Speaker 1: The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Speaker 1: Detective sy aside of life the average person is never
Speaker 1: 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, Greg,
Speaker 1: I like to like I did prepare before court. I
Speaker 1: prepare before I do podcasts, and it's in part of
Speaker 1: my investigation. Before I've sat down spoken to you that
Speaker 1: it's come to my attention, there's an allegation that you'll
Speaker 1: fired a three fifty seven magnum in central local court.
Speaker 1: Now I'm going to ask you about that. I want
Speaker 1: you to understand you're not obliged to say anything or
Speaker 1: do anything, but anything you do, say or do may
Speaker 1: later be used in evidence. Do you understand that.
Speaker 2: I do understand that.
Speaker 1: Gary, Okay, well, I want you to choose your words
Speaker 1: very carefully and think what I'm asking you here. Greg.
Speaker 1: Have you ever fired a three point fifty seven magnum
Speaker 1: in Central Local Court?
Speaker 2: I have, fortunately it was later with blanks, but I
Speaker 2: have fired the gun in the presence of two ones.
Speaker 2: To cease now, so we've got to speak well of
Speaker 2: you two, very very well. They thought they were funny.
Speaker 2: Detect this.
Speaker 1: I think it's pretty funny. In this day and age.
Speaker 1: I definitely wouldn't think it'd be acceptable, can you. I
Speaker 1: was reading about that and it's written down somewhere about
Speaker 1: you firing that three point fifty seven magnum in the
Speaker 1: courthouse or in the front of the courthouse.
Speaker 2: No, it was. It was in the foyer of Central
Speaker 2: Local Court. And anyone who's been to Central Local Court
Speaker 2: will know that you walked through these a walk up
Speaker 2: the steps of this beautiful old court building. It was
Speaker 2: the original Magistrates court, and you walk through some glass
Speaker 2: doors and further glass doors into this big area which
Speaker 2: leads off into various court rooms and the court office
Speaker 2: and It was probably about three o'clock in the afternoon,
Speaker 2: and for some reason I had to go down there.
Speaker 2: It may have been to file something or to find
Speaker 2: out what was going on in a particular court that
Speaker 2: I had some interest in. And I walked in and
Speaker 2: I ran into a now deceeased officer, Billy Mansell, who
Speaker 2: was a genuinely nice guy and had actually done a
Speaker 2: lot of undercover worker and it all seemed to me
Speaker 2: that he was too nice a black to be involved
Speaker 2: in that sort of stuff. And in any event, Billy
Speaker 2: was there with another detective who I can't recall, and
Speaker 2: when I ran into Bell, and he'd been involved in
Speaker 2: a lot of drug investigations that I had been involved in,
Speaker 2: and I lusted what they were doing there. And they
Speaker 2: said they were hanging around waiting to give evidence, and
Speaker 2: what was the case about, and they said it's drugs
Speaker 2: and guns. And I'd sort of been glanced to my
Speaker 2: right and just to the left of the entrance to
Speaker 2: the court room there's this great, big revolver sitting on
Speaker 2: the chair, large as life.
Speaker 1: Clean Eastwood Stock exactly.
Speaker 2: It was. They're big guns. They're big guns. And so
Speaker 2: I've walked over and I said, is that a three
Speaker 2: five seven mag And they said, yeah, you have a
Speaker 2: look at it, pick it up. Well, they were really
Speaker 2: really friendly about it and encouraging. Man, I'm not a
Speaker 2: particularly lover of guns, but I thought, well, I'll just
Speaker 2: want to get a feel of this thing. What they
Speaker 2: didn't tell me was that the bloody thing had a
Speaker 2: hair trigger and that they'd put blanks in it. I've
Speaker 2: touched I've picked it up. As I was turning around
Speaker 2: to say something like, just bloody heavy, isn't it, I've
Speaker 2: touched the trigger and it's gone off. In the middle
Speaker 2: of the foyer with cases going on, Well, all hell
Speaker 2: break loose there and people started running from everywhere, and
Speaker 2: excuse me using this language. There's Billy and the other
Speaker 2: copper absolutely pissing themselves with laughter and having a great
Speaker 2: joke at my expense. And it took me a long
Speaker 2: time to live that down.
Speaker 1: That is a that is a good get. That is
Speaker 1: a very good job. But could you imagine if that
Speaker 1: happened today? The courthouse would be shut down, It'd be secured,
Speaker 1: there'd be negotiaders called out, it would just and everyone
Speaker 1: involved in it would be in all sorts of trouble
Speaker 1: and people who would be off on post aumatic stress.
Speaker 1: It's a different world, isn't it.
Speaker 2: It is it is we take I think I think
Speaker 2: in some respects we take life too seriously.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And like you were the scene, some of the
Speaker 1: characters in the police and some of the crooks, some
Speaker 1: of the people in the court, some of the court officers.
Speaker 1: There was a little bit more robust and there was
Speaker 1: a lot of sense. There was a sense of humor
Speaker 1: in there as well.
Speaker 2: There was It's one of my favorite, not warding homes,
Speaker 2: but lunching places is a Greek restaurant. I give them
Speaker 2: a plug called Vietne's.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I had many a meal there and it's.
Speaker 2: Still great food. And i'd regularly see tables of detectives
Speaker 2: down there on a Friday afternoon. And as I said,
Speaker 2: you leave everything in the courtroom. It's everyone got a
Speaker 2: job to do in this industry and you've got to
Speaker 2: take it seriously, but you shouldn't carry it with you
Speaker 2: when you leave. And you'd always have a laugh.
Speaker 1: And I think that that's good. And there's I'm sure
Speaker 1: there's people that you've crossed it that you don't get
Speaker 1: past that. But the people that I've dealt with when
Speaker 1: I don't mind playing hard but fair, and I respect
Speaker 1: people with the doing their job coming at the hard
Speaker 1: but fair and vice versa, and there's not it's nice
Speaker 1: sometimes after it's finished that you can actually yeah, it
Speaker 1: might be just a begrudging nod, but showing respect to
Speaker 1: the person that you've been up against in an adversarial
Speaker 1: system because you are up against them, and the way
Speaker 1: you described it in part one, it's like a playing
Speaker 1: within the rules of a sporting match.
Speaker 2: I've had the benefit. On one occasion, I was in
Speaker 2: the Old Courthouse Hotel after a trial. I think it
Speaker 2: was up there with Pat Costello. Pat and I'd get
Speaker 2: involved in a trial up there, and we're actually having
Speaker 2: a drink with a very legend detective by the name
Speaker 2: of Johnny Burke. It was as hard as nails have
Speaker 2: a drink with John and he was the nicest blake
Speaker 2: in the world. When someone came up and started giving
Speaker 2: either him or the grief, well, he went from the
Speaker 2: nicest blake in the world to a bloke I wouldn't
Speaker 2: want it to have been arrested by.
Speaker 1: Didn't want to take that different person, didn't want to
Speaker 1: wan across at the court house. I tell yeah, many
Speaker 1: a victory drink spent there, just leading into that when
Speaker 1: you do win a case is there and I would
Speaker 1: imagine and people that you genuinely don't believe it are
Speaker 1: guilty and the justice would be served if they've gone off.
Speaker 1: Do you go out then celebrate? And you don't have
Speaker 1: to specific examples, but is it something that's done.
