The public has had a long held fascination with detectives. Detective see a side of life the average person is never exposed to. I spent thirty four years as a cop. For twenty five of those years I was catching killers. That's what I did for a living. I was a homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead, I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated. The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some of the content and language might be confronting. That's because no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged. Join me now as I take you into this world. Welcome back to part two of my chat with retired Detective Superintendent Mark Ainsworth. Welcome back, Mark, Thanks Gerry again. Even during the break, I was thinking about the stuff that you were talking about, youth crime. So it's given
me a lot the thoughts on different approaches. Well, I want to talk about now, and I think it will lead us into another topic of domestic violence and issues across the country happening. But there was a high profile murder investigation that you oversaw, and that was the murder of Alison baden Clay in twenty twelve. I believe it was.
That's correct.
Can you tell our listeners about that crime, just how it started and about the investigation, just the breakdown of what happened.
No problems. I was actually started on the Saturday as relieving sorry back in the Moral as the regional crime coordinator, Detective Superintendent. I'd been on holidays and that Friday afternoon I've got a phone call the last day of leave that we'd had this missing person that looked a bit suspicious. Saturday morning, gone into where our major Instrument room was
set up and got the details. The whole investigative investigative team were there and we started and started a full full bloind major incident room, and in conjunction with that, we had a Ford command post set up at the Brookfield Showgrounds where we had people searching for Allison. Basically how it started was on the Friday morning, Allison's husband, Jared, had rang police and said my wife's gone for a walk and she hasn't come home and I'm concerned about
where she is. Uniform police attended his place and did a sensational job. When they got there, he was very aloof and they noticed some scratch marks on his face, which he said that yeah, there was a razor cut. He spoke about an extra marital affair that he had to the uniform police. The uniform police called their supervisor, who called the CIB who attended the scene and from the great work initially from the uniform officers, full major
Incident room was set up. The house that Jared was in was declared a crime scene and we held that crime seen for a week to allow the forensic officers to do a thorough investigation.
Mark, can I just interrupt? That's great, you're relaying how it happened. But with the uniform guys going there, did they guys and girls? Was there something suspicious about him from the start that that didn't feel like it added up? What was he saying that his wife just went for a walk and she hasn't returned. How long had she been missing for.
She'd only gone What he claimed was she got up and went for a walk every morning at six o'clock. At this particular day, she was to go to a real estate convention down the Gold Coast, and he was concerned that she hadn't come home from her walk. Uniform so what time of day was that it was around? I think it was around from memory, around seven am or a little bit before seven am. Told the police said he'd been out driving around trying to find her.
He'd been trying to wring her mobile phone, no answer, and it was totally out of character for her to disappear under those circumstances. The big thing that raised the suspicion of the uniform was the scratches on his face. Him talking about an extra marital affair, and that's that was their big suspicions.
And just as generally, what are we talking about with the scratches? How significant were they?
They were very significant, the scratches like it looked like if he claimed his claim was true, the raisor blabe was certainly out of control. It left massive, big scratches and just depicted in media down the side of his face there very much inconsistent with the razor cut.
And then talking about the extra marital affair that he had. It's like he's going on the on the fenceive putting the putting the defense up straight away, like if you dig deep, you're going to find this. So he told the police there when he's reporting his wife missing.
Yeah, there was just a range of scenarios that raised their suspicion, which you forced him to contact the local to O actives.
I'm just putting my sort of homicide had on too, and like at seven am, or go for a work at six am, and it's pretty quick that he's called the police. Hasn't foanned anyone else, And yeah, it.
Through red flags as the investigation started. There were a number of other phone calls and one of those was to his lawyer. Now, if your wife or partner had gone missing, would you be ringing the lawyer straight up?
Yeah.
The other one was's checks on the fifth amendments right to silence. So there was red flags once the investigation started, from the minute he jumped on the phone to reporting it to the police all the way through.
Okay, now you said the place was set up as a crime scene. Was anything found in the crime scene? No?
What there was three vehicles there. We seized all the vehicles for crime scene examination. In the house, there was no evidence of tissues or anything which consistent for razor cut, you know, the blood, anything like that, and inside the house was pretty much unremarkable from a crime scene point
of view. As it transpired later on, there was a white Captiva which was only I think from memory was eight weeks old, which that was the car that Allison was driving, and as the investigation progressed, that came up some significant evidence in that regard. What happened was a full scientific examination was done of the car and there was bloodstains found in the rear driver's side area against a metal clip which is used for clipping seats back in.
