
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: abusive and it felt good. Then I rang him and
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: I fucking gave it to him big time. It was
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: a tacit threat, something like I wonder if I've still
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: got that shotgun. I buried it somewhere. Good luck with that,
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: something like that threat. So two calls to their voice
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: recorder and next morning seven or eight detect news from Heidelberg.
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: The next day came. They arrested me in the night,
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: probably five or six pm. They came in my house
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: six am.
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: No pa on the evening, okay, so the next okay,
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: so the next evening, Yeah, you get a knock on
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: the door.
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they arrest me, handcuffs, where's the fucking shotgun? Now?
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: All that what's shotgun? So they gone down the did
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: you actually have a shotgun? Now? I've never had a
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: fire in my life. It's all bullshit. Okay. So I
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: was arrested at night. I was treated pretty poorly. I
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: was reminded overnight. That's another story, very very bad night
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: over there. I ended up in a very cold cell
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: with underpants all night, fucking freezing, and I was treated
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: like fucking shit. That's the bottom line there. And I
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: thought I was going to die in that cell. Actually
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: it was so fucking cold it was like I was
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: shaking to my care and they knew I was there suffering,
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: but they left me in there for fucking It was
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: hard and they were telling me things the door, call
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: me no sorts of fucking names. It was disgusting, hard night,
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: hard morning. I didn't get out of there in the
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: morning like normal prisoners do go to court. They waited,
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: I'll get on the fucking truck at about three pm,
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: all right. Instead at nine am it took me in court.
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: They took me to Melbourne, and even in court, still
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: fucking shaking. Took me ages to stop shaking. I was
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: cold to a court mate, fuh hit court. It's front
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: of this fat magistrate. I didn't even get a word
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: and he said, you're you're a remanded fuck off. So
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: the next thing on the map, my head's spinning, you
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: can imagine. And I'm in reception going through this. Your
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: suit fucking shouts your ass, fucking blah blah. I get
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: to the blake over. He goes, what's your occupation and
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: I said pension up because I was. He goes, don't
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: fuck me around and wants your occup pace. I said bench.
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: I don't understand what was here. Okay, I said, police,
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: you take you. He goes because they knew. They all
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: knew who it was. So the next thing too big.
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: Some mary goes took me in. I'm in Ancaster, of course,
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: and I go up to the fifth floor and I'm
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: putting this tiny cell that was maximum security on the
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: fifth floor. And I was there for about five weeks.
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: I went through every eight nine days. They took me
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: back to court, get remanded again, get remanded again, get
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: reminded again. There's tough times right in there, because tiny self,
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: for start, A can't see how it be no sunlight.
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: They take you into a cage within maximum security to
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: get a little bit of exercise. Sometimes sometimes you get
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: it each day, sometimes you don't. But when they do,
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: it's about twelve foot by twelve foot and there's no
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: sun and there's no noise and they don't talk to you.
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: That was hard because I was scared, very very scared,
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: because that door could open anytime, three or four could
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: come in bash you to death. And then you say, well, yeah,
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: fucking death, and custody covered up blah blah.
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: He went mad. We had to restrain him, and this
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: is what happened. Yeah, So I was waiting for that
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: to happen the whole time I was there. It was
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: fucking nuts, mate, It was so so So you're facing
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: at this point charges of threats to kill, just to kill,
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: which carries ten ten years exactly. So you're facing ten
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: years in jail.
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: How did you get out of that? Well, finally, through
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: my lawyer, I was allowed to be released from prison
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: after those four or five weeks. The magistrates said, because
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: you're six foot two and you can fight where, you
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: need to be assessed by psychiatrists. And I thought it
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: was oh, I'll gon't see a psychiatrist. You're going to
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: a psych hospital, and next thing, I got dragged out
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: of the cell holding cell on a gurney, handcuffed each side,
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: in the back of an ambulance with three coppers in
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: I think it was four actually inside the ambulance transported
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: to box Hill psych Hospital. Again. I was under the
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: illusion that I'll get there, tell them the story, they'll
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: let me go. But nah, I got there. I was
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: in a bad way by this stage prison getting sucked
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: overd by the police or the whole story. So I
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: got out there, cops left. They don't normally receive people
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: like this, even at a psych hospital, so you know
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: they've got to a police officer there. Very well known,
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: high profile is coming via the police in handcuffs. Fuck,
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: So that's what they're at the psycho hospital. I was
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: assessed after half an hour. This little Chinese doctor, he said,
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: you're biparlor. I was telling I was telling him about
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: Heidelberg and what happened at Hardeberg. I didn't even get
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: to prison. He said, you're biparlor. I said, what's that.
