March 24, 2025 • 58 mins
Greg Goold has seen it all. As a criminal solicitor, he’s had lunch with Roger Rogerson, been caught up in the aftermath of the murder of Sallie-Anne Huckstepp and had laughs with Graham Abo Henry. Greg shares his favourite memories from his long career, including the time he shot a gun in a courthouse and which notorious crime figure he believes was a psychopath.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Detective sy aside of life the average person is never
exposed to. I spent thirty four years as a cop.
For twenty five of those years I was catching killers.
That's what I did for a living. I was a
homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead,
I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.
(00:23):
The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories
from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some
of the content and language might be confronting. That's because
no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged.
Join me now as I take you into this world, Greg,
(00:48):
I like to like I did prepare before court. I
prepare before I do podcasts, and it's in part of
my investigation. Before I've sat down spoken to you that
it's come to my attention, there's an allegation that you'll
fired a three fifty seven magnum in central local court.
Now I'm going to ask you about that. I want
(01:08):
you to understand you're not obliged to say anything or
do anything, but anything you do, say or do may
later be used in evidence. Do you understand that.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
I do understand that.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Gary, Okay, well, I want you to choose your words
very carefully and think what I'm asking you here. Greg.
Have you ever fired a three point fifty seven magnum
in Central Local Court?
Speaker 2 (01:30):
I have, fortunately it was later with blanks, but I
have fired the gun in the presence of two ones.
To cease now, so we've got to speak well of
you two, very very well. They thought they were funny.
Detect this.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
I think it's pretty funny. In this day and age.
I definitely wouldn't think it'd be acceptable, can you. I
was reading about that and it's written down somewhere about
you firing that three point fifty seven magnum in the
courthouse or in the front of the courthouse.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
No, it was. It was in the foyer of Central
Local Court. And anyone who's been to Central Local Court
will know that you walked through these a walk up
the steps of this beautiful old court building. It was
the original Magistrates court, and you walk through some glass
doors and further glass doors into this big area which
leads off into various court rooms and the court office
(02:31):
and It was probably about three o'clock in the afternoon,
and for some reason I had to go down there.
It may have been to file something or to find
out what was going on in a particular court that
I had some interest in. And I walked in and
I ran into a now deceeased officer, Billy Mansell, who
was a genuinely nice guy and had actually done a
lot of undercover worker and it all seemed to me
(02:54):
that he was too nice a black to be involved
in that sort of stuff. And in any event, Billy
was there with another detective who I can't recall, and
when I ran into Bell, and he'd been involved in
a lot of drug investigations that I had been involved in,
and I lusted what they were doing there. And they
said they were hanging around waiting to give evidence, and
(03:15):
what was the case about, and they said it's drugs
and guns. And I'd sort of been glanced to my
right and just to the left of the entrance to
the court room there's this great, big revolver sitting on
the chair, large as life.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Clean Eastwood Stock exactly.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
It was. They're big guns. They're big guns. And so
I've walked over and I said, is that a three
five seven mag And they said, yeah, you have a
look at it, pick it up. Well, they were really
really friendly about it and encouraging. Man, I'm not a
particularly lover of guns, but I thought, well, I'll just
want to get a feel of this thing. What they
(03:58):
didn't tell me was that the bloody thing had a
hair trigger and that they'd put blanks in it. I've
touched I've picked it up. As I was turning around
to say something like, just bloody heavy, isn't it, I've
touched the trigger and it's gone off. In the middle
of the foyer with cases going on, Well, all hell
break loose there and people started running from everywhere, and
(04:22):
excuse me using this language. There's Billy and the other
copper absolutely pissing themselves with laughter and having a great
joke at my expense. And it took me a long
time to live that down.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
That is a that is a good get. That is
a very good job. But could you imagine if that
happened today? The courthouse would be shut down, It'd be secured,
there'd be negotiaders called out, it would just and everyone
involved in it would be in all sorts of trouble
and people who would be off on post aumatic stress.
(04:56):
It's a different world, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
It is it is we take I think I think
in some respects we take life too seriously.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Yeah, And like you were the scene, some of the
characters in the police and some of the crooks, some
of the people in the court, some of the court officers.
There was a little bit more robust and there was
a lot of sense. There was a sense of humor
in there as well.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
There was It's one of my favorite, not warding homes,
but lunching places is a Greek restaurant. I give them
a plug called Vietne's.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Yeah. I had many a meal there and it's.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Still great food. And i'd regularly see tables of detectives
down there on a Friday afternoon. And as I said,
you leave everything in the courtroom. It's everyone got a
job to do in this industry and you've got to
take it seriously, but you shouldn't carry it with you
when you leave. And you'd always have a laugh.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
And I think that that's good. And there's I'm sure
there's people that you've crossed it that you don't get
past that. But the people that I've dealt with when
I don't mind playing hard but fair, and I respect
people with the doing their job coming at the hard
but fair and vice versa, and there's not it's nice
(06:05):
sometimes after it's finished that you can actually yeah, it
might be just a begrudging nod, but showing respect to
the person that you've been up against in an adversarial
system because you are up against them, and the way
you described it in part one, it's like a playing
within the rules of a sporting match.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
I've had the benefit. On one occasion, I was in
the Old Courthouse Hotel after a trial. I think it
was up there with Pat Costello. Pat and I'd get
involved in a trial up there, and we're actually having
a drink with a very legend detective by the name
of Johnny Burke. It was as hard as nails have
(06:44):
a drink with John and he was the nicest blake
in the world. When someone came up and started giving
either him or the grief, well, he went from the
nicest blake in the world to a bloke I wouldn't
want it to have been arrested by.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Didn't want to take that different person, didn't want to
wan across at the court house. I tell yeah, many
a victory drink spent there, just leading into that when
you do win a case is there and I would
imagine and people that you genuinely don't believe it are
(07:16):
guilty and the justice would be served if they've gone off.
Do you go out then celebrate? And you don't have
to specific examples, but is it something that's done.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Oh, yeah, it is something that's done. You go and
have a drink with the with the sort of the
defendants group, with the q's group, but you don't spend
it a lot of time there. I got caught once
down at Aubrey with the with the Black Ullans after
winning a case there, and I was supposed to be
It was a Friday, and I was I supposed to
beginning home the next day to move house with my wife.
(07:45):
And she never lets me forget this, but they got
me absolutely drunk to the point where I couldn't get
on the plane they had. They had to carry me
home to someone's bed and put me on the plane
the next day.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Okay, great caution, I shouldn't have to. Yeah, it might
sound exciting going for a drink at the clubhouse, but yeah, okay,
they got you, they got me. Okay, well you've learnt,
you learned your lesson. You've been around long enough to
see King's Cross when it was that that golden mile,
when it was the under the King's Cross, underworld, the underbelly.
