The public has had a long held fascination with detectives. Detective sy aside of life the average person is never exposed to. I spent thirty four years as a cop. For twenty five of those years I was catching killers. That's what I did for a living. I was a homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead, I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated. The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some of the content and language might be confronting. That's because no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged. Join me now as I take you into this world, Greg, I like to like I did prepare before court. I prepare before I do podcasts, and it's in part of my investigation. Before I've sat down spoken to you that it's come to my attention, there's an allegation that you'll fired a three fifty seven magnum in central local court.
Now I'm going to ask you about that. I want you to understand you're not obliged to say anything or do anything, but anything you do, say or do may later be used in evidence. Do you understand that.
I do understand that.
Gary, Okay, well, I want you to choose your words very carefully and think what I'm asking you here. Greg. Have you ever fired a three point fifty seven magnum in Central Local Court?
I have, fortunately it was later with blanks, but I have fired the gun in the presence of two ones. To cease now, so we've got to speak well of you two, very very well. They thought they were funny. Detect this.
I think it's pretty funny. In this day and age. I definitely wouldn't think it'd be acceptable, can you. I was reading about that and it's written down somewhere about you firing that three point fifty seven magnum in the courthouse or in the front of the courthouse.
No, it was. It was in the foyer of Central Local Court. And anyone who's been to Central Local Court will know that you walked through these a walk up the steps of this beautiful old court building. It was the original Magistrates court, and you walk through some glass doors and further glass doors into this big area which leads off into various court rooms and the court office and It was probably about three o'clock in the afternoon, and for some reason I had to go down there.
It may have been to file something or to find out what was going on in a particular court that I had some interest in. And I walked in and I ran into a now deceeased officer, Billy Mansell, who was a genuinely nice guy and had actually done a lot of undercover worker and it all seemed to me that he was too nice a black to be involved
in that sort of stuff. And in any event, Billy was there with another detective who I can't recall, and when I ran into Bell, and he'd been involved in a lot of drug investigations that I had been involved in, and I lusted what they were doing there. And they said they were hanging around waiting to give evidence, and what was the case about, and they said it's drugs
and guns. And I'd sort of been glanced to my right and just to the left of the entrance to the court room there's this great, big revolver sitting on the chair, large as life.
Clean Eastwood Stock exactly.
It was. They're big guns. They're big guns. And so I've walked over and I said, is that a three five seven mag And they said, yeah, you have a look at it, pick it up. Well, they were really really friendly about it and encouraging. Man, I'm not a particularly lover of guns, but I thought, well, I'll just want to get a feel of this thing. What they didn't tell me was that the bloody thing had a hair trigger and that they'd put blanks in it. I've
touched I've picked it up. As I was turning around to say something like, just bloody heavy, isn't it, I've touched the trigger and it's gone off. In the middle of the foyer with cases going on, Well, all hell break loose there and people started running from everywhere, and excuse me using this language. There's Billy and the other copper absolutely pissing themselves with laughter and having a great joke at my expense. And it took me a long time to live that down.
That is a that is a good get. That is a very good job. But could you imagine if that happened today? The courthouse would be shut down, It'd be secured, there'd be negotiaders called out, it would just and everyone involved in it would be in all sorts of trouble and people who would be off on post aumatic stress. It's a different world, isn't it.
It is it is we take I think I think in some respects we take life too seriously.
Yeah, And like you were the scene, some of the characters in the police and some of the crooks, some of the people in the court, some of the court officers. There was a little bit more robust and there was a lot of sense. There was a sense of humor in there as well.
There was It's one of my favorite, not warding homes, but lunching places is a Greek restaurant. I give them a plug called Vietne's.
Yeah. I had many a meal there and it's.
Still great food. And i'd regularly see tables of detectives down there on a Friday afternoon. And as I said, you leave everything in the courtroom. It's everyone got a job to do in this industry and you've got to take it seriously, but you shouldn't carry it with you when you leave. And you'd always have a laugh.
And I think that that's good. And there's I'm sure there's people that you've crossed it that you don't get
past that. But the people that I've dealt with when I don't mind playing hard but fair, and I respect people with the doing their job coming at the hard but fair and vice versa, and there's not it's nice sometimes after it's finished that you can actually yeah, it might be just a begrudging nod, but showing respect to the person that you've been up against in an adversarial system because you are up against them, and the way you described it in part one, it's like a playing
within the rules of a sporting match.
I've had the benefit. On one occasion, I was in the Old Courthouse Hotel after a trial. I think it was up there with Pat Costello. Pat and I'd get involved in a trial up there, and we're actually having a drink with a very legend detective by the name of Johnny Burke. It was as hard as nails have a drink with John and he was the nicest blake
in the world. When someone came up and started giving either him or the grief, well, he went from the nicest blake in the world to a bloke I wouldn't want it to have been arrested by.
Didn't want to take that different person, didn't want to wan across at the court house. I tell yeah, many a victory drink spent there, just leading into that when you do win a case is there and I would imagine and people that you genuinely don't believe it are guilty and the justice would be served if they've gone off. Do you go out then celebrate? And you don't have to specific examples, but is it something that's done.
