The public has had a long held fascination with detectives. Detective sy 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. 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 to another episode of Eye Catch Killers. Terrorism is defined as the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially
against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims. Now that's a fairly bland definition, but there's something we all have to live with because, as we have now become aware, none of us are immune to the effects of terrorism, and it can strike in the most sudden and devastating fashion. It is a role of multiple law enforcement agencies in this country and across the world to identify and prevent acts of terrorism. Most of their work is done behind
the scenes. I think it's about time on eye catch kills we have a look at terrorism and get a better understanding of what causes it and how we can identify it and prevent it where possible, to educate us all about terrorism. I can't think of a better person than doctor Dave Gore. Dave is a former colleague and friend of mine. We worked in tactical policing together and major crime, but then he kind of just disappeared from that world and embedded himself into the world of counter terrorism.
He's considered one of the most experienced counter terrorism investigators in this country. He only recently left the New South Wales Police and his post police career. He used his vast experience to write a book titled Principles of the counter Terrorism Process. Now I've read that book. I've learnt so much from the book and today we're very fortunate to have Dave in the studio to share his knowledge. Dave Gore, it's good to see you, Gary.
It's been a while. Have you been.
Oh, I've made okay, the world has changed somewhat, But yeah, I'm enjoying what I'm doing. And there is as we were talking the other day, there is life outside the cops, isn't it.
Look it's an interesting position. You spend thirty three five years of your life dedicated to a career path and then when it ends, it ends in a hurry. Yeah, you've got to find where do you sit? Who's your new identity? So it's been an interesting journey.
Yeah, Well we're sort of part of a tribe and you lose that identity, and that was your identity Dave Gore. Oh, he's a cop, Gary Jubel, and he's a cop, and you step away from that. But I'm happy to say and that, as you'll found out, there is a world outside the police, and you realize it is fairly small and narrowing the world that we operated.
Yeah, and look, you're in when you're in the game, it's all about policing. And our colleagues are still in the game. That's what they do. They chase, they live and breathe it. But rest assured when you get out there is a larger world and there's a lot more fulfillment and satisfaction in other aspects outside of policing that I didn't think would actually occur, but it's there.
And you had a double headed household with policing because your wife.
My good wife, which you've had the opportunity to work with, and she's still in the police. So whilst I'm out, I'm still within the police family, so to speak, sort of as a de facto in law. So I still sort of get my little dose of policing every now and again.
She doesn't tell you, you just don't understand.
It can be quite challenging that have there's conversations because I've changed perspective a little bit, which can be the source of amusement in the household.
Well, you look relaxed, Dave. And people used to describe yourself as pretty intense in police and I know I cop that label as well as intense, but you always you had the cranky face on the fair bit you look a little bit more relaxed.
Yeah, Look it's you take stock. You know you reflect and look, we're both pretty we're both pretty driven individuals. I know that you know you're well regarded in your field and in my field. You know, there was a lot of there's a lot of expectation. Yeah, and that burden. Yeah. Yeah, you're pretty switched on most of the time.
Well, I look at it this way. Sometimes you just haven't got time for the niceties or the hello or how you going. Sometimes it's we need this done, we need this done now. And that that was policing the sharp end, isn't it.
Yeah, And look your hope throughout your career that you didn't burn too many bridges and that your colleagues realized that you weren't being you were in being blunt, you weren't being rude. You were just time poor and you
were under the pump. But now that we're away from that and we can step back and look back in, it's nice to look back in and actually take a breath and enjoy, enjoy the ride, so to speak, smell the flowers, enjoy the day, and actually take some time to take stock of what's occurred.
Yeah, very much so. So your your book, congratulations on it. I read it over the weekend and I think I'm very much more enlightened about the world of counter terrorism investigation. What prompted the idea of writing a book after you left?
Well, so when I left the police. I didn't live on my terms.
You know, that's unusual, so I had to So when.
I left, you know, I feel a little bit unfulfilled, and I had I spent twenty years of research, policy writing, developing, training, operational engagements, and there was a great deal of knowledge. And when I left the police, I thought, at some point someone will come and want to download what I knew so that it can be used for the next generation and we can build on the information that we've
already got. But after a couple of months, I realized that no one was coming, and look, there was a lot of information that I thought, actually, it does help, and it helps the process. We spent a lot of time researching it, so I didn't want to lose it. So when I looked around the marketplace of books, and I looked particularly at the private sector who are now partners in the ct Journey, the counter Terrorism JOm, and
there's no books for them. There's no reference books, there was no guides, there was nothing to give them support and instruction on how they should do business. So they kind of motivated me to get my thoughts down and to put something that can be used for the wider communities to attention.
Well, we're going to dissect the book and the book so people are aware of it. The principles of the counter terrorism process, a guide for new guard of counter terrorism professionals. And I've got to say, if you want to up skill or have an understanding of what counter terrorism is about, it's very much in that book. And I can see the effort that's gone into it too, Dave, So congratulations, it's not an easy book to write. You're not just sitting there rattling off old war stories. It's
very deep. Yeah.
So there's a lot of research in that of academic research that you know with and the beauty about being in the police is that there is a lot of academic research in the wider world of academia about terrorism, but being in the police, being close to the cold face, we've got the best sources of data. We've got the
real data. So our research was more accurate. And it's that accurate research that I wanted then to communicate with everyone so that we can move forward as opposed to basing research on assumed facts or research based on information gaps. So I've tried to get it down as best we could.