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, it is something that's done. You go and
Speaker 2: have a drink with the with the sort of the
Speaker 2: defendants group, with the q's group, but you don't spend
Speaker 2: it a lot of time there. I got caught once
Speaker 2: down at Aubrey with the with the Black Ullans after
Speaker 2: winning a case there, and I was supposed to be
Speaker 2: It was a Friday, and I was I supposed to
Speaker 2: beginning home the next day to move house with my wife.
Speaker 2: And she never lets me forget this, but they got
Speaker 2: me absolutely drunk to the point where I couldn't get
Speaker 2: on the plane they had. They had to carry me
Speaker 2: home to someone's bed and put me on the plane
Speaker 2: the next day.
Speaker 1: Okay, great caution, I shouldn't have to. Yeah, it might
Speaker 1: sound exciting going for a drink at the clubhouse, but yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: they got you, they got me. Okay, well you've learnt,
Speaker 1: you learned your lesson. You've been around long enough to
Speaker 1: see King's Cross when it was that that golden mile,
Speaker 1: when it was the under the King's Cross, underworld, the underbelly.
Speaker 1: Tell us about your experiences there because you're working in
Speaker 1: criminal law there before the Royal Commission of the Wood
Speaker 1: Royal Commission, I'm talking about the commission into police corruption
Speaker 1: that dragged a lot of people in. But you you
Speaker 1: knew that world, you understood that world, and tell us
Speaker 1: about those times.
Speaker 2: It was. It was an interesting It was an interesting
Speaker 2: world because it was it was the place where people
Speaker 2: went to enjoy themselves. But it was it was, as
Speaker 2: I said, we go back to the Vietnam War as
Speaker 2: being I think the crucial element in the development of
Speaker 2: the drug culture in Australia. The American R and R
Speaker 2: boys brought drugs back and it's sort of burgeoned after that,
Speaker 2: and King's Cross was the place where everyone went, and
Speaker 2: it was just there were so many clubs. You could
Speaker 2: go to some clubs and you could get your weed.
Speaker 2: You you can go to other clubs to get your
Speaker 2: meth or your coke. There was a little well, I
Speaker 2: suppose I don't know whether I should name the person
Speaker 2: who was responsible. He's done his fifteen years, but he
Speaker 2: was well known and he was represented in Underbelly. But
Speaker 2: he added a little shoot where he It was like
Speaker 2: a little service Winday, I don't get what you wanted,
Speaker 2: but it was really really quite straight and back in
Speaker 2: the day you had people who were in and around
Speaker 2: the cross of Imember Sweethearts Cafe. It's famous from a
Speaker 2: Jimmy Barnes song, Breakfast Sweethearts. I ate breakfast at Sweetheart's
Speaker 2: quite a few times after going in at four o'clock
Speaker 2: in the morning or two o'clock in the morning to
Speaker 2: King's Cross police station to advise clients.
Speaker 1: Okay, thew we're up now, we may as well have breakfast.
Speaker 2: But it was interesting times garrier because of the nature
Speaker 2: of the location. It was just one of those places
Speaker 2: at that particular time where from a person who didn't
Speaker 2: have to be involved in the crime, so to speak,
Speaker 2: was absolutely amazing.
Speaker 1: Well, I think you do get then you're fortunate. And
Speaker 1: I found that in policing, in the work that I did,
Speaker 1: you get to look in to a world that you
Speaker 1: don't want to be part of You don't want to
Speaker 1: be fully embedded in it. But you get to see
Speaker 1: what's going on and get an understanding of it. Because
Speaker 1: Louis Bay you had dealings with him. Did you act
Speaker 1: for him or just came across?
Speaker 2: No, I acted for Louis, and then I had Then
Speaker 2: I had cause not to want anything else to do
Speaker 2: with Louis. At one stage I was in some respects
Speaker 2: I was naive in relation to the way I thought
Speaker 2: I handled my relationship with him. But I can say
Speaker 2: that on a number of occasions Louis said, I want
Speaker 2: you to come and have a Chinese lunch out at
Speaker 2: Parramatta with me. Well, I've turned up and I'm sitting
Speaker 2: at a table with Roger.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Roger Rogerson, the former New South Wales police officer,
Speaker 1: corrupt police officer and convicted murderer.
Speaker 2: Lanny McPherson, a couple of other people who wait, a
Speaker 2: good crew, you've got the game, and Lurry and Sorry
Speaker 2: and Louis. And it was a bit of an education.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's funny, isn't it. Well it's not funny,
Speaker 1: but that's how you get indoctrinated into that world, like
Speaker 1: come and have a lunch and then oh, well, yeah
Speaker 1: I've spoken to that person, and then the next thing,
Speaker 1: Roger's on the phone. I want you to do a
Speaker 1: favor for me, and you can get caught up in
Speaker 1: that world, can't you.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I never had anything to do with Roger. Wilst
Speaker 2: it was a detective. He was actually doing wrought iron
Speaker 2: and putting rowed iron in gold and jar you know,
Speaker 2: different bars and things, which is quite it looks.
Speaker 1: I think he was doing some other stuff too, but.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well and he didn't learn from his first job.
Speaker 1: His last one was a classic was yeah.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, anyone who can think they could walk around
Speaker 2: a city the size of Sydney, you'll not be photographed
Speaker 2: a thousand times. He's got another thing.
Speaker 1: And look, Roger was from a police point of view,
Speaker 1: and like my early days in policing, I remember being
Speaker 1: in the witness boxes. I was in the arm hole
Speaker 1: up squad in the nineties. Again in the witness box.
Speaker 1: I've never met Roger, but being cross examined. So you're
Speaker 1: in the arm toole up squad, aren't you. I don't
Speaker 1: think it was you. Okay, you're in the arm hole
Speaker 1: up squad, aren't you? Yes, and so you're you're the
Speaker 1: tough guys. You bash them, you lower them, you do this.
Speaker 1: Roger Rogerson's your hero. And that was a narrative because
Speaker 1: he put a stain on all of us, and not
Speaker 1: just Roger, there was other people. But that's world that
Speaker 1: you're in. Before the Royal Commission exposed it all and
Speaker 1: people were accountable, it was a dangerous, dangerous place to operate,
Speaker 1: wasn't it.
Speaker 2: I never felt it was dangerous, right, Okay? As I said,
Speaker 2: and I've said this to others, the only person who
Speaker 2: I really thought uncomfortable with was Lenny was with with
Speaker 2: Netdie Smith.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what what was it about that?
Speaker 2: I just think that it was Nettie's persona, his demeanor.
Speaker 2: He was sort of this brooding character and just felt
Speaker 2: slightly uncomfortable with him.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, even look for the crimes and yeah he's
Speaker 1: passed away, we can we can talk openly. But the
Speaker 1: the crimes that he was involved in, and he sounded
Speaker 1: like a grub in some of the things that he
Speaker 1: did that you know, he had that persona of being
Speaker 1: a gangster, but there was that other side side to him.
Speaker 2: He was psychopathical, didn't seem to have any regard for
Speaker 2: human like now that others may say differently.
Speaker 1: I take on board that that's your impression.
Speaker 2: But that's but I and I was never exposed to
Speaker 2: his really really outside but I just felt there was
Speaker 2: sort of this brooding presence there that was difficult.
Speaker 1: It's interesting you identify him of all the people you've
Speaker 1: dealt with, and you've come across a wide range of
Speaker 1: let's call them villains or colorful identities, that he was
Speaker 1: one that you got that got that sense from.