Oh, yeah, it is something that's done. You go and have a drink with the with the sort of the defendants group, with the q's group, but you don't spend it a lot of time there. I got caught once down at Aubrey with the with the Black Ullans after winning a case there, and I was supposed to be It was a Friday, and I was I supposed to beginning home the next day to move house with my wife. And she never lets me forget this, but they got me absolutely drunk to the point where I couldn't get
on the plane they had. They had to carry me home to someone's bed and put me on the plane the next day.
Okay, great caution, I shouldn't have to. Yeah, it might sound exciting going for a drink at the clubhouse, but yeah, okay, they got you, they got me. Okay, well you've learnt, you learned your lesson. You've been around long enough to see King's Cross when it was that that golden mile, when it was the under the King's Cross, underworld, the underbelly.
Tell us about your experiences there because you're working in criminal law there before the Royal Commission of the Wood Royal Commission, I'm talking about the commission into police corruption that dragged a lot of people in. But you you knew that world, you understood that world, and tell us about those times.
It was. It was an interesting It was an interesting world because it was it was the place where people went to enjoy themselves. But it was it was, as I said, we go back to the Vietnam War as being I think the crucial element in the development of the drug culture in Australia. The American R and R boys brought drugs back and it's sort of burgeoned after that, and King's Cross was the place where everyone went, and
it was just there were so many clubs. You could go to some clubs and you could get your weed. You you can go to other clubs to get your meth or your coke. There was a little well, I suppose I don't know whether I should name the person who was responsible. He's done his fifteen years, but he
was well known and he was represented in Underbelly. But he added a little shoot where he It was like a little service Winday, I don't get what you wanted, but it was really really quite straight and back in the day you had people who were in and around the cross of Imember Sweethearts Cafe. It's famous from a
Jimmy Barnes song, Breakfast Sweethearts. I ate breakfast at Sweetheart's quite a few times after going in at four o'clock in the morning or two o'clock in the morning to King's Cross police station to advise clients.
Okay, thew we're up now, we may as well have breakfast.
But it was interesting times garrier because of the nature of the location. It was just one of those places at that particular time where from a person who didn't have to be involved in the crime, so to speak, was absolutely amazing.
Well, I think you do get then you're fortunate. And I found that in policing, in the work that I did, you get to look in to a world that you don't want to be part of You don't want to be fully embedded in it. But you get to see what's going on and get an understanding of it. Because Louis Bay you had dealings with him. Did you act for him or just came across?
No, I acted for Louis, and then I had Then I had cause not to want anything else to do with Louis. At one stage I was in some respects I was naive in relation to the way I thought I handled my relationship with him. But I can say that on a number of occasions Louis said, I want you to come and have a Chinese lunch out at Parramatta with me. Well, I've turned up and I'm sitting at a table with Roger.
Yeah, Roger Rogerson, the former New South Wales police officer, corrupt police officer and convicted murderer.
Lanny McPherson, a couple of other people who wait, a good crew, you've got the game, and Lurry and Sorry and Louis. And it was a bit of an education.
Yeah, And it's funny, isn't it. Well it's not funny, but that's how you get indoctrinated into that world, like come and have a lunch and then oh, well, yeah I've spoken to that person, and then the next thing, Roger's on the phone. I want you to do a favor for me, and you can get caught up in that world, can't you.
Yeah. I never had anything to do with Roger. Wilst it was a detective. He was actually doing wrought iron and putting rowed iron in gold and jar you know, different bars and things, which is quite it looks.
I think he was doing some other stuff too, but.
Yeah, well and he didn't learn from his first job.
His last one was a classic was yeah.
Well yeah, anyone who can think they could walk around a city the size of Sydney, you'll not be photographed a thousand times. He's got another thing.
And look, Roger was from a police point of view, and like my early days in policing, I remember being in the witness boxes. I was in the arm hole up squad in the nineties. Again in the witness box. I've never met Roger, but being cross examined. So you're in the arm toole up squad, aren't you. I don't think it was you. Okay, you're in the arm hole up squad, aren't you? Yes, and so you're you're the tough guys. You bash them, you lower them, you do this.
Roger Rogerson's your hero. And that was a narrative because he put a stain on all of us, and not just Roger, there was other people. But that's world that you're in. Before the Royal Commission exposed it all and people were accountable, it was a dangerous, dangerous place to operate, wasn't it.
I never felt it was dangerous, right, Okay? As I said, and I've said this to others, the only person who I really thought uncomfortable with was Lenny was with with Netdie Smith.
Yeah, what what was it about that?
I just think that it was Nettie's persona, his demeanor. He was sort of this brooding character and just felt slightly uncomfortable with him.
Yeah. Well, even look for the crimes and yeah he's passed away, we can we can talk openly. But the the crimes that he was involved in, and he sounded like a grub in some of the things that he did that you know, he had that persona of being a gangster, but there was that other side side to him.
He was psychopathical, didn't seem to have any regard for human like now that others may say differently.
I take on board that that's your impression.
But that's but I and I was never exposed to his really really outside but I just felt there was sort of this brooding presence there that was difficult.
