The public has had a long held fascination with detectives. Detective see 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. Welcome back to part two of my chat with former tactical police officer John Taylor. In part one, we covered shootings, sieges,
and the high risk situations special operations officers confront. Now add bomb to that list, because in part two, John tells me what it's like to put on a forty kilogram bomb suit and walk up to a suspicious package, knowing if you make a mistake, it will literally be the last mistake you ever make. John also talks about what he does to unwind by climbing Mount Everest. He also runs boot camps for elite professional sportsmen. Have a listened to what John has to say. He certainly lived
a life of adventure. Well. I thoroughly enjoyed part one hearing stories of tactical policing and all the things that you've done. And that was really just scratching the surface of some of the things you've done. But I think it gave listeners a sense of what that type of work involves. We're going to talk about then you are going into the world of the bomb response unit and how you got into that, but before we do, and I think it'll save us getting into trouble or get
you in the good books. Anyway. I think one of the things you're most proud of in what you've done through your life is the fact that you've kept your family together. You've raised some raised the kids, happily married and in the world that you operated that doesn't always play out.
Yeah, that's great. I've had a you know, my wife's been very good, probably very patient in a way, considering one year I missed her sixteenth, eighteenth and twenty first birthday.
You did the big three.
I missed the big three that goes with work. One was a personal challenge too, but that's just the way it happened. But yeah, you know, we missed a lot of functions and things like, Oh, she went to a lot of functions by herself. You know, I wasn't around And that was just part of the cause. In the early days, very hard on the family life. No mobile phones and things like that. Senior sergeant would ring jan and just say he probably went be home for a week.
He's got out to do his task and that was it, you know. And she always trusted the guys, the boys, the bosses and stuff like that. Had no qualms with that. But Dad was a vionman for a lot of years sort of understood the ship work, which help.
But yeah, you need that to be able to do the things that you've done. You need that type of support. And I'm sure that having that stability and knowing that the home is safe, that your wife is looking after things things there make it easier for you to concentrate on doing what you're doing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, she read the household really when it comes down to it, Yeah, it would have been hard. She's self employed us for dietriss, so basically eating starting off, she'd get home visits, you know, have all the equipment and probably a baby in toe capsule. And yeah, she worked.
Hard while you're off flying around in helicopters and.
Yeah, we're getting paid to do this stuff and.
Living the boy's own adventure. Okay, let's talk about diffusing bombs. Now. It's a very specialist field of policing. There's only a small number of people that do it. And yeah, I suggested there's be any a small number of people that want to do it, and then you've got to have the aptitude for it. What threw you into becoming a member of the Bomb Response Unit?
Well, yeah, so you get into the SOG. You're all tactical members. Everybody's a tactical member. It does house raids and what we've discussed before, and then you can start going to a special s fields, like some can be a sniper, some can be a bomb tech, you know,
depending what comes up. And it was nineteen ninety so I hadn't been in the group that long, and I had shown an interest, you know, been to a few scenes where I'll help get the equipment out but not involved and a course was coming up and I saw you wanted to become a bomb tech also to that kind of field, so I was going to remain tactical, but it was just an extra skill. And so in ninety ninety I headed off to a place called Bandiana, which is on the quarter of Victoria and New South Wales.
It's an army base and basically started my course there, a four week course which was run by police jurisdiction throughout Australia. So they have two police officers from each state and territory there and we're using a military base, so we had some of their instructors. Plus we also had previous bomb texts, experienced bomb texts from various states who would be a director, assistant director and instructors and
things like that. So you do your four week course there to start your bomb and like four week course is not long, you know, it's an apprenticeship.
It would be a course that I'd be paying particular attention to because.
You don't want to miss any lessons, that's for sure, and it's passed failed. You know. In the early days, you know, there's nothing about compe season resetting things as you know, you know it was you know, you either passed or you failed, and you know the pressure. I just got into the group, but you mean the group probably a year and maagine going back to first Victorian to fail a bomb course.
You know when it came down to it, Yeah, you don't want to carry that. Well, it might got rid of your name as Calvin, you might have Calvin, Yeah,
got rid of that. But want to do that work like that's you know that we talket the pressure of being in the tactical terms, the sag and responding to incidents, but there's I think I'm just looking at there's another level of pressure when you're okay, there's a package over there, and it happens so many times in police and I don't think people fully appreciate how much effort then things
have to be done when there's a suspicious package. So you're going to you're putting your hand up to be the person that walks in and determines whether that's going to blow you up. If you make a mistake in this line of work, it's the last mistake you make. Literally it is.
And I had a good mate, see sergeant, and basically We used to say every met matters, so if you could be a further meter away, that could be the
difference between your life or serious injury. So yeah, you're trained basically to assess the situation, which with the equipment you had in the early days, if you had a suspicious band, you walk up with your X ray equipment, you'd take an X ray of it, and like the xtra equipment those days wasn't great and like, oh geez, it is a bomb, now go and put the bombsuit on. So we've changed now that you know, over the fifteen years ago, we decided like, if we get caught the job,
it's a bomb until we determine it's not. So full equipment, equipment, full bomb suit, it's required and use everything before we actually try and put a member over the top of it. And robots have got better these days, so you know, it makes your job a lot easier. It just bends the location where it is.
So what sort of appt you do you feel that you need to be a bomb technician.
I think stick to the procedures that you've been taught. You know, there's no shortcuts, and I've had people, I've filed people on courses that have done the wrong thing. You know, I've had one guy removed from our unit that made a bad mistake and make it it is lucky. It was lucky. Basically nothing happened, but he made a bad decision. And as the upgraded senior stage in that time, you know, I thought, advice this person. I think it's just time that you move to another location. And he
understood the consequences, you know. So you know, I don't want to be going to someone's family and saying you made a mistake. With training now and all the equipment, you don't take a risk, you know, and maybe this will happen. Now you know what's going to happen. If you're going to go up there and cut the red wire or whatever that's going to disarm it, that's not the way to go. But there's other ways of dealing with it that you've been able.