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: I don't know that. I've never ever heard of it.
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: Manic depression. I said, I have heard of that, But
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: he said you need help big time. You know, this
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: is interesting because I saw Steve van Apron on the
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: weekend and.
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: Former Victorian Police office, a good mate of mine.
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's now an international keynote speaker, amongst many other things.
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: We're good friends. And when I was admitted to that
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: hospital at box Hill, I put him down as the
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: next king. Now I don't remember that. He told me
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: on Saturday night and he took a call from the
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: head psychiatrist. He wanted to know chapter and verse about me,
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: and Steve explained it all because he knew he'd helped
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: me along the way. He's one of the few people
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: that knew my story, not all of it, but parts
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: of it. And he said to the psychiatrist's bottom line was, look,
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: he made a complaint. He got treated very badly, and
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: he's obviously come from prison. No one's assisted him, from
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: the police or anywhere else. He needs help. He hasn't
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: been supported through any of this. He needs help, and
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: I'm glad I put him down because of course, if
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: I put my family down or you know, he can
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: only imagine the worry that they would have. So I
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: was smart enough at that point to put Steve in there.
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: Which I'm glad I did. Anyway, I spent six weeks
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: at that psychospital year normal average, very very ill person
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: two weeks max average one week. I did six. I
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: found out later through the informant who visited me at
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: the hospital, that that period was extended via the police hierarchy. Yeah,
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: so that's what happened. I did six weeks, and then
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: I was released from there. And the story continues from there.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: And you now had a diagnosis which must have been
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: in some way comforting, useful, don't quite know what the
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: word is.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: In some way. I did a lot of research on it, heaps,
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: I joined a bipolar support group where you can chat
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: to each other and things like that. I didn't really
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: have all the symptoms because a lot of them get
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: so manic that they go out spending wildly, and they're
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: asexual and all that sort of thing. Well, was not
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: like that. I've always been outgoing, et cetera. But the
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: depression and the depression side of it absolutely, And even
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: now I'm not one hundred percent that I have bipolar, fully,
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: but I'm not prepared to stop my you know, I
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: take a tablet of a day. Who cares? So I
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: take a tablet of a day and it's a mood state, Liza,
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: that's all it is. I still feel happiness, I feel sadness,
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: but not the highs and lows that I had during
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: that period. Did that period bring it on? Did I
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: have it all the while dormant? They don't know, right,
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: they can't say, but yeah, I've got a diagnosis and
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: I take a table a day. All good. Fast forward
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: to so through the court process of threats to kill
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: Magistrates Court, many appearances coming in from the country, week
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: after month after month. Finally goes to the county court,
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: adjourn adjourned, Finally gets to the hearing for the threats
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: to kill on the telephone and a few other you know.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: It was about six charges and the last day the
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: prosecution the coppers withdrew all of those and I pled
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: guilty to using the phone in Brittany at the Canty Court.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: The judge put me on a supervision order for three years.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: They're normally reserved for sex offenders and those people. I
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: didn't know much about that supervision order, didn't know what
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: that was, wasn't in the job when I was there.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: But so then I'm referred to forensic care. I have
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: to go and see them every month in Clifton Hill,
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: which I do. I play the game with them. You're
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: still doing that? No, no, no, no, it was for
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: three years. I did it for one art and they
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: said you shouldn't be. He was going to recommend you
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 2: go back to court and get this removed, which they
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: never do, and the DPP you go read me up.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: She said, wow, they never removed these early ever, so
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: this is very unusual. So next thing, I'm beaming into
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: the court. Everyone had their say and the prosecution get
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: their say as well, like are they opposed to this
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: or are they agreeable to it? Even they were agreeable
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 2: to it, so that was very powerful. What I heard
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: this is in COVID and I was at home on
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: the computer. The judge said, says to me, female judge
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 2: who put me on the order. She said, Steve, I
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: can see between the anc and at this point she said,
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: you've been through. The judge said to me, so I
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 2: don't said anything. She said, Steve, you've been through so
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: much and I know more than you think I know.
