The public has had a long held fascination with detectives. Detective see a side of life the average persons 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, said, 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. Dr Dave Gore, welcome back to I Catch Killers.
Thank you.
In case people didn't listen to part one, they might think of you as an academic, So I just want to clarify you're not just an academic. We'll call you an academic. But you also worked in the New South Els Police for thirty five years, I believe, and a large portion of that was as a count the terrorists investigator.
So yeah, it was the last twenty years and so what I did was being in the authorities and on the front line of ct we got direct access to data. Now that data wasn't being used appropriately and because of the classification of that material, it couldn't be disseminated to other academics. So there was a need there to conduct research with real data to get real results. So that's
where I figured out. I figured out that if I could understand the world of academia, I could apply this data to the problems we're facing and come up with solutions, which in essence is what the book is about as a solution.
Congratulations to you, Dave, because it's a powerful tool to have both sides, of the practical side working in the field and also the academic side and bringing them together.
As our good mate Nick identified now in part one, there was one thing that I should have should have raised because I was watching your speech in researching for the podcast for twenty fifteen Police Officer of the Year Radary Police Officer of the Year, and you made a very strong point that counter terrorism is the greatest team sport in criminal investigations because so many people play a part. Do you want to just talk us through what that was about.
Yeah, So look, we're both detectives. Yeah, and you know, detectives are because there's a high reliance on us from the prosecution aspect. There's a general acceptance that the detectives will run the brief because of that responsibility and burden placed on us. But we're only the tip of the sphere. We're you know, a good intelligence or team of intelligence supports work and a lot of them go unsung heroes.
And in the CTO world there's security intelligence agencies or spies now here are some fantastic people that do great work that never hear or see the light of day. Of course, of the nature of their work. We rely on surveillance, the surveillance teams. We flog them to Pillar and Post to get us results. They work around the clock and get us product that gets us over line for our Bruce, our tactical boyson. We spoke a little
bit about pandemics. They were always on call and we put them in horrendous circumstances with very minimal time to prepare, and they never say no. They always stand up Our techs. They walk around and put devices in and do things that we could never do. And in the CT space, there's a world that there's an area that we really took off on, and that was cyber operations. So very early on in JCT, we realized that our crooks weren't using phones anymore. They were using Internet and data. So
we had to change the way we did business. And I remember I put a business case up to my then commander and tried to get some money to set up a cyber operations team and basically go it laughed at and I was told I could set one up, but I had to fund it. With no funding, I had some reallyous a guy there, James Short, one of the world's best CT cyber operators safety and a really good team. They're put together with some of the guys
from the AFP. So what we did was we started scrounging and we went to the exhibit Exhibit Stars and at Surrey Hills Police station found a couple of old servers they were going to destroy, so they gave them to us, and I get grift of them to us. We've got some computers that we're secondhand, bought ourselves, some online mobile data lines, and away we went. That team grew to be one of the best teams at that
time throughout the country. In fact, the Americans, the Germans, the Brits, the French would come to us to do work in this region in the cyber online space, and that was a credit, a real feather in their cap never been done before. We were at that stage at world best standard, best prayers.
I like the fact that you pay homage to all the people that play a part in the investigations. And the first one you did was intelligence officers. I honestly believe in the intelligence office worth three good detectives. If you get one quick intel officer, it can make so
much different, especially if you leading the investigation. If you've got someone you can rely on that can receive all the information which is overwhelming, dissect the information, then analyze what's going on, and then give you a report on it, that's a world of difference. Not only is my wife and until this will get you in the good books at home, So shout out to listen to.
That. Look, they're worth their weight in gold. And then when you get them from other agencies and they've got accesses to more extensive databases, the amount of information you can pull them on time. So when we're at the JCT, we had Commonwealth databases, national security databases, police databases from around the country, databases from other law enforcement agencies, and
then crime Commission those other ages. That was a tremendous engine that we could get information in real time and that made us and so one of the beauties about and we'll hopefully get into one of the things about make what's different about CT is you have to make good informed decisions. In fact, half the book talks about the dish because it is a pivotal process. You can't make any good decisions without good information.
Yeah, we'll talk on that decision making process a little bit later on, because it is crucial to the type of work. But we were talking in part one about threats and the threats shift. Is there a shifting threat?
CT is a shallow pool. There's a lot of people with a lot of functions in there, and there's a lot of it's a very shallow The only way CT works is that if everyone stays in their lane, and what that means is that you stay on your lane, and when the job goes from your lane to another lane, that threat shifts to the next team or the next discipline. Example, if I look at Seals. Seals was the plot to blow up the airline passenger When we initially got that information,
that was intelligence led and they owned that lane. Then when we found out that the threat was real, that threat was shifted to the investigators. When the investigators built up a brief of evidence, the threat was then shifted to the tactical team that arrested them. Once the tactical team had done their job, that threat was shifted back to the investigators to get the brief together. Now that's within a team. Now you then multiply that by multiple government, state, national,
international agencies. That threatshift shifting is happening all through the last ban of investigation. What happens is that if you give certain information or you don't give information, you shifted the threat, either intentionally or unintentionally. The ownership of that
is on to another organization. And that is a real a crux and a cause of great problems within the CT space of threat shifting, and a lot of relationships have broken down because people have either through neglect or not thinking about the consequences, shifted threat under other agencies, which wasn't a appropriate.
