The public has had a long held fascination with detectives. Detective sy 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 to another episode of I Catch Killers. We've had some interesting guests on my Catch Killers who have taken us to all sorts of places, but never where Today's guest is going to take us. To say that I'm a bit nervous is an understatement. Today's guest, retired Detective
Chief Inspector Pamela Young, is a fascinating person. Now I can say that with confidence because not only did I work with her, in homicide for twenty years. She was also my partner, and we lived together for a long time. If you want to know what it's like living in the home with two highly strung out, hard working homicide detectives, you're going to find out. Pam's someone who I had total respect for as a detective. I learned so much from her, and despite how hard I worked, I could
never match her dedication. She gave so much of herself to investigating murders. Today we're going to talk about a career and leading some of the country's biggest investigations, including the family law court bombings, heading up the detective's training unit, and life as a woman in a very male dominated world of major crime. That's what I hope to be talking about anyway. But I've never been able to influence or control Pam, so I'm sure she'll take the conversation
where she chooses, wherever that might be. I reckon we're going to have a bit of fun, but I am also worried she's going to reveal more about me than I'm with. Let's get this started. Pay me young, Welcome to I Catch Killers.
Thank you?
Are you nervous?
A little bit?
I'm very nervous. I'm very nervous.
Now.
This has been a long time coming. I've tried to get you on the podcast for about I Reckon three years at this stage and the Planets of a Line, and I finally got you in the studio.
You wore me down.
Just keep chipping away, chipping away. Now. I want to clarify upfront with the introduction. People know that we live together for a very long time, and I'll probably refer to you as young and I'm sure you're going to call me Jubilan when I say something stupid or even as a term affection. But that's just how we communicate. It wasn't when we're together.
Yes, yes, and it was my I'm the one who initiated it because I didn't think Gary suited you. I still don't. Gary is quite a homely name. Where's your You're like a combat unit, so like Mayo and Maverick.
Oh, so you.
Should be called Jubilan. And when I start calling you Gary, are you've completely changed?
So I always thought when you called me Garyo, you were disappointed I've done something, done something wrong. But anyway, it's going to be an interesting chat. I'm looking forward to it. I want to ask you first up your policing career. How long were you in the police.
For thirty three years?
Okay, what's the proudest thing about your policing career? What are you most you look back at your career and what are you proud about.
Ah, that I've faced the worst of humanity, but i still believe in humanity. I think that's a huge achievement. All the battles behind the scenes, the ones that aren't known about, not even too victim's families for instance, with fighting for resources and all the competition around that with your other peers and harmonious teams. You get to such a wide variety of different skill level and motivation, but
you have to extract from them the very best. So I've managed to do those things quite a number of times. So that makes me very proud. And those relationships have lasted despite me putting pressure on particularly my staff. So I'm proud of that. And probably the twenty one life sentences and just nudging a thousand years of imprisonment that's been handed out because of the efforts of me and my teams.
Yeah, it's good. I'm glad. You look back at it look back at the career proud of what you achieved. And it was that you talk there about the battles behind the scene battles. Chasing killers is hard, going the courts hard, but the internal politic and the dynamics of leading or being involved in major crime investigations, that was another battle in itself, wasn't it.
Yes, Yes, it's because we're always terribly under resourced, so you have to take charge of your job and make it the number one over your peers. Jobs are who you also respect and want to do well. But you're finding for your victims and that's really all that matters at that time.
And I think that's what you should. And every time I got in the conflict, and as you know, I got into a fair bit so did you in different ways, but we got in the conflict, I always thought, well, that's my job. I'm looking after my investigation. My investigation is the most important investigation. And I'm saying that from a selfish point of view, but that's the commitment that you give to the victims. In conversations. We've had many conversations that we've had over the last couple of years.
I know something that you take great. The fact that old team members still reach out to you even since you've retired, and keep you informed on what's going on, or invite you out for a drink, or keep you updated long coal matters that must meet a lot to.
It means so much more than they know. I believe they think they get something out of it, but they don't realize I get so much more out of that continued contact and that enduring respect and dare I say love that we have for each other, because it's because you're dealing in matters of blood, so real and otherwise like brotherhood and sisterhood.
All right, now, let's move on to your childhood. Now. I know a little bit about your childhood because I grew up in the same area. We both grew up in Epping. You went to Cheltenham Girls High School. I went to Eping Boys High School. There's a lot of, let's say, collaboration between two schools. I didn't know you when we were growing up, but I think you beside my mate Martin Lee or his family. What was it like growing up in the Epine area?
