The public has had a long held fascination with detectives. Detective see a side 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. Welcome back to part two of my chat. We've retired Detective Chief Inspector Pamely Young, who I personally think was one of the toughest cops in New South Wales. And just by way of background, if you didn't hear part one, we work together for a very long time in homicide.
We also lived together for a very long time, so there's a lot of history between the two of us. So if things are said here I'll deny it if it's embarrassing to me, but I trust you, Pam, to be kind to me.
I will try.
Okay, we're going to talk about a particularly gruesome investigation that you were involved with Russell Oxford at the time, who's one of our favorites on Eye Catch Killers. It was the murder of David o'hearne and Frank r Kell, and I want to talk about that because you worked with Russell on that investigation and still to this day is one of the most sort of gruesome crime scenes
I've seen and it was just a fascinating case. But before we do, and paying homage to the fact that on Eye Catch Killers, I've never had someone honor as a guest that I lived with, and people probably want to find out what it's like living in the house. We've two highly strung out homicide detectives at the same time. I'm just going to talk about one particular event that happened in now not works time, relationship time. We're at your place, at your unit, and I think we had
an argument. You were clearly wrong and for whatever you said, and I, as I tend to do, like to make the big statement about how aggrieved. I am and decide, fine, I'm going to pack up and leave. The problem was, it was about twelve o'clock at night. Grabbed all my gear, all my worldly possessions, and carried them and walked to the railway station. Then at about one o'clock I'm sitting at the railway station. I was living on the Central Coast at the time I got on the train.
And we were nowhere near a railway station.
Yes, and I was carrying all my worldly possessions and I get on the train and some drop kick said, mate, you must have done something wrong. I've been kicked out. I tried to point out, as a matter of principle that I thought I was right in the argument. Therefore, I was going to leave regardless of what time. I got home to the Central Coast at probably about three o'clock, had an hour asleep, and then had to turn around
and come back to Sydney. What made the day even more memorable, we were lecturing on the detective's training course. We're delivering eight hour lectures to I think about two hundred detectives on the one of those days on homicide investigation. To say the fact that it was a bit tense on stage is an understatement, and I think some of the some of the reviews we got on that particular day was that the lecture was very informative, but you could feel the sexual tension. Why did we put ourselves
through that? Like who has an argument storms out then has to I literally said hello to you when we walked on stage, Hi, and do a lecture for eight hours.
Yeah. Look, we were trying to encourage and raise perceptive detectives, weren't they And it showed that they we have succeeded. So yeah, we did have to hold it together a few times. Apart from anything, we're just more often than not so tired from a relentless song call. Well, and then with two of us at the same time, you lived your own call, I meaning I got to serve for your on call and you get to serve for my uncle, so effectively doing two separate lots of on call.
And that's that's where it added. Because we're doing individually. You do on call once every six weeks. So, and I've explained this on the podcast. You get called if there's a murder in the state.
More often than that. If you didn't have children, Yes, it's always you know, other people couldn't and you were asked to volunteer and people who didn't have children, Yes, and you can.
So I'd get through an on call period and just crawl across the finishing line, and then you would would have a week's break, and then you ended up on the phone call and we go through the whole thing again. But anyway, that's where just reflecting, I'm sure you were.
Did you ever make it home again?
I'm sure you were wrong in that argument. I forget what it was about, but clearly it was an important issue.
But you want to lessen and this is this is important.
There's a few more storming out stories go. We'll talk about them them later one particular time when you're on call over Christmas, but we'll save that to another another time. Okay, the murder or the murders to murders, David Ahearn and Frank R. Kel, do you want to just talk with us about And people are interested in how you become involved in these investigations and then what happened in the investigations, So do you want to just talk us through that?