Speaker 2: Well, when you think of a person who I had
Speaker 2: some regard for, and that's Abbot Henry Graham. Abbot Henry.
Speaker 1: He's a former gangster that used to run with Neddie
Speaker 1: Smith during the Roger Rogerson era.
Speaker 2: Graham is the nicest flake and the funniest blake you're made.
Speaker 2: And to put him in the same gang as Neddie,
Speaker 2: I think he was ran in that sort of circle.
Speaker 2: He just too totally different type of people.
Speaker 1: Well, I know Graham pretty pretty well now and he's
Speaker 1: been on the podcast and I've caught up with him
Speaker 1: a bit. When you say it's a nice blake, I
Speaker 1: grew up in the same area and they used to
Speaker 1: terrorize people were young, changed Yeah, he's changed, let's say.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I know what you're saying. Very personal saw
Speaker 1: the blake. You can sit down and speak to Graham
Speaker 1: and have a laugh, have a drink, and yeah.
Speaker 2: You see, there's the difference between police officers and criminal lawyers.
Speaker 2: When you're dealing with the same people, they have a
Speaker 2: totally different attitude to you than they do to me. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and so you see them from different perspectives.
Speaker 1: Gary, Well, that's true, that's true. What you had interesting
Speaker 1: when you were dealing with Louis Baya that he had
Speaker 1: a young.
Speaker 2: Driver that was Johnny Ibrahim.
Speaker 1: Did you identify john as someone that was going to
Speaker 1: rise to the level he did?
Speaker 2: No, No, I didn't recognize it, but having observed it
Speaker 2: over the many years, I have no doubt that he
Speaker 2: was always going to do well for himself. Yeah. John
Speaker 2: reads situation as well, and he was. I think he
Speaker 2: found himself in the right place at the right time,
Speaker 2: with the rights skills to be able to gain from
Speaker 2: his good luck.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, he's where he's at now, He's many his
Speaker 1: way through, so he must have something going for him.
Speaker 2: Yeah. He's sort of that old expression about laying down
Speaker 2: with dogs and getting up with fleas is relevant to
Speaker 2: all of us. But John's been able to deal with
Speaker 2: that aspect of his life in a reasonable sort of way,
Speaker 2: so that he's come out relatively unscathed.
Speaker 1: Charlie Staunton, you would have had dealings with Charlie Staunton,
Speaker 1: greg He was a former New South Wales police officer
Speaker 1: and he got into some trouble ended up leaving the police,
Speaker 1: so I think he became a private investigator and did
Speaker 1: a bit of wheeling and dealing around King's Cross Again.
Speaker 1: I'm looking at all the people we've had on the podcast,
Speaker 1: but that's what happens when you've been going for a
Speaker 1: few years. But I've got to say, if Charlie didn't exists,
Speaker 1: you'd have to invent him quite the way he's lived
Speaker 1: his life.
Speaker 2: One of Well's lovable rogues.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what what's your what's your take on Charlie? Because
Speaker 1: I had to laugh at some of the things that
Speaker 1: he got up to.
Speaker 2: He's got up to so much. One book's not enough
Speaker 2: for Charlie in terms of what he's been through. But
Speaker 2: Charlie is is is a rogue to start with, and
Speaker 2: we all love him. We don't always want to see
Speaker 2: him because he's gonna he's going to put the pinch
Speaker 2: on us. But when he comes you can always have
Speaker 2: a laugh and you always know what you're getting with Charlie.
Speaker 2: He's pretty upfront.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I found that with him in my dealings with him,
Speaker 1: and I've caught up with him and bumped into him
Speaker 1: at certain certain places, and yeah, he's a character, and like,
Speaker 1: we're not condoning crime. We've sit here, we'll put that
Speaker 1: out there on things. But back in those days there
Speaker 1: were larger than life characters, weren't they. And I I
Speaker 1: don't know. And you mentioned in part one and I
Speaker 1: reflected on it during the break about the way the
Speaker 1: gangsters go about their business now and look at me
Speaker 1: type attitude. It has changed, hasn't it.
Speaker 2: Well, everyone wants to know what you're doing, starting off
Speaker 2: with what you had at the last restaurant you were at,
Speaker 2: who you're laying by the swimming pool with now, and
Speaker 2: who you're killing.
Speaker 1: Don't you take those of your breakfast each morning?
Speaker 2: Don't face it to everyone. It's going to be the
Speaker 2: same every morning, I'm afraid.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I know what you're saying. Interesting, if we're
Speaker 1: talking the way things change, is it harder to be
Speaker 1: a crook now than it would be let's say twenty
Speaker 1: thirty years ago, with all the technology that's changed.
Speaker 2: Do you think it's harder. Certainly harder. But if you're
Speaker 2: switched on crook and you know how to run under
Speaker 2: the radar, I think that you are likely to last
Speaker 2: a lot longer than these guys who have no regard
Speaker 2: to the fact that everything we do in public is scrutinized,
Speaker 2: either by virtue of public cameras or private cameras. Everyone's
Speaker 2: running around with a camera to take photos of you
Speaker 2: these days. Your likelihood of your telephone calls being monitored
Speaker 2: is real. So if you're going to do anything, you've
Speaker 2: better to do it face to face because telephones aren't
Speaker 2: safe and people don't wake up to that. It keeps
Speaker 2: me in business.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you've got a phone on you like
Speaker 1: just the tracking, the ability, and I look at from
Speaker 1: an investigative point of view, if there was a murder. Yeah,
Speaker 1: pre mobile phone days, it was you check who you
Speaker 1: phoned on your landline, what public phones were in the
Speaker 1: area of fingerprints. Look at the technology available now, see
Speaker 1: we could track you from the time you left your
Speaker 1: office in the city to come here and your movements
Speaker 1: and basically everything you've done it so much harder.
Speaker 2: I think I'm involved in a murder case at the moment,
Speaker 2: my client, I think will be I've negotiated him out
Speaker 2: of that aspect of the case or his accessorial involvement
Speaker 2: in the case. But when you looked at the evidence,
Speaker 2: the police were able to track the vehicle that the
Speaker 2: shooters or the assassins if I can call them, that
Speaker 2: used from the time it was stolen until the time
Speaker 2: it was burnt, and in relation to my client who
Speaker 2: was involved in picking them up, exactly where his vehicle
Speaker 2: went as well, because you can't drive around anything that's
Speaker 2: you'd regard as a main arterial road or any arterial
Speaker 2: road without being photographed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a reality of it, isn't well talking about technology,
Speaker 1: And I understand that there's some appeals going through court
Speaker 1: or currently, so if you can't talk too much about it,
Speaker 1: but just your take on that you involved in that
Speaker 1: at all.
Speaker 2: I am involved in that from three different aspects. I've
Speaker 2: got an appeal currently running in relation to a couple
Speaker 2: of clients who pleaded guilty and got rewarded for what
Speaker 2: we call facilitating the course of justice, but that's under
Speaker 2: appeal by the ground as to the inadequacy of the penalties.
Speaker 2: Of opinion that if you want to get people to
Speaker 2: plead guilty, you've got to show them that it's going
Speaker 2: to be worthwhile, because at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: they get locked up, cost one hundred and fifty thousand
Speaker 2: dollars per prisoner to keep them in jail, and in
Speaker 2: some respects they don't come out any better than what
Speaker 2: they went in. So you've got to change the system
Speaker 2: in that regard. I'm involved with others who are waiting
Speaker 2: on the outcome of the High Court appeal, and it's
Speaker 2: a very interesting aspect picture.