Very stable, very tree lined. Particularly my family home we had a large block of land and Mum particularly mum, but with Dad made a beautiful, big garden. So I just remember growing up in a meadow and though I did find it not exciting enough and not what I wanted for myself then or now.
No, we're both broken out of the suburbs, haven't we in a city is the way to go. But there was a couple of proud moments in your childhood, and yeah, because we know each other so well, there's not well, there is no secrets. But two of your proudest moments were winning the best on the dance floor at school dance. And I think you were dancing two years in a row, if I'm not mistaken. And your song year one was dancing Queen.
I believe that was my specialty. And then Pretender's Brass.
In Pockets was the second year in a row.
Why do we remember these things.
Because you would tell so many people, But I was a dancing queen of two school dances.
I think it all came down. I wasn't a good dance so I just had very big hair and I flicked it around a lot, and I just think it's the only thing that could be seen from the stage where the judge was. That's That's what I think happened.
That that was the move. Now, another interesting fact about you weren't going to join the police force. You actually auditioned to NIDER at one stage. You wanted to do something in the in that acting film I did.
I did and was roundly rejected. I didn't have.
Any big hair didn't count.
No big hair didn't count. I didn't have any background, family or friends, or no network of anyone who had done that or was in that industry. And I just thought, I just thought, I want to do it. I'll be enthusiastic, they'll have me. So. But it was not on stage so much I might not have said no, but it was a stage managing, and it was about bringing all the different elements together in a timed, reliable way, which really came in handy. It clearly was a strength then.
I wouldn't have known it at the time, but certainly comes in handy when you're arranging operations eighty plus personnel. So yeah, that was I do see a link there. And also goodness with the theatrics in court, a little bit of a background helps.
There is a little across and when you're actually a working detective in homicide you're also an amateur actor of some little plays that were being put on, which is a bit unusual for someone at one stage investigating homicides. Then I've got to get I'm on stage.
Yeah, yeah, I think that's when I still had a lightness of being. So I was in the job and in homicide, but I still had a lightness that that got lost, got buried, got removed from me through work. So I like to I'm glad you're sort of helping me reminisce of that time. Yeah, because it was a happy time. I had some balance then, Yeah, and you reminded me I might get back into it.
Well this question audition. Just look into the camera when you're talking. But yeah, I think that's a good thing to have an interest outside the cops, because we do. We you and I and will talk about talk about your commitment to your job in detail, but we do. Homicide is something that you can just get sucked down
the whole, can't you. It's just you can always be doing something and you can forgo everything else in your life, and you know, little pleasures like you're saying, doing amateur acting, you can just well it's not that important.
Get back to this case, yes, and I believe you need to do that to be at your best and to gain the depth and minutia of experience that you need. I'm not convinced that you can be a part time homicide squad detective. I support and understand why some people need to be that, I really do, but I don't think it delivers the results.
Well, I'm glad you finished.
And then the flip side to that is the sacrifice that you make by do well.
I think if you put your hand up, and I've said this many a time, and you know I firmly believe it. I know you understand what I'm saying, that you don't have to be in homicide. So if you can't give one hundred percent, don't be in homicide, and don't strap around calling yourself a homicide detective. If you're not prepared to put in the work you go, are you going to support me?
I couldn't agree more. I just think, just wondering how many times I've heard you.
Say that ad nauseum nase, because it used to shit people that I want to be a homicide detective, but I don't want to work on weekends and I can't work in the afternoon. Yes, and all that, and you understand work life balance, as we both understand, is important because your life can go track, but there's a commitment when you're investigating homesite.
Yes, I was the first and only inspector to recruit into the homicide squad a mother. My goodness, it was seen is such a radical thing because there's assumptions about time commitment and not being available and having to perhaps rush away. There's ill health in the family, but you know, we meant to be a bit normal as well. So I thought it was important to try. And so when I had an enthusiastic mother, i e. Detective senior, comfortable mother,
and she was really keen wanting to try it. She also had a long distance to travel to get to the office. I felt she was going to give one hundred percent of whatever that was she could give. It really worked well, she did, and though at the end of the time was two so years later she you know, her children were older and a little bit more demanding, so she had to leave. But it was it showed it.
Possible, well if if you set the benchmark or of bringing mothers in. I had the same thing on myeams and I thought they were great. And if they're committed to the job and they're committed to their family, sometimes one has to give and they might, as you said, they're the person after two or three years. But definitely definitely give them a go. It's not not a barrier to it.
It shouldn't be. It certainly was. It was seen as radical, and I'm very conscious of the fact we talk about it in these terms like, oh, yes, we brought in our mother, isn't that good? And so you know, as though there an accept exception to the rule in no other workplace.
