Speaker 1: The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Speaker 1: Detective see a side of life the average person is
Speaker 1: never exposed to. I spent thirty four years as a cop.
Speaker 1: For twenty five of those years I was catching killers.
Speaker 1: That's what I did for a living. I was a
Speaker 1: homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys, staid,
Speaker 1: I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.
Speaker 1: The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories
Speaker 1: from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
Speaker 1: and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some
Speaker 1: of the content and language might be confronting. That's because
Speaker 1: no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged.
Speaker 1: Join me now as I take you into this world.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to part two of my chat. We've retired
Speaker 1: Victoria and police detective Norell Fraser. If you listen to
Speaker 1: part one, you heard some I got to say, Nerell
Speaker 1: pretty heavy stuff, but that is the nature of the
Speaker 1: work that you also heard about Norell talking the way
Speaker 1: that she went about their investigations, and the compassion and
Speaker 1: the empathy she had, and when we're talking about victims
Speaker 1: of serious crimes, we're not making light in any way
Speaker 1: of the nature of these crimes. This is the world
Speaker 1: of crime, and this is what we talk about on
Speaker 1: the Eye Catch Killers and the consequences when someone's life
Speaker 1: is taken. It's not just a person whose life's taken,
Speaker 1: it's the amount of people around around them. It just
Speaker 1: it escalates, doesn't it. It's not just the victim or
Speaker 1: the immediate family that's a friends, it's generational that just
Speaker 1: passes on.
Speaker 2: And you know, in saying that, I do feel like,
Speaker 2: let's say, John Sharp, you know, his mum and dad
Speaker 2: and his family were the innocent also innocent victims in
Speaker 2: all this, and I never want to take away from
Speaker 2: the fact that they have suffered as well. But you
Speaker 2: know it's not their fault as to what John did,
Speaker 2: and they must feel I imagine, terrible shame. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: I hear what you're saying. And also just another thing,
Speaker 2: when I was talking before about being euphoric, ID I
Speaker 2: do think sometimes I hope, I feel like I have
Speaker 2: to justify that, and you did very well. But just
Speaker 2: to say, as a detective, when you put twenty four
Speaker 2: to seven months into a job, an investigation and you
Speaker 2: find the evidence that you're looking for. You do feel
Speaker 2: like everything else goes away because you are just so
Speaker 2: wrapped that you've found what you're looking for, even if
Speaker 2: that is a body. It sounds terrible, but so I
Speaker 2: don't want people to think, you know, you for it
Speaker 2: finding your body.
Speaker 1: You know, Noelle, what you're saying to me, I fully understand.
Speaker 1: I think you know. We're trying to take people into
Speaker 1: the world world of crime, and they might look and go,
Speaker 1: what are these two idiots talking about? Do they have
Speaker 1: any comprehension? You spent twenty seven years in the police.
Speaker 1: That's how you survive that. You've got to focus. You've
Speaker 1: got to have the highs and lows. And I always
Speaker 1: give people sometimes when we're talking about this, sometimes the
Speaker 1: victims see highs and lowers, Like I've dealt with the
Speaker 1: families of murdered victims, and they've got to find some joy.
Speaker 1: And I won't say joy in a strange sort of way,
Speaker 1: but they've got to be able to laugh at situations.
Speaker 1: Otherwise it's just too dark. And I think police, when
Speaker 1: you've been doing policing for a long time, you've got
Speaker 1: to take the good moments and enjoy it. You'll go
Speaker 1: home after feeling you for it. And I've been there.
Speaker 1: I've been there where a case is cracked and you've
Speaker 1: got the breakthrough you need and you're all high five
Speaker 1: in each other and you're running around. When you get
Speaker 1: back to your home and you sit there and think
Speaker 1: about what has gone on, that's when it hits you.
Speaker 1: When you're laying there at night going or you're getting
Speaker 1: up the next day getting ready to go to work
Speaker 1: and you've got to face this horror. So I think
Speaker 1: people understand, so you don't have tologize, and I think
Speaker 1: that people listen to it in totality understand exactly where
Speaker 1: you're coming from. I'm just going to change direction very quickly,
Speaker 1: policing off the top of your head a moment that
Speaker 1: you were really scared for your life, because most people
Speaker 1: have spent long enough in police that there's a time
Speaker 1: when you have that off. Shit, what's going to happen here?
Speaker 2: Did have to be to do with the Wolsh Street Well,
Speaker 2: I think I don't know if they were convicted in
Speaker 2: the end, when everywhere but a guy called Victor Pierce.
Speaker 2: Victor Pierce was part of the Carlton Gang Carlton Crew,
Speaker 2: and he had him and three others had just been
Speaker 2: acquitted of the Wolsh Street murders. And two days after that,
Speaker 2: of course, you know, Victoria police were just devastated. It
Speaker 2: was a pretty difficult time to be in the job.
Speaker 2: And so they get acquitted and two days later I'm
Speaker 2: working undercover, just doing some we used to call them
Speaker 2: special duties where you're in plain clothes and you're just
Speaker 2: driving around, you know, looking at assisting the uniform members
Speaker 2: or looking for drug deals and all that sort of stuff. Anyway,
Speaker 2: we're in North Melbourne and there's a call across the
Speaker 2: radio to say that there's a man that's being held
Speaker 2: by a Vietnamese storeholder, a milk bar owner under the
Speaker 2: North Melbourne flats. They were Housing Commission flats, and nobody
Speaker 2: was available to do this job. And so myself and
Speaker 2: my two colleagues we came up on the radio and said, oh,
Speaker 2: you know, it was a theft of a jar coffee,
Speaker 2: I think, and oh look we'll do that, you know,
Speaker 2: that's easy. So anyway, we drive up and we see
Speaker 2: this man and he is surrounded by probably twenty Vietnamese
Speaker 2: and the milk bar was under the flats, so it's
Speaker 2: outside on the sort of fore court just outside the
Speaker 2: milk bar, and there's this man and he's holding this
Speaker 2: little girl in it, holding her hand, and there's lots
Speaker 2: and lots of yelling, and anyway, as we walk towards
Speaker 2: what's going on, we all realize the man in the
Speaker 2: middle is Victor Piers. He's just been acquitted two days prior,
Speaker 2: and it was like, oh my god. And I can
Speaker 2: remember thinking is this a setup? Because the North Melbourne
Speaker 2: Flats that's where a number of the suspects lived. One
Speaker 2: of them lived up in the one or two lived
Speaker 2: up in the flats. So I actually thought that we
Speaker 2: were going to be shot from above.