Okay, just on that, and I understand what you're saying there. When I was reading your book, when you first mentioned of staying your lane, I thought, yes, sometimes with investigations, I like the uniform cop that thinks outside of the square and go hey boss, if you considered this or whatever, But you think it's paramount. In the space of counter terrorism investigation, everyone knows their role. Stick to those lanes.
It's a choreographed dance and it's not about analogy. We all have specialties and we do that and that enriches the next person along the line. So we all feed into each other. Now, when you start taking ownership of things that's not your lane, that's when the lanes become muddy and the ownership gets mixed.
So by way over the example. So we break it down so people understand. An intelligence officer that I'm curious what this person would have to say, makes a call. This is an experient, makes a call to that person and I look, I made this inquiry. No, that should be for the investigation groups.
So exactly, So let's say inn Inintello gets some information and then goes outside their lane and contacts another agency. Yes, right, and so that other agency is now brought in, right, So they're now coming in and doing their job. Now they haven't been brief yet. Now that may not have been brief because the briefing the brief so we do formal briefings. Those briefings take time for pair. So they've all of a sudden brought into a job that they're not a party to yet. So all of a sudden
they start reporting. And so there's now two or three different streams to government, So government is getting two different stories about what's going on and information. We start developing an area where we call it assumed facts. Where someone says something and because there's multiple streams, that becomes the fact and it's not. It fails, and so it really needs to be clear. And those lanes and those communication
lanes need to be clear. One of the greatest things I find, or one of the greatest failings, is that you know, in a normal day, everyone's calm and they go these are communication paths. When a CT incident happens, there is a thirst for information that is in quenchable. People wanted. Now, some people panic and start giving briefing outside of outside of processes, and that causes the breakdown.
Dave I saw that, and yeah, it's been discussed ad nause in. But the Link Cafe that I was watching people react, I'm thinking, you're not handling this well on different things. And it was probably as sad as it was. It was such a tragedy that whole set of circumstances. I think we learned a lot from that one experience.
Look, we did. Look, that was a terrible day and my role on that day, so I had the task. So go back the morning of Link Cafe, we kicked off a job at five o'clock in the morning. We did a search rant on a fellow part of the Apple Be investigation and it was a terrorism financing proof. Did the search warrant, got the information, locked him up, knocked it over, and we went back to the office nine nine thirty and we're having the celebratory cup of coffee.
Great job boys, And we turned on seven News and there was a picture of what they call the shahada, which is the black and white flag that Monus had. It was up against the window and we read the telly type underneath saying arm robbery gone wrong, hostage is taken. Now we knew straight away that was a shahada, that's a terrorist flag. So it was in that opportunity that we started making the calls. This is a terrorist event,
so normally we wait to receive the call. In this instance, we were briefing up saying, this is what's happening here. So then we went into an investigative pattern and my task in the day was to identify who the hostages
were and who the offender was. Now that might seem really simple, but random people in a cafe in the heart of Sydney just before Christmas, I think I had I think there was probably we had about a thousand people were ringing up saying I can't contact my brother, I haven't seen my sister, My auntie went into the city. So if people couldn't contact someone, there was assumption they were there. So we had to really slowly dissect through
all those people who was and wasn't there. We used all our technical capabilities, all those tricky methodologies that we had, and then we had to identify the shooter.
Yeah, I remember from the first time I heard that was we were watching it in the homicide office and one of the female detectives said, man minus.
Yah and she did contact us and we took it down. So now this is a confusing thing. Right, So if I go back to Islamic faith, there is a number of sex within the Islamic Faith, the two predominant sex would be Sunny and Sheer. Now Man Minus purported to be a person of high ranking within the Shea community. Islamic State, for those that aren't aware, is a Sunny based group. We don't see cross We see people crossing from Christianity to Muslim, from Muslim to Orthodox, or we
don't see the crossing over between Sunny and Shea. It's a real rare occasion. So he was on the list, but at the bottom because he wasn't there. We also had the problem that he had the shahidah. Now, those that know what the shahda is, that was the flag for bin Laden and our Kaider. He was purporting to be representing Islamic State. They had a different flag. Islamic State and our Kaider were at war with each other.
They were killing each other in in Shiria. So he's got a guy saying on one group, but I've got the wrong flag. So there was all these confusing things, so the story wasn't making sense to us. So whilst he was on the list, it was we just had to work through and again we talk about the value of intelligence. They went through some Facebook pages. They found a photograph of a rally he'd only just recently converted to Sunni, which we weren't aware of at the time.