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 2: She said, I'm going to put a ninety year ban
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 2: on the media reporting on this ninety year She said,
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: you've been through enough and I wish you well for
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: a sila crying and she says, there anything you want
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: to say, and I said, yeah, I'd like to say
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 2: that I've always believed injustice one way or another. Thank
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 2: you for seeing through this. And I couldn't get it
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: out more, still crying, you know, so to hear that
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: from a judge. She said, Steve, I think you need
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: go and have a little baileies or something she said
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: at the end, and we had to laugh, and you know,
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 2: it was really nice to hear it judge say that.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: And she said, sometimes we get it right, Steve, and
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: I think we have this time. So that was great.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: It was just so nice to hear that, you know,
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: from a person who could understand the whole thing.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: You know, powerful, very powerful. It was very powerful.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 4: After all this drama, all these charges, all these dire
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 4: consequences being on over your head. It comes down to
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 4: her just using the phone inappropriately. I think you got
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 4: a few hundred dollars fine, after all this, I don't
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 4: think I did not even that.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, Steve.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: And then twenty twenty came, which is there another incident.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 2: Twenty twenty came and I was in Melbourne. There was
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 2: something in me that said, I just need to know
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: where I stand with the police right because there was
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: a question mark there. So I came up with a plan.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: And I was in like on Street at a hotel,
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: and I thought, if I'm ring triple O and pretend
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: that I've been stabbed and give them the location and
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: my name, et cetera, and then watch the response, then
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: I'll know for sure. So I did that, and I've
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: heard the recording. It's good, good recording. They stand up,
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: they look Gratton and Bugaville stay by. They got it all.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 2: I went to my room and looked out. I could
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 2: see both ways five minutes going, no response, is not
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: even a siren. And then I see a motorcycle cop
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: go up like on street. He doesn't even stop at
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: the intersection. Starting to get the picture. About ten minutes
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: ago by no cops roll up there. I'm in shock
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: at this point. Next thing, my phone goes. It's a
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: sergeant from Carton who was on duty. He's just been
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: told there's a call go out with my name on it.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: I said yeah, He said to you, okay, I said yeah,
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 2: I said that's fifteen minutes ago. Mate, No cops have
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: shown up here. I was supposed to be fucking dying
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: because I don't know what's going on. He said, But
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 2: we've got a game unless being parade on today. You know.
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 2: I said, that'd be fucking right. I get it, he said,
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 2: where I am? Tolding? He came to meet me, Nick,
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: He came to meet me. He said, what's going on?
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: I said, too long a story, but I needed to
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 2: know where I stand today, and I fucking found the answer.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: I'm on the other side, big time, big Tom. And
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 2: next thing, I don't know whether he called them or what,
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: but five detectives turn up from Melbourne c ib or
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 2: c are you these days? And he's saying, your target
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 2: turned up. He's about five foot two. Must we Yeah,
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: you go there? I got mate on that little about you.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: You know, I've worked the Dame crime as well, and uh,
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: I don't know him. Who the fuck are you? What
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 2: are you doing it? I think you need help. You
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: need to go back into the Park hospital, Stave. You know,
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 2: I know the whole story, mate, what's the story? I
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 2: don't worry about I know the whole story. But you've
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 2: rung triple Later day, I said, yeah, I did. I
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 2: fucking did, and I got the answer I wanted. I
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 2: haven't committed an offense that requires detective five detectives here, right,
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: what are you doing here? We're going to tell you
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 2: the hospital. No, I'm going back to the country. And
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 2: I walked away from him. Next thing, he's got me
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 2: in a lock around my neck and I couldn't breathe
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 2: and he's on the ground on powerless. My arms were
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: fucking pinned. He's got his arm around my neck and
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: I'm losing breath and I'm starting to lose conscience. I thought, fuck,
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: I'm going to die here. That was fucking scary. Next thing,
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: I'm out, don't black. And next I come to. I
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 2: don't know how long was out, obviously, I come to
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: and they're all there. Three of them are punching me
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 2: and fucking calling me all these fucking names and blah blah,
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 2: I mean handcuffs, getting flogged bad by these fucking piss hands,
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 2: all right, and they were piss hands, and I'll get bad,
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 2: pretty fucking bad. Finally they stop. I can hardly fucking
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: see you, right, My head's fucking up already. And one
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 2: of them said, do you need medical treatment anyway? No, ambulance.