Okay, well, we've got a little bit ahead of ourselves. We've got to wind it back a little bit. So you didn't just wake up one day and decide you're account the terrorism expert. You joined the police. What prompted you to join the police?
So join the police. So before I joined the police, I'm not a tall man, and back in the day when I wanted to join the police, there was a height restriction. There's a height and weight restriction, and you had have certain test expansions and I didn't meet those term was never going to So I went and joined the bank. I started studying accountcy and was doing a
management program within Westpac. And then one lunchtime I'm sitting down reading the paper and my lunch break and the then Commissioner, Jack Avery removed the hype restrictions and mate restrictions. So I wandered down to Maryland's police station and the old desk sergeant was there and I said, excuse me, sergeant, could I have an application? He grunted at me, through the application at me, and I walked out.
Nothing like customers.
Customer service was fantastic. And then three months later I'm down at the academy.
Okay, what year was that?
What year the eighty seven?
Okay, I was there just a little a little bit beforehand. So your career in uniform first up.
Yeah, so you know, this is the day back where we did three months straight. We were trainees in the police academy, so you employed as a police employer employee, and so we did three months in tents. Then we had twelve months probation before you got confirmed. My probation and period in uniform was at Flemington with the L thirty two division, which was Flemington, Auburn, Lincoln. You know, again, etchy,
typical uniform career. We're working at the markets, traffic domestics, and domestics is clearly a current issue and they were a current issue back then. So times haven't changed.
It's sad saying things haven't changed.
So look, and then I joined the police and I was under the I suppose my plan was to do a couple of years in uniform study law, have a go at going to through the prosecutors and pursuing that path.
But in our part of our training program is that you've got to do two weeks in each of the units with that highway licensing, all those things and I got to spend two weeks in the detective's office and my mentor there was a detective charge my name of Henry Krnaky, a fantastic detective, and I was there and as soon as I walked in the office, my feet didn't hit the ground. In two weeks, I think we
had four murders. We were chasing a group of kids, three kids for a grievous bodily harm attack that they inflicted on another a street kid with a sledgehammer in a squad house in Flemington. So we spent three days chasing these kids. Bronson, Blessington, Jamison and that crew were then chasing them all throughout Sydney trying to find them. And then we get a call one night Henry rings Mountain says that we've got our crooks at Penrith. So
we drive out there. On the way out to the driver discussing what the interview process will be and what we'll interview them. We get to Penrith police station and Henry speaks to his brother, Dick Cornacky. They have a rather animated conversation. He turns around in his heel and comes back and he says, we're out here they've just fested up to murdering a young girl in a paddock, and we won't get access to them for a while, so we left. And that unfortunate young girl was Jenaine Balding,
so terrible. It was a terrible crime, but it just showed I actually got to see how the process worked, fell in love with criminal investigation, fell in love with being a detective, and decided to make that my career.
I understand that the way you described it them just thinking through. It's that. And I don't like to say it's a thrill of the chase because it sounds like a game, and we very much know it's not a game. But that hunting. You are actually out there hunting the.
We were hunting them. We were trying to get them, and the reason to get them was to stop them because they were on a crime spree. We can incarcerate them, let things cool down, stop crime occurring. And you could see that practically occur. The more you got into investigations, you saw that the majority of crime was always been committed by the minority of criminals. If you got rid of that minority, you reduced crime. And that's a very
simple equation, and it stayed pretty constant throughout. So I saw that equation, that.
Correlation what you could achieve, what.
You could achieve, and you actually could reduce crimes significantly by taking players out.
Okay, so it sounds like it was a glob that fitted very well in plain clothes.
So yeah. So I did my training Flemington Detectives and at the time we were new South Wales Police in the wake of the Wood Royal Commission was regionalized and Flemington was the home of the Southwest Major Crime Squad. So I got to interact a lot with the guys from Southwest and they would involve us on jobs, giving us great experience and exposure. I did my training there with Flemington, and what I had done, I continued my
accountcy studies. So I just finished my accountancy course and an opportunity came for me to go to the fraud Squad. So I went to the fraud Squad for a couple of years and worked there with some very very good operators Terry Jamison, Roam Martin, Georgie McTaggart, Arthur Keatsiannas you know Arthur who went on becoming one of the commanders at State Crime and after a couple of years there an opportunity arose at Northwest Major Crime and that's where our past started to join.
Yeah, well that's when we cross paths in the crime squads, but also the tactical policing when we're in the State Protection Support Unit, which is tactical police us through that.
Yeah, So in the day, so I went to Northwest and did a range of the squads there, the Kiddies Squad which is a child protection squad, property squad, and then I moved into these stick ups. Armed hold up one of the requirements there because of the nature of the beast. We're dealing with dangerous criminals, armed defenders, you know, on a daily basis. It was a real clever strategy to get those operators trained in tactical policing, the Tactical
Support Team or the State Protection Support Unit. And it's through that training that you become proficient at weapons, your your tactical knowledge of things, what is a danger and what isn't. You get a really good understanding of how to do things a lot more safely and efficiently.
I felt that it helped us as detectives, even though our role as detectives was investigation wasn't tactical, but when we had the tactical skills, you could help plan, earn effect and the rest or be involved in the arrest and high risk offenders.