We hold this could be great. Are you telling us all those Hollywood films, do we cut the red or the blue wire? Is bullshit?
Only on Fridays, right If you.
Want to knock off because you've got to get out, let's just.
You just hope you're not color blind or something like that.
Yeah, yeah, but yeah, the skill sets. So a four week four week course and I take on board each meter matters that that's logical in its process, the way that you've shifted assess of the situation that's a bomb until you can improve otherwise. That all makes sense, But it gets down to the point where you've got to approach.
At some stage, no matter what, some stage you have to approach it and declear it's safe, and we run our own course. Now in Victoria, things changed within the government and basically every state turgory was to deal with their own bomb techs and train their own bombics. Our course is now five weeks long and it's only an initial course. Really. The first week is actually getting your
explosive license. Originally you didn't have to have a license, so under the work Safe and all that we had permission, really good work safe that we could run our own explosive course and give people their exposes licenses. Even as a bomb tech, if you're driving around exploses, you've got to have a license to do that. So everything's done within the legislation and things like that. It's just important that the first week's a good understanding the effect of
an explosive blast. Then you start putting fragmentation and all that kind of stuff that have a good understanding.
Well, I think that's probably a good idea because if it's not a fire cracker going off invariably, it can be devastating, and so they give you an appreciation of that, probably wake you up to make sure you're concentrating in what you're being taught.
Yeah, well, you know when I did my course where we had jelly knite, basically they don't have jelly knite these days, which is really nitru It's base based, so instink that heat, shock and friction, you know, has like even a residue on it. You know, if you get it on your hands you sort of scrape your forehead, you'll come down with a terrible migraine. So it gets
into the poresy your skin. And basically when you get jelly knife for the first time, you got to poke a hole in it, and poke another hole and put a detonator in it, you know, and make sure you don't hit the little steel clip on the top and correct friction and stuff like that. Different kind of level. Yeah, you were nervous doing it, but it was exciting in a way if you like fireworks exposure a lot better.
Right, Okay, look it's a bigger bank. Yeah, how like you've got to you've got to be calm, and that is that something you had or something that you trained yourself for, because you really need to be focused, calm, making informed, correct decisions.
Now, as a sergeant, you'd come up with a plan how are you going to deal with a situation? And my bomb techs, you know, the bontics I had. When we're dressing them, you know I would have put a plan together. This is what you're going to do, bang bang bang bang bang abc D right through. Unless they can think of themselves, you know, when they get out there,
it's changed the environment or whatever. But whilst we're dressing and we're putting their overall pants on and then we're putting their browin protection on them, they're thinking about the tasks they have to do. Then we put the helmet on and then basically then we put the big coat on, we put gloves on so DNA fingerprints we don't contaminate what we're dealing with. And then I'll say to him before I drop that visor, what are you going to do? And you'll go through a whole process of what he's.
Going to do.
And then he's in lay maybe your forty kilo bomb suit with that big helmet on, and he might have to carry a few sandbags a twenty kilo shambag in each hand. So they had to be extremely fit to actually do that and think of what they have to do when they get up there.
How did you feel the first time you put on that bomb suit, Because I know, if you're wearing like a gas maskt you're very You're sort of focus, you're contained and all that. And I watch I've seen blokes putting on the bomb suit and I'm thinking, okay, you're part of a term. Everyone's with you at this stage. But once that vice goes down, you are very.
Much You wipe your hands and yeah, that's it.
Yeah we're with your John. We're just stand back here.
Well, the vis that you start perspiring, basically the breather unit or the blower unit it's not working properly. Your buys will start the fog up, and so you have all these things and when you're walking up to the first time, it may seem silly. You just had a habit. I used to fold the fingers up, you know, into the sleeve as I'm walking up, just pull the fingers in. I don't know what we're just have it, have a look, you know, don't lose the pinkies or whatever, and go
from there, never concerned. If it was I thought that it was going to go up, I wouldn't be walking up, simple as that. And if I was going to make a move, I have comms with the other guys back, even though I may be a sergeant and I can see your sergeant at the time. I come up with a plane and say, guys, can we do this better than what I've just come up with? And sometimes they come up with another plan which I hadn't even thought of, and we'd go down that direction. That's the type of
person we look for. It doesn't matter what rank. You're a team. You're looking after each other and someone comes up, so could we do it this way? And go why didn't I think of that? Yeah? It makes sense. It goes from.
There without giving away any methodology, just for the lame and how do you diffuse a bomb? When there's a bomb there? What's the processes to diffuse it?
With the robots? Basically, it just makes common sense these days that when you get to a location, you're not going to walk up and have a look. You can be sure that the police that are on site looks So we did questioning first. Then we'll send a robot up. The robot can go up and have a look, and sometimes with the attachments on a robot, the actual robot can actually open it for ourselves and we can have
a good look at what we're dealing with. If not, we can use diagnostics equipment, extra equipment, and we've all fairly experienced in reading what X rays are and what we're looking for. I won't go through the various components, but what we're looking for, and sometimes we can say, no, it's not a device, it's just a mistake someone's done, a delivery of whatever. If we're really concerned about it, we won't get up there to cut it open, or basically we'll use what we call a disruptor, which is
like a counter charge. We'll get rid of it that way. Then the detectives can gather all the evidence. Forensic arson squad, we'll gather all the evidence that's remaining.
The world of bombs just by the nature of them too, Like you can walk up there, and you're saying you wouldn't walk up there if you thought there was concerns. But there's so many duvious ways bombs can be activated and what bombs are used for. And yeah, we just look at today's day and age. It doesn't surprise when bombs go off left, right and center, and it can be such a powerful tool. It's constantly evolving. I would imagine. Yeah,
you'd be learning things from something that's happened overseas. You take on board, Okay, this situation happened. We've got to look out for.
That now, liaison with groups overseas and certainly in the State. We do case histories and things like that, how they approached a particular device. You know, it's getting always getting that information a lot on the internet. You know, a lot of the stories are on the internet. We read what's happened overseas. You know, there's a lot of mistakes that the made overseas too. I'm sure it's mistakes made in Australia, but yeah, you just can't afford to make that mistake.