Speaker 1: Sorry, and I probably should have because you and I
Speaker 1: know what we're talking about. But that was the sting
Speaker 1: operation that started in America but also used in law
Speaker 1: enforcement over here.
Speaker 2: Operation Inside and cuphibially didn't know the creator or the
Speaker 2: person who organized the creation of what we call the
Speaker 2: phantom Secure Phones, which is one of the encrypted phanes
Speaker 2: that was used some time ago. He was arrested by
Speaker 2: the police and charged with racketeering offenses, which are their
Speaker 2: conspiracy offenses in relation to providing telephones to the Sinaloa cartel.
Speaker 2: So by doing that he was facilitating their ability to
Speaker 2: communicate large drug trafficking enterprises. And he was threatened with
Speaker 2: thirty years in jail and was given the option of
Speaker 2: doing the thirty years or assisting the police and getting
Speaker 2: a lesser sentence. Well, he took the latter, and whilst
Speaker 2: that was in train, he got one of his technicians,
Speaker 2: at the request of the police, to put together the plat.
Speaker 1: For that and people involved in criminal enterprise or I
Speaker 1: won't say that as a defense so you object, your
Speaker 1: honor great as a podcast listener, but that they were
Speaker 1: passed out to people that may or may not have
Speaker 1: been involved in criminal activities, and the police were monitoring
Speaker 1: the cause on phones that the people that had them
Speaker 1: felt they were encrypted and safe, that there's no way
Speaker 1: that law enforcement could monitor what was going on. Is that?
Speaker 2: Well? The way the way that worked was that like
Speaker 2: you or I would send a text and I was
Speaker 2: intending it to go from me to you, I would
Speaker 2: type in the text. That text would then be copied
Speaker 2: within the platform and when when when the text text
Speaker 2: press send, the copy would immediately go through a system
Speaker 2: called called bots eyebots to the police who were monitoring it,
Speaker 2: and there were several agencies that were doing so, and
Speaker 2: there was some suggestion that it had gone through an
Speaker 2: overseas country like Romania, I think, or somewhere like that.
Speaker 2: It was quite kite of complicated. But the South Australian
Speaker 2: Supreme Court, in a case involving I think a conspiracy
Speaker 2: that murder, dealt with the matter first and Justice Kimber
Speaker 2: there decided that it was admissible because it didn't contravene
Speaker 2: the definition of what an actual intercept was because of
Speaker 2: when you press sent. It didn't go to the receiver,
Speaker 2: it went to the police and it was very technically
Speaker 2: and that's a very very simplistic explanation. But the accused
Speaker 2: then appealed. It went to a three court bench who
Speaker 2: upheld Judge Justice Kimber's decision that it wasn't an intercept,
Speaker 2: and now it's gone to the High Court. In the meantime,
Speaker 2: Mark Drayfus, our Attorney General, decided that he'd put through
Speaker 2: legislation and declaring that that particular function that platform, what
Speaker 2: at the anom phone did was not an intercept right
Speaker 2: and that's created a possible constitutional problem because it raises
Speaker 2: the separation of powers and what the courts are there
Speaker 2: to do, and what the High Court is there to
Speaker 2: do to interpret the laws as they apply and the
Speaker 2: definitions as they apply. An interesting question which will now
Speaker 2: arise is has the Attorney General usurped the functions of
Speaker 2: the court and basically denied the operation of the separation
Speaker 2: of powers of which there are three. That Parliament makes laws,
Speaker 2: the Executive enforces the laws, and the judiciary interprets the laws.
Speaker 1: Okay, is going to be interesting. So when we looking
Speaker 1: at decision coming back about.
Speaker 2: That, we're looking at it. I think it'll probably get
Speaker 2: to the High Court between June and August sometimes.
Speaker 1: And there's a lot of people because there's some large
Speaker 1: numbers of people that were charged flowing on from that,
Speaker 1: so high stakes.
Speaker 2: A lot of political pressure out there. I think I'm
Speaker 2: being practical.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would imagine it's well, get on.
Speaker 2: It's a really interesting It is.
Speaker 1: Interesting because if you're making legislation and make it, well,
Speaker 1: it's retrospective, isn't it. It's capturing something from the past.
Speaker 2: And you'd agree. The interesting part about well, your former
Speaker 2: job and my current job is that it's it's all
Speaker 2: about how society works. From the underbelly to the very top.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting. I've got to say, from an ex
Speaker 1: detectives point of view, I thought it was a great
Speaker 1: plan when I heard about it. I'm thinking, damn it, well,
Speaker 1: didn't I think about something like that that's simplistic in
Speaker 1: the planning but very complicated in the actual getting it
Speaker 1: up and running. And I'm surprised. I'm surprised. And I
Speaker 1: can talk like this because I'm not invold them, but
Speaker 1: I'm surprised it didn't get out like there would have
Speaker 1: been a lot of pot.
Speaker 2: You started to get out because someone realized there was
Speaker 2: a leak at the end of it, and that was
Speaker 2: going straight to the police. But it's my turn to object.
Speaker 2: It's my turn to object in criminal law. And I
Speaker 2: think in life, there's a saying which a lot of
Speaker 2: people don't get better, that ninety nine guilty men go
Speaker 2: free than one innocent man be wrongly convicted. And it's
Speaker 2: the chance of using these mechanisms, these platforms, these things,
Speaker 2: or creating a case against a person wrongly that puts
Speaker 2: in a position where people are wrongly convicted. And I
Speaker 2: say to people who say this to me, do you
Speaker 2: really care about these people and how can you act
Speaker 2: for criminals? It's all this sort of stuff, and I say, well,
Speaker 2: hang on a sec We've got a system that should
Speaker 2: be fair, should be reasonable, and shouldn't it shouldn't be
Speaker 2: adam and even giving them the apple again to commit
Speaker 2: a mortal sin because you might get dragging in an
Speaker 2: innocent person and that innocent What I say, do you
Speaker 2: want your son to be that innocent person and do
Speaker 2: twenty years? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Look, and you can't argue with that. Let's saying I
Speaker 1: might have been the old days. I'm not going to.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to now. But yeah, I do understand
Speaker 1: what you're saying, and there needs to be checks and
Speaker 1: balances exactly and to make the system work. But yeah,
Speaker 1: that's going to be fascinating how that comes across, because
Speaker 1: this is a real test is this is the High Court,
Speaker 1: This is making the big decisions, and.
Speaker 2: It's not just lawyers being nerdy. It really has an impact.
Speaker 1: Look, I in regards and I always make comments about
Speaker 1: lawyers and slices and whatnot. I do understand the need
Speaker 1: for proper defense, and I take issue with some people
Speaker 1: that I think cross the line, as you would take
Speaker 1: issue with where you think police have cross across the line.
Speaker 1: I've seen come up against some lawyers. I just think
Speaker 1: that that's stooping too what they've done there. And it
Speaker 1: might be just the way that they're they're cross examining
Speaker 1: someone or the way that they're playing, but we do
Speaker 1: need the checks and balances, so I think we're on
Speaker 1: a grance there. I have now seen it, and I
Speaker 1: keep saying it because it did change my perspective, like
Speaker 1: having the full way that the state coming after you.
Speaker 1: And I know when I was going to court, I
Speaker 1: was thinking, well, that the worst that's going to happen
Speaker 1: to me, you know, I might get a fine or
Speaker 1: something like that. I can't imagine the impact that would
Speaker 1: have on you. If the consequences were when this jury
Speaker 1: comes back or this judge comes back, that could dictate
Speaker 1: the rest of your life.