Speaker 1: Just calling you in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, And so I remember just wanting
Speaker 2: to get out of the forecourt underneath the milk bar. Anyway, Look,
Speaker 2: we eventually did. We got under there, and we ended
Speaker 2: up charging him. We couldn't we got him. He was
Speaker 2: acquitted for the Wall Street merders. But we got in
Speaker 2: for a theft of a jar of coffee for two
Speaker 2: dollars fifty eight.
Speaker 1: Okay, well it's a they got al capane for tax evasions,
Speaker 1: so I suppose it's a stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I remember feeling like that. And there was
Speaker 2: one other time where there was a guy taking potshots
Speaker 2: on the top of a housing commission in Collingwood and
Speaker 2: we arrived and we didn't know where he was, and
Speaker 2: we could hear them, and I remember hiding behind a
Speaker 2: bush and thinking, I'm gone here, because you know, we
Speaker 2: were just so obvious. I thought we would be anyway
Speaker 2: in the end. We had our guns out, you know, yeah,
Speaker 2: women and all that sort of stuff. But that was
Speaker 2: pretty frightening. But I think Victor Pierce was the one
Speaker 2: where I thought, oh my god, this is a setup.
Speaker 1: You felt pretty vulnerable there. Yeah, I understand in the circumstances. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right. We talked about that case in part one.
Speaker 1: There's another case that in the research I've done that
Speaker 1: you've been involved in, and that was the I've referred
Speaker 1: it to as a body in the Bookcase of Maria Corp.
Speaker 1: That was two thousand and five, that that occurred. You
Speaker 1: were involved in that. Can you tell us your involvement
Speaker 1: in the nature of the case and what happened.
Speaker 2: Maria Corp was married to Joe Corp. They lived in
Speaker 2: a lovely, quite spacious place in Greenvale. I think it
Speaker 2: was in Victoria and Maria hadn't picked up her son
Speaker 2: Damien after school, which was very normal, so the police
Speaker 2: were Joe Corp actually rang the police on that night,
Speaker 2: was the ninth of feb in two thousand and five,
Speaker 2: and Joe rang to say he was concerned about his wife.
Speaker 2: She hadn't picked up their son and it was very unusual.
Speaker 2: Joe went to the Craigieburn police station to report this.
Speaker 2: But again the police at Craigiebourne, they just smelt a rat.
Speaker 2: There was just something not right. No, it did not
Speaker 2: add up. But what eventually happened is that we get
Speaker 2: the job. I'm at Missing Persons still and we get
Speaker 2: the job because you know, her disappearance is out of character.
Speaker 2: So we get the job very quickly and we interview Joe,
Speaker 2: you know, just what's happened. We get a statement from him,
Speaker 2: We speak to the school, we speak to the young boy,
Speaker 2: you know, a whole lot of stuff, just normal investative stuff.
Speaker 2: But what we find there's a few things that start happening.
Speaker 2: Joe has told us that the marriage was happy, but
Speaker 2: then we find that he's been on the internet looking
Speaker 2: for threesomes and he happened to have found a threesome
Speaker 2: with a woman called Tanya. We speak to Tanya and yeah,
Speaker 2: her and Joe and Maria have had a threesome. Know
Speaker 2: nothing to see here, so we smell obviously, we smell
Speaker 2: a rat. But we do a media release and we
Speaker 2: ask if anyone sees Maria's car because it's missing, if
Speaker 2: they see it, can they call it in. Well, on
Speaker 2: this Sunday morning, I happen to be working at Saint
Speaker 2: Kilda Road and the Shrine of Remembrance is just across
Speaker 2: the road from where we were working, and a shrine
Speaker 2: guard rings and says, I think I've got the car,
Speaker 2: and we say, don't touch it.
Speaker 1: This is Maria's car.
Speaker 2: Yep, yep, don't touch it. We'll be there. And literally
Speaker 2: five minutes we almost could have seen it from our window.
Speaker 2: And so we raced down there and it was that
Speaker 2: close you wouldn't get a car like that's how close
Speaker 2: it was. We just virtually ran across the road and
Speaker 2: anyway we see the car, and probably eighty meters away
Speaker 2: we could smell it. You would know there is a
Speaker 2: smell about a dead body that is hard to describe,
Speaker 2: but it is unmistakable, and we could smell it from
Speaker 2: about eighty meters. But also there was a lot of
Speaker 2: condensation inside the car, so we were pretty sure that
Speaker 2: she was in there anyway, So we called in everybody
Speaker 2: and the I don't know about twenty minutes and everyone's there.
Speaker 2: But I know at the time we were considering do
Speaker 2: we open up the boot because we might contaminate the scene,
Speaker 2: you know. So there was a bit of doing and throwing,
Speaker 2: and always felt uncomfortable about that because I wanted to
Speaker 2: get in there to make sure she was dead. But
Speaker 2: in the end it was decided we wait for the
Speaker 2: texts the technical guys to come anyway. They they're there
Speaker 2: within minutes, and of course, looking in the car, we
Speaker 2: set up a crime scene and all that sort of stuff,
Speaker 2: the crime scene tape. But looking in the car, she
Speaker 2: wasn't in the front, she wasn't in the back, so
Speaker 2: we knew that she would be in the hatch.
Speaker 1: It was a hatch brunk in the back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So, and the smell was overpowering and we eventually
Speaker 2: get the boot open, and I'll never forget there was
Speaker 2: probably about ten homicide detectives at the back of the
Speaker 2: boot and when they opened the boot, me included and
Speaker 2: when we opened the boot, it was just like a
Speaker 2: wave of this horrendous smell. One of the detectives fainted,
Speaker 2: a couple were being sick. It was just that that smell.
Speaker 2: Oh god, it was her.
Speaker 1: End decayne flesh.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, decaying. And there's little Maria, and she's like
Speaker 2: in the fetal position, and she's a tiny little woman
Speaker 2: and she's all disheveled, like she's got all her clothes
Speaker 2: up around her chest, and she's clearly deceased because she's decomposing.
Speaker 2: And so we just to see her there, so helpless
Speaker 2: and so alone and almost like a frightened little animal.
Speaker 2: And somebody had to get in to see if she was,
Speaker 2: you know, to make sure that she was dead. And
Speaker 2: so I just did it without thinking, you know, Gary,
Speaker 2: like you just don't think. I just wanted to sort
Speaker 2: of comfort her, I suppose. And so I get in
Speaker 2: and I sort of get myself around so that I'm
Speaker 2: almost spooning her because I'm looking for signs of life, obviously,
Speaker 2: but she's decomposing. She had blood coming from her ears,
Speaker 2: and so I remember, you know, checking for signs of life,
Speaker 2: and I couldn't find anything. So I go to the sergeant, No, look,
Speaker 2: she's she's dead. But just on a bit of a whim,
Speaker 2: I thought, I'll just make one hundred and ten percent sure.