And that's probably what a lot of listeners don't understand that. As the detective, you prepare all the documents, so you're doing the planning documents, you're doing all the appreciations. So you've got to have an understanding of what their capabilities are. Whether that be a surveillance team, a team of texts that's going to put devices in, or a tactical team. You need to know what their capabilities are, what their limitations are, how they like to work. If they're a
happy team, they get your good results. So again it's great exposure, I think for us both.
And it was a lot of fun too. Some of those training days were they were intense, but they were fun. And that firing range.
Yeah, look, you know, lo Sheennanigan is a lot of fun, but a lot of team development, team bonding and building that team. You know that team camaraderie and look you twenty thirty years later, we're still talking about it and there's a smile on your face. You smile and mind, so it works.
It was fun. And look, let's shout out to the tactical police, because often they were misconstrued as you know, the knuckle draggers or whatever, the tough guys in the black overalls. But the amount of training, the pressure was on when you had the job, wasn't it.
And aren't they when you get down you speak with them and they talk through their plans. Aren't they articulate and incredibly detailed and professional? They know the game?
Dave. I'm glad you say that because people often think detectives are briefing. The best briefings I've been to are the ones that tactical police are running. And it's succinct because you can't make a mistake. If you make a mistake, someone literally might die. And it was good fun when you got a call. When we'd get called out, I thought it was best time in policing because you had
the excitement of criminal investigation. But then you get a phone call and some bad, bad guy's got to be arrested, and you jump out the back of a van.
And see what the beauty of You know, as a detective, you've got left to clean up the mess. Yes, as a tactical operator. You walked away and you didn't have to do the brief. So it was it was it was the best of both line.
I don't know about you, but when my phone would ring, I'd be thinking, I hope it's not a homicide. I hope it's tactical. Tactical, you go out the adrenaline rush, do your job and walk away in the paperwork.
Fantastic, great day, great day.
It was good. Okay, So what other squads did you work in inj major crime?
So so I did the kiddies property and we worked with you know, in the wake. This is prior to the well. This is as the Royal Commission was going on. It was and Northwest was decimated as a result of the raw Commission. Then I went to the stick ups. Then close Small did something interesting that he amalgamated the
regions again. So we went from four regions to crime agencies and I was part of the Serious and Violent Violent Offenders unit and there I stuck with stick ups and went to Bagnara and Bagnara was the operation that looked at the time counter jumpers. This is where he had a lot of young offenders. Bank robberies were still the rage and before they had screens putting up, the crooks would enter the banks on mass, jump the counter,
overwhelm the staff, take the money and run. Incredibly busy times and interesting dynamic working with you know that cohort, which was a completely different mindset to the traditional stick up guys we were used to working with.
Yeah, No, it was interesting times. And when we were brought together as crime agencies. I liken it to imagine four high schools that are all brought together because there was a bit of argie bargie, wasn't it. I was from north region.
You were even today I refer to you as north your north. I was Northwest. There's southwest, the south. Yeah, somewhere we didn't meet in the middle. There was the clicks. Look how Clive was able to bring that and Clive is a very brilliant man. Yeah, and the way he could bring that together given the environment that we've just walked out of that New South Wales at that time was considered one of the most corrupt services in the country.
He was able to bring us together and set up a really effective agency that stood the test of time.
Yeah, full credit to Clive. He was a leader in the truest sense, wasn't he When he was there? There was no mucking round. You knew where you stood. But you're quite right moldling all that together. It could have gone either way, and I forgot how bad it was at the time. We're all shamed by the fact that we're major crime detectives and all that corruption horrendous exposed, and even the way your own organization looked at you. Yeah, uniform,
you're a detective, you must be crupted. It was a hard, hard slog.
And I remember I went to a course at the Goldman Academy and I bounced a couple of the new recruits and their first question was are you a detective, And in a suit, I said yes, I am. And their response was, we've been instructed not to talk to you because you're corrupt and a bad influence. Now I found that this is my own organization. These are the people that are training the next generation, are instructing our people not to talk to their own people because of,
you know, the stink or the smell of corruption. It was disappointing.
It was disappointing, but there was there wasn't a lot of us that had the it was still around long time after that that had the experience before it, the Royal Commission, during it and after it, and stayed in major crime. And I think it set you up very well for the further police career because you understood where things can go wrong with the corruption. And I think the people like yourself, like myself, that had that experience been there before, during and after it bous well for our careers.
It did, and it gave us ability to look at consequence and consequence management and perception. And we didn't care too much about perception were young young men rawn around, but we started to understand the power of perception, what things look like to those outside, and how we had to manage that better. So it was a great learning curve. As tragic as it was, as traumatic as it was, it really it put us in a good space.
And you could see it gave me an understanding of how a moral compass and then individual's moral compass can slide if you don't keep it, keep it strong, keep people pointed in the right direction.
Exactly right, and that was probably you saw those with a strong compass and they could stand alone. Those were the weaker compass sort of fell into the fell into the wrong crowd.
Whatever environment they were put in. Okay, another interesting aspect of your career. You went to these team, all.
Yes, so I before I went to his team, or
I went and joined and this is really interesting. I went and joined the Joint Asian Crime Group Talkers Through, which is this is a joint body with the AFP, the New South Walest Crime Commission and New South Wales Police and it was looking at the bulk we've targeted, the bulk imputation of heroin from the triads, predominantly from the Golden Triangle and the drugs that were coming out of China, and we were getting you know, we would call them bricks or units or half units, and we
were a very successful unit. It was run by you know, Jeff Owens, Ken Hardiman and a range of other people. And it's at that point I understood the benefit of joint agencies and tapping into the best of both worlds. So I had I had the Commonwealth assets, which was both national and international. I had the State assets, and then we also had that funny little beast which is the New South Walest Crime Commission. And I don't know if you've explained much to your listeners what it is.