(08:19):
Tell us about your experiences there because you're working in
criminal law there before the Royal Commission of the Wood
Royal Commission, I'm talking about the commission into police corruption
that dragged a lot of people in. But you you
knew that world, you understood that world, and tell us
about those times.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
It was. It was an interesting It was an interesting
world because it was it was the place where people
went to enjoy themselves. But it was it was, as
I said, we go back to the Vietnam War as
being I think the crucial element in the development of
the drug culture in Australia. The American R and R
(08:57):
boys brought drugs back and it's sort of burgeoned after that,
and King's Cross was the place where everyone went, and
it was just there were so many clubs. You could
go to some clubs and you could get your weed.
You you can go to other clubs to get your
meth or your coke. There was a little well, I
(09:21):
suppose I don't know whether I should name the person
who was responsible. He's done his fifteen years, but he
was well known and he was represented in Underbelly. But
he added a little shoot where he It was like
a little service Winday, I don't get what you wanted,
but it was really really quite straight and back in
the day you had people who were in and around
(09:42):
the cross of Imember Sweethearts Cafe. It's famous from a
Jimmy Barnes song, Breakfast Sweethearts. I ate breakfast at Sweetheart's
quite a few times after going in at four o'clock
in the morning or two o'clock in the morning to
King's Cross police station to advise clients.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Okay, thew we're up now, we may as well have breakfast.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
But it was interesting times garrier because of the nature
of the location. It was just one of those places
at that particular time where from a person who didn't
have to be involved in the crime, so to speak,
was absolutely amazing.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Well, I think you do get then you're fortunate. And
I found that in policing, in the work that I did,
you get to look in to a world that you
don't want to be part of You don't want to
be fully embedded in it. But you get to see
what's going on and get an understanding of it. Because
Louis Bay you had dealings with him. Did you act
(10:42):
for him or just came across?
Speaker 2 (10:44):
No, I acted for Louis, and then I had Then
I had cause not to want anything else to do
with Louis. At one stage I was in some respects
I was naive in relation to the way I thought
I handled my relationship with him. But I can say
that on a number of occasions Louis said, I want
(11:05):
you to come and have a Chinese lunch out at
Parramatta with me. Well, I've turned up and I'm sitting
at a table with Roger.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Yeah, Roger Rogerson, the former New South Wales police officer,
corrupt police officer and convicted murderer.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Lanny McPherson, a couple of other people who wait, a
good crew, you've got the game, and Lurry and Sorry
and Louis. And it was a bit of an education.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Yeah, And it's funny, isn't it. Well it's not funny,
but that's how you get indoctrinated into that world, like
come and have a lunch and then oh, well, yeah
I've spoken to that person, and then the next thing,
Roger's on the phone. I want you to do a
favor for me, and you can get caught up in
that world, can't you.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Yeah. I never had anything to do with Roger. Wilst
it was a detective. He was actually doing wrought iron
and putting rowed iron in gold and jar you know,
different bars and things, which is quite it looks.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
I think he was doing some other stuff too, but.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Yeah, well and he didn't learn from his first job.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
His last one was a classic was yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Well yeah, anyone who can think they could walk around
a city the size of Sydney, you'll not be photographed
a thousand times. He's got another thing.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
And look, Roger was from a police point of view,
and like my early days in policing, I remember being
in the witness boxes. I was in the arm hole
up squad in the nineties. Again in the witness box.
I've never met Roger, but being cross examined. So you're
in the arm toole up squad, aren't you. I don't
think it was you. Okay, you're in the arm hole
(12:36):
up squad, aren't you? Yes, and so you're you're the
tough guys. You bash them, you lower them, you do this.
Roger Rogerson's your hero. And that was a narrative because
he put a stain on all of us, and not
just Roger, there was other people. But that's world that
you're in. Before the Royal Commission exposed it all and
people were accountable, it was a dangerous, dangerous place to operate,
(13:00):
wasn't it.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
I never felt it was dangerous, right, Okay? As I said,
and I've said this to others, the only person who
I really thought uncomfortable with was Lenny was with with
Netdie Smith.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Yeah, what what was it about that?
Speaker 2 (13:12):
I just think that it was Nettie's persona, his demeanor.
He was sort of this brooding character and just felt
slightly uncomfortable with him.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Yeah. Well, even look for the crimes and yeah he's
passed away, we can we can talk openly. But the
the crimes that he was involved in, and he sounded
like a grub in some of the things that he
did that you know, he had that persona of being
a gangster, but there was that other side side to him.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
He was psychopathical, didn't seem to have any regard for
human like now that others may say differently.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
I take on board that that's your impression.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
But that's but I and I was never exposed to
his really really outside but I just felt there was
sort of this brooding presence there that was difficult.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
It's interesting you identify him of all the people you've
dealt with, and you've come across a wide range of
let's call them villains or colorful identities, that he was
one that you got that got that sense from.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Well, when you think of a person who I had
some regard for, and that's Abbot Henry Graham. Abbot Henry.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
He's a former gangster that used to run with Neddie
Smith during the Roger Rogerson era.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Graham is the nicest flake and the funniest blake you're made.
And to put him in the same gang as Neddie,
I think he was ran in that sort of circle.
He just too totally different type of people.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Well, I know Graham pretty pretty well now and he's
been on the podcast and I've caught up with him
a bit. When you say it's a nice blake, I
grew up in the same area and they used to
terrorize people were young, changed Yeah, he's changed, let's say.
But yeah, I know what you're saying. Very personal saw
the blake. You can sit down and speak to Graham
(15:06):
and have a laugh, have a drink, and yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
You see, there's the difference between police officers and criminal lawyers.
When you're dealing with the same people, they have a
totally different attitude to you than they do to me. Yeah,
and so you see them from different perspectives.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Gary, Well, that's true, that's true. What you had interesting
when you were dealing with Louis Baya that he had
a young.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Driver that was Johnny Ibrahim.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Did you identify john as someone that was going to
rise to the level he did?
Speaker 2 (15:38):
No, No, I didn't recognize it, but having observed it
over the many years, I have no doubt that he
was always going to do well for himself. Yeah. John
reads situation as well, and he was. I think he
found himself in the right place at the right time,
(15:58):
with the rights skills to be able to gain from
his good luck.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Yeah. Well, he's where he's at now, He's many his
way through, so he must have something going for him.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Yeah. He's sort of that old expression about laying down
with dogs and getting up with fleas is relevant to
all of us. But John's been able to deal with
that aspect of his life in a reasonable sort of way,
so that he's come out relatively unscathed.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Charlie Staunton, you would have had dealings with Charlie Staunton,
greg He was a former New South Wales police officer
and he got into some trouble ended up leaving the police,
so I think he became a private investigator and did
a bit of wheeling and dealing around King's Cross Again.
