Speaker 1: The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Speaker 1: Detective sy a side of life the average person is
Speaker 1: never exposed to. I spent thirty four years as a cop.
Speaker 1: For twenty five of those years, I was catching killers.
Speaker 1: That's what I did for a living. I was a
Speaker 1: homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead,
Speaker 1: I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.
Speaker 1: The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories
Speaker 1: from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
Speaker 1: and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some
Speaker 1: of the content and language might be confronting. That's because
Speaker 1: no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged.
Speaker 1: Join me now as I take you into this world.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to part two of my chat with renowned
Speaker 1: criminal behavioral analyst Laura Richards.
Speaker 2: Welcome back, Laura, Thank you good to be here with you.
Speaker 1: We have got so much to talk about and unpack.
Speaker 1: I find the work that you do fascinating, But the
Speaker 1: thing that's really coming across is that you're looking for
Speaker 1: solutions to prevent crime. Having spent the majority of my
Speaker 1: career as a homicide detective, I was a reactive investigator
Speaker 1: a crime had happened, and then I'd try and solve
Speaker 1: the crime. The thing I missed and what I would
Speaker 1: have liked to do is prevent the crimes through proactive investigation.
Speaker 1: You've identified criminal behaviors that a red flags indicators, and
Speaker 1: I know you've been very prominent when you talk about
Speaker 1: the stalking cases. Do you want to talk to us
Speaker 1: about what it is about stalking that causes you so
Speaker 1: much concern? Like I feel silly saying that question, because
Speaker 1: it's obvious if you're a stalker, something is not right.
Speaker 1: That's my take on it from a detective or just
Speaker 1: as a member of society. If you're stalking, there's problems. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, I think even if you take the word stalking,
Speaker 2: it's still used in a comedic sense of I'm not
Speaker 2: stalking you high. It's seen as something that's funny rather
Speaker 2: than something that's quite sinister and insidious and actually really
Speaker 2: terrifying when it happens to you. And my first five
Speaker 2: years working at New Scotland Yard on stranger rate, murder
Speaker 2: and abduction cases, majority of them the offenders when we
Speaker 2: caught them, we would call them predatory stalkers. They were
Speaker 2: doing indecent exposures. They were doing lots of gateway crimes
Speaker 2: that we wouldn't necessarily called stalking, and so the stalking
Speaker 2: would be missed. And when we think about it in
Speaker 2: the predatory sense, they're the most dangerous types of offenders,
Speaker 2: but we often also see it with domestic violence offenders
Speaker 2: the course of controllers. And one of the cases that
Speaker 2: really alerted me to the risks and dangers myself when
Speaker 2: I worked at New Scotland Yard was the murder of
Speaker 2: a young woman called Claire Burnell who was shot dead
Speaker 2: in Harvey Nichols. And it was in two thousand and five,
Speaker 2: September thirteenth, two thousand and five, and I was working
Speaker 2: late at new Scotland Yard and it came on the
Speaker 2: news headlines that the news presenter said two people have
Speaker 2: been shot dead in Harvey Nichols. And I thought that
Speaker 2: sounds odd, two people being shot dead. And then my
Speaker 2: pager went and you know, my phone went that I
Speaker 2: was asked by one of the heads, one of the commanders,
Speaker 2: would I review the case that the two people who
Speaker 2: were shot dead. Well, Claire Bernow was working in Harvey Nichols.
Speaker 2: She was working on one of the makeup counters. But
Speaker 2: the other person who was shot there was someone called
Speaker 2: Michael Pesh. He shot her and then he shot himself,
Speaker 2: So our homicide detectives went in to Harvey Nichols. It
Speaker 2: wasn't like an active shooter situation. It was a what
Speaker 2: we found out to be a relationship that Claire didn't
Speaker 2: want anymore. And this guy worked as part of the
Speaker 2: security team at Harvey Nichols and he had actually lost
Speaker 2: his job because Claire had reported him for his behavior.
Speaker 2: And when I started to do a desktop review, because
Speaker 2: the commander said, I want to know everything about this case,
Speaker 2: what was known to us, and I did the review
Speaker 2: and found out that she had reported multiple times to us,
Speaker 2: the police, and that we didn't really understand what was
Speaker 2: going on. And you know, I say that because the
Speaker 2: language of stalking wasn't understood and it wasn't used. Claire
Speaker 2: was saying that she was terrified of this man, Michael Pesh,
Speaker 2: who she had dated on three occasions, and that he
Speaker 2: had declared his love for her on date number two
Speaker 2: and it made her feel very uncomfortable. And date number three,
Speaker 2: he forced her to drive to her home address and
Speaker 2: he refused to move from her home address, and she
Speaker 2: just didn't know what to do because she couldn't get
Speaker 2: him out. But it was the first time that she felt,
Speaker 2: you know, she didn't want this relationship. She didn't want
Speaker 2: to upset him. She was trying to let him down gently,
Speaker 2: but she told him, I don't want to go out
Speaker 2: with you anymore. Well, the next time she encounters him,
Speaker 2: she had finished work in Harvey Nichols and had gone
Speaker 2: home on the tube and he had blocked her exit
Speaker 2: from the tube. He was following her and on the
Speaker 2: same carriage as her, and she went to get out
Speaker 2: and he blocked her exit, and she stepped forward and
Speaker 2: he stepped forward to her, so they were nose to nose,
Speaker 2: and he smiled, and she said, get off of me,
Speaker 2: or I'll call the police. And he says, as he
Speaker 2: strokes her face and smiles, if you call the police,
Speaker 2: I will kill you. And if I can't have you,
Speaker 2: no one can. This was written on the crime report Gary,
Speaker 2: and I literally the hairs on my arms and the
Speaker 2: back of my neck went up, knowing that he meant
Speaker 2: what he said. And that was her first report to
Speaker 2: the police. She had told her friend who worked in
Speaker 2: Harvey Nichols as well. When she got home what had
Speaker 2: been said, and the friend said, you must tell the
Speaker 2: head of security at Harvey Nichols, and that's what they did.
Speaker 2: They made the call. They met with the head of
Speaker 2: security at Harvey Nichols and he said, we must report
Speaker 2: this to the police. He took it very seriously, so
Speaker 2: that was the first report, and you know, from there
Speaker 2: on out, I found out a lot of other things
Speaker 2: that had happened. But she reported him. He was arrested
Speaker 2: when he was in uniform in Harvey Nichols and as
Speaker 2: a security guard, and of course that didn't go down well,
Speaker 2: and then he ended up being balled. And it was
Speaker 2: when he was bailed. He left the country, went back
Speaker 2: into the country with a firearm, and he had actually
Speaker 2: been suspended at this time from Harvey Nichols. The head
Speaker 2: of security took it that seriously and then he lost
Speaker 2: his job and he blamed Claire for it. And he
Speaker 2: went back into Harvey Nichols at twenty to eight. He
Speaker 2: realized all the security guards had been told not to
Speaker 2: let him in, but he knew the layout of the store.
Speaker 2: He went in through a side door and we had
Speaker 2: eyewitnesses confirmed that they saw him. Claire was looking at her,
Speaker 2: what saying, we're almost done here because they were going
Speaker 2: to wend their shift in twenty minutes, and he went
Speaker 2: up behind her, shot her once in the back of
Speaker 2: the head, four times in the face to obliterate her.
Speaker 2: And you know, my colleagues went in and that was
Speaker 2: the crime scene that they found. But for me unraveling
Speaker 2: all the things that happened, well a lot of it
Speaker 2: was on our crime reports system, and I said, you know,
Speaker 2: it's not good. She had told us these things. She
Speaker 2: was in fear of her life, and we arrested him,
Speaker 2: we interviewed him, but then he was bailed. And the
Speaker 2: first thing that the first bail, he went round to
Speaker 2: see her immediately and threatened her. And then he's re arrested,
Speaker 2: but he's bailed again. And that's the problem that it
Speaker 2: was only ever seen as a harassment case, a Section
Speaker 2: two harrissment, even though he made threats to kill, and
Speaker 2: he was bailed because it wasn't seen as that serious.
Speaker 2: And one of our officers who interviewed him, she was
Speaker 2: a probationer, just off of probation, no supervision, which is
Speaker 2: why for me it's always I look to the supervisors.
