Speaker 1: The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Speaker 1: Detective see aside of life the average persons never exposed
Speaker 1: to I spent thirty four years as a cop. For
Speaker 1: twenty five of those years I was catching killers. That's
Speaker 1: what I did for a living. I was a homicide detective.
Speaker 1: I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead, I'm taking
Speaker 1: the public into the world in which I operated. The
Speaker 1: guests I talk to each week have amazing stories from
Speaker 1: all sides of the law. The interviews are raw and honest,
Speaker 1: just like the people I talked to. Some of the
Speaker 1: content and language might be confronting. That's because no one
Speaker 1: who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged. Join
Speaker 1: me now as I take you into this world. Today
Speaker 1: I had a great chat with a former Western Australian
Speaker 1: Police officer, Detective Senior Sergeant Glenn Potter. Glenn led the
Speaker 1: investigation into one of Australia's most wanted criminals, Brendan Abbott,
Speaker 1: who is also known as a Postcard Bandit. Abbott was
Speaker 1: a notorious arm robber who escaped from prison twice. He
Speaker 1: was on the run for years and was believed to
Speaker 1: have robbed between forty to fifty banks. Glenn spoke about
Speaker 1: how the postcard bandit was eventually caught and the game
Speaker 1: of cat and mouse between him and Brendan when he
Speaker 1: was trying to track him down. This investigation is currently
Speaker 1: being portrayed on the TV series called Run. You should
Speaker 1: check it out. It's a great show. But that's just
Speaker 1: one of many of Glenn's stories from his amazing career
Speaker 1: in the Western Australian Police. We also talked about his
Speaker 1: role as a police negotiator and his involvement in Australia's
Speaker 1: longest running hostage situation. Wait until you hear that story.
Speaker 1: It's a cracker of a police story. We talked about
Speaker 1: tactical policing and dramatic arrests, including the investigation into the
Speaker 1: disappearance of a former soldier who was caught up in
Speaker 1: an international diamond fraud with links to Romania. Glenn also
Speaker 1: tells me about the worst injury he got as a policeman,
Speaker 1: which was whilst riding a horse, which is quite on
Speaker 1: it given the fact he's also an accomplished rhodeo rider.
Speaker 1: Some of the stories Glenn's got you won't believe, but
Speaker 1: you just can't make this shit up. I hope you enjoy.
Speaker 1: Glenn Potter, Welcome to I Catch Killers.
Speaker 2: Good a, Gary, happy to be here.
Speaker 1: When you joined the police, I'm sure you didn't have
Speaker 1: an expectation that there'd be a TV series playing out
Speaker 1: about an investigation you were involved in. What was that like?
Speaker 1: Was that a sort of surreal experience for you?
Speaker 2: It was. But I built up over a number of
Speaker 2: years with the intention of getting into the movie industry,
Speaker 2: you know, during it after I retired, and as you
Speaker 2: and I discussed previously, I worked with animals, horses. I've
Speaker 2: been a horse rider for my adult life and I
Speaker 2: wanted to take horses to film, and so I got
Speaker 2: into the industry through acting lessons and it just evolved
Speaker 2: from there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's an interesting side hustle train the animals and
Speaker 1: in the police. But you actually, and we'll talk about
Speaker 1: it later in the podcast, you were involved in the
Speaker 1: horses when we were in the police.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Look, I decided to go for a career changed
Speaker 2: about twenty five years into the job. I was a
Speaker 2: detective senior sergeant, and I decided that I'd give something
Speaker 2: different a crack, and I was asked to take over
Speaker 2: the matter section to try and fix some of the
Speaker 2: problems there and in the end I had fifteen years
Speaker 2: there and with the dogs God as well, traveling the
Speaker 2: world talking about matter and policing all through the world.
Speaker 2: So he was quite surreal that alone. And of course
Speaker 2: I got to meet people like hethe Harris who was
Speaker 2: responsible for horses and things like Gallipoli, and a man
Speaker 2: from Snowy River and so I a famous force trainer,
Speaker 2: and that was through the police because New South Wells
Speaker 2: Police were using him to train their police forces, and
Speaker 2: I thought that's a good gig. We're going to have
Speaker 2: a crack at this, and they did well.
Speaker 1: It's nice having a fallback position after the police. You
Speaker 1: enjoy the police, but you never know where that's going
Speaker 1: to take you or when it's time to leave. So
Speaker 1: a good good thing to have a back up. The
Speaker 1: actual TV series we're talking about run related to Brendan Abbot.
Speaker 1: For people that don't know Brendan Abbott, he escaped from
Speaker 1: prison twice. I think he escaped from a police station
Speaker 1: once before that. Was on the run for years. Bank Robber,
Speaker 1: the notorious bank robber and at the peak of his activity,
Speaker 1: he is probably Australia's most wanted wanted man. We're going
Speaker 1: to talk about that investigation and your involvement in the investigation,
Speaker 1: but just to give the listeners an understanding about who
Speaker 1: Brendan was as a person, how would you describe him?
Speaker 1: Because he had such a high profile.
Speaker 2: Brendan was a four full criminal and I underlined criminal.
Speaker 2: From a young age, he'd gone through a series of
Speaker 2: issues with family. He was made a ward of the state.
Speaker 2: His mother put him up for a warden of the state.
Speaker 2: He went into a boy's home. That's where he learnt
Speaker 2: his trade. At eighteen, he started committing your normal petty offenses,
Speaker 2: but he was also a little bit more organized than most.
Speaker 2: He initially took on stealing electrical goods from shops and
Speaker 2: reselling them at a bit of a side hustle, and
Speaker 2: from there he was pulled in by the detectives at
Speaker 2: Nola marac Iv and that's when he made his first
Speaker 2: escape through the back door of the police station. From
Speaker 2: there he went on to bigger and better things and
Speaker 2: eventually went on to become the drop in bandit. He
Speaker 2: took on a bank and dropped through the ceiling of
Speaker 2: a bank that hadn't been done w a before that
Speaker 2: created the initial start of a myth behind the man,
Speaker 2: and ultimately he was arrested at Perth Airport and charged
Speaker 2: with the robbery, got a sentence, and then that's when
Speaker 2: things really kicked off.
Speaker 1: Hear what you're saying and watching the documentary and reading
Speaker 1: up about Brendan, And it's not glorifying crime. We know
Speaker 1: from being police officers the impact those type of crimes
Speaker 1: can have. But there was something about him in the
Speaker 1: way that he carried out the crimes. And we'll delve
Speaker 1: into that because I think it's very interesting you talking
Speaker 1: about the investigation how he was eventually caught. But let's
Speaker 1: learn before we go into that, Let's learn a little
Speaker 1: bit about yourself. Where did you grow.
Speaker 2: Up in Perth and a little bit in the Northwest.
Speaker 2: I initially wanted to join the army and that's all
Speaker 2: I wanted to do. And I got as far as
Speaker 2: almost accepting in to apprentices school at fifteen when my father,
Speaker 2: who had served in the Navy, said you're not going.
Speaker 2: You're too young, so he can that and I said, well,
Speaker 2: what am I going to do? Can I join the police?
Speaker 2: He said sure, So fifteen I applied for the police
Speaker 2: I've got images. I just turned seventeen at and then
Speaker 2: spent the next few years bouncing around doing different jobs
Speaker 2: till I decided what I wanted to do. I spent
Speaker 2: some time in the pipe band because I played the
Speaker 2: bagpipes as a kid.
Speaker 1: Of course, you did, you ride horses, play the bagpipes.
Speaker 1: You do all sorts of things here in negotiator. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so yeah.
Speaker 2: I did a couple of years in the pipe band,
Speaker 2: and then I decided I'll give traffic at a court
Speaker 2: go and tore around on my motorbike and love that.
Speaker 2: And then I got into an investigative section in the
Speaker 2: traffic branch, which was run by an old protective ex
Speaker 2: detective sergeant, and he said, I think you should be
Speaker 2: a detective. So he arranged for me to go and
Speaker 2: see the chief super of the COB at the time,
Speaker 2: probably the most harrowing interview I've ever done. I didn't
Speaker 2: realize it was an interview. I went in there and
Speaker 2: he just hammered me for about forty minutes. Made me
Speaker 2: say something silly about letting a shotlifter be summoned, and
Speaker 2: he hammered me for that. Then he threw the criminal
Speaker 2: Code at me and said now find Arson, and I'd
Speaker 2: been given a tip on what to do when he said, fine, Arsen,
Speaker 2: never go to the front, go to the back. So
Speaker 2: I went to the back about Arson, answered the questions
Speaker 2: stood out and thought, I've really blown this interview. I'm
Speaker 2: never going to be a detective, shook his hand, said
Speaker 2: thanks for the moment, went back to the office. By
Speaker 2: the time I got back to the office, while Jack
Speaker 2: Dearing had run Bill, my boss and said he's a
Speaker 2: good fellow. We're going to take him just to tell
Speaker 2: him his comment. He's joined the CIB and far out well.