It's interesting you identify him of all the people you've dealt with, and you've come across a wide range of let's call them villains or colorful identities, that he was one that you got that got that sense from.
Well, when you think of a person who I had some regard for, and that's Abbot Henry Graham. Abbot Henry.
He's a former gangster that used to run with Neddie Smith during the Roger Rogerson era.
Graham is the nicest flake and the funniest blake you're made. And to put him in the same gang as Neddie, I think he was ran in that sort of circle. He just too totally different type of people.
Well, I know Graham pretty pretty well now and he's been on the podcast and I've caught up with him a bit. When you say it's a nice blake, I grew up in the same area and they used to terrorize people were young, changed Yeah, he's changed, let's say. But yeah, I know what you're saying. Very personal saw the blake. You can sit down and speak to Graham and have a laugh, have a drink, and yeah.
You see, there's the difference between police officers and criminal lawyers. When you're dealing with the same people, they have a totally different attitude to you than they do to me. Yeah, and so you see them from different perspectives.
Gary, Well, that's true, that's true. What you had interesting when you were dealing with Louis Baya that he had a young.
Driver that was Johnny Ibrahim.
Did you identify john as someone that was going to rise to the level he did?
No, No, I didn't recognize it, but having observed it over the many years, I have no doubt that he was always going to do well for himself. Yeah. John reads situation as well, and he was. I think he found himself in the right place at the right time, with the rights skills to be able to gain from his good luck.
Yeah. Well, he's where he's at now, He's many his way through, so he must have something going for him.
Yeah. He's sort of that old expression about laying down with dogs and getting up with fleas is relevant to all of us. But John's been able to deal with that aspect of his life in a reasonable sort of way, so that he's come out relatively unscathed.
Charlie Staunton, you would have had dealings with Charlie Staunton, greg He was a former New South Wales police officer and he got into some trouble ended up leaving the police, so I think he became a private investigator and did a bit of wheeling and dealing around King's Cross Again. I'm looking at all the people we've had on the podcast, but that's what happens when you've been going for a
few years. But I've got to say, if Charlie didn't exists, you'd have to invent him quite the way he's lived his life.
One of Well's lovable rogues.
Yeah, what what's your what's your take on Charlie? Because I had to laugh at some of the things that he got up to.
He's got up to so much. One book's not enough for Charlie in terms of what he's been through. But Charlie is is is a rogue to start with, and we all love him. We don't always want to see him because he's gonna he's going to put the pinch on us. But when he comes you can always have a laugh and you always know what you're getting with Charlie. He's pretty upfront.
Yeah, I found that with him in my dealings with him, and I've caught up with him and bumped into him at certain certain places, and yeah, he's a character, and like, we're not condoning crime. We've sit here, we'll put that out there on things. But back in those days there were larger than life characters, weren't they. And I I don't know. And you mentioned in part one and I reflected on it during the break about the way the gangsters go about their business now and look at me
type attitude. It has changed, hasn't it.
Well, everyone wants to know what you're doing, starting off with what you had at the last restaurant you were at, who you're laying by the swimming pool with now, and who you're killing.
Don't you take those of your breakfast each morning?
Don't face it to everyone. It's going to be the same every morning, I'm afraid.
But yeah, I know what you're saying. Interesting, if we're talking the way things change, is it harder to be a crook now than it would be let's say twenty thirty years ago, with all the technology that's changed.
Do you think it's harder. Certainly harder. But if you're switched on crook and you know how to run under the radar, I think that you are likely to last a lot longer than these guys who have no regard to the fact that everything we do in public is scrutinized, either by virtue of public cameras or private cameras. Everyone's running around with a camera to take photos of you these days. Your likelihood of your telephone calls being monitored
is real. So if you're going to do anything, you've better to do it face to face because telephones aren't safe and people don't wake up to that. It keeps me in business.
Yeah, I think you've got a phone on you like just the tracking, the ability, and I look at from an investigative point of view, if there was a murder. Yeah, pre mobile phone days, it was you check who you phoned on your landline, what public phones were in the area of fingerprints. Look at the technology available now, see we could track you from the time you left your office in the city to come here and your movements and basically everything you've done it so much harder.
I think I'm involved in a murder case at the moment, my client, I think will be I've negotiated him out of that aspect of the case or his accessorial involvement
in the case. But when you looked at the evidence, the police were able to track the vehicle that the shooters or the assassins if I can call them, that used from the time it was stolen until the time it was burnt, and in relation to my client who was involved in picking them up, exactly where his vehicle went as well, because you can't drive around anything that's you'd regard as a main arterial road or any arterial road without being photographed.
Yeah, that's a reality of it, isn't well talking about technology, And I understand that there's some appeals going through court or currently, so if you can't talk too much about it, but just your take on that you involved in that at all.
I am involved in that from three different aspects. I've got an appeal currently running in relation to a couple of clients who pleaded guilty and got rewarded for what we call facilitating the course of justice, but that's under appeal by the ground as to the inadequacy of the penalties.