Speaker 2: Like its high stakes, but the Lord doesn't always work
Speaker 2: in favor of the accused. It also works in favor
Speaker 2: of people down the track in terms of how evidence
Speaker 2: is considered and recrafted. For instance, in the Hey Dad
Speaker 2: case where the Hughes was charged with there's a multiplicity
Speaker 2: of terrible child sexual asside offenses that changed the tendency law,
Speaker 2: so that a lot more material can come in. Now,
Speaker 2: if you've got if you've got a tendency to do,
Speaker 2: then that can be established. So that's in favor of
Speaker 2: the person who's saying that. Those people who say, well, oh,
Speaker 2: but he did this and he did that, why wasn't
Speaker 2: that raised, Well, now things.
Speaker 1: Like that, it can be raised.
Speaker 2: It's called tendency.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I was involved through campaigning with the Bearable
Speaker 1: community on the double jeopardy legislation. It hasn't changed the
Speaker 1: changed the landscape, and I don't think there's any I
Speaker 1: don't think there's been a situation where someone's being convicted.
Speaker 1: And what I'm talking about there is that if someone
Speaker 1: was acquitted of a crime, they couldn't be retried until
Speaker 1: the double jeopardy legislation was changed. Now fresh and compelling
Speaker 1: the evidence and that and that's in the interests of justice.
Speaker 1: The fact that sitting there, I think is a good
Speaker 1: thing because I would hate to have someone and what
Speaker 1: could have been someone that acquitted of a murder could
Speaker 1: walk out of court and go, well, I got a
Speaker 1: way of that and we could never recharge. So the
Speaker 1: fact that the legislation is sitting there hasn't been implemented.
Speaker 1: I think is a good thing. But I've always been
Speaker 1: on about legislation or the justice system, and I get
Speaker 1: your thoughts on it. A justice system is set up
Speaker 1: to serve the community. That's therefore, and if adjustments have
Speaker 1: got it, if it's not serving the community, legislation needs
Speaker 1: to be changed. Are you an advocate for changing legislation
Speaker 1: where it needs to be changed or is it more
Speaker 1: old school? Now we've been doing this for two hundred years,
Speaker 1: white change, No.
Speaker 2: No, I hear what you say, and what I don't
Speaker 2: like is knee jerk. Yeah, let's just live changed where
Speaker 2: you get change for the sake of satisfying some particular
Speaker 2: publicity agenda, agenda, and then you end up with victims
Speaker 2: of that agenda who are wrongly convicted or wrongly accused,
Speaker 2: and we find that the law is then used to
Speaker 2: assist politicians in their electoral cycle.
Speaker 1: Well, let's you talk about changing the law agendas and
Speaker 1: the media interests and all that. The bail laws on
Speaker 1: youth crime and baiol laws. I know there's been a
Speaker 1: lot of talk about that, but I think you articulate
Speaker 1: very well that quite often it's changed for a political agenda,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't always work, and innocent people can be
Speaker 1: caught up in it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's because we live in a reactive rather than
Speaker 2: proactive society. We're reacting to what we see as being
Speaker 2: a problem, and we're chastising and punishing those who are
Speaker 2: involved in perpetrating those problems. But we're not going back
Speaker 2: in the way that we were talking about how jails
Speaker 2: are changing Gary and saying, how can we stop young
Speaker 2: Indigenous kids from running right in our springs? How can
Speaker 2: we stop them before they leave home to go and
Speaker 2: run right? And how can we stop kids in Sydney
Speaker 2: or in Melbourne, and then the poorer parts going out
Speaker 2: and creating habit and getting into postcode gangs or getting
Speaker 2: into whatever it is. We've got to look at those
Speaker 2: aspects and we've got to put our resources into stopping
Speaker 2: crime before it starts.
Speaker 1: Diversionary plans you talked about keeping someone in custody come
Speaker 1: across one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year to
Speaker 1: keep a person in custody when you look at the
Speaker 1: expense that is spent. There had Tim Watson Monroe, a
Speaker 1: criminal psychologist, on them. He made the point that for
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, you could have each
Speaker 1: inmate with their own personal psychologists looking after them to
Speaker 1: keep them on the straight and narrow. It's a huge amount,
Speaker 1: and I know there are people that we need to
Speaker 1: protect society from. I've got no problems, and there needs
Speaker 1: to be deterrens, there needs to be punishments. All the
Speaker 1: things that you talked about get taken into with sentencing.
Speaker 2: Tim being a psychologist, would say that I might say,
Speaker 2: spend one hundred and fifty thousand. Not a good lawyer.
Speaker 1: And look, Greg, we've got to be on us here.
Speaker 1: If we clear up, if we solve all the solutions
Speaker 1: of crime, you're going to be out of business.
Speaker 2: I don't think that's going to happen, Gary Ott. But
Speaker 2: I think we're entitled as members of a great democracy
Speaker 2: to have a system that's fair and that's reasonable and
Speaker 2: we get it right as many times as is possible
Speaker 2: within a fallible system. And all systems are fallible. But
Speaker 2: I think we do.
Speaker 1: Okay here, Okay, let's talk other clients that you've had
Speaker 1: and if I mentioned someone and you're not comfortable talking
Speaker 1: about it, but got a lot of media publicity, so
Speaker 1: we're not talking out of the school. But John Abraham's girlfriend,
Speaker 1: Sarah Budge, that was charged with the possession of the firearm.
Speaker 2: Yes, decent, lovely girl, Sarah. I've got a lot of
Speaker 2: time for Sarah Budge and now she's John's wife, A
Speaker 2: really really decent gale. As you might say, that was
Speaker 2: an interesting case. I was part of a really really
Speaker 2: good team of lawyers and had a fair jury who
Speaker 2: came back with the right decision.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, and that people haven't heard about that there
Speaker 1: was a firearm found found at the premises and it
Speaker 1: was what was the actual charge.
Speaker 2: It was The charge was possession of an unlicensed pistol,
Speaker 2: which I think can carry up to fourteen years in jail.
Speaker 2: It's a guns are something we take seriously in our
Speaker 2: community and rightly so, as you'd recall and you'd agree
Speaker 2: with that, And it was the prosecution couldn't establish that
Speaker 2: she had knowledge that was there or even put it
Speaker 2: there on you, and given that other people had access
Speaker 2: to her apartment, I thought that was the right decision.
Speaker 1: An element of doubt, of doubt there absolutely Another high
Speaker 1: profile person that you've represented was Scott Miller, the former
Speaker 1: and I think it's a sad case. And I know
Speaker 1: sentencing you addressing the issues that created that situation. For
Speaker 1: those that don't know, Scott Miller, he was a silver
Speaker 1: medalist at the Olympics, a swimmer and got involved in drugs.
Speaker 2: You should when you say silver medalist, you've got to
Speaker 2: put that in context. Garat, he should have been the
Speaker 2: gold medalist. He was the fastest butterfly swimmer on top
Speaker 2: of the water. Now, if anyone knows anything about swimming,
Speaker 2: and you dive into a twenty five meter peol or
Speaker 2: a fifty meter pool, you go fifteen meters and you
Speaker 2: look up and there's all these flags. There's a big
Speaker 2: string of flags across. You've got to be surfaced by them.