Speaker 2: So that's how how my life's detective started.
Speaker 1: What the year was that?
Speaker 2: What that was nineteen eighty five?
Speaker 1: Ok, that's We had something similar in New South Wales.
Speaker 1: If you wanted to become a detective you had to
Speaker 1: pass what they call the bull ring. And I think
Speaker 1: it was aptly call the bull ring for a reason
Speaker 1: because you'd have three old, cranky detective sergeants sitting at
Speaker 1: the table opposite you and like at sounds, look what
Speaker 1: you went through. Put the pressure on you. Just see
Speaker 1: how you're going to react, Just really stir you up,
Speaker 1: and how you come across that dictates whether you get
Speaker 1: the invite into become a detective or plane clothes.
Speaker 2: I think had I'd not been told about the index
Speaker 2: on the criminal Code, it probably would have been in
Speaker 2: traffic for a very long time.
Speaker 1: Well it's handy to have informants, isn't it.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I learned very early in those days.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a little bit of inside knowledge that might have
Speaker 1: been part of the test you also got into. And
Speaker 1: I want to break it all down, but just again
Speaker 1: to give you a sense, the listener, a sense of
Speaker 1: the diversity of work that you've done within the police.
Speaker 1: In negoshading. You were in negotiater at some stage.
Speaker 2: I was, at the same time as becoming a detective.
Speaker 2: I was also what we had apart time emergency Squad,
Speaker 2: which became the TRG, which is the Tactical Road. So
Speaker 2: I was an operator in that, and we were off
Speaker 2: doing course in that type of thing, and I saw
Speaker 2: negotiaters and I thought, yeah, that's pretty cool. So I
Speaker 2: made the choice become a detective, and then eventually gave
Speaker 2: the tactical side up and when that became full time,
Speaker 2: and then later on became a negotiator, a hostage negotiator,
Speaker 2: And yeah, I went to Queensland, did all the courses
Speaker 2: and ended up some pretty fascinating jobs as a negotiator
Speaker 2: in wa.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you were telling me about one that you're involved
Speaker 1: in that I want to touch on later on in
Speaker 1: the podcast, but it was particularly particularly interesting when you
Speaker 1: were looking at the Brendan Abbot case. How did you
Speaker 1: get involved in that? At what stage of your career
Speaker 1: was he first came across your raidar.
Speaker 2: I was in the seventy nine division about between ninety
Speaker 2: two and ninety four, and I was a detective senior
Speaker 2: constable and that seventy nine division was crime cars, so
Speaker 2: you ninety percent of the time you're working nights and
Speaker 2: roving around the metropolitan area. They used to have four
Speaker 2: detective cars or neron division, one uniform, one detective permanent
Speaker 2: partners roaming around the city and it was fantastic. There
Speaker 2: was just excitement every night it was and seventy nine
Speaker 2: division was that, you know, that was the go to
Speaker 2: crew for the night if you had a major crime.
Speaker 2: We do the initial stuff. From there, I got promoted
Speaker 2: detectives ergeant and so I had to leave and I
Speaker 2: got sent to robbery squad. So from there I went
Speaker 2: to four years at arm robbery and I took over
Speaker 2: a team, a team of three guys and myself, and
Speaker 2: of course all the files for that team were just
Speaker 2: landed on my desk and I was just going through
Speaker 2: the files and I came across one that said Operation
Speaker 2: Elma Fudd and that's what they called it, and that
Speaker 2: was into Brendan Abbott. And this was five years after
Speaker 2: his escape. So I've been on the run. We've been
Speaker 2: they've been chasing around the country trying to get, you know,
Speaker 2: leads on him. But really in those days, the states
Speaker 2: were very siloed. They would he kind of be interested
Speaker 2: in what they were doing unless you were doing interchange
Speaker 2: between squads, which at that stage had since ceased, so
Speaker 2: there wasn't much sharing. So I mean, I'm reading Operation
Speaker 2: All the Fund, which was about Brendan Abbott, and it
Speaker 2: sparked a memory of mine. While I've been in seventy
Speaker 2: nine Division, which is that I had we went to
Speaker 2: a domestic, violent domestic and I was talking to a
Speaker 2: woman there by the name of Kelly Fisher, who was
Speaker 2: the de facto of Glenn Sammott aka Glenn Abbott, which
Speaker 2: was the younger brother of Brendan Abbott and she was
Speaker 2: pretty angry with Glenn at the time, and she started
Speaker 2: telling her stuff and she said, oh, that he was
Speaker 2: over east, and I reckon he was with his brother,
Speaker 2: Brendan Abbott, between such and such states, And that sparked
Speaker 2: a memory because when I was reading through the files
Speaker 2: and as the investigation went on, a gunshop robbery came up,
Speaker 2: and the Gold Coast and it was near the Pink
Speaker 2: Poodle Hotel, and those things clicked the timing, the fact
Speaker 2: that maybe suspected that Brennan was involved with that. So
Speaker 2: I changed tact on the investigation, which was initially focusing
Speaker 2: on informants and the family. Here the whole family too,
Speaker 2: focusing on Glenn because to me, that was a proven connection.
Speaker 1: It's not a bad way to run or focus an investigation.
Speaker 1: If that's a connection, then I assume you're working on
Speaker 1: the belief that as two brothers, they had a bond
Speaker 1: and they would likely meet up at some stage.
Speaker 2: Well, that's right. And the other thing that sparked my
Speaker 2: interest obvious is that we couldn't find him. We could
Speaker 2: not find Glenn Sham anywhere. We didn't know where he lived.
Speaker 2: We eventually we founded Glenn Salmon, a Glenn Norman Salmon
Speaker 2: working in a factory in Bayswater. So for the next
Speaker 2: week we set surveillance up until we realized that this
Speaker 2: was a different Glenn Norman Salmon. It wasn't our guy,
Speaker 2: so we just continued on trying to find him. We've
Speaker 2: got a lucky break. We got some information that that
Speaker 2: Glenn Salmon we were looking for was appearing in court
Speaker 2: and Mandra for a speeding driving offense. So we set
Speaker 2: up on that date and sure enough we picked him
Speaker 2: up and we conducted surveillance on him and we found
Speaker 2: he was living covertly in Mandrara, which is south of Perth,
Speaker 2: under a false name, false rental agreement, false bank, false everything,
Speaker 2: completely covert, and so that was our focus. We started
Speaker 2: working on him very closely surveillance or as much as
Speaker 2: of the svealance we could get on him, and we
Speaker 2: worked through our tactics of what we're going to do
Speaker 2: to try and see whether he linked up with Brendan,
Speaker 2: which became a story on its own.
Speaker 1: The way you talk surveillance and it was a different
Speaker 1: ballgame back then, Wasn't it a lot of physical surveillance.
Speaker 1: We didn't have the technology tracking phones as much as
Speaker 1: available today, and it was easier in a cash society
Speaker 1: to go off the radar and not track people. So
Speaker 1: I would imagine when you found the hideout that Glenn
Speaker 1: had or where he was off the off the records,
Speaker 1: that would have felt like a good step in the
Speaker 1: right direction.
Speaker 2: Look, we knew we were onto something and I was
Speaker 2: this stage talking both Sid Thomas and South Australia and
Speaker 2: Jerry Costello in Queensland and ultimately then Clan Pritchard who
Speaker 2: was a detective on the Gold Coast, And can I
Speaker 2: add at this throughout this investigation, even before the five
Speaker 2: years before me, a lot of credit must go to
Speaker 2: the guys who were doing the previous investigation, a lot
Speaker 2: of credit to Sid Thomas, and a lot of credits
Speaker 2: to Jerry Costello who were detective sergeants in their respective jurisdiction.
Speaker 2: So it wasn't wasn't a one man, one team, one
Speaker 2: state job. And by this stage we got up a
Speaker 2: better communication between states.
Speaker 1: Tell us about the first breakout from Freemantle Prison, just
Speaker 1: so people have got a sense of what we're dealing
Speaker 1: here with Brendan Abbott, because it's pretty ballsy, as most
Speaker 1: prison breaks are because the consequences are if it goes
Speaker 1: bad that they can be shot, as the corrective services
Speaker 1: are entitled to do. How did he break out the
Speaker 1: Freemantle I've been the Freemantle Prison and those that don't
Speaker 1: know that it's a very old style prison, the way
Speaker 1: you'd expect something from the previous century, sandstone blocks and
Speaker 1: iron bars. How did he actually break out of there?