I'm looking at all the people we've had on the podcast,
(16:54):
but that's what happens when you've been going for a
few years. But I've got to say, if Charlie didn't exists,
you'd have to invent him quite the way he's lived
his life.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
One of Well's lovable rogues.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Yeah, what what's your what's your take on Charlie? Because
I had to laugh at some of the things that
he got up to.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
He's got up to so much. One book's not enough
for Charlie in terms of what he's been through. But
Charlie is is is a rogue to start with, and
we all love him. We don't always want to see
him because he's gonna he's going to put the pinch
on us. But when he comes you can always have
(17:32):
a laugh and you always know what you're getting with Charlie.
He's pretty upfront.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Yeah, I found that with him in my dealings with him,
and I've caught up with him and bumped into him
at certain certain places, and yeah, he's a character, and like,
we're not condoning crime. We've sit here, we'll put that
out there on things. But back in those days there
(17:57):
were larger than life characters, weren't they. And I I
don't know. And you mentioned in part one and I
reflected on it during the break about the way the
gangsters go about their business now and look at me
type attitude. It has changed, hasn't it.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Well, everyone wants to know what you're doing, starting off
with what you had at the last restaurant you were at,
who you're laying by the swimming pool with now, and
who you're killing.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Don't you take those of your breakfast each morning?
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Don't face it to everyone. It's going to be the
same every morning, I'm afraid.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
But yeah, I know what you're saying. Interesting, if we're
talking the way things change, is it harder to be
a crook now than it would be let's say twenty
thirty years ago, with all the technology that's changed.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Do you think it's harder. Certainly harder. But if you're
switched on crook and you know how to run under
the radar, I think that you are likely to last
a lot longer than these guys who have no regard
to the fact that everything we do in public is scrutinized,
(19:06):
either by virtue of public cameras or private cameras. Everyone's
running around with a camera to take photos of you
these days. Your likelihood of your telephone calls being monitored
is real. So if you're going to do anything, you've
better to do it face to face because telephones aren't
safe and people don't wake up to that. It keeps
me in business.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Yeah, I think you've got a phone on you like
just the tracking, the ability, and I look at from
an investigative point of view, if there was a murder. Yeah,
pre mobile phone days, it was you check who you
phoned on your landline, what public phones were in the
area of fingerprints. Look at the technology available now, see
(19:50):
we could track you from the time you left your
office in the city to come here and your movements
and basically everything you've done it so much harder.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
I think I'm involved in a murder case at the moment,
my client, I think will be I've negotiated him out
of that aspect of the case or his accessorial involvement
in the case. But when you looked at the evidence,
the police were able to track the vehicle that the
(20:23):
shooters or the assassins if I can call them, that
used from the time it was stolen until the time
it was burnt, and in relation to my client who
was involved in picking them up, exactly where his vehicle
went as well, because you can't drive around anything that's
you'd regard as a main arterial road or any arterial
(20:46):
road without being photographed.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Yeah, that's a reality of it, isn't well talking about technology,
And I understand that there's some appeals going through court
or currently, so if you can't talk too much about it,
but just your take on that you involved in that
at all.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
I am involved in that from three different aspects. I've
got an appeal currently running in relation to a couple
of clients who pleaded guilty and got rewarded for what
we call facilitating the course of justice, but that's under
appeal by the ground as to the inadequacy of the penalties.
Of opinion that if you want to get people to
(21:24):
plead guilty, you've got to show them that it's going
to be worthwhile, because at the end of the day,
they get locked up, cost one hundred and fifty thousand
dollars per prisoner to keep them in jail, and in
some respects they don't come out any better than what
they went in. So you've got to change the system
in that regard. I'm involved with others who are waiting
on the outcome of the High Court appeal, and it's
(21:45):
a very interesting aspect picture.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Sorry, and I probably should have because you and I
know what we're talking about. But that was the sting
operation that started in America but also used in law
enforcement over here.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Operation Inside and cuphibially didn't know the creator or the
person who organized the creation of what we call the
phantom Secure Phones, which is one of the encrypted phanes
that was used some time ago. He was arrested by
the police and charged with racketeering offenses, which are their
(22:22):
conspiracy offenses in relation to providing telephones to the Sinaloa cartel.
So by doing that he was facilitating their ability to
communicate large drug trafficking enterprises. And he was threatened with
thirty years in jail and was given the option of
(22:44):
doing the thirty years or assisting the police and getting
a lesser sentence. Well, he took the latter, and whilst
that was in train, he got one of his technicians,
at the request of the police, to put together the plat.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
For that and people involved in criminal enterprise or I
won't say that as a defense so you object, your
honor great as a podcast listener, but that they were
passed out to people that may or may not have
been involved in criminal activities, and the police were monitoring
(23:20):
the cause on phones that the people that had them
felt they were encrypted and safe, that there's no way
that law enforcement could monitor what was going on. Is that?
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Well? The way the way that worked was that like
you or I would send a text and I was
intending it to go from me to you, I would
type in the text. That text would then be copied
within the platform and when when when the text text
press send, the copy would immediately go through a system
(23:55):
called called bots eyebots to the police who were monitoring it,
and there were several agencies that were doing so, and
there was some suggestion that it had gone through an
overseas country like Romania, I think, or somewhere like that.