Speaker 2: And she interviewed him and he said, look, I just
Speaker 2: love her. I just want to tell her that I
Speaker 2: love her. Come on office, so you've been in love
Speaker 2: before and she kind of yeah, you know, I understand that,
Speaker 2: but that wasn't what he was and who he was
Speaker 2: if she had understood his behavior better, but she didn't
Speaker 2: because she was a probationers. She didn't have experience, she
Speaker 2: didn't have a supervisor helping her, and things you know,
Speaker 2: ended up in a catastrophic event.
Speaker 1: Just on that that taking it back, but I love her,
Speaker 1: and the officer buying into that, I can just see.
Speaker 1: I've got a vision of how that plays out in
Speaker 1: the police station. You've got a probationary constable taking that report,
Speaker 1: interviewed him and look, he's not going to harm her.
Speaker 1: He says that he loves her. Like to me, that's warning, warning, warning,
Speaker 1: but that I suppose that comes with experience and seeing
Speaker 1: the end results as you would have. But I imagine that
Speaker 1: probationary constable then goes to a supervisor and the briefing
Speaker 1: would be, I look like, I think he's a risk
Speaker 1: because he said he loves her. I think he's he
Speaker 1: just wants to get back together again, So the supervisor
Speaker 1: would be going, ah, okay, that's okay, and then the
Speaker 1: case is forgotten. What you've just outlined there. I was
Speaker 1: in horror right from the yeah I love you on
Speaker 1: the second date type situation. That was warning, warning, there's
Speaker 1: a potential problem there. You've talked us through what's happened,
Speaker 1: what points should have something been done differently? And what
Speaker 1: is that thing that should have been done differently, whether
Speaker 1: it's a bail, whether it's a courts How do you
Speaker 1: think we resolve a situation like that so it doesn't
Speaker 1: happen again.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, in this case changed my life, and
Speaker 2: it changed my whole career and my whole way of thinking.
Speaker 2: So it really did have an impact because I met
Speaker 2: her mother and I learned so much more from her mum, Tricia,
Speaker 2: of what was going on behind the scenes. And you know,
Speaker 2: Tricia said to me, when Claire came to me and
Speaker 2: told me everything that was happening, I never ever thought
Speaker 2: that he would kill her because that happens to people
Speaker 2: in the newspapers, not to people like us from Tunbridge Wells.
Speaker 2: And that was the first learning point that families never
Speaker 2: expected to end up in that place, and nor did Claire.
Speaker 2: But the risks were very apparent. And Tricia was giving
Speaker 2: her advice as a mum, saying, oh, well, maybe he's
Speaker 2: just fallen in love. But Claire was saying, no, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't love him, and what am I meant to
Speaker 2: say to him? You know? She felt so uncomfortable. And
Speaker 2: then he was using other people in Harvey Nichols to
Speaker 2: make his case to her of why she should give
Speaker 2: him a second chance. He used other people to stalk
Speaker 2: her and pressure her. So if we had done our
Speaker 2: jobs right in terms of collecting all the evidence, we
Speaker 2: would have got a proper statement from Claire. I mean
Speaker 2: it was half a page long. And yet when I
Speaker 2: sat down with Trisha and when I dug into the case,
Speaker 2: there was so much more to it. The head of
Speaker 2: security really intrigued me and I wanted to know how
Speaker 2: he took it seriously, and it came down to experience. Right.
Speaker 2: He was a former police officer. He understood how dangerous
Speaker 2: Pesh was. But you know what could we have done differently, Well,
Speaker 2: we could have got a statement from him and looked
Speaker 2: at in his investigation, but we didn't. So to sack someone,
Speaker 2: you have to have a whole documented history of you know,
Speaker 2: going through the oral warnings, the written warnings, the suspension,
Speaker 2: and then you fire. But the officers didn't take the
Speaker 2: information that he offered them, and that was a huge
Speaker 2: problem for me because I felt that on review of
Speaker 2: the case that you've got the new and the old.
Speaker 2: You know, back off, old timer, we're the police, don't
Speaker 2: tell us what to do. I can imagine that kind
Speaker 2: of attitude, and unfortunately it ended up with Claire being
Speaker 2: brutally killed because if they had looked at that investigation,
Speaker 2: they would have found out that he was asking colleagues
Speaker 2: what kind of sentence do you get for murder in
Speaker 2: this country? He was asking questions that showed intent that
Speaker 2: he planned to do something far more odious and sinister,
Speaker 2: and that's exactly what he did. So I come I
Speaker 2: use this case in training a lot because there's so
Speaker 2: much more that we could have done and should have done.
Speaker 2: There was a section four A sorry, Section four harassment.
Speaker 2: There are two tiers to the Harassment Act, which really
Speaker 2: came in for stalking, but the section four carries up
Speaker 2: to five years in prison. But they didn't even look
Speaker 2: at it as a Section four case. It just got
Speaker 2: dropped to a Section two, which is you go to
Speaker 2: magistrates court maximum six months, but most get a slap
Speaker 2: on the wrist. So that's where the stalking law came in.
Speaker 2: There wasn't a stalking law per se, and that's what
Speaker 2: I wanted to change. But there was a threat to
Speaker 2: kill and there was a Section four harrissmen, and the
Speaker 2: CPS dropped it to a much lesser and that was
Speaker 2: hugely problematic. So the investigation was problematic because oh, he
Speaker 2: just said he loves her, he doesn't mean to harm her.
Speaker 2: Whole understanding of what Claire was telling us, you know,
Speaker 2: it wasn't understood as stalking is serious. That he didn't
Speaker 2: physically hit her, but what he was threatening, the way
Speaker 2: that he delivered the threat was so chilling, and yet
Speaker 2: it wasn't followed up on. So there were there were
Speaker 2: so many junctures where I call it, you take a
Speaker 2: domino out and you change, you know, that escalation of behavior.
Speaker 2: And look, he still could have been fixated, right, he
Speaker 2: could have gone to prison and served let's say six
Speaker 2: months or let's say eighteen weeks. He still might have
Speaker 2: come out and been fixated on Claire or he then
Speaker 2: moves on to the next woman. He always would have
Speaker 2: been a problem. And that's why I always say to
Speaker 2: police and others that I train deal with it right time,
Speaker 2: first time round, because they're still going to be a
Speaker 2: problem down the line. And that's the nature of fixation
Speaker 2: and obsessive behavior.
Speaker 1: Okay with that, whether the courts have a responsibility as well.
Speaker 1: But whinding it back to the figures you were to
Speaker 1: talking about one in two if they've been in an
Speaker 1: intimate relationship and they're stalking and they make a threat
Speaker 1: to kill. So once that's done, just based on past
Speaker 1: behaviors statistics, there's a fifty to fifty chance this person
Speaker 1: might be killed. Imagine the resources that would be applied
Speaker 1: if you came out with that saying this person is
Speaker 1: going to be killed. But we miss the point, don't we.
Speaker 1: So it is a large part of it is about education.
Speaker 1: And you use the story of the retired, wise, battle
Speaker 1: hardened cop that's now working security, knowing from his experience
Speaker 1: how dangerous this is. But in the police it's been missed.
Speaker 1: But that's tragic, isn't it. So like every part of
Speaker 1: when you're breaking down the incidents, red flag red flag
Speaker 1: concern concern and it wasn't circumvented. Do you think there's
Speaker 1: and I want to delve into coercive control, but we're
Speaker 1: stalking a situation like that, because invariably a stalker doesn't
Speaker 1: back off after the first warning, like Okay, we're going
Speaker 1: to go to the police AVO. Then they breach the AVO,
Speaker 1: they go to the court, blah blah blah. What about
Speaker 1: electronic monitoring on people like that? Do you think that
Speaker 1: there's something that we've just got to adopt technology like
Speaker 1: ankle bracelet.
Speaker 2: I do, and I don't know why we're not doing it.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's the simplest thing really to do, to
Speaker 2: use technology. We know that orders on their own, a
Speaker 2: piece of paper doesn't stop a stalker. So I think
Speaker 2: we've just got to get real to the fact that
Speaker 2: a piece of paper saying don't do it again, it
Speaker 2: is not going to stop them. But that's also where
Speaker 2: I would like to see them on the same register
Speaker 2: as sex offenders. You know, they some of them are
Speaker 2: sex offenders, and some of them are incredibly dangerous who
Speaker 2: go on to murder. And so if you start one woman,
Speaker 2: two three, you know, why aren't we putting them on
Speaker 2: the same database as terrorists and sex offenders and problem
Speaker 2: solving them in the same way. And some of them
Speaker 2: do need a psychiatric intervention, so we're just going to
Speaker 2: it's a revolving door. We keep having to deal with
Speaker 2: the same people and their histories aren't being joined up.