Speaker 2: So that to take a step back, there was a
Speaker 2: prison riot and Brendan was one of the people involved
Speaker 2: in the right and ultimately had to base court with
Speaker 2: a number of a defendants and they were going to
Speaker 2: and from court high security every day during the trial.
Speaker 2: And that this is important because Brendan was they'd take
Speaker 2: off their prison greens, they would put on civilian clothes
Speaker 2: they'd taken to the prison, come back, strip off, and
Speaker 2: over that period he was able to accumulate some civilian
Speaker 2: clothes obviously take one item every now and then and so,
Speaker 2: and he stashed those away. So he was always thinking
Speaker 2: about escape. So we move along post the prison riot trial.
Speaker 2: He's convicted, he's got extra time and a sentence. He
Speaker 2: got himself into the prison tailor shop where they were
Speaker 2: making uniforms, prisoners, gear, overalls and this type of thing.
Speaker 2: And I think it dawned on him very early that
Speaker 2: he needed He couldn't just tunnel out. He couldn't go
Speaker 2: out just over the wall. We couldn't walk out. So
Speaker 2: he had to come up with a pretty devious plan.
Speaker 2: And the plan he came up with was to look like,
Speaker 2: get out of the tailor sho shop through the bars,
Speaker 2: get across the roof and over the wall. He had
Speaker 2: a pretty good idea of the setup of the prison
Speaker 2: because during the course of the trial there were maps
Speaker 2: shown at the prison, and obviously he took those in
Speaker 2: so he knew roughly where he had to go to
Speaker 2: get out over the wall, and the tailor shop gave
Speaker 2: him that access. So he'd managed to secure getting hold
Speaker 2: of a hacksaw blades through the workshop there, and he'd
Speaker 2: also managed to get onto making overalls, and once days
Speaker 2: they'd had the overalls stashed away and made and they
Speaker 2: were cutting through the bars over a long period, but
Speaker 2: one of the bars broke early, so they made the
Speaker 2: decision to go there. And then that was him Reynolds
Speaker 2: and a guy called I actually can't remember soon on
Speaker 2: the other one, but so they were going to do
Speaker 2: to get out. They saw through the bars. Three of
Speaker 2: them got through the window across the roof. They had
Speaker 2: to jump agap. Reynolds and Abbott got over the gap,
Speaker 2: and the third one fell down the gap and broke
Speaker 2: his leg. So they continued on this gap through the
Speaker 2: roofs over the wall, they dropped a big drop and
Speaker 2: scarp and getting rid of the overalls, they had civilian
Speaker 2: clothes underneath. From there they got on a bus and
Speaker 2: went and got a hamburger from hungry Jacks and then
Speaker 2: continued on their merry way. And Abbot ran for five
Speaker 2: month or five.
Speaker 1: Years, breaking down a couple of things. The jump the gap,
Speaker 1: like prisoners are set up not to escape, So I
Speaker 1: would imagine that's a pretty big gap and consequences if
Speaker 1: you fail that gap. But I suppose if you're trying
Speaker 1: to bust out of the prison, you highly motivated.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And look they had a good run up to it,
Speaker 2: and they got across, and of course one of them
Speaker 2: didn't didn't quite make it. I think it was it
Speaker 2: was quite a gap. And of course the prison guards
Speaker 2: are seeing people in what they initially thought were overalls,
Speaker 2: prison overalls as prison officers, so they got a fair
Speaker 2: distance before it was realized that they were they were
Speaker 2: escaping prisoners, So it was pretty ingenious.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the fact that the planning, because in the
Speaker 1: people I've spoken to or I know that they've escaped
Speaker 1: from prison, you tend to have two types, ones that
Speaker 1: are planning it and ones that are opportunistic that they're
Speaker 1: just see a moment and they decide to take the chance.
Speaker 1: And I've got to say most people that get out
Speaker 1: of prison get caught relatively soon after because there's a
Speaker 1: lot of focus from law enforcement. Obviously, if someone's busted
Speaker 1: out of jail, it's a humiliation to the corrective services.
Speaker 1: It's almost waving the red flag at police and corrective
Speaker 1: services if you've escaped from escape from prison. So a
Speaker 1: lot of work goes into it, and most people that
Speaker 1: escape from prison don't spend that long on the other
Speaker 1: side of the wall before they get caught. Brendan for
Speaker 1: out on the run for five years five or six
Speaker 1: six years.
Speaker 2: Five years, five years, whereas Reynolds, the fellow he escaped with,
Speaker 2: he didn't take long to get caught, And that was
Speaker 2: showing the difference between two types of crip Brendan was
Speaker 2: the thinker. Reynolds was the opportunist and not as I
Speaker 2: don't think has had the smarts of Brendan had. And
Speaker 2: Brendan got rid of Reynolds in the end when he
Speaker 2: realized he was a liability. And that was one of
Speaker 2: the things. Brennan was always thinking about staying out. Reynolds
Speaker 2: was always thinking about what can I do next? Because
Speaker 2: I'm enjoying this life. There was one was a strategic
Speaker 2: thinker and the.
Speaker 1: Other knot What sawt of things? Did your assessment of it?
Speaker 1: And you've been heavily involved in the investigation. What saw
Speaker 1: the things? Was Brendan doing that set himself apart in
Speaker 1: being strategic enough to keep that low profile and slip
Speaker 1: under the radar.
Speaker 2: I think staying on the move and keeping a low
Speaker 2: profile when he was on the move and doing things
Speaker 2: that people would normally do. I mean he went on
Speaker 2: an I think it was a kentiquy tour or a
Speaker 2: tour through the through Lord and Territory, met up with
Speaker 2: a Japanese tourist. They just look like pals. They headed
Speaker 2: off and climb There's ulu As Rock as it was called.
Speaker 2: Ben did real touristy stuff that didn't draw attention when
Speaker 2: they If he did a job, he planned the job
Speaker 2: and left no trace. Really, most of the stuff he
Speaker 2: was nailed for is based on his m O and
Speaker 2: maybe some you know, caught with some of the items
Speaker 2: later on. But so he was a He was a
Speaker 2: thinker and I often said he thinks like a good detective.
Speaker 2: You know, he just what. I'll conceptualize a plan, I'll
Speaker 2: analyze it and I'll figure out where this plan is
Speaker 2: going to go. But I always have a plan BEAR,
Speaker 2: and a plan C and a plan D.
Speaker 1: And minimize and reduce the risk. You talked about MA.
Speaker 1: I know when I worked in the hold up Squad
Speaker 1: it was familiar with Brendan Abbott because it was around
Speaker 1: that same time when he was on the run. So
Speaker 1: you know we were were in New South Wales that
Speaker 1: you had a bloat that was traveling around robbing different places.
Speaker 1: But I remember my work in the arm hold up Squad.
Speaker 1: The MA was the type of things that you'd link
Speaker 1: the crimes to. It was a way that people approached
Speaker 1: It might be the words of what they say when
Speaker 1: they storm into the bank, what they wear just said,
Speaker 1: demeanor and the way that they would conduct themselves. What
Speaker 1: type of bank robber was Brendan? How did he go
Speaker 1: about when he was in the bank.
Speaker 2: Well, he'd start before he was in the bank. He
Speaker 2: does surveillance, so he knew the setup, he knew who
Speaker 2: was who. He did a lot of planning. He understood
Speaker 2: the alarm systems. He was technically pretty adapt He liked tinkering,
Speaker 2: taking things apart. The family always talked he'd take radios
Speaker 2: apart and put them back together and so on. So
Speaker 2: he understood technology, and so he'd do all that groundwork.
Speaker 2: He'd find out times when things were drived, when the
Speaker 2: vault was going to be open, when staff arrived, So
Speaker 2: a lot of groundwork. So that was before he went
Speaker 2: in the bank. So when he went in the bank,
Speaker 2: it was relatively smooth. Whether he came through the ceiling,
Speaker 2: whether he was already in the bank, or he was
Speaker 2: coming in through the front door. He just knew what
Speaker 2: was going to happen. He was ahead of everyone, you know,
Speaker 2: a couple of the jobs. He'd actually done things to
Speaker 2: the alarms. He'd put listening devices into various banks to
Speaker 2: hear who was in there, so he knew what was
Speaker 2: going on. But then when he went in. He was
Speaker 2: very he unlike some of his people he went with,
Speaker 2: he was very systematic about what he was doing. I mean,
Speaker 2: anything that went wrong in the bank usually was one
Speaker 2: of his co offenders to do something dumb and stupid,
Speaker 2: and so he would minimize the risk by knowing exactly
Speaker 2: what was going on, you know, And I think that's
Speaker 2: what made him apart from other bank robbers. I mean
Speaker 2: I worked on a lot of bank robbers, you know.
