Latest / Real Crime with Adam Shand / The Golden Age of Armed Robbery | Ray Lambie
Transcript
- 0:05Speaker 1: Appoche Production.
- 0:14Speaker 2: Welcome to Real Crime with Adam Shann. I'm your host,
- 0:16Speaker 2: Adam Shann. Thanks for joining us. Make sure you subscribe
- 0:18Speaker 2: to the podcast and share this with your friends for
- 0:20Speaker 2: more independent crime journalism. These days, bank robbers worked with
- 0:25Speaker 2: a PC and a phone, but once upon a time
- 0:27Speaker 2: it was Balaclaver's and sawn Off shotguns. The nineteen eighties
- 0:31Speaker 2: was the so called Golden era of armed robbers who
- 0:34Speaker 2: targeted banks, but also clubs, pubs, service stations anywhere that
- 0:38Speaker 2: was holding cash.
- 0:40Speaker 1: Police have confirmed another armed hold up in Sydney today.
- 0:43Speaker 1: Witnesses say the gunmen were calm, professional and heavily armed.
- 0:48Speaker 2: It was a time of prosperity and in that time
- 0:51Speaker 2: there were thousands of armed robberies every year across Australia.
- 0:54Speaker 2: That led to a kind of cult status among criminals.
- 0:57Speaker 2: The counter jumpers, as they were known, were regarded highly
- 1:00Speaker 2: among the criminal class.
- 1:02Speaker 3: Escaped convict Ray Denning taunted for again today, boasting of
- 1:07Speaker 3: his freedom and daring them to catch him.
- 1:10Speaker 2: Names like Ray Denning, Ray Chuck Bennett, and Russell Cox
- 1:14Speaker 2: were revered in the underworld and even romanticized by some
- 1:17Speaker 2: members of the public. In reality, these men were brutal
- 1:21Speaker 2: egomaniacs with no regard for public safety as they wreaked
- 1:25Speaker 2: havoc in the community and left their victims with terrible trauma.
- 1:29Speaker 1: By the late nineteen eighties, armed robberies in Australia had
- 1:33Speaker 1: peaked at over six thousand incidents a year.
- 1:36Speaker 2: Finally, in the nineteen nineties, technology began to catch up
- 1:39Speaker 2: with the bank robbers with bulletproof security screens, CCTV and
- 1:44Speaker 2: other developments that put an end to this trade. My
- 1:47Speaker 2: guest today, retired Detective Ray Lamby, joined the Armed Robbery
- 1:51Speaker 2: Squad of New South Wales Police in nineteen eighty five,
- 1:55Speaker 2: at the height of this so called golden age of
- 1:58Speaker 2: armed robberies, and he's agreed to share some memories of
- 2:01Speaker 2: those heady and dangerous times.
- 2:03Speaker 1: Gid I rap, good morning, Adam, how are you good?
- 2:06Speaker 2: Thank you so you joined the arm robbers ninety eighty five.
- 2:09Speaker 2: It was a hectic time.
- 2:11Speaker 3: It was a very hectic time and it was very
- 2:13Speaker 3: much a new experience for me. I was the first
- 2:16Speaker 3: detective to go into the arm table up squad as
- 2:19Speaker 3: a permanent transfer who had not completed their designation as
- 2:22Speaker 3: a detective, so it was very much a steep learning
- 2:25Speaker 3: curve for me, and what.
- 2:26Speaker 2: Were you faced with what was the daily task of
- 2:28Speaker 2: the squad at the time.
- 2:30Speaker 3: So it's important to understand at this stage that the
- 2:32Speaker 3: squad itself comprised about sixty men. And when I say
- 2:37Speaker 3: sixty men, we didn't have any women in the squad
- 2:39Speaker 3: at that stage. So it was a system of pairs
- 2:42Speaker 3: where you'd have a senior man and a junior man,
- 2:44Speaker 3: and across the group, you know, you would have geographically
- 2:48Speaker 3: based people who would take care of the informants, et cetera,
- 2:52Speaker 3: or the crimes that were taking place in those areas.
- 2:54Speaker 3: It was not a geographically determined situation, but a lot
- 2:57Speaker 3: of people who came from places like I do, from
- 3:00Speaker 3: the Solent Shot or from the Northern Beaches area, had
- 3:03Speaker 3: their own network of informants. They had their own network
- 3:05Speaker 3: of contacts, businesses, etc. That they would use to stay
- 3:09Speaker 3: ahead of the game or in fact go after the
- 3:12Speaker 3: criminals that were in the area at the time.
- 3:14Speaker 2: Right, it seems like you want to stay ahead of
- 3:15Speaker 2: the game. It's always the object of policing. But it
- 3:18Speaker 2: seems like there was a lot of reactive work going
- 3:20Speaker 2: on as well, because it was just so many robberies
- 3:22Speaker 2: going off, and it wasn't just banks, it was a
- 3:24Speaker 2: whole range of any outlet holding cash.
- 3:27Speaker 3: Absolutely, And what you actually have here is in an
- 3:30Speaker 3: arm robber you have the most classic serialized offender. It's
- 3:33Speaker 3: the most classic serialized offense, and it's also a serialized investigation.
- 3:37Speaker 3: So in a day's work at the armhold up squad,
- 3:40Speaker 3: you would actually have a briefing on what had occurred
- 3:43Speaker 3: in the past twenty four hours, and one of the
- 3:45Speaker 3: things that we would have is swift access to, say,
- 3:48Speaker 3: for instance, the bank photographs that were taken during the
- 3:51Speaker 3: commission of the offenses. So there needed to be a
- 3:54Speaker 3: chain of continuity for those photographs to make sure that
- 3:57Speaker 3: they were of evidentiary value, So within twenty four hours
- 4:00Speaker 3: we would have those from the following day, and then
- 4:03Speaker 3: we would take care of assessing with firstly as this
- 4:06Speaker 3: serialized defender was, if we'd seen him before in images
- 4:09Speaker 3: from another bank propering, you know, if it wasn't a
- 4:12Speaker 3: bank robbery, who was the victim, what type of business
- 4:15Speaker 3: was it, where was it, what type of car was used,
- 4:18Speaker 3: what types of words were said, how many people were
- 4:20Speaker 3: in the crew, the types of weapons that were used
- 4:22Speaker 3: and the words were actually said. These were all parts
- 4:25Speaker 3: of them of the offender that we used to assess
- 4:28Speaker 3: in order to be able to look at that serialized investigation,
- 4:31Speaker 3: because much like a gesaw puzzle, each one of those
- 4:34Speaker 3: offenses would actually provide more information about the offenders, not
- 4:38Speaker 3: specifically enough for the one offense, but when you looked
- 4:41Speaker 3: at them collectively, you'd be able to actually determine what
- 4:44Speaker 3: evidence may be available from the range of offenses these
- 4:46Speaker 3: people had committed.