Of opinion that if you want to get people to plead guilty, you've got to show them that it's going to be worthwhile, because at the end of the day, they get locked up, cost one hundred and fifty thousand dollars per prisoner to keep them in jail, and in some respects they don't come out any better than what they went in. So you've got to change the system in that regard. I'm involved with others who are waiting on the outcome of the High Court appeal, and it's a very interesting aspect picture.
Sorry, and I probably should have because you and I know what we're talking about. But that was the sting operation that started in America but also used in law enforcement over here.
Operation Inside and cuphibially didn't know the creator or the person who organized the creation of what we call the phantom Secure Phones, which is one of the encrypted phanes that was used some time ago. He was arrested by the police and charged with racketeering offenses, which are their conspiracy offenses in relation to providing telephones to the Sinaloa cartel. So by doing that he was facilitating their ability to
communicate large drug trafficking enterprises. And he was threatened with thirty years in jail and was given the option of doing the thirty years or assisting the police and getting a lesser sentence. Well, he took the latter, and whilst that was in train, he got one of his technicians, at the request of the police, to put together the plat.
For that and people involved in criminal enterprise or I won't say that as a defense so you object, your honor great as a podcast listener, but that they were passed out to people that may or may not have been involved in criminal activities, and the police were monitoring the cause on phones that the people that had them felt they were encrypted and safe, that there's no way that law enforcement could monitor what was going on. Is that?
Well? The way the way that worked was that like you or I would send a text and I was intending it to go from me to you, I would
type in the text. That text would then be copied within the platform and when when when the text text press send, the copy would immediately go through a system called called bots eyebots to the police who were monitoring it, and there were several agencies that were doing so, and there was some suggestion that it had gone through an overseas country like Romania, I think, or somewhere like that.
It was quite kite of complicated. But the South Australian Supreme Court, in a case involving I think a conspiracy that murder, dealt with the matter first and Justice Kimber there decided that it was admissible because it didn't contravene the definition of what an actual intercept was because of when you press sent. It didn't go to the receiver, it went to the police and it was very technically and that's a very very simplistic explanation. But the accused
then appealed. It went to a three court bench who upheld Judge Justice Kimber's decision that it wasn't an intercept,
and now it's gone to the High Court. In the meantime, Mark Drayfus, our Attorney General, decided that he'd put through legislation and declaring that that particular function that platform, what at the anom phone did was not an intercept right and that's created a possible constitutional problem because it raises the separation of powers and what the courts are there to do, and what the High Court is there to do to interpret the laws as they apply and the
definitions as they apply. An interesting question which will now arise is has the Attorney General usurped the functions of the court and basically denied the operation of the separation of powers of which there are three. That Parliament makes laws, the Executive enforces the laws, and the judiciary interprets the laws.
Okay, is going to be interesting. So when we looking at decision coming back about.
That, we're looking at it. I think it'll probably get to the High Court between June and August sometimes.
And there's a lot of people because there's some large numbers of people that were charged flowing on from that, so high stakes.
A lot of political pressure out there. I think I'm being practical.
Yeah, I would imagine it's well, get on.
It's a really interesting It is.
Interesting because if you're making legislation and make it, well, it's retrospective, isn't it. It's capturing something from the past.
And you'd agree. The interesting part about well, your former job and my current job is that it's it's all about how society works. From the underbelly to the very top.
Yeah, it's interesting. I've got to say, from an ex detectives point of view, I thought it was a great plan when I heard about it. I'm thinking, damn it, well, didn't I think about something like that that's simplistic in the planning but very complicated in the actual getting it up and running. And I'm surprised. I'm surprised. And I can talk like this because I'm not invold them, but I'm surprised it didn't get out like there would have been a lot of pot.
You started to get out because someone realized there was a leak at the end of it, and that was going straight to the police. But it's my turn to object. It's my turn to object in criminal law. And I think in life, there's a saying which a lot of people don't get better, that ninety nine guilty men go free than one innocent man be wrongly convicted. And it's the chance of using these mechanisms, these platforms, these things, or creating a case against a person wrongly that puts
in a position where people are wrongly convicted. And I say to people who say this to me, do you really care about these people and how can you act
for criminals? It's all this sort of stuff, and I say, well, hang on a sec We've got a system that should be fair, should be reasonable, and shouldn't it shouldn't be adam and even giving them the apple again to commit a mortal sin because you might get dragging in an innocent person and that innocent What I say, do you want your son to be that innocent person and do twenty years? Yeah?
Look, and you can't argue with that. Let's saying I might have been the old days. I'm not going to. I'm not going to now. But yeah, I do understand what you're saying, and there needs to be checks and balances exactly and to make the system work. But yeah, that's going to be fascinating how that comes across, because this is a real test is this is the High Court, This is making the big decisions, and.
It's not just lawyers being nerdy. It really has an impact.
Look, I in regards and I always make comments about lawyers and slices and whatnot. I do understand the need for proper defense, and I take issue with some people that I think cross the line, as you would take issue with where you think police have cross across the line. I've seen come up against some lawyers. I just think
that that's stooping too what they've done there. And it might be just the way that they're they're cross examining someone or the way that they're playing, but we do need the checks and balances, so I think we're on a grance there. I have now seen it, and I keep saying it because it did change my perspective, like having the full way that the state coming after you.