Speaker 2: His nemesis was a guy called Dennis Pankrotov, a Russian,
Speaker 2: bloody Russians again, yeah, absolutely yeah, And it was invading
Speaker 2: the swimming pool and he was spending probably sixty percent
Speaker 2: of the time that he swamm the butterfly under the
Speaker 2: water doing a dolphin kick, So it wasn't butterfly at all.
Speaker 2: But strangely enough, you can swim faster underwater than you
Speaker 2: can by breaking the surface on top of the water.
Speaker 2: And he beat. He came up probably a body length
Speaker 2: in front of Scott in the nineteen six Olympics and
Speaker 2: he beat Scott to the wall by a bee's knees.
Speaker 1: Right, Well, I didn't think. I didn't think we're going
Speaker 1: to dissect the and Scotty.
Speaker 2: Then they then changed the rules after that, and so
Speaker 2: Scott's had that you know is an also rad you
Speaker 2: don't win the gold.
Speaker 1: Well, that's yeah, okay, I didn't realize the backstory to it. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you've gone in depth there.
Speaker 2: And then he got injured coming up to the Sydney Olympics,
Speaker 2: which was which was every every sportsman's dream who was
Speaker 2: an Olympic class at sporting events, missed out on that,
Speaker 2: tried to come back for two o four and injuries
Speaker 2: put him out, but then found himself, like a lot
Speaker 2: of swimmers do, suffering what we call post elite sportsman's suppression.
Speaker 2: You go and swimmings, you know, you follow the black line.
Speaker 2: It's you're in your own world training and then you
Speaker 2: come out of this bubble into the limelight. You're some
Speaker 2: hero and you've got to deal with that with no
Speaker 2: training for it. No, it's a sad story.
Speaker 1: Is a sad story. How did you come to be
Speaker 1: representing him?
Speaker 2: Because just through associations and through well actually through his
Speaker 2: wife and through my associations with other people involved in
Speaker 2: swimming got to know got to know Scott and looked
Speaker 2: after him.
Speaker 1: You see a lot of elite sportsmen that have had
Speaker 1: the highs and then struggle after it. But yeah, it
Speaker 1: plays out in rugby league for a lot of different reasons,
Speaker 1: but you see a lot that happened with a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of sportsmen.
Speaker 2: I think rugby is a sort of different category. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's well in that it's young men weekly being involved
Speaker 2: in this glamorous, high profile Adelatian type sport and you
Speaker 2: know there's cocaine around, and there's good looking girls at
Speaker 2: clubs and so forth, and it's not the sort of
Speaker 2: same sort of the isolation of a swimmer. And you
Speaker 2: look at a lot of our swimmers have had Lisal
Speaker 2: Jones had problems and so you know Scotty wasn't is
Speaker 2: not alone. He was just one that fell further than others.
Speaker 2: As I said, it's a sad.
Speaker 1: Story, and representing him, you're obviously the way that you
Speaker 1: relay the story, you felt felt it personally the responsibility
Speaker 1: of representing him.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Yeah, people commit crime, but doesn't stop them
Speaker 2: from being human beings. And you can set the crime
Speaker 2: aside and you've still got Sometimes you've got a really
Speaker 2: decent human being there. He's made a lot of bad mistakes,
Speaker 2: but you can't throw the good person out with the bathwater.
Speaker 1: Another person that you've come across in your career, and
Speaker 1: we're going back into the dark, well, the King's Cross.
Speaker 1: But Sally Anne Huckstep who was by way of introduction,
Speaker 1: people probably heard her name, but Warren France, Warren lan
Speaker 1: Franchi lanb Francie's girlfriend at the time that Tea was
Speaker 1: shot and killed by Roger Rogerson and was sort of
Speaker 1: considered she might have been an informant giving information, but
Speaker 1: she ended up being murdered.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Sure, her body was found in one of the
Speaker 2: Centennial Park lakes.
Speaker 1: And she was at the time she was vocal in
Speaker 1: speaking up about police corruption.
Speaker 2: Well, she was speaking up to the extent that she
Speaker 2: believed that Roger Rogerson had had killed Warren in cold blood.
Speaker 2: And there's all sorts of different stories about that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and she was a victim of a time when collusion
Speaker 2: I think between people in positions of relative power, either
Speaker 2: from the criminal malieu or from the police mailieu, were
Speaker 2: bound to catch up with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and how did you find her as a person.
Speaker 2: We didn't, I don't. I think we may have acted
Speaker 2: for when I was in to practice out at Bondi
Speaker 2: junction with one of my older partners in with our
Speaker 2: deceased as well. We acted for just on my smartor things,
Speaker 2: I think, but we got more caught up in in
Speaker 2: that aspect of it because we were alleged to have
Speaker 2: had her diaries in my in my office, and in
Speaker 2: my office was then broken into and ow and we nothing, no,
Speaker 2: nothing of value taken except there was a nice neatly
Speaker 2: cut section of our roof.
Speaker 1: Sorry break break this down. Just my detective minds thinking
Speaker 1: hole it. So you the information was that you had
Speaker 1: Sally's diaries.
Speaker 2: Well, that was a rumor that was out there and
Speaker 2: that had come through another girlfriend of hers, for whom
Speaker 2: we acted, and it was thought that that had been
Speaker 2: left in our in our care.
Speaker 1: And that could be very damaging for certain people.
Speaker 2: We didn't have it. We didn't have it safe. And
Speaker 2: in fact that when people were playing with checks, they
Speaker 2: were stuck in a jar. On the top of a
Speaker 2: filing cabinet. Well, they were all still there, but there
Speaker 2: was a well precisely cut hole in our roof and
Speaker 2: they got through the roof and through the ceiling, and
Speaker 2: I think and there was clearly all our filing cabinets
Speaker 2: had been rifled.
Speaker 1: You can't. You can't make this stuff up. You can't
Speaker 1: make this stuff up. Okay, I'm just. I'm just I
Speaker 1: hadn't realized that. Just thinking about that. Okay, that's interesting.
Speaker 1: The diaries. Wow, what do you think makes a good solicitor?
Speaker 1: I'm going to I haven't forgotten about the saying that
Speaker 1: you've ever met and I'll exclude myself from this question.
Speaker 1: Have you ever met a good detective? But before I do,
Speaker 1: what do you consider is the good traits of a
Speaker 1: defense solictener?
Speaker 2: Be a good listener, be compassionate and be prepared to
Speaker 2: look at the case from every available angle, and to
Speaker 2: do your best by your client and be truthful to
Speaker 2: your client.
Speaker 1: Good advice. Did you have mentors throughout your career or
Speaker 1: people that you learned from.
Speaker 2: I had different barristers who I worked with. I had
Speaker 2: the benefit of working with some great lawyers and being
Speaker 2: opposed by some great lawyers. A lot of them became
Speaker 2: really good judges. And if you know, laws are really
Speaker 2: rewarding place because you sort of feel like you're doing good,
Speaker 2: you feel like you've not done and done. It can
Speaker 2: be self critical too much sometimes, but now I generally
Speaker 2: had the benefit of working with good barristers and with
Speaker 2: people who were really, really smart.
Speaker 1: Do you have have barristers that you Is it Forbes
Speaker 1: Chambers that you engage with a lot of barristers from
Speaker 1: Forbes Chambers?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I regard Forbes is probably the premier criminal chambers.
Speaker 2: But across the board there.
Speaker 1: I used to hate walking up there server brief Forbes Chambers.