An examination of that showed blood coming from that clip running down in a downward direction, and as investigation progressed, that was identified through DNA as being Allison's blood. Interestingly, in the back of that car was a number of kid's toys that was stacked neatly in the back of the car. When we interviewed a housekeeper, she said those toys have never been removed underneath the house for a number of months because the kids had outground them. They
were in the car. So that that as investigation progressed along, you know, Ellison's body was found and it was found in an area.
Yes, sorry, Mark, just on that. What was I would imagine there would have been the inquiries about the relationships I had. Was there any issues with the relationships, had there been any history of violence? And looking at the husband, who I think it would be fair to say was a suspect right from the start. Was there anything else that jumped out in those inquiries that added to the suspicion.
The big, big thing that really jumped out was his lawyer attending and saying, my client will not be answering any questions. Now, interesting, is that is normal advice or normal behavior if the if your partner has gone for a walk. So that part was significant. There's no history of domestic violence on any police database at that address or with the people involved. Jared was in the Kenmare Chamber of Commerce and pretty much respected amongst the business
people in the area. He ran a local real estate agent, not a very successful one as we later found out. Yeah, so that's that was very interesting from the word go. Look, you know, even suggestions were made to his lawyer along the line. So you know, Jared's had an argument with Alison and he's done something dreadful. Now is the time to tell us, but it just will not be cooperating and that was all the way through, right even up to the end of the trial.
Did he go on TV? And I seem to have a recollection of him going on TV and making an appeal for the public.
He certainly did when I on the Saturday morning when we kicked off the Major Incident room, which spoken to We've spoken to him about doing an appeal for Allison if she's out there, to come forward. He refused to do that, putting up Jeff and Priscilla, Allison's parents to do that, to that appeal for Allison to come home. And you had an information to come forward, I think
you know, the significant public interest in the matter. The media kept hounding Jared and his sister and family to the point that he decided to make a public appeal, but that was off his own back, nothing to do with any request from police. And we were we were made aware of it obviously by the media that he'd made a little little appearance.
A fewcodile crocodile tears there. Okay, so what just giving people that an understanding. How many how many staff did you have working on that investigation and what was the breakdown of the investigative team and was called a strike force.
Note it was a task force. It was two separate parts. In the initial part Allison, we had to try and locate her, so the brook Showgrounds was probably about five hundred meters from her house where he claimed she's left to go for a walk. We had a Ford command post, there were searchers involving multiple police, We had recruits from the academy, a lot of gold mines around that area, so we had expertise from the local council ses searching for her. And that search went for eleven days, so
we've got full on there every single day. Allison's parents were at that place. His parents, sorry, Jared did not turn up there the consistent. At the same time as running that, we had the Major Incident Room, which involved the probably at its peak probably forty detectives following things through. We're getting a lot of information. I think in total, fifteen hundred pieces of information from crime stoppers came in.
Every single piece of that information was run out. Also at the time, you know, there was electronics, violence and physical surveillance being undertaken, and examination of computers and mobile phones.
The magnitude of an investigation like that, and yeah, there's red flags that you guys had picked up right from the start. But red flags are one thing. It's about gathering the evidence that you got sufficient evidence to charge him with the incident. Room running like that. The search over eleven days, Was it eleven days that Allison's body was found.
Yes, eleven days. We had a fellow that was kayaking, kayaking up off a tribute off the Brisbane Reverend Collo Creek and that's when he was the one that discovered Allison's body on the mud banks there.
And what the crime scene set up there, what was revealed about Allison's body.
It had been there for the duration, what had happened. As part of the investigation, we set up a time lapse camera because it was tidal at the tart part of the creek and where the body was dumped, that was above the high tide mark. So I think that was one mistake that Jared made when he dumped Allison's body, that he couldn't even get the tides right. Had she ended up in the tides there and the Brisbane Review Tribute was about two hundred meters away, the body could
have ended up anywhere. Unfortunately, during the period of time we're looking for her, we had quite a ray of weather patterns. There's a lot of rain, very hot days, so the body was very much decomposed and from that decomposition we were not able to obtain any sufficient evidence like fingernail scratches or skin or anything under the fingernails.