There was a rally that he was at with Hesbutteria. He had a particular band his head on the Soldier of Muhammad that he was wearing at the time at Link Cafe, And that was the critical point that we could say, right now we've got who it is. Now we can relay that to the negs, the negotiators, and they can start trying to negotiate with a person to whom they know because something to that point, we'd investigated man man Monus for eight years, so we knew him very very well.
Yeah. Yeah, it was an interesting one and it was a way for all of us have to switch on and see how we operated. And I think a lot was learned from that, which it should, you know, when the pressures on the mistakes are made or people react a certain way. But I think it ened out a few faults on the way that.
Look, it did a lot of false chain of command decision making. All those things come into play.
And in that one what you've referenced, you know, stay in your lane was very important too, because there were so many people wanted to have a piece of it because it was the biggest thing in town and everyone's on the phone running around.
Yeah, so we had and everyone does. It's a slip you slip into all. I can do this, but that's not what you're there to do, and in doing that, you dilute the process and you get in the way. Look, it was a great learning process. We learn a lot. So that's where we developed the concept of the strands of regalization. Out of that, we also looked at reception
centers for witnesses and families important. So one of the filings and one of the main failings in my career is that terrorism uses fear and violence as their main tools that manifests into victims. So terrorisms, terrorism doesn't occur without victims. And what probably we need to do is look more at a victim centric approach. And Link showed us that that we failed. That we failed both the families in that regard and those that were coming out
in the witnesses. So we started to develop better protocols for that and I think that was again taking it further and again maturing in this space. We're all maturing, so you don't learn it in a hurry, but when you, as we slowly go through it, we get better and better.
Well, there's something I've learned here in the podcast, like speaking to Peter Morony and yourself and going through the book. There has been a learning process. It's just changed. We've had to adopt a new way of policing, a new strand of policing.
It's a new strand of policing. So just in investigations in CT, we've got three different types. Now there's investigations, well in CT, there's reactive investigations, there's product investigations, and there's prevented investigations. These are three separate disciplines that have just emerged that we now have to master. And then you've then you overlay that with the intelligence, and intelligence is getting complicated as well. And then the dynamic nature
of terrorism. Now, whilst it stays, you know that the trends stay, the motivations and how they do business is constantly moving. I was constantly asked, Dave, what are you still there after twenty years? And so because it never stopped, I would write a manual. So one of my jobs was to write training manuals. I'd write a manual and within six months that manual was out of date and had to rewrite a new one because the environment had moved on.
Well, I know you're busy because you've virtually disappeared and whenever we saw you look stressed. So yeah, you must have been doing something. I didn't think you were bludding over there, but yeah, you just disappear on ideology left and right. Let's talk through that.
So looks there's always been and look, as long as I've been in CT, right right wing, extreme right wing has always been there. Now there there is there is a mis comprehension that because right wing is based on hate, they hate the people they're opposed to, that it's worse than other forms of extremism. They're all equally as bad the right. The one constant in the world of ideological terrorism is if there is a rise in the right, there will be a rise corresponding rise in left wing
extreme left wing terrorism. Now, it doesn't get the media attention that it deserves. So when I hear the AJADG talk about a rise in right wing My next conversation is, well, what are you doing then about the left? Of course, if the right right rises, so does the left.
They go relationship together.
And if the left rises, then the right comes up.
It makes sense when you're talking in extreme views, like if someone throws that up, there will be a counter.
And the example we see if there's a Palestinian protest, we see encounter is Israeli protest. If there's an Israeli protest, there's a counter. It's the same process, it's the same dynamic, just in different ideologies.
A lot of what we hear as young males being caught up in it and they're trying to prove themselves. They're probably more easy to influence and an older person than the ones that some of the things that have played out in recent times young males and what happened out the front of the police headquarters a young young person. Do they deliberately get targeted because they're vulnerable, because they can be influenced?
Yeah, look so in short, yes, so culturally yes they are. Now, each particular ideology will have its nuances. So if you look at the culture, say of Islamic culture, the males are probably the leading face outwardly, so therefore they will take responsibility. Now that said, I am fully aware that females are radicalised and are just as big as part of the process as the males are.
Okay, talk us through that, because we don't when the word terrorism comes to for we don't often relate it to the female.
No, And so what we find is that because of in the Islamic faith, they take a you know, they take a backward step. That in that regard is that they're not going to be forward thinking that you know, that they're not going to expose themselves as a male would. Now that doesn't mean they don't agree the ideology and they don't agree.
With the support perhaps, don't you know.
I can remember during pandemics and we were listening to all these conversations, and all I can say is that there were individuals in those rooms in those houses that were female that were just as into the extreme ideology as the blokes, and they many times were inspiring them and encouraging them to pursue what they wanted to do and pursue their goals. And they take a sort of a secondary role in that aspect. Now you see say in left wing where it's a culturally, culturally different group.
You will see a lot of females, you know, running running the protests, stepping up and making those actions. And you also see that too and right wing and political again whichever that goes. Again, we see women involved in that as well. So whilst males seem to be the most prominent ones, females have their fair fair hand in it as well.