Speaker 2: So somehow I managed to get it so that my
Speaker 2: head was I could see her chest. I couldn't believe it,
Speaker 2: but her chest just moved ever so slowly up and down,
Speaker 2: and I remember thinking like yelling, oh my god, she's alive.
Speaker 2: So of course everyone rallies round into action. So anyway,
Speaker 2: when I saw her little chest move up and down,
Speaker 2: it was again it was euphoric. I wasn't euphoric, but
Speaker 2: it was like, oh God, So everyone rallies ran into action.
Speaker 1: Can I like, I think a lot of us have
Speaker 1: done the body in the boot situation where you're opening
Speaker 1: a boot and there's a body there. And I very
Speaker 1: much know the smell the body fluids coming out of
Speaker 1: the car. I just I can smell it as we
Speaker 1: talk about it. But I just got to wind your back.
Speaker 1: You got in the boot, like I've seen bodies in boots.
Speaker 1: We weren't sure, but there were a human body or
Speaker 1: a carcass. You know that's in fact it can have
Speaker 1: You actually got in the back the hatchback checking signs
Speaker 1: of life, which of course you have to do. You
Speaker 1: can't make assumptions. So how did you feel when you
Speaker 1: saw a chest rise? Like I would have, I was
Speaker 1: jumped through the roof. It would have scared hell out
Speaker 1: of me.
Speaker 2: What you No, I wasn't scared. I was just Oh,
Speaker 2: I was shocked because because she was decomposing and just
Speaker 2: the smell, as you say, of like decaying flesh. I
Speaker 2: wasn't expecting it. But then maybe in a way it
Speaker 2: was why would I you know, like funny, like all
Speaker 2: these signs of life, there's nothing, And then I put
Speaker 2: my head on her chest, you know, I just but
Speaker 2: it was shocked, Gary, I just wasn't expecting it. And
Speaker 2: I remember just yelling at the top of my voice,
Speaker 2: oh my god, she's alive. Like I think that could
Speaker 2: have heard it twenty kilometers away. I was just so yeah,
Speaker 2: I was shocked, and everyone else was too, and it
Speaker 2: was like, oh, quick, get the ambulance, you know, all
Speaker 2: that sort of stuff, but absolute shock. I was the
Speaker 2: laugh thing on earth.
Speaker 1: I was expecting I could imagine, so that the ambulance come.
Speaker 1: She didn't survive or take it.
Speaker 2: No, And just with the ambulance, I never ever let
Speaker 2: go again. I sound all this, I sound very fluffy
Speaker 2: and soft, but like this woman is in the back
Speaker 2: of her I'm sorry. And she had all these marks
Speaker 2: around her neck and that they were bleeding as well,
Speaker 2: and so again I just couldn't leave her. And I
Speaker 2: remember my my sergeant said don't leave her, stay with her,
Speaker 2: because we were thinking, by some miracle that she might
Speaker 2: actually wake up and say it was Joe, you know,
Speaker 2: or whoever. And so I didn't leave her. I was
Speaker 2: in the back in the ambulance with her. Anyway, we
Speaker 2: got to the hospital and there was people waiting for us.
Speaker 2: We get into the operating room and because everyone's you know,
Speaker 2: so they rip open her did they rip open a shirt?
Speaker 2: But I took all her clothing and everything. She never
Speaker 2: ever regained consciousness. She was in a coma for six months,
Speaker 2: and there were all sorts of legal issues, the Public
Speaker 2: Advocates Office and representing Maria. It was oh, it was yeah,
Speaker 2: there was a lot going on, but she never regained consciousness.
Speaker 2: When we founder, there was a number of detectives that
Speaker 2: want to put up their hand and say, I want
Speaker 2: to go and tell Joe, because we knew he was
Speaker 2: behind it. By this stage, we believe.
Speaker 1: I'd want to tell Joe and tell Joe that she's
Speaker 1: still alive too.
Speaker 2: That would have been that is exactly. So they are
Speaker 2: all these detectives wanting to be the one to say
Speaker 2: to Joe, Joe were founder, and she's alive, you know.
Speaker 2: But what we found out, so I will go back
Speaker 2: in a minute. But six months later she passes away,
Speaker 2: never agains consciousness, and on the day of her funeral,
Speaker 2: Joe ended his life. So but prior to that, Tanya,
Speaker 2: So the threesome, the third member, yeh, Tanya becomes a
Speaker 2: prosecution witness, and she became a prosecution witness to be honest,
Speaker 2: within days she realized, you know, because Joe was blaming
Speaker 2: her and saying, oh, she'd done it and anyway, So
Speaker 2: she became a prosecution witness and she was invaluable her information.
Speaker 2: But what had happened was her and Joe fell in
Speaker 2: lusting love whatever you want to call it. And the
Speaker 2: only way that they could that they Joe thought that
Speaker 2: they could be together was to get rid of Maria.
Speaker 2: So Joe orchestrated everything. He went and bought the balaclava
Speaker 2: for Tanya was the one that actually tried to strangle her,
Speaker 2: so she.
Speaker 1: Was involved in the actual offense.
Speaker 2: Yeah, completely, So her and Joe decide this is what
Speaker 2: they're going to do. So Joe goes and gets I
Speaker 2: don't know, let's say the Balaclavi, some tape, organizes a
Speaker 2: whole lot of things. But Tanya actually does the job.
Speaker 2: So he says, look, if you come around to the
Speaker 2: house at ten past seven tomorrow morning, I'll make sure
Speaker 2: the kids are in bed or whatever. And as she
Speaker 2: comes down the stairs, strangler and put her in the
Speaker 2: back of the boot killer. And you know, and I
Speaker 2: don't think they actually thought much after the strangling, and
Speaker 2: so Tanya was very complicit, and she says, that's what
Speaker 2: you know, this is what she did. The love scary.
Speaker 1: You know, Look I I so many times, you know,
Speaker 1: someone disappears, someone's morth is it love lust, this or that?
Speaker 1: So many times and you would have seen it. I've
Speaker 1: seen that. It's just people that can't leave their partner
Speaker 1: and the So it's easier than chasing facing the shame
Speaker 1: of saying, look, I don't love you anymore and move
Speaker 1: it away from the relationship, or just I want to
Speaker 1: move on with my life end up killing their partners,
Speaker 1: and invariably the cases that I'm familiar with or personally
Speaker 1: involved in, it it's a husband that's got the new
Speaker 1: girlfriend and taken out of life insurance policy on the wife.
Speaker 1: And look, the wife has just disappeared or she drowned
Speaker 1: or something like that. But it's just it's callous and
Speaker 1: it just it just when we talk homicide, people often
Speaker 1: think there's, you know, there's this big conspiracy, it's people
Speaker 1: are planning and all that. Sometimes it's just for such
Speaker 1: a waste of a life, for something like that.