We sent away some samples of bone to a professor in Western Australia to see whether or not he could determine whether there was any consistency with drowning or death beforehand. That came back that there's no evidence of drowning. We never had a cause of death the decomposition, which was a bit of a challenge in moving forward to charge,
as she'd be aware of. But during the investigation we talked earlier about the teamwork and I relied solely on my detective, senior sergeant and the crew, and I must say they are absolutely brilliant, you know, from the investigators, from the scenes of crime people, from everyone that had an involvement, The commitment and dedication was second to none. You've got a mother that's gone missing that stage. She had three young girls, I think they were about eight,
six and four hadn't seen their mother. The father, you know, as a suspect in our eyes, and his behavior was a bit of radic shortly after she went missing, and it really motivated police to really dig in.
I can picture what it would be like, the dynamics of an investigation of that nature and the way you describe it and the suspicions attached. So obviously jump up, Yeah, calling the police after an hour solicitor and affair scratch marks and that it's circumstantial evidence. It's enough to add a suspicion. You've recovered the body, but that's not revealing much. There's still so much work to do and it needs
the attention at tension to detail. So you had a detective senior sergeant running the team, Yes, that's correct, ye, and then for the or say at different times on the investigation, how long did the investigation run before there was a serious discussion about whether we've got sufficient evidence to charge him?
Right up until the thirteenth of June is when we went and picked him up and charged him.
Even so, what's that two months?
Just under two months, And it was that morning we put a strategy into place, and at that morning, after our strategy ran out, we made a determination to arrest him with that stuff age. There was a lot of toing throwing between people a little bit more senior to me giving advice that you haven't got a cause of death, how are you going to charge? You know, the usual experts coming in that have no involvement in it with
their opinion. But the team we had twenty three pieces of circumstantial evidence and we were one hundred percent committed that we had sufficient to charge. And what put the icing on the cake for us is during this investigation, as we said before in your briefings, you get information or you get suggestions from that team, and we engaged a botanist who was leading botanist in Queensland. Because when Allison was found she had bits of foliage in her hair.
He was able to examine that foliage and determine the types of plant material that that was. And interestingly, when we went back to the baden Clay house, each one of those plants were at the rear of the house and significantly there was a cat's claw I think it was called, which was dangling over the back of the garage near where the Captiva had been parked. So when he lifted Allison up to put her in the back, of that captiva, the cat claw according to her hair.
The work of that botanist was absolutely significant, and really, you know, we're talking about circumstantial evidence, but that was really high level circumstantial evidence that he came up with. Fortunate for us, the botanist lived in that vicinity of that area, and he knew the area at the back of his hand, and there was no other pieces of foliage that was found in her hair anywhere in the near vicinity of where which she was found, So his evidence was significant.
I can see why that had been an exciting moment getting that piece piece of evidence and linking it. But again that's the attention to detail. And I think you mentioned twenty three pieces of circumstantial evidence. Look at circumstantial evidence like on its own, that doesn't really paint a picture, but when you add them all up together and you
sit down and look at them, and it's interesting. You were talking about, you know, the decision to charge or not, because sometimes that's the hardest part of being a homicide detective. That Okay, let's break it down. What have we got here, And you're looking and you think it's one thing to think a person's done at crime it's another thing to be able to prove that person has done a crime.
I can imagine there would have been the naysayers. There always is when you're trying to make decisions, whether that comes from above or below, there's always you know, it's a robust decision to make. You guys obviously felt as a team that there was sufficient evidence to charge. When he was arrested, what was his attitude. I would imagine someone like that would still be denying it.
One hundred percent. Gary, You're still denying it. And he called his solicit up and wouldn't talk to us. Look, he was a bloke that was full of his own self importance and thought he could beat everything. But he stuffed up a few ways along the line. One is that we had an order a fornzic order to get samples and everything off him because we'd seized his vehicles.