Well, the famous and good Russell Oxford is the reason I was in homicide at all. He mentored me in to homicide at Northwest Crime Squad. He taught me so much and he seemed to like working with me. So with on call. He was my sergeant and he called me when that job came in. That was the second murder in what we would learn was serial murders. So Russell and I were called to the Frank r Kell murder. In particular, the lovely David O'Hearn had been murdered about
just two weeks prior to that. And this is down in Wollongong Albion Park area. Yes, so fascinating crimes. So and this is in June of ninety eight, the first crime of David Lovely, a quiet living game man shop owner. He was found dead, very dead, in his lounge room. He'd been mutilated post mortem, so after dying extensively, he'd had his head removed and put in the sink, the
kitchen sink, his own kitchen sink. He'd had his hand cut off and the hand, the bloody end of the hand used to write what was suggestive of Satanic references and symbols on his walls of his own home. He'd been his intestine had been removed and put symbolically on a silver tray. Other things too had happened to different parts of his body, so clearly someone very dangerous was operating. So just two weeks later, this is when Russell and
I become involved. Frank Carcel, who had been the mayor of Wollongong I think for well over fifteen years or upward to twenty and certainly always a Wollongong man. He was found dead at his home in a similar area, bashed severely to the head multiple times, and also some post mortem mutilation a less degree than what I've described with Port David, but there were lapel pins type pins put into his eyeballs, for instance, and a few different things.
So yeah, so can I just stop you there with that type of crime scene? What's the thing that's going through your mind? So you've got that crime scene, and then two weeks earlier there was another particularly gruesome crime scene. What's the detectives thinking at what's gone on there?
On approaching it physically, I mean or just potentially.
Just looking at Okay, who could have committed this? What do we yes with here? Was going through your mind and the mind of the strike force.
So we did we tended to move towards it they were linked. We even had a third murder earlier that year in Sydney of a man called Trevor Parkin. He hadn't been long out of jail and he was found in again appallingly mutilated condition. So potentially we had definitely a serial killer and of the most brutal type. But personally you can't dwell on that. That's too big a concept. We've got to deal on the minutia, the tiny things. Where's the evidence, what's the evidence we're going to find here?
What is important for each crime scene to be treated uniquely and the evidence individually pursued and then of course always be communicating at about links. So it did end up our hypothesis that they were linked. Certainly it was true for David o'hearne and Frank Arkel. Trevor Parkin was a separate crime and offender was charged separately for his murder.
Yep. And what were the what were the links that you confidently felt that they were linked. You're taking their account the brutality of the crimeone.
Yes, the physical the proximity really the two weeks apart, but they so David was a gay man. Frank though was had been charged with child child offenses. So whilst we know that gay people aren't pedophiles, it's a completely different concept and lifestyle, a lot of offenders can think that they are the same. So potentially we had an offender who thought he'd attacked two pedophiles and as it turned out, that's the case with.
The pressure that's on there, and yeah, I understand it, but explain to people the pressure when you're investigating crimes like that two weeks apart, you think they're linked, when's it going to be the next person murdered that.
Yes, it's exactly exactly even it's it's pressure from above about those things. It's it's they can't have deployed a team and a good team, and then while the good teams out there, then another similar crime occurred. So there's all this, uh all pressure along that line as well, and of course we don't want to do occur either. But you have to concentrate your areas in what you have, and we had two scenes and we yes, so we very much went over the history of all Longong has
some quite hideous history of quite hideous crimes. They were also coming under notice as far as the Catholic church and counselors and politicians from that area for child abuse matters, it was all in that in that era. So that was a took a huge book of our time.
That's telling me you've got a lot of potential persons of interesting Yes, it did.
Was very wide. It also had a lot of gay beat areas, so of course we were canvassing and inquiring of anyone there if they had any one in mind or yes, or any new people in the area, or any strange behavior or conduct and things. So it was very broad and investigation under pressure because of the nature of the crimes.
Yeah, what when did you think you got the breakthrough? Was there? Was there one particular breakthrough.
There was, So under Russell's guidance, we had sensibly not released to the public because we know how important it is to hold back material that only the killer knows about, and it's a way that you avoid false confession. So Russell had made a good decision to not release the fact that clothing, so tracksuit pants and boots not belonging to Frank kel To were found at the scene with Frank.
So the assumption is they belonged to the killer. So we held on to that information because we wanted to catch the killer with the other piece of the tracksuit and potentially replaced brand new desert boots. But it got to a point of that that holding off didn't work, so we did release. We got the mannequins, as you do on extensive media coverage with exactly the same but new clothing. We got a lot of information.
And the appeal does anyone recognize.