- 4:48Speaker 2: We had a cohort in Victoria of experienced arm robbers,
- 4:53Speaker 2: if you like. Did you have the same sort of
- 4:55Speaker 2: thing in New South Wales? Were you dealing with a
- 4:57Speaker 2: small pool of people or was it something that the
- 5:00Speaker 2: crooks were seeing as an opportunity The banks were soft
- 5:03Speaker 2: targets and amateurs could get base, anybody with a balaclava
- 5:07Speaker 2: and a weapon could get in or what was the situation?
- 5:10Speaker 3: Well, absolutely, but we need to look at the get
- 5:13Speaker 3: back to the grassroots for the bad guys here the
- 5:15Speaker 3: criminal fraternity, and basically what is actually happening is that
- 5:19Speaker 3: I can use the example of their motivation. So the
- 5:22Speaker 3: motivation for an arm robber in the eighties and early
- 5:25Speaker 3: nineties may have actually been the fact that they were
- 5:28Speaker 3: drug addicted and they needed large amounts of cash daily
- 5:31Speaker 3: in order to actually facilitate.
- 5:33Speaker 1: Their drug habits.
- 5:34Speaker 3: And bear in mind that behind every man there's a
- 5:37Speaker 3: good woman, so there may have been a double addiction
- 5:39Speaker 3: involved as well. If you had a crew of three
- 5:42Speaker 3: or four, then you actually had needs for large amounts
- 5:45Speaker 3: of cash on a daily basis. So the frequency of
- 5:48Speaker 3: your drug addiction would actually determine the amount of crimes
- 5:51Speaker 3: that you would actually have to commit to not go
- 5:54Speaker 3: out and fill euphoric but in order not just to
- 5:56Speaker 3: fell sick. So we have seen some changes in recent
- 5:59Speaker 3: times into the motivations of these people, whether they be
- 6:02Speaker 3: career criminals, and in particular in the nineties, we saw
- 6:05Speaker 3: people change from what they were doing in a different
- 6:08Speaker 3: type of crime into becoming lifestyle type criminals.
- 6:11Speaker 1: And the lifestyle criminals they.
- 6:12Speaker 3: Were encouraged everything from drug addiction, alcohol, sex workers and
- 6:18Speaker 3: just living it up. And those referred to it as
- 6:21Speaker 3: the fast and furious type of offender.
- 6:24Speaker 2: So how would you go about developing human sources to
- 6:27Speaker 2: work out who and what was going to happen.
- 6:31Speaker 3: Well, if you think closely about this as the type
- 6:33Speaker 3: of offender that an arm robber is.
- 6:35Speaker 1: And this is not me saying that it is.
- 6:36Speaker 3: My experience, but the Australian Institute of Criminology have identified
- 6:40Speaker 3: that arm robbers are the most classic precuitus offenders. So
- 6:43Speaker 3: what you actually have is people who are recycled. They
- 6:46Speaker 3: become recycled. Whatever that motivation is that gets and become
- 6:49Speaker 3: an arm robber and accept the risk of getting caught
- 6:51Speaker 3: and going to jail or even worse, getting killed on
- 6:53Speaker 3: the spot, it is a continuing motivation. So basically, when
- 6:57Speaker 3: you have that, you can meet these people, you see
- 6:59Speaker 3: them being recycled, you can actually recognize them, which happened
- 7:02Speaker 3: on many times through the bank photos. It said for
- 7:05Speaker 3: all the other victim photographs that were taken and see
- 7:08Speaker 3: them recycle. Now, if you treat them properly at the
- 7:10Speaker 3: time of your first meeting with them, you can actually
- 7:13Speaker 3: encourage a relationship and sooner or later those types of
- 7:16Speaker 3: people will come to you and say, look, I need
- 7:18Speaker 3: a hand, can you help me out? So that's how
- 7:20Speaker 3: we would basically encourage that unofficial liaison or informer type
- 7:26Speaker 3: base for these people to come forward and assist in
- 7:28Speaker 3: the future.
- 7:29Speaker 2: Yeah, because I guess you talk about recipibus criminals being
- 7:32Speaker 2: arm robbers, but you've also got, if they're drug addicts,
- 7:35Speaker 2: a coored of often malleable informants who are prepared to
- 7:40Speaker 2: give them up. Was that part of the strategy, just
- 7:42Speaker 2: trying to work out who these guys were and where
- 7:44Speaker 2: to get them.
- 7:45Speaker 3: Well, that's correct, and basically you know, so these guys
- 7:48Speaker 3: may have been the guys who are going out and
- 7:50Speaker 3: robbing places in order to get the money and then
- 7:52Speaker 3: spending it with drug dealers, but drug dealers would also
- 7:55Speaker 3: need a hand. So if the drug dealers we're looking
- 7:58Speaker 3: for some type of letter of comfort through the court system,
- 8:01Speaker 3: then they would be prepared to assist in providing intelligence
- 8:05Speaker 3: information in relation to any specific crime or the persons
- 8:08Speaker 3: who they believe may have been doing that.
- 8:10Speaker 1: So it's a cycle.
- 8:12Speaker 2: Yes, Bertie Kidd recruited a number of police officers under
- 8:16Speaker 2: his payroll who were prepared to almost go ahead of
- 8:19Speaker 2: him and do reconnoiter of places where he could cut safe.
- 8:22Speaker 4: Or even do our robberies.
- 8:23Speaker 2: Did you have a bit of that issue as well,
- 8:25Speaker 2: that the people in the force might have been willing
- 8:28Speaker 2: to assist some of these guys for cash and fund
- 8:30Speaker 2: as well.
- 8:31Speaker 3: Yeah, just as a leading I met Bertie Kid on
- 8:33Speaker 3: a number of occasions up here in Sydney. He's a
- 8:35Speaker 3: very cunning criminal. He was a very engaging person as well.
- 8:39Speaker 3: He was quite charismatic. He was someone you could actually
- 8:42Speaker 3: have a conversation with, but the conversation was always to
- 8:45Speaker 3: be in his benefit. And in fact I spoke to
- 8:47Speaker 3: him one night I think it was the night, I
- 8:49Speaker 3: can't remember who it was, but he was virtually trying
- 8:51Speaker 3: to give himself an alibi.
- 8:53Speaker 1: It was an alibi for murder.
- 8:55Speaker 3: So with Bertie Kidd, a very cunning criminal, a very
- 8:58Speaker 3: skillful criminal and had been around for a long time
- 9:01Speaker 3: and was known in the trade as in criminal investigation
- 9:04Speaker 3: as one of the old killers. But yes, corruption is
- 9:07Speaker 3: always something which could occur. I mean it's historically documented
- 9:11Speaker 3: about the corruption in New South Wales as.
- 9:13Speaker 4: Well, it is.