And I know when I was going to court, I was thinking, well, that the worst that's going to happen to me, you know, I might get a fine or something like that. I can't imagine the impact that would have on you. If the consequences were when this jury comes back or this judge comes back, that could dictate the rest of your life.
Like its high stakes, but the Lord doesn't always work in favor of the accused. It also works in favor of people down the track in terms of how evidence is considered and recrafted. For instance, in the Hey Dad case where the Hughes was charged with there's a multiplicity of terrible child sexual asside offenses that changed the tendency law, so that a lot more material can come in. Now, if you've got if you've got a tendency to do, then that can be established. So that's in favor of
the person who's saying that. Those people who say, well, oh, but he did this and he did that, why wasn't that raised, Well, now things.
Like that, it can be raised.
It's called tendency.
Yeah. Well, I was involved through campaigning with the Bearable community on the double jeopardy legislation. It hasn't changed the changed the landscape, and I don't think there's any I don't think there's been a situation where someone's being convicted. And what I'm talking about there is that if someone was acquitted of a crime, they couldn't be retried until the double jeopardy legislation was changed. Now fresh and compelling the evidence and that and that's in the interests of justice.
The fact that sitting there, I think is a good thing because I would hate to have someone and what could have been someone that acquitted of a murder could walk out of court and go, well, I got a way of that and we could never recharge. So the fact that the legislation is sitting there hasn't been implemented. I think is a good thing. But I've always been on about legislation or the justice system, and I get your thoughts on it. A justice system is set up
to serve the community. That's therefore, and if adjustments have got it, if it's not serving the community, legislation needs to be changed. Are you an advocate for changing legislation where it needs to be changed or is it more old school? Now we've been doing this for two hundred years, white change, No.
No, I hear what you say, and what I don't like is knee jerk. Yeah, let's just live changed where you get change for the sake of satisfying some particular publicity agenda, agenda, and then you end up with victims of that agenda who are wrongly convicted or wrongly accused, and we find that the law is then used to assist politicians in their electoral cycle.
Well, let's you talk about changing the law agendas and the media interests and all that. The bail laws on youth crime and baiol laws. I know there's been a lot of talk about that, but I think you articulate very well that quite often it's changed for a political agenda, and it doesn't always work, and innocent people can be caught up in it.
Yeah, that's because we live in a reactive rather than proactive society. We're reacting to what we see as being a problem, and we're chastising and punishing those who are involved in perpetrating those problems. But we're not going back in the way that we were talking about how jails are changing Gary and saying, how can we stop young Indigenous kids from running right in our springs? How can we stop them before they leave home to go and
run right? And how can we stop kids in Sydney or in Melbourne, and then the poorer parts going out and creating habit and getting into postcode gangs or getting into whatever it is. We've got to look at those aspects and we've got to put our resources into stopping crime before it starts.
Diversionary plans you talked about keeping someone in custody come across one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year to keep a person in custody when you look at the expense that is spent. There had Tim Watson Monroe, a criminal psychologist, on them. He made the point that for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, you could have each inmate with their own personal psychologists looking after them to
keep them on the straight and narrow. It's a huge amount, and I know there are people that we need to protect society from. I've got no problems, and there needs to be deterrens, there needs to be punishments. All the things that you talked about get taken into with sentencing.
Tim being a psychologist, would say that I might say, spend one hundred and fifty thousand. Not a good lawyer.
And look, Greg, we've got to be on us here. If we clear up, if we solve all the solutions of crime, you're going to be out of business.
I don't think that's going to happen, Gary Ott. But I think we're entitled as members of a great democracy to have a system that's fair and that's reasonable and we get it right as many times as is possible within a fallible system. And all systems are fallible. But I think we do.
Okay here, Okay, let's talk other clients that you've had and if I mentioned someone and you're not comfortable talking about it, but got a lot of media publicity, so we're not talking out of the school. But John Abraham's girlfriend, Sarah Budge, that was charged with the possession of the firearm.
Yes, decent, lovely girl, Sarah. I've got a lot of time for Sarah Budge and now she's John's wife, A really really decent gale. As you might say, that was an interesting case. I was part of a really really good team of lawyers and had a fair jury who came back with the right decision.
Yeah. Yeah, and that people haven't heard about that there was a firearm found found at the premises and it was what was the actual charge.
It was The charge was possession of an unlicensed pistol, which I think can carry up to fourteen years in jail. It's a guns are something we take seriously in our community and rightly so, as you'd recall and you'd agree with that, And it was the prosecution couldn't establish that she had knowledge that was there or even put it there on you, and given that other people had access to her apartment, I thought that was the right decision.
An element of doubt, of doubt there absolutely Another high profile person that you've represented was Scott Miller, the former and I think it's a sad case. And I know sentencing you addressing the issues that created that situation. For those that don't know, Scott Miller, he was a silver medalist at the Olympics, a swimmer and got involved in drugs.
You should when you say silver medalist, you've got to put that in context. Garat, he should have been the gold medalist. He was the fastest butterfly swimmer on top of the water. Now, if anyone knows anything about swimming, and you dive into a twenty five meter peol or a fifty meter pool, you go fifteen meters and you look up and there's all these flags. There's a big string of flags across. You've got to be surfaced by them.