Yes, exactly, okay, So we did get a lot of responsible One in particular was a young woman who said, oh, my boyfriend, he loves his desert boots and I can't remember seeing him wear them for a few weeks now. So just simple things you can that can be overlooked in the sea of other people who say, oh, you know the neighbor you have desert boots too, I haven't seen them, and the little things details, it is those details. So we were honing in then on her boyfriend, who
was a nineteen year old called Mark van Krevel. At the same time with the other strike force, the one looking at the murder of David o'hearne, they noted that Mark van Krevell was an alibi to one of their suspects. Of they had many suspects, but he was an alibi to one of their suspects, so we had another possible link, tenuous, tenuous link. And then we looked at the various crime scene logs that we kept at our scene over a number of days and there was an entry there for
an inquiry by Mark van Krevel. So he had been to the scene of Frank's home in the days when the police were controlling the scene. So that then led to us desperately wanting his fingerprints. He was a clean skin, so no history. We did have Prince at David O'Hearn's home, so it was one of the first ops that went around. We got our surveillance teams to follow him around whilst he went about his street walks, knowing nothing about him, hoping he might drink something glass or eat something from
a nice shiny, clean surface and discard it. And it was many days went into that, but we did get his fingerprints on a coke bottle that he discarded into a public bin. The fun jobs we police get to do because it was clearly and you couldn't get you couldn't wait to have it, you know, down the bottom of other people's discarded Russia rubbish. So we had to he had to be seen putting it in because it was going to be evidence. He had to be seen
putting it in photographic scene, visually scene. He had to be far enough away for them for the surveillance the dogs dive in and grab it before the people in the busy woong streets filled it up with other things, because then you can't distinguish his from theirs. They did really well, and we ended up with his print matching to the Ohn scene. Plus then you know it's nothing or everything. At the same time, he in the alibi statement that he'd given for the Dava Aherne matter, alibying
one of their suspects. We got his statement out, original statement, not the one now, on a electronic, yes, electronic one, and fingerprinted it. So it was his statement with his name on it, with his prints on it that matched the coke bottle, the statement page, and the wall. So we had him for O'Hern's and we were ready to really.
There's there's pressure on there because you're at the stage where you make a pressure. Ideally you wouldn't have to, but you can't. You can't let him run and let someone.
Can't get him run, and at the same time he could be innocent. So yeah, pressure was run and we were ready to know. We knew. We were at a stage after I can't remember how long that job went. Might have been a year, I can't remember, but it wasn't a short job. Short term job and building up to it. And then I'm staying down there and I get the call from Wollongong to say, oh a taekwond instructor has brought in his student students' names, Mark van Krevell.
He wants to confess to the murders and it was a gift, so so we yes, so it's just all hands on deck. That night he made a full confession and then Russell and Joe Cassa did an excellent walkthrough
interview with him. Some people have criticized that interview for saying that, you know, Russell's too prescriptive, but I keep I see even now, I want to say that's because Russell well knew because he'd done the earlier interview, that the confession that Van Crreeville had given was full and Frank and Russell was just making sure that no detail was missed at the scene. It was just a cover
cover off. So the apart from the hideous crimes and the fact he went out with Paul David o'han, he just went out wanting to know what it felt like to kill somebody. That's more or less a quote with Frank r Kel. He suggested he was a bad man, but that was really played more once he was in defense mode and was learning about charges and things, so he tried that. So the striking thing this is this endless curiosity that the job allows us to learn these things.
He had no hesitation, not even a change of a voice or a look on his face when he's describing in detail what he did to those men and their bodies. Not hesitation. This is an nineteen year old. But if in the interview, if he swore he went into profuse apologies because he knew that was rude. That wasn't the type of manners he was brought up to. His expression fascinating, fascinating, So it was okay to murder, mutilate, and describe, but
not to use a swear word. It just it is fascinating. Yeah, So he's he got He was the youngest person to get to two life sentences, but under the which was brand new at the time and never to be released scheme. So he's he's still in of course.
I think I bumped into him in prison.
I was going to say, not.
Shop.
He was a great sweeper. He did great sweeping.
If it is, I think it was him just put on a lot of weight and living there. Yeah.
Yeah, look, he he had a shocking upbringing, as so many sadly do, but nonetheless.
Upbringing. But there's even the further twist to this this story. Do you want take us there? Yeah?
So again I can't remember the timeframe wasn't too long after. So Mark van Kreville is in the court system well and truly when his sister is picked up for soliciting her boyfriend, Shriy Shriver to murder her father, saw also Mark van Krevel's father with an axe, and he did so successfully. So you've got the brother, the sister, and their friend up for really shocking offenses.