On the way to the police station, he drove into a shopping center wall, no evidence of any breaking and on the front page in the front seat of the car was page three, a big article about Allison. He got a few minor injuries from that accident, but we were able to use that to our benefit in that we had a full mental health assessment of him done at the hospital, which, as you're aware, it can be quite important later on if he wants to make that
claim and he's deemed to be of sound mind. So as that part of it, he took himself to a local doctor a couple of days after Allison disappeared, informing the doctor, I'd like, you know, the police want me to have a look at these razor cuts on my face. Unfortunately for Jered, that doctor had examined about five hundred rasor biopsis during a training period as part of a project,
and she was clearly able to say they weren't consistent. Interestingly, this is only a couple of days after He's left his business card with the doctor and said if you want to catch up for a coffee, I'd be interested. During the physical examination we conducted of him, there was other scratches and wounds on his chest. He said they were caused by a caterpillar the day before Allison's disappearance
when the girls were running in a cross country. So we found the area where that was where he claimed this killer caterpillar had got on to him, and we got a caterpillar expert to that area along with the botanist to determine if there were any caterpillars in that area and whatsot they were. Interestingly, there was no caterpillars that would cause that sort of injury, so we were
able to knock that down. We found evidence on his laptop of an extramarital affair with a woman there and they were communicating covertly on that laptop, which led us to tracking her down. She was very, very staunch with Jared until we threatened her with arrest and she decided to cough up a full story. Everything we put in
place and tried. He thought it could out smartest. But his biggest mistake, again we're talking about circumstantial evidence, was inquiries to the insurance company to see what Dallison's life insurance policy was worth prior to her disappearing. And I think that was around the from memory of the fourteenth or fifteenth of April, the day that we located Alison. That afternoon, a further inquiry was made by him in
relation to the life insurance policy. The big thing that was very important in this and you know, the whole world was watching it. You know that forty five that this matter was in the paper it was queens End, New soth Wales, Queens and Australia and internationally interest in it. We did a peer review of every section of the investigation to make sure we were one hundred percent accurate.
Fortunately we did that, so toxicology came back but a decimal point in relation to a substance antidepressant in Allison's body had been put in the wrong place. We had that piece of information reviewed by a toxicology expert in Victoria who corrected it, which was substantial. Okay, So the critical part of the peer review I think, you know, really gave us a lot of confidence in moving forward with.
Charging and mark on that. And I like the idea of peer reviews and investigations I've been involved in. We've had that type of thing to have a look because sometimes you're in it, you're looking, and sometimes you need other people to have a look and cross everything you've got because these type of mistakes, and you talk decimal
point or whatever. If you went to trial, and I'm surmising here, so we're talking hypothetically, if you went to trial with a circumstantial brief of evidence and you're in front of a jury, murder trial, a lot of pressure on high profile and then through no fault of the police or anyone really as human error, a decimal point in the wrong point, the amount that the defense would make of that, How can we trust anything that police
have presented here? When they're presented this, it's been shown and I can just imagine the dramatics in the court, the paper with the in the hand waving that the jury it's wrong, it's false. So the thoroughness and that attention to the detail and the little things, and I'm
fascinated by the story of it. I didn't realize a lot of the nuances with the way the investigation played out, but I know you speak highly of the team and proud of the team, and I can understand why, because that's the type of investigation that could slip through the cracks if you didn't get those things like the botanists with the plant sample and different things that you picked
up on running an investigation. Overseeing an investigation of that high profile investigation, it brings other pressures to you of that normally you don't associate with the media interest, and once you've got the media interest, you've got the command's interest. Who whichever level that sits above you you have politicians being involved. Was there a lot of that type of pressure on the investigation when you're working on that.
There was, in particular some inaccurate reporting from a certain media person who had run a story and rang me to verify the story was accurate the next day and said your story is not accurate and don't bother ring at me again. So she's run up to the bosses uptown and I had a phone call saying that, you know, we've got to include her. I pushed back against in
saying that majority of the media were brilliant. Your media is your best source of getting material as you know, they're your best source to get material out, and you just want to work in closely and together with them. You know, you can't tell them everything and they know that, but the information feedingback from them was good. We did have an issue there where he was very closely aligned with a state politician based on the ken MO the
ken More Chamber of Commerce. So dealing with that, I was very very fortunate that I had an assistant commissioner above me who was five hundred percent behind me and very very supportive. He managed a lot of the politics at a higher level, leaving us alone to do what we had to do. And I think, as I said earlier in the piece, as a superintendent or inspector in charge of it, you've got to make sure your team resource, they've got what they want, they need, and support them.
And I was just very, very fortunate that I had a great team, and you know, everyone was singing in the same direction. We briefed in the mornings, we briefed in the afternoons. We come up with some different ideas and different suggestions, and it worked effectively.