His nemesis was a guy called Dennis Pankrotov, a Russian, bloody Russians again, yeah, absolutely yeah, And it was invading the swimming pool and he was spending probably sixty percent of the time that he swamm the butterfly under the water doing a dolphin kick, So it wasn't butterfly at all. But strangely enough, you can swim faster underwater than you can by breaking the surface on top of the water.
And he beat. He came up probably a body length in front of Scott in the nineteen six Olympics and he beat Scott to the wall by a bee's knees.
Right, Well, I didn't think. I didn't think we're going to dissect the and Scotty.
Then they then changed the rules after that, and so Scott's had that you know is an also rad you don't win the gold.
Well, that's yeah, okay, I didn't realize the backstory to it. Okay, so you've gone in depth there.
And then he got injured coming up to the Sydney Olympics, which was which was every every sportsman's dream who was an Olympic class at sporting events, missed out on that, tried to come back for two o four and injuries put him out, but then found himself, like a lot of swimmers do, suffering what we call post elite sportsman's suppression. You go and swimmings, you know, you follow the black line. It's you're in your own world training and then you
come out of this bubble into the limelight. You're some hero and you've got to deal with that with no training for it. No, it's a sad story.
Is a sad story. How did you come to be representing him?
Because just through associations and through well actually through his wife and through my associations with other people involved in swimming got to know got to know Scott and looked after him.
You see a lot of elite sportsmen that have had the highs and then struggle after it. But yeah, it plays out in rugby league for a lot of different reasons, but you see a lot that happened with a lot of a lot of sportsmen.
I think rugby is a sort of different category. Yeah, it's well in that it's young men weekly being involved in this glamorous, high profile Adelatian type sport and you know there's cocaine around, and there's good looking girls at clubs and so forth, and it's not the sort of same sort of the isolation of a swimmer. And you look at a lot of our swimmers have had Lisal Jones had problems and so you know Scotty wasn't is not alone. He was just one that fell further than others.
As I said, it's a sad.
Story, and representing him, you're obviously the way that you relay the story, you felt felt it personally the responsibility of representing him.
Oh yeah, Yeah, people commit crime, but doesn't stop them from being human beings. And you can set the crime aside and you've still got Sometimes you've got a really decent human being there. He's made a lot of bad mistakes, but you can't throw the good person out with the bathwater.
Another person that you've come across in your career, and we're going back into the dark, well, the King's Cross. But Sally Anne Huckstep who was by way of introduction, people probably heard her name, but Warren France, Warren lan Franchi lanb Francie's girlfriend at the time that Tea was shot and killed by Roger Rogerson and was sort of considered she might have been an informant giving information, but she ended up being murdered.
Yeah. Sure, her body was found in one of the Centennial Park lakes.
And she was at the time she was vocal in speaking up about police corruption.
Well, she was speaking up to the extent that she believed that Roger Rogerson had had killed Warren in cold blood. And there's all sorts of different stories about that. Yeah, and she was a victim of a time when collusion I think between people in positions of relative power, either from the criminal malieu or from the police mailieu, were bound to catch up with.
Yeah, and how did you find her as a person.
We didn't, I don't. I think we may have acted for when I was in to practice out at Bondi junction with one of my older partners in with our deceased as well. We acted for just on my smartor things, I think, but we got more caught up in in that aspect of it because we were alleged to have had her diaries in my in my office, and in my office was then broken into and ow and we nothing, no, nothing of value taken except there was a nice neatly cut section of our roof.
Sorry break break this down. Just my detective minds thinking hole it. So you the information was that you had Sally's diaries.
Well, that was a rumor that was out there and that had come through another girlfriend of hers, for whom we acted, and it was thought that that had been left in our in our care.
And that could be very damaging for certain people.
We didn't have it. We didn't have it safe. And in fact that when people were playing with checks, they were stuck in a jar. On the top of a filing cabinet. Well, they were all still there, but there was a well precisely cut hole in our roof and they got through the roof and through the ceiling, and I think and there was clearly all our filing cabinets had been rifled.
You can't. You can't make this stuff up. You can't make this stuff up. Okay, I'm just. I'm just I hadn't realized that. Just thinking about that. Okay, that's interesting. The diaries. Wow, what do you think makes a good solicitor? I'm going to I haven't forgotten about the saying that you've ever met and I'll exclude myself from this question. Have you ever met a good detective? But before I do, what do you consider is the good traits of a defense solictener?
Be a good listener, be compassionate and be prepared to look at the case from every available angle, and to do your best by your client and be truthful to your client.
Good advice. Did you have mentors throughout your career or people that you learned from.
I had different barristers who I worked with. I had the benefit of working with some great lawyers and being opposed by some great lawyers. A lot of them became really good judges. And if you know, laws are really rewarding place because you sort of feel like you're doing good, you feel like you've not done and done. It can be self critical too much sometimes, but now I generally had the benefit of working with good barristers and with people who were really, really smart.
Do you have have barristers that you Is it Forbes Chambers that you engage with a lot of barristers from Forbes Chambers?