Yeah, pretty chilly offenses. Even in all all that we're saying, that sort of sticks in your mind. Working on a job like that, the pressure, the brutality, the just the horribleness of it. Does it change your view on humanity. Does it do you look at people a little bit differently? Does it effect you at all?
So the answer is yes. I can only say yes so firmly because I've learned that it did affect me, and not necessarily that job. There's a category of jobs. I believe all jobs affect us. It is unnatural for any human to look on the violent death of another human being. It's unnatural, but someone has to do it. It can't be done by anyone else. It has to be done by investigators, and then doctors and forensic pathologists, and then there's the photos to Everyone needs to look
at it, so it has to be done. But it is unnatural and it must affect everyone, and does affect everyone. It's whether you acknowledge it and to what extent. So my answer is yes, it affected me, but not in relation to what I think about humanity. I think the thing that has allowed me to cope is that being so close to death, seeing how death is brought about violently, Seeing whilst it's a devastating impact, but it's limited in
the population. And if it wasn't for media and other interested groups wanting using fear as a means to get ratings. I think the community as a whole would feel more relaxed about the community because I have been up close in the face, standing in the middle of the very
worst of humanity, and I still believe in it. I still know the vast majority of people are good people, But I do I have come away with triggers that spontaneous reactions are to various visual signs and colors, such is the color of blood, for instance, trigger triggers around violence towards women. I do think, uh that I'm particularly still and I think I always will be triggered by violence towards women. Can I get do we have time?
I tell you the most bizarre, I mean, I still think it's bizarre.
Run this podcast.
The most and part of it, like you know, it upsets me. But I think it's such a clear it's such a clear demonstration to me that what what emergency services face. It's not me. I'm not weaker or stronger than anybody else, but it played out this way. It was so I went to I went to Spain. I was in Barcelona and walking down that is it the Rombulus, that it's the riverbank area that they've converted into a a center pedestrian wide pedestrian mall effectively leading from the
city park down to the water. Beautiful, beautiful, yes. And on either side there's two lane roads, busy roads, and shops. It densely packed shops on either side across the road. So I'm walking in the middle on a holiday and I'm hearing I hear yelling, and I look to my right and I see there's a woman, a black woman, being held her. She's got her arms held back, held at her back by two or three men, and there are other men yelling at her in the face, and
she's yelling back. She's giving as good as she's getting verbally, though she's being restrained. I just summed it up. I thought, possibly she's a shoplifter and she's been yelled at by the person who owns the shop. She was the woman in that area. Everyone else was men, and I just thought, I just took it in. I clocked it our tom So then I just looked again and I saw a man come from behind the two interested groups come from behind, walk in front to her and punched her with all
his might, straight in her face. I saw that. Now. The next thing I know, the very next thing I know is I come to over on the footpath. So I've left this wide mal area, got across two lanes of traffic. I'm standing on the footpath with her at my back, staring at the man who's punched her to stop, to stop. What is I don't know what he's going to stop if he was going to hit her again, I was. I have no idea how I got from in the middle of the mall to in the middle
of them. So I come to and then logic comes in and think, well, they're all speaking Spanish. I don't speak Spanish. I'm not in the police force over here. I'm in the new Southwest place. What am I doing here? What can I do? So I'm just going like this and making sweet smiling faces, and the men that weren't him, they settle it. They see themselves.
That's gone.
That's gone too far. And I was with some friends and I thought, my goodness, I'm going to have to explain what just happened. So I'm walking back fully, conscious, crossing the road carefully. It was very busy road. Getting in the middle again. I'm ready to I'm thinking, excuse, excuse, what can I excuse me for? Explaining that bizarre, bizarre behavior and came back in. The first thing they say is, oh, you're so brave you went to help that woman. And I left it that I wasn't going to say. Look,
it was something. It was literally it was a trigger, a PTSD related trigger around the safety of women, a woman, a stranger woman, a stranger woman in a foreign country, a stranger woman in a foreign country who's committed a crime. So it doesn't matter, it's that trigger. I think what gets inside that you cannot intellectualize a way.
Thanks for sharing it, because I have spoken to other police officers that if they talk about how it's affected them, and there's strange situations like that where they just they're standing in the middle of the road, don't know what they're doing, just different things like that. Yeah, that's part
of the policing. But it's in your instinct too. I know you well enough to know you can't stand by whether it was a perceived injustice, but probably a bit stupid in that environment you could have you didn't know what you're walking.