Speaker 2: I can remember one. You can see him rushing on
Speaker 2: the camera going into the bank with a sauna, but
Speaker 2: he hasn't put his balaklava on. His nose is sticking
Speaker 2: through his eye hole and he runs into the door.
Speaker 2: This is the type of character you were dealing with.
Speaker 2: Whereas Brendan had done is he's pre planning.
Speaker 1: So he was on after escaping from Fremantle Prison. He's
Speaker 1: on the on the run for five years. Are you
Speaker 1: is at the stage you started looking at it on
Speaker 1: that run at that stage or is this after he
Speaker 1: got locked up again.
Speaker 2: No. I started working on him at the at the
Speaker 2: end of his five run five years, when they were
Speaker 2: all celebrating, We were getting you know, we were picking
Speaker 2: up messages on various people's phones or whatever that you know,
Speaker 2: congratulations on your five years from a couple who knew
Speaker 2: the family and so on. So that's when I picked
Speaker 2: it up. And that's a real thumbing nose. Now Ley's
Speaker 2: talked about thumbing the nose and the postcard. It's pretty
Speaker 2: well known now that he didn't send postcards. After he
Speaker 2: escaped with Reynolds, there was a purshuit, a pretty wild purshoot.
Speaker 2: Seventy nine Division working nights had got behind him and
Speaker 2: he was driving a Cordier. He was driving and Reynolds
Speaker 2: was the passenger, and they'd done a break in on
Speaker 2: a gun shop and got a couple of shotguns and
Speaker 2: obviously to do hold ups. So when the chase was on,
Speaker 2: Reynolds was hanging out the window firing at shotgun at
Speaker 2: the car. The car got dumped in a Perth northern suburb,
Speaker 2: and Abbott and Reynolds had hidden the shotguns in a
Speaker 2: sandpile out in front of the house and then run
Speaker 2: and hit in the bush and as we say, went doggo.
Speaker 2: So they lay still, and of course the search went
Speaker 2: on and on and on. They stayed where they were.
Speaker 2: They weren't picked up. Cobbs got pretty close to them, apparently,
Speaker 2: and by daylight they just made off and got away.
Speaker 2: But in the car was all their camping gear. They'd
Speaker 2: been camping out in the bushdown and dwelling Up. They
Speaker 2: bought a hip of camping gear and so on, and
Speaker 2: they found a camera, one of those disposable old cameras,
Speaker 2: and developed the film and sure enough there's Reynolds standing
Speaker 2: outside the dwelling Up police station. It looked like a
Speaker 2: postcard taken by Abbott. And so that was before I
Speaker 2: got there, one of the and when I was there,
Speaker 2: we liked generating publicity because publicity got people talking.
Speaker 1: It puts a pressure on someone on the run.
Speaker 2: Yes it does, and that was one of the main
Speaker 2: tools we used, and they had been used. So the
Speaker 2: photographs were released to the press. I think it was
Speaker 2: the Austrasian Post at the time who decided to think
Speaker 2: run the story that was a postcard. We didn't say
Speaker 2: no because that then got everybody interested, and that's how
Speaker 2: the myth of the postcard bandit started.
Speaker 1: Okay, well that's interesting, and from a tactical point of view,
Speaker 1: I understand that too, because it puts the pressure, keeps
Speaker 1: people talking about it and that, Yeah, makes it hard
Speaker 1: for someone like Brendan trying to be keeping a low profile.
Speaker 1: So how did he actually get caught after the five years?
Speaker 1: What was the catalyst for that?
Speaker 2: Look, I think it was just under two years that
Speaker 2: we worked solidly on him. You know, we were dealing
Speaker 2: with other armed robberies all the time and that.
Speaker 1: And you just a reference it again. You said from
Speaker 1: South Australia, Sid the Thomas sergeant there said Thomas. And
Speaker 1: from Queensland.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Jerry Costello and Glenn Pritchard. Jerry was robbers in
Speaker 2: Brisbane and Glenn was at broad Beach CIB at the time.
Speaker 2: I think it was. So we were dealing with them constantly.
Speaker 2: We had lesser dealings with Northern Territory, Victoria and New South.
Speaker 2: Any time there was a bank robbery, with any imagination,
Speaker 2: it suddenly became Brendan Abbott.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can get drowned in that.
Speaker 2: And look some of them were and some of who
Speaker 2: was never charged with because we didn't have the evidence.
Speaker 2: But you know, Brendan Abbott. Every time it's a bank robbery,
Speaker 2: was it Brendan Abbott? And we were getting sightings in
Speaker 2: w A. I remember we got contacted by a UCO
Speaker 2: who was working on a drug job who said that
Speaker 2: Brandan Abbott had come in on this fella's place. We
Speaker 2: were never able to confirm that that was the UCO's
Speaker 2: identification obviously didn't say he was Brendan Abbott. So there
Speaker 2: was lots of these these rabbit holes we were running down.
Speaker 2: But having decided to work on Glenn, we came up
Speaker 2: with a strategy of what we were going.
Speaker 1: To and how just on that, how did that play
Speaker 1: out for you guys like from different different states. It
Speaker 1: sounds like you got the a team together of three
Speaker 1: or four obsessed detective sergeants from different locations. And it's
Speaker 1: got to become personal, hasn't it when you when you're
Speaker 1: chasing the blake that long, and it's not personal in
Speaker 1: the negative sense, But you've got to be driven.
Speaker 2: Look, this is you know, and you know from being
Speaker 2: an executive that if you if you get something that
Speaker 2: really interests you, that's got a bit too that you
Speaker 2: don't want to let it go, you know, and so
Speaker 2: you really push for it. And of course you also
Speaker 2: know that from above hierarchy is saying, hey, pull your
Speaker 2: head in. That's not the only case you got you're
Speaker 2: not getting these resources, you're not getting this, you're not
Speaker 2: getting that focus on and so you've got a kind
Speaker 2: of your butt edge with hierarchy as well, which we did.
Speaker 2: But working on Gwen, knowing he was driving around while suspended,
Speaker 2: I decided to run a strategy on him and when
Speaker 2: knew a car he had, So what I was going
Speaker 2: to do was pull him up, leave his car on
Speaker 2: the side of the road, get him processed through as
Speaker 2: driving on suspension in his real name. And then what
Speaker 2: we had done was we had did a rehearsal on
Speaker 2: the same type of vehicle of instilling in putting in
Speaker 2: a listening device and a tracking device, all new technology
Speaker 2: for the time. So we did that. We knew how
Speaker 2: long it was going to take us to do it,
Speaker 2: and that was the plan. So anyway, we seven year
Speaker 2: OD Division, couple of fellows, Brahan Randall and Doug Nelson
Speaker 2: who I later worked with Doug at M Robbie when
Speaker 2: he became a detective. He was in uniform at the
Speaker 2: time they pulled up Abbott. As part of the plan,
Speaker 2: surveillance was on sorry Salmon that pulled up Salmon. Surveilance
Speaker 2: were on him for the moment up until it became
Speaker 2: an interaction between policing him. So surveillance pulled off and
Speaker 2: I give him these instructions, which were to if he
Speaker 2: identifies his self as Glenn Salmon, just lock him up.
Speaker 2: Don't do anything else, just lock him up for driving
Speaker 2: it suspension to leave the car there. We'll deal with it.
Speaker 2: We'll get the keys and we'll deal with it. So
Speaker 2: when they pulled them up, Glenn was being a bit
Speaker 2: shady and the Graham started searching the vehicle and in
Speaker 2: the back he found what looked like a silencer to
Speaker 2: a gun, and so Doug rainy and said, look, we've
Speaker 2: got him here. He's also produced a false identification, a
Speaker 2: Northern Territory license, and so I said to him, whatever
Speaker 2: you do, just let him go because we needed him
Speaker 2: to be with his real identification. We'll get another chance
Speaker 2: for it. So he said, yeah, no, ours, we'll let
Speaker 2: him go. In that time, Graham had also found some ammunition,
Speaker 2: whizzed Abbot about it and Oh Salmon about it, and
Speaker 2: then got Salmon got out of oc spray a pepper
Speaker 2: strode sprayed both in the eyes. A fight started. They
Speaker 2: were rolling around fighting. Salmon had managed to remove one
Speaker 2: of the officer's gun from his holster. Had the gun
Speaker 2: upside down, so it was holding it like that, and
Speaker 2: it was pressed into the stomach at the officer. I'm
Speaker 2: pretty sure that was Randal, and we saw it later
Speaker 2: because we could see that the whole imprint of the
Speaker 2: gun in his stomach. And this fight went on for
Speaker 2: a while. Two coppers blinded, they managed to get the
Speaker 2: gun out of his hands, throw the gun away. A
Speaker 2: bysender then picked it up and took it away while
Speaker 2: they eventually got him into custody. After that, Nelson ranged
Speaker 2: me and I said, did you let him go? What
Speaker 2: the fuck's going on? And they then he told me
Speaker 2: the story. Oh Jesus, surveillance are pulled off, so no
Speaker 2: one who was seeing this going on until after it
Speaker 2: had been resolved. So we made a decision that Salmon
Speaker 2: should just be dealt with as that incident, not talk
Speaker 2: about Brendan, not talk about anything. While we got a
Speaker 2: pager off him, we found other guns, We found pistols
Speaker 2: in the car and so on, so we thought we'll
Speaker 2: follow those leads down while he's in custody and being
Speaker 2: dealt with, so we knew he would be remaining in
Speaker 2: custody and let seventy nine Division deal with that side
Speaker 2: of it. We stayed right out of it. Meanwhile, we're
Speaker 2: then looking at the pager messages and we can see
Speaker 2: he's got direct links to Brendan some of the messages.