No, Well, you saw I think you saw the consequences of someone wearing a bombsuit where the bomb went off and it wasn't too pretty.
No, it wasn't. It's probably it would be one. Probably one of the largest bombs was not the bomb suit side of it, but that severa gone off in Australia that probably no one heard about it. There's a township in Victory called daryn Allam and we had a person called Glen Sanders and he had mental health issues again
drug effect, had probably been on the marijuana. Now he's on ice, very paranoid for whatever reason, he got things rolling and he'd been wearing a suicide vest explosive best probably for a year that some people knew about and thought it was just a joke. Don't worry about it's not real anyway. He had a property at Darren Allam and his property was one hundred acres on the Helmston Highway, at least another eighty acres on the other side of
the highway. He was visiting his mum in Balarat Hospital and prior to that, the day before it had someone come over to his farm and help him in the mechanic shed and he had an inspection pick where you get under the vegle and you have look what's going on underneath, and he had this plumber friend come over and he said, I had to get out and some tools.
So he got out a gate on the inspection pit and then got a whole od of gas bottles LPG gas wetson opened it up and the guy couldn't get out, and he just let him walk away and left him anyway, His plumber mate took me about half an hour to get out, and he got out and then confronted Glenn what's going on, and Glenn showed him his best he was wearing and sort of brushed him down, said sorry about all that. So it sort of triggered the game,
I think to get the police involved. So then the investigators were notified, and then the next day we were notified and we're on our way and he had gone to ballaratte Hospital where his mum was in the hospital. She had cancer at the time, so he is visiting. So we had this person now walking around in Ballerrette Hospital with a possible explosive suitside vest on. So naturally the SOG theyre coming out formulating a plan. I've got the bomb side of it. I've got the robots fready,
they're in the truck. We haven't got him out. We haven't been compromised during like that. I've got the suit laying out on the floor of one of the trucks for to put someone on. What are the sag you're
going to do? The investigated and this was not unusual for his normal habit to visit his mum, so they let it run and he would have been notified that he had seen his brother he hadn't seen for some time the day before also, and he showed him this vest, and he had buttons on each shoulder and a button on his chest, and that was if the police should arrest him, he could just use his head to push one of the buttons or push the button on his chest and things would go off. This is his interpretation.
So he ended up backing his property at durren Ellum. Basically, the police arrived here, sog Wright in the armored vehicle went up. They triggered the warning alarms on his driveway. Thatt senses in the trees, so they he knew they were coming. And it's about nine o'clock at night, freezing cold up there, and he came out and he had a sort of shirt on, showed him the vest sort of disappeared back inside, came back a minute later, and the negotiations went on for three hours and he was
in and out. He must have been freezing. He didn't ask about the time, probably asked how long have it been here? Maybe two or three times. I did a delivery of meals to all the out accordance. I wasn't sog now, but they knew that I could deliver the meals and stuff like that through my experience, and I could see him standing in the driveway and all that kind of stuff talking through the negotiators. In the end, I closed our guys down and said, we'll go find
some accommodation. We're not going to search a house for exposers at night just doesn't make sense, dangerous dark. You want to use daylight. So basically we found a local motel some I think Morton Lake, some distance away. About caught the five five o'clock in the morning. I'll get a phone. My phone goes and senior sergeant says, I hope you wake The place is just blowing up and Sanders is dead. And I thought it was just typically sog.
You know, I'm sleeping. He's not wake me up, And he says, no, I'm serious and three of us have been hurt. So you're getting me to get here, get the boys here and take over because we all have to be interviewed by the homicide quite death in police custody. So we get there and it's just getting things sort of blocked the handles in the highway completely, this fragmentation
all over the highway and things like that. And to cut a long story short, I suppose during the negotiation period one of the guys had his head outside the armored beagle just talking to him, negotiating, and there was just a loud explosion. If you're closer, it was just one explosion. His interpretation, he got a fright when this explosure off, and he hit his shoulder and banged right.
He went off. Yeah. So he had debt cord detonating cord which wrapped around his body, and detonating cords are high explosive for those people that know, travels eighty four hundred meters per second. That's over eight and a half nearly eight and a half plombs per second. That's how fast his cord will travel. So that basically cutting him half.
Upper torso was from the lower torso was seven meters separated. Basically, the guy in the arm of beagle had over pressure damage from the blast, and if you were some distance away, they said they heard something like six or seven explosions going off. So who basically had seven devices planted around the property, all interconnected to each other, and they all went off at the same time, but distance a way you could hear the bang, bang, bing bang, but close
up just hand like one large explosion. So his house was totally destroyed. His engineering shed had plasma colors and stuff like that, totally destroyed. Mum's house was on the same property. Her house wasn't destroyed. The ceiling dropped from the overpression the fragmentation through it. And he had a device basically a bomb near the front door, one near the back door. He had two in the engineering shed
and one had one in a hidden shipping container. Were there for the next three weeks making the property safe.
Just a couple of things to unpack that. And I saw the photo of the damage. It's unbelievable. I saw foto in your book, But just unpacking that, the consequences could have been devastating, like three members injured. The person that created the bomb, blowing him blowing himself up. Yeah, if people went in there the wrong way or didn't cold and off the era and going there, it could be mass casualties.
If if the police had done a raid or something like that at night. You know, once we're dealing the bomb, were trying to to come up with planets to our advantage. Yeah. One SG member received trapped onto his head, went through his falistic helmet. He has recovered from his injuries. And the other one, fortunately, they were behind a chimney of the house, the main house of brick chimney, so the overpressure in the blast bay sort of win a ran
but it collapsed it. Yeah, the fortunate they weren't killed. Lucky they won't killed.
Now to attend the scene like that, which clearly I call him a nutter, It's not probably the technical term, but yeah, an intelligent nher that can cause some damage and set bombs up like that. You'd be going through a scene like that that could be booby trapped. You wouldn't know what you're going to uncover there. How how long did it take before you could clear that scene?