- 9:14Speaker 2: And that would have been either the murder of Desi
- 9:17Speaker 2: Lewis or roy Therger imagine.
- 9:19Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure it was Desi Lewis outside of the
- 9:21Speaker 3: tea out and say Telebonne dijunction.
- 9:23Speaker 4: That's right.
- 9:23Speaker 2: And he'd been I think at a restaurant or something
- 9:26Speaker 2: or even another puble where he'd actually ducked out of
- 9:29Speaker 2: the function, gone and killed Lewis and then come back
- 9:33Speaker 2: and was actually engaged in conversation with some cops to
- 9:36Speaker 2: give himself a really good alibi. He was one of
- 9:38Speaker 2: those guys who was a real all rounder, and I
- 9:40Speaker 2: guess it was interesting his final downfall up in Queensland
- 9:43Speaker 2: night in ninety seven. I believe he goes in league
- 9:47Speaker 2: with a ex prison officer and a couple of Likelis
- 9:51Speaker 2: from Sydney, and they'd tried to knock over a chemical
- 9:53Speaker 2: company in search of pseudoephdron And you see how much
- 9:57Speaker 2: he's sixty three at this time, and you see how
- 9:59Speaker 2: much he slipped from his heydays. He's working with the
- 10:02Speaker 2: next screw who actually I think gives him up board
- 10:05Speaker 2: that does some stupid things on the phone, the whole thing.
- 10:07Speaker 2: So these people had a limited lifespan that you could
- 10:09Speaker 2: say he was well passed his time, did a lot
- 10:11Speaker 2: of jail after that. But we did see this period
- 10:14Speaker 2: in the mid eighties where there were some really willing
- 10:18Speaker 2: robbers who were the people that you identified as been
- 10:21Speaker 2: the greatest threats.
- 10:23Speaker 3: Well, you mentioned earlier on about Victoria and the Victorian
- 10:27Speaker 3: police and I'll take my hat off to the Victorian
- 10:29Speaker 3: Armed Robbery Squad. They were by far, in my experience,
- 10:32Speaker 3: they were the most professional group of detectives I ever
- 10:34Speaker 3: worked with. And I worked across Australia with every state
- 10:37Speaker 3: and territory police and they were black and white. If
- 10:42Speaker 3: you were a crooked, they hated you. There was no
- 10:43Speaker 3: gray in it. If on the other side of it,
- 10:46Speaker 3: you're a criminal and you're a jack, as they used
- 10:49Speaker 3: to call them the cops, the crims.
- 10:51Speaker 1: Hated you too. But I think their professionalism was.
- 10:54Speaker 3: Actually born out of the fact that they had the
- 10:56Speaker 3: worst crooks in Australia in Victoria as well. So there's
- 10:59Speaker 3: not too many other places in Australia or in fact
- 11:01Speaker 3: the world that could say that they've had their police
- 11:03Speaker 3: headquarters blown up with a bomb, or the fact that
- 11:06Speaker 3: they've had two young uniform constables brought into an area
- 11:09Speaker 3: to be executed. So that's the type of criminal they're
- 11:12Speaker 3: dealing with. And in fact, in the eighties here in Sydney,
- 11:14Speaker 3: we actually had a number of Victorian criminals come and
- 11:17Speaker 3: visit US patters and dockers, etc. Who, because of their
- 11:21Speaker 3: own ristpanagement as robbers, they were leaving the state because
- 11:24Speaker 3: at that stage there was a spate of shootings by
- 11:27Speaker 3: the arm ropery squad. So you know, up here in
- 11:29Speaker 3: Sydney criminal fraternity, we had our home grown ones, you know,
- 11:34Speaker 3: and if you're in Victoria, they would basically just be
- 11:36Speaker 3: referred to as shipman. They're out every day and they
- 11:39Speaker 3: were doing their best. You know, we had crimes where
- 11:42Speaker 3: you know, it was high volume convenience store, petrol station
- 11:47Speaker 3: and it was virtually endless, so the people could go
- 11:49Speaker 3: out and commit crime after crime after crime every day
- 11:52Speaker 3: of their working life, and their working life was criminality.
- 11:56Speaker 3: But up here, you know, of course we had our
- 11:58Speaker 3: very own Nettie Smith as one of the major cashing
- 12:01Speaker 3: transit armored car type robbers and his crew. They were
- 12:05Speaker 3: fragmented at different stages with different crooks who came along.
- 12:09Speaker 3: But you know, there's I would refrain from calling them
- 12:12Speaker 3: good criminals. They were good at their task, but they
- 12:15Speaker 3: were very dangerous people. Because what you need to understand
- 12:18Speaker 3: is that most human beings, their primary instinct, whether you're
- 12:21Speaker 3: a crook or a cop or either, your primary instinct
- 12:25Speaker 3: to see human being is for survival. And that's unfortunately
- 12:29Speaker 3: why we had so many people who were suffering at
- 12:31Speaker 3: the hands of armed robbers, because as an armed robber,
- 12:34Speaker 3: you want to go in and achieve control of your
- 12:36Speaker 3: victims as quickly as possible. If they offer a threat
- 12:39Speaker 3: to you, that's when the worst can happen. And a
- 12:41Speaker 3: lot of people don't understand. But the fact of homicides
- 12:44Speaker 3: in Australia that one in ten of those homicides actually
- 12:47Speaker 3: starts out as a robbery.
- 12:50Speaker 2: You mentioned Eddie Smith, he only had success because of
- 12:53Speaker 2: his relationship with one Roger calib Rogerson, the so called
- 12:56Speaker 2: green Light. How true was the Blue Murder Show about
- 13:00Speaker 2: how Roger was setting up targets for Nettie and his cohort.
- 13:05Speaker 3: Well, I've got to say that I never met Roger
- 13:07Speaker 3: when I was in the place, and if you go back,
- 13:09Speaker 3: I think he left the police in nine eighty four,
- 13:12Speaker 3: and that was a year before I went to the
- 13:14Speaker 3: armed hold Up Squad. I did meet him after when
- 13:16Speaker 3: he actually did me a favor. So I know a
- 13:19Speaker 3: lot of people were in Roger's corner, but he'd gone
- 13:21Speaker 3: around the corner and up the bend at one stage
- 13:23Speaker 3: there where he actually had that relationship with Ned which
- 13:26Speaker 3: was like a symbiotic relationship. I've got no experience in it.
- 13:30Speaker 3: In fact, I'm not sure about the green light. I
- 13:32Speaker 3: know that when I was in the arm robbery squad,
- 13:33Speaker 3: the green light didn't exist, particularly from me and the
- 13:37Speaker 3: other people that I worked with. And in fact I
- 13:39Speaker 3: pinched Eddie Smith outside the Botany Council doing an arm
- 13:41Speaker 3: robby on an armored car in nine and eighty eight.
- 13:44Speaker 4: It was exciting for the arm robbers.