Speaker 2: And it was just it's a cowards way out. As
Speaker 2: you say, well, I mean people have a fair you know,
Speaker 2: it was just a cowards way out. Why didn't he have,
Speaker 2: pardon me, the balls to go up to her and say, Maria,
Speaker 2: I actually I really liked he organized.
Speaker 1: He went to the trouble organizing the threesome and getting
Speaker 1: that all sorted out. And then yeah, I didn't it's
Speaker 1: going to kill the woman he married to run off
Speaker 1: with the other lady.
Speaker 2: It's just it's and you know, the sad I mean,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of sad things in this store. But
Speaker 2: another sad thing is that all Tanya wanted was to
Speaker 2: find somebody to care for her and to love, let's say,
Speaker 2: but she's prepared to murder for it, like I think,
Speaker 2: my god, but without tenure, we never ever would have
Speaker 2: got we'd never have got very far.
Speaker 1: And then yeah, sometimes, and it's always hard these situations,
Speaker 1: but sometimes you've from a prosecution point of view, you've
Speaker 1: got to well, I can't get everyone. If you assist prosecution,
Speaker 1: then get whatever benefits come from that. To solve the
Speaker 1: case with Tanya, what was her sentence? Do you know
Speaker 1: what she was sentenced for?
Speaker 2: I think twelve years and I know she's out now
Speaker 2: and hopefully she's leading, yes, and leading a good life.
Speaker 2: This my sound bras are, but she was actually quite
Speaker 2: a nice person. All she wanted was, you know, some love.
Speaker 1: It's crazy, isn't it that the people the things that
Speaker 1: they do for those type of emotions. But Jesus Norell,
Speaker 1: there the two cases you've talked about a pretty pretty
Speaker 1: heavy stuff. And yeah, the involvement in it and finding
Speaker 1: bodies and just being involved in those type of investigations
Speaker 1: carry carry some trauma associated with it. And I want
Speaker 1: to I want to talk about your career that you
Speaker 1: and I think some of the articles I've seen you
Speaker 1: be quoted on that there's nothing to be ashamed of
Speaker 1: when you realize, look, I've had enough of this type
Speaker 1: of work. It's adding up and I can't take it
Speaker 1: any more, or I neither break. Do you want to
Speaker 1: tell us about your story?
Speaker 2: I didn't realize it. It wasn't that easy. I fell
Speaker 2: over big time, and I wasn't expecting it. You know,
Speaker 2: you start to think that you're invincible, and you start
Speaker 2: to think a year, you know, I've had a bit
Speaker 2: on but maybe I'm just a bit tired. Like I
Speaker 2: didn't lose interest. I was going full bore until those
Speaker 2: seventeen hundred videos. That was in May of twenty twelve,
Speaker 2: when so all this has been building up obviously over
Speaker 2: the years. I've got no idea that I am very,
Speaker 2: very sick mentally. But you know, I had no idea.
Speaker 2: I just thought, you know, I do this stuff that
Speaker 2: you know now, and then it gets a bit a bit.
Speaker 1: Rough and people closely noticed something was going on. You
Speaker 1: hit it problem.
Speaker 2: We're pretty good, aren't we gary at hiding things? And
Speaker 2: that's exactly.
Speaker 1: But I deny that allegation.
Speaker 2: I thought you're mo but like I didn't know myself
Speaker 2: what was happening, So I don't know how other people could.
Speaker 2: But you know, I often look back and I think
Speaker 2: if somebody would have said to me, anybody, And this
Speaker 2: is why I want to talk about mental illness, about stress,
Speaker 2: post traumatic stress disorder, which is what I was diagnosed with.
Speaker 2: It is nothing to be ashamed of. It's just we've
Speaker 2: got to stop this stigma about mental illness because what
Speaker 2: happened to me. I watched all this is happening, and
Speaker 2: then I watched those seventeen hundred videos. And then a
Speaker 2: couple of days later, I was required. I was an
Speaker 2: informant in a court case. An informant like it's a committal.
Speaker 2: It's pretty important stuff, you know, evidences, witnesses and exhibits
Speaker 2: and all that sort of stuff. And I remember this
Speaker 2: particular morning, I've been feeling a bit tired. You know,
Speaker 2: I'm not sleeping well, and again you make excuses. I
Speaker 2: don't know what's going on. And so this particular morning,
Speaker 2: I'm trying to get this sixteen year old girl to
Speaker 2: come to court to give evidence against a father and
Speaker 2: a son who had raped her, and she was she
Speaker 2: wouldn't come. I had to get it at court, because
Speaker 2: if I don't get it at court, I don't have
Speaker 2: a case. I eventually get her there and she's in
Speaker 2: the witness box and she is being hammered by the defense,
Speaker 2: just hammered, and she was really just stressed. And I
Speaker 2: can remember thinking. The last thing I remember is thinking,
Speaker 2: pardon me, this is bullshit. The next thing I remember
Speaker 2: is being across the road at a coffee shop across
Speaker 2: the road from the court, and the court staff come
Speaker 2: over and they see me there and Noel, what are
Speaker 2: you doing here? And I remember thinking, I'm having a
Speaker 2: coffee and they said, Noell, the magistrate's looking for he
Speaker 2: prosecution defense. There's witnesses like what are you doing here?
Speaker 2: And the magistrate was filthy because I couldn't be found.
Speaker 2: And I remember thinking to myself, what am I doing here.
Speaker 2: I'm in the middle of a court case. I'm the
Speaker 2: informant and I'm in I can la la land in
Speaker 2: a coffee shop. Yeah, And I said, I'll come straight
Speaker 2: over gee. And I remember the prosecutor she was from
Speaker 2: the opp and she went not this to me, and
Speaker 2: she said, don't you ever do that to me again,
Speaker 2: because I'd humiliated her and she'd obviously been serrated. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2: And I went home that night and I remember thinking
Speaker 2: to myself, why was I in the coffee shop. I
Speaker 2: just couldn't work out anyway, what had happened was I
Speaker 2: had I found out later i'd lost twenty minutes. I
Speaker 2: had this, well, not blacked out as such, but I'd
Speaker 2: had an amnesia event where I just you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: I was functioning, I was walking across the road and
Speaker 2: all that, but my mind had just said, nah, enough.
Speaker 2: So that's when I thought, I think, maybe i'd better
Speaker 2: start doing something. There's something not right. And I held
Speaker 2: on for four months, think and I can do this,
Speaker 2: but nah. Anyway, I went to the doctor. And I
Speaker 2: remember leaving work the Friday night and I went to
Speaker 2: the doctor the Monday morning. I never went back. That
Speaker 2: was because I realized, I mean, it took me a
Speaker 2: long time to accept, because the doctor said to me,
Speaker 2: I've got a feeling you might have PTSD, and I
Speaker 2: actually said to him, what's that. I had no idea,
Speaker 2: But as he started to explain it, I remember I
Speaker 2: was thinking himself, Yep, I've felt that, Yep, I've done that, yep, yep.