Speaker 2: So we worked on it. I think we left it
Speaker 2: for twenty four hours and had him brought up from
Speaker 2: Canning Vaal Remand and Shackles their tactical people shuffled him in.
Speaker 2: We put him in an interview and our aim was
Speaker 2: to try and elicit Brendan's whereabouts room to give him
Speaker 2: give Brendan up using the fact that we knew that
Speaker 2: he had a new child coming I think the kid
Speaker 2: had just been born or was about to be born,
Speaker 2: that he was going to go away for a long,
Speaker 2: long time un left. He helped us all these negotiation
Speaker 2: tactics and over a period of about five hours working on it,
Speaker 2: eventually we went through the whole gamble of emotions with him. Now,
Speaker 2: this is a hardened crook who initially didn't want to
Speaker 2: talk to us, to the fact that okay, I'll give
Speaker 2: you a post office box, and his thinking was that
Speaker 2: he would be able to get to Brendan as soon
Speaker 2: as he got back to the vision to warn him
Speaker 2: not to his post office box. So as soon as
Speaker 2: we got that detail straight on the phone too Wesland,
Speaker 2: they went straight down, raided the post office, got into
Speaker 2: the post office box, found a bill for an address
Speaker 2: on the Gold Coast, set up surveillance opposite this high
Speaker 2: rise which was quite a high up in the thing,
Speaker 2: and we're watching directly across and shure it up, there's Brendan.
Speaker 2: I think they told me he was naked, ironing shirts
Speaker 2: and so on. Meanwhile, we let Samon go back to prison.
Speaker 2: He was dealt with all that. He was very unhappy
Speaker 2: with us. We got a message shortly after saying on
Speaker 2: the thing that the page's dirty girl is off, so
Speaker 2: in other words, Kelly's off, and so he got a
Speaker 2: warning that we'd already set up in the Tavannes. They
Speaker 2: saw him go downstairs carrying a couple of bags. He
Speaker 2: was wearing his bum bag because he was always known
Speaker 2: to be armed, and then the bum bag was always
Speaker 2: a pistol, and they were kind of caught off footed
Speaker 2: because things were moving very fast. But they had a
Speaker 2: Savannaes guy down there down below, so everybody's charging downstairs.
Speaker 2: The Savannas guy is moving towards him, and I later
Speaker 2: spoke to Brendan and he thought he was about to
Speaker 2: be mugged. The Savannahs guy pulls out his gun pointed
Speaker 2: at Brendan. Brendan thinks, have I got time to get
Speaker 2: to my gun? He hasn't. He lies down and he's
Speaker 2: arrested and the cavalry come in. That's the summary of
Speaker 2: the arrest and how that first arrest happened.
Speaker 1: It's interesting a couple of points there, and I think
Speaker 1: people will be fascinated about what goes on in the
Speaker 1: negotiations when you arrest someone or you're dealing with him
Speaker 1: in an interview room. And you talked about with Glenn Salmon,
Speaker 1: Brendan's brother, how the thing that you had to negotiate
Speaker 1: was how long he was going to spend in prison
Speaker 1: and a young family, and they're the type of things
Speaker 1: I think that's fair on the table put in. That's
Speaker 1: just the realities of the world in the type of
Speaker 1: the crimes that these guys are involved in, and these
Speaker 1: are the type of things that police officers have to
Speaker 1: bargain with and quite appropriately, I would suggest.
Speaker 2: Well, we had raided his house the night before the night,
Speaker 2: so the next day he was brought into us. That
Speaker 2: night after the incident, we raided his house and we
Speaker 2: found all sorts of stuff. We found a picture on
Speaker 2: a wall of a blank driver's license for Northern Territory
Speaker 2: and Western Australia, and so you'd stand in front of it,
Speaker 2: they'd add in the detail, take the photo suddenly you've
Speaker 2: gotten and then reduce it down. We found a stolen
Speaker 2: police id. We found pistols with silencers, without a taser.
Speaker 2: I later found out that he'd uced the taser on
Speaker 2: himself to see what it was like, and it took
Speaker 2: him about a day to recover. It was one of
Speaker 2: those ones the old style had about one hundred and
Speaker 2: twenty thousand bolts go through. Look, it was a very
Speaker 2: long interview. There was two of us, another detective Steve Drown,
Speaker 2: a very good detective. We were bouncing off and we
Speaker 2: weren't doing so much good cop, bad cop. You know,
Speaker 2: it's you have to tailor how you speak to someone
Speaker 2: when you're interviewing him, and so it took some time,
Speaker 2: and you know, to get that post office box. I
Speaker 2: think Glenn was thinking, I'll give you that and I'll
Speaker 2: be solved the problem because I'll be able to warm Brendan.
Speaker 2: Not realizing how quickly and how prepared we were to move.
Speaker 1: Well, how did you guys collectively as a team, all
Speaker 1: the people looking looking for Brendan Pheel when he was
Speaker 1: taken in the custody.
Speaker 2: I think there are a few beers to be had,
Speaker 2: as they as should be. I mean, I was pretty
Speaker 2: well on the plane very quickly because we had stuff
Speaker 2: we wanted to talk to him about, and you want
Speaker 2: to get in there as quick as you can. By
Speaker 2: this stage he was at Waco prison. Sid Thomas came
Speaker 2: up from South Australia. So Jerry, Sid and I went
Speaker 2: to Waco prison to interview. It's funny, you know. When
Speaker 2: we went into the prison, they said they had an
Speaker 2: interview room for him, and Abbott was in the corridor,
Speaker 2: standing up against the wall, and he just did not
Speaker 2: even acknowledge us, wouldn't even look at us. I think
Speaker 2: Jerry had already to him, so there was at least
Speaker 2: some recognition that there was an association there. And so
Speaker 2: he was into an interview room and over the next
Speaker 2: two hours we went from nothing to talking about the
Speaker 2: cricket and there was really an interesting two hours. I mean,
Speaker 2: there were three of us, so I went there with
Speaker 2: pretty well no expectation he was ever going to cough
Speaker 2: to anything, but we still had to ask. I wanted
Speaker 2: to hear what he had to say, but probably more
Speaker 2: likely he wanted to know what we knew and how
Speaker 2: he was caught. Of course we weren't going to tell
Speaker 2: him that either, so it was a bit of a
Speaker 2: cat and mouse talking about what we're going on, about
Speaker 2: how things had happened and so on. But from my perspective,
Speaker 2: for any crimes that he committed in wa it was
Speaker 2: not that he wasn't going to confess to anything. And
Speaker 2: you know, we had the identifications had been tainted by
Speaker 2: newspaper articles. We'd found the identification of Brendan had been
Speaker 2: done earlier stages by showing the witness and newspaper article
Speaker 2: of Brendan Appott with the headlined suspect for that bank
Speaker 2: hold up. Well, that's that's going to go nowhere.
Speaker 1: You've blown that for the course.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we really had nothing And my view was
Speaker 2: at that by that stage, unless he was going to
Speaker 2: give us anything, he was going to do a long
Speaker 2: stretch in Queensland anyway, and likely a stretch in Adelaide.
Speaker 1: So did they have it? Did they have him for well,
Speaker 1: you've got him for a Western Australia for escape custody,
Speaker 1: but did they have him for other jobs? They had
Speaker 1: him locked in because yeah.
Speaker 2: They had him for jobs in Queensland that there was
Speaker 2: stuff they had, They had good CCTV. So he was charged.
Speaker 2: He fought every charge every step of the way. And
Speaker 2: that came out later on when all the committal hearings
Speaker 2: were occurring, and.