- 13:46Speaker 2: What was it like for the detectives who were sometimes
- 13:49Speaker 2: on the scene like that.
- 13:50Speaker 4: It must have been a high adrenaline job.
- 13:52Speaker 3: Absolutely, and I don't think I've heard other people describe it,
- 13:55Speaker 3: but there is no greater experience than hunting a man
- 13:58Speaker 3: or a group of men. And basically that is because
- 14:01Speaker 3: you know the clock is ticking every time one of
- 14:04Speaker 3: these offenses is coming. There's potential for real harm, not
- 14:08Speaker 3: just on the victims, but on members of the public
- 14:10Speaker 3: who may be around and know up to an including fatality.
- 14:13Speaker 1: So it's an interesting thing.
- 14:15Speaker 3: But we talk about catching killers, and you know, I
- 14:19Speaker 3: appreciate homicide and this might be a little bit controversial
- 14:21Speaker 3: a few of my friends in our criminal investigation game,
- 14:24Speaker 3: but homicide was where robbery squad detectives weren't for arrest.
- 14:28Speaker 3: We were having around six thousand hold ups a year
- 14:31Speaker 3: and there was around about thirty on an average homicides
- 14:34Speaker 3: a year. So the difference in skills is an application
- 14:38Speaker 3: within the criminal fraternity. Is a very interesting way to
- 14:41Speaker 3: think of it. But we obviously have issues with adrenaline,
- 14:45Speaker 3: and when I went to the armhold up Squad in
- 14:47Speaker 3: nineteen eighty five, we actually were doing our own assaults
- 14:51Speaker 3: and interventions. We were part of the Special Weapons not
- 14:53Speaker 3: Operations Squad and trained to do those types of issues.
- 14:57Speaker 3: At the same time, the benefit of that was that
- 14:59Speaker 3: we also had a lot of experience in the courts,
- 15:01Speaker 3: so I won't say professional witnesses, but we were actually
- 15:04Speaker 3: practiced with assistant could see a lot of the traps
- 15:06Speaker 3: that were being set by barristers along the way, as
- 15:09Speaker 3: opposed to now when you see the police give evidence.
- 15:11Speaker 3: It's a different game to what it was in our days.
- 15:15Speaker 3: But outside Botany counsel in nine eighty eight, when we
- 15:18Speaker 3: pinched Ned Smith, Glenn Flack and Harry Harris, I thought
- 15:22Speaker 3: my head was going to explode.
- 15:23Speaker 1: The dreadom was that hard?
- 15:25Speaker 4: Tell us about that day.
- 15:27Speaker 3: Well, it was a very interesting day because I'm sure,
- 15:30Speaker 3: as you can understand, there's a lot of surveillance that
- 15:32Speaker 3: takes place in this type of the game which never
- 15:35Speaker 3: comes to fruition. You know, intelligence comes in and there's
- 15:38Speaker 3: been some suspicious looking characters watching an armor car deliver cash.
- 15:41Speaker 3: So we were bound to go out and do those
- 15:43Speaker 3: every week. But on this occasion, what had happened was
- 15:47Speaker 3: I was driving home south along Botany Rail at Mascot
- 15:50Speaker 3: and I noticed that there was one of another police
- 15:53Speaker 3: car in front of me, which included a number of
- 15:55Speaker 3: blacks from the Special Breaking Squad, and I noticed that
- 15:58Speaker 3: they actually ducked off the main drag very very quickly
- 16:01Speaker 3: and took a detour, and well, I just kept going.
- 16:05Speaker 1: I got home. I've got a call to.
- 16:06Speaker 3: Say that you'll have to be the sea in the
- 16:08Speaker 3: morning at four am, and we've spotted something outside the
- 16:11Speaker 3: Botany Council Chambers that we think may be of interest
- 16:15Speaker 3: to ourselves and to you guys. So at that stage,
- 16:18Speaker 3: what had actually happened. When we got there the next morning,
- 16:21Speaker 3: we were briefed on the fact that the Special Breaking Squad,
- 16:23Speaker 3: and in particular a detective inspector by the name of
- 16:26Speaker 3: John Davidson, who's quite legendary up here, had spotted Ned
- 16:29Speaker 3: Smith and another criminal by the name of Glenn Flack
- 16:32Speaker 3: and a third person who was at that stage unidentified
- 16:34Speaker 3: outside of the Botany Council Chambers, and what they were
- 16:37Speaker 3: actually doing was their rehearsal for the following morning, and
- 16:41Speaker 3: the rehearsal was watched a distance by Davidson and his crew.
- 16:46Speaker 1: And so the following morning what.
- 16:47Speaker 3: We do was get back into position and be ready
- 16:49Speaker 3: to see what was actually occurring. And around about seven
- 16:52Speaker 3: am that morning, a van was driven to the front
- 16:55Speaker 3: of the council chambers and the person actually driving the
- 16:58Speaker 3: van was wearing gloves.
- 17:00Speaker 1: So the little bongo style van that was noticed.
- 17:03Speaker 3: We had actually set up an observation post with inside
- 17:06Speaker 3: the council chambers up on I think it was level three.
- 17:09Speaker 3: One of our detectives was watching the street front and
- 17:12Speaker 3: he was briefing us on what was actually going on.
- 17:14Speaker 1: At that point in time. We obviously thought that well,
- 17:17Speaker 1: this could be a goer.
- 17:18Speaker 3: So as we were watching via the observation post eyes
- 17:23Speaker 3: the man in the driver's seat wiped down the inside
- 17:25Speaker 3: of the car, got out and walked off and left
- 17:28Speaker 3: the van parked out the front, so basically we were
- 17:31Speaker 3: then in weight. He then returned in another car and
- 17:35Speaker 3: parked opposite the council chambers at the back of a
- 17:37Speaker 3: bank car park where he had a clear view up
- 17:40Speaker 3: and down Coward Street and across to the council chambers,
- 17:43Speaker 3: and as it turned out, the armored car when it arrived,
- 17:47Speaker 3: we actually delayed the council from handing out the Christmas payroll.
- 17:51Speaker 3: It was a double payroll, so they'd done their homework
- 17:53Speaker 3: to get the maximum reward out of one job rather
- 17:57Speaker 3: than having to do it twice, so we actually delayed
- 18:00Speaker 3: that and then it divened and took on the assault
- 18:01Speaker 3: upon the car. First with the cockatoo watching, we pulled
- 18:05Speaker 3: him out of the car in a very smart tactic
- 18:08Speaker 3: operation before he could actually brief Need Smith and Glenn
- 18:12Speaker 3: Flack in the back of that van outside the council
- 18:15Speaker 3: chambers that something was up. We pulled him out and
- 18:19Speaker 3: I was quite surprised. He was very big mother and
- 18:22Speaker 3: he was in fact the new South Wales state heavyweight
- 18:25Speaker 3: boxing champion at the time, and we had to put
- 18:27Speaker 3: some cuffs struggle together in.