Well, I suppose the real reality of homicide is that you get that phone call and you could be away for the next couple of weeks. Literally out the door in half an hour and you're away for a couple of weeks. So it's a hard juggle.
Yeah, And the fact that it's not just about them, it's about the team needing them. Yes, they're assigned partner needing them. And of course now we couldn't expand that into men who take on the main parental caring role. But anyway, it was Yeah, I just remember it was quite It was well worth doing, but seen as quite radical.
Well, you always were radical? Why did you decide to join the place? So?
Really, I have no family background with it at all. I wasn't focused on any particular career. I was a little bit a late developer through school and not overly motivated, but I was good at a few things. I was always been a very physical person, much stronger and faster than most of the girls at my girls school as a girl's school, But nonetheless that gave me confidence physically. I was raised in a very decent family, with a strong, tall, a good kind father, and two kind brothers, and so
joining a male dominated job didn't scare me. I didn't give it a thought, so because I'd had that good background, and then my mother is always very much ahead of her time, a very strong woman, So I had that combined confidence, I guess. So that all came when I realized these things that came at a time in the mid early eight nineteen eighties where they were trying to increase the six percent police women in the job to a radical twenty five percent?
What's this world coming to?
And they still haven't reached that percentage much much closer, of course, So at that time they were doing the recruitment runs, and there were all these fans who looking pamphlets, and my very good girlfriend who I've known since we were ten, Jeanette.
She shout out to Jeannette. Hey, Jeannette shout out to Jeanette.
Yes, yes, she had pamphlets. She ended up not pursuing it and taking a career as a graphic designer. But I saw the Panthers designle. That's exciting, that's our door, that's physical, that's that's interesting. I've always had this enormous curiosity. So I did not join thinking I would really like to help people. I'll be helping the community. Was I don't think I even thought of it in those terms at all. I didn't get hooked, and of course that
became my driver. Absolutely, that compassion that I found in myself was striking. But yes, the reason I joined was for excitement indoor outdoor job.
Yeah, okay, how'd you feel going down the academy. What was your first impressions in the academ Uh?
It was fine, meaning it was good and trying to think of nothing peculiar happened. Why am I saying that?
Tell us if something peculiar happened in the police academy. So that was you joined before me. I think you were one or two classes before me. So I know the vibe down there. It was certainly not as polished as is now. There was, Yeah, a bit of the old old school mentality.
Yes, though I think they knew they were getting in. I would have been the first or second class where they aimed for this twenty five percent, So I think they had gone through a transition themselves, the trainers, especially physical trainers, and the lecturers about language and various things. Because I didn't find it. I didn't find it confronting. I found it tough. I found it physically demanding in a good way. I found the ten k's ten k
runs a nightmare. I just still still do. But where the ten k runs helped was this lovely thing happened because I was really bad at them and I was going to fail, and I found a group of you know, three or four young men from my class. They would just start jogging with me for the last few kilometers after they'd finished their ten came help you alone. Yeah, And so I that was my first taste of the camaraderie that you get in a sort of select industry in a way and the sense of culture, the positive
culture that comes out of that. So that was a good thing.
Okay, then your first experience in the police station Eastwood? Was that your first station?
Yeah, and ride, how'd you feel.
Walking in on your first day? Uniform, shiny new uniform and the gun on your hip and everything else.
Excited and ready? But I had no idea what I was ready for. But I was ready. I studied, and I'd passed, and I'd ironed my uniform and again just faith in which ultimately was a brotherhood. So again with that family experience I've had so and largely I found that's exactly what it was like. So I guess one startlingk thing to me was the amount of pornographic magazines in the in the bathroom because no one had ever thought that women would work in police stations or every
police station in the state only had male toilets. Yeah, so of course we had to use them, and so of course I needed to. But there were these stacks of pornographic magazine. So here I am, within my first week, shiny new and I'm thinking, well, I don't like them. I picked them up, big piles, walk them out to the skip bin in the backyard, pass the police cars and dump them in the bin. I and then they reappear, and I do the same thing, not once, and I keep doing it until they no longer are in what
is now a unisex bathroom. And no one challenged me on it. And to me that's odd, But to me that's good. Things had changed. They saw it had changed. So ah, I'm just curious why I was so confident to do that.
Well, I can tell you that's in your nature. You always you do the hard stuff, and you're quite intimidating. And that's why i'd say people are People didn't challenge you on them because there be a lot of young police women because you're only virtually a kid at the time there that would have got harassed and ridiculed and ostracized and all that.
But you meant or just left them.