Speaker 2: And it probably took me and I never went back
Speaker 2: because I was The psychologist said to me, Narel, if
Speaker 2: you go back, the next step is hospital because of
Speaker 2: that amnesia event I had, And so I really had
Speaker 2: to trust the professionals, and I did everything they said
Speaker 2: to try and get back to work. After a while,
Speaker 2: I started to think because I missed it. Oh my god,
Speaker 2: I still do. But yeah, but I thought, why would
Speaker 2: I go back. I never want to go to a
Speaker 2: psych hospital. That just frightened the life out of me.
Speaker 2: That was the wake up call I needed. I went
Speaker 2: on work cover, and I was so ashamed of the
Speaker 2: fact that I possibly because I wouldn't accept it, that
Speaker 2: I possibly had post traumatic stress disorder like a mental illness.
Speaker 2: I wasn't in a tyranny one that I made up
Speaker 2: all these excuses and I kept it from everyone, probably
Speaker 2: by my husband. He looking back, he said, there were
Speaker 2: things that weren't making sense because what I was doing
Speaker 2: was I was having terrible migraines. But also I had
Speaker 2: this my legs would shake in better of a night
Speaker 2: to the point where it will wake him up, like
Speaker 2: they'd shake, you know, really obvious. And I remember I
Speaker 2: couldn't work out, but my whole body was shaking, and
Speaker 2: I'm thinking, what's going on? And I remember I used
Speaker 2: to say, oh, you're snoring, so I'd go into the
Speaker 2: sphere room. Yeah. So when I look back, there were
Speaker 2: all these signs, but I just never put two and
Speaker 2: two together. But my anger gary like that anger. And
Speaker 2: when I look back, everything the doctor said was right.
Speaker 2: You know, it was almost like I felt my head
Speaker 2: was going to burst with anger. Like in the end,
Speaker 2: you know, I was banging the phone down at work
Speaker 2: and I was just completely losing control. And I had
Speaker 2: every time a job would come in. This is right
Speaker 2: at the end, just before I went to see the doctor.
Speaker 2: Every time a job would come into work. I got
Speaker 2: to the point where I was avoiding taking the calls
Speaker 2: because I just thought I can't do this anymore. I'd
Speaker 2: get terrible Diaryea, like I spent half the day in
Speaker 2: the toilet. Again. You can make all the excuses in
Speaker 2: the world, but I looking back, I did ignore the signs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think a couple of things. And I've seen
Speaker 1: a lot of people I know in the police go
Speaker 1: off with stress and in different ways, different forms what
Speaker 1: you've described there. That type of thing I've had guests
Speaker 1: on here that I've described very similar type of things.
Speaker 1: I think we've policing. You're there to serve the public.
Speaker 1: You're there to help people. You're a protector, protect and
Speaker 1: serve that type of thing. I think it's in the
Speaker 1: police nature that you don't put your hand up ever
Speaker 1: and say, hey, I need a hand here or I'm
Speaker 1: not coping. So you're going to overcome that barrier. And
Speaker 1: then it's the pride aspect of it. You don't want
Speaker 1: to admit that the job's broken you. And sometimes you
Speaker 1: just need to take a step back. I've hit the
Speaker 1: wall sometimes. Yeah, I had a quick bounce back and
Speaker 1: I'd go, okay, all right, I was probably out of
Speaker 1: thoughts yesterday, but I'm ready for it now. I had
Speaker 1: Craig Simple, a good, hard working detective on the podcast,
Speaker 1: and he talked about post traumatic stress and he had
Speaker 1: a career. He was always in the thick of things,
Speaker 1: different things, and eventually it caught up with him, and
Speaker 1: not the same way that you talk about, but not
Speaker 1: dissimilar in that, Yeah, all of a sudden, it's just
Speaker 1: dawned on me, Hey I'm not ready for this. You'd
Speaker 1: put your hand up and actually go see the doctor
Speaker 1: and they explain what's going on. He made the point,
Speaker 1: and I think there's a lot to be said for this.
Speaker 1: He said the people he was seeing were a doctor,
Speaker 1: a psychologist, or whatever were saying. You know, the funny
Speaker 1: thing here is you could have addressed this ten years
Speaker 1: ago if you just acknowledged that back then, and you
Speaker 1: would have been able to return to work quite easily.
Speaker 1: But you let a build up till it it literally
Speaker 1: broke you and you fell off the cliff, and now
Speaker 1: the damage has been done and you can't go back there.
Speaker 1: So maybe that's and it's not just policing, like there's
Speaker 1: a lot of careers. I think there's a lot of
Speaker 1: careers and just society in itself. Everyone seems to be
Speaker 1: stressed these days for one reason or another. But maybe
Speaker 1: we've just got to factor that into policing more. And
Speaker 1: you have these recharges, like you know, we're working maybe
Speaker 1: a week off a year to go somewhere just to
Speaker 1: literally physically and mentally recharge and recalibrate, because I know
Speaker 1: what you described as a hard working detective. And then
Speaker 1: just when you've got nothing left, you've got to go
Speaker 1: to court. Like you just said, and I know those
Speaker 1: times I might have been on call all night, I've
Speaker 1: been up, i haven't slept for twenty four hours, and
Speaker 1: then okay, I've got to put a fresh suit on,
Speaker 1: I've got to walk in the court, and I've got
Speaker 1: to have my mind as sharp as possible. And it does,
Speaker 1: you know, it does where you're down. But I think
Speaker 1: it's interesting hearing people like yourself talk about it because
Speaker 1: obviously you're not shirking your responsibilities. You got in and
Speaker 1: have a go your whole career, and you can put
Speaker 1: your hand up and I think you touched on that too,
Speaker 1: that it's good to talk about these type of things.
Speaker 2: You know. I think you're talking about having maybe a
Speaker 2: week off or whatever. How do we manage mental illness
Speaker 2: within the police, because there's so much of it. But
Speaker 2: I think what may have helped me would have been
Speaker 2: to have a sit twenty four to seven at every
Speaker 2: major like head office, let's say, you know, in broad
Speaker 2: Meadows in I don't know, Waverley.