Do we look, I take on board what you're saying there, because it's just the perception with the males, and you've explained that. Do we ignore the risk that potential let's say, white terraces, that type of extreme behavior that we don't see it because I'm talking generally here, but the community look at okay, these terrorsts, where are they from? From the Middle East or or that type of thing. That's our thinking of terrorists that's been ingrained into the general public.
I think whether it's a unconscious bias that we hold on to. But what about these white extremes offer the same sort of threat?
So look, each terrace offers the same spread. Yeah, okay, so, and I not want to be glib, but it's like ice cream. Violence is like ice cream. We're only changing the flavor of the ice cream. It's still ice cream. Violence is still violence, regardless.
Of we'd be talking about ice cream on my catch killers.
Stay but you with me, so you know what we see is that they just as deadly, yes, just as change. Now what we're seeing so we're terrors and comes in what they call ways, and there's the identify as the four waves at the moment, and at the moment we're in a religious phase and that phase is coming out and we're seeing the emergence of new left and right wing terrorism. So predominantly at the moment, we're in the middle of religious terrorism, and in particular it's those that
have a corrupted, extreme interpretation of the Islamic faith. Now that this is just a period in time so that you know, if the modeling is true, that will start to dissipate and those as you call it, Anglo saxons of white orientated terrorists will start to take more predinents or more prominence, and then we'll see more of that, and hopefully when that occurs, we'll see more of a balanced position of what terrorism is. And it's not a
Middle Eastern thing. It is a human thing, and depending on their ideology.
I think that's an important point to bring up and to get across that we've got to look at it that way. I don't know about the ice cream analogy, but I'll sit on that. Which color did you prefer with vanilla? All right, let's talk about recruitment the way that as law enforcement you can stop recruitment. Now you talked early in part one about religious leaders come out and support it. How can we stop stop people being recruited?
So recruitment's like recruitment is the basis and future success of any organization is based on recruitment. There is a thousand different models about recruitment, and all those people that are recruitment agencies. How you recruit people in business is exactly how you recruit people into terrorism. The only difference here is that we're recruiting people into high risk activity. So therefore there must be a reward. So you know, they're looking at those stages of how do I get
the reward for that person? So they'll use tricks like noble cause it's for the greater good of humanity. It's for your salvation of your soul and salvation of your family soul. It will be you know you're doing the right thing by another minority group, so they will look for those motivations to do it. Now, recruitment has its own set of indicators, and they happen in parallel with radicalization. They happened at the same time, and a lot of
the processes crossover. One of the absolutes in both radicalization and recruitment is the presence of a corruptor, the person that pulling the strings. Now that could be in person, that could be online, it could be by any form of communication, but that presence of that corruptor. And what we see is that once the person is they look
at frame alignment. That is, get the person to acknowledge and their thought process agrees with the processes of the group, and then through the process of persuasion, the person decides to join the group and get accepted by the group. The recruitment process ceases, but the radicalization process continues. The radicalization is an infinite issue. It doesn't go away. It ebbs and flows. Level of racalization will go up and down, courting on how their life is going and how it's
being managed. So if we look at terrorism, where I get a little bit academic here, it is a complex infinite problem, so that when I identify, in this instance, Garry Jubilin as a terrorist suspect, you never go away. You're always there. And the complexity, because you're an individual, you get influenced by people in the studio, your home, life, ex colleagues. All those little threads are pulling on you,
that impact on you, that make you unique. So that complexity, together with the infinite side of it, makes this a real challenging environment. Police.
It's fascinating the depth of it. I want to raise another thing, and I've got the head in the public do they play a part in the fight against terrorism? I want to bring out a quote from your book. Terrorism has evolved, expanding the responsibilities of counteraction beyond just law enforcement and security intelligence agencies to include all enterity in the public and private sector. The prevailing principle now counter terrorism is shared responsibility of government and the community
at large. Okay, I get where you're coming from there, but can we break that break that down.
So very simply, You, me and every one of your listeners is part of the process. It's no longer a police matter, it's no longer a security intelligence matter. We all play a role. We all see things. You know, the old saying see something, say something, there is no true or saying in this world. If something is unusual, we should be reporting it. If you know, I've got concerns about my neighbor, I should be making an effort. I should be inquiring. This is part of being part
of the community. You know, they're old saying that you can't arrest your way of a problem is true. Also, you can't rely on We can't be everywhere. You know, there's eight million people in New South Wales alone. We don't have those resources to be there. So as a community we need to band together. And that's what that process is.
And in saying that, the type of things without so you're not inundated with calls. But if something that doesn't seem quite right, you're saying to the public, well, look, if you've got doubts about it, doesn't hurt to pick the phone up and make a call as the information.
Of the best test. If it doesn't look right, it's probably not and make a call. You know, like there's a thing we call it unknown knowns that is, we don't know why we know something. And part of anticipation, there's a reason when you and I walk in a room and we see a crook that we don't know is a crook, but our hairs are standing on the back of under he's doing something or she's doing something that indicates to us this person is someone I can't trust.