Yeah, you managed to navigate your way through that. What draw you to an interesting detectives? What was that about?
So just a little bit still answering your last question, but I'll end up with the detectives.
I knew you'd take me, just okay.
The thing, the big thing that struck me other than that bit of behavior was domestic violence and the insidious nature of drug addiction. I had not had any experience of violence at all or drugs at all, not just personally, none of my family, none of my my circle. So to see the amount of brutality in both those areas there was out there in an area regarded quite well
in middle course, was really shocking to me. It was my first real eye opener about how other people live, and the vulnerability of women, and in hindsight, how useless we were to protect the women in domestic violence situations.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think we used to go to domestic violence situations. We'd walk in there and the house could be an absolute mess. Obviously something terrible had gone on, But if no one was complaining, it was almost like you walk out the door. Back in those days, it was yes, absolutely and the poor and the poor woman is yeah, thank god, we've progressed past it. But the woman be sitting there terrified. Do you want to make a complain? No, No, it's all good, nothing happened.
That's the shame that intelligent police. Police are meant to protect. That doesn't matter what else goes on. We're meant to protect people couldn't see that. Asking a victim, usually a female, in front of the offender, would you like to come with us and make a statement about this man who's standing so close I to intimidate, but nonetheless in the same anywhere, in the same environment. Why didn't it surprise us that they all said, I'll be fine, it's just
this time. And not only that, then we actually walked away.
So we had it wrong, didn't we.
He also had no capacity to take out apprehended violence or on their behalf. Either they had to complain, they had to formally complain, and we.
Would walk away. Well there's nothing we can.
Do, yes, And when you're busy, you think, oh, well we tried, yeah, they let's move on.
We stopped, stopped it happening then, But then you go back to the same place time and time again. I do like the fact and that is very current in what's happening with all the murders, domestic related murders. But we're realizing that something has to be done and we've just got to change the way that we approach these things.
But confronting this big topic, but you know, anyone raising suns has a big role. It's not just a police problem. I agree with you.
We have to have to educate that right right from the start. That's not on And hopefully we start looking at that because you hear like politicians are going to get tougher by our laws, this, this and that. But it's about education too. We're going to make sure that people don't think that's acceptable.
Yes, basic principle is we are all equal. We are all equal. You are not better than me.
Are you talking to me directly?
You got.
Sorry, you're talking in a general sense.
And if you think you're better than me, it doesn't mean you can hit me when you feel like. Yeah, I mean, it's not a very complex.
Complicated, it's pretty simple.
Yeah, I know, but we've all been you know, if it was happening to men, it would have been solved by now. I'm totally convinced of that. On that theme and so many others.
Sorry, I love I love your attitude, always always there to point these things out. That's yeah, that's great. Can because this is I Catch Killers as in I Catch Killers my podcast. Can we move on to the detectives? Now? Are you finish with the uniform bit? Okay? What what got your interest in going to detectives.
So after two years then I believe in uniform. So we all had to stay in uniform to years. Then you get choice, and towards the end of the two years you were sent out. If you're lucky to have a short period at different things such as the highway patrol, scientific prosecutors and detectives. Plus I had some luck breaking a small but effective shoplifting ring in my local area, so I.
Organized crime at the school tuch shop.
So I had a bit of a bit of a reputation, but primarily because my brain grew so through the academy and so school. It didn't do much through the academy. I loved law and policy in my brain expanded, it grew, and I wanted a mental challenge, and I wanted to see cases through to feed that enormous curiosity I had. Whereas uniform people as a general rule certainly then had to pass on anything interesting to the detective. So I wanted to be part of the more interesting briefs of evidence.
Well, I felt that it was always good that you got to follow it through. You saw the crime and took it to the end. It was hard passing on from uniform, but I'm really mindful with this podcast because so many detectives I get in that we've got to give a shout out to the uniform police, because both you and I know and our careers are defined by being detectives. The hard work is at frontline policing. Quite often, they're the ones that got to respond the agree more.
And I say it as often as I can. They have the toughest job, just the amount of equipment and the sequence with which they're meant to use it, and if they dare use it in a different sequence, the number of questions they have to answer and them and I would put child abuse investigators up there in all this, maybe in all law enforcement agencies, they're the groups that do it the most.
Can we throw in crime scene too, because we've all had that. We turn up at that murder scene and we do what we do as homicide detectives, and then we leave the poor crime scene person that's usually there on their own there for the next twenty four hours, going meticulously through a bloodstained room. They do it do it tough as well.
Yes, But I won't be drawn to say that they're the same as street cups and chart abuse investigators.
All right, they'll take that off.