But it is a really unique little beast.
It's come up in a lot of different times that we've talked about that I was heavily involved with them on certain investigations, so we could describe it as the New South Wales Crime Commission. They have coercive powers and powers that we don't have as police. They can call people into hearings and they have access to resources that police sometimes find very difficult to get hold of. And yeah, I think it's a powerful tool to be used in the fight against crime.
It's a fantastic to them, and they also have a great intel arm. They've got a big engine in relation to intelligence. Now all this enhances an investigation. They're a wonderful partner and it's a wonderful asset that New South Wales has. I find it strange its success hasn't been replicated in the other states because it is a very successful organization and has been for twenty thirty years.
Yeah, yeah, I've definitely got good results and I've used them. We've organized crime murders and they've been very beneficial getting people in for hearings and different things. Those coercive hearings Okay, so you've had that would have boded well for your time in counter terrorism. But before we move on to that, talk about the role in ease team or because I think that's an interesting expect.
So look, I've been being part of the AFP and they were sending and we're having the independence with Team more and you know, the Indonesians were slowly moving out. We had we had our intervention of so to speak. So I've got that exposure. So I put an application in and was seconded to the United Nations and I went over there as part of the Australian contingent for
SIF poll. And my job there is I was my coursign was Delta three, which meant I was the third in charge of Dilly District and my job was to manage the security, the enforcement security for the whole of the Dilly CBD given that it's a low rise And during my time we had the elections, so my job was to manage the security of the election process with Janana Guzmal and dou A Morel who was the opposition or the other party that was part of the presidential elections.
And then when those elections were done, then my main role then was to manage the security arrangements for Dilly for the Independence Day celebrations. So dealing with international agencies, international law enforcement media in a country that's not your own. There were three different distinct languages in Timor. There wasn't a common one. It was a challenging place.
Yeah, the good experience for but yeah, nice to have on your resume and life experience.
And you'll get this. So you don't get it when you're the kind of the un you don't get a day off. So you work for six months. So you come back and you're wrecked. And I remember coming back and I stepped foot back in the office and the first thing someone said to me, well, now you've been now you've come back from your junket, can you get to work? And you're difficult, Like yeah, just always the way, Yeah, no respect for the hard book.
That done. Okay, So what year did you decide to go down the count of terror past?
So yeah, So I came back from two more and then I worked with and then we worked together again in homicide. Yeah, and I was a staff officer staff officer to Nick Cawda's and then I'd had a few ins and outs of homicide, back of the crime squads and everywhere else. So I was Nick staff officer for a couple of years.
One was that I'm just trying to think when Nick was there, So.
That's two thousand and two thousand and two.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So late two thousand and two an opportunity to come up to join the JC too, the Joint counter Terrorism Team. That stage, I'd worked three and a half years in joint bodies with the FEDS. I was quite comfortable with their techniques, their computer systems, and I put in for it and went across myself and a guy booked, Steve Ashton. I went across and joined, were seconded to the Australian
Federal Police and were part of the initial JCT. And that was the first one in Australia and that was established in November two thousand and two.
Okay, and what was your role there?
So I was there as a detective sergeant, as an investigator. So my job again bringing the best of both worlds. I was operating in a Commonwealth environment, but I brought State assets. Now at the same time we'd set up a CT unit. Given the wake of nine to eleven and the Barley won attacks in October two thousand and two. New South Wales Police then invested and set up his
own CT command. So we had the JCT which was primarily a vehicle for the Australian Federal Police, and the New South Wales Police had its own command and I was the go to on between Trendy South Wales and the FEDS.
And a lot of it is about feeding that information backwards and forwards, and a lot of it's protected information, that type of thing, So it's a tricky thing to navigate through. Yeah.
So look, so I go there and what we do is we do reactive investigations. We're very good at that. The crime curse, it gets reported, we investigate. I've landed in this team that no one knows anyone, no one knows anyone does, and I'm told to actually stop the crime before it occurs, a proactive approach.
Which is not something that we're trained up with not to.
So this is a real This is a big learning curve that we actually got. How do we stop a crime before it occurs? I think the best analogy is if anyone's seen Tom Cruise in Minority Report, it's like that stop the crime before it occurs, so we had to build, we had to figure out how we're going to do it.
Yeah, and it is a different approach, and I want to break that down. But let's before we get into that, let's just dissect your book because, as I said, the Principles of counter Terrorism Process a guide for the New Guard of counter terrorism professionals. Now, the forward in the book was written by our good friend Nick Kaldos, which is and utmost respect for Nick. He's been a guest on Eye Catch Killers and I quite often refer to him as one of the most experienced police officers or
law enforcement officers in the world. And I don't think it's overstating it some of the stuff that he's done.
And like say, from my perspective, Nick was one of my original mentors in CT. Nick is from an Arabic background. He gets it really well and has been immersed in that part of policing for quite a while. So I'd spent a lot of time chewing his ear trying to figure things out and bouncing ideas off him.