Speaker 2: And that's what's for me, the twenty three year campaign
Speaker 2: to join up violent men's histories. It's predominantly men, not
Speaker 2: always exclusively, but you know, it's these are power and
Speaker 2: control related crimes, and the police, the courts, the system
Speaker 2: has to take the power and control back and away
Speaker 2: from them from these dangerous individuals, so you have to
Speaker 2: problem solve them, and with that you need a multi
Speaker 2: agency response.
Speaker 1: And are you making headway in that front? Correct me
Speaker 1: if I'm wrong, But twenty thirteen the world's first national
Speaker 1: stalking Advocacy service. So you're starting to get the message out.
Speaker 1: But what has actually happened with what you're promoting and
Speaker 1: what you're pushing. What steps forward have we taken or
Speaker 1: do we just sit here horrified, going this shouldn't happen
Speaker 1: and do nothing and wait until the next one happens
Speaker 1: and we are how did that occur.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean my work always been evidence based and
Speaker 2: Claire Bernow's case was one of many that I use
Speaker 2: to talk to parliamentarians about in terms of changing the
Speaker 2: law and creating the stalking law. And then when you
Speaker 2: talk out in the media, victims contact you. And I
Speaker 2: was receiving hundreds and hundreds of contacts every time I
Speaker 2: talked about stalking. So that's where Paladin came from. The
Speaker 2: National Stalking Advocacy Service, the first of its kind in
Speaker 2: the world. But we're still not doing enough, you know,
Speaker 2: And I think predominantly we spend too long looking at
Speaker 2: what the victim did or didn't do, and we don't
Speaker 2: spend enough time looking at the perpetrator and closing them down.
Speaker 2: And that's the bit that all across the world is
Speaker 2: missing the accountability and responsibility on the perpetrator and working
Speaker 2: in a multi agency forum, just like we do with
Speaker 2: the most dangerous terrorists, the most dangerous sex offenders, to
Speaker 2: look at every aspect of their life and work with
Speaker 2: them to create that change. And that's where it's Some
Speaker 2: do need psychiatric assessment, some not all of them, but
Speaker 2: often it is about power and control. That's what they're
Speaker 2: trying that's what's motivating them. So you've got to take
Speaker 2: it away from them. And we've still got so much
Speaker 2: more work to do. The resistance to tackling this, whether
Speaker 2: it's in Australia, America, the UK, Canada, there's been such resistance, Gary,
Speaker 2: and I really feel it's because most the majority of
Speaker 2: legislators are men and it just doesn't happen to them,
Speaker 2: So they just don't understand how frightening it is to
Speaker 2: be a woman moving about in this world. And men
Speaker 2: only get it when they have a daughter and then
Speaker 2: she's dating and then they realize, you know, what the
Speaker 2: risks are. But oftentimes, you know, by the grace of God,
Speaker 2: go I. And that's why we need more legislators, and
Speaker 2: you know, senior folk who are women, Because with Sarah Everett,
Speaker 2: all these women came out and talked about how we
Speaker 2: have to risk manage our day, even going out, you know,
Speaker 2: to go for a rum. Women are murdered. Oh wish
Speaker 2: she shouldn't have been wearing headphones, or she shouldn't have
Speaker 2: been looking at her phone. Oh well, she shouldn't have
Speaker 2: left her drink unattended. We spend far too long looking
Speaker 2: at what the victim did, and not focusing on the offender.
Speaker 2: And that's been really the hill that I'm going to
Speaker 2: die on, the of transferring you know, the lens onto
Speaker 2: the offender. And it's kind of what Justsel Pellicott's saying
Speaker 2: in France, right, the shame needs to switch sides, that
Speaker 2: we need to flip our gaze onto the perpetrators and
Speaker 2: focus on them rather than keep saying that we don't
Speaker 2: believe victims, we don't take it seriously. Oh, they're not
Speaker 2: going to escalate to murder. That's the stuff of movies.
Speaker 2: I hear police officers say this to victims every day,
Speaker 2: you know, and it's really disheartening when you look at
Speaker 2: the increasing femicide rate. So I kind of feel I'm
Speaker 2: still in the eye of the storm of my work.
Speaker 2: It's not finished. I'm not just a podcaster. I put
Speaker 2: this stuff on a podcast because I think people learn
Speaker 2: at different times, and podcasting is very intimate that you
Speaker 2: hear things I have on crime analyst, judges, magistrates, probation officers,
Speaker 2: police officers, psychiatrists, you know, the full gamut of people
Speaker 2: who listen. They're the ones that can create the change.
Speaker 2: And you know, the media form of podcasting makes this
Speaker 2: knowledge now so much more accessible. That's why I do
Speaker 2: the podcast to raise awareness and to put the solutions
Speaker 2: out there. But it's about people grabbing those things and
Speaker 2: being really committed to want to create change and not
Speaker 2: just paying lip service to it, which is what happened
Speaker 2: in the wake of Sarah Everett. There was no grip,
Speaker 2: there was no grasp from legislators. They didn't. They voted
Speaker 2: down having the Register of serial domestic abuse as is stalkings,
Speaker 2: and that will make the biggest change.
Speaker 1: I think who would vote that down? I don't see
Speaker 1: any harm in having a register like that. I think
Speaker 1: the evidence supports the need for it. And why people
Speaker 1: think that's an invasion the privacy will be in stalked
Speaker 1: by someone's an invasion of privacy too, Like I not,
Speaker 1: for the life of me see why people wouldn't buy
Speaker 1: into that.
Speaker 2: Well, that's it, Gary, it's who are we protecting? Are
Speaker 2: we protecting the right people?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: And you can have that debate in court if you
Speaker 2: decide that you're going to put the perpetrators right to
Speaker 2: privacy ahead of the victims right to safety. And for
Speaker 2: too long it's been skewed to perpetrators and that needs
Speaker 2: to be course corrected because as long as you're making
Speaker 2: defensible decisions i e. They've done A, B and C
Speaker 2: and that's where the risk assessment comes in, then you
Speaker 2: can defend your.
Speaker 1: Decision on that risk assessment. Do you want to break
Speaker 1: that down? That's DASH? Is that the acronym for it.
Speaker 2: The domestic abuse? Yeah, domestic abuse, stalk, king and harassment
Speaker 2: and on a base violence risk model. Hence why we
Speaker 2: call it the DASH because it's a real mouthful.
Speaker 1: Just break that down the type of things and how
Speaker 1: that can be used and to be used by law
Speaker 1: enforcement officers so they can have a look at it
Speaker 1: and quantify what the risks are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean the idea behind it was having profiled.
Speaker 2: I didn't just profile murders. I took four hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty domestic violence, sexual offenders and serious offenders and looked
Speaker 2: at them backwards their histories and then one hundred and
Speaker 2: fourteen thousand allegations of domestic abuse in one year in
Speaker 2: two thousand and one that was recorded and reported to police.
Speaker 2: And out of that I looked at the patterns because
Speaker 2: you can't just take murder. And when I presented on
Speaker 2: those patterns. The Deputy Assistant Commissioner at New Scotland Yard
Speaker 2: said in front of three hundred officers that research is
Speaker 2: really interesting, but what difference does it make to the
Speaker 2: late term van driver at three in the morning. How
Speaker 2: does she respond differently to the domestic violence call out?
Speaker 2: And that's where this set of questions came from. So
Speaker 2: I worked with lots of different police officers, agencies, specialist agencies,
Speaker 2: victims groups, We ran focus groups and this took years
Speaker 2: to do and created what was first called the SPECS
Speaker 2: plus and then it evolved into the DASH. So it's
Speaker 2: a set of questions that there's a call out to
Speaker 2: the police, or it might even be housing or education
Speaker 2: or health. Anyone can use this tool and you ask
Speaker 2: the victim this set of questions and they are the
Speaker 2: mirror because they know the perpetrator the best. They hold
Speaker 2: up the mirror to the perpetrator's behavior and then they
Speaker 2: are the expert on their own situation. And then you
Speaker 2: can start to inform your investigation as well as collect
Speaker 2: evidence as well as understand risk as it's standard, medium
Speaker 2: or high, and if it's high, then it goes to
Speaker 2: a multi agency meeting who problems solve the case and
Speaker 2: they should look at safety planning for the victim, but
Speaker 2: perpetrator risk management and they're two sides of the same
Speaker 2: coin and you have to do the two things together.