So when you get that feeling, there's a basis for it. There really is, and that intuition that you feel, yeah, maybe you should act on that. And I encourage people they should not that I want to see the phone lines, milt it down. But if you think you've got information, make the call the authorities. Just think if you don't make the call and something happens, it's you that's got to look at yourself in the mirror the next day.
And I think it's fair to say, and I'd use this when we're appealing to the public with homicide investigations. It's like a jigsaw putting it together. A jigsaw and some small little part on its own doesn't have any relevance. But if you pass that information on, you might be the third or fourth person that's called about that person.
So true, So we took at you know, even we'll talk about man Moness just prior to link CAFA, he made a post on Facebook and it was a it was a provocative post. Now I think there was ten people that rung the police and reported it. Now we looked at that as a result of that. So it's that action. Direct action causes a reaction. So when I was there, and again I'm not there, but if someone was prepared to give me information, I was prepared to
look into it. Yeah, So if you're prepared to make the call, it is my understanding that they will make an effort to look into that and assess that on its merit.
Yeah, now we should encourage people to do it. It's not dissimilar to you know, in the basic form of neighbour would watch someone someone's wandering around the street that doesn't look like they belong.
Here, exactly right, And the Senate works.
As simple as that. Okay, I'm interested in the ratings. You know, when they say, you know, from the government announces the risk of terrorism terrorism attack is high low or whatever, what do they base that on.
So the a C which is the Australian Intelligence Community, they're our intelligence agency. So that's asasis O, NA, Defense Signals Directorate and a myriad of other government agencies that all have alphabetics names, they get together and they determine that threat process. Now the brekerage house or the front of front of office when their words Asia, and they will put that rating up and see at the moment where it possible. Now, so that means that Australia remains a potential target.
Okay.
Now, given recent events in Gaza, in Wakeley, the six and in Perth, I think we're probably moving beyond what possible is and probably moving to the And it's not my job, but you know it would probably have to review that now. That has ramifications both nationally and internationally. So it's a big deal and it's something that government and the intelligence agencies spend a lot of resources on to determine that and to make sure they get that
balance right. So it's not fright Night, yet it's informally so the community is forewarned and armed to make appropriate decisions.
Yeah. Well, when you say it's not fright night, when you look at what the aim of terrorism is to cause concern in the community, So you don't want everyone to live in fear constantly.
No, and and if we do, then they win, they win. Yeah, And it's that's that's the tool. That's why it's done. So it's it's it's a market employee to be front of mind, you know, and that creates the momentum for them to further their cause. Uh and and and that's a that's a that's a tree obviously that we let that happen.
What's some of the what you would consider significant terrorists acts that have occurred in Australia that people often, you know, we forget things, we move on from things pretty quickly. But the type of terrast incidents that occurred that yeah.
So look, look, let's we'll go back the cast a little uprising I think in eighteen o five, where you like your history, fifteen convicts we tried to uprise against the government. Fifteen convicts were killed. Yeah, nine are hunt we Then we had the shooting of Royal Prince Alfred. Now he was shot at contact, shot in the back, oh sorry shot that that attack and his treatment had a public subscription that resulted in the establishment of the
Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. So it impacts on our society. In nineteen seventy eight we had the Hilton bombing that created the redrafting of the ASIO Act and the establishment of the AFP in the format that we see it today. We've had numerous bombings throughout the time we saw Pendennis Pandanis was a major watershed moment where a couple of
days and this is the interesting part. I think two or three days before we went to resolution, they had to recall government to change the legislation because it didn't work. So we did that one of the other major attament.
And just in case people haven't heard the podcast they did with Peter the Moroni Pendennis. A couple of things that he was saying about that that you came across this group that were planning something and you had to move because it was getting inevitable. And it was not just based here in New South Wales. There was connections down in Victoria. But one thing that I found chilling was it seven thousand rounds of ammunition were found.
Well, actually, look, I was actually looking. I was looking at Pandanas.
Yeah.
The other day, Look we've got thirty eight thousand rounds, we've got forty firearms. They tempted to purchase over eight hundred and fifty kilo grands of chemicals that make bombs. We found a hand we couldn't find a handful of other guns and rifles and we couldn't find seven rocket launchers. So they had access to this material. It's it's it's frightening what they could get access to and what they were trying to could have been And so we learn
a lot from that. So what we learned from Pandemics is initially Pete Morani and a guy called Nick Reid come to me after Pandenas and said, Dave, we need a terrorism training course, so we did. We established the New South Wales Terrorism Training Course as a direct result of Pandanas and our first manual that we wrote was in essence a poa of what went wrong in Pandemics,
don't do this again. So our training then evolved and then we realized importance of decision making, so we then put that in a national framework under the Australian New Zealand counter Terrorism Committee and their training regime. So it really was a catalyst for us to take it up a notch and actually get better at our business.