- 18:29Speaker 1: Order to put his hands beyond his back.
- 18:31Speaker 3: At that point we discovered that he was actually sitting
- 18:33Speaker 3: on a revolver when we pulled him out. Then we
- 18:35Speaker 3: actually had to negotiate with the needed flak to come
- 18:37Speaker 3: out with their hands up.
- 18:40Speaker 4: Right.
- 18:40Speaker 2: Exciting moment, absolutely, how do you celebrate those sort of
- 18:44Speaker 2: moments back in the day, But it was obviously a
- 18:47Speaker 2: lot of planning from your side. You're dealing with good
- 18:49Speaker 2: crooks who were doing their due diligence. They were prepared
- 18:52Speaker 2: to shoot it up with cops. How would you celebrate
- 18:55Speaker 2: at the end of those sort of moments.
- 18:57Speaker 3: Well, that day was twenty second of December, so it
- 18:59Speaker 3: was in fact the Special Weapons and Operations called Christmas Party,
- 19:02Speaker 3: so we actually was although it wasn't planned, we actually
- 19:05Speaker 3: had a place to be in a place to celebrate.
- 19:07Speaker 3: So it was a red letter day in so far
- 19:09Speaker 3: as criminal investigation is concerned, because Ned was, in fact,
- 19:12Speaker 3: you know, one of the what we considered to be
- 19:15Speaker 3: one of the master criminals in a very bad guy
- 19:17Speaker 3: great a off the streets.
- 19:19Speaker 4: Indeed, and where did he run?
- 19:21Speaker 2: He was obviously close to the top of the other
- 19:23Speaker 2: characters that you dealt with along the way that you
- 19:25Speaker 2: had respect for. I mean, that's a strange word to use,
- 19:28Speaker 2: I guess, but in those situations there is a certain
- 19:31Speaker 2: amount of regard for each other. Some of the crooks
- 19:34Speaker 2: don't want to be go up against some formidable coppers.
- 19:36Speaker 2: Was there the same sort of regard for some of
- 19:38Speaker 2: these crooks.
- 19:39Speaker 3: Absolutely, And it was much like the cartoons he used
- 19:43Speaker 3: to see where the sheep Dog and the coyat.
- 19:44Speaker 1: He would that clock on.
- 19:46Speaker 3: You know, there was a respect, Shane, but when they
- 19:48Speaker 3: were on the clock doing a job, they were very
- 19:50Speaker 3: dangerous criminals. Much like the movie which is one of
- 19:53Speaker 3: my favorite movies, between the relationship between De Niro and Bacino,
- 19:57Speaker 3: there is that respect, and you know, it's a respect
- 19:59Speaker 3: which is earned. And one of those that I spoke
- 20:02Speaker 3: about earlier, John Davison had that respect to the point
- 20:05Speaker 3: that he would go around the criminal melium and he
- 20:09Speaker 3: would talk to Purple and they would know that he
- 20:12Speaker 3: was serious about what his intentions were as in the
- 20:15Speaker 3: investigation of certain crimes, and basically, if he was after you,
- 20:20Speaker 3: then he was.
- 20:21Speaker 1: Likely to gets you.
- 20:23Speaker 3: And in that case, I worked on an armored car
- 20:26Speaker 3: task force with him back in nineteen ninety one and
- 20:29Speaker 3: we actually had the criminals who are leaving the state
- 20:31Speaker 3: to try and get away from him.
- 20:33Speaker 2: Tell me how did your family deal with the risks
- 20:36Speaker 2: that you were facing each day. We just had a
- 20:39Speaker 2: terrible incident down here in Victoria, two police officers murdered,
- 20:43Speaker 2: just doing a normal search warrant. But when you're going
- 20:46Speaker 2: out into the field where you know these desperate crooks
- 20:49Speaker 2: are looking for an opportunity and you're standing between them
- 20:53Speaker 2: and the bag of money, how does your family deal
- 20:55Speaker 2: with that?
- 20:57Speaker 3: Well, it's obviously an issue, and like most cops, we
- 21:01Speaker 3: experienced that isolation. You know, it's in fact something that
- 21:06Speaker 3: members of you found me don't understand. So we try
- 21:08Speaker 3: and stay at arm's length and try and maintain that
- 21:11Speaker 3: brave face when there's potentially anxiety being caused, not necessarily
- 21:17Speaker 3: facing the criminals on the street, but by things like
- 21:20Speaker 3: high impact court cases, etc. So there is an anxiety
- 21:24Speaker 3: which comes in the association of the pursuit of justice.
- 21:28Speaker 1: It's one of those things.
- 21:29Speaker 3: And I remember that I was in a criminal trial
- 21:33Speaker 3: for a series of armed robberies upon banks where I
- 21:37Speaker 3: had a criminal arrested. He was a jail list pert
- 21:39Speaker 3: the time we found him hiding in the roof cavity
- 21:42Speaker 3: of his mother's house. He virtually signed up on six
- 21:47Speaker 3: separate records of interview for all the series of robberies.
- 21:51Speaker 3: I think I had about twenty four signatures off him,
- 21:53Speaker 3: bank photographs, et cetera. And then when we got to trial,
- 21:56Speaker 3: he was found not guilty, and I thought to myself, well,
- 21:59Speaker 3: you know, I was losing sleep over that court case.
- 22:01Speaker 3: What could I possibly have done that would have made
- 22:04Speaker 3: it easier? And the fact was I with a conclusion
- 22:07Speaker 3: that there's nothing more that I could have done. It
- 22:09Speaker 3: was up to the jury, and if the jury of
- 22:11Speaker 3: his peers wanted him on the street, then they could
- 22:14Speaker 3: deal with him. All I had to do is my
- 22:15Speaker 3: piece of the justice puzzle, and they was to find
- 22:17Speaker 3: the person. And he was no doubt the right person.
- 22:21Speaker 3: But if he wasn't convicted, then that was not my problem.
- 22:23Speaker 3: So basically the acceptance of those things, you know, me
- 22:26Speaker 3: being sleepless over that issue became like a like old
- 22:30Speaker 3: moment in my mind that I could actually fulfill my
- 22:33Speaker 3: part but not be upset about the actual justice system
- 22:36Speaker 3: if it wasn't delivered properly. When you do those sorts
- 22:39Speaker 3: of things, you know there is an impact upon the
- 22:41Speaker 3: family because you do become anxious and on tenderhooks with
- 22:45Speaker 3: the rest of your family as well.
- 22:47Speaker 2: Were there certain things you didn't want to share that
- 22:48Speaker 2: you have to wait till your retirement to talk about.
- 22:52Speaker 1: Look, it's probably part and parcel.
- 22:56Speaker 3: The fact that you wouldn't share that with your family
- 22:59Speaker 3: is because of the respect that you have for your family.