Well, you've got the right person to do the forward in the book, because he speaks very highly in the book and accounts for something when someone like Nick Koaldos is doing that. But he made a couple of points. Because we're talking here now, we're going to take you into the world of counter terrorism. We want to get your credentials up here. This is how Nick broke it down. That pointed out that you bought three points that make
your thoughts on terrorism significant. And the first point bean that you have decades of investigation experience in the world of terrorism prior to the book. You also spent many years in major crime investigations, so you understood law enforcement and policing, and you're an academic achievement which allows you to pull all these strings together in a logical, structured construct. So lovely, I can hear I can hear Nick Knick's
voice coming out of that. But I think that does bring a uniqueness to what you can talk about in counter terrorism. And let's breaking it down. You've worked in counter terrorism, so it's not watching from the sidelines. You've been involved. You've been involved in the operations of the stopping terrorism, arrests of terrorists for a terrorist related defenses. You've also spent time as a major crime investigator, so you understand law enforcement, what can be done, what can't
be done? And why am I calling your doctor talk us about your academic qualification.
So funny enough. Look, I got into the j CT and film my feet. I think we kicked the ball off with Zachie Meller. We then did Operation Newport, which was Bridget, Willy Bridget for him, Lottie.
Break down a couple of those, so people understand. Yeah.
So Zachie Miller early two thousand and three was again very very much aligned to what's happened today, had an issue with the treatment of the Palestinians. He was interviewed by a particular meter outlet where he said that he was desirous to go to Palestine to become a suicide bomber. So that got the So that was our start, okay,
so now we're starting to get it. Then, you know, a couple of months later, we get information from the French that there's a French national in town, which was Willy Bridget, and that he has come in under the guise of the Rugby World Cup and that he is going to do something significant on his birthday. Well, his birthday coincided with the opening ceremony of the World Cup. So we're chasing literally a person that's changed their name.
That so when we talk about terrorism, they apply organized crime trade craft, so they change the name, they use fake vanes, they hide their identity. Well, will he changed his name. He was acting under an assumed name, and we're scouring Sydney trying to find him. Now, fortunously, one of our surveillance team left the office, walked two blocks down the road, was having a cup of tea in a coffee shop and was served by none other than Willi Bridget. So here we go. We've got this terrorist
and the whole world is looking for him. He's in a coffee shop around the corner. Now he's working. Now, interestingly, this is where we get to use both sides of the coin. He's on a tourist visa and he's working. So whilst we the French have given us high side. That's top secret information, but we can't use in evidence. So we know we've got a threat, we can't use it. So what can we do. Well, here he's on a visa. He's working. Quantry to his visa, so we detained him
under that and then had him deport it. He goes back to France and within makes full admissions to the French authorities about his intentions to undertake a terrorist act in Australia on behalf of a terrorist coup called Laska el Taiber l T, which is a Pakistani based terrorist organization, and he then nominated that the leader of l T in Australia was a person called for Hem Lotting, and then of course we then kick off an investigation into
for Hem Lotting. Now, at that stage, as per most CT investigations, information gets leaked and in the middle of investigation, I think lot appeared on the front page of the Telegraph and other papers of this under the guise of is this guy a terrorist, etc. Etc. Well, here we're thinking, right, well, this brief's gone, he'll go to ground. Complete opposite, he actually sped up, so his preparations continued and it continued. So in light of that, we started doing search warrants.
We did those with because of the nature information we did ajo search warrants, which is unique from an evidentary perspective, because to get that into evidence is a real complex task. We obtained some fantastic evidence, incriminating evidence during search warrants, and we will be able to convict Lottie for preparing to do a terrorist act in Australia. And I was fortunate enough to go to France on the advisor. I
was going to give evidence for Bridget in France. Now, the French have a different legal system and they have inquisitorial system. So had we used the Westminster system, we wouldn't have had enough to convict Bridget, but under the inquisitorial system, the French could. Here's an important point, Gary, what's the first thing you do when you walk into a court of law? First thing you do the accept of practices?
You bow?
Well, what did the French do to their royal family, their crown?
What they do?
They cut their heads off in the French Revolution, So it is a faux part to bow to judge. So here i am back walking to court and I'm with an AFP agent and they said you're I'm not going to bow, are you? Of course I am. And they've got the whole history listening about now off with their heads. We don't bow. So again, okay, interesting third path.
I've always I wonder just the sideline here for a sec inquisitorial adversarial Which do you think serves the community.
The best inquisitorial, So we got to the facts. So what it was They determined the facts. So an independent investigating judge determines the facts. Then we argue the case on the facts, not opinion, not you know, the pros and cons. The facts is what is argued, and it's a shorter process, and it's a more accurate process and far more.
Efficiency in the most basic terms. I made a career when I was doing my degree writing about inquisitorial versus adversarial and I always thought that was unusual that when you want to get to the bottom of something, you have a royal commission that has inquisitorial powers to find out the truth.
That's exactly what we do.
And then we've got the adversarial system, which is all about guilt or innocent but we don't really want to find we don't get to the truth.
And you know, and then the same vein why does the current I have an inquisitorial system because we want to find out the truth of how people have died, Yet in our legal system it's innocence or guilt as opposed to truth.
I've struggled with it. I know you need those checks and balances, but I've struggled with that simple concept. You mentioned an interesting point there, and it came up when I was speaking to Peter Moroni just a couple of weeks ago about terrorists, and you worked with him on the Pandemics, which was a huge operation, and Peter told us through that what you guys are, what you guys
went through. But when terrorists as to sink from other crooks, the usual crooks we chase if they know where after him, they go the ground. But with terrorists that their motivation is completely different. That you've got to change your mindset as an investigator.