You've mentioned that a couple times during the podcast. Brief in the morning's brief in the afternoons. I won't say ridiculed, that's too strong, but yeah, probably the piss taken out of me how many briefings I'd have on investigations, But I think they're crucial in an investigation to make sure everyone knows that we're heading what direction we're heading in
there's no misinformation missed. And when I've been involved in investigations, whether I'm leading it or just part of the team, when there's been mistakes done, invariably it's because the communication hasn't been there. We haven't had the briefings, and sometimes it's quite annoying. What the boss wants another briefing? Does he and you bring everyone into the room. Might only take twenty minutes half an hour, but it was crucial to make sure everyone was on the same page and
heading in the right direction. Would you agree with my thoughts on the importance of briefing.
One hundred percent? You've got to have everyone who's got to be well informed. They need to know exactly what's going on. Because they go out and interview a witness at six o'clock that night and they're not aware of what's happened during the day, you're off track. So it's getting ahead of the game, making sure that everyone is fully aware. Even the use of a rolling video screen in the major instidant room updating where people can have a look at it getting an idea what's going on.
But those briefings are a very crucial part in my view, morning and afternoon. You're seven in the morning, three in the afternoon. You know, for the sake of twenty minutes, it's twenty minutes worthwhile spending.
Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly with you. Mark. The way this played out in court a trial, he pleaded not guilty, convicted, he appealed, and the appeal was overturned. The convictions are stood. How are Allison's children going there?
The three girls have turned out to be remarkable young ladies. They are very very lucky to have the support of Allison's parents and close family and friends. And it's a real credit to everyone that's helped the girls. And it's a real credit to the girls how they've moved on, very successful, very genuine down to earth girls who you know, from the adversity they've been through. It's absolutely remarkable how they've turned out, and they should be extremely proud of themselves.
They've actually got up at the last few lunches and spoken at the lunches and it's an extreme extremely creditible to Jeff and Priscilla and all the near family members, Vanessa and friends that have really supported the girls to get through this horrible time that they would have had.
Yeah, that's beautiful the fact that they get on them. The resilience that people that have had tragedies in their life like that come through. And what a nice memory of Alison. Then tribute to Alison that the children that turned out out like that and yeah, it's just so difficult. What's a wash out from the whole whole investigation.
Yeah, you're right. There were examples of it seriously affecting police officers, which we dealt with and supported them on the way through. I think, I don't know, I've become very close to the family, to the girls. In particular, there was a charity set up, the Alison Baden Clay Foundation, set up at the request of the parents afterwards, specifically looking at domestic violence and education towards that. So Allison's legacy still lives on that. We have a lunch every year.
This year was the biggest of four hundred people attended and all the funding goes towards that. I think back in the day the media, I've never struck it like that. Forty five days, during the same time as the regional Crime Coordin under there had three other murders in the space of around Allison's and the media was solely interested in Allison. You could do a media in relation to the other and it was always came back to Allison because it was like the girl next door type of murder.
Brookfield Areas is a pretty affluential area with a lot of you know, affluential people in Brisbane living that area and it's semi rural, and I think talking to some of the media people asking what do you think the interest was, and they just said because of the environment, who lived out there and the girl next door type arrangement. Yeah, so it was. It was very, very interesting.
It's a funny beast the media, and you know, I now now work in it, but always I won't say fascinated, that's not the right word, but it always intrigued me. The type of investigations like that one, like the whole country knew about it. Other investigations I've been on, no one was interested, even though it's the same type of circumstances. I put it down to Mark. I think it's just what people can identify with and people might be able
to relate with Allison for whatever reason. A woman with children and she's disappeared and the husband's a suspect, and it makes people interested. But yeah, sadly, I say it from my experience. You don't have to agree with me, but sadly, the media attention also equates to the resources you tend to get on investigations I've found as well. If there is a media attention on a particular investigation, you tend to get more resources than some of the other ones.
Yeah, I think that's correct this one here. As I said, I was very fortunate to have a very supportive assistant commissioner above me, and that was that was helpful coming to other resources, you know. But once it got out, you know what we're looking at, people came forward. I remember public holidays, weekends where police would just turn up saying we want to search for Allison on their days off.
You know, That's that's what sort of happened. But yeah, getting back to your question, I think sometimes yeah, I think sometimes you're right there that, you know, the media attention relations to some of the matters mightn't be there, which can affect the police numbers. Yeah, and I think probably seeing that more and more now, Like is the number of murders that we're seeing, you know, years ago when you and I first joined murderers on the front
page of the paper. Now you know, sometimes it doesn't even make the paper, you know.