Into, Yes, but the thing so you say stupid and I know jubil and you don't think PTSD really exists. I know that about you because I just know because we've talked about it. So even for you to say, even you keep believing that, so you even in that sentence you said, probably a bit silly, of course you couldn't really help that woman. You've missed the whole The whole thing is is I was not conscious of what
I was doing. A trigger. You've you're a gunman, you've pulled a few that that trigger in me was I must must protect that woman.
I must have been born with PTS.
Then, oh, look, that's not beyond the realms. You're still getting over your dad. Well it is if you think trauma is is a normal state because you had it since childhood. So police, the addition of police trauma is just a normal life.
Anyway. We'll move on from that. So chaos is a norm anyway. What's the next topic? Does it change view on humanity?
Encyclopedia past.
Let's go to a happy, happy, happy topic, our role models. I hope it steers towards Russell ox With and Paul Jacob because we had a lot of fun when we're senior constables talking about our respective sergeants. Mine was Paul Jacob and yours was Russell Ocks with great detectives, and that they tore us, tore us so much. But were they the softest people in the history of the world. Yeah.
We used to say to each other like I'd say, you know, my sergeant's nicer than yours, and you said, no, my sergeant's nicer than yours, and this little affectionate bantering.
What I like about both them that I think they were rock solid, strong human beings, but they kept a humanity to them the whole true and taught them well, taught me, probably taught you a lot too, because I was somewhat angry as you might, and intense, and the same become as a surprise.
I reflect, you see if I can to remember.
But they the things I learned off Jacob, how he is so inclusive in running a strike because everyone was involved, from the most junior person as a senior person. Everyone felt like they were contributing tension, the detail. I couldn't understand why we're sitting there eleven o'clock at nine. I wanted to go home. I'm tired and all that. But just attention the details, thoroughness. Yes, and we were fortunate to have two role models like that. Because I know you you think highly.
Of very sustaining, sustaining with your Jacob, your Jacob by Jacob. That he would expressly use the word love when he spoke to people, when he was appreciating their efforts and their good work, and he would say, and I love you two cops of all genders, so repeatedly it was and it was natural. It wasn't genuine, it was genuine,
you know that easily accepted philosophy. Now, there's so many types of love with Russell, just a little demo it comes to mind, for instance, how nice he was, because he was so always so good with keeping standards and explaining the need for preservation and why things were done in a certain way. But if he found an officer at a crime scene with their boot ever so slightly over the top of any sort of blood trace, he's here was the type of nice person. He'd go up
and say, look it's Bill, isn't it Bill? See how your foot is there on the blood. I think you should take your boot off, and you're going to be now and we're going to carry you out so that there's no other disermancy. Would you mind and just just
take a couple of minutes to get where everything. Will do that, That's what Roussill would do, Whereas I would have spotted him at the door, Bill and I said, I have said, fucking Bill, take your built off and you're going to walk home back to the station in your socks. Look at what you've done a different So same, that's and they showed it. They showed how you could be professional and respected and be kind and be good.
Yeah, and I know because we've spoken about it so often. I just feel lucky that we got to work under people like that that could mentor us carry those.
I want to mention two other role models, Kim mackay she and Maria Russia. They made it to superintendent long before my sights set on those positions, and they both headed up the arduous, tough child protection units at separate times. And Kim she was the commander for those shocking strike for Sedah, a multiple serial Lebanese Australian related sexual assaults across Sydney of women and girls. Blao scaf is still
serving time in jail. He was a pack leader. She did a great job holding the office together and assisted those resolving those shocking crimes. Plus yeah, so her strength was about how to look after stuff, not so I got from Russell about how to look after crime scenes and from came about staff. With Maria. She fought tooth and nail to have child protection matters acknowledged properly. Their volume crime they.
Were when Maria was running that, it was just a horrible time for him because I was overworked.
No one gave him the respect, no one gave and we're tooking in people inside like their bosses, including just with the volume crime. Remember any any crime had to be reported on a sit reper situation report. Maria was faced with the situation where with chart abuse, there were so many sit reps. They were following policy and submitting them to the our directors executive and Maria's boss effectively tot, don't send them through anymore. There's too many for us
to read. It's not oh there's so many, we will get you more staff, or we will let's see if we can help. It was don't send them. So it was less acknowledged, less acknowledged, yeah, because they weren't reading what was happening. So it was a very disturbing time, and Maria was successfully fought against that. So I still say street cops and child protection workers have the toughest gigs.