And you know how much I love them, Yeah, PHECSIC officers.
But all right, because we have got a lot of history, I think with this podcast, and it's going to go for a while, I can tell that we're going to throw in some fun facts. And there was a job that we worked on, and that's probably the wrong way to start at the fun fun fact the Central Coase rapist, the serial rapists that we worked on together for a while. I think Paul Jacob, who you know, the influence has
had a micreer. He was running it, then he went to another job, and then you took over the investigation. And five women and a child had been raped in a very violent way. So it was a horrible offense.
I was working as an investigator and you and I had a job to do, which is when you're thinking of joining the police, you don't you don't think about this, but I'm sure you can remember how we were sitting in the bushes watching men masturbate, and when they ejaculated, we had to go and creep down into the sand and fine the seamen. Do you want to take the story from there? Because it's rather bizarre.
So it is really bizarre. But the weather was nicer on the beach. And then then you had to plan your because you never had they left yet, Like you couldn't go up there.
You still wait till they're finished. The decided to move on.
And that they had left, had they left or were they just no? They had left around the next next Sandy and the wondering.
Why so.
Yeah, very very very very bizarre. So yes, and we we I don't think we were planning on doing it. So we ended up finding some sticks that had a slight paddle effect and some plastic bags.
I think, so, I don't know. I don't like to think about it too much, but I remember thinking, this is what our world has come in.
Oh, but we were worse, yeah, because we had no luck with all our seamen samples, Sandy seamen samples.
But I don't I don't think you're in on the arrest with the masturbator who we got the sample of the semen from. So what it was that there was DNA with the left at the crime scenes from these serious sexual assaults. So this person that we're keeping an eye on that just as we're watching him, he just start started. There's a number of men on that particular beach did start started to masturbate, so we get the
semen so we can do a DNA in comparison. And then it came back and that wasn't our rapist, so that was obviously a huge disappointment. But I did go around to his place and knock on the door because there wasn't a fence. I don't know what it's called. Went round there and his wife answered the door, and I took great pleasure. It's great pleasure in that, and said, is John or whatever his name here, Yes, yes, I'll get him. And he came out, Can I speak to you?
And I said, I think you probably want to speak to me on your own, but if you want your wife to listen, I'm not embarrassed about anything I've done. You can say this in front of my wife.
It's lovely.
Okay, all right, where do we start? And then he went to court and that was the most well prepared brief for a wilful and obscene exposure. We have DNA links to the semen that we found in the sand, but yeah, they're just some of the stranger things you do policing. But to me, that and I won't say that particular job was. Well, it's funny. You can reflect and you think you're never going to do that in
your life. But that was the excitement of police work, wasn't You never knew what you were going to do or what where you were going to end up.
Yes, I'm not too sure those two things are connected to the excitement of policing and collecting semen samples on the beach. I think the seamen samples on the beach it's almost like one of those sayings you have to say.
To say plenty of times to pronounce it properly, and it's not easy to It's not other people.
Should try and say it exactly. So what I think the shows to me, it's a demonstration on what we're prepared to do. And we weren't junior then we were sergeants.
And again, so you do whatever.
It takes, and if that is climbing around on a beach one watching men masturbate, climbing on the beach, collecting it because you believe it will solve a crime, you do it. Some people won't.
Yeah, no, was it interesting? Okay, so major crime detectives, you wanted to follow jobs through and that how did you find your way in the major crime because back in those days, and this is pretty royal commission and all that, it was pretty selective on how you found your way into major crime. And I dare say for a woman to find a way in the major crime that was outrageous.
Yeah.
Yeah, occasionally you had one token woman there, but you managed to make a career. How did that eventuate?
Yes, So, after a few years in general detectives over at Chatswood, I started to have a feeling to want to which is where I got my designation when I was in general detectives, and then I felt I was building confidence I was good at things.
Yep.
I would have liked to go to the major crime squad North. I believed I had helped contribute a bit to the Grundy murder case and so therefore knew a few people there.
That was a lot of pressure that whole time. There was six women killed on the north Shore, and it was just it was frequent and that he had to be stopped or he would have kept killing people.
Yes, Yes, so I came across him during a after an indecent assault had been reported from a palliative care ward and I responded as the afternoon shift Chatswood detectives and a few witnesses and staff at the hospital described different people, but one of them was a pie salesman. So I chased up the pie company and who was working that area, and it was a man called John
Wayne Glover. So I contacted him at home and asked for him while I was going to go there or him come in, I had no he was in amongst a number of suspects. I had no reason to hone in and just on him. But he asked for the next day. I think his daughter had been at the done her HC that day and that was factual, so
it was for the next day. He didn't show up the next day, and I called him his home again and his wife answered the phone and said, literally at that moment he was in an ambulance being taken to hospital having attempted suicide. That information ended up going to your squad. Yes, So then that developed into him being the suspect. And the thing that they asked me to do was I was the first police officer to speak with him. They determined to send in a woman, young woman.