Yeah, I regard Forbes is probably the premier criminal chambers. But across the board there.
I used to hate walking up there server brief Forbes Chambers.
But across the across the across the span of barristers. Samuel Griffiths have got some very good barristers, and there's some other chambers spread around.
And what's what's the working relationship with the solicitor and the barrister, Like, what's the dynamic dynamics there.
Well, I've always regarded myself as anything but a bad carrier. I say jokingly, I'm anicat I'm anicating today which has gone getting paid and not doing any of the work. But I tell my clients that they're at a two horse race, I says, as a prosecution, and there's us. I say, I'm the trainer, the barrasses, the jockey, and you know what you are. You're a horse, okay, So if you don't run across the line first, you're in big trouble.
I haven't heard that description. Break that down again, Run it past me again, so I don't forget it.
I say, the solicitors, the trainer, the barrasses, the jockey, but the client's the horse. It's a good analogy because if the horse doesn't run across the line first, the jockey and the trainer walk away. They go home.
That's not a bad way of describing it. Policing have you seen. You've been in the as a defense solicit for forty years, so you've seen changes in police like you wouldn't even recognize what policing was in the eighties, the early eighties compared to one of these is Now, what do you think the quality of investigations are?
Like? I think the quality of investigations has improved markedly. I think that's because I came into law on the cusp of a change where we'd gone through that period where there were suggestions of corruption and so forth, and police were prepared to make up conversations that they'd had with suspects, which we called verbals, in order to gain a conviction. So they were walking working more on gut instinct than they were on real hard work.
I think that's fair and say, and I think to.
The credit of the police force, that's greatly improved and with the advance that we advances that we've had in what I talked about earlier about forensic technologies, which is listening devices and telephone intercepts, better surveillance, long range cameras and long range and basically putting in the time to act on where you start off with a suspicion and then were your way through to look at how things work and whether you've got something that's just a spinoff,
And a lot of the major busts that have been achieved by police is by just looking at that spinoff. Is there something here this person's met that person, We're going to look at what he's doing.
It's definitely evolving and changing changing landscape for criminal investigation. A good detechnic if you've come up against in your career someone because there's been some ding dog battles in the courts and over time, is there one that you could say that you respected for the way he or she went about their job.
Well, in terms of just dogged determination, i'd have to talk about Justin Murray. I've actually got Justin in a case now. But Justin was the officer in charge of the investigations into the Armor Guard robberies across the pavement Armorgard robberies. When I think Chubb an Armourguard security trucks were being attacked as they stopped to fill up ATMs and so forth. And I think overall seven at some point one million or seven point six million dollars was was stolen by the police.
Well, I stule was I said, yeah, and go, okay, we're going make sure we're recording this the alleged cross highlight that trip. There's your headline in the paper. Okay.
I made the mistake in court last week this last week of referring to one of my clients as as a graffiti artist. Well, the magistrate went ballistic and said I said, said, and it criticized me for that. I
was trying to get in. Well, I'll refrase that and say he was an exponent, but it wasn't the police, and we eventually won that case one hundred and sixty one charges to nil, which was a great success justin to his well, I won't say to his credit, but he was so convinced of their guilt that he tracked down everyone and got them all for something else.
Right, Okay, Well I like that type of dog inness.
That was reginess. I've met a lot of police officers, but who now, being armed with the technology and the ability to track crime, do an amazing job.
Yeah. Yeah, Well it takes the pressure off to a degree. Is a police officer that you can rely on the technology and that because before I won't say before, but there was a lot of hard graft. You had to get the statements and then you've got a brief that's not Yeah, there would be I'm saying here just from my thoughts, there seemed to be a lot more trials because you didn't have that evidence. You didn't have the technical evidence of the phone records or things that could
back it up. So it came down to witness testimony, which you'd know and I'm sure you're sure you've exploited in a fair way that eyewitness testimony is not always that reliable.
Nor his memory. Yeah, and psychologists will tell you that constructed memory can be really fallible. But it's then up to the jury to decide whether they believe it or not, and that itself is a fallible system. We saw that with George pell and a lot of people that have their views on that. But knowing from my point of view, looking at what the High Court said, you know, I think the jury didn't make a mistake that other minds
would differ. Also, having been seeing bishops come to Catholic churches and know how many people they drag with them and never were alone, I thought it was pretty difficult. But you've got to look at the system and look at the fallibilities and say, well, the police are getting better tools these days to take suspicion to the point of proof, and that's it. And even though I'm a criminal defense lawyer, I'm a member of a society as well, and in that respect, I expect prosecutors to do their
job properly. In his hard I don't expect to get to cut me any slack because I'm paying them to do their job. And so, yeah, police are getting better, better resources and that's to our advantage.
What about the court system? Is there things that you think could be improved? And you said I think in part one that you've believed the system where God is as good as any other other system across the Well, yeah, I.