We were there for three weeks and even arriving there, putting the cords in place blocking the Hamilton Highway, which is the main highway. I was getting a bit of grief. Will that be for a day? I said, no, it'll open when it opened, simple to that. So it was three weeks that was closed for sort of the command structure. Some of them work. Sorrying to put pressure on. It doesn't work with me for pressure. Don't care. This is what's going to happen. Take as long as it's going
to take. Protect my members and protect other people. So we had to start basically from the front door. He had explosives in milk churns and large LPG tanks. You know everybody knows about strapnel like nails and things like that. He had welded railway iron onto the side of these churns, chunks of railway iron, and it gales the Hamilton Highway over four hundred meters away. One of those chunks had
gone right, Yeah, I've got a fart of it. I saw when I was setting up everything, got this gouge in the highway and I could see the indentations in the plowed field. So I found the railway on. You know, they didn't know what was whizzing pass that night. So we basically started at the front. His letterbox was actually looked like a bomb. It was a large aerial bomb. That was his letterbox, and like I had like a shotgune cartage in the front of it, and basically all
the neighbors were coming out. He said, oh, you always used to say if anyone touch his letterbox, that'd be last thing they'll do. So you know, we had to take that has been a possible bomb. And I had a haystack in the front yard. We had to empty every bale of hay because they rumors coming he had exposes hidden in the hay.
And what the painstaking task. How many of you were working on that.
We had at least eight on site. And then we had the rest of Victoria to respond to too, so we had our limbits were really stretched for Victoria. We had teams, a team in the city. I sort of stayed there once I sort of started. My senior sergeant came back three days later after being interviewed and all that kind of stuff. It was just a long process, very slow. His body was in the driveway, you know, he separbarated by seven meters up and lower. That had
to be covered. On the first day we had rumors that he was wearing a bra that had a number of detonators in it. People don't know what a detonated. You stand on a detonator, good chance to lose half a foot, that's what they're like. They look very small, but very dangerous. So I had clean path there. I had to cover the body, so you hadn't been cleared deceased by the pathologists till two and a half days later, when again I had to go back uncover the body.
They came into photos they moved out and then had to roll those parts over, checked the pockets and his clothing, make sure nothing was in them. They came in toil more photus and cleared and deceased.
What a painstaking task that would have been, and that would have been high alert the whole time, like any step could have been your last one on that literally.
Yeah, watching where you put your feet. And that's why we stopped the other investigators coming on. They wanted to come on, but we just couldn't guarantee the safety. So we cleared a path down the driveway, which driveways would have been about two and a half two point five two hundred and fifty meters long. It was a long driveway. Yeah, it was painstaking. And then you've got a biological hazard, know you're bomb techer and like we call a knuckle
drag or whatever. You've got all these things running through your mind. That's when your mind you're going to work mode, you know, and health and well being of the members. His house was made out of asbestos, so we had to have basically appropriate ASBESTO suits. We had to get swabbed, swabbed every day for fibers again, breathing apparatus and working some days in boiling heat the other days in the range.
The guys are really really professional. The guys I work with big worry though as a sergeant giving a task and sending them in, you want to do it yourself because you don't want them getting hurt. It's just human nature. But you trust them. And we did twenty two counter chargers in the end for things that we found IEDs. We found the time device that made everything go off. And yeah, so busy, perod, very busy.
I could imagine, and I imagine I understand what you're saying too, Like sending people in that you know you're putting them at risk, but that is the job. That's the way that plays out, isn't it. People have got to get Yeah, it is got their experience. And I'm glad you stood up to the detectives. I know you.
I know you've done a couple of things. I just reference you know when you're back in your s O G days when you had an operation on your knee and you were told directly by your boss not to get out of the car no matter what, when you had to fill in for a raid and you got out not once, but you did it again, and so you disobeyed that. I'll tell you a funny story and you probably won't laugh at me. You'll say what the bomb guys from New South Wales said about me I
was doing. It was a high profile cot high profile in the magnitude of the job. We had an informant that I've been dealing with covertly for a very long time. And this informant was paranoid and he was a bit of a tech that liked to make bombs and into his firearms and all that, and he handed me We've gone to see the informant and he's handed me what
I described as a pipe bomb. It was a fair sized pipe bomb, probably you know, thirty centimeters or more length wires coming out of screwed at both both ends, thick pipe. Handed it to me when I went to his place, and he's put it in my hands before I move, and thinking I've got it in my hands and he's gone, I've said, mate, what's that? He's gone. It's a bomb. I set it up that if anyone tried to break in here, they were going to that would be the last thing they do. Blah blah blah.
But it's all right, mate, because I've diffused it. It's disconnected. I've got it in my hands and covert. It is year years, years long operation. I couldn't blow it. And I know if I called the bomb squad guys, the whole place would be cordered off and it would be no be no covert anymore. So I said to the bloke I was working with, Luke, if you're stupid, I'm stupid. How about we just carry this to the car, We'll drive it to an oval and then we'll call the
bomb squad. So where we're walking out, I've got my head tilt of the way. I don't know how that was going to save me. It was just Oh, that make a difference. It was a inner city, like a Friday afternoon that would have been shut down city type thing. I've put it in the put in the boot of the car. Luke press the bonnet because I've watched Hollywood. I see every time the buttons pressed, the bomb goes off.
I'm looking away. We put it in the boot and we drove and parked the car in the middle of the oval, and I called the bomb squad and basically relay what they were saying. Your fucking what you They abused me for about ten or fifteen minutes, and every single thing they said was one hundred percent right. And I've said, I get it, I'm stupid. I promise I'll never do it again, but can you come and help
me and get this bomb? And they came and took the bomb away, dedonated and did what they should have done at the place. So that was my one experience with handling handling bombs, and I don't think I did very well on that.
But sometimes you put in a position that that's what you've got.
To do, you know. Yeah, Well, I only told you that story because I've picked up enough in speaking to you and reading reading through the book. Sometimes things have just got to be done, and we did it. We got got away of it. But yeah, they abused me, and then I got dragged in the boss's office the next day. He abused me. Everyone abused me. They had nothing to come back with. The only thing after a length of time, I said, yeah, but look I'm still here.