Speaker 2: So across England and Wales we had every police force
Speaker 2: using this one toolkit and all partner agencies signed up
Speaker 2: to it and it's a really important tool that is
Speaker 2: evidence based and we reduce murders by using the tool
Speaker 2: and we also saw a reduction in women killing the abuser.
Speaker 2: So we previously in London we would have at least
Speaker 2: six women every year who would kill the abuser because
Speaker 2: there was never an intervention. And then we went to
Speaker 2: zero zero, zero zero zero because women were being believed
Speaker 2: and listened to. And that's an important thing to say
Speaker 2: right here in America with the Menendez brother's case where
Speaker 2: they were victims of course of control and sexual violence
Speaker 2: and then they killed the abusers because they realized that
Speaker 2: no one was going to save them. It was a
Speaker 2: safeguarding failure. So that's where the tool is so important
Speaker 2: for victims, including children, of understanding what's going on for them,
Speaker 2: validating their experience and then using it as information for
Speaker 2: action to understand risk and then get into the risk
Speaker 2: management piece.
Speaker 1: You just mentioned the brothers. I want to talk about
Speaker 1: that because it's very prominent the moment. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of moody going on now and I as I understand
Speaker 1: that it's about whether they should be released from prison.
Speaker 1: What's a bexter that. Because it's on Netflix, it's got
Speaker 1: world wide attention. What's your knowledge and background on that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've been covering this case for almost two years
Speaker 2: before it was sort of really talked about as it
Speaker 2: is now in the media, and I was really perplexed
Speaker 2: about the fact that these brothers were well everyone was
Speaker 2: told through the DA's office and the media that they
Speaker 2: were greedy, rich kids. But I remembered at the time,
Speaker 2: the crime scene didn't point to that. The crime scene
Speaker 2: pointed to obliteration, and when children obliterate their parents like that,
Speaker 2: there's something else going on. And so I kind of
Speaker 2: went into the case not knowing what I would find.
Speaker 2: But the biggest challenge for me was understanding why the
Speaker 2: judge made certain decisions. At trial one Court TV, it
Speaker 2: was all televised and it ended up in a hung
Speaker 2: jury because there were two sorry, two juries. They heard
Speaker 2: evidence from fifty three witnesses from school teacher, coaches, and
Speaker 2: family members who all talked about Jose's abuse of the
Speaker 2: two boys. And they had experts like Dr Rambergess who testified,
Speaker 2: having assessteric that he was sexually abused by Jose and
Speaker 2: it resulted in a hung jury. Now, there are a
Speaker 2: number of other things that happened in LA between the
Speaker 2: time of Trial IE and Trial two, like the Rodney
Speaker 2: King case where there were race riots in the wake
Speaker 2: of the acquittal, and then you had oj Simpson eight
Speaker 2: days before Trial two starting being acquitted and the judge,
Speaker 2: the same judge, Judge Stanley Wisberg, presided over both trials,
Speaker 2: and what I couldn't understand in Trial two was why
Speaker 2: he made the decision to not allow all the previous
Speaker 2: witnesses to testify to the abuse. And the DA's office
Speaker 2: made the case that it was irrelevant to hear that evidence. Well,
Speaker 2: it was wholly relevant to the defense in terms of
Speaker 2: the why they did it? This was never a who
Speaker 2: done it? Case? Right, the boys confessed to it. It
Speaker 2: wasn't who done it? Was a why done it? So
Speaker 2: it's wholly relevant and talks to motivation. But Judge Stanley
Speaker 2: Weisberg eviscerated the defense. He then determined that not only
Speaker 2: would he agree that they shouldn't testify, so it was
Speaker 2: only Eric who testified about the abuse. He then decided
Speaker 2: that the defense were not allowed to use the imperfect
Speaker 2: self defense defense, i e. That the boys, in their
Speaker 2: state of mind, they believed that there was a genuine
Speaker 2: fear that they would be killed. Therefore they killed before
Speaker 2: because of the thousand cuts of abuse before that, and
Speaker 2: with that, it meant that only murder was on the table.
Speaker 2: It was murder or nothing, It was never manslaughter. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: So the jury in the penalty phase, because it was
Speaker 2: a death penalty case as well, only ever had murder
Speaker 2: or nothing. In the penalty phase, they heard all about
Speaker 2: the abuse, and some of the jurors said, if they
Speaker 2: had heard about that abuse, they would not have voted
Speaker 2: for murder, and their appeals ran, but they weren't. They
Speaker 2: weren't seen as well. The appeals weren't granted in two
Speaker 2: thousand and five. But in twenty twenty, Court TV put
Speaker 2: all the first trial online and so I started to
Speaker 2: go back through it or and found Lar's testimony just
Speaker 2: so compelling and then covering the case. Once the Menudo
Speaker 2: and Menendez. Sorry, the Menendez and Menudo boys portrayed documentary
Speaker 2: landed on Peacock in twenty twenty three, and myself and
Speaker 2: Jim Clemente dug into that and realized that Jose Menendez,
Speaker 2: as I had always believed, harmed other boys, not just
Speaker 2: Lyle and Eric. So that was new evidence that was
Speaker 2: found by Robert Randa, journalist who had followed the case,
Speaker 2: both sat at both trials, reported on it. But he
Speaker 2: also found a letter that Eric had written to his
Speaker 2: cousin Andy Caino, where eight months before they shot their parents,
Speaker 2: he had talked about the sexual abuse. So that's the
Speaker 2: new evidence that's now in the habeas petitions.
Speaker 1: Signific new evidence, isn't it.
Speaker 2: Yeah? The trials never they know at the court never
Speaker 2: heard about that. And then you've got the rehabilitation and
Speaker 2: resentencing peace. So they've got the habeas petition that talks
Speaker 2: about the new evidence that was submitted twenty four hours
Speaker 2: after the Peacock Menndas and Menudo documentary landed. But you've
Speaker 2: also got in California there's the resentencing and rehabilitation arm
Speaker 2: to the District Attorney here, George Gascon has started that
Speaker 2: when you look back in time, if cases were disproportionately sentenced,
Speaker 2: or if the offenders have been rehabilitated, their unit will
Speaker 2: look at those cases and resentence because the Mennder's brothers
Speaker 2: have always been model inmates, and you know, the rehabilitation
Speaker 2: piece shows that. You know, they've both got degrees, they've
Speaker 2: helped paint murals and done green projects, and they've mentored
Speaker 2: other abuse victims in prison, and lots of the wardens
Speaker 2: say they would have them as neighbors. So there's a
Speaker 2: case to be made for the resentence, and that's what
Speaker 2: George Gascon has said the district attorneys. So the whole
Speaker 2: family flew in last week to La to talk to
Speaker 2: George Gascon's unit, the re sentencing unit, about why from
Speaker 2: both sides of the family, Jose's family and Kitty's family,
Speaker 2: why they support their nephews, their cousins, and why they
Speaker 2: believe they should be released. Which I don't know if
Speaker 2: you've ever seen that in your career, but I've never
Speaker 2: seen something like that, And I went to the courthouse
Speaker 2: and I was absolutely amazed by what they said from
Speaker 2: both sides of the family. I've just never seen that before.
Speaker 2: In almost thirty years of view.
Speaker 1: No, I definitely haven't seen that, but what a fascinating
Speaker 1: case because I've watched it from afar. But thanks for
Speaker 1: the insight into that. I can see why it's captured
Speaker 1: so many people's attention. Fascinating. We want to talk coerci
Speaker 1: control before we leave the stalking that it's a situation
Speaker 1: that people have got all appreciate it for the crime
Speaker 1: that it is and the potential, the warning signs, the
Speaker 1: indicators there, and you know, we talked about trying to
Speaker 1: make a difference on podcasts or people a platform for people.
Speaker 1: Law enforcement's got to be educated about it, the courts
Speaker 1: have got to be educated about it, and people have
Speaker 1: got to accept that stalking is a crime that is
Speaker 1: an indicator that something terrible might happen down the track.