Yeah, well we all should always should evolve and improved, but when you talk decision making, you say that a lot because that's crucial to count the terrorism.
So you get it's one of the only areas in policing, and to be fair, all areas of policing get scrutinized fairly heavily, but it's one of the other areas where the rationale for why I made decisions and when I made decisions. I've never seen that level of scrutiny outside of the CT space. And the difference between a good CT operator and a bad one is one that makes
good decisions in poor environments. And what we did is we developed a framework that would help us to enhance our decision making process and also protect us when that occurred.
So what we did, we're speaking of our colleagues from London met and there was a senior officer there and a couple of years ago, a decade or so ago, after the Seven seven bombings, they received information that there was another terrorist attack about to occur and that a surveillance team and as a suspect ward act walked out of the premises, had a striking appearance to the suspect that had been nominated was about to do a terrorist attack.
He clocked that he was being surveiled and then decamped. The police gave Chase, asked for the order and the person was shot in fear that he was about to do another terrorist attack on the London submember.
There.
Now, in this instance, this individual was innocent. This is a horrendous act, a tragic set of circumstances. But we spoke to the police and they told us about their decision making model. It was but when you looked at all the circumstances, it was a good decision with a bad outcome. If that makes sense.
It does make sense, Dave, and I do understand what you're saying and the level that you're talking at encounter terrorism, but that was the same with homicide. I make decisions. They are always informed decisions. The decisions I made, and I could justify it because I could be sure as hell I'd be in the witness box five years down the track or so. There'd be some inquiry, why did you do this? Why did you do that? And the same would have to apply.
And a good decision doesn't always meet a greater name. No, that's and that's that's what you've got to and you've got to appreciate that. Yeah, that I could make the world's best decision with a terrible outcome, that's the luck of the draw.
We were looking at a group of a group of people that contract killers and they ended up when we're looking they've killed someone someone else. But I'm comfortable with all the decisions that were made based on the information that we had at the time. The hindsight, it's a wonderful benefit that.
You don't have that don't have that luxury.
You don't don't have that luxury, So I can understand, but it is crucial Jesus. I wouldn't want to be I wouldn't want to be the person that ignored something a red flag and you just flicked at nothing.
To see d And that's that's that's the way. That's the burden upon ct.
I see it, I feel it, And yeah, how did you lasted probably as long as anyone has in that field, how did you manage that burden?
Because look, it's not an easy it's not easy. And then that would probably one would suggests had something to do with my retirement. But it's it's a constant. You're always on and you're seeking professional help. You're seeing spike psychologists and others to go how do we manage the burden we're under Because here's a burden of expectations you're not going to fail. It's the Americans call it a
zero fail operation. Now that's aspirational because if we accept that terrorism is a crime, we haven't stopped any crime type yet, so the perception that we're going to be able to stop terrorism is just unrealistic. So that burden, and what we do is that we reverse the burden of responsibility again on our operators, so that we know that if we fail, we will be held accountable. And that really starts ratching it up, and that makes for an unhealthy environment. That's the nature of the beast.
How do you I would imagine how when I was under pressure, I tried to share the pressure in that getting having people having these briefings, not just briefings where you're seeing down having a coffee for no reason, getting everyone's thoughts. So when you make that decision, you've got all the information. If you're the boss, you happen to be the one that's got to sign off on it,
you make the final decision. That I found it helped me in the pressure spots where at least I've sought counsel or other people's views and then take it all in and then sit with my.
Decision, so that we go back to threat ownership there, and so we're in a multi agency approach, you know, we'd have to sit there in a room and go, do you have any more information? And then so that's what we've got, and we'd have to document that so we could say at this point in time that this decision is made, this is what we know. So if that changes so another So let's say an agency comes back later and says, oh, We've forgot to tell you about this, or that wasn't on the that wasn't on
the table. So we can only do what we can. It's not a perfect model, but given the dynamic nature, it's the only way that will work. And so that's that corroboration with your colleagues and teams, and that's when the beauty of joint agencies come together. And whilst they're challenging working with other agencies, the operational benefits and efficiencies outstrip the challenges.
Yeah, well probably more so than any sort of law enforcement. The counter terrorism has to work with all those other agencies. So yeah, I've heard the wines come out with this person working with that person, but it's ne that this environment just the other way. Hey, guys, have you ever wondered what goes on behind the headlines of a gang war or shooting? Then you need to listen to crim City.
Join crime reporters Mark Murray and Josh Hamrahan as they uncover the details of crimes unfolding on Sydney streets and share the stories that don't make the papers. The latest season of crim City is out now. Listen early and ad free on Crime x plus on Apple Podcasts Today. Do you think we're set up well for our counter terrorism investigation in this country? So?
I do. When I left, one of my major roles was training and development. When we saw opportunities, we took it. We endeavored to train as many people as we could and upskill them as best we could. So I'm aware that people have taken over my role since I've left. I have every confidence in their abilities. These are really good operators. Yeah, and they believe in the cause. They believe in stopping terrorism public safety. So I think, yeah, we are in a good place.