Speaker 1: But just cost effective too when you look at the payouts,
Speaker 1: yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: And just to have somebody that you can ring and say, Geep,
Speaker 2: I actually dug up a body yesterday and I'm actually
Speaker 2: not managing too well. But to have them there and
Speaker 2: then rather than ring and that you know, we'll see
Speaker 2: in a couple of weeks. I just think we should
Speaker 2: have psychologists or psychiatrists and probably a psychologist at every
Speaker 2: twenty four hour station, or at least a couple so
Speaker 2: that there is an immediate an immediate response because and
Speaker 2: also maybe mandatory had once a month. I don't know, have.
Speaker 1: I like the idea what you're saying, having someone there, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's times where you've seen something. Some of the situations
Speaker 1: you've described, of course it would help if you talked
Speaker 1: about them, horrendous things that you've seen and done. We
Speaker 1: had mandatory site testing in the I think in homicide.
Speaker 1: I was in there for twenty years. I think I
Speaker 1: avoided it for about fifteen years, and it was mandatory.
Speaker 1: And then someone said, have you been. I said, I've
Speaker 1: never been to other than police shootings where a site
Speaker 1: comes out to you at the scene, but I'd never been,
Speaker 1: and there was a sort of attitude about it. We've
Speaker 1: got to give. We're busy. I have not got time
Speaker 1: to go talk to this psychologist for an hour. I've
Speaker 1: got to prepare this brief I'm on this investigation, so
Speaker 1: it was almost like amongst ourselves we're just sort of
Speaker 1: laughing about it, whereas probably if we were more open
Speaker 1: and more honest, we go, well, it's probably not a
Speaker 1: bad idea because I think if you have someone to
Speaker 1: talk to it about it, it potentially could help. And
Speaker 1: I took a lot away from what Craig Semple said
Speaker 1: because he's a tough guy, like it just unbreakable and
Speaker 1: he broke, but he acknowledged that if I just did
Speaker 1: a bit of work on myself back then I could
Speaker 1: have circumvented the letting it build up to the way
Speaker 1: it did.
Speaker 2: You know, it took me, I'd have to say, eighteen
Speaker 2: months before I actually accepted that I was sick. I
Speaker 2: fought it and fought it and thinking, I could you know,
Speaker 2: if I do everything that the professionals say, I'll be
Speaker 2: able to get back to work and all this sort
Speaker 2: of stuff. But the game changer for me was going
Speaker 2: to the Austin hospital. They had an outpatient a PTSD clinic,
Speaker 2: and that took me a while to get into. Isn't
Speaker 2: that sad because there were so many affected police, But
Speaker 2: that was a game changer. For me because there were
Speaker 2: you know, there was no hiding there. You know, you
Speaker 2: couldn't hide behind any sort of facade, which we do.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it was a game changer for me. And
Speaker 2: just one other thing. I just think it's important to
Speaker 2: keep an open mind. I remember work cover. I don't
Speaker 2: have a lot of good things to say about work
Speaker 2: cover in a lot of ways. But in another way,
Speaker 2: they realized that I wasn't able to go back to it.
Speaker 2: They sent me to twelve twelve psychologists or psychiatrists. I
Speaker 2: think what they were doing was getting somebody to say,
Speaker 2: she can go back to work on a temporary you know,
Speaker 2: like two days a week whatever. And you know what,
Speaker 2: every single one of her said, she'll never work again.
Speaker 2: But I forgot my trainer. Thought I was going to
Speaker 2: do what was our heading to Gary. See what happens.
Speaker 1: I'm not hoping you're not having one of those last moments.
Speaker 2: I have a lot to do.
Speaker 1: You realize we're on my catch killers. It's a podcast.
Speaker 1: We're going light.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But anyway, I'm just saying, you know, it took
Speaker 2: me eighteen months to really realize how sick I was. Oh,
Speaker 2: that's right to keep an open mind and so I
Speaker 2: went work, Cuver sent me to this. They said, I
Speaker 2: will send you to a vocational guidance counselor.
Speaker 1: We did that at school.
Speaker 2: Hello, and I'm thinking, oh, for facks sake, you know,
Speaker 2: what are they going to do? So but anyway, I thought, no,
Speaker 2: the professionals know, so I'll do what they say. So
Speaker 2: it went, and again it's a game changer because what
Speaker 2: we did was we sat at a desk and she said,
Speaker 2: tell me the things you really like, tell me the
Speaker 2: things you think you're good at. What are your skills?
Speaker 2: And you know what, I couldn't think of a skill
Speaker 2: like you know, when you're just so sick and you've
Speaker 2: done something for so long, you don't realize the skills
Speaker 2: you have because they're just taken for granted, or we
Speaker 2: taken for granted right very much.
Speaker 1: So like my career ended literally overnight, and I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: what do I do? I catch killers? That's what I did.
Speaker 1: That was my job, that was my identity and all that.
Speaker 1: But then I think it's when you look at policing
Speaker 1: as a whole, there are so many skill sets that
Speaker 1: you've got, and I think, yeah, we've got to open
Speaker 1: their minds up and I joined police as a vacation.
Speaker 1: That was going to be my career. That was I
Speaker 1: didn't want to just have an experience there. I think
Speaker 1: policing should make itself more readily available to let people
Speaker 1: go in and out of policing. Yeah, like, work for
Speaker 1: ten years. I want to see change. I want to
Speaker 1: do something. I might go work in the building industry
Speaker 1: for five years and then ah, shit, that's tough. I'm
Speaker 1: going to come back to the police, but not come
Speaker 1: back to the police starting at the academy. I think
Speaker 1: we could with all benefit from that type of thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, but you don't realize like I used to think,
Speaker 2: and you'd be the same. I'd think, Okay, so I
Speaker 2: can type up a search warrant, I can do an
Speaker 2: effort David, Yeah, I can do an interview. Well, what
Speaker 2: other world do I need to you know, I just
Speaker 2: couldn't think anyway. What this lady did was we sat
Speaker 2: down with what I liked, what I believe my skills were,
Speaker 2: and then she started to open up my mind about
Speaker 2: other things that I could do, and it just opened
Speaker 2: up a whole new world. You know. I did some
Speaker 2: we worked out that you may have guessed that I
Speaker 2: like talking bullshit.
Speaker 1: That's not right, is it.
Speaker 2: No, it's not bullshit, it's wrong, right, Okay, And I like,
Speaker 2: I don't know, let's say, taking people under the wing
Speaker 2: and sort of helping them or whatever. Anyway, so we
Speaker 2: worked out maybe I could do lecturing in investative techniques.