Think what needs to be improved in our court system is not the system of the determination of guilt or the application of court time. When you've got judges and juries and magistrates actually doing the sentencing jobs or doing the trial jobs. The problem we have got is we're
over burden with administrative stuff. I was in a court the other day out of Campbelltown and the magistrate had to deal with one hundred and fifty matters in this list, and these were all serious matters, and the majority of them gary were matters that could have been done by our registrar. They were just adjourney matters because they weren't
ready to proceed. Now we're paying big money to have a judicial officer sit there and do an administrative job, and so there are ways and means of cleaning up that system which would save money and I think expedite the system as well.
Yeah. I see what you're saying there, because the time that appears to be wasted in court going through what you've just described is.
Yeah, it's we call them mentions.
The mentions sit there what's the called on in at down in center that wherever they have the mentions and you've virtually got to fight your way in to get in there.
Oh that's the registrar's court four point four. But they're get through the mentions really quickly, by about by eleven thirty, it's all over and done with. But it's yeah, but sometimes you've got to you've got in the custody courts, it's all dealt with by a magistrate, and the magistrates are basically just shuffling paper in the journey matters, and sometimes you've you've got to go before a magistrate. Fortunately, in the Supreme Court we have registrartions who do a
lot of that work. Less there's an issue that needs determination by a judge which is just not shifting the dates or saying this has got to be filed in time, you're getting get referred to a judge. It doesn't happen in the local courts and sometimes in the district courts.
What would you say when I throw this to you that an inquisitorial system is better than adversarial system. Why because you talked about going into the Royal Commission, which is more of an inquisitorial type system in quest than as compared to an adversarial system. Do you think there's any value in leaning more towards an inquisitorial system rather than adversarial system. Not.
While we are entitled to the right.
Silence, Okay, that's a stickler for it.
Yeah, and proof beyond reasonable doubt. And I think that's if you're going to take away a person's liberty. And we're talking about Jarles before. People don't understand is that every day you and I can get up and we have a choice as to what we do. Now, choices are limited because life's repetitive, but we don't have to go to work if we don't really want it. We can take a sickie, we get our four weeks holiday. At the end of the day, we can go and
have a beer with our mates. But if you'll get up and you put on your green shorts and your T shirt and you know exactly what you're going to be doing for the rest of the day in the next four or five or ten years, that's not liberty.
Okay, and look, I agree with you, and to understand the punishment. The punishment has been taken away from society and it's not a nice place to be in prison. And even the prisoners acknowledge that some people have to being there. They're not saying that everyone, Yeah, we should open the jail gates. They know that people should be
in there. What about the jury system. I've had a problem sometimes throughout my career where there's a voir the year and the jury is excluded because there's evidence that might be prejudicial if the jury hears that. The problem I have is that we select the jury that there he is to judge the person's guilt or innocent based on all the information available. We're saying the jury have got the skill set, the life experience to form a view, and then the jury are excluded from so much information
that I think is relevant. Then perhaps we've got to give them the benefit of the doubt that they can interpret the weight that should be placed on that evidence.
Well, that comes back to what I was saying about the hey Dad tendency aspect of evidence where there's other like events that this person has perpetrated, and then the jury just in some respects and still don't hear that all the time. But there are rules of evidence which are there to protect the person who is entitled to a fair trial. And as I said before, no system is fallible, and that is always up for reassessment and
for change. The laws of evidence are constantly changing and constantly being find and you can have faith in the fact that if there's a problem that law reform commissions are looking at those and trying to make things better. Now, from my point of view, they don't always make them better. And there's been a very very substantial drift in the criminal law to taking for granted what the victim says is being true and not being able to challenge the victim,
particularly in sexual assault cases. I have a certain view about that. The me Too movement has a totally different view. So you've got to accept what a person says has been in gospel. Well, sorry, but there's as many truths come out as a person's mouth as lies do as well, and you should have the opportunity, if you're an accused person, to test the evidence that's being given against you. So I think adversarial systems in that respect.
Other way to go okay, fair, fair comment. Would you I see young solsteners especially, I saw them more with the DPP, but I saw it with defense as well. Always seem to be overworked, underpaid, and stressed. It looks like a tough career. But I also see people like yourself that spend lifetime in the career, and I can tell that you've enjoyed your career, and yeah, you think it's a worthwhile vacation. Would you recommend law to people?
Strangely, I tell people if someone some young kid comes up to me or a prayer and comes up to me and says, I agree, Do you think I think Johnny should go into law? I say, listen, doesn't matter whether it's law or medicine or any profession. Get a
job dealing with people's money, not people's problems. But no, it's professional life as a lawyer is satisfied if you if you understand that it's not going to make you, you know, a billionaire, but it's it's a it's it's a worthwhile profession if if you take it and you're actually helping people.
Yeah, Now, well, I see the lawyers that I respect, You can see that they've put in the time and that might be where they're turning up in the middle of a trail and it's clear they've been up all night, not on the drink, but up all night working on the brief and that type of thing. I think we'll wrap it up at this point in time. I just want to say I've really enjoyed sitting down and having that chat with you, for you guys are not as bad as other people are telling me you are.
I'll go wait, I'll go await, enlightened and hardened by that character.
No, but you've given a good insight, good insight into the world of world of crime, and some funny stories that I think anyone that's spent a career like you have is going to have. And thanks for giving us the opportunity to sit down and have a chat with you.
My pleasure.
Cheers,