- 23:00Speaker 1: You don't want them to be concerned.
- 23:02Speaker 3: The guy was comfortable that I could handle myself on
- 23:04Speaker 3: the street and not only with the crooks. And you know,
- 23:08Speaker 3: whilst I was in the police and I resigned in
- 23:11Speaker 3: nineteen ninety eight, I would carry a gun at all
- 23:13Speaker 3: times because you know, there were people who I didn't
- 23:18Speaker 3: consider to be friendly, whether they were robbers or in
- 23:22Speaker 3: the organized crime fear where I ended up working. I
- 23:25Speaker 3: carried a gun at all times just in case I
- 23:27Speaker 3: needed to defend myself at some stage. But yeah, Look,
- 23:32Speaker 3: that's why a lot of cops seek solace with other cops,
- 23:36Speaker 3: because they understand what it's about.
- 23:40Speaker 2: We saw a famous case in you South Wales of
- 23:42Speaker 2: Michael Drury who was shot by Christopher Dael Flannery. So
- 23:45Speaker 2: the story goes, Yes, I think that was a message
- 23:47Speaker 2: to all your cohort of the kind of people you
- 23:51Speaker 2: were dealing with.
- 23:52Speaker 3: Absolutely, and I know Michael quite well. You know, for
- 23:56Speaker 3: him to survive that was a wonderful situation for us
- 23:59Speaker 3: that we can have him still with us nowadays to
- 24:02Speaker 3: tell the stories about what he did and how he
- 24:04Speaker 3: did it, and how he survived and not only survived,
- 24:07Speaker 3: but thrived obviously with significant mental and physical injuries. But yes,
- 24:12Speaker 3: it's a good story to see how Nik is nowadays.
- 24:15Speaker 2: But also indicative of I guess the war that was
- 24:18Speaker 2: taking place at that time between the crooks and the
- 24:21Speaker 2: cops and in the area of banks. You certainly weren't
- 24:24Speaker 2: helped by the attitude of the banks, which were making
- 24:26Speaker 2: a fortune back then and seemed reluctant to accept the
- 24:30Speaker 2: risks that they're tellers in particular, were facing. I have
- 24:34Speaker 2: a friend who was a bank teller who has robbed
- 24:36Speaker 2: not once, but twice, looking up and seeing a shotgun
- 24:40Speaker 2: in his face twice, and to this day he suffers
- 24:43Speaker 2: PTSD from those occasions. What was going on with the banks?
- 24:47Speaker 2: Why were they so slow to change their practices?
- 24:50Speaker 1: Yeah, well I understand.
- 24:52Speaker 3: You know, Look, I've met people who have been victimized
- 24:55Speaker 3: by our robbery. You know, more than a dozen times
- 24:58Speaker 3: and basically it becomes an acceptance for them. But banks
- 25:02Speaker 3: in the seventies, eighties, and nine nineties had to be
- 25:06Speaker 3: dragged kicking and screaming into the current day. So if
- 25:10Speaker 3: you think back, it was nineteen sixty seven when the
- 25:13Speaker 3: Armed hold Up Squad was formed in response to thirty
- 25:17Speaker 3: five armed robberies happening that year. The public were so
- 25:19Speaker 3: outraged and so with the government that you actually had
- 25:23Speaker 3: them take the countermeasure of forming a dedicated.
- 25:26Speaker 1: Squad of men to actually look after that type of crime.
- 25:30Speaker 3: As it transpired, we ended up having over six thousand
- 25:33Speaker 3: robberies a year into the nineties, and we actually had
- 25:37Speaker 3: gone through a devolution of dedicated task forces at that
- 25:40Speaker 3: stage to actually look into armed robbery. But the banks
- 25:43Speaker 3: themselves had been born from facilities management. The security at
- 25:47Speaker 3: the banks, they'd come from facilities management and real estate background,
- 25:52Speaker 3: not in fact and understanding the type of critical incident
- 25:55Speaker 3: that they were trying to manage, which was robbery. And
- 25:57Speaker 3: every time you invided someone into the bank potentially as
- 26:00Speaker 3: a robber, you were looking at really dangerous situations not
- 26:04Speaker 3: only for your banks, but for the customers as a
- 26:07Speaker 3: static target for a bank. They sit there on the
- 26:09Speaker 3: street every day, open to members of the public and
- 26:12Speaker 3: also members.
- 26:13Speaker 1: Of the criminal fraternity.
- 26:14Speaker 3: So to have open banks as encounters only it was
- 26:19Speaker 3: just inviting these people in to see what they could
- 26:21Speaker 3: actually achieve. And it was very, very dangerous all the time.
- 26:24Speaker 3: You know, they would actually work to the point inside
- 26:28Speaker 3: the banks where the staff would be so terrified of
- 26:30Speaker 3: not following instructions that they would put themselves at physical
- 26:34Speaker 3: risk from the bandits because they were doing exactly what
- 26:36Speaker 3: the bandits had told them not to do, ie don't
- 26:40Speaker 3: hit the alarms and don't hit the cameras. But the
- 26:42Speaker 3: bank instructions were in the event of a robbery, you
- 26:45Speaker 3: must activate the alarms and you must activate the cameras.
- 26:48Speaker 3: So the relationship between the victimers the bank teller or
- 26:51Speaker 3: the other numbers of bank tellers has become at a
- 26:54Speaker 3: critical point right at that time because you're actually doing
- 26:57Speaker 3: what they've told you not to do, so it creates
- 26:59Speaker 3: you as the focus of the attack.
- 27:02Speaker 1: And it was easy to work out.
- 27:03Speaker 3: Because the banks had cleverly worked out that to alert
- 27:07Speaker 3: the other people in the area if it was a
- 27:08Speaker 3: discreet type of probably like a loaded note, that if
- 27:11Speaker 3: you hit an alarm, we'd have a strange phone ring
- 27:14Speaker 3: in the back of the building which would sound different,
- 27:16Speaker 3: you know, so the bear that's do that, and they
- 27:18Speaker 3: could also hear the thirty five mili black on white
- 27:21Speaker 3: still cameras going firing off at the same time. So
- 27:27Speaker 3: it actually created that problem in the relationship between the
- 27:30Speaker 3: teller as the victim and the criminal who was not
- 27:33Speaker 3: getting what he actually wanted by you working actively against them.
- 27:37Speaker 3: One of the worst ones was the bank would tell
- 27:40Speaker 3: you to hand over the small notes.
- 27:41Speaker 1: First.
- 27:42Speaker 3: He's saying give me the big notes, and you're saying,
- 27:45Speaker 3: he's the ones and twos, and you're really pissing him
- 27:49Speaker 3: off at that stage.
- 27:51Speaker 2: So the bank's surprise, surprise, were thinking about money first.