Speaker 1: I just want to bang on about when we all
Speaker 1: supposedly had COVID they could track everyone's movements all over
Speaker 1: the country, and that we had the technology and the capability.
Speaker 1: Why someone who's stalking someone, perhaps they get one chance warned, Okay,
Speaker 1: your attention is not welcome. After that, the courts put
Speaker 1: an ankle bracelet on them. That has to give the
Speaker 1: victim some peace. And you talked about Hannah Clark's situation.
Speaker 1: Lloyd and Sue Clark. I know Hannah's parents and I've
Speaker 1: had them on the podcast and got to know them
Speaker 1: quite well. That was coercive control and the relationship that
Speaker 1: Hannah was in with the killer. But they talked about
Speaker 1: and I asked Lloyd and Sue whether if they had
Speaker 1: an ankle bracelet, if he had had an ankle bracelet,
Speaker 1: would have that made Hannah feel safer because they could
Speaker 1: see the warning signs coming in And they said most definitely.
Speaker 1: I would go as far as to say if she
Speaker 1: knew that he was in the area, that she and
Speaker 1: the three beautiful children would still be alive. So it's
Speaker 1: a pretty heavy way to lead into coercive control. But
Speaker 1: I know you've been instrumental, not just here in Australia
Speaker 1: but overseas as well about getting legislation changed.
Speaker 2: Yes, I mean Hannah's case with the children, Dahlia, Leana
Speaker 2: and Trey just utterly just devastating. And I remember that
Speaker 2: unfolding and watching that from here in Los Angeles, and
Speaker 2: I did one day immediately what his history was of
Speaker 2: doing that. I mean, setting them on fires, just one
Speaker 2: of the cruelest and most torturous ways to harm and
Speaker 2: to kill. And I suspected he would have a history.
Speaker 2: And you know, often we do see course of control
Speaker 2: and stalking the two things co occurring together, and you
Speaker 2: can be stalked within a relationship as well as after
Speaker 2: the relationship ends. But the course of control element what
Speaker 2: we it really is about a power imbalance and an unfreedom.
Speaker 2: They're the first words are used to describe it. The
Speaker 2: unfreedom is that the victim doesn't have their own agency
Speaker 2: and autonomy and they've often been psychologically undone and isolated.
Speaker 2: So it's a behavioral regime where someone creates this codependency
Speaker 2: and way of controlling the other person, whether it's isolating them,
Speaker 2: which you see in most cases, where it's controlling finances,
Speaker 2: controlling their movements, who they see, their time, what they wear.
Speaker 2: You know, the set of rules and regulations that come
Speaker 2: in slowly and insidiously that most victims don't even know
Speaker 2: that those rules exist, and they have to live by
Speaker 2: the perpetrators rules and regulations and if they break those
Speaker 2: rules and regulations, there's a consequence. But the rules and
Speaker 2: regulations there's a double standard. They don't apply to the perpetrator.
Speaker 2: They only apply to the victim and or the children.
Speaker 2: So it's the psychological undoing that's very important to understand,
Speaker 2: the lack of freedom of choice. So with Hannah not
Speaker 2: being allowed to wear pink, not allowed to wear a bikini,
Speaker 2: he said, let's do a joint Facebook, i e. If
Speaker 2: they have a joint Facebook account, he can control everything
Speaker 2: that's going out there. Although it might look like, oh,
Speaker 2: let's just be a nice couple, you know, to everybody else,
Speaker 2: it looks like, you know, maybe they're just being very
Speaker 2: too z and coupperly, But actually it's about how he's
Speaker 2: creating all these mediums to control her space for action,
Speaker 2: and that really is what we look for, you know,
Speaker 2: whether the victim does have freedom of choice and whose
Speaker 2: rules are they living by and whose needs are being met.
Speaker 2: So it's actually quite a sophisticated thing, and most victims
Speaker 2: don't even know they're being victimized because of the power
Speaker 2: imbalance between men and women that still exists in everyday
Speaker 2: daily life and in the patriarchy. And it literally is
Speaker 2: just a notch up from what people see as acceptable
Speaker 2: behavior to unacceptable behavior. And you know, that power imbalance.
Speaker 2: Hannah being that much younger than him.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Sometimes we see it in age, sometimes we see it
Speaker 2: within status like celebrity reaver Esteamcamp and Oscar Pistorius, O J.
Speaker 2: Simpson and Nicole you know. So that there's a lot
Speaker 2: that we have to unravel. But I always look for
Speaker 2: the power balanced before and unfreedom. Does she have freedom
Speaker 2: of choice or not? Or is she being coerced into
Speaker 2: behaving a certain way? The walking on eggshells because she
Speaker 2: doesn't want to upset him and the rules that he's
Speaker 2: laid down.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so to implement that type of type of
Speaker 1: behavior understanding, I'll talk about it from a police officer's
Speaker 1: point of view with domestic violence that quite often we
Speaker 1: would attend and it's yeah, it's the bread and butther
Speaker 1: of most frontline police attending domestic violence situations. But without
Speaker 1: the coercive control we had to look for. Okay, as
Speaker 1: there been a physical assault, has there been a criminal offense?
Speaker 1: And we didn't have in the legislation. The criminal offense
Speaker 1: at coercive control is that there is an offense being committed.
Speaker 1: If let's say your bank account, you're not allowed to
Speaker 1: access your bank account, I'll drip for you the money
Speaker 1: you're not allowed to contact your friends. I need to
Speaker 1: check your phone. That type of behavior. Is that controlling
Speaker 1: behavior you talked about, And what as I understand that
Speaker 1: you're trying to do and what he's been done. With
Speaker 1: legislation being implemented, that that can be identified as an
Speaker 1: offense in meeting those parameters and action can be taken.
Speaker 1: Is that a fair breakdown of the coercive control situation
Speaker 1: and the benefits of having legislation.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's basically all the non physical stuff that before
Speaker 2: we never paid attention to. And I call it death
Speaker 2: by a thousand cuts. That you have all these psychological
Speaker 2: and emotional and other elements that are being done to
Speaker 2: a victim. But it's only when it turns physical do
Speaker 2: police and others say, oh, that's the crime. But they
Speaker 2: miss the twenty two years of that control related behavior.
Speaker 2: And what's more insidious about coercid control is that it's
Speaker 2: about entrapment, and the victim becomes entrapped and it happens
Speaker 2: to children too, this entrapment, and it's about utter domination.
Speaker 2: And that's the best way to describe course of control.
Speaker 2: It is about an utter domination of another person. So
Speaker 2: oftentimes it's invisible. It's like a spider's web that you
Speaker 2: see parts of it glint in the sun. But you've
Speaker 2: got to ask more questions about what's going on and
Speaker 2: just a nod. Back to the Menenda's case, both of
Speaker 2: the boys, Eric and Laile were coercively controlled by their parents,
Speaker 2: and more sinister was Jose Menendez's control and sexual abuse
Speaker 2: of them. That was coercive. And with children, they look
Speaker 2: for the love and the validation of that parent, so
Speaker 2: they put themselves in harm's way to get the approval
Speaker 2: and validation and love of the parents. So it is
Speaker 2: so damaging to your brain as a child, but also
Speaker 2: to your psychosocial development. It interrupts your whole development, which
Speaker 2: is why Lyle, at the age of twenty one, had
Speaker 2: an emotional maturity or immaturity age of fourteen and Eric
Speaker 2: or he had just turned eighteen when he was assessed.
Speaker 2: He was actually the age emotionally of an eight year old.
Speaker 2: It's like you get frozen. So it's so damaging to.
Speaker 1: Children stunted at that age the emotional.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and for women it's so damaging. I mean,
Speaker 2: that's why you get you know, with suppressing down you know,
Speaker 2: fear and what you want in life and having to
Speaker 2: put yourself last all the time. You know, it's why
Speaker 2: a lot of women have autoimmune disorders and things. That
Speaker 2: the body will keep the score. That even though he
Speaker 2: may not physically have hit her, often he doesn't have to.
Speaker 2: He keeps her in fear, always second guessing, always, you know,
Speaker 2: walking on eggshells, and that is very damaging to your
Speaker 2: own health state as well in terms of your psychology
Speaker 2: and your emotions. And the body will keep the score.