Speaker 2: But across the across the across the span of barristers.
Speaker 2: Samuel Griffiths have got some very good barristers, and there's
Speaker 2: some other chambers spread around.
Speaker 1: And what's what's the working relationship with the solicitor and
Speaker 1: the barrister, Like, what's the dynamic dynamics there.
Speaker 2: Well, I've always regarded myself as anything but a bad carrier.
Speaker 2: I say jokingly, I'm anicat I'm anicating today which has
Speaker 2: gone getting paid and not doing any of the work.
Speaker 2: But I tell my clients that they're at a two horse race,
Speaker 2: I says, as a prosecution, and there's us. I say,
Speaker 2: I'm the trainer, the barrasses, the jockey, and you know
Speaker 2: what you are. You're a horse, okay, So if you
Speaker 2: don't run across the line first, you're in big trouble.
Speaker 1: I haven't heard that description. Break that down again, Run
Speaker 1: it past me again, so I don't forget it.
Speaker 2: I say, the solicitors, the trainer, the barrasses, the jockey,
Speaker 2: but the client's the horse. It's a good analogy because
Speaker 2: if the horse doesn't run across the line first, the
Speaker 2: jockey and the trainer walk away. They go home.
Speaker 1: That's not a bad way of describing it. Policing have
Speaker 1: you seen. You've been in the as a defense solicit
Speaker 1: for forty years, so you've seen changes in police like
Speaker 1: you wouldn't even recognize what policing was in the eighties,
Speaker 1: the early eighties compared to one of these is Now,
Speaker 1: what do you think the quality of investigations are?
Speaker 2: Like? I think the quality of investigations has improved markedly.
Speaker 2: I think that's because I came into law on the
Speaker 2: cusp of a change where we'd gone through that period
Speaker 2: where there were suggestions of corruption and so forth, and
Speaker 2: police were prepared to make up conversations that they'd had
Speaker 2: with suspects, which we called verbals, in order to gain
Speaker 2: a conviction. So they were walking working more on gut
Speaker 2: instinct than they were on real hard work.
Speaker 1: I think that's fair and say, and I think to.
Speaker 2: The credit of the police force, that's greatly improved and
Speaker 2: with the advance that we advances that we've had in
Speaker 2: what I talked about earlier about forensic technologies, which is
Speaker 2: listening devices and telephone intercepts, better surveillance, long range cameras
Speaker 2: and long range and basically putting in the time to
Speaker 2: act on where you start off with a suspicion and
Speaker 2: then were your way through to look at how things
Speaker 2: work and whether you've got something that's just a spinoff,
Speaker 2: And a lot of the major busts that have been
Speaker 2: achieved by police is by just looking at that spinoff.
Speaker 2: Is there something here this person's met that person, We're
Speaker 2: going to look at what he's doing.
Speaker 1: It's definitely evolving and changing changing landscape for criminal investigation.
Speaker 1: A good detechnic if you've come up against in your
Speaker 1: career someone because there's been some ding dog battles in
Speaker 1: the courts and over time, is there one that you
Speaker 1: could say that you respected for the way he or
Speaker 1: she went about their job.
Speaker 2: Well, in terms of just dogged determination, i'd have to
Speaker 2: talk about Justin Murray. I've actually got Justin in a
Speaker 2: case now. But Justin was the officer in charge of
Speaker 2: the investigations into the Armor Guard robberies across the pavement
Speaker 2: Armorgard robberies. When I think Chubb an Armourguard security trucks
Speaker 2: were being attacked as they stopped to fill up ATMs
Speaker 2: and so forth. And I think overall seven at some
Speaker 2: point one million or seven point six million dollars was
Speaker 2: was stolen by the police.
Speaker 1: Well, I stule was I said, yeah, and go, okay,
Speaker 1: we're going make sure we're recording this the alleged cross
Speaker 1: highlight that trip. There's your headline in the paper. Okay.
Speaker 2: I made the mistake in court last week this last
Speaker 2: week of referring to one of my clients as as
Speaker 2: a graffiti artist. Well, the magistrate went ballistic and said
Speaker 2: I said, said, and it criticized me for that. I
Speaker 2: was trying to get in. Well, I'll refrase that and
Speaker 2: say he was an exponent, but it wasn't the police,
Speaker 2: and we eventually won that case one hundred and sixty
Speaker 2: one charges to nil, which was a great success justin
Speaker 2: to his well, I won't say to his credit, but
Speaker 2: he was so convinced of their guilt that he tracked
Speaker 2: down everyone and got them all for something else.
Speaker 1: Right, Okay, Well I like that type of dog inness.
Speaker 2: That was reginess. I've met a lot of police officers,
Speaker 2: but who now, being armed with the technology and the
Speaker 2: ability to track crime, do an amazing job.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, Well it takes the pressure off to a degree.
Speaker 1: Is a police officer that you can rely on the
Speaker 1: technology and that because before I won't say before, but
Speaker 1: there was a lot of hard graft. You had to
Speaker 1: get the statements and then you've got a brief that's
Speaker 1: not Yeah, there would be I'm saying here just from
Speaker 1: my thoughts, there seemed to be a lot more trials
Speaker 1: because you didn't have that evidence. You didn't have the
Speaker 1: technical evidence of the phone records or things that could
Speaker 1: back it up. So it came down to witness testimony,
Speaker 1: which you'd know and I'm sure you're sure you've exploited
Speaker 1: in a fair way that eyewitness testimony is not always
Speaker 1: that reliable.
Speaker 2: Nor his memory. Yeah, and psychologists will tell you that
Speaker 2: constructed memory can be really fallible. But it's then up
Speaker 2: to the jury to decide whether they believe it or not,
Speaker 2: and that itself is a fallible system. We saw that
Speaker 2: with George pell and a lot of people that have
Speaker 2: their views on that. But knowing from my point of view,
Speaker 2: looking at what the High Court said, you know, I
Speaker 2: think the jury didn't make a mistake that other minds
Speaker 2: would differ. Also, having been seeing bishops come to Catholic
Speaker 2: churches and know how many people they drag with them
Speaker 2: and never were alone, I thought it was pretty difficult.
Speaker 2: But you've got to look at the system and look
Speaker 2: at the fallibilities and say, well, the police are getting
Speaker 2: better tools these days to take suspicion to the point
Speaker 2: of proof, and that's it. And even though I'm a
Speaker 2: criminal defense lawyer, I'm a member of a society as well,
Speaker 2: and in that respect, I expect prosecutors to do their
Speaker 2: job properly. In his hard I don't expect to get
Speaker 2: to cut me any slack because I'm paying them to
Speaker 2: do their job. And so, yeah, police are getting better,
Speaker 2: better resources and that's to our advantage.
Speaker 1: What about the court system? Is there things that you
Speaker 1: think could be improved? And you said I think in
Speaker 1: part one that you've believed the system where God is
Speaker 1: as good as any other other system across the Well, yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Think what needs to be improved in our court system
Speaker 2: is not the system of the determination of guilt or
Speaker 2: the application of court time. When you've got judges and
Speaker 2: juries and magistrates actually doing the sentencing jobs or doing
Speaker 2: the trial jobs. The problem we have got is we're
Speaker 2: over burden with administrative stuff. I was in a court
Speaker 2: the other day out of Campbelltown and the magistrate had
Speaker 2: to deal with one hundred and fifty matters in this list,
Speaker 2: and these were all serious matters, and the majority of
Speaker 2: them gary were matters that could have been done by
Speaker 2: our registrar. They were just adjourney matters because they weren't
Speaker 2: ready to proceed. Now we're paying big money to have
Speaker 2: a judicial officer sit there and do an administrative job,
Speaker 2: and so there are ways and means of cleaning up
Speaker 2: that system which would save money and I think expedite
Speaker 2: the system as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I see what you're saying there, because the time
Speaker 1: that appears to be wasted in court going through what
Speaker 1: you've just described is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's we call them mentions.