- 27:53Speaker 2: People Second, absolutely, what were there discussions between the police
- 27:58Speaker 2: and the banks about these practices and how they were
- 28:00Speaker 2: really their own worst enemies and they were putting their
- 28:02Speaker 2: staff at risk.
- 28:04Speaker 3: Yes, there was, there was always a forum which went
- 28:06Speaker 3: on between the Australian Bankers Association and in particular the
- 28:10Speaker 3: different banks, the different brand banks as well, so we
- 28:13Speaker 3: always speak to them and basically at that stage, once
- 28:16Speaker 3: we got to the point where not just the banks themselves.
- 28:20Speaker 1: But it was like groundhog day.
- 28:21Speaker 3: Every day we would go out and we talked to
- 28:23Speaker 3: victims of arm robbery and it'd be the same critical
- 28:26Speaker 3: elements of the offense. And what we came to understand
- 28:29Speaker 3: at that stage is that, you know, whilst we did
- 28:32Speaker 3: our criminal investigation, in order to put an end to
- 28:35Speaker 3: the serial offender that was this particular bank robber or
- 28:38Speaker 3: hotel robber, etc. We needed to actually get the message
- 28:41Speaker 3: across to the victims or the potential victims, whether it's
- 28:44Speaker 3: the corporate victims as in the banks, all the face
- 28:46Speaker 3: to face victims of the arm robbery crime that this
- 28:49Speaker 3: was a harm minimization system that we had to adopt
- 28:52Speaker 3: through the use of body language and the use of
- 28:54Speaker 3: verbal communication skills, that we would actually be able to
- 28:57Speaker 3: get the best out of the relationship. That was a
- 29:00Speaker 3: force relationship that we wanted to get out of as
- 29:03Speaker 3: quickly as possible. It was like that McDonald's principle of
- 29:06Speaker 3: would you like fries with that? Now get out of here.
- 29:09Speaker 3: So that was where we dealt with the harm minimization
- 29:12Speaker 3: strategies for victims of crime.
- 29:14Speaker 2: Because you think about those tellers, they're just out of school,
- 29:18Speaker 2: No experience. They're being faced with very tough, ruthless arm robbers,
- 29:23Speaker 2: the banks giving them the wrong advice. Who would have
- 29:25Speaker 2: been a bank teller back then, my goodness.
- 29:27Speaker 3: I met many, many many bank tellers over the years,
- 29:30Speaker 3: and I did know a couple personally through my other community.
- 29:35Speaker 3: I wouldn't recommend, you know, it's quite an interesting situation.
- 29:40Speaker 3: But once the banks tightened their security, the criminals were
- 29:43Speaker 3: flashed out into different areas such as pubs and clubs,
- 29:47Speaker 3: and if they were willing enough, and mind you, armed
- 29:50Speaker 3: robbers are always willing, but if they're willing and skillful enough,
- 29:53Speaker 3: they'd take on people like the armored car industry, which
- 29:55Speaker 3: only asserts the fact that the criminals that you're going
- 29:58Speaker 3: to get into that are people who were actually armed
- 30:00Speaker 3: and prepared to use the firearms that they actually have
- 30:03Speaker 3: in going up against armed CA cruise with their own firearms.
- 30:07Speaker 2: When did you start to see the tide urn against
- 30:10Speaker 2: the arm robbers.
- 30:11Speaker 3: Well, I think that I don't study statistics much at
- 30:14Speaker 3: the moment in relation to robbery, whether it be armed
- 30:16Speaker 3: robbery or robbery with a firearm, or robbery real the
- 30:19Speaker 3: weapon other than a firearm. But I think we're still
- 30:21Speaker 3: doing around about fifteen hundred to two thousand a year
- 30:24Speaker 3: in the state of New South Wales. But basically we're
- 30:26Speaker 3: always going to have robbery, you know, and it may
- 30:29Speaker 3: be robbery of John citizen on the street who gets
- 30:33Speaker 3: smacked over their head for his Apple iPhone or whatever
- 30:36Speaker 3: he carries, you know.
- 30:38Speaker 1: Even on speculation.
- 30:39Speaker 3: But the tide basically turned in armed robbery when cash
- 30:44Speaker 3: flow started to remove. So the cash flow from these
- 30:47Speaker 3: places and the upscilling of people like pubs and clubs
- 30:50Speaker 3: in order to deal with cash flow saw them driven down.
- 30:53Speaker 3: So it's not as if these criminals have actually gone
- 30:55Speaker 3: out of business, but they actually may have gone into
- 30:57Speaker 3: a different part of business and potentially drug dealing or fraud,
- 31:01Speaker 3: et cetera, which has much less risk associated with it.
- 31:05Speaker 3: Think it was the Godfather, the Mario Puzo who wrote
- 31:08Speaker 3: that a man with a briefcase was still ten times
- 31:10Speaker 3: as much as a man with a gun.
- 31:12Speaker 2: We've also seen where the bulletproof shutters came in and
- 31:18Speaker 2: that certainly added a lot of risk to the robbers
- 31:21Speaker 2: then even killed a few of them back in the day.
- 31:23Speaker 2: You probably recall a few of those incidents.
- 31:25Speaker 3: Yeah, I remember the first time I saw it was
- 31:29Speaker 3: in nineteen eighty five at the Cornwath Bank and a
- 31:31Speaker 3: horse Straet at Bondi and we had an attempted robbery
- 31:35Speaker 3: there with three Romanian criminals who went in masked out.
- 31:39Speaker 3: Two went to go over the top of the counter
- 31:40Speaker 3: and both got caught by the screen as it went up.
- 31:44Speaker 1: Those screens go off like a gun.
- 31:46Speaker 3: They pop up in I think it's about point eight
- 31:48Speaker 3: of a second with two thousand pounds of force behind them,
- 31:51Speaker 3: and they're ballistic, so they are a very strong deployment
- 31:55Speaker 3: from the counter level. So in this case the two criminals,
- 31:59Speaker 3: one got hung up by his arm and the other
- 32:01Speaker 3: one got hit in the head and broke his jaw
- 32:03Speaker 3: at the same time. So by the time we got there,
- 32:05Speaker 3: the third offender had actually walked out back onto Hall
- 32:08Speaker 3: Street and taken off, but the two that were there
- 32:10Speaker 3: were still hum The bank staff left them there for
- 32:13Speaker 3: us to actually come and deal with them, and rightly
- 32:16Speaker 3: say more at the time that the bad guy that
- 32:18Speaker 3: was caught with his left arm, he had actually had
- 32:22Speaker 3: the gun on the counter side of the bank and
- 32:24Speaker 3: was actually firing shots across at the bank staff telling
- 32:27Speaker 3: him to let him down.
- 32:28Speaker 1: So a very dangerous situation. I knew of another one up.