Yeah, that's right. It depends. But certainly a focus has been on domestic related murders of recent times, and you know, in the chats I've had with you. You got the sense in the timing of it that very much picked up after Yeah, what happened with Allison that was a domestic related murder. I want to get your thoughts on it. But you've got a fascinating insight into domestic violence in that you did oversaw a review into thoughts of police
officers attending domestic violence incidents. Do you want to just talk us through your role there and what you found.
Okay, that happened a couple of years back now where the Queensland government instituted a Royal Commissioner Commissioner of Inquiry into domestic violence and the response by the Queensland Police Service. I wasn't in the police at that stage, but they asked me if I would talk to police officers in Queensland specifically looking at the culture of police towards domestic violence.
It was very lucky that I could talk to them that, you know, wanting to interview operational frontline police that we're dealing with it not only in the Southeast Corner but at their first nations areas to one and two people's stations to get a holistic view of the police response to domestic violence. So, over the four week period, interviewed fifty three police from the rank of constable right up to I think as two inspectors right across the state
and had a series of questions that were asked. Everyone was asked the same questions and got a very good understanding of the effects and domestic violence and police. Now, back in that time, about forty percent of calls to police with domestic violence related matters.
Son, what years are we talking? Were talking to years.
Twenty twenty two, this would have been so, and this is prior to course of hearings being legislated and coming in a course of control. A lot of the police I spoke to, they were very committed with respect to domestic violence. There was a lot of frustrations about red tape duplicity and look it was it was not surprising that, you know, one domestic violence matter could take four hours
of an officer's shift to deal with. So that's four hours that they're in there doing the paperwork, dealing with the matter, taking them off the road. I did a report and gave evidence that the DV Commission of Inquiry with a lot of the recommendations that the people interviewed came out front line police. One of the big findings
I had was they were concerned about duplicity. For example, if a person did not turn up to court for a DV matter, they had to go and find them and serve a notice of a German on them and more papers to get them before the court. And in areas the First Nation areas Thursday and.
When you say someone not turning up the victim of the domestics.
Sorry the offender, the offend not turning up so that itself had issues. You look at the First Nations areas up on Thursday Island. There's forty to fifty islands there where the offender could be, so police have got to try and find them. One big thing I found, particularly in one area, shifts between ten pm and six am. The crews would start at ten pm at night and there'd be a number of domestic violence matters queued up. So you had police going to areas attending to domestic violence.
But then you also had supervisors who were going to domestic violence. One person out at three o'clock in the morning, which is a huge risk to the welfare of police because as you know, domestic violence matters are very volatile. The one big thing was the use of support services. There are a lot of support services in Queensland, but some of the areas don't get the same level of support. For example, one area that I spoke to a First Nation area where the police rang adv Support Network on call.
It was on twenty four to seven for support and they just said, look, we've got nothing up there getting to sleep at the police station and getting the sleep
in the car. Recommendations were made in relation to and I briefed actually Department or Premier about some of the findings from my report, and one recommendation was that they relook at the funding for all these domestic violent the government funding full these domestic violence organizations around the state and trying to align a balance fifteen of the police districts to have at least one of those areas in the state working twenty four to seven. And that suggestion came.
It was one that I saw, but it also came from some of the police that the advantages they'd see of that is that they know the local geography, that'd know the local police, they could work with the police will, they'd know who the high risk DV offenders are and they could work together as a team.
So mark, in a practical sense, if that's implemented. What the recommendations are we talking here that police And I'm staggered by the fact that you said forty percent of calls to the police station were the domestic violence related, which is startling. Police get called the car crew get called to a domestic violent situation. And the group that
you're talking at, the specialists, not police officers. Are you suggesting they should attend that location if they're on twenty four to seven, attend the location with the police officers.
No, not necessarily. I think you've got categories. You've got the high risk offenders, and you've got the first time offenders and the recivitust where police are going back constantly.
I think you would need it. You know, resources aren't unlimited, and I think you and I think you know predominantly is the high risk offenders where you know there may be an order in place against one, they join back up and it's still continuing and doesn't necessarily have to be at the time, but an early referral so they can go on touch base with them, whether it's the
next day. I think what we're looking at is just the ability for the Queensland Police attending a domestic at the back of Charlie Ball, they can touch base for the DV person twenty four to seven, that knows area, that knows what safe accommodation is available to help in that stage. But then secondly follow up with both parties involved to assist the police. Police aren't experts in human welfare.