Speaker 2: Basil Vanderkolt's work that all of that stuff will go somewhere,
Speaker 2: and that's where we see self harm and suicides. We
Speaker 2: see more women disproportionately and their their own lives because
Speaker 2: of a course of controller. So course of control does
Speaker 2: correlate to femicide and for millicide, children being killed, homicide,
Speaker 2: and to suicide, and it significantly correlates. So it really
Speaker 2: is this big red flag that when you see it
Speaker 2: with the mindset, the psychopathology of the offender, I must
Speaker 2: win it all costs. It ends my way. And when
Speaker 2: I say it ends, these sorts of things when they
Speaker 2: want revenge, they will scorch the earth and they are
Speaker 2: incredibly dangerous and there's a proportion, well, there's a number
Speaker 2: of them who are psychopaths, and that's why we have
Speaker 2: to take it seriously because they're master manipulators, and often
Speaker 2: police and others have no idea who's in front of
Speaker 2: them when they're interviewing them, and they don't understand their
Speaker 2: master manipulators.
Speaker 1: And it all comes down what you're saying there, and
Speaker 1: I do understand exactly what you're saying, but it comes
Speaker 1: down to education, education of police officers so they understand
Speaker 1: what they're actually dealing with because I know quite often
Speaker 1: you hear from a victim's point of view, I'm too
Speaker 1: scared to leave him because if I leave him, and
Speaker 1: I think the facts would play out, those statistics would
Speaker 1: play out. That is a danger period where someone has
Speaker 1: left a coercive relationship. So we get the legislation in
Speaker 1: that's one thing, but I also know as a former
Speaker 1: police officer, legislation is one thing, but we've got to
Speaker 1: know how to use the legislation and the courts have
Speaker 1: got to accept the legislation. Do you think that is
Speaker 1: part of the introduction of the legislation that will play
Speaker 1: out that police will be educated and see it as
Speaker 1: a tool, a worthwhile tool that they can use and
Speaker 1: the courts will back up the police.
Speaker 2: Expert led training before any new law comes in is
Speaker 2: an absolute must and New South Wales have done that training.
Speaker 2: Scotland they did the training before the law came in
Speaker 2: England and Wales we put it through Parliament and we
Speaker 2: were voted down and we didn't have that mandatory training
Speaker 2: and we've been trying to play catch up ever since.
Speaker 2: So yes, you're absolutely right, and you know it has
Speaker 2: to be expert led training of understanding how the law
Speaker 2: makes contact in the real world, because often I hear
Speaker 2: things like, oh, this law is so hard to prove,
Speaker 2: where actually the practical points are very clear. If an
Speaker 2: officer and court staff are trained, it's actually really clear
Speaker 2: and obvious. And as I always say, once you're trained
Speaker 2: to see it, you can't unsee it. And that training
Speaker 2: is just so important. It's a lifeline. And that's where
Speaker 2: I think often we just don't invest in quality training,
Speaker 2: and I've delivered training to people all over the world.
Speaker 2: I've got my next Course of Control master class on
Speaker 2: December fourth and fifth coming up, where we go through
Speaker 2: not just the behaviors and the victimology, but the psychology
Speaker 2: of the offenders and the legislation in different parts of
Speaker 2: the world, because it has to make contact with the
Speaker 2: real world and not just be an academic exercise. I, Laura,
Speaker 2: are just all the things that you've got your head
Speaker 2: across and the things that you're doing.
Speaker 1: I honestly don't know where you get the time to
Speaker 1: do all this, but clearly you have a passion for it.
Speaker 1: But fighting town hall as I call it, when you're
Speaker 1: trying to argue change legislation. But we've always done it
Speaker 1: this way. Yeah, stupid, but it's not working. We're trying
Speaker 1: to change things. I know what you're up against, so
Speaker 1: full credit to you. But there's other stuff, and I've
Speaker 1: got so many things I want to speak to you about.
Speaker 1: But Dirty John, you have some knowledge about that. People
Speaker 1: might know about that case through a game, through a
Speaker 1: TV series, but that's often how people are educated. Do
Speaker 1: you want to just talk us through that particular case, incident, scenario,
Speaker 1: whatever you want to describe it as, what your knowledge
Speaker 1: and involvement is in that.
Speaker 2: Yes, I'm in Real Crime profile my other podcast. We
Speaker 2: were asked before the podcast Dirty John dropped, which was
Speaker 2: an LA Times and Wondery podcast and Christopher Goffard was
Speaker 2: the La Times journalist and we were asked to interview
Speaker 2: him before the podcast dropped, so we got all the
Speaker 2: transcripts and had a pre listen and I was just like,
Speaker 2: oh my goodness, this case is about course of control
Speaker 2: and stalking. So you know, when talking to Chris, I
Speaker 2: was doing the interview from London, it was like the
Speaker 2: middle of the night, and you know, I was trying
Speaker 2: to get my brain engaged. But you know, I said
Speaker 2: to him, you know, this case is about coerce of
Speaker 2: control and he said, I've never heard of that term.
Speaker 2: What is that? So I explained it to him, and
Speaker 2: to Chris's credit, he said, if I had understood that before,
Speaker 2: I would have told the story differently. And the case
Speaker 2: really is about a very dangerous individual who would target
Speaker 2: lots of different women at any one time and basically
Speaker 2: try and get their money from them, but he would
Speaker 2: also coercively control them and abuse them and harmed many
Speaker 2: different women. But the story with that Chris was telling
Speaker 2: really happened sort of towards the end of what Mehan
Speaker 2: was doing and the last relationship that he had, and
Speaker 2: the story is kind of unbelievable in many senses, because
Speaker 2: he did try and kill Deborah's daughter Terror, And I mean,
Speaker 2: here's the spoiler. If somebody hasn't listened to it, you know,
Speaker 2: what effectively happened was John couldn't get to Deborah, so
Speaker 2: then he targeted her children, and he went for her daughters.
Speaker 2: And it was Jacqueline who ran the alarm to say,
Speaker 2: I think I just saw John outside my apartment. You know,
Speaker 2: called her mum, called her sister, so they were all
Speaker 2: on red alert. And this is after Deborah had reported
Speaker 2: him to police and had disappeared herself for six months
Speaker 2: because she knew he was going to try and kill her.
Speaker 2: And then he tried to abduct and kill Terror, only
Speaker 2: she ended up grabbing the knife off of him and
Speaker 2: killing him. And that's really why the case was of
Speaker 2: such interest. That Matt Murphy was the district attorney. He
Speaker 2: decided that he wasn't going to prosecute Terror. This was
Speaker 2: self defense. And so Chris Govard decided to tell this
Speaker 2: story just months after that had happened, so the family
Speaker 2: was still in trauma. Effectively, when I interviewed Chris and
Speaker 2: said all of this unbeknownst to me Deborah was listening,
Speaker 2: as was her best friend, and they contacted me and
Speaker 2: said that coercive control that you mentioned, You've given it
Speaker 2: a name, and it's so amazing. It's like you know me,
Speaker 2: but you've never met me. And I just want to
Speaker 2: say thank you. That's what Debra said, and we ended
Speaker 2: up meeting and I ended up being her advocate. There
Speaker 2: was going to be the scripted show. There was going
Speaker 2: to be a documentary. Deborah didn't want to do any
Speaker 2: of that. She got very cold feet about it because
Speaker 2: of the way the podcast landed, and she got blamed
Speaker 2: for a lot of things because of the way the
Speaker 2: podcast positioned her of being married four times. There was
Speaker 2: a lot of judgment and the podcast didn't include all
Speaker 2: the steps that she took to protect herself and her children,
Speaker 2: and so there was a lot of criticism of Deborah
Speaker 2: and I ended up being advocate. It was a scripted show.
Speaker 2: In the end, she did sign the contract. It ended
Speaker 2: up going out on Bravo. Connie Britten played her and
Speaker 2: Eric Banner played played John. And there was the documentary
Speaker 2: which I was a consulting producer on, where all the
Speaker 2: women that John had targeted and abused all the horror
Speaker 2: story of the true story of what happened. We put
Speaker 2: into a documentary called Dirty John The Dirty Truth. And
Speaker 2: then I worked with his first wife of ten years, Tanya,
Speaker 2: and we did an audible investigation with Tanya at the
Speaker 2: center of it called John Meehan's Reign of Terror. And
Speaker 2: Tanya thought she had processed everything, but as I said
Speaker 2: to her, you don't know the half of what John
Speaker 2: meehan was up to. I mean, he was a very
Speaker 2: dangerous serial stalker, course of controller and psychopath. And so yeah,
Speaker 2: now when people say, oh, what's course of control? I
Speaker 2: always say, watch Dirty John, or listen to the podcast
Speaker 2: or my episodes with Tanya and Deborah, because the unrap
Speaker 2: it's like a thread that you put on a jumper.