- 32:32Speaker 3: On the North side of Sydney where the bad guy
- 32:35Speaker 3: who got caught while the pneumatic screen was actually killed
- 32:38Speaker 3: on the spot. So they do create that's that risk
- 32:41Speaker 3: factor and that deterrent effect to looking for a different
- 32:44Speaker 3: target like a bank that hadn't been fitted with ballistic
- 32:47Speaker 3: sperience yet, or a different motus operandi where the band
- 32:51Speaker 3: guys would actually look for a chick in the armor
- 32:54Speaker 3: of the bank branch in particular or the bank brand
- 32:56Speaker 3: in particular. So say, for instance, Kiosks or ATMs. You know,
- 33:03Speaker 3: the delivery of cash to the ATMs will be serviced
- 33:05Speaker 3: ATM's being serviced by a third party location who's actually
- 33:10Speaker 3: recycling their own business cash through that ATM and back out.
- 33:14Speaker 3: So it's an interesting situation. But it's like a game
- 33:17Speaker 3: of chess. If you make a move to actually count
- 33:20Speaker 3: the criminals, the criminals will make a counter move to
- 33:23Speaker 3: actually make their opportunities.
- 33:26Speaker 2: And remarkably enough, maybe it's because of Australia's background is
- 33:29Speaker 2: a penal colony in the beginning, but there was a
- 33:31Speaker 2: certain romanticizing of these figures. Was that frustrating to you?
- 33:36Speaker 2: People like Raymond John Denning was suddenly a celebrity of
- 33:39Speaker 2: the left if you like doing that sort of an
- 33:42Speaker 2: interesting phenomenon for you.
- 33:44Speaker 3: Yeah, well, look, I remember Ray Denning and I remember
- 33:47Speaker 3: at the time where he came and placed his handprint
- 33:49Speaker 3: on the front of the doors of the cob and
- 33:52Speaker 3: did an actual interview I think it was with Current
- 33:54Speaker 3: Affair or something like that. But he was a recipivvers
- 33:56Speaker 3: arm robber and ultimately a jail escapee who managed to
- 34:00Speaker 3: track down Peter melvil Schnitzeling or Russell Cox within like
- 34:04Speaker 3: seven him being out and they came to grief down
- 34:07Speaker 3: in Melbourne at the hands of the armed robbery squad
- 34:10Speaker 3: where they were sprung doing a surveillance on an armed
- 34:12Speaker 3: car crew. But go back to the Australian culture, and
- 34:15Speaker 3: you know, everybody likes to have a fair go, and
- 34:18Speaker 3: the culture of the Australian Alarican maybe an anti establishment
- 34:22Speaker 3: type perspective. But in all the training that I've done
- 34:25Speaker 3: with potential victims of crimes like armed robbery, I will
- 34:29Speaker 3: ask them a question and say, as we start this,
- 34:32Speaker 3: I just want to ask you something, you know, can
- 34:34Speaker 3: you give me an Australian folk hero, and quite quickly
- 34:37Speaker 3: everybody comes up with the same Australian folk hero and
- 34:39Speaker 3: it never varies. It's always need Kelly. And I said,
- 34:43Speaker 3: so you're a potential victim of an armed robbery, but
- 34:46Speaker 3: in your mind, an Australian folk hero is an armed
- 34:49Speaker 3: robber who shoots it out with police. You can see
- 34:52Speaker 3: it's like a light bulb moment for them. We have
- 34:55Speaker 3: this culture that accepts the fact that, you know, the
- 34:58Speaker 3: Alarican or the criminal may be something that I'm not
- 35:01Speaker 3: suggesting that we aspire to it, but we understand the fight.
- 35:04Speaker 1: Again, it's injustice.
- 35:07Speaker 2: It's kind of confusing, isn't it, because because the Kelly
- 35:09Speaker 2: gang killed police in cold blood. Yes, and yet they
- 35:12Speaker 2: are romanticized and these guys are comes to mind that
- 35:16Speaker 2: the film butchcasting The Something's Kid, which was again about
- 35:19Speaker 2: the end of an era in the wild West. There
- 35:21Speaker 2: and Butchcasidy goes into the bank and they've got all
- 35:24Speaker 2: these screens and security things and he says to the guard,
- 35:26Speaker 2: he says, what.
- 35:27Speaker 4: Happened to the old bank?
- 35:29Speaker 2: People kept robbing it but it was beautiful, you know,
- 35:32Speaker 2: And there was that sort of I think we grew
- 35:33Speaker 2: up with that film maybe the media was partly to blame.
- 35:37Speaker 4: Do you think that these guys were good.
- 35:39Speaker 2: Copy and they were desperate and they were quite charismatic
- 35:41Speaker 2: some of them.
- 35:42Speaker 1: Yeah, look, you still see it now.
- 35:44Speaker 3: It's not so much for romanticization of you know, even nowadays.
- 35:49Speaker 1: You know, like I was reading.
- 35:53Speaker 3: News media as in online papers in recent years, and
- 35:58Speaker 3: they talk about these robberies being magnificent masterpieces of criminal conduct,
- 36:04Speaker 3: and the reality is they're not. You know, there's a
- 36:08Speaker 3: ton of front involved in these types of things in
- 36:10Speaker 3: public spaces to actually go and attack an armored car crew.
- 36:13Speaker 3: But the fact is that they're not particularly smart, they're
- 36:18Speaker 3: not particularly cunning, and they all just revolve around that
- 36:22Speaker 3: brazenness of being in this public place at the time,
- 36:25Speaker 3: and they're very dangerous.
- 36:27Speaker 1: You know. It's not the sort of thing that we
- 36:30Speaker 1: should be trying to glorify as this guy is the worst.
- 36:33Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 36:34Speaker 2: Ray, Well, so I'm very glad that you worked hard.
- 36:37Speaker 2: You thank you for your service, and you kept us
- 36:39Speaker 2: safe in that period of time. And by nineteen ninety eight,
- 36:42Speaker 2: I guess you were ready to finish up and do
- 36:44Speaker 2: something else.
- 36:45Speaker 3: Absolutely, and I took the opportunity and the lead up
- 36:48Speaker 3: to the Sydney Olympic Games to start my own security
- 36:52Speaker 3: consultancy and that kept me going for the next twenty years.
- 36:56Speaker 4: All right, well, thanks for your time today as a pleasure,
- 36:58Speaker 4: nice to talk to you.
- 37:01Speaker 2: Fantastic that's retired Detective Ray Lamby on the Golden are
- 37:05Speaker 2: so called wasn't very golden for those who are having
- 37:07Speaker 2: the guns shoved in their faces robberies. But if you've
- 37:11Speaker 2: been a victim of crime or even a perpetrator, and
- 37:13Speaker 2: you've got a story to share, please get in touch
- 37:15Speaker 2: here with Adam Shann at Real Crime. You can send
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- 37:21Speaker 2: And if you've got any information that could solve past crimes,
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