It was quite kite of complicated. But the South Australian
Supreme Court, in a case involving I think a conspiracy
(24:17):
that murder, dealt with the matter first and Justice Kimber
there decided that it was admissible because it didn't contravene
the definition of what an actual intercept was because of
when you press sent. It didn't go to the receiver,
it went to the police and it was very technically
and that's a very very simplistic explanation. But the accused
(24:43):
then appealed. It went to a three court bench who
upheld Judge Justice Kimber's decision that it wasn't an intercept,
and now it's gone to the High Court. In the meantime,
Mark Drayfus, our Attorney General, decided that he'd put through
legislation and declaring that that particular function that platform, what
(25:05):
at the anom phone did was not an intercept right
and that's created a possible constitutional problem because it raises
the separation of powers and what the courts are there
to do, and what the High Court is there to
do to interpret the laws as they apply and the
definitions as they apply. An interesting question which will now
(25:27):
arise is has the Attorney General usurped the functions of
the court and basically denied the operation of the separation
of powers of which there are three. That Parliament makes laws,
the Executive enforces the laws, and the judiciary interprets the laws.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Okay, is going to be interesting. So when we looking
at decision coming back about.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
That, we're looking at it. I think it'll probably get
to the High Court between June and August sometimes.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
And there's a lot of people because there's some large
numbers of people that were charged flowing on from that,
so high stakes.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
A lot of political pressure out there. I think I'm
being practical.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Yeah, I would imagine it's well, get on.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
It's a really interesting It is.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Interesting because if you're making legislation and make it, well,
it's retrospective, isn't it. It's capturing something from the past.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
And you'd agree. The interesting part about well, your former
job and my current job is that it's it's all
about how society works. From the underbelly to the very top.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Yeah, it's interesting. I've got to say, from an ex
detectives point of view, I thought it was a great
plan when I heard about it. I'm thinking, damn it, well,
didn't I think about something like that that's simplistic in
the planning but very complicated in the actual getting it
up and running. And I'm surprised. I'm surprised. And I
(26:58):
can talk like this because I'm not invold them, but
I'm surprised it didn't get out like there would have
been a lot of pot.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
You started to get out because someone realized there was
a leak at the end of it, and that was
going straight to the police. But it's my turn to object.
It's my turn to object in criminal law. And I
think in life, there's a saying which a lot of
people don't get better, that ninety nine guilty men go
free than one innocent man be wrongly convicted. And it's
(27:27):
the chance of using these mechanisms, these platforms, these things,
or creating a case against a person wrongly that puts
in a position where people are wrongly convicted. And I
say to people who say this to me, do you
really care about these people and how can you act
for criminals? It's all this sort of stuff, and I say, well,
(27:48):
hang on a sec We've got a system that should
be fair, should be reasonable, and shouldn't it shouldn't be
adam and even giving them the apple again to commit
a mortal sin because you might get dragging in an
innocent person and that innocent What I say, do you
want your son to be that innocent person and do
twenty years? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Look, and you can't argue with that. Let's saying I
might have been the old days. I'm not going to.
I'm not going to now. But yeah, I do understand
what you're saying, and there needs to be checks and
balances exactly and to make the system work. But yeah,
that's going to be fascinating how that comes across, because
(28:29):
this is a real test is this is the High Court,
This is making the big decisions, and.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
It's not just lawyers being nerdy. It really has an impact.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Look, I in regards and I always make comments about
lawyers and slices and whatnot. I do understand the need
for proper defense, and I take issue with some people
that I think cross the line, as you would take
issue with where you think police have cross across the line.
I've seen come up against some lawyers. I just think
(28:59):
that that's stooping too what they've done there. And it
might be just the way that they're they're cross examining
someone or the way that they're playing, but we do
need the checks and balances, so I think we're on
a grance there. I have now seen it, and I
keep saying it because it did change my perspective, like
having the full way that the state coming after you.
(29:21):
And I know when I was going to court, I
was thinking, well, that the worst that's going to happen
to me, you know, I might get a fine or
something like that. I can't imagine the impact that would
have on you. If the consequences were when this jury
comes back or this judge comes back, that could dictate
the rest of your life.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Like its high stakes, but the Lord doesn't always work
in favor of the accused. It also works in favor
of people down the track in terms of how evidence
is considered and recrafted. For instance, in the Hey Dad
case where the Hughes was charged with there's a multiplicity
(30:01):
of terrible child sexual asside offenses that changed the tendency law,
so that a lot more material can come in. Now,
if you've got if you've got a tendency to do,
then that can be established. So that's in favor of
the person who's saying that. Those people who say, well, oh,
but he did this and he did that, why wasn't
that raised, Well, now things.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Like that, it can be raised.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
It's called tendency.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Yeah. Well, I was involved through campaigning with the Bearable
community on the double jeopardy legislation. It hasn't changed the
changed the landscape, and I don't think there's any I
don't think there's been a situation where someone's being convicted.
And what I'm talking about there is that if someone
was acquitted of a crime, they couldn't be retried until
(30:46):
the double jeopardy legislation was changed. Now fresh and compelling
the evidence and that and that's in the interests of justice.
The fact that sitting there, I think is a good
thing because I would hate to have someone and what
could have been someone that acquitted of a murder could
walk out of court and go, well, I got a
way of that and we could never recharge. So the
fact that the legislation is sitting there hasn't been implemented.
(31:09):
I think is a good thing. But I've always been
on about legislation or the justice system, and I get
your thoughts on it. A justice system is set up
to serve the community. That's therefore, and if adjustments have
got it, if it's not serving the community, legislation needs
to be changed. Are you an advocate for changing legislation
(31:30):
where it needs to be changed or is it more
old school? Now we've been doing this for two hundred years,
white change, No.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
No, I hear what you say, and what I don't
like is knee jerk. Yeah, let's just live changed where
you get change for the sake of satisfying some particular
publicity agenda, agenda, and then you end up with victims
of that agenda who are wrongly convicted or wrongly accused,
(32:00):
and we find that the law is then used to
assist politicians in their electoral cycle.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
Well, let's you talk about changing the law agendas and
the media interests and all that. The bail laws on
youth crime and baiol laws. I know there's been a
lot of talk about that, but I think you articulate
very well that quite often it's changed for a political agenda,
and it doesn't always work, and innocent people can be
(32:34):
caught up in it.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Yeah, that's because we live in a reactive rather than
proactive society. We're reacting to what we see as being
a problem, and we're chastising and punishing those who are
involved in perpetrating those problems. But we're not going back
in the way that we were talking about how jails
are changing Gary and saying, how can we stop young
(32:58):
Indigenous kids from running right in our springs? How can
we stop them before they leave home to go and
run right? And how can we stop kids in Sydney
or in Melbourne, and then the poorer parts going out
and creating habit and getting into postcode gangs or getting
into whatever it is. We've got to look at those
aspects and we've got to put our resources into stopping
(33:19):
crime before it starts.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
Diversionary plans you talked about keeping someone in custody come
across one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year to
keep a person in custody when you look at the
expense that is spent. There had Tim Watson Monroe, a
criminal psychologist, on them. He made the point that for
one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, you could have each
(33:42):
inmate with their own personal psychologists looking after them to
keep them on the straight and narrow. It's a huge amount,
and I know there are people that we need to
protect society from. I've got no problems, and there needs
to be deterrens, there needs to be punishments. All the
things that you talked about get taken into with sentencing.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
Tim being a psychologist, would say that I might say,
spend one hundred and fifty thousand. Not a good lawyer.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
And look, Greg, we've got to be on us here.