So that was an anomaly. If I use I'll use a parlent. So if I was in the stick ups the hold up squad, and if a fender was going to rob a bank, what would be the easiest thing to do is to put a police car in front of the bank. The robber would rock up, he would see there's a police car. He doesn't want to get caught,
so he walks away. We stop the crime. In this instance, if it was a terrorist, they would jump that police car would simply be an obstacle, and then they would go over the police car go on the bank to do the job. So we looked at that and we kept seeing this anomaly occur. So that was in Newport, it was in Pandanas, we saw it in Allneath and all these other jobs. So we looked and we researched that. And what that comes down to is that it comes
down to the motivation. So most crooks that we investigate in a reactive sense are extrinsically motivated carrot or the stick. I rob someone to get money, or I don't do something, or I do something to avoid being caught and going to jail the stick. What we find with terrorists is that they're internally motivated, intrinsically motivated, so it's part of their personality, their identity identify as it and those that are religious, political, iological this is an internal drive into
stronger form of motivation. So when we identify that that it makes stopping terrorists more challenging.
And you've got to change. You have to know the person you're chasing, the person that you're working, and you'd have to change your mindset to that having looked at that, that this is what's motivating them, that's completely different to what the normal crook is that we chase.
So so then when you're looking at strategies and you take this phenomenon into account, you then have got to manage that and that becomes awkward because cops are used to we'll just put up roadblocks, We'll.
Just that literally scare them away, which it doesn't.
So there's a bit of a nest there, and that's where the talent in the CT operator comes in. They look at opportunities of how they can manage them and keep them under control. Keep the pot boiling without it boiling over on the staff is an analogy that we used.
And it's a tough one day, but it really is. So Okay, we've got your credentials and we've got a bit of understanding. Now I'm going to dissect some of the stuff that I've picked up in the book. I've got four headings, Identify, disrupt, risk, and threat. Yeah, break them down. So identify How do you identify a terrorist? Like if I'm walking around going I hate the world, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that, what sort of what do you look at the threats?
Because that's just me probably blowing off steam with no it's yeah, it's an anger, but there's no yeah, action to my thoughts.
So I'll go back a step. So we look so to identify a terrorists, we have to look at a concept called radicalization.
Okay.
Now, traditionally what we do is we look at radicalization as one dimensional. That person is radicalized. There was only one form. Then we had the link cafes yes, and I was task after lint to make a determination whether Monus was radicalized. Now, when we looked at our lists of indicators, minus didn't hit any of them. Out of our thirty forty indicators hit one or two. Yet if I apply the pub test, there's a guy with a
religious flag. He says he's doing it in the name of an ideology of religious ideology, and he commits violence to further ideology. It's a terrorist act. So we had to look at that and it dawned that radicalization is at one dimensional. It's multi dimensional. We've identified five separate strands of radicalization. Now this is important breakthrough. So it's like when someone says you're sick, well, the first question
you ask is, well, what are you suffering from? And your symptoms will be different from symptoms of another injury, i e. If you've got a flu, your symptoms will be different someone who's suffering from cancer, those symptoms be different from someone suffering from a heart attack or heart condition. Conversely, the treatments are different, the triggers are different. So what we found out there's five separate strands. They're are indicators.
So what we do, Unfortunately today's environment, there's a single list of indicators. Well, we now know that that is in that that's not accurate. There should be five, maybe even six separates, and you identify the strand, you then apply the indicator, and that's what we look for. We look for what those indicators are. We look at how that works, how they interact, the knowledge, what they know, what they expouse, how they dress, how they look, who
they associate with. All those will give us a really rich insight is to what strand of radicalization they're suffering from and where they are in the process. So the model I work on is we first start with a belief. So that belief could be anything. It's a generic belief I want to save koalas I have an interpretation of Catholicism, we will have a belief. Then it goes to is that belief moderate or extreme? Now the test, what's the
test for extreme. Well, if their belief promotes acts of criminality or violence, then their criminal offenses and that outside them accept the normal parameters of society. If you're outside though normal parameters, that's an extreme belief.
Okay, So the belief crosses that line when they're going to.
So when their belief. So anyone can.
Have a belief and it's not illegal.
But if your belief promotes the use of violence or criminality, to forward that belo because that's outside the normal parameters of society, we say that's extreme. Now, once you've got an extreme belief, then you start the radicalization process. And the radicalization is when you start the process of turning those beliefs into tangible actions, where that be funding membership of a terrorist organization, operational support, or doing the terrorist act.
So what for me if you would have said to me a person is radicalized, to me, you're saying they're a terrorist if they simply support a belief I e. I think bin Laden was a good man and I support the horrendous actually did on nine to eleven. Well, that's an extreme ideology because he committed a criminal offense is killing three thousand people.
That's the ideology as distinct from radicalization.
Yes, so these are processes that human based every human. It's a trait, that's a human trait. So we look at extreme extreme beliefs and then we go and radicalization. So if you're doing something in the name of a religion or a belief in our community, we accept that as an act of terrorism and that's a definition under the criminal Codect.
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Crime x plus on Apple Podcasts today. So to disrupt, so you can use an example of where you've identified someone that the ideology has crossed the line to become radicalization in that you think they're going to do something. Counter Terrorism as distinct, well not distinct. We all try to prevent crime, but the consequences are devastating. In counter terrorism if you don't act before the actual crimes occurs.