Speaker 2: So but this is two years down the track, but
Speaker 2: I did it, and I just opened up a whole
Speaker 2: new world. And you know, I lectured at TAFE with
Speaker 2: investative skills and because I realized I had them, and
Speaker 2: I can remember with the kids, i'd say to them
Speaker 2: at the end of every lesson, I'd say, if you know,
Speaker 2: I was a teacher, sort of, if you're really good
Speaker 2: and you do what I ask, at the end of
Speaker 2: every lesson, I'll give you a war story. And they
Speaker 2: loved it. They loved it. Anyway, that branched out into
Speaker 2: a whole lot of different things. And the only other
Speaker 2: thing I wanted to add was when I was sick
Speaker 2: and I was feeling a bit sorry for myself at
Speaker 2: home not working. I've always felt that I had the
Speaker 2: right sort of personality, and I certainly have the stories,
Speaker 2: but I didn't I was terrible at public speaking or
Speaker 2: just speaking anything. Other than a couple of girlfriends. I'm
Speaker 2: fine with that, but get me in front of a group.
Speaker 2: And this is before n MIT. And that's when I
Speaker 2: went to Postmasters and I thought, I want to learn
Speaker 2: some skills about public speaking, to try and get over
Speaker 2: that fear, of that anxiety. And it unleashed the beast
Speaker 2: and here I am.
Speaker 1: And you've gone from this shy withdrawn personally and I
Speaker 1: was never with your Okay, you've also stepped in the
Speaker 1: world of podcasting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh, lovely segue that, Gara.
Speaker 1: This is I'm getting polish, like just a melia. Just
Speaker 1: just move the sorry from one to the other. What's
Speaker 1: the name of your podcast?
Speaker 2: The police will understand. The name of my podcast is
Speaker 2: Noelle Fraser Interview. But be short. The short version is NFI.
Speaker 2: I've always wanted to use that because in policing we
Speaker 2: all know NFI means had me no fucking idea. So
Speaker 2: I have a couple of friends say, you can't do that,
Speaker 2: you can't name it that if you just watch me.
Speaker 2: So that's when I worked out, what could I have
Speaker 2: Norell Noreell Fraser Interviews. So yeah, NFI. But my podcast
Speaker 2: is really about exploring the human side and impact of crime.
Speaker 2: And there will be no surprise to you and your
Speaker 2: listeners that the impact of crime is what I feel
Speaker 2: so strongly about. And I give people a voice that
Speaker 2: normally wouldn't have a voice. And that's what I really like,
Speaker 2: victims of horrendous crimes that they've never gone to the
Speaker 2: police about, or they just want to tell their story.
Speaker 2: So yeah, so, as you said the other day, isn't
Speaker 2: that funny too? Former detectives now podcasters.
Speaker 1: Well, it's different, a different set of skill, but it
Speaker 1: still is sitting listening and what podcasting has taught me
Speaker 1: or to carry on from what you have to do
Speaker 1: when you're interviewing suspects, you've got to listen to what
Speaker 1: they're saying. It's a different form of communication. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I enjoy it. I see anything that we're doing. When
Speaker 1: two cops are sitting down talking on the podcast, I
Speaker 1: think it gives a human side to what policing is.
Speaker 1: So you're not just looking at that's a cranky detective,
Speaker 1: or there's that uniform person or whatever. So I think
Speaker 1: there's benefits there. People for whatever reason, find crime fascinating. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I quite enjoy it. And if people ask me. What
Speaker 1: I'm doing now, I'm doing podcasting or writing or whatever.
Speaker 1: What I'm most proud about is letting people like yourself
Speaker 1: tell their story on this Like I'm allowing people to
Speaker 1: share their stories. And yeah, it's not just the good guys.
Speaker 1: We have the bad guys. We've had all sorts of
Speaker 1: eye catch killers. So yeah, good luck with it because
Speaker 1: it is fun and you learn as you how along.
Speaker 1: You embarrass yourself quite a few times, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: I'll embarrass myself down the track, but I try to
Speaker 1: always be professional. That was my radio voice, which I.
Speaker 2: Haven't really got interessed.
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Speaker 1: need to listen to crim City. Join crime reporters Mark
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Speaker 1: is out now. Listen early and ad free on crime
Speaker 1: x plus on Apple podcast Today. Hey, I want to
Speaker 1: ask I want to ask this question women in policing,
Speaker 1: And I say this, there's been a lot of progress
Speaker 1: in policing. I talk New South Wales, but I know
Speaker 1: the culture of other police organizations. By nature, it's a blokey,
Speaker 1: bloky environment. And I sometimes hear girls say I wouldn't
Speaker 1: mind joining the police, But what's it like being a policewoman.
Speaker 1: Tell us your thoughts on women in policing, your experience.
Speaker 2: It's pretty tough. It is a man's world, absolutely, But
Speaker 2: also I will always go back to I think the
Speaker 2: best combination on a div van is a policeman and
Speaker 2: a policewoman. I feel like whether this is a politically
Speaker 2: correct or incorrect, I don't know, but I think generally
Speaker 2: the man is stronger physically and I think as a
Speaker 2: female we have emotional strength, emotional intelligence, and I'm not
Speaker 2: saying men don't, but I think combined it's a pretty
Speaker 2: damn good team.
Speaker 1: Let me say, I agree with you and nerellso if
Speaker 1: you get in the trouble, we're both going down for this.
Speaker 1: But I think what you said is it's sensible. That's sensible,
Speaker 1: and I always like to have that combination of female
Speaker 1: on the strikeforce I was working on because they could
Speaker 1: do stuff that the men couldn't.
Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, exactly a year. It's tough, but yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, I've been I've been in some horrendous situations.
Speaker 2: I think you've got to accept that there's good and
Speaker 2: there's bad. Policing isn't all great and fun, you know. Boy,
Speaker 2: we haven't touched on that, but due there's some funny
Speaker 2: stuff goes on, isn't there. But but I think you know,
Speaker 2: I've been sexually assaulted by a colleague. I've had a
Speaker 2: photo taken up my skirt where it actually showed my
Speaker 2: the cotton gusset in my pantyhose like that's you know,
Speaker 2: and it was put up on the board. You know,
Speaker 2: this is phrases, you know, I don't know, hundies or whatever.
Speaker 2: One of the worst things I ever experienced was it
Speaker 2: was a night shift and I was brand new and
Speaker 2: we were all sitting around having our dinner like this
Speaker 2: is at three o'clock in the morning or something. Everyone
Speaker 2: gets called in and we have our dinner, and now
Speaker 2: come the porno movies like, oh my god, and I.
Speaker 1: Can't I would imagine you'd be the any female police officer, probably.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, but they're there. You know, they're terrible things.
Speaker 1: Well, we had a good chat about this the other
Speaker 1: day when we were talking and you said, yeah, you
Speaker 1: could make a complain about that, but you loved your
Speaker 1: career and yeah, you might then be ostracized or bullied
Speaker 1: and all that. And we're talking a generation back, like
Speaker 1: it's changed now. I think there's practices and procedures in
Speaker 1: there now. But what you were saying, I've heard so
Speaker 1: many policewomen that I respect say the same thing. They've
Speaker 1: made it through and they had to compromise a little
Speaker 1: bit and not make an issue. Yeah, they're strength in that.