Yeah, and the two that you mentioned, and I worked with Kim. I wasn't in homicide. She was in homicide, and I remember she came out to one of the first homicides I worked on. Very impressed by her, and the team were working and Maria. I tried. I think I tried to get it might have been through you tried to get Maria on the podcast years ago. But yeah, both, I'm glad you've given them a share out because again, they got through as females in a tough, tough male environment.
Kim was the first boss to extend emotional support to me, first and only boss, and that's when I'm a very senior sergeant by then. And she was.
With sex crime.
Yes, she offered a sabbatical. She saw it was never I've had some very good bosses, but not once offered emotional support. Yeah, so there you go.
Oh well, no, they deserve a mention. All right. I wanted to talk about and we don't have to talk about it long, but I think it's worth talking about it that we're both in major crime. When the Royal Commission came for and yeah, I was in North region, you're in Northwest. Both regions were hit pretty pretty hard with the Royal Commission. I often get asked about about those times, and you know, you can't shy away from it. There was corruption in the in the police, and that
was in the work environments that we worked. I'm talking about the after effects of it that I really felt that as detectives, I felt shame for what had been exposed. And I choose my words here carefully because there's some people that needed to be Yeah, they were bad and they were using the job to do whatever they were doing. It certainly wasn't police were But I say this was some weak people that were caught up in it because
they didn't know how to say that. You and I navigated our way through that, but we could stand up for ourselves. I saw some people get caught up because just the influence of the group and they were caught up. What's your take on those times?
Well, I would start with saying the command can you know had so many more people who were not corrupt than the smaller number that was so speaking of Chriss God Northwest, if I just remember correctly, we had about one hundred, let's say one hundred and twenty with child protection, of which three, five, seven, let's even double at fifteen, let's say in the drug squad in particular, and I think only in the drug squad, and I think the number is closed to five. By the way, were targeted
rightly and were caught out rightly. So even then, in the dark days before the Royal Commission, we really were good.
We were good.
If anything, I've seen more negligence or laziness. Corruption to me is a smaller concern. Whenever it is, it's bad and it needs to be rooted up. But my goodness, it's more. There are more crimes left unsolved or were convictions. Even good briefs is evidence that at the end of the day, I don't hold through negligence and laziness disorganization.
At last, young, I've found someone that I've been trying to articulate that very thing. Yeah, I was in major crime when the Royal Commission came through and they identified corruption. Do I think that corruption was worse than some of the stuff I see now by not properly resourcing or properly investigating things, No, I don't. I Yeah, that was bad, but it's just as bad to not properly resource an investigation or lie to the public, or even worse, lie
to victims about what's been done on an investigation. We jake and we're not into bashing bashing the police. We both love the police. So I'm choosing my words here carefully, but telling people there's a strike force running on this when the strike force was basically one person and little things like that. So I do understand what you're saying.
Yes, but sometimes that's the fact, and that's only possible because of the disparity between the number of let's say cold case it's just to grab a sample area cold case alongside, and the number of stuff. So it's not, oh, there are other stuff that could be used, but we're only going to give it one stuff. It's just no, there's no movement, there's no fat, there's no reserve bench.
So the it's a huge question what is the proper resourcing as in staff positions two properly work through crimes, all crimes and crimes.
And we've both been in management, so we understand that the resources are limited and they've got to be put where that they can be best utilized. But yeah, I do see. You know, it's all right saying that was a corrupt days we've cleared up the corruption. But don't think just because it's all polished up and looking shiny and the media are reporting all nice things about the police. Everything has been done properly.
Now, I do think that that's twenty five, wasn't it, that wood Rold commission, So that that was on the back of that heroine trade worldwide, that that addiction with. You know, no one sees anything like that now, No one sees the damage to individuals and the community through. We saw it and we attempted to lock up a few people with it, but that then seeped into for instance, drug squads.
So yeah, it's also a reflection on society too. It wasn't just a police so there's people outside of the police, where it be politicians or others called up in the whole.