So the aim of proactive investigtion is to eliminate the threat before occurs. So what we do is we look at the indicators. We then, because of necessity, Western societies have changed the legislation so that we can move a lot earlier in criminal offenses under the terrorism banner. Then we come under traditional crimes. So once we've got so, the tests for us to get above or get over
are a lot less. So the whole idea is to preempt the threat by arresting the person before they can commit their acts of their terrorist acts are acts of criminality. They can go into custody and then they can be subject to treatment. Now this is probably as cops we're not used to this, but we need to treat these people, you know, so that when they come out they are no longer a threat to us.
And that's a really complex saying treat if they're in custody or police custody or the custodial sentence, when do you think the treatment needs to come in?
Well, look, i'll define it there. There's counter radicalization, so we're stopping people becoming radicalized. So those that are adhering to extreme belief, extreme ideology. Try to interdict there to stop them becoming radicalized. That's where we lean on you know, religious.
Leaders community quite often you hear them come out.
As psychologists support work. You know, New South Wales has programs, the Commonwealth has programs, each jurisdiction, Australia has programs and they've got programs in wa under this instance where they try to again take them away from that path and stop them going down that path of radicalization. Once a person has been radicalized, then by definition they have to be deradicalized so that their beliefs or their intentions are no longer to commit acts of violence against the community.
So there are two different processes. Now, counter will start clearly before a person gets incarcerated. If a person has been radicalized, that means they're a direct threat, not storty times they will be in custody. Now, when they're in custody, that gives us their captive audience and that's I think where we can do a lot more work in that space, and I like to think government can invest more correct
your services. You know, the community of Yeas on multiculturalism in New South Wales, they can all act and add to that process.
It makes sense to try and deal with the situation that way because if they finish their sentence and come out and still have the same the same beliefs.
To take that further, the biggest risks in globally from terrorists now is a thing court during threat. Now, during threat are people that have come to the tension of authorities in a terrorism context, but there've been assessed not to constitute a threat at that time and therefore have been cut loose for one of the better word that cohorted people are the ones creating the biggest threat to
society globally. To counter that, both Commonwealth and New South Wales have brought into process new legislation could high risk terrorism offenders legislation which is post sentenced detention and compliance regimes. So we've invested the state government and the Comic government invested in developing teams that manage those people that are in custody for terrorism offenses or become radicalized in prison, that pose an unacceptable risk to society on their release.
We've got teams now that just look at that and focus on that to try and mitigate that risk factor that we've.
Got and a lot of resourcing goes into this, Dave too, do you think we've come to terms of this as the way that we've got to approach crime? Look at are the resources that we apply it to this because it's not an easy, easy fix to change people's views.
And so if practically as detectives, we've got detectives working in the post sentenced detention world that are investigating threat and risk, not criminal offenses. So this is a dynamic change. So we're changing the way criminal investigators work and analysts work. So it's you know, it takes a lot of effort to change how you do business. Your skills are the same, but your focus is different.
And I watched from the sidelines with you guys, but like speaking to Peter Moroney and catching up with you, it was a learning curve the whole way through when you guys first started.
Yeah, look, it's got described me as a throw the plane, throw the bits of a plane over the cliff and build it on the way down. Wh's exactly what happened. Yeh, We're giving jobs and we don't know what we're doing, and we're finding it. We're catching it on the fly, so that the book. So all those lessons is what was contained in the book, and that's why I didn't want to lose that. They were hard one lessons.
Because I know speaking to speaking to the guys and girls that went across the count of terrorism, some people got it. Some people said we're not doing anything because they were looking at it more as a traditional form of policing.
So you say to someone Billy Smith over, there is a terrorist threat investigated. Some people take it, take like doctor water, Others go where do I start. It's just a skill set. Some people are really good at it and excel. Others don't.
And what's the way I think there's a pressure to it, Dave, And I've said this to people that work in counter terrorism. The work that we do is reactive. Yes, it's bad, but the easiest on call I had was when someone had been murdered. I'm saying that with the greatest respect to the victims. It's easy to then, okay, work back from the crime. The difficult ones where you get information. You get called at two o'clock in the morning and you might be looking at some gangsters or whatever. They
might do a hit on this person. They might do a hit on that person. Then you've got all the pressure of what do I do? If I do nothing and someone gets killed, am I going to be in the shit? And it's not just am I going to be in the shit? Someone's going to lose their life. But the pressure they were the hard calls you get at two o'clock in the morning counter terrorism, that pretty much sums up all the type of calls that you.
So the unique aspect of CT work is that there's a reverse onus of responsibility upon the police and authorities. If it goes bad, we blame our authorities for not stopping it. We look for examples, we'll do a review, we'll do an inquest, and we will look at my niche details after where the authorities are failed to stop the attack. We don't see that to such a degree
in other crime types. So if you miss, you don't get the speeding driver and he crashes into a tree and kills himself, there's no inquest as to why the police didn't stop.
Well, outside homicide and a few arson matters, no investigation got reviewed. If you didn't get results, that's right, But we've countered terrorism. You're quite right. If there's a terrorist act that happened, Everyone's going to be turning over their shoulder, well did you do this, did you do that?