They go there, they keep the peace, they do their best they can, and domestic violence matters, but there needs to be some other level where both the receipt, the grieved and the respondent can go to for further education, can go to for conversations, and that's not the police.
Yeah, like the police shouldn't be filling the role of mediation between the two parties, And yeah, you've got to sort it out. I understand what you're saying there. I would imagine police and you're the person that's interviewed them
and get a sense of it. But I imagine they'd feel a lot of pressure with the domestic violent situations because of the attention that's on and if they're dedicated police officers, you know the potential consequence as if there's a domestic situation, there's always a chance of something terrible happening.
One thing that I found really disturbing gary was interviewing these police that the level of fearfulness amongst the police attending to a domestic violence matter and not dealing with it properly, fearing discipline reaction DV. If they make a decision at a DV, they've got to get it might be a no DV, but they've got to get approval from their supervised as a senior sergeant, that it's a
no DV. And then you've got a senior sergeant or sergeant that says, no, I'll just do it as a DV to protect your neck because we don't want to discipline. So it's had that adverse effect as well. And the big thing that I never really saw evidence of police showing away from DV because they knew there's such an emphasis on it that it had to be done properly. This is prior to course of control, so that forty percent I gave before course of control legislation comes in.
And there was some criticism in the inquiry of a number of fatal DV matters whether the police hadn't responded appropriately properly. My concern is with coercive control, their levels that require investigation to establish that, yes there has been withholding of money, withholding a bank, accouncil and all this that can't be done there and then so how are police going to manage that level of scrutiny.
Well, you made an interesting point there, Mark, and I've been talking about coercive control affair bit and on the back of and you know it from Queensland, the Hannah Clark situation and spoken to her parents and they were very much pushing on coercive control, which we're brought in
New South Wales. I agree with it. I think it's something it's a tool that police need, but I hadn't even in all honesty, considered the investigation that would require to prove that and whether general duties police have got the time to do those type of investigations. To me, looking at it from the outside, that's a simple solution.
You'd have experts in that era, specialist police that aka coercive control and a domestic unit within the local area command or squad that follow up that type of information. Because there is a lot that you've got to do.
There certainly is, and you know, as I said, you know, you've got police going from DV to DV. They know that their domestic violence matters are banking up, and they know they want to get there to make sure that the people involved are safe. That's when shortcuts happen, you know, and that's that's unfortunate part of life. That's that's when things happen. You know, there's a number of scenarios that police gave me issues that they hadn't concerned about, you know,
what was occurring. But look, my whole thing is police aren't the answer to everything. Domestic violence mental health is a whole community problem. A lot of domestic violence agencies are trying to start edgecation the Allison Baden Clay want are educating young kids at school. That's fine, but you look at the generational DV and one police officer I interviewed, she remembers going to domestic violence matters sixteen years ago when mum and dad were fighting and the young kids
were there. Sixteen years later, she's going to domestic violence with those young kids. So the perpetrators of the domestic violence. So how do we break down that generational DV. How can the community work together to deal with this Because you know, police have families in that as well, and I think the effect on seeing it some of these
DV matters can affect police in their own lives. I just think there has to be a different approach, and what that is, I'm not one hundred percent certain, but it's got to involve a whole community response.
I think if you hang on to that, the whole community response policing, you can't fix it. If they bring in tougher legislation, is z that gan to solve the problem? Possibly not that, Yeah, you really need to approach it, and yeah you need to circumvent it, prevent it. Prevention is obviously better, and then bring in other services to
to help help people navigate through that. But it's a You speak to any police officer and I can attest to that the amount of police I've had on the podcast and just in my general conversations with police, I know mentioned domestics and we all react the same way. Oh yeah, the pain of attending domestics. It's virtually what you cut your teeth on, and it's something that the
potential ramifications are extreme. So it is something and in this day and age, even more so than when I was attending domestics, so I can imagine that it does have a negative impact on the police involved in it.
It does, And look, you know, I hope I haven't sort of made light of course of control because I look back at Allison's case and there was extreme examples of course of control, which you know, which has come to right now, and it's a critical thing that we have to deal with, and you know, early intervention on course of control may prevent more serious type arrangements.