If we clear up, if we solve all the solutions
of crime, you're going to be out of business.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
I don't think that's going to happen, Gary Ott. But
I think we're entitled as members of a great democracy
to have a system that's fair and that's reasonable and
we get it right as many times as is possible
within a fallible system. And all systems are fallible. But
I think we do.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Okay here, Okay, let's talk other clients that you've had
and if I mentioned someone and you're not comfortable talking
about it, but got a lot of media publicity, so
we're not talking out of the school. But John Abraham's girlfriend,
Sarah Budge, that was charged with the possession of the firearm.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Yes, decent, lovely girl, Sarah. I've got a lot of
time for Sarah Budge and now she's John's wife, A
really really decent gale. As you might say, that was
an interesting case. I was part of a really really
good team of lawyers and had a fair jury who
(35:19):
came back with the right decision.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Yeah. Yeah, and that people haven't heard about that there
was a firearm found found at the premises and it
was what was the actual charge.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
It was The charge was possession of an unlicensed pistol,
which I think can carry up to fourteen years in jail.
It's a guns are something we take seriously in our
community and rightly so, as you'd recall and you'd agree
with that, And it was the prosecution couldn't establish that
(35:54):
she had knowledge that was there or even put it
there on you, and given that other people had access
to her apartment, I thought that was the right decision.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
An element of doubt, of doubt there absolutely Another high
profile person that you've represented was Scott Miller, the former
and I think it's a sad case. And I know
sentencing you addressing the issues that created that situation. For
those that don't know, Scott Miller, he was a silver
medalist at the Olympics, a swimmer and got involved in drugs.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
You should when you say silver medalist, you've got to
put that in context. Garat, he should have been the
gold medalist. He was the fastest butterfly swimmer on top
of the water. Now, if anyone knows anything about swimming,
and you dive into a twenty five meter peol or
a fifty meter pool, you go fifteen meters and you
look up and there's all these flags. There's a big
string of flags across. You've got to be surfaced by them.
(36:49):
His nemesis was a guy called Dennis Pankrotov, a Russian,
bloody Russians again, yeah, absolutely yeah, And it was invading
the swimming pool and he was spending probably sixty percent
of the time that he swamm the butterfly under the
water doing a dolphin kick, So it wasn't butterfly at all.
(37:11):
But strangely enough, you can swim faster underwater than you
can by breaking the surface on top of the water.
And he beat. He came up probably a body length
in front of Scott in the nineteen six Olympics and
he beat Scott to the wall by a bee's knees.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
Right, Well, I didn't think. I didn't think we're going
to dissect the and Scotty.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
Then they then changed the rules after that, and so
Scott's had that you know is an also rad you
don't win the gold.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
Well, that's yeah, okay, I didn't realize the backstory to it. Okay,
so you've gone in depth there.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
And then he got injured coming up to the Sydney Olympics,
which was which was every every sportsman's dream who was
an Olympic class at sporting events, missed out on that,
tried to come back for two o four and injuries
put him out, but then found himself, like a lot
of swimmers do, suffering what we call post elite sportsman's suppression.
(38:11):
You go and swimmings, you know, you follow the black line.
It's you're in your own world training and then you
come out of this bubble into the limelight. You're some
hero and you've got to deal with that with no
training for it. No, it's a sad story.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
Is a sad story. How did you come to be
representing him?
Speaker 2 (38:31):
Because just through associations and through well actually through his
wife and through my associations with other people involved in
swimming got to know got to know Scott and looked
after him.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
You see a lot of elite sportsmen that have had
the highs and then struggle after it. But yeah, it
plays out in rugby league for a lot of different reasons,
but you see a lot that happened with a lot
of a lot of sportsmen.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
I think rugby is a sort of different category. Yeah,
it's well in that it's young men weekly being involved
in this glamorous, high profile Adelatian type sport and you
know there's cocaine around, and there's good looking girls at
clubs and so forth, and it's not the sort of
same sort of the isolation of a swimmer. And you
(39:30):
look at a lot of our swimmers have had Lisal
Jones had problems and so you know Scotty wasn't is
not alone. He was just one that fell further than others.
As I said, it's a sad.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
Story, and representing him, you're obviously the way that you
relay the story, you felt felt it personally the responsibility
of representing him.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
Oh yeah, Yeah, people commit crime, but doesn't stop them
from being human beings. And you can set the crime
aside and you've still got Sometimes you've got a really
decent human being there. He's made a lot of bad mistakes,
but you can't throw the good person out with the bathwater.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Another person that you've come across in your career, and
we're going back into the dark, well, the King's Cross.
But Sally Anne Huckstep who was by way of introduction,
people probably heard her name, but Warren France, Warren lan
Franchi lanb Francie's girlfriend at the time that Tea was
(40:36):
shot and killed by Roger Rogerson and was sort of
considered she might have been an informant giving information, but
she ended up being murdered.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
Yeah. Sure, her body was found in one of the
Centennial Park lakes.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
And she was at the time she was vocal in
speaking up about police corruption.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
Well, she was speaking up to the extent that she
believed that Roger Rogerson had had killed Warren in cold blood.
And there's all sorts of different stories about that. Yeah,
and she was a victim of a time when collusion
I think between people in positions of relative power, either
(41:18):
from the criminal malieu or from the police mailieu, were
bound to catch up with.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
Yeah, and how did you find her as a person.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
We didn't, I don't. I think we may have acted
for when I was in to practice out at Bondi
junction with one of my older partners in with our
deceased as well. We acted for just on my smartor things,
I think, but we got more caught up in in
that aspect of it because we were alleged to have
had her diaries in my in my office, and in
(41:51):
my office was then broken into and ow and we nothing, no,
nothing of value taken except there was a nice neatly
cut section of our roof.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
Sorry break break this down. Just my detective minds thinking
hole it. So you the information was that you had
Sally's diaries.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
Well, that was a rumor that was out there and
that had come through another girlfriend of hers, for whom
we acted, and it was thought that that had been
left in our in our care.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
And that could be very damaging for certain people.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
We didn't have it. We didn't have it safe. And
in fact that when people were playing with checks, they
were stuck in a jar. On the top of a
filing cabinet. Well, they were all still there, but there
was a well precisely cut hole in our roof and
they got through the roof and through the ceiling, and
I think and there was clearly all our filing cabinets
(42:45):
had been rifled.
Speaker 1 (42:47):
You can't. You can't make this stuff up. You can't
make this stuff up. Okay, I'm just. I'm just I
hadn't realized that. Just thinking about that. Okay, that's interesting.
The diaries. Wow, what do you think makes a good solicitor?