And what didn't you do? And also to put it in context, it's well and good to look at these in isolation, but there's not one time in my career in CT that I didn't have five to ten to twenty jobs running concurrently that five to ten to twenty separate threats running around. So they're constantly there. So you never sleep, you never you never switch off. You're looking for triggers all the time, you know. So what we say terrorists think globally but act locally. Now what that
means is that global events will impact locally. So we're constantly perusing international papers. What's happening in different parts of the world. Is that going to trigger a response here from the people looking at So it's a constant checking for triggers, monitoring people. You constantly collect, We collect information, and your head explodes with the amount of information colleck to try and make sense and to see the week from the shaft.
Yeah, yeah, well, and it's got to be you've got to have a global view of things too, because something that can happen on the other side of the world might impact on here well.
So if we look at that, we look at currently you know, seventh of October we had a Hamas attack in Israel. Then consequently we then get an armed conflict within Gaza. Now that those interactions in the Middle East have created a great deal of unrest and tension within Australian society, it's not in Australian society. We've just seen recently a number of the universities in the US US where you know, you know, they've had confrontations with law
enforcement and protests. Here we see a lot of pro Palestinian, pro Israel counter demonstrations. Now in the light of that, we've had Bondai, we've had Wakely. So the one would suggest that there is an increase in tensions in relation to religious ideology and that has been reflected domestically in Australia. So that's where globally is impacting.
Like it's linked, isn't it definitely? Okay? Risk versus threat? How do you break that down in your terms? Like there's a risk is the threat? So I'll use the scenario. I'm the primary on core officer state crime, which is always a great job. You never got much slip, just the phone ringing constantly, but we get a call. Okay, what's the information. Someone's just come in and said, this young kid's talking about doing something because he doesn't believe
in what's happening in Palestine going on like that. I refer it to you, guys, where do you take it?
So we operate in the world of threat. Now. I don't know about you, but whenever we had a job, a new boss would come in and he'd say, give me a risk assessment, and then I'd say, a risk assessment on what there is a thousand risks involved in just that scenario. Corporation risk, risk to life rested in an individual risk to officer safety. So we have to identify how that works. So we operated on threat. Now,
threat is aligned to human nature. Risk is an economic concept, so we don't We would normally associate risk of what we call corporate safety. So if I want to look after the good reputation and brand of the new South palest Police or the JCT or you know, Gary Jubilan Enterprises, I would apply the concepts of risk because that's what that's for. If I'm worrying about public safety and safety of individuals, I apply the concept of threat, So you
give me that information. So we're now using that. Now one of the greatest unsung heroes in ct Intel analysts, they will get that and they will work it up and give us a picture and will profiles and we start then we start looking at what their indicators are and where they.
Go and the type of things that you'd be looking at if we're talking the scenario I through out there is who is that person associated with? What's his background, any previous history, any threats.
So we look at and depending what the ideology so do let's still a right wing ideology because that's so who are they associating with, what's their online traffic? Like, where do they go, what do they do? You know, have have they come into contact with authorities before? It's amazing when they've come into contact authorities before. They will say real silly things that leak their intentions through, you know, like you know, Adolf Hitler's a great man, et cetera.
Those things. Now good police and you know, good police are worth there's you know, they're waiting black spiders record that and you see that, and that is a real enriched picture. It wasn't just a vehicle stop. There's a vehicle stop with intentions there. Look, I remember I go back to case. There was a guy isis can't that stabbed a fellow in Mintouh. And he was a classic
case where he had cognitive opening. His mother he was his mother suffered cancer and died and he saw solace in his belief and then started to adopt an extreme interpretation of that belief. Now, some of his indicators were is that he would walk past shops and if he saw women scantily dressed in an advertising situation, uh, he would put covers up to cover the modesty of the woman. He would then walk around the street and start expousing his ideology to the neighbors. Now, all that got slipped.
No one saw that. It wasn't until after that those indicators came out and we could have made a better picture.
Okay, And they're the little things that can slip through if you don't have people switched on to what's occurring. We might take a break. Now, there is so much to dissect in the world of count the terrorism, and we'll do that when we get back. But you're giving this a really interesting insight into a world that it affects us. All doesn't. We can't ignore it.
So the interesting part we identified terrorism in the first terrorist plot in Australia was in eighteen hundred, it's been with us ever since.
What was that in relation to them?
So Australia's first terrorists were religiously motivated. They were a minority. The predominant religion in Australia at the time was Protestant and the minority was a group of con of Catholic Irish descent, and they were referred to as radical radical Catholic convicts. Now, in September nineteen, eighteen hundred, Governor Hunter received human information that the Catholic convicts, through instruction from their religious leaders, we're going to attack the colony, stealership
and head back to head home. So they interdicted and arrested the Irish Catholic convicts and interestingly appointed the investigation to a person called Reverend Samuel Marsden. Now Samuel Marsin is a pivotal person in the establishment of Australia, but
in essence he was Australia's first counter terrorism investigator. Governor Hunter involved him to actually connect the first terrorism investigation, which that resulted in the Catholic priest being arrested and sent to Norfolk Island and a number of the other convicts are also being sent to Northfolk Island and Van Demon's Land in retribution for their intended actor. Do you think they do radical Yeah, that only really works, but yeah, so it's interesting, so that there's a history to it.
If we accept that and we treat terrorism as a crime, crime is part of every aspect of our life. Terrorism is a crime. It's a part of every aspect of our life.
Okay, well there you get. That's from doctor Dave Gore and that we'll do more of it when we get back to part two. Excellent Cheers,