I don't think you've made light on it. Market like a lot of the stuff you've said today on the show is a good common sense approach. I'm saying, if anything, I was not naive, but hadn't considered how much work would go into coercive control. Having said that, I support it one hundred percent because I think that the trouble is police and you would have been there at some
stage in your career. We've all been in there. We walk into a house, no one's been assaulted, there's been an argument, you can feel the tension, you can feel the fear there, but there was nothing we can do. But with coercive control, potentially we could get to the bottom of that. If someone's manipulating and controlling someone that might might circumvent it. But you make a valid point.
And you know, when the politicians come in with the legislation we've changed theis we've got to be able to resource and educate police on how to use that legislation to its fullest effect.
Agree, And I think there has to be a multi disciplinary approach, not just a police approach. Look, I can remember police don't like going to domestics, you know, probably one of the biggest killers of police across history of policing. I can remember as a twenty year old going to a domestic violence matter where a woman rang up and said, my husband's bashing me. We go down there, big fella. We got one handcuff on a struggle. We've all ended up over the lounge chair. The next minute the wife's
they're kicking us. Leave him malone, leave him alone. Domestics are very, very volatile, and they've got to be handled professionally and carefully. And I think this day and age, you know, as we've boke before with the different drugs and mental health, which wasn't as much back as the period I'm talking about, it's just an added risk and impose on police attending domestic violence.
Well, look, I'm glad we're talking about it in the the horrendous. Yeah, the consequences at the extreme where people have been murdered is just out of control. So at least the focus is on it. We've got to find a solution we can't put up with if the problems there, like, well, how are we going to change it? I like the way you approach things, Mark, Yeah, looking at solutions a little bit differently, and it's not I get the sense that you appreciate things are all not black and white.
I'm going to ask you with the policing, thirty eight years in the police in then, you're still very much aware of what's going on now, with the type of work you're doing and the interest that you have in it, is it a career you would recommend to people.
It's the I thoroughly enjoyed it. Whilst things have changed a lot now. I think the comaraderie and the police, the diversity in what you will be attending. And I only spoke to a young fellow last night that's coming down for interviews on the weekend, and I think the same thing you said, mate, You're going to love it. I said, you get sick of one area, move to another. You're going to see the best and the worst in people.
You're going to upscull yourself. But more than that, you're going to be working with the team and a group of people that will have your back. And I think that's one big thing that I liked about the police. I enjoyed going to work. I enjoyed the challenges. I enjoyed not knowing what I was going to be doing from day to day. There's no monotony in it. And I enjoyed people I work with and some of the people I dealt with. One hundred percent, I think it's a great career.
I ask that question to all police I get on there, and I think we've probably got about the ninety nine percent success rate on saying they recommend it, because I thoroughly do. And it saddens me that police forces across the country struggling to get resources at the moment. And yeah, if people just if they want an interesting, challenging, rewarding life, it's there for you in policing. Yeah, I've just listen.
I see the smile that comes on your face talking about aspects of your police career and I see it time and time again, so hopefully the right right people wanted to get involved.
It's like the suggestion come up earlier Gary about you know, do we have a national police service, you know, the ability to transfer and things like that need to be brought to the table for the right people to consider and suggestions like that which you know could increase recruitment and retention. You know. I just think that things like that need to be brought to the table and needs to be a national discussion on how we recruit, how we retain police officers.
Yeah. Well, Mark, I've really enjoyed your chat. Good luck with your career career at the moment. Just sorry before we go, what are you doing now, because it seems like a kid in the candy store to me.
Look, I'm doing a little bit of work at Queensland Cricket at the moment, integrity framework there, which is enjoyable. I love my cricket and just a little bit of consultancy work out and about and so it keeps the mind active and keeps me out of the wife's hair. So that's good.
Well, you look like you're enjoying yourself and very relaxed and in the prep for the podcast and reading the type of stuff and the stances you were taking. Again a common sense approach. So I want to thank you for coming on the Eye Catch Killers podcast. Thank you for the service to the people of Queensland and the broader areas in which you've worked. And yeah, keep on doing what you're doing.
Great, Thanks very much, Garian, thanks for having me on. I think it's what you're doing is fantastic bringing back what really happens behind the scenes to the grassroots and I think it's really important for people to know that. Thank you.
Thanks Matt. I never got to work with Mark, but I know it'd be the type of copper I would like working. He has a common sense approach and he speaks his mind and I've got to say he raised in terms of reducing crime, in particularly youth crime, some very very interesting thoughts on how it could be approached. Mark is well placed with thirty eight years experience in the cops and he has some good ideas