Speaker 1: He charged for robbing the bank, leading not guilty and
Speaker 1: fighter that.
Speaker 2: And Chris Niss was his lawyer, and I have to say,
Speaker 2: what a articulate Yeah, he was obviously good counsel, could
Speaker 2: every money yeah yeah. And and really as far as
Speaker 2: the charges was on, I had a very small part
Speaker 2: in it. Still copped as you do in those days.
Speaker 2: We did. I expected to get a hard time.
Speaker 1: It was a it was a different different world than
Speaker 1: you got ripped apart and a good good defense barrissa
Speaker 1: or solicitor seemed to have open slather on you that
Speaker 1: could just question everything you get out of the witness
Speaker 1: box sometimes and not even sure if your name is
Speaker 1: actually Glenn.
Speaker 2: Well, that's right, you know, but I think also we came.
Speaker 2: We come from a time when I used to enjoy court. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it was, you know, it was a contest, whereas these
Speaker 2: days no one goes to courtney law.
Speaker 1: Well, the evidence was it was different from the evidence
Speaker 1: you gather now. Sometimes the evidence that we get with
Speaker 1: electronic CCTV links to phones and all that, it's overwhelming
Speaker 1: by the time it's presented at court. Quite often, it
Speaker 1: was when you were taking people to court for the
Speaker 1: stick ups. Back in those days it was identification. You
Speaker 1: might get lucky and have a fingerprint on the or
Speaker 1: hair in an abandoned balaclava or something like that. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I can imagine. I'm just interested in the psyche of
Speaker 1: him speaking to him shortly after and you said two
Speaker 1: hours you spend with him, he starts to talk cricket
Speaker 1: did he have? Was it like I would imagine life
Speaker 1: on the run would be a very stressful situation. You
Speaker 1: have to be hyper alert the whole time. Was there
Speaker 1: a sense of relief or did he still come across
Speaker 1: as a caged animal he.
Speaker 2: Did not want to be there. Yeah, I sense that
Speaker 2: he was. He was going to get out. You know
Speaker 2: he was going to try and get out. There was
Speaker 2: no way he was going to go, oh, well you
Speaker 2: got me now, it's a fair cop. And that came
Speaker 2: from the fact that he was trying to elicit information
Speaker 2: from us, right. He wanted to know everything, not just
Speaker 2: how he got caught, but what we knew, what offenses
Speaker 2: he committed. He was only going to tell us, and
Speaker 2: he only told us what we had absolute proof on.
Speaker 2: He talked about a radio he got out of the
Speaker 2: police academy and adelaide and laughed about that. He didn't
Speaker 2: tell us who got that for him, but he had
Speaker 2: a police radio.
Speaker 1: Oh, police radio?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So yeah. It was a very interesting discussion.
Speaker 2: And I remember afterwards listening because they had LD's listening devices.
Speaker 2: And I can say this now in the visitors rooms
Speaker 2: at the time for Abbott and the family were in there,
Speaker 2: and the family he told his brother to get up
Speaker 2: to Cairns and you with his safe safe house or
Speaker 2: safe workshop or whatever it was up there. So Queensland
Speaker 2: got onto that pretty quick. The family weren't involved with
Speaker 2: his apart from Glenn. And also people talk about how
Speaker 2: much money he a stolen, you know, as talk of
Speaker 2: in one two million dollars at that time was a
Speaker 2: lot of money. And but how expensive it is to
Speaker 2: be on the run like he was everywhere was you
Speaker 2: cost him, cost him through paying people off, cost him
Speaker 2: through hotels, cars, travel. He was flying business class around
Speaker 2: the country doing his jobs. You know, he'd put on
Speaker 2: a suit and looked like a businessman with a wig.
Speaker 2: He was doing disguises. Everything he did cost him a
Speaker 2: lot of money and quite fatally, even if he has
Speaker 2: money stashed away now currency has changed, I'll do anything
Speaker 2: with it.
Speaker 1: One million dollars.
Speaker 2: Yes, and you know the denominations the notes have all changed.
Speaker 2: Now you walk into a bank with a whole lot
Speaker 2: of those old notes, what's the first thing that's going
Speaker 2: to happen.
Speaker 1: It would be hard pressed someone trying to pass off
Speaker 1: two dollars ten dollar notes, and.
Speaker 2: It might as well burn it because it's worthless. So
Speaker 2: to say, he's got a lot of money now.
Speaker 3: And.
Speaker 1: Did you recover his disguises or the fake passports and
Speaker 1: different things? Did you find the stash of those.
Speaker 2: When we raided Glen's house, we found a stash. I'm
Speaker 2: pretty sure Queensland found a fair bit of gear too
Speaker 2: to cover that. It's funny though, when it got to
Speaker 2: that stage of who'd caught him, things kind of retracted
Speaker 2: in that we start it's ours now. You can get
Speaker 2: your you can get your hands on in ten years time,
Speaker 2: but this is ours now. But if they wanted our help,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, wee had to help.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, that's that's the nature of the How
Speaker 1: did you guys feel like collectively before you sort of
Speaker 1: withdrew your thought that's the end of it. We've got him,
Speaker 1: you get it through court. You know he's going to
Speaker 1: get a lengthy sentence. Did you think that was the
Speaker 1: last you'd be thinking or hearing of Brendan Abbott.
Speaker 2: There was always something in the back of my mind
Speaker 2: that maybe he'd have another crack again. But then when
Speaker 2: I saw the security was under I thought, Jesus, you
Speaker 2: know he's going to have to walk through walls to
Speaker 2: get out of there. Well he almost did, didn't he?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well tell us about that. How long he was
Speaker 1: in before he escaped again?
Speaker 2: I think from memory it was about two years, and
Speaker 2: I had this stage gone back to TRG as a
Speaker 2: uniform senior sergeant. I got promoted to senior sergeant and
Speaker 2: I went to TRG.
Speaker 1: Which is our tactical tactical teams.
Speaker 2: And so I was working out of there and I
Speaker 2: got a phone call and said, yeah, he's gotten out.
Speaker 2: We need to look at your security. So they looked
Speaker 2: at my security. I'd never been concerned by that because
Speaker 2: I think, you know, coppers, anyone who's got any brains
Speaker 2: is not going to go after a cropper because it's
Speaker 2: just going to bring a lot of heat on you.
Speaker 2: But you know, as a copper as adjective, you've always
Speaker 2: been security conscious anyway, So I learned about that, and
Speaker 2: then I knew that they had started another investigation here,
Speaker 2: and it turns out Brendan had come across the WA
Speaker 2: did a stick up on Mirror Booker Bank, and I
Speaker 2: ended up running a team chasing what was a citing
Speaker 2: around yanchat Way for him. But I think that's pretty
Speaker 2: well got stayed out at WA apart from that one job.
Speaker 1: How long was he on the run for the second time?
Speaker 2: Six months? You know. Look, and they had the cooperation
Speaker 2: was certainly better between states by the stage they'd gotten
Speaker 2: their act together. The National Crime Authority existed now and
Speaker 2: so that they were involved in as well well. And
Speaker 2: you were getting sightings all around the country. I remember
Speaker 2: I got asked to go into the because I was
Speaker 2: one of the last croppers in WA to speak with him,
Speaker 2: and they wanted me to listen to a phone call
Speaker 2: they thought may have been him, and I did listen.
Speaker 2: I went in there, listened to the phone call and
Speaker 2: I think it was up in far North Queensland, and yeah,
Speaker 2: it did sound like him, and I said, yeah, that
Speaker 2: look that sounds like him. So yeah, so there I
Speaker 2: was brought in on that. I think Northern Territory said no,
Speaker 2: it wasn't him on that phone call. He was in
Speaker 2: Northern Territory the whole time, which is fine. Interestingly, during
Speaker 2: that period we got a information from I think over
Speaker 2: East that Abbott has been seen boarding a plane coming
Speaker 2: to w A and they were absolutely convinced it was him.
Speaker 2: So we'd set up an operation to meet the plane
Speaker 2: when it came here, and I was in TRG. But
Speaker 2: I was also the last person actually had visual identification,
Speaker 2: so we had people along the way saying yeah, it's
Speaker 2: definitely definitely him, definitely him. We were sitting at the
Speaker 2: base of the escalators on the other side of a
Speaker 2: one way glass door. We had TORG teams everything they
Speaker 2: were all gonna pounce on the sky coming down the escalator.
Speaker 2: And of course, so I'm sitting there looking waiting for him,
Speaker 2: and then they said that's him coming down the escalator.
Speaker 2: I said, no, it's not, it's not him. It's definitely
Speaker 2: not him. Didn't even look anything like him, and they
Speaker 2: pounced on him and it wasn't him. But this is
Speaker 2: the level people were operating. Now. We were seeing Brendan
Speaker 2: Abbott everywhere.