Yes, and greedy people we know well at Northwest who were charged or certainly named and really greedy, small minded, unethical, lazy, lacking self esteem. I thought they were tough guys, thought exactly, you know that that's the type.
Yeah, I know. But anyway, the point I want to make with that whole Royal Commission. I felt aggrieved as detectives because our reputation was just sullied within our own organization, within the public. Yes, and people like yourself myself have been through it. We had the fight to get that reputation back.
Yes, yes, yes, and the thing and it comes in with a few other things that played. But that was the first example to me, demonstration to me of how the police force as a whole, but meaning really the individuals in it are offered up as sacrifices to social ills or political aims. The cops and we've seen time and time again and very recently seen as the whipping post,
the whipping boy of lack of proper policy or budget. Yeah, so that was the first example to me of media and politicians and interest groups being allowed to go for the I call us the low hanging fruit, the cops. And it's convenient for others above us, who really could control and assist and support more, because it's a lovely distraction to their neglect or lack of budget or something,
or lack of properly resourcing the police force. So yeah, so I'd like the public to be a little bit more aware of that.
Okay, that brings us to a nice segue because I was going to I wanted to. At the start of this episode, I talked about toughest cop in New South Wales because people all asking me who's the toughest cop in New South Wales and they think I'll be saying someone and go paym young. All right, where's that come from? You have a you don't shy away from what needs to be said. I've collected a couple of examples here and I just I'll talk you through it and you
can explain your position, Okay. So Pam was an association rep, the New South Wales Police Association. The rep the association reps go on what they call the annual Conference and it's usually at this some swish, beautiful five star resort for three or four days of just paling around and discussing the important stuff, looking after the people they're here to support. Pam goes to this and I think it was on the central coast. Was it that the Crown not the Crown All.
Those five star hotels are inside. It's hard to take.
These are our association reps and there looking after looking after the working men. And so they have the meeting women and women. Of course, yeah, correct me, they have the has anyone got any motions to put forward? And I think Pam put a hand up and said, yes, do we really have to waste our members' money staying in these luxury resorts? Couldn't we have this conference at police headquarters? Why are we wasting their money?
No?
One second draw and there was just silence. Yes, I think you were right in what you said, but it doesn't make you popular.
No all successful, No popularity, no success. Oh and I just do plug for the association though they do some excellent work supporting members, including myself as things went.
Right, So now you've sold out, now you want them back in the luxury resorts. But I thought that was a reasonable point, at least at warrants for discussion. The fact that no one second your motion was a bit sad. Anyway, another great Pam Young moment. It was in the homicide office New South Wales Police had become bankrupt apparently, or so we were told. So we had the works work on murder investigations, but they couldn't pay us over time.
We couldn't travel. I was doing an investigation around the state that I couldn't travel. It was just it was ridiculous. It got they were.
Going to remove the water. We weren't allowed to have.
The water just we had run out of money apparently, And so there was a lot of agitating, especially from us at homicide because it was really impacting on important investigations, and we got the police minister there and I forget who it was at the time, but it was a fairly intense meeting, like a lot of people in homicide not backwards and coming forward and say what needs to
be said. But there was one comment that stood out from everyone else when Pam speaking to the minister saying, well, perhaps here at homicide we should just strive for mediocrity. Is that what you want us to do? Strive for mediocrity?
I think he agreed that we did get some money. We did, I miss god, he didn't. He didn't agree we should strive for mediocrity. And yes he did deliver. He said he pointed at me and he said you're a cynic, which I thought was the opposite of what I and then he did. The budget was increased.
Yes, we got it significantly increased, and we're actually allowed to go back to work and do some work. So just another one, and we're going to talk about this in part three of we're going in the four parts to just I'm breaking that to you now now. The only other people that have gone into four parts on I Catch Killers is Graham Abbot, Henry Oh you followed notorious company stand over against the Man. He's been a guest favorite here and also Russell Loxford. So you're in
good company in company. Nick Klos only made three episodes.
Don't let him know that.
No, he'll come back and demand another two. That's because he's so busy. Okay, you were put in a position of heading up and you were, in fact the first female to have this position heading up the detective training unit and very important role, and we're going to talk more in detail. I just want to talk about one
aspected the detective's training unit. I remember remember at the time, you were getting into a lot of trouble and there was a lot of pressure because you decided that although the politicians had promised and the senior police had promised more detectives, you weren't going to pass the majority of them because they weren't up to a standard that you considered acceptable. How did that get pet.