Speaker 2: There's so many parts to it, you know, or a sweater,
Speaker 2: there's so many parts to it that and he got
Speaker 2: away with it for so long. Gary. You know, the
Speaker 2: authorities when Deborah was reporting it, they kept saying to her,
Speaker 2: even though he threatened to kill her, they said, this
Speaker 2: is a civil matter, go to the civil courts. And
Speaker 2: she got turned away from four different police stations where
Speaker 2: they said nothing to do with us.
Speaker 1: Shows like Dirty John and other shows, whether they're scripted
Speaker 1: series or documentaries. That's a way of educating people, isn't it.
Speaker 1: Because what you've said there with coercive Control and Dirty John.
Speaker 1: I speak to people about it too, and quite often
Speaker 1: people don't understand it, but your reference to Dirty John
Speaker 1: gives people a full understanding of what the nature of
Speaker 1: the crime is and what exactly is occurring. So that's
Speaker 1: another way of educating people, it is, and.
Speaker 2: That's why Deborah just to say, for Debra, that's why
Speaker 2: she wanted her story told to help people and raise awareness.
Speaker 2: And that's been that's an important part to a lot
Speaker 2: of survivors that what happened to them isn't just you know,
Speaker 2: a horror story that it's actually put to use to
Speaker 2: educate other people who may find themselves in that situation.
Speaker 2: But I can also use it to educate legislators, you know,
Speaker 2: and say we'll listen to this podcast or listen to
Speaker 2: crime an unless my interview with Deborah and Tanya, and
Speaker 2: then they get it the far broader and fuller picture
Speaker 2: of what coercive control is and what serial perpetration is about.
Speaker 1: And I think it also not only educates but helps
Speaker 1: victims who are quite often left in isolation, appreciate that
Speaker 1: this is happening to other people, not just myself, and
Speaker 1: I think there's some comfort that's brought from that that
Speaker 1: and they are victims, there's nothing to be ashamed of.
Speaker 1: It's an offense as being committed against them, but I
Speaker 1: think there's sometimes shame that they don't want to speak out.
Speaker 1: They're embarrassed by their situation. So getting that discussion talking
Speaker 1: about is a good thing. I just want to ask
Speaker 1: you with stalking, if police aren't taking it seriously, what
Speaker 1: advice would you give to a woman that's being stalked
Speaker 1: and she's gone to the play station not getting the response,
Speaker 1: what other things that can let person do?
Speaker 2: It really depends in which country they live. If they're
Speaker 2: in the UK, then I would recommend that they contact Paladin,
Speaker 2: the National Stalking Advocacy Service. That they do have independent
Speaker 2: stalking advocacy case workers there and there's a lot of
Speaker 2: information on the website. So if you're anywhere in the
Speaker 2: world being stalked, do you go on Paladin's website. It's
Speaker 2: an incredible resource of information, and equally on my own website,
Speaker 2: the Laura Richards dot Com, there's information on stalking specifically
Speaker 2: and coercive control, and I would recommend that they tell
Speaker 2: people what's happening for them, people at work, people who
Speaker 2: are in their everyday orbit, friends, family, Let them know
Speaker 2: that something's happening, because often with victims of stalking, your
Speaker 2: world shrinks down and you don't tell people, and that
Speaker 2: level of isolation compounds issues around your mental health. But
Speaker 2: also it gives the stalker room to maneuver, and often
Speaker 2: they've enabled them their way into their relationships. So let
Speaker 2: other people know. Go on the DASH Risk Checklist website.
Speaker 2: Answer the questions on the DASH and it doesn't matter
Speaker 2: where you are in the world. If you filled that
Speaker 2: out and there's stalking, and let's say there could be
Speaker 2: coerc of control as well, fill it out. Go in
Speaker 2: see the police and say that you've listened to Laura
Speaker 2: Richards and you've heard that these things are high risk
Speaker 2: factors and that you're concerned for your safety and you
Speaker 2: want them to help and be very be very matter
Speaker 2: of fact about that. One of the things I've learned
Speaker 2: from working with thousands of victims and setting up Paladin
Speaker 2: is often they can equivocate and say things like it
Speaker 2: might be something or it might be nothing. I mean, Gary,
Speaker 2: you've worked in the police. The minute says someone says
Speaker 2: something like that, it might be something that might be nothing, right,
Speaker 2: it gets written off.
Speaker 1: It might be and so exactly.
Speaker 2: That's always a big problem.
Speaker 1: I think that's that's great advice and I really take
Speaker 1: on board telling people it's nothing to be ashamed of.
Speaker 1: If you've been stalked, tell people and it makes it
Speaker 1: harder for them. But that's fantastic advice.
Speaker 2: The other thing I would just quickly say is collect evidence.
Speaker 2: You know, if it's on your phone or you've got
Speaker 2: pictures or emails or texts, make sure you collect all
Speaker 2: of that and keep a diary of what happened, where
Speaker 2: it happened, and how it made you feel. You have
Speaker 2: to document all of these things. And then you know,
Speaker 2: as I said, reach out to experts on stalking. And
Speaker 2: there are experts in Australia, there's experts in America, in Canada,
Speaker 2: in the UK. So do reach out to other specialist
Speaker 2: services who can help you.
Speaker 1: One hundred percent agree. The other advice I give, or
Speaker 1: in continuation of that, is make contemporaneous notes, document it,
Speaker 1: and walk into the police station with that documented and
Speaker 1: hand the documents over to the police, and also get
Speaker 1: the police officer's name that you're handing it over to,
Speaker 1: and little little things like that can make a difference
Speaker 1: on what sort of action gets taken. I left law
Speaker 1: enforcement and came into the world of media and doing
Speaker 1: things like the podcast series. I was really concerned. I
Speaker 1: didn't want to glorify crime like that was just the
Speaker 1: copying me thought, Okay, how do I navigate my way
Speaker 1: through here without glorifying crime or sensationalizing crime? What I
Speaker 1: found with podcasting world and I just want to get
Speaker 1: your thoughts on it. It is a good way to
Speaker 1: get messaging across. You can make a difference, and it
Speaker 1: might be as simple as having a victim on a
Speaker 1: podcast to explain what they went through and people all
Speaker 1: of a sudden get it. How have you found you've
Speaker 1: worked in law enforcement, now you're working in the media.
Speaker 1: How have you found the transition and have you Do
Speaker 1: you feel comfortable in the role that you're doing within
Speaker 1: this space in the media.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's an interesting question because it's been an evolving
Speaker 2: space and I find that I feel very uncomfortable when
Speaker 2: people sensationalize the killers, and you know, hold them up,
Speaker 2: give them monikers and talk about them as if they's
Speaker 2: something to be celebrated. And you know, to be frank,
Speaker 2: there's no serial killer who's called the small dick killer.
Speaker 2: They are always given these big names, right's yeah. And
Speaker 2: for me having worked those cases, a lot of those
Speaker 2: names like the Yorkshire are word, the Yorkshire Ripper, I'll
Speaker 2: say at once that was the moniker that was given
Speaker 2: to him, and it made law enforcement police officers think
Speaker 2: he was this big, scary character when actually he was
Speaker 2: this small, weedy, you know, high pitched man who every
Speaker 2: time he was in front of them, they couldn't make
Speaker 2: that leap. And so the monikers are really problematic because
Speaker 2: they make the offender feel special, and that still goes
Speaker 2: on in this space of oh, serial killers, like it's
Speaker 2: a real fun thing. But you and I both know
Speaker 2: the devastation and the trauma that's left behind when someone's killed.
Speaker 2: So that makes me feel very uncomfortable. And I think
Speaker 2: there is a balance to be met that you can
Speaker 2: do ethical true crime, you know, reporting or talking about
Speaker 2: a case, allowing victims and survivors to have a platform
Speaker 2: to tell their stories, which is really important for them.