Speaker 1: Well that's what he's shown before, like escaping five years
Speaker 1: on the run, robbed how many banks and cause the
Speaker 1: chaosity did then he's back in and release again. I
Speaker 1: know from my experience in the stick ups, armed hold
Speaker 1: up squad. Christopher Bins. He went by the moniker of badness,
Speaker 1: Christopher Badness Bins. He escaped from a Victorian prison, came
Speaker 1: up to New South Wales, robbed a bank. We locked
Speaker 1: him up for that, you know, a high high risk arrest.
Speaker 1: Robbed the Commonwealth Bank at chats with I think it
Speaker 1: was we put him away and charging with all the
Speaker 1: offenses we're aware of. And he escaped from his escape
Speaker 1: from Victoria. But then he was in prison here in Parramatta,
Speaker 1: then escaped again and I know the pressure that put
Speaker 1: on everyone to find him before he was put away.
Speaker 1: So yeah, you've got these people that you can't break.
Speaker 1: They're always looking for an opportunity to get out of prison,
Speaker 1: aren't they.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And of course they're always looking for the gaps
Speaker 2: in our capabilities, you know. And that's how Brendan operated.
Speaker 2: I mean, when it came for the second escape, did
Speaker 2: work out what their gaps were in the security and
Speaker 2: how he could take advantage that. And I think that
Speaker 2: is the more interesting escape, is the second escape, because
Speaker 2: he really, in my mind, really strategized so many things
Speaker 2: would make life, take advantage of the gaps and make
Speaker 2: life very hard or police to find him afterwards.
Speaker 1: Hey guys, it's Gary Jubilan here. Want to get more
Speaker 1: out of I Catch Killers, then you should head over
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Speaker 1: watching today. And how the prison he escaped that second one,
Speaker 1: I think in my research it's talked about he had
Speaker 1: some stuff smuggle into the prison to cut through the bars.
Speaker 1: What's a diamond string or what is it called a
Speaker 1: diamond wire.
Speaker 2: He was aventually let into the general prison or population,
Speaker 2: which straight away it's the opportunity is to watch what's
Speaker 2: going on and find the gaps. So he got diamond
Speaker 2: wire smuggled in via an antenna of a radio transistor
Speaker 2: radio to you sta Haven time. You know, they searched
Speaker 2: obviously the radio, but no one thought that it put
Speaker 2: diamond wire antenna. So he'd got that into the prison.
Speaker 2: You just can't hold diamond wire and do that. You
Speaker 2: had to work out and make a handle for it,
Speaker 2: and I think got a handle off a bit of furniture,
Speaker 2: and so he'd made a handle to slowly cut through
Speaker 2: the bars of his self. But of course going by
Speaker 2: himself makes him an easier target than that. She gets
Speaker 2: four other guys to go with him. There was a
Speaker 2: fellow in the prison of the guy by name of
Speaker 2: Brendan Bereshon who befriended Abbott while he was in a
Speaker 2: general population, and Bereshon was obviously in Abbott. With Brendan Abbott,
Speaker 2: he had a celebrity status, which both worked for him
Speaker 2: and against him. You know what prison's like cut down
Speaker 2: the tall poppy as well. So he be Isshon was
Speaker 2: due for parole and got parole and offered his services
Speaker 2: to Abbot, And so there was a plan that when
Speaker 2: the time was right, he would you know, obviously source
Speaker 2: the diamond wire, that he would assist in the escape.
Speaker 2: And so the plan came together. Brendan had cut through
Speaker 2: his bars the diamond wire. They had gone down the line,
Speaker 2: passed to other ones. Four other prisoners, two murderers and
Speaker 2: I think two racists. So they were bad buggers and
Speaker 2: they at all the same time had a plan that
Speaker 2: Beverishon would be outside to assist him with bolt cutters
Speaker 2: being thrown over to if there was any response armed
Speaker 2: response from the armed response vehicle, he would in that
Speaker 2: vehicle down using a rifle, which he did. And so
Speaker 2: when the signal was given that it was all clear
Speaker 2: to go, there were signals for either flashing lights or
Speaker 2: dropping burning paper out to say it was a cell window,
Speaker 2: to say it was a go. The operation their part started.
Speaker 2: There were floors in the prison system because of lack
Speaker 2: of staffing, because of changeovering and staffing so on. So
Speaker 2: they were through the bars. They had joined a bunch
Speaker 2: of plastic chairs together. So once they were out in
Speaker 2: the first area, whether the first lot of wireors. These
Speaker 2: plastic chairs were melded together and formed a bridge over
Speaker 2: the first wire they reached. The bolt cutters got through
Speaker 2: the second wire. When the response vehicle started tunneling up
Speaker 2: an armored responsive vehicle, Barison started putting rounds into the
Speaker 2: vehicle so that stops, so that stopped their ability to respond.
Speaker 2: The meantime, the prisoners are making their way out and
Speaker 2: gone embarrass and Abbott went off in their own direction.
Speaker 2: The other four went off by themselves. Abbott was never
Speaker 2: going to run with them because they knew he was
Speaker 2: going to get them caught, and then started the next escape.
Speaker 2: I think they lay low in the mangroves for quite
Speaker 2: some time before they then got clothes and got on
Speaker 2: their way, while the other four created mary hell around Queensland,
Speaker 2: you know, doing what crooks who have been locked up
Speaker 2: for a while, going to brothels, causing problems and pubs
Speaker 2: and this type of thing, which then took the attention
Speaker 2: or reduced the attention on Brendan Abbott. It was pretty smart.
Speaker 1: How was he caught on the run for five months?
Speaker 2: What five or six months? He was up in Northern
Speaker 2: Territory in Darwin. He was caught coming out of a
Speaker 2: laundromat right, and the cop has got a tip off
Speaker 2: and grabbed him out in the front of that chicky
Speaker 2: bugger at the end of it said can you finish
Speaker 2: by laundry for me? As he was loaded into the car.
Speaker 1: I don't like to give him respect, but there is
Speaker 1: something that you think you're going to rattle them with
Speaker 1: a shotgun pointed to the head and when they just
Speaker 1: throw back something like that, are you going to pick
Speaker 1: up my laundry?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's critical because that's then when the next stage started,
Speaker 2: the constant isolation solitary, you know, And that's when it
Speaker 2: became a political football, both in Queensland and wa WA
Speaker 2: for losing him the first time, and very much of
Speaker 2: political football. I think the Opposition used to shout out
Speaker 2: in Parliament where's Brendan Abbott? That blame was being politically
Speaker 2: heaped on the government of the day for not being
Speaker 2: able to keep him in. So what's going to happen.
Speaker 2: No politician is going to no attorney general or whatever
Speaker 2: it's going to say, I'll just put him in the
Speaker 2: main prison population. There's going to be in solitary for years.
Speaker 1: And is it true that he he's one of the
Speaker 1: longest serving prisoners for solitary confinement.
Speaker 2: I think so, I mean, I guess, but yeah, I don't. Yeh. Look,
Speaker 2: you know, I think he did six years pretty well
Speaker 2: in solitary first up. And I once said, you know,
Speaker 2: try to spend twenty four hours by yourself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's tough and inhumane. You know, they're put in
Speaker 1: there for a reason. And obviously there would have been
Speaker 1: a lot of pressure. And I know, quite rightly, corrective
Speaker 1: services don't take kindly when someone's escaped their custody, and
Speaker 1: the police don't like putting people before the courts having
Speaker 1: sentenced to prison. So there's a lot of people that
Speaker 1: he would have impacted on. And also, and we haven't
Speaker 1: spoken about it, but it's obvious and we'll just touch
Speaker 1: on it so people understand that we get it. It's
Speaker 1: not glorifying these crimes. That these crimes. You've worked in
Speaker 1: the arm toiled up squad. I've worked in the arm
Speaker 1: told up squad. We've spent a lot of time sitting
Speaker 1: down getting statements from victims that have been traumatized. When
Speaker 1: someone put it's a gun to their head has a
Speaker 1: lasting effect. Quite often people think well, there's no physical harm,
Speaker 1: but the psychological harm that it causes people that destroys
Speaker 1: some life. So we do understand that. Would you agree
Speaker 1: with that sentiment?
Speaker 2: I absolutely agree, and Rennand's deserved everything he got as
Speaker 2: far as I mean a minimum term of imprisonment for
Speaker 2: an armed Robbie had been six years. He carried out
Speaker 2: a lot of armed robberies that a lot of people's
Speaker 2: lives were destroyed or traumatized, and so he deserved his sentences.