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 2: Can't They spoke to me and a lot of shit. You know,
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 2: you're a fucking piece of shit, fucking right right, I mean, handcuffs,
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 2: no ambulance. Next thing, I'm in the car. They're telling
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: me this all the way to the office, back to Melbourne.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 2: Uniform still in handcuffs, bloods dripping, all that fucking shit.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 2: It's pricks here. You got any injuries. It's all on videotape.
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 2: You know they're probably easy. They probably turned it off,
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 2: no doubt. You know I didn't answering handcuffs come off.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 2: Thrown in a cell, I was pretty bad. I couldn't
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: I couldn't speak because my everybody cut off. My voice
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 2: box was fucked no, I couldn't get a word out
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 2: of my voice bog. I could just feel all the
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 2: bullshit around my eyes and fucking jaw on my nose
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 2: was breaking. But you know, blah blah, I was in
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 2: that cell for fucking a long time. I was no food,
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 2: no water, no person checking. I couldn't see out, and
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 2: it was fucking cold. I'm starting to worry. Well, I
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 2: was worried when they started bashing me. Now anymore worried
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 2: when you're in custody and you've got to be there
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 2: and do it, and you won't. You won't understand unless
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 2: you're in that situation, if they have all the power
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 2: you have fucking none. Hours go by, fucking hours. I
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 2: don't know how many hours went by. It was a lot.
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 2: Finally the door opened. It was a sergeant that I knew,
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 2: and he stood back and he said, Steve, do you
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 2: need help? Four fucking words. I knew that I wasn't
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 2: going to die in there, you know, I said, nod
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 2: in my head. He goes, I'll get the nurse next door.
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 2: She comes over, she stands back. I can't fucking speak
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 2: that she can see that I didn't speak because I couldn't.
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 2: And I'm back in to sell. Another couple of house
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 2: go by, and then I went in the back of
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 2: an ambulance off to Royal Melbourne Emergency. I was there
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: for a couple of nights, might have been two or three,
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 2: can't remember. Busted nose, fucking knives were fucked jaw, yeah,
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 2: pretty bad injuries. I got photos, pretty nasty from there.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 2: Transferred to John Cage Unit, another psych unit attached to
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 2: Royal Melbourne. Two weeks done. Two weeks there That was
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 2: the end of that saga. Got charged with all the
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 2: bullshit sold police by fucking ten blah blah blah.
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: Did you assault police of the now?
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 2: I did not. I walked away, as I said, and
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 2: I didn't sult anybody. So I got the hamburger with
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 2: the light coast to court. As you know, month after month,
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 2: I'm coming down from the country to go to court
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 2: for that. My injury is healed. Takes some time for
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 2: them to heal, and then finally it comes to the
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 2: day where we talk. Fucking isn't it. It's up to
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 2: this point. They're playing hardball. We're not going to We're
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 2: not going to drop any charges. Well they did. They
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 2: dropped all the soup charges, all the other fucking shit.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 2: And I played guilty to making an inappropriate phone call
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 2: to Triple Low, and I said, yes, I did that.
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 2: The magistrate was really good. She knew the background, she'd
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 2: been briefed on all of that prior to the day,
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 2: and she said, Steve, I understand what's happened here. I'm
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 2: not going to brate you for this. I understand. However,
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 2: I'm going to find you seven hundred dollars and I'm
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 2: going to put you on twelve months on, I said
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 2: that it's weat done. So that's what happened. No conviction.