Speaker 1: Like it gets to the point where you've shown them
Speaker 1: to be the idiots. But you also made the point
Speaker 1: and I probably should let you make the point because
Speaker 1: you wanted to emphasize this when I said, is it
Speaker 1: all right if we talk about this that for all
Speaker 1: the bad, there's what you said, like, I don't want
Speaker 1: everyone to think it's just misogynistic with the police. There's
Speaker 1: some really good people there.
Speaker 2: Oh, and the good that you do this is what
Speaker 2: I mean. You've got to weigh it up. You know,
Speaker 2: in any career, like you know, you're hear of sexual
Speaker 2: harassment in every workplace known to man. The police are
Speaker 2: no different. And you know I've been harassed in other
Speaker 2: careers as well, like as a secretary. But it's it's
Speaker 2: something that it is getting better and it need to
Speaker 2: mind you. But and I do agree with you, Gary
Speaker 2: that if I would have said something, I know my
Speaker 2: career would have been over. I would have been it
Speaker 2: would have completely, it would have finished. And I didn't
Speaker 2: want it to finish because I just thought there was
Speaker 2: so many good things that I could do, and like,
Speaker 2: who's going to hold a rape victim's hand and take
Speaker 2: a statement from of the time not there. I'm not
Speaker 2: saying I'm the only one that did it, but you
Speaker 2: know that's.
Speaker 1: What I mean, Like, you valued your career and you
Speaker 1: wanted to progress in the in the career and.
Speaker 2: The fulfillment that you get from helping people. Yeah, there's
Speaker 2: some dickheads, you know, there's a few dickheads, but in
Speaker 2: general are the policemen and we're talking about policemen. The
Speaker 2: policemen I worked with were just magnificent men, you know,
Speaker 2: And there's always a couple of rotten apples. Police are
Speaker 2: no different.
Speaker 1: Well, I was saying it to you when we're chatting,
Speaker 1: and I've said that here before. I think in policing,
Speaker 1: you get exposed to the best people you'll ever meet,
Speaker 1: inspirational people, and you get also exposed to some of
Speaker 1: the most And i'm talking to police, I'm not talking
Speaker 1: the croxy you get. Some people are very very uninspiring.
Speaker 1: But I want that message to get across when I
Speaker 1: speak to a successful police woman like yourself, that women
Speaker 1: can have a career in policing, and yes they might
Speaker 1: be confronted with things, but it's getting better. And I saw,
Speaker 1: which I was quite pleased, the men in the police
Speaker 1: were self regulating the other dickhead men that were harassing
Speaker 1: women and pulling them aside and saying that's not on.
Speaker 1: And so I think the culture is changing, even though
Speaker 1: it is by the nature of policing it's a blokey
Speaker 1: environment and that probably always will be, but this is
Speaker 1: getting a bit better.
Speaker 2: But also Gary, if you go into policing and not
Speaker 2: accepting that it's a blokey environment, you can be a
Speaker 2: bit naive. You're right, you're right, And I think to myself,
Speaker 2: you've got to be pretty tough in some ways and
Speaker 2: be strong. And I would never have classed myself as strong,
Speaker 2: but maybe I am. Because it was just like, you
Speaker 2: know what, that's not going to beat me up.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, there's strength in different times, the different
Speaker 1: types of strength. We know the big bloke at six
Speaker 1: foot six that you send him in anywhere you can
Speaker 1: go through the door. But I also seen some women
Speaker 1: that I call the toughest cops because they're just mentally
Speaker 1: tough and I'm buckling under the pressure and they're standing there.
Speaker 1: So strength comes in comes in many ways. Just sort
Speaker 1: of wrapping it up, would you recommend policing as a
Speaker 1: creer for people like you've been through it? God, Yes,
Speaker 1: I love it when ex.
Speaker 2: Cops say that, yeah, because it's given me. I don't
Speaker 2: know where to start, absolutely, but what I would say
Speaker 2: is that I think just make sure that you check
Speaker 2: in with a professional, with a psychologist, I don't know,
Speaker 2: maybe once a month, but take care of your mental health,
Speaker 2: because isn't it funny We take care of our physical health.
Speaker 2: You know, you've got to be fit and you know,
Speaker 2: all the right food groups and all that sort of stuff,
Speaker 2: But when it comes to mental health, there's very few
Speaker 2: of us that do anything about.
Speaker 1: Put time into to keep that.
Speaker 2: So I would just say just to you know, make
Speaker 2: sure you attend to your mental health, well you do
Speaker 2: your physical health, and you know, it's a very very rewarding, fulfilling,
Speaker 2: exciting career.
Speaker 1: So and I like that, and I like the fact
Speaker 1: you look back with fond memories. Despite what you've seen
Speaker 1: and gone through, you're looking back and fond memories. And
Speaker 1: it saddens me that all police, and I think across
Speaker 1: the nation that's not just New South Wales or Victoria,
Speaker 1: are struggling to get people in policing. And if you
Speaker 1: just understood the world that you can see in there,
Speaker 1: it will open your eyes up and you will do
Speaker 1: things that you never thought you could do. And it's
Speaker 1: sad that that messaging isn't getting out the type of
Speaker 1: career that policing can be. If you embrace it, you
Speaker 1: can make a difference and you can get rewarded in
Speaker 1: ways that you never never expected to be rewarded. And
Speaker 1: this is two of us sitting here. I got run
Speaker 1: out of the cops and you went off from the
Speaker 1: cops because the damage policing had done. And we're still
Speaker 1: sitting here saying we loved every moment of it. So
Speaker 1: you're I thank you. At the start of the podcast,
Speaker 1: I told you. I wasn't sure. I thank you at
Speaker 1: the end of the podcast for your service, but it
Speaker 1: comes across in spades how much passion you had for
Speaker 1: your job, enjoyment, respect, empathy, all the important stuff and
Speaker 1: you're still standing here and having laugh So well done.
Speaker 2: Congratulations, Thanks for having me Gary, It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 1: Enjoyed it. Thanks Sarah, thank you well morell is certainly
Speaker 1: a bubbly, bubbly personality, and I think she's got a
Speaker 1: great personality for policing, and it just came across so
Speaker 1: abundantly clear. Despite the heavy jobs that she was working
Speaker 1: on them, the things she had to face or do,
Speaker 1: she still cared and had empathy for the victims. And
Speaker 1: she's a lot of fun. I know policing took its
Speaker 1: toll on her, but the fact that she still looks
Speaker 1: back with fond memories, I think she was a real
Speaker 1: asset to policing and full credit to her