And you've got to have that time. Like this rotation policy that they bought in, I never agreed with it or understood that be in New South Wales, police, like homicide, I learned something every day, but I think in counter terrorism you can't replace years and years of experience.
And nor should we. We need to tap into that and realize that, you know, it's the lessons you learned from ten years ago are applicable today. You know, it takes you years before you've become just understanding the dynamics of the different cultures that are involved takes a long time to appreciate, and then putting that within a criminal framework and an intelligence framework. It's incredibly complicated. So I don't understand the rotation policy. It's it's inefficient to the process.
And I think that's one of the filings in a number of agencies that rotate people through to simply go to get on the CV. My CVS done, I've done ct You know that's crazy. There should be consideration that it is a career path and if you go down that path, you're a specialist. That's where you go. And you know, rather than punishing specialists, we should be encouraging it.
One hundred percent, Dave, And I'm comfortable I think we've both the right to talk about that and offer an opinion or that I'm going to offer another opinion that the risk of embarrassing you and probably getting this both in the trouble or someone will winch this book. I've read it. I'm experienced major crime investigator. I know the value of something like that. I understand the world that you're operating. Why hasn't this been purchased for every officer?
And this is not You're not going to get you in the trouble here, Dave, But I saying that this has just come up in my thought process, not Dave, And he certainly didn't ask me to spook his book. But it seems like I must read. If you're going to if you're going to turn an answer yet, let me get in the trouble, then you can answer. If you're going to work in counter terrorism, you have to read this book. Have to.
Well, thanks, I'm glad you read it. I find it. It can be a little bit TEENI because there's a lot of details, but no, thank you for those comments. And look, and that's what it's written for. It's written for to increase the knowledge of both the private sector and public sector, and that's the authorities, that's police. Look,
you know there's application here in this book. So if I'm working for, say education, we see if we're talking about children and juveniles in the current environment, Well, they're at schools. Therefore there's indicators there that we should be aware of. I'm looking at potential flags. If I'm working for a corporation where they have mass gatherings, there's information there that can this. Then you know that it does
have some things in there for practical application. It has been written for it to be practically applied, because again, I want it to be useful. I didn't want it to be.
It's not the academic waffle that you lose interesting. It's practical and it's it's something that you can use and knowledge is power, and having that knowledge it hardens the target if everyone has has this type of knowledge. But no, I just asked us that, and I'm not trying to cause problems for you, and you haven't come on to promote this book. But why the hell aren't everyone reading that if they're working in counter terrorism? I think I
think it's a good book. Let's drift back to you now, Dave. You look back at your career. Are you glad you discovered counter terrorism? Oh?
Look, it's it's been It's a passion and look to work in that environment with some incredibly talented people dedicated. So you've spoke with Peter, We spoke at you know, Moroni, you know all the people that he would have mentioned, we have worked with, our colleagues that we've worked with. Yeah, look, see T it is one of those It's like homicide. You get involved and it becomes a passion and you want to better the profession and ce T unfortunately is
just bigger than the police. It is in every aspect of our lives now. It's you know, it's in the tertiary factor sector, it's in government sectors, it's in the private sector, it's in travel, you know, transport, in every aspect, this unfortunately is coming to be and that's where that whole of community needs to embrace it because everyone can be exposed to it and so hopefully a little bit of knowledge, a little bit of information might help us along the one.
And I say this, to work in the field like that, and you know the way I work homicide, you've got to be passionate about the field that you're working in. And you can't do count the terrorism just half in, half out. You've got to full fully commit and look, I look at you, how you've changed from the day of Gore on you. Jesus, what's happened.
To you day? I'm a happy guy.
You've just gone into this completely. You've absorbed yourself into this world. And full credit to you. I know the sacrifices you make to do that in a career that it needs to be done.
It's one of these. So when you get to work with members of the security intelligence, Look, it's different from law enforcement, and our relationships are different, and you know, there's it becomes difficult because you've got certain obligations. There's legal obligations honest about what we can and can't say. There's operational security. There's a lot of things that come into play and that you've got to protect not only
yourself but your other agency members. It's intense. So again I think I spoke that at any one time, we'd have ten to twenty threats running at anyone times when I go to bed. For the last twenty years, there were streats and the first thing in the morning, I'm hearing the news, waiting for the bad news so that
doesn't go away and come and go. Now, what people don't understand is the majority of the streatch dissipate, so very few will get through to fruition that we actually lock people up, so we have to act reasonably and due diligence. A lot of them go, but you can't bank on that. You've got to run each down, each rabbitile.
You sit on it, and the success is if it doesn't happen. Whereas yeah, so our measure you would be I would imagine you carry that purdon a lot because you know, if you're not getting a result, it's just more pressure, more pressure.
So our measure of success was every day we didn't appear in the media, that's a successful day for CT. That was our thought process. So we didn't court the media. We wanted to avoid the media, and that was the process.