Speaker 2: And you know, making sure that you're telling the right
Speaker 2: facts about a case, because I think there's a lot
Speaker 2: of podcasters who rely on wiki and you and I
Speaker 2: both know that what goes on with the case and
Speaker 2: what's put out, you know, either on wiki or in
Speaker 2: the media, it can give a very distorted view of
Speaker 2: what really went on. And I think those false narratives
Speaker 2: can be very problematic. And you know, podcasters who don't
Speaker 2: even get the victims name right. You know, all of
Speaker 2: those things. It all comes down to, you know, doing
Speaker 2: your research and doing things in a responsible way rather than, oh,
Speaker 2: isn't it exciting, we're talking about true crime and we
Speaker 2: want to make some money and make this a comedy show,
Speaker 2: and isn't it funny this woman was killed? You know.
Speaker 2: That kind of stuff I really find very difficult.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well that's good because it's interesting speaking to someone
Speaker 1: that's gone a similar path. And the things that you
Speaker 1: hit on Mare is that if you're being involved in that,
Speaker 1: you understand the devastation that crime has. I feel comfortable
Speaker 1: in what I do on the podcast and what I
Speaker 1: do in other media forums. I'm not glorifying crime. I'm
Speaker 1: helping people understand crime and also making people aware of
Speaker 1: the stuff that you're doing, like stalking. Hello, we're shouting
Speaker 1: out if someone's stalking you, there's a concern, and we
Speaker 1: shout that out to the police. If someone turns up
Speaker 1: and they've been stalked, have a look at it, because
Speaker 1: it's serious coercive control. I know the work that you've
Speaker 1: done on that and how far that's spread. Such an
Speaker 1: important thing. So there's only so much you can do
Speaker 1: in law enforcement to make a difference. But media provides
Speaker 1: a platform, and podcasting I think provides a great platform
Speaker 1: to get that messaging out. As long as it's the
Speaker 1: right messaging.
Speaker 2: I agree. It can be very empowering. And you know,
Speaker 2: I've heard from thousands and thousands of people. Just today,
Speaker 2: I've got another four messages saying that what I've said
Speaker 2: on a podcast has really help them, and that for
Speaker 2: me makes me walk ten foot two. You know, there's
Speaker 2: no metric to show that success, but for me, that
Speaker 2: is success helping one person. I mean today four people
Speaker 2: message me to say that. Because when you're being victimized,
Speaker 2: often you don't realize the seriousness of what's going on.
Speaker 2: And often if someone was telling you it, you might
Speaker 2: not believe it. So when you realize it in your
Speaker 2: own time. It's a very different experience, you know. And
Speaker 2: as I say to people, if they're worried about a
Speaker 2: relative or someone that they love but they're resistant to
Speaker 2: the conversation, We'll just point them in the direction of
Speaker 2: Dirty John or my podcasts on Crime Analyst. It can
Speaker 2: be so powerful as that kind of tool, and that's
Speaker 2: why I do what I do. And yeah, time is
Speaker 2: always a challenge for me because I'm a mum of
Speaker 2: a little toddler. But I really believe in educating people
Speaker 2: and mainstreaming what I'm doing and not just sitting with
Speaker 2: the knowledge myself, you know, or writing it into an
Speaker 2: academic paper that no one reads. I really want to
Speaker 2: mainstream and get the risks out there because it will
Speaker 2: say lives and it has saved lives and changed lives.
Speaker 1: If people want to listen to your podcasts, where can
Speaker 1: they get your podcasts?
Speaker 2: Yep, Crime Analysts and Real Crime Profile are on every platform,
Speaker 2: so whether it's Spotify, Apple. I've also got a YouTube
Speaker 2: channel for Crime Analyst, and I also have a Patreon
Speaker 2: where we have a lot more discussions, extra episodes and
Speaker 2: it's called the Crime Analyst Squad where I put a
Speaker 2: lot more information, you know, and content on there, and
Speaker 2: we have happy hours where people can ask me questions,
Speaker 2: so you know, it's a way where I can engage
Speaker 2: with people at a far deeper level than you know,
Speaker 2: the seven platforms on social media where I get trolled
Speaker 2: horribly because I'm spotlighting you know, male violence to women,
Speaker 2: and there's a lot of people who don't like the
Speaker 2: fact that I'm talking about saving women's lives. But that's
Speaker 2: not to say I don't work with men either, because
Speaker 2: I do. It's just that when we look at who's
Speaker 2: doing what to whom, the majority of the cases that
Speaker 2: can end up up where you know, people are murdered
Speaker 2: and escalating, it does tend to be men who are
Speaker 2: killing women. It's a disproportionate level. So that's important to
Speaker 2: say because too often women are too polite about what's
Speaker 2: happening to them, or they feel shame or humiliation or judgment.
Speaker 2: So the bit about going into the police, taking someone
Speaker 2: with you, you know, an advocate, and filling out the
Speaker 2: risk assessment is really important. But yeah, you can find
Speaker 2: me on all social media platforms, and do listen to
Speaker 2: the podcast because it's unraveling lots of different types of cases,
Speaker 2: and I hope that that is helpful to.
Speaker 1: People most definitely. I know there'll be a comment going,
Speaker 1: but what about the blokes that are stalked? What about
Speaker 1: the men that the victims of coercive control. Yes they're victims,
Speaker 1: and yes they do need attension, But the sheer volume
Speaker 1: of women the victims in these situations far outweigh the men.
Speaker 1: Would that be a fair assessment, So we're not ignoring
Speaker 1: the men, it's just the nature of the crime is
Speaker 1: more orientated towards women being victims.
Speaker 2: Well, a female firefighter put it this way. She said,
Speaker 2: when she gets a call out to a house that's
Speaker 2: burning and it's in a terrace, she goes to the
Speaker 2: house that is burning in the middle of the terrace.
Speaker 2: She doesn't go to houses that are either side of it.
Speaker 2: And that's what we have to understand that when we
Speaker 2: look at the stats, we look at the figures, we
Speaker 2: look at the disproportionate nature of women being killed by men,
Speaker 2: and that's why we have to have that conversation about
Speaker 2: what's going on for men. And that's not to the
Speaker 2: detriment of excluding boys and men, but we all have
Speaker 2: to be part of the solution, and unfortunately, you know,
Speaker 2: we do see a new Scotland yard. I never started
Speaker 2: my career saying I'm going to work on male violence
Speaker 2: to women. It's just what was given to me in
Speaker 2: terms of the cases that kept happening. You think about
Speaker 2: most serial killers, well, who are they targeting. They're targeting
Speaker 2: women and children. It would make no sense at all
Speaker 2: to disregard what our figures and our statistics and our
Speaker 2: cases show us. And in fact the Home Office in
Speaker 2: England and well show that ninety three percent of the
Speaker 2: perpetrators have coerci control domestic mind its are men and
Speaker 2: why would you disregard that information? It makes no sense.
Speaker 1: Well, look from what I've saying, I've learned about your work,
Speaker 1: and we've only touched on some of the work that
Speaker 1: you've done. We might have to get you back on
Speaker 1: it on again. But the work that you're doing, you
Speaker 1: are actually making a difference. So full credit to you,
Speaker 1: and i'd like to say thank you, but thank you
Speaker 1: for coming not just on the podcast, but you're making
Speaker 1: the world a safer place. Keep up the good work.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Yeah, I mean I think that legacy is
Speaker 2: very important. I want a better place for my son,
Speaker 2: because right now I fear for the next generation with
Speaker 2: the likes of Andrew Tait and just some of the
Speaker 2: things that have been going on. And I take that
Speaker 2: responsibility very seriously and I've always followed the work rather
Speaker 2: than a promotion or a career, So I play my
Speaker 2: part in the way that I can. And I really
Speaker 2: thank you for the work that you've done, and also
Speaker 2: for talking with me and being somebody of shining a
Speaker 2: light and what needs to change. And we need more
Speaker 2: men like you Gary doing that and talking in this
Speaker 2: space and helping people understand what needs to change and
Speaker 2: what needs to be done.
Speaker 1: So thank you, cheers. It's a nice, nice way to end.
Speaker 1: Thanks very much. What an impressive person, Laura Richards is.
Speaker 1: I found that chat fascinating and I hope it informs
Speaker 1: people about the dangers of stalking and coercive control and
Speaker 1: all the other indicators that we've got to look out
Speaker 1: for that can prevent major crimes from happening. But the
Speaker 1: work that she does, not just here in Australia but
Speaker 1: across the globe is worth what