I wasn't even designated a detective. Then they thought if they said me in to the hospital that he might cooperate and give them a photograph, which was needed to identify him for crimes. He was not on recording, certainly a photo of him was not. So I went by myself as the first time I had met a killer. Sitting in a room with one, I very much gave him the impression of being naive and I'm not particularly suspicious, but look at what help if I can have a polaroid,
which was what it was then. So I took that polaroid, and that polaroid then was used to identify him whilst he was still in hospital, so they couldn't do the identification of him in the hospital, so they're able to get underway with that. But that photo the one of him in all the book covers, in all the newspaper his eyes are slightly off center. That's a photo that I took and he's my first killer.
Well, congratulations, And that was that was a big one. That catch. He was. He was bad.
But something happened at the end of that job that made me think I would not be welcome. Effectively, some politics stepped in with bosses. I had no idea what it was about, and normous snia comes, well, I don't know about these things, and the question is did I ever learn? So I thought I wouldn't be welcome there, so I ended up applying to major cromes. Were called Northwest at Paramatta, so it's really exciting being a squattie.
There are only two women in about one hundred staff outside of the child protection unit, which is where most of the women wanted to go and certainly were put. So yeah, so I had a chance, and I landed in the US squed first with oil ooiter rough, gnarly man on the inside and out, but you know.
Was he good to work with? Sometimes the opposite in appearance, because it's so it's so important who you get paired with, because you can either look forward to work or hate going to the opinion on who.
You've learned a lot and had a big, warm heart, which is what I find generally. So yeah, so that's where I started, and then I must have done something right because of course the network comes in about who's good or who's not so good, or what you might be attuned to. And I was the first woman to get into the space Special Breakers Unit jeez.
That was that was the old hard heeads. How did they for the.
For any good of which there were four? So and I was, I was invited.
And what what what type of jobs were you?
So it was in the days of where they were actually safe, so they're only security for banks. For businesses was a physical safe, very thick with a code or a big you know, secure locking mechanism of this funny yes, what are they calling it? And there was there were gangs organized gangs that would use oxyacettline equipment to and other things and explosive devices to break them open. So very organized and of course banks and commercial businesses there was a lot of money lost. So it was it
was tough, tough crooks. Therefore the squad was tough. It's always seems to be this got to E.
Creach. Yes, perhaps with the breakers they were like in the pecking order in the prison, so they were looked at. There there was a stick up guys and the the breakers, as in the crooks that were in jail, they were always hard, tight crews, so they were the interesting working on.
And also yeah, large warehouse robberies. These are things that I don't think people in the community know much about anymore because of security improvements. But there was a time when you could with the robbers where you would turn up with your shotgun and your balaklava and your mate and threatened to shoot the teller and the customers.
Actually you were talking about the cops turning up and the shotgun because we used to it used to be before. It just be so simple. We had shotguns.
Yes, no, there were no screens, there were no alarm buttons, and then that you know, they go for the safe, so the whole so just I mean, that really was the that is that's my biggest memory of those early days. The drug the drug industry which mainly heroin flooding the world, causing the robberies on the banks, and the safe breaking in the warehouse for smokes and you know large get like fifty thousand dollars in the eighties was a lot smokes.
That was that was a big crime.
That was a big deal about four packs today's price, I think, but then it was you know, it was big. So yeah, that was to get to get into that squad, to be clearly assessed and offered a position, there was a really significant thing for anyone. But for you know the first woman name, and that's a good thing.
The way the squads were set up in those days, it was virtually you were invited there. It was they look around and okay we can we can have you. So it says something they trusted you to do the work. And you're quite right, they were the tough guys going after the tough crooks and tell us because I know there would be stories of when you've had to I'd say, chestise, it's probably that's a soft way if people stepped out.
I'm talking your colleagues now. The way women were treated in those days in the place.