Speaker 2: I think the way the sentences were carried out were
Speaker 2: probably you know, prison authorities are always understaff there. It's
Speaker 2: not a vote winner for governments to maintain prisons at
Speaker 2: a high level. I mean, prisoners even today are left
Speaker 2: in solitary because there's not enough guards constantly. It's not
Speaker 2: something that wins votes. So there's two sides of that coin. Yes,
Speaker 2: he deserved to be in prison, he deserved to do
Speaker 2: the time probably what he got. It's a manner in
Speaker 2: which it's done, which I tend to have a bit
Speaker 2: of a conflict over it. I thought, to someone being
Speaker 2: in solitary, you know, either twenty four or twenty three
Speaker 2: hours a day, that's just cruel.
Speaker 1: It's inhumane when the impact it hasn't. People argue, well,
Speaker 1: they're in prison, but I've spoken to a lot of
Speaker 1: people have spent time in there, and when you break
Speaker 1: it down what's going through and what they're going through,
Speaker 1: there's a reason that there's restrictions on that type of treatment.
Speaker 1: Where is he at now, He's still in prison.
Speaker 2: He's a Casuarina prison in WA. He's actually been doing
Speaker 2: a lot of legal of his own legal work, and
Speaker 2: I mean he's had a lot of time in his hands.
Speaker 2: He's no dummy.
Speaker 1: How long has he actually served up until this point.
Speaker 2: I think thirty three years all up.
Speaker 1: It's a long time.
Speaker 2: That's a long time. And look, I have said that
Speaker 2: murderers get less, but as is what rightly pointed out
Speaker 2: to me, most murderers commit their offense at thirty minutes
Speaker 2: of madness, whereas he was calculated, c needed money, conscious
Speaker 2: planned and did that. So again I think I don't
Speaker 2: have an issue with the sentence. So he's a Casuarina.
Speaker 2: He's fighting through the courts to have his releases sorted.
Speaker 2: He's just gone through a Supreme Court hearing. It's come
Speaker 2: back that he will serve his time, which I think
Speaker 2: takes him up to twenty thirty, but he also his
Speaker 2: parole date is now twenty twenty eight, so you know
Speaker 2: it's two little bit years away. Now after thirty three years,
Speaker 2: two years is probably waitable. He was originally going to
Speaker 2: be then extra guided to South Australia because they had
Speaker 2: a warrant in existence for his arrest over there that
Speaker 2: was a thirty five year old robbery. That warrant was
Speaker 2: stopping him from getting any rehabilitation maintaining his status in
Speaker 2: maximum security here because you then had to go on there.
Speaker 2: And I was asked to co sign a letter saying
Speaker 2: that the warrant should be washed because it's not in
Speaker 2: the public interest. And I think that we let too
Speaker 2: many prisoners on us out without any rehabilitation, and what
Speaker 2: do they do. The only thing they know is crime. Yes,
Speaker 2: he might commit crimes again, but he deserves to have
Speaker 2: some training of rehabilitation. So I, after a lot of
Speaker 2: thought and a lot of soul searching, I put my
Speaker 2: name to that the warrant was withdrawn by the Attorney
Speaker 2: General in that state. I don't think SID was very
Speaker 2: happy with me, and I can understand SID would not
Speaker 2: be happy, and some of my colleagues weren't either. But
Speaker 2: you know, it's a case I've followed, and it's not
Speaker 2: because it's Brendan Abbott. It's because I do believe in
Speaker 2: in proper rehabilitation as well as incarceration. And yeah, so
Speaker 2: I signed it and that so he doesn't have to
Speaker 2: go to shout Australia. So after he's released here, that's
Speaker 2: the end of it.
Speaker 1: I respect you for that, Glenn. And it's hard because
Speaker 1: there's a police officer where often thought to look at
Speaker 1: things in black and white and yeah, well he's a
Speaker 1: bad guy where good guys, he should get the punishment.
Speaker 1: But I understand what you're saying, but I also understand
Speaker 1: that the costs that would Yeah, you've made an informed
Speaker 1: decision or a conscious decision on what's the right thing.
Speaker 1: I not relating to Brendan's case, but other cases where
Speaker 1: someone's serving the custodial sentence in Queensland, knowing that the
Speaker 1: sinners they're released from Queensland, New South Wales is sitting
Speaker 1: there with a warrant and they're going to get another
Speaker 1: ten years. I don't see the benefit of that. If
Speaker 1: someone's in custody as well, have them all dealt with
Speaker 1: and say there's something something to aim for. Otherwise I
Speaker 1: see why people going, well, fuck this, I've got no
Speaker 1: chance of rehabilitation. Let me out, and I'm going to
Speaker 1: fall back into mild ways.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because that's all they know. And of course institutionalization
Speaker 2: in prisons, they everything laid on from where do you
Speaker 2: buy your toothpaste? How do you give a toothbrush? You know,
Speaker 2: shopping if you don't, And of course the world has
Speaker 2: changed in thirty odd years. You know it's going to
Speaker 2: be a shock to him. Fortunately he's got a family
Speaker 2: of son that wants to take him under his wing.
Speaker 2: But you know, there is a risk of letting people
Speaker 2: out like Brendan, There is a risk.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've got to speak and I'm sure you've got
Speaker 1: to speak with his son at that premiere and he
Speaker 1: presents as I met him for five minutes. He seems
Speaker 1: on the surface like a decent, decent young fellow that
Speaker 1: hasn't had had his father in his life. What I
Speaker 1: want to ask on the night because I had you
Speaker 1: both on stage and I just didn't want to ask
Speaker 1: the question where you don't know the answer to, what's
Speaker 1: your relationship like with Brendan's son. When you're caught up
Speaker 1: in matters like.
Speaker 2: That, look, it's a little bit awkward. Yeah, it is
Speaker 2: a little bit awkward. But having said that, he seems
Speaker 2: like a stand up young fella. I don't know him
Speaker 2: that well. I think it's awkward for both of us.
Speaker 2: I'm part of the reason why he hasn't had a father,
Speaker 2: and as he said on stage, if we caught him earlier,
Speaker 2: he wouldn't have been born. And he's got a sense
Speaker 2: of human swings a roundabout. But yeah, and I have
Speaker 2: often said I'm not any of their friends. I respect
Speaker 2: their privacy, their lives. I respect prisoners after their release
Speaker 2: they've done their time, and I would respect that his
Speaker 2: son has. James has a good relationship with his father,
Speaker 2: and good on him. Luck to him. It's funny. After that.
Speaker 2: The next night after that premiere, I was having a
Speaker 2: few drinks with the cast and James turned up and
Speaker 2: I'm sitting and talked to one of the members cast
Speaker 2: and he passes me a phone. Hello. He said, I thought,
Speaker 2: I know who this is. There's Brendan. And that was
Speaker 2: an awkward conversation because you know, I said, you know
Speaker 2: who I am? He said, yeah, I said, well, let's
Speaker 2: give it up. Let's let's get this out of the
Speaker 2: way straight up. Look, there's no real will on my part.
Speaker 2: I hope life goes really well for you. I hope
Speaker 2: you get out when you get out, and have a
Speaker 2: great life and a great relationship. Yeah, this is really awkward.
Speaker 2: But he laughed about it. He was good about it.
Speaker 1: You gotta laughs. Yeah, yeah, awkward, But what are you
Speaker 1: to do? And that's just a sort of surreal situation
Speaker 1: that you found found yourself in. That's it's bizarre.
Speaker 2: But hold on that point. Sorry. I just looked up
Speaker 2: at when I was on the phone, looked up. There's
Speaker 2: about four different camera phones on me.
Speaker 1: Oh this could yeah, yeah, you don't want that on
Speaker 1: the on the front page. We might, we might take
Speaker 1: a break here. I just wanted to cover off on
Speaker 1: Brendan's case and your involvement because I find that fascinating.
Speaker 1: And we haven't finished with you yet, because when we
Speaker 1: get back, you've got a lot more stories. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think it's something about Western Australian types. There's always
Speaker 1: always some stories.
Speaker 2: One who was wait a while here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I want to talk about the murder of
Speaker 1: what or suspected murder of Wayne Drill, which is a
Speaker 1: fascinating case. Your time as a negotiator and different things,
Speaker 1: and how you how you got your injuries. That's just
Speaker 1: for starters and perhaps for our question. Is there one
Speaker 1: that's got away, that one case that you think of
Speaker 1: that you know, you wish you could have could have resolved.
Speaker 1: But over all that in part.
Speaker 2: Two excellent mate. Look and I'm glad you touched on
Speaker 2: the one that got away because that is a that
Speaker 2: is a story.
Speaker 3: And okay, look forward to it.
Speaker 2: H