Didn't blow up anyway. That was a funny side story overseas. You've done a lot of study overseas in the bomb technician side of the things. Tell us some of the things and things that you did there.
Well, fortunate enough, I've got a scholarship. You know when we talk about the bomb course and stuff like that. You become a director basically once you've done an overseas trip that's being sponsored. So that's what I was loing up to do. So I went to basically the America. First, I went to a conference over there in Sacramento for a week. Visited the FBI and Washington and all that kind of stuff. Spoke to all their bomb techs, look at the techniques that that using, shown a lot of
case histories and stuff like that. Did a number of training days from there. Then I went to South Africa. In the same trip, I spent a month in South Africa. It was just after a partay and things were still pretty yeah, pretty wide over there. You're sitting at the motel and I just listening to gunshots going off, you know, just unbelievable. But worked with their bomb techs and you know, I went out with their tactic guys. One night was a secure location and that night one of the guys
got shot. On the way I am bushed and shot, you know, And that's what it was like over there. Was I don't know if they had known that, they would have sent me over there. And on the way back, I went to the UK England, saw their bomb went to Scotland Yard and did a bit of training with some of their bomb people. And what you do is generating a lot of information that you can bring back to the next course as the director. I'd already been an assistant director. Now I was going to be a director.
And we ran two courses that year, so I was directed twice, so I was getting a lot of experience. I had a lot of knowledge, I supposed by then, and you just convey that information onto everybody else. You know, you've just taken in I've been fortunate that I was sponsored by the CESG Community Security Group. It's a Jewish
community group down in Melbourne. They have a lot of functions and do searches before they have big function We would help them with those searcheres, but we'd train them to help us also, And they sponsored me to go to Israel for a conference over there, and I spent a couple of weeks over in Israel. It was a suicide bombers conference, so you're learning all the time and you bring that information back to Australia. That was open
to all. And then I went to Spain and trained with Europol, and that was open to all bomb techs in Australia. And I heard about it and I heard someone was going. I thought, I think I should go and do that. And there was no hesitation for me going straight away. They said you can go, and I did a week's training with Europol, which is actually we're not part of Europol, but were. It was a guest and it's good to train with deponteics of all the
various countries. It just shows that our language. They speak three or four different languages and I speak Australia.
It's embarrassing, isn't it?
Yeah, and I had to do I did a presentation on the Durhan Allum at the conference and the guy stands up and introduces me, and he apologizes for me before I ever starts speaking, how strains speak too fast. And I think that's a great start. Thanks for that confidence. So I had to do it through an interpret on the all of the various languages. It was interesting experience. Yeah,
we did. They set up the scenarios, a couple of scenarios and yeah, once dage, no one stood forward and I put my hand up, and I'm happy in our skill level and what we have is very good. I was really pressed, not by myself, but when I came back, we're pretty good.
That's not the type of thing you want to lag behind.
No, definitely not.
And sadly, I think in today's day and age, it's a skill set that will probably be needed more and more.
It is like, on average, we're probably doing one and a half to two jobs a week now. People don't hear about them. We're very much. We get in there, do the job and we're out and we're gone, you know, and the media pick it up and they're good basically with the information they give.
Out of the callouts, how many are legitimate call Well, they're all legitimate callouts because there's a concern there, but how many are actually turn out to be bombs?
I would say maybe fifteen percent either bombs through it could be misadventured kids mucking around making something and it's been left behind. They've improvised something. It might not have an explosive compound involved, but it's made to look like a bomb. Not a bomb, but it looks like a bomb. So you've got to take that on board criminal activity. Certainly, they're still finding pipe bombs as far as I know.
It was on the news this week actually in Victoria they found a number of pipe bombs and that was on Channel seven telecasts. A number of counter charges were done and where they were rendered safe. Where it rendered safe basically means that disarmed made safe. So it happens quite regularly and been on call. You know, in my career, I had my own personal phone, I'd have my sergeant's phone, and then i'd had the senior sergeant's phone at times.
So if I went to the pictures with jan I'd be sitting there in the picture theater with three mobile phanes and you probably done it yourself. You had turn them over so the screen doesn't come on. But you're sitting there watching me, waiting for the glow which phone's going to go off? So you know it's a it's a life and a half as you've experienced yourself.
Don't you feel like the dickhead that's so important that he's got to keep the phone on wherever you are and everyone's just looking at you know the feeling. There's an image of you looking very lonely walking down down the street in your book, in your bomb suit. Tell us what's going through your mind as you're walking walking towards it. Are you in communications with someone about what you're seeing and what you're doing.
Yeah, we have communications through the bomb suits and stuff like that, so we had comms, but it's a secure comms channel. They say don't use a radio over a bomb, but we're basically our radio, so right the way we do it, And I know exactly what that job was. It's a hot summer's day walking down and you're thinking of what you're required to do. We had the robot app that had done observations. I think that's in the picture, but it was a difficult location where it was, so
it's going to have to be hands on. And I know it's silly, but after so many years as a bomb tick sometimes I can pretty well pick what we're going to deal with and what it actually is before I even see it. And it was I know that job was a geotag. So people was a container and inside the container has a piece of paper and it has a pin in it, and people have got there a website. You're going to find these where these things are hidden throughout the city, and we've done a number
of them, so we don't take them for granted. But I think this will be a goo tag or something like that, and have a look. Yeah, yeah, I might use a manual means of removing it, but every meter matters. I won't be pulling it out with my hands. I'll attach something to it and pull it out from the distance. So it's going through your minds. You know, there's no time to think about fun or aing like that. You're focusing on what you're doing, and surely I'm focusing that
the media. You're a filming this too. Now it's not a good time to trip over my feet and land like a turtle on the back, because that's the shot.
Like you're laughing, but in I could only imagine how uncomfortable that suit would be. And what forty kilos were.