Ah well, look might disappoint you and others who have asked me that, because look, I just found there's something about me and how I perceive what is being said, like understand what's being said that it's a negative, or it's bigoted, or it's racist, or it's sexist. And my willingness to point that out to the person saying it in a way that is was just fearless. I didn't I think it comes from my naivety. I didn't realize
telling people off and they might have been bosses. I did it in an intelligent way, I didn't, but I didn't realize that much not work for my career. I just thought it was an important principle. So once that was my reputation, I got less and less hassled. The first time a message went out about me, what was back at Eastwood Police station again in uniform, where a sergeant I was on station duty, and it was just a sergeant. I mean, he started to put his hands
down the back of my colots. If you don't know what colots, so I don't remember that long shorts, a long skirt joined in the middle like shorts. And I turned around and elbowed him because I remember the academy one I won. The elbow is the hardest bone you've got. So I elbowed him and he flinched, just momentarily, but that was seen, and that became. That flinching became that I had decked him, and.
So you just that's why everyone was so scared of you.
Everyone thought I've decked this, this sergeant who was not liked by the way. That was his type of reputation. And I of course didn't say, oh no, no, no, I know, I only elbowed him and he only flinched. I left it that I decked him. So when that's the start of things. And then when I was transferred and then went to the squads, they all talk. They being the men, they all talk, uh, And I tend to think that that's the only way I can explain why I why I had such a wonderful experience.
Generally boys terms that from that culture would be there, it would be passed around. Don't fuck with Pam that.
I would be You know, no one says that to you at the time, So you left wondering. But really you can only be yourself, and that was me playing out And so I do think in hindsight, I've seen that as it worked for me.
Yeah, and I look, I know the way you got through your career in that, and it was a change in the guard time when females were coming into the police in numbers and then making their way through major crime. I know you could navigate your way through there. You feel sorry for others that can't. And you see, yes, you see people that, yeah, you don't want to speak up.
If you speak up, you're going to be ostracized. I want my career and that saddens me that people would have potentially good people in good positions lost out because they just couldn't couldn't deal with it the way you dealt with it.
Yes, suffered, suffered, emotionally suffered, mental stress, no doubt. Consequence can be a limited career, shorter career. It must be oppressive, but it's not their fault. It's the oppressive fault. So yeah, it's a shame. And not everyone had a family upbringing like me to Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I was going to say this, and there's a thousand other things I can say, but we'll talk on it now while we're talking about women in policing and what you had to had to go through. And it's not all negative for every knucklehead that you meet, as in a bloke, you meet some very respectful people and good human beings in the time that you're in the police. Do you think where the culture has changed and changed for the better and have we got it right now?
I just I might come up with an answer at some stage as we go along, but just initially with that, I don't because I ended up working in all my career in areas where there are very few women, and women weren't necessarily in the areas I want sometimes it wasn't because they weren't allowed though, I guaranteed that's part of it. But they got married, they had children, that was their priority, so they didn't have the longevity to then work up into the more specialist areas. Once you're
in the specialist areas, then those mostly men. So I sitting here, I don't think I have a proper view of what women in policing generally experience, feel and experience. Yeah I was. I did put my hat in the ring, and I was clearly the most qualified person to go to Starwin. Tell us that because it was to go to Darwin. So it was all about briefs of evidence and investigation management and crime scene preservation.
I mean that was hello, Hello, I wrote the manual.
Yes, it wasn't just doing it, it was yes, training in it, writing it what I I guess. So the positive in that it was at least the superintendent who told me I wasn't going to be allowed to apply for the job. At least he told me it was because I was a woman. To my face, I mean he made a special meeting of it. We had a cup of TEA tells me to my face, yes, you know you are the most qualified. But they meaning the
Northern Territory, they won't want a woman. Oh they don't want a woman, or they won't cope with a woman. It all means the same. But I respect him for telling me to my face because that couldn't have been easy. But nonetheless I missed out. Yeah, and that as did the Northern Territory.
Well, I know I remember that very well, and how well you took it not? How did you react?
I was. I was very It offended all my principles. I was very disappointed.
I think you said to me, just because I haven't got a penis to your job, the things.
You remember, jubil and that worries is anything.
I get stuck in there?
You must have suitcases at home of your memories. So that's exactly what I said. I went around as I do. I'm not. I am an open person, so I objected to what I was told. I appreciated being told to my face that's rare. But I went around pronouncing that you know, if I had a penis, and where can I get one? And does anyone have a spare one? And you know money, I can buy one and then I can go to help the Northern Territory, but no one apparently out of spare.
Okay, all right, well I do remember it now, wonder I remember it? It was Northern territory. They can't have a woman coming up here and telling us what to do. But I suppose they move ahead. One of the funny stories, and I've got a lot of funny stories about you, but one of the funny stories that I like, and we're talking on women in policing. I'm not going to name the squad. I'm not going to identify the person because what we're going to say is pretty pretty funny,
but pretty embarrassing as well. There was a senior police officer. There was no names, no names. We're at a particular squad. There was a function on and which alcohol was served, and a senior police officer called you into his office and asked you to talk to this young female detective about her behavior at this function because her drinking and her behavior. My recollection of it, your words were him to him was I'm not going to talk to her, but I'll talk to you about your behavior because you
were totally inappropriate. Do you want to expand on that without identified.