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: Right after all these appearances, all this police action, facing
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: ten years, facing these many years, you end up with
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: a seven hundred dollar five Yep. I'm actually tempted to
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: use that line from Alice's Restaurant where La Guthrie says,
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: at the end of all his dramas, someone says to him,
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: are you rehabilitated? Have you rehabilitated yourself?
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 2: Well? The reason I made that, the listeners might think,
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 2: but that's your fault. You made the call. I get it,
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 2: I'll get it, But I didn't deserve to be bashed
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 2: to fucking death nearly. And the reason I made it
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 2: was to satisfy myself. Where I stand now with the police,
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 2: and there is no doubt that I'm on the other side.
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 2: I'm all about the good cops, right. We need the
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 2: good cops, not these corrupt, violent people that I've met.
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 2: Bad cops. No good cops. Yes, we need good cops.
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 2: That's what I'm about. Those gods from Melbourne c I be.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 2: They're a disgrace. They're cowards, absolute cows. They wouldn't do
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 2: that standing toe to toe with me. Wouldn't that happen?
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 2: He got me from behind and they bashed the fuck
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 2: out of me, the cowards. But in answer to your question,
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 2: I'm a believer in karma, which I've said before, and
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 2: I'm a believer strongly in accountability. Now, out of all
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 2: those incidents, the one that stands out majorly in which
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 2: affected me the most was that serious assault in Lolin
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 2: Street by those two techniques, no doubt, because that was
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 2: a strong message. And when I was on the ground,
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 2: one of them came to my ear and he said,
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 2: shut the fuck up. That was the message. So where
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 2: did that come from? It came from the top, didn't it.
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 2: So shut the fuck up. Anyway.
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: I think you got to a great place. I think
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: you've resolved so many things. I think you can be
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: proud of your service to this community. It didn't end well,
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: but life can be like that. Yeah, sure, And I
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: will keep watching what the next chapter of this is
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: well that. I do want to thank you for your openness,
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: and I think it's incredibly important for anybody else. And
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: there are people out there who are nodding their heads
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: right now who have been denied procedural fairness, whose service
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: has not been recognized, who haven't been supported, And I'd
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: love to hear from.
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 2: You all out there.
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: Steve's been brave enough to tell his story without flinching.
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: And one thing I'll know this is funny. Actually Steve
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: turned up with a whole bunch of notes and he
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: was pouring over these notes as we're about to start,
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: and he was saying, I need the notes, I need
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: the notes. I tell you right now, he's not looked
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: at that notebook, not once to this whole I told
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: you this would happened. So these are the stories that matter.
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: These are the stories you can tell on this podcast.
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: I'd love to hear from you. Please get in touch,
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: Please get in touch. You can also follow me on Facebook.
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: I'll put the link in the show notes and people
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: who want to join my community talking about these important
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: issues that transcend police, the community, all that sort of stuff,
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: or more than welcome to come and tell the story
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: on real crime with Adam Shanned. If you want to
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: report a crime, you can always call crime Stoppers. Wanted
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: how to triple three, triple zero. But maybe after this
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: story you don't trust the police. Maybe you didn't trust
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: the police already, so you can always email me Adam
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: Shander writer at gmail dot com. I want to thank
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: you one last time, Steve Beenland.
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 2: Just one last thing that I want to say.
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: You've always got one more thing to say, Steve, you
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: can say yeah, when I think.
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 2: Back, it's a hell of a story. I'm not saying
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 2: look at me, look at me. The reason I'm saying
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 2: all of this is to help other people with their issues,
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 2: and I wouldn't speak to anyone by yourself. And thank
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 2: you for understanding me, man. I really appreciate that.
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: And thank you to everyone who's got in touch to
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: lend their support to talk about I think it's really
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: important to Steve, and I feel like in this process
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: he's closed the door on a lot of these issues
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: and hopefully it can make more sense of them and
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: go forward with confidence to what's left.
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 2: He's only a young man, for God's sake.
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: You's younger than me anyway. Thanks for listening.
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 3: Thanks for listening to this episode and supporting this story.
• 1:17:22
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• 1:17:25
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• 1:17:28
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• 1:17:32
  Speaker 2: More than ten.
• 1:17:33
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• 1:17:36
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• 1:17:39
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• 1:17:42
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