Speaker 1: The mentions sit there what's the called on in at
Speaker 1: down in center that wherever they have the mentions and
Speaker 1: you've virtually got to fight your way in to get
Speaker 1: in there.
Speaker 2: Oh that's the registrar's court four point four. But they're
Speaker 2: get through the mentions really quickly, by about by eleven thirty,
Speaker 2: it's all over and done with. But it's yeah, but
Speaker 2: sometimes you've got to you've got in the custody courts,
Speaker 2: it's all dealt with by a magistrate, and the magistrates
Speaker 2: are basically just shuffling paper in the journey matters, and
Speaker 2: sometimes you've you've got to go before a magistrate. Fortunately,
Speaker 2: in the Supreme Court we have registrartions who do a
Speaker 2: lot of that work. Less there's an issue that needs
Speaker 2: determination by a judge which is just not shifting the
Speaker 2: dates or saying this has got to be filed in time,
Speaker 2: you're getting get referred to a judge. It doesn't happen
Speaker 2: in the local courts and sometimes in the district courts.
Speaker 1: What would you say when I throw this to you
Speaker 1: that an inquisitorial system is better than adversarial system. Why
Speaker 1: because you talked about going into the Royal Commission, which
Speaker 1: is more of an inquisitorial type system in quest than
Speaker 1: as compared to an adversarial system. Do you think there's
Speaker 1: any value in leaning more towards an inquisitorial system rather
Speaker 1: than adversarial system. Not.
Speaker 2: While we are entitled to the right.
Speaker 1: Silence, Okay, that's a stickler for it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and proof beyond reasonable doubt. And I think that's
Speaker 2: if you're going to take away a person's liberty. And
Speaker 2: we're talking about Jarles before. People don't understand is that
Speaker 2: every day you and I can get up and we
Speaker 2: have a choice as to what we do. Now, choices
Speaker 2: are limited because life's repetitive, but we don't have to
Speaker 2: go to work if we don't really want it. We
Speaker 2: can take a sickie, we get our four weeks holiday.
Speaker 2: At the end of the day, we can go and
Speaker 2: have a beer with our mates. But if you'll get
Speaker 2: up and you put on your green shorts and your
Speaker 2: T shirt and you know exactly what you're going to
Speaker 2: be doing for the rest of the day in the
Speaker 2: next four or five or ten years, that's not liberty.
Speaker 1: Okay, and look, I agree with you, and to understand
Speaker 1: the punishment. The punishment has been taken away from society
Speaker 1: and it's not a nice place to be in prison.
Speaker 1: And even the prisoners acknowledge that some people have to
Speaker 1: being there. They're not saying that everyone, Yeah, we should
Speaker 1: open the jail gates. They know that people should be
Speaker 1: in there. What about the jury system. I've had a
Speaker 1: problem sometimes throughout my career where there's a voir the
Speaker 1: year and the jury is excluded because there's evidence that
Speaker 1: might be prejudicial if the jury hears that. The problem
Speaker 1: I have is that we select the jury that there
Speaker 1: he is to judge the person's guilt or innocent based
Speaker 1: on all the information available. We're saying the jury have
Speaker 1: got the skill set, the life experience to form a view,
Speaker 1: and then the jury are excluded from so much information
Speaker 1: that I think is relevant. Then perhaps we've got to
Speaker 1: give them the benefit of the doubt that they can
Speaker 1: interpret the weight that should be placed on that evidence.
Speaker 2: Well, that comes back to what I was saying about
Speaker 2: the hey Dad tendency aspect of evidence where there's other
Speaker 2: like events that this person has perpetrated, and then the
Speaker 2: jury just in some respects and still don't hear that
Speaker 2: all the time. But there are rules of evidence which
Speaker 2: are there to protect the person who is entitled to
Speaker 2: a fair trial. And as I said before, no system
Speaker 2: is fallible, and that is always up for reassessment and
Speaker 2: for change. The laws of evidence are constantly changing and
Speaker 2: constantly being find and you can have faith in the
Speaker 2: fact that if there's a problem that law reform commissions
Speaker 2: are looking at those and trying to make things better. Now,
Speaker 2: from my point of view, they don't always make them better.
Speaker 2: And there's been a very very substantial drift in the
Speaker 2: criminal law to taking for granted what the victim says
Speaker 2: is being true and not being able to challenge the victim,
Speaker 2: particularly in sexual assault cases. I have a certain view
Speaker 2: about that. The me Too movement has a totally different view.
Speaker 2: So you've got to accept what a person says has
Speaker 2: been in gospel. Well, sorry, but there's as many truths
Speaker 2: come out as a person's mouth as lies do as well,
Speaker 2: and you should have the opportunity, if you're an accused person,
Speaker 2: to test the evidence that's being given against you. So
Speaker 2: I think adversarial systems in that respect.
Speaker 1: Other way to go okay, fair, fair comment. Would you
Speaker 1: I see young solsteners especially, I saw them more with
Speaker 1: the DPP, but I saw it with defense as well.
Speaker 1: Always seem to be overworked, underpaid, and stressed. It looks
Speaker 1: like a tough career. But I also see people like
Speaker 1: yourself that spend lifetime in the career, and I can
Speaker 1: tell that you've enjoyed your career, and yeah, you think
Speaker 1: it's a worthwhile vacation. Would you recommend law to people?
Speaker 2: Strangely, I tell people if someone some young kid comes
Speaker 2: up to me or a prayer and comes up to
Speaker 2: me and says, I agree, Do you think I think
Speaker 2: Johnny should go into law? I say, listen, doesn't matter
Speaker 2: whether it's law or medicine or any profession. Get a
Speaker 2: job dealing with people's money, not people's problems. But no,
Speaker 2: it's professional life as a lawyer is satisfied if you
Speaker 2: if you understand that it's not going to make you,
Speaker 2: you know, a billionaire, but it's it's a it's it's
Speaker 2: a worthwhile profession if if you take it and you're
Speaker 2: actually helping people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Now, well, I see the lawyers that I respect,
Speaker 1: You can see that they've put in the time and
Speaker 1: that might be where they're turning up in the middle
Speaker 1: of a trail and it's clear they've been up all night,
Speaker 1: not on the drink, but up all night working on
Speaker 1: the brief and that type of thing. I think we'll
Speaker 1: wrap it up at this point in time. I just
Speaker 1: want to say I've really enjoyed sitting down and having
Speaker 1: that chat with you, for you guys are not as
Speaker 1: bad as other people are telling me you are.
Speaker 2: I'll go wait, I'll go await, enlightened and hardened by
Speaker 2: that character.
Speaker 1: No, but you've given a good insight, good insight into
Speaker 1: the world of world of crime, and some funny stories
Speaker 1: that I think anyone that's spent a career like you
Speaker 1: have is going to have. And thanks for giving us
Speaker 1: the opportunity to sit down and have a chat with you.
Speaker 2: My pleasure.
Speaker 1: Cheers,