I'm going to I haven't forgotten about the saying that
you've ever met and I'll exclude myself from this question.
(43:08):
Have you ever met a good detective? But before I do,
what do you consider is the good traits of a
defense solictener?
Speaker 2 (43:17):
Be a good listener, be compassionate and be prepared to
look at the case from every available angle, and to
do your best by your client and be truthful to
your client.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
Good advice. Did you have mentors throughout your career or
people that you learned from.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
I had different barristers who I worked with. I had
the benefit of working with some great lawyers and being
opposed by some great lawyers. A lot of them became
really good judges. And if you know, laws are really
rewarding place because you sort of feel like you're doing good,
(44:03):
you feel like you've not done and done. It can
be self critical too much sometimes, but now I generally
had the benefit of working with good barristers and with
people who were really, really smart.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
Do you have have barristers that you Is it Forbes
Chambers that you engage with a lot of barristers from
Forbes Chambers?
Speaker 2 (44:29):
Yeah, I regard Forbes is probably the premier criminal chambers.
But across the board there.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
I used to hate walking up there server brief Forbes Chambers.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
But across the across the across the span of barristers.
Samuel Griffiths have got some very good barristers, and there's
some other chambers spread around.
Speaker 1 (44:49):
And what's what's the working relationship with the solicitor and
the barrister, Like, what's the dynamic dynamics there.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
Well, I've always regarded myself as anything but a bad carrier.
I say jokingly, I'm anicat I'm anicating today which has
gone getting paid and not doing any of the work.
But I tell my clients that they're at a two horse race,
I says, as a prosecution, and there's us. I say,
I'm the trainer, the barrasses, the jockey, and you know
(45:17):
what you are. You're a horse, okay, So if you
don't run across the line first, you're in big trouble.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
I haven't heard that description. Break that down again, Run
it past me again, so I don't forget it.
Speaker 2 (45:28):
I say, the solicitors, the trainer, the barrasses, the jockey,
but the client's the horse. It's a good analogy because
if the horse doesn't run across the line first, the
jockey and the trainer walk away. They go home.
Speaker 1 (45:41):
That's not a bad way of describing it. Policing have
you seen. You've been in the as a defense solicit
for forty years, so you've seen changes in police like
you wouldn't even recognize what policing was in the eighties,
the early eighties compared to one of these is Now,
what do you think the quality of investigations are?
Speaker 2 (46:04):
Like? I think the quality of investigations has improved markedly.
I think that's because I came into law on the
cusp of a change where we'd gone through that period
where there were suggestions of corruption and so forth, and
police were prepared to make up conversations that they'd had
with suspects, which we called verbals, in order to gain
(46:27):
a conviction. So they were walking working more on gut
instinct than they were on real hard work.
Speaker 1 (46:34):
I think that's fair and say, and I think to.
Speaker 2 (46:36):
The credit of the police force, that's greatly improved and
with the advance that we advances that we've had in
what I talked about earlier about forensic technologies, which is
listening devices and telephone intercepts, better surveillance, long range cameras
and long range and basically putting in the time to
(46:56):
act on where you start off with a suspicion and
then were your way through to look at how things
work and whether you've got something that's just a spinoff,
And a lot of the major busts that have been
achieved by police is by just looking at that spinoff.
Is there something here this person's met that person, We're
going to look at what he's doing.
Speaker 1 (47:18):
It's definitely evolving and changing changing landscape for criminal investigation.
A good detechnic if you've come up against in your
career someone because there's been some ding dog battles in
the courts and over time, is there one that you
could say that you respected for the way he or
(47:38):
she went about their job.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
Well, in terms of just dogged determination, i'd have to
talk about Justin Murray. I've actually got Justin in a
case now. But Justin was the officer in charge of
the investigations into the Armor Guard robberies across the pavement
Armorgard robberies. When I think Chubb an Armourguard security trucks
(48:00):
were being attacked as they stopped to fill up ATMs
and so forth. And I think overall seven at some
point one million or seven point six million dollars was
was stolen by the police.
Speaker 1 (48:14):
Well, I stule was I said, yeah, and go, okay,
we're going make sure we're recording this the alleged cross
highlight that trip. There's your headline in the paper. Okay.
Speaker 2 (48:30):
I made the mistake in court last week this last
week of referring to one of my clients as as
a graffiti artist. Well, the magistrate went ballistic and said
I said, said, and it criticized me for that. I
was trying to get in. Well, I'll refrase that and
say he was an exponent, but it wasn't the police,
(48:50):
and we eventually won that case one hundred and sixty
one charges to nil, which was a great success justin
to his well, I won't say to his credit, but
he was so convinced of their guilt that he tracked
down everyone and got them all for something else.
Speaker 1 (49:07):
Right, Okay, Well I like that type of dog inness.
Speaker 2 (49:10):
That was reginess. I've met a lot of police officers,
but who now, being armed with the technology and the
ability to track crime, do an amazing job.
Speaker 1 (49:22):
Yeah. Yeah, Well it takes the pressure off to a degree.
Is a police officer that you can rely on the
technology and that because before I won't say before, but
there was a lot of hard graft. You had to
get the statements and then you've got a brief that's
not Yeah, there would be I'm saying here just from
my thoughts, there seemed to be a lot more trials
(49:42):
because you didn't have that evidence. You didn't have the
technical evidence of the phone records or things that could
back it up. So it came down to witness testimony,
which you'd know and I'm sure you're sure you've exploited
in a fair way that eyewitness testimony is not always
that reliable.
Speaker 2 (50:00):
Nor his memory. Yeah, and psychologists will tell you that
constructed memory can be really fallible. But it's then up
to the jury to decide whether they believe it or not,
and that itself is a fallible system. We saw that
with George pell and a lot of people that have
their views on that. But knowing from my point of view,
looking at what the High Court said, you know, I
(50:23):
think the jury didn't make a mistake that other minds
would differ. Also, having been seeing bishops come to Catholic
churches and know how many people they drag with them
and never were alone, I thought it was pretty difficult.
But you've got to look at the system and look
at the fallibilities and say, well, the police are getting
better tools these days to take suspicion to the point
(50:43):
of proof, and that's it. And even though I'm a
criminal defense lawyer, I'm a member of a society as well,
and in that respect, I expect prosecutors to do their
job properly. In his hard I don't expect to get
to cut me any slack because I'm paying them to
do their job. And so, yeah, police are getting better,
better resources and that's to our advantage.
Speaker 1 (51:02):
What about the court system? Is there things that you
think could be improved? And you said I think in
part one that you've believed the system where God is
as good as any other other system across the Well, yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (51:18):
Think what needs to be improved in our court system
is not the system of the determination of guilt or
the application of court time. When you've got judges and
juries and magistrates actually doing the sentencing jobs or doing
the trial jobs. The problem we have got is we're
(51:39):
over burden with administrative stuff. I was in a court
the other day out of Campbelltown and the magistrate had
to deal with one hundred and fifty matters in this list,
and these were all serious matters, and the majority of
them gary were matters that could have been done by
our registrar. They were just adjourney matters because they weren't
ready to proceed. Now we're paying big money to have
(52:02):
a judicial officer sit there and do an administrative job,
and so there are ways and means of cleaning up
that system which would save money and I think expedite
the system as well.
Speaker 1 (52:14):
Yeah. I see what you're saying there, because the time
that appears to be wasted in court going through what
you've just described is.
Speaker 2 (52:22):
Yeah, it's we call them mentions.
Speaker 1 (52:24):
The mentions sit there what's the called on in at
down in center that wherever they have the mentions and
you've virtually got to fight your way in to get
in there.
Speaker 2 (52:34):
Oh that's the registrar's court four point four. But they're
get through the mentions really quickly, by about by eleven thirty,
it's all over and done with. But it's yeah, but
sometimes you've got to you've got in the custody courts,
it's all dealt with by a magistrate, and the magistrates
are basically just shuffling paper in the journey matters, and
sometimes you've you've got to go before a magistrate. Fortunately,
(52:57):
in the Supreme Court we have registrartions who do a
lot of that work. Less there's an issue that needs
determination by a judge which is just not shifting the
dates or saying this has got to be filed in time,
you're getting get referred to a judge. It doesn't happen
in the local courts and sometimes in the district courts.
Speaker 1 (53:12):
What would you say when I throw this to you
that an inquisitorial system is better than adversarial system. Why
because you talked about going into the Royal Commission, which
is more of an inquisitorial type system in quest than
as compared to an adversarial system. Do you think there's
(53:34):
any value in leaning more towards an inquisitorial system rather
than adversarial system. Not.
Speaker 2 (53:41):
While we are entitled to the right.
Speaker 1 (53:44):
Silence, Okay, that's a stickler for it.
Speaker 2 (53:48):
Yeah, and proof beyond reasonable doubt. And I think that's
if you're going to take away a person's liberty. And
we're talking about Jarles before. People don't understand is that
every day you and I can get up and we
have a choice as to what we do. Now, choices
are limited because life's repetitive, but we don't have to
go to work if we don't really want it. We
(54:08):
can take a sickie, we get our four weeks holiday.
At the end of the day, we can go and
have a beer with our mates. But if you'll get
up and you put on your green shorts and your
T shirt and you know exactly what you're going to
be doing for the rest of the day in the
next four or five or ten years, that's not liberty.
Speaker 1 (54:22):
Okay, and look, I agree with you, and to understand
the punishment. The punishment has been taken away from society
and it's not a nice place to be in prison.
And even the prisoners acknowledge that some people have to
being there. They're not saying that everyone, Yeah, we should
(54:42):
open the jail gates. They know that people should be
in there. What about the jury system. I've had a
problem sometimes throughout my career where there's a voir the
year and the jury is excluded because there's evidence that
might be prejudicial if the jury hears that. The problem
I have is that we select the jury that there
(55:03):
he is to judge the person's guilt or innocent based
on all the information available. We're saying the jury have
got the skill set, the life experience to form a view,
and then the jury are excluded from so much information
that I think is relevant. Then perhaps we've got to
give them the benefit of the doubt that they can
interpret the weight that should be placed on that evidence.
Speaker 2 (55:25):
Well, that comes back to what I was saying about
the hey Dad tendency aspect of evidence where there's other
like events that this person has perpetrated, and then the
jury just in some respects and still don't hear that
all the time. But there are rules of evidence which
are there to protect the person who is entitled to
(55:47):
a fair trial. And as I said before, no system
is fallible, and that is always up for reassessment and
for change. The laws of evidence are constantly changing and
constantly being find and you can have faith in the
fact that if there's a problem that law reform commissions
are looking at those and trying to make things better. Now,
(56:10):
from my point of view, they don't always make them better.
And there's been a very very substantial drift in the
criminal law to taking for granted what the victim says
is being true and not being able to challenge the victim,
particularly in sexual assault cases. I have a certain view
about that. The me Too movement has a totally different view.
(56:30):
So you've got to accept what a person says has
been in gospel. Well, sorry, but there's as many truths
come out as a person's mouth as lies do as well,
and you should have the opportunity, if you're an accused person,
to test the evidence that's being given against you. So
I think adversarial systems in that respect.
Speaker 1 (56:49):
Other way to go okay, fair, fair comment. Would you
I see young solsteners especially, I saw them more with
the DPP, but I saw it with defense as well.
Always seem to be overworked, underpaid, and stressed. It looks
like a tough career. But I also see people like
(57:09):
yourself that spend lifetime in the career, and I can
tell that you've enjoyed your career, and yeah, you think
it's a worthwhile vacation. Would you recommend law to people?
Speaker 2 (57:23):
Strangely, I tell people if someone some young kid comes
up to me or a prayer and comes up to
me and says, I agree, Do you think I think
Johnny should go into law? I say, listen, doesn't matter
whether it's law or medicine or any profession. Get a
job dealing with people's money, not people's problems. But no,
(57:45):
it's professional life as a lawyer is satisfied if you
if you understand that it's not going to make you,
you know, a billionaire, but it's it's a it's it's
a worthwhile profession if if you take it and you're
actually helping people.
Speaker 1 (58:01):
Yeah, Now, well, I see the lawyers that I respect,
You can see that they've put in the time and
that might be where they're turning up in the middle
of a trail and it's clear they've been up all night,
not on the drink, but up all night working on
the brief and that type of thing. I think we'll
wrap it up at this point in time. I just
want to say I've really enjoyed sitting down and having
that chat with you, for you guys are not as
(58:23):
bad as other people are telling me you are.
Speaker 2 (58:27):
I'll go wait, I'll go await, enlightened and hardened by
that character.
Speaker 1 (58:32):
No, but you've given a good insight, good insight into
the world of world of crime, and some funny stories
that I think anyone that's spent a career like you
have is going to have. And thanks for giving us
the opportunity to sit down and have a chat with you.
Speaker 2 (58:47):
My pleasure.
Speaker 1 (58:47):
Cheers,
The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Detective sy aside of life the average person is never
exposed to. I spent thirty four years as a cop.
For twenty five of those years I was catching killers.
That's what I did for a living. I was a
homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead,
I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.
(00:23):
The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories
from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some
of the content and language might be confronting. That's because
no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged.
Join me now as I take you into this world, Greg,
(00:48):
I like to like I did prepare before court. I
prepare before I do podcasts, and it's in part of
my investigation. Before I've sat down spoken to you that
it's come to my attention, there's an allegation that you'll
fired a three fifty seven magnum in central local court.
Now I'm going to ask you about that. I want
(01:08):
you to understand you're not obliged to say anything or
do anything, but anything you do, say or do may
later be used in evidence. Do you understand that.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
I do understand that.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Gary, Okay, well, I want you to choose your words
very carefully and think what I'm asking you here. Greg.
Have you ever fired a three point fifty seven magnum
in Central Local Court?
Speaker 2 (01:30):
I have, fortunately it was later with blanks, but I
have fired the gun in the presence of two ones.
To cease now, so we've got to speak well of
you two, very very well. They thought they were funny.
Detect this.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
I think it's pretty funny. In this day and age.
I definitely wouldn't think it'd be acceptable, can you. I
was reading about that and it's written down somewhere about
you firing that three point fifty seven magnum in the
courthouse or in the front of the courthouse.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
No, it was. It was in the foyer of Central
Local Court. And anyone who's been to Central Local Court
will know that you walked through these a walk up
the steps of this beautiful old court building. It was
the original Magistrates court, and you walk through some glass
doors and further glass doors into this big area which
leads off into various court rooms and the court office
(02:31):
and It was probably about three o'clock in the afternoon,
and for some reason I had to go down there.
It may have been to file something or to find
out what was going on in a particular court that
I had some interest in. And I walked in and
I ran into a now deceeased officer, Billy Mansell, who
was a genuinely nice guy and had actually done a
lot of undercover worker and it all seemed to me
(02:54):
that he was too nice a black to be involved
in that sort of stuff. And in any event, Billy
was there with another detective who I can't recall, and
when I ran into Bell, and he'd been involved in
a lot of drug investigations that I had been involved in,
and I lusted what they were doing there. And they
said they were hanging around waiting to give evidence, and
(03:15):
what was the case about, and they said it's drugs
and guns. And I'd sort of been glanced to my
right and just to the left of the entrance to
the court room there's this great, big revolver sitting on
the chair, large as life.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Clean Eastwood Stock exactly.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
It was. They're big guns. They're big guns. And so
I've walked over and I said, is that a three
five seven mag And they said, yeah, you have a
look at it, pick it up. Well, they were really
really friendly about it and encouraging. Man, I'm not a
particularly lover of guns, but I thought, well, I'll just
want to get a feel of this thing. What they
(03:58):
didn't tell me was that the bloody thing had a
hair trigger and that they'd put blanks in it. I've
touched I've picked it up. As I was turning around
to say something like, just bloody heavy, isn't it, I've
touched the trigger and it's gone off. In the middle
of the foyer with cases going on, Well, all hell
break loose there and people started running from everywhere, and
(04:22):
excuse me using this language. There's Billy and the other
copper absolutely pissing themselves with laughter and having a great
joke at my expense. And it took me a long
time to live that down.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
That is a that is a good get. That is
a very good job. But could you imagine if that
happened today? The courthouse would be shut down, It'd be secured,
there'd be negotiaders called out, it would just and everyone
involved in it would be in all sorts of trouble
and people who would be off on post aumatic stress.
(04:56):
It's a different world, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
It is it is we take I think I think
in some respects we take life too seriously.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Yeah, And like you were the scene, some of the
characters in the police and some of the crooks, some
of the people in the court, some of the court officers.
There was a little bit more robust and there was
a lot of sense. There was a sense of humor
in there as well.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
There was It's one of my favorite, not warding homes,
but lunching places is a Greek restaurant. I give them
a plug called Vietne's.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Yeah. I had many a meal there and it's.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Still great food. And i'd regularly see tables of detectives
down there on a Friday afternoon. And as I said,
you leave everything in the courtroom. It's everyone got a
job to do in this industry and you've got to
take it seriously, but you shouldn't carry it with you
when you leave. And you'd always have a laugh.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
And I think that that's good. And there's I'm sure
there's people that you've crossed it that you don't get
past that. But the people that I've dealt with when
I don't mind playing hard but fair, and I respect
people with the doing their job coming at the hard
but fair and vice versa, and there's not it's nice
(06:05):
sometimes after it's finished that you can actually yeah, it
might be just a begrudging nod, but showing respect to
the person that you've been up against in an adversarial
system because you are up against them, and the way
you described it in part one, it's like a playing
within the rules of a sporting match.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
I've had the benefit. On one occasion, I was in
the Old Courthouse Hotel after a trial. I think it
was up there with Pat Costello. Pat and I'd get
involved in a trial up there, and we're actually having
a drink with a very legend detective by the name
of Johnny Burke. It was as hard as nails have
(06:44):
a drink with John and he was the nicest blake
in the world. When someone came up and started giving
either him or the grief, well, he went from the
nicest blake in the world to a bloke I wouldn't
want it to have been arrested by.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Didn't want to take that different person, didn't want to
wan across at the court house. I tell yeah, many
a victory drink spent there, just leading into that when
you do win a case is there and I would
imagine and people that you genuinely don't believe it are
(07:16):
guilty and the justice would be served if they've gone off.
Do you go out then celebrate? And you don't have
to specific examples, but is it something that's done.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Oh, yeah, it is something that's done. You go and
have a drink with the with the sort of the
defendants group, with the q's group, but you don't spend
it a lot of time there. I got caught once
down at Aubrey with the with the Black Ullans after
winning a case there, and I was supposed to be
It was a Friday, and I was I supposed to
beginning home the next day to move house with my wife.
(07:45):
And she never lets me forget this, but they got
me absolutely drunk to the point where I couldn't get
on the plane they had. They had to carry me
home to someone's bed and put me on the plane
the next day.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Okay, great caution, I shouldn't have to. Yeah, it might
sound exciting going for a drink at the clubhouse, but yeah, okay,
they got you, they got me. Okay, well you've learnt,
you learned your lesson. You've been around long enough to
see King's Cross when it was that that golden mile,
when it was the under the King's Cross, underworld, the underbelly.
(08:19):
Tell us about your experiences there because you're working in
criminal law there before the Royal Commission of the Wood
Royal Commission, I'm talking about the commission into police corruption
that dragged a lot of people in. But you you
knew that world, you understood that world, and tell us
about those times.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
It was. It was an interesting It was an interesting
world because it was