That's all the words it took thank you for reminding me that person deserved.
It so badly that to be put in his place on that I just thought it was so shameful, shameful. He was sexist everything. He was put in the blame on this young policewoman about his behavior.
Yes, and it wasn't. It had nothing to do with her. He wasn't looking out for her interests. It was about how the rumor mill had kicked in about how inappropriate he had been. He was. He was wanting to assert if I, if I had been got involved like he'd asked, it would have justified himself his position. For him, it was nothing to do with her, so it was a self protection thing for him.
It was just it was shameful, and you're quite right. He would have then passed around. I got speak about his behavior.
And credit getting me a woman, but me as well. To speak to her is his credibility. So he wanted to misuse two women at the same time for his own.
I love it. That's that's why it's such a shame and were going to talk.
At least it didn't stop him getting multiple promotions. Well it's kind of enhanced.
Yeah, it's not a bad quality of the person. It's just yeah, anyway, we won't get better. We might, but not at this stage. We're a little bit later on. Okay, we're going to drift into fun facts before we finished part one. I'm a bit worried about this because I don't even know if you'll remember it. But I remember the first time you didn't name me. You weren't looking at me when we're growing up in the area and I knew you. You were one of the kids playing
in beside Martin's place. But I remember the first time I spoke to you. It was at Northwest Crime Squad. I'd just been on the job that I was running and the suspect was shot and killed was talking to him, So it was fairly traumatic. And we'd been taken from that like and we tried to revive him and everything else. We'd been taken straight from that location to Northwest's Crime Squad, and Northwest to say it was a fairly mucho environment was yeah, well he got what he deserved, and yeah,
walking around tough guys. You came up to me and said, are you okay, And just for that moment, I could drop my guard down a little bit, and I really appreciated. It meant a lot because I was walking around and I was deeply affected by it because there was a history up into me going after this blake and you said that, and I thought that was a little bit of kindness.
Do you remember that, I should say, yes, shouldn't I.
You don't remember the first time you spoke to me? Young? No? Well, well that's fallen flat, can this bit?
I'm just glad to hear I did my job nicely.
Clearly you made it was four. Clearly you made an impression on me, But I must have made no impression on you. Anyway. I thought it was a significant moment in us. It is.
The fact I don't remember it doesn't make it not a significant moment.
Well, it sort of diminishes what I thought it was. But anyone will move on from there. Let's take a break. I'll have time to reflect on the fact that you didn't even remember when I spoke to you. But jokes aside in that environment, and like we've all been through stressful things in police and I think we're told when you're involved in the shootings and whatever, whatever you do, don't go out drinking, go home, do this, do that
as police. We all go out drink and get on the drink and all that, and it does a little bit of humanity in those macho worlds. Helps, a little bit of emotional honesty, I think helps. And I think we've moved past what we were from the crime squad days. I think we've moved past that. There's a little bit more understanding of what we're all going through and you can't hide it behind alcohol.
That be fair to say, oh, you mean the system. There's a system.
There, a system in place, But I think the culture has changed to we've got more of a.
You' oh I do, I do, but you can market. It started with them. What's it called when you're not allowed to drink and drive? Drink and driving?
When did that rule come in?
So I was fighting against the squad culture for sure. Remember the squad Remember the squads on their own bars. I heard that. I never I never went to one of them.
Well, we've talt, we've talked, we've talked about.
That because and everyone did you were allowed to drink and drive? I mean so yes, so so so your question was a bit broad, could you.
I'm just saying we've moved on a little bit from that from well, not finding comfort in alcohol, we understand a little bit more.
It's not it's pretty handy.
You've got to get off that one.
But you can just afford better quality alcohol. Now, I think, all.
Right, I'm going to wrap up part one and then I'm going to check my notes and make sure I keep you on song for part two.
You have your rest, grand.
When we when we come back for part two, we're going to talk about an investigation that you worked on with a good friend of I Catch Killers Russell Oxford and the one down in Wollongong, the murders down there. It's still to this day one of the most grewsome crime scenes I've seen images of, and you worked on that investigation. I know it was a hard investigation to
work on. So we're going to talk about that, and we'll probably talk about whatever else you decide to talk about, even though this is my podcast called eye Catch Killers. All right, we'll take a break.
Thanks Pam, Thank you,