Yeah, forty kilos were sweats dripping down the back of your you just your T shirt and your uniform. It's just ringing wet and normally carry a spare one and just get changed after a job because you drop on the grounds, just like a wet pile on the ground, se you lose a few kilos, probably just a fluid. You know, it's very hot in those days.
What's is there a job that you've got to that really schedule what you're at the you're thinking, okay, this is this is where all the training everything needs to kick in. You have to be your sharpest that okay, this is a difficult one.
Probably I think Gary Allen more than anything that was a thing more scared for other people. The boys would to a particular zone area clear it and then they come back and say they come back with a photo and say this is what we found. And it was an ied had an arming switch and everything attached to it. And I said, we have defenders deceased. We not looked for any other offenders. We don't need that evidence. Just
don't touch it, just destroy it where it is. You know, it was probably that kind of operation that they're turning over at the end. After three weeks. We had a pile of timber, we had a pile of metal, we had a pile of clothing. We're going through clothing and find sticks of powergell like explosies in coats and pockets and things like that. It's not just rummaging through. Everything had to be checked.
The threat. The threat was everywhere everywhere you look.
Everywhere you looked out. Once he parked his car in the drive in the garage and he actually parked the front passenger wheel on one of the devices and like that blew the car onto its roof. So he had everything planned out. And when we rolled that car back over, we found another twenty detonators just laying on the ground that come out of the car. You know, and like as I said, you stand on a detonator, you will lose half foot, simple as that.
With the bomb suit, what saw the protection does that give you? Like I've seen guys put them on, and you know, you say you pull your hands in, I'm looking, Okay, that's covered, that's covered. They lose their feet, they lose their hands, Like, what sort of protection is it that provides you.
The heat, shock and basically fragmentation when you look at the heat from the blast, the shock wave and basically fragmentation that comes with it. But when we said before, every meter matters. If I'm going to be another met back back, back back, the risk becomes less, But it depends on the size of the device. I think. Now I've got photos of a guy in the Philippines that was wearing a bomb suit and all it basically did is keep body parts together a tour pieces. Basically, when we.
Come down to it, you've explained why you applied. Do you have an abundance of applicants for this type of type of work.
Yeah, we have quite a few that apply for it. Normally you get about twenty five might advertise every three years. You know, our staff stayed for some time to become proficient and takes you two or three years. You know, we had some new bomb techs on the duran Ellum and that was like two years of work for that three weeks. You know, they learn a lot they just which is great experience. So we get a lot of applicants, some old SG mentality. You know, I hear reputations and
stuff like that. Are they in for the right reason or reason? They do a big evaluation.
Like a psychometric test.
Yeah, and basically spoken to and we look at that very carefully. The group is getting bigger than the AU, but you want to make sure you've got people that are going to working with the family, with your family that you don't want someone that's going to upset everybody. You know, you can't have a square peg in a round a hole or something like that. So personalities are really important.
There's always workplace conflict in any group that operates in pressure situations, but I would imagine that's the last thing you need in the bomb response group. But internal dramas and different.
Things, well, we do three days of assessments. It goes for three days, and you know, we'd like to do it into overtime period, but that's a problem with budget. Wouldn't be allowed when people get tight. You know, when I did the Frankston shooting, two bomb jobs and one shooting in one night. That's what it's all about. But at the end of those three days, whoever's remaining there, Okay, I'd ask them who you would like to work with
from one to twenty. I'll put people in a list, and at times we're being happy with someone and we suddenly look at all these lists and their names down the bottom, and they're playing the game and they've been doing things that we haven't seen. And that's where I might decide to do another evaluation and find out what's going on here because other people aren't happy with this person.
Yeah, that's interesting, isn't it. Like they can put on the facade in that they know what you guys are looking for or assume, but they get caught out when the other members identified because I would imagine you said with over time and you can't put them through that. You want to see how they react when they're tired and under pressure, because I know in policing sometimes you go in twenty four hours straight or longer, and it
amazes me. Some people that are the good operators literally fall apart where they go past bedtime and they can't function.
Well. We had one guy couldn't function without too you know, like I can go about to for twenty four hours, I don't care, but yeah, he's going to be fed every hour or so.
John, You've just sit on a bugbear of mine doing an early morning raid or an operation or something that is based on time, and someone I need my coffee and fuck your coffee. Why are we waiting? I just had to get a coffee or something like that. But it's interesting and interesting field. No, I would imagine what sort of satisfaction do you get from it, like going in and doing the job. Is there a satisfaction you get or.
Yeah, I think it's a reward at the end if everything goes well, the equipment all works, you know where you have so much electronic equipment now and you sometimes can get interference and things like that. Very much with bomb side of it, you do have to have a plan A, B and C, you know, and A doesn't work, do you go to B. But you do get a satisfaction if you've done a good job. Everything's worked, everybody's gone on well, and yeah, no issues. You know, equipment
was always a bit of an issue. There's always some kind of technical problem that and we improvise. We've become quite good at it. Actually.
Is there a lot of liaison with all the other police forces in the country and military that you'll keep in contact so you're all on the same page.
Yeah, if there's military ordinance, we basically get the army to deal with it. So if we come across something and there was a job last week, I know the boys the army surned up. They've had military ordinance and then they saw a couple of pipe bombs, so they said that's for the bomb response unit to deal with. So it sort of it goes from there. So we have a lot of the liaison. We work well together, always have good Yeah, it's always good. You always want
that expertise. I've done jobs where grenades have been involved and that's military ordinance. We might be searching them for a warrant, but I'll have the military there with us to say this is the way you should handle it, and I'm quite happy to listen to that.
You're downtime, like what thirty four years in the police pretty much? Yeah, thirty two of those years in the s og or bomb response. You know, what do you do for your downtime? And this is a loaded question because I know what you do, and I think people are just.
Going to go, what the hell, Well, basic things. I like exercising and do a lot of cycling. Used to do a lot of running before I had two new needs put in. Then I like other challenges. I've climbed quite a few mounts with Greg Lincell and a guy called Paul Carr, who were both in the sog Okay good friends because I had this passion that they basically took me along and taught me how to climb, and
then we got into mountaineering. So and I like a challenge basically in Greg Keith, Greg Linz, I keeps on coming up with stupid ideas. I'll blame it on In, but we're as bad as each other.
So we've like you climbed Everest. Now people, yeah, it's a true crime podcast, but I'm just fascinated by the mentality and the drive to achieve that, like very few people do it, and there's a home mortality, the rate of people that try talk us through that experience of what drove you before I do. I should just clarify it's just another aspect of your police And we haven't
talked about a lot of repelling. You were very efficient in that and we're training a lot of people in repelling down the side of the building.
Yeah, with Paul Greg. Paul Greg were very much into climbing all that. When I did the SOG course that week at a mount of Rapilis, I just loved the best week of the course. Can get the smile off my face. Then when I got into the unit, into the group, we go away for weekends up to Aunt of Rapilids, even with our families and things like that, do rock climbing. And then we started improvising you ways
to do urban climbing, climb buildings, you know. I became a senior instructor in the end for rock and urban climbing, AB sailing fast raping, which is from a helicopter you drop a rope out thirty meters long about forty millimeters into light diameter and just slide down it. And we came up with that procedure and sort of went from there. And then basically he's sort of ever a bit SOG motivated.
Is that Paul Carr was training for it. I won't go into full story, but on the fourteenth of May he suffered a coronary inclusion on a mountain called Chao Yu, which is basically in China, to bet so he had a massive heart attack as a result of that. That was in the plan to do Everest. Greg and I were ready to do Everest with this at that particular period, so we didn't go to Chao Yu. He went with
three other people as a result of that. Probably as a police officer, the worst thing you've have to do, as you know, would be a death notification knocking on someone's store. And I've been in the police force a number of years now and known Paul for probably fourteen fifteen years. We've been away with his first wife and kids Misco absently, and we're really good friends with the second wife, and basically both ex and current wife were
good because they had children involved. Was quite a happy family. So my first death message was knocking on Julie, his current wife's door, and informing her with another guy of his death, and then having to go to his ex wife and go and tell her, and then go to the school with Julie with Liz to tell the kids that what had happened. And we had to do this because Paul was in charge of the Special Operations Group at the time and we had to get it out
there before the media got it. Out before it was known, and so yeah, terrible period. And he was sort of planning to raise the money for the Makerwish Foundation, and he was sharing a tent with a guy called Nick Farr who was a police officer. So once we Greg and I went over to Paul, we helped the logistics of bringing Paul back and the other climbers. So basically a guy called Kaye C. Mcdan, he did the highest helicopter rescue on Everes a number of years inter Thinney
John Cracker if you ever read that book. Anyway, he flew with the mission a China, gave permission for Nepoli's helicopter to go in, brought the timber is out the next day that went back Paul's body being brought down to a reasonable altitude and his body was walked back to Nepal. We arrived the same day and we did a week of logistics of everything having to be done to keep bringing back to his family. And so we let it sit for about a year. But it was like a bit of an sog thing. Sog sort of
started it. Greg and I wanted to climb every don't get us wrong there, So we continued the journey and basically a documentary is done Unfinished Business by a person called Jennifer Adams who came with us. It was a great experience to go and do it. Thoroughly enjoyed it. We're doing for a number of reasons, for ourselves, for Paul's family, for the group definitely, we just wanted to finish,
and for the Makers Foundation. We raised I think something like nearly two hundred thousand dollars in the end.
Amazing what drives you, But it's not something that you wake up and say, this is what I've got to do. The training, the preparation, the risk assessment, the whole thing, the time in, costs, every think come into play. Like I'm just fascinated. I'm just curious about it. Where you hear people, you know, we're four hundred meters from but we had to turn around and couldn't make that four
hundred movers that type of thing. It's life on the edge because you're in that zone they call the death zone. What does it feel like when you actually stood on the top of Everest.
Just released that I'd made it, But I haven't really made it till you actually get back down. But I always want to look at the curvature of the earth. I always heard that you could actually see the curvature of the earth standing up there, you can. Yeah, it was blowing a gale and like I've got footage in the documentary that Jen made, the shows the camera icing up. You know, that's how cold it is, but surreal to be looking at it. And I had my Shirka with me, Pemma,
and we just shared that moment together. Nepalese people just love them. It just fantastic, hard working and you know what they had, they just appreciate. Just beautiful people. To share that moment, and then for Greg Nick and myself to be on the mountain at the same time as
a team, it was fantastic. Although we didn't get a photo of all three of us together because someone had to take the photo, but you know, it was it was good and we Greg had been given a book by Paul's daughters to lead up on the top of Everest, little book with poems and stuff like that, and he'd been given also a ribbon that Paul's parents had given to us to leave on the top of the mountain, which we did, you know, and we took photos of that and all that kind of stuff. And the hard
part now was getting down. Most people die going down the coming up. Heard that, Yeah, it's like walking up a flight of stairs. If you're walking up flight of stairs and you fall, you can put your hands out and just arrest. But if you're walking down a flight of stairs, you know, not connected to the safety line.
Yeah, when you're downtime between diffusing bombs, arresting high risk of fenders, climbing Mount Everest, you also paddle a kayak across the bast strait. Yeah.
It was two thousand fourteen, Greg, and I was saying, Oh, we need to do something, and I'll play.
I agree. You guys have got to live and up a little bit, do something with your lives.
And I'm telling him about this girl down the road that actually paddled from Tasmania to Victoria with her brother and another group of people. And I said, you know, I'd done a bit of kayaking called Mark Weather Challenges. I know Mark Webber, the f one guy, and he
did a couple of charity things. I was fortunate enough to be involved in those and did a bit of kayaking, and so I thought, yeah, we can do this one and need four months training, look fine, and first thing is going to find a kayak and all that kind of stuff. And I sort of went from there. So Greg, myself and three other police officers. You know, we had
a few personalities on that trip. We didn't kill each other any like that, but it was it was interesting, and I'll tell the story a week about a month beforehand, I wanted to do the first League, you know, just by myself as a copper, prepared and all that. I had all the water, all the fuel, all the food as if I was going to go to Tasy. So I left from a place called Port welsh Ball to refuge Cove, which is Wilson's Prime, so still the mainland.
Forty two k's did that. I was coming back the next day, told Jan only way for a couple of days anyway coming back, and I was leaving, thought, oh Jesus, waves are up a bit today in Bastraight soon enough, about twenty k's into it, hit by a rogue wave and ended up in the I had to detach from the kayak. I had a leg rape on and detached and ended up on a beach, on a bit of a sandy beach, and I was stuck there for five days.
I managed to get to manage the message to Jan and I might be a few days later.
Life full of Adventure. There's another aspect of your life and it was in the in the ford of your book. That's running boot camp for one of a better word with elite athletes. And Craig Bellamy did the ford in your book because that's with the Melbourne Storm. Like this is where I'm Sydney base. We all understand Melbourne Storm and they have a reputation of being the go to club in the way of the culture that they creating
the club. And you were heavily involved in the sort of preseason training camps and that what was that all about.
We've been doing Melbourn Stone for about twenty three years, myself, Craig Walsh, Andrew mctrustee and another person who's still working son his day. Originally we did the Western Bulldogs. It's an AFL side under Christine Nixon, our chief commissioner. Basically, if we could help the Western Bulldogs do a boot camp, Bulldogs would help the local community use troubles and things like that. We met a guy called Andrew mctrusty. He said Oh, she said that was a really good program.
We should do it privately. We started a company called IDQ. It's referred to as I Don't Quit. We started with a number of AFL sides and the Melbourne Storm in the very early days and it's just great. It's just professional. The players are there to basically it's like a writer passage now to do this camp. We're not there to make them fit. We're probably there to make them discover about themselves, whether they're an individual where they can act as a team, who can make decisions. We look at
fatigue and things like that. You get tired playing a game, so we can sort of replicate that a bit with the camp that we give. It is physical. We're not there to break anybody. The idea is those players that are coming to get the opportunity to discover each other and they can basically form a more bonding friendship. If they've got issues, they've got someone to discuss those issues with now. So a lot of these stuff's done very private.
We don't talk about it. It's done professionally and melm Storm, Craig and Frank they're just so professional and I find it great to work with professional athletes. You know, I feel privileged to be able to do that.
There's in the ford I just I'll read it out because it's pretty impressive coming from Craig Bellamy, but this is how he talks about those camps that you run. For me, those camps are about more than just building a successful team. They're about helping the players grow as individuals, about preparing them for challenges they'd face both on and off the field. And for that, I will always be
grateful to JT and mister Wolsh. Their contributions went far beyond what I would have imagined and their legacy will always be part of what makes Melbourne Storm special. That's pretty cool.
I feel stated, you know, I just don't sort of I feel embarrassed in that kind of praise. But you see how well they've done and the structure they have there just shows that they've got a great culture, you know, and we've done with a lot of sides over the years and we've seen various cultures and stuff like that, but they're just impressive. You know, the Storm. They look after the place too. You know.
Yeah, that's abundantly clear. You hear that. That's the narrative that comes out of the club. But it makes me reflect like you seem so calm and zen like and peaceful, and you know, just you've got your shit together basically, and it's interesting that people have put themselves been You've been testing yourself basically your whole career and even on your downtime, testing yourself, and it seems to you've got a good outlook on life, on what's in.
Yep, very much live life every day like this. Your last life goes too fast, you know, there's so many exciting things and challenges out there. You know, I'm probably slowing down a little bit, but you know, I'm really in the cycling now with Greg is a bad influence again.
I'm laughing that. Yeah, you live like your life it could be the last day. Well, the way you have lived your life every day could have been the last last night. Reflections on policing. We're having to chat the other day, and that saddens both of us that police forces across the country are struggling to get people to sign up and too old fools like us look back and go, jeez, they paid us for that time in
the cops. What would you say the people that were might have an inkling to join the police are in two minds whether they join the police. What opportunities are there for people?
Look, you know, I was there for thirty four years. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I found my niche, I found my spot, and there's lots of areas in the police force that you can go to. You're going to have to do your probationary period, no matter what need go mount of branch, go traffic or whatever. You want to come and detective. You're the one that's got to make the most. You know, no one's going to give it to you. It's a great career, you know, and it
has rules and regulations and police are needed. When you look at what's having to society these days, I think the public that when they mentioned the word cop up on that sometimes a bit derogratyve and stuff like that. They're the person that's the person going to call when you need help. I don't think they sometimes get the support or the respect. They're not all angels. I'm not saying they are, but you know, I think there's a lot of respect that's been lost. It's not a great
way that society is heaving. But you know, you'll meet some great friends and be able to share some experiences together. And yeah, I'd certainly go as the police force. You know, I tried as an eighteen year old and I was too short. So I tried ten years later and I got in, and then one year later, eighteen months later, I'm in the Special Operations Group where I spent something like thirty two years.
Now I like stories like that, John, because I agree with policing that just opens up doors and expect spearances that you don't get in normal life. And now it comes to the price. You pay a price in different different ways. But I certainly think the good overways the negatives of it.
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, Well i've become police officers. Yeah, i'd come again. I've done my time. I had no regrets leaving. I haven't missed it at all because I feel like Geez, I hit an exciting period when everything was happening. You know, I went through a number of generations when we got that pages to mobile phones now and technology with robots and stuff like that. You know, I've been to me, I've been fortunate and I appreciate that.
Well, I might wrap it up here before I do I'd just like to think not just you, but also Jan and the rest of your family for lending you to the Victorian Police for so long, for the services you're done to the community. And this is I hope people listening to that when they see the news clips of the guys in their black overalls and balaclavas on just doing what they do and then then taking off their human it's behind it, and you get a sense of someone that's lived at that sharp edge for a
long time. And I know, in speaking to you say it's part of a team and it's not just about you, it's everyone that you work with. But full credit to doing what you do or did.
Thanks very much, Garry. Bye.