We had the work work behind the scenes that keep the streets safe. Do I know in homicide like we had to see a psychologists every six months or twelve months or whatever it was. Do they have the same thing on offer for you guys?
So look we look So what we did, so I'll go back to pandemics. We retre eaved four terrorbytes of extremist material. Now that is insane, Like this is this is just insane material, and unfortunately we have to go through that. Of course there could be evidence of other offenses, of other criminalities, of new plots, so unfortunately someone has to go through that. And we had a team of ten people six to twelve months going through this material.
Now I was blase, and this is something that I look that my people were becoming sick, they're becoming unwell, and I couldn't figure it out. And then I spent some time looking at these videos and I got it that we were damaging our people in the room and they're looking at horrendously and so we had to develop processes. So we got the sychs in and we developed processes that we still have to view it, but how do we minimize the danger and that this isn't being taken home,
this is not impacting on their family life. So we brought in psychometric tests, We brought in those regular council We brought in little tricks of the trade where we allow people to you know, they could only see it for the first couple of hours of the day and then be engaged another duty. So yeah, so we've tried to put all these strategies, but at the end of the day, it's harmful material. It's a hazard's workplace, and that's one of the I suppose one of the rubs.
We have to look at it and it does damage you. So it's that dancing out where we try to minimize that, but there's no other way around it. We have to view the material to see if there's evidence there.
No, it's a tough gig. What are you doing since you've left the place, You've been doing some work.
So look, when I left, I hooked up with our old compadre, mister Countess. I went and gave work for him on a contract for twelve months with the Royal Commission into Defense and Veteran sour Side.
That's another heavy look look important thing.
It's important work. What a challenging environment and the team that nick you know, the commissioners Peggy Brown and James Douglas, fantastic commissioners doing wonderful work that I think addresses a national tragedy. I was happy to be part of that process. I only gave a small piece of work, but I
wish them have success. They're in the process of finalizing the report and making the recommendations and I fully support the recommendations and the work that's come out because it is something that needs to be looked at and supported. So that was twelve last twelve months.
Okay, okay, and the rest of the time you're just at home supporting Fienna.
Well putting my good wife. But look what I have done. Look a very good colleague of mine and yours. Kroenin oh Ed your chief inspective. Karen also is another ct NERD and she identified and talking about victim centric approach. There's you know, if you remember about twenty five to thirty years ago, Martha Jabor set up a group called the Victims of Homicide Support GRIP, and they do wonderful work. And Martha has been a trojan of taking that forward.
And we see in the establishment of other support groups. Now we've recognized that terrorism is a crime, but it's a unique crime and there's a lot of unique characteristics, and there is no group that support these people that are victims, you know, that experienced this. So I'm working with Carolyn in the establishment of Victims of Terrorism Support Group, which hopefully we'll get up and running in August. And look, that is I think is beneficial. I think that there
is a benefit there. There is a gap that we need to support these people and it's something that Carolyn and I are very passionate about.
And there's like Australian victims overseas of terrorism too, so you've got the families over here. Yeah, I think that's worthwhile.
It's amazing. I've spoken to people, you know that we're overseas and have witnessed terrorist attacks and they've come home and never spoken to anyone. And I've sat down next to them and they say, what do you do And I tell them I'm in CT And next they become emotionally upset because they start reliving the experience and they've had no support and they've had to do it on their own and that we shouldn't be, that we're better than that. So the opportunity to support them, I think is wonderful.
Yeah. Well, again, it's an evolving process that we've got to understand this new thing.
Well maturing and so like we do that now for traffic trauma, and we're seeing how that actually supporting these people helps them and then helps us in the future. That victim centric approach, which is I think the direction we need to start adding towards.
Okay, good stuff. Well, Dave, you've you've upskilled me and educated me and you've taken up my weekend reading your book.
But sorry about that.
I appreciate it. I'm thinking this is our David. It's a detailed rude, but it's a common sense and a practical thing, which I like it. You're not lost in the academic well, we've still got a little bit of your back in the major crime squad, detective. But I just want to all jokes aside, thank you for the work that you've done. I know the price that you've paid. I'm doing the type of work that you've done, and the results that you guys do don't often get recognized,
and it's a team approach. I'm not just talking about you individually. You don't get recognized because it doesn't hit the media because something's been prevented. So I'm just saying to you, thanks for how hard you're working, and thanks for coming on my catch killers.
It's been a pleasure, and thank you for your time.
Cheers, dope. It's really good catching up with an old friend. We sort of lost touch when he was working in the world of counter terrorism. But doctor Dave Gore, I knew him as well. I knew him as Detective soon you're comfortable when we both started working together, and then detective Chief Inspector. But now he's doctor Dave gall and really is an expert in the field of counter terrorism. I enjoyed the chat and enjoyed reading his book. I think it's a must for anyone that wants to involve
themselves in the investigation of counter terrorism. And as you know, I always liked talking to X Cop, so it was good catching up