I couldn't believe. To me, it was quite bizarre these discussions and debates on changing the standard, like lowering the past mark to like below fifty for recruiting purposes. And I clearly this a balance has to be struck. But it was to me like a no brainer that if they didn't pass the exams, then they probably.
Should because in your in your position, you had to sign off on the people are ready to go out work with other detectives.
Yes, be designated to lead and to lead others and to take charge of entire crime scenes, of which are many of them are major crime scenes. So I was a long debate, and I kept pushing back, and the push was from people more senior to me, entrenched in the world of the academy and believing it was possible. I did get a lot of assistance from State Crime Command who are agreed that people probably should pass their exams.
It sounds like a fairly concept, you know, with it, you have exams so you can pass.
And State Crime had a role as the lead detective advisor, and I was. I was had an inaugural position on the first advisory panel to the Deputy Commissioner. And so that's the argument that the people who failed should be passed was lost. It was just the bizarre nature of having to argue it in the first place.
Yeah, yeah, I know how much it pissed you off, and that pissed me off and a lot of other people that don't. It should be something that we set standards. We should strive for those standards and be proud of because I remember when I got my detective's designation, because we had to work so hard, I was so proud. It was one of the proudest moments in the comps. Walk out and you can finally cook yourself and you're.
Getting them standard not just of taking lead on jobs and communicating with their bosses so that there's the informations correct arguing for resources. It's beyond that. Is there going to be in court facing the top lawyers, criminal law lawyers, some of them unprincipled, who were going to cross examine them, tackle them, make them look like idiots. Our role, My role was to put them in the first position to get the conviction and to not look like an idiot.
So passing exams is kind of part of it.
Yeah, well, look where that got you young to try and take it all too serious. Okay, we're going to finish off part two with a fun fact. It's a bit embarrassing, but I'm ready. I'm not sure if I am. I kick you on this well, we.
Can kick you onto this table, can't.
What was I thinking when I wrote this down? But anyway, now, when we first got together, I expressed an interest in you and you knocked me back. And but you said you admired my courage for being game enough to ask you out, because most men are scared of you. And let me tell you that that is true, because everyone in the office feared you. And when eventually you came to your senses and you decided to go out with me, everyone kept saying, jeez, you must be brave, as in
I must be brave. Question I'm going to ask in the question I want brave?
But you are very happy, brave.
And very content and very happy. Can I just ask you this? And this is how we'll finish off part two? Why do you think you're so intimidating?
H This is when I haven't put my mind to might come in two parts a bit to day and another time. Oh I think you know what I think because I'm genuine I think because I speak my mind and that people know what they're dealing with, that I'm not inclined to be susceptible to peer group pressure. That some loyalty in the police requires a person to be susceptible to peer group pressure and to be agreeable or
supportive against their own principles. I think it just our our job is very much played out, that we're always communicating, so much about communication, and so I just think people hear me speak occasionally might say something correct or clever or certainly clear, and I and other people don't might not have the clarity on it is that I don't know.
I reckon that I wear boots. You've just given people a good understanding why I was nervous asking you out. I discussed it with my mate Jason, and he's a he's a.
A lovely man. He gave you your whole personality.
Well, so he says, I reckon. I had agree, but I said, I think I'm going to ask me out. He's going I don't get that wrong. It could be ugly, could be ugly, but anyway, that's a nice way to finish. Finish part two. When we get back for Part three,
We've got a lot more to talk about. And one of the cases that I want to talk about because I reckon that's one of the most significant cases in the in the country, the family law court bombings, and you led that investigation successfully after a very long time, and I want to dive deep into that investigation because I think it's fascinating. But the magnitude of that crime, I just I think we've missed the point of how significant that was. Where judges places have been.
There well, it has been described and the Prime Minister at the time came out and formed the largest strikeforce that had ever been of combined federal military and New South Wales police. Really significant. It has been described as the most significant case of domestic terrorism ever in the country. And it was a very cold case when I got it, and you might hear that we breathed some life into it.
We might hear that. So that'll be on part three when you come back. We've retired Detective Chief Inspector Pamela.
Young And why do you think I'm intimidating.
And when we get back to part when we get back to part three, oh, I answer that question. Why I think you're intimidating, because Jesus, if you fuck up, you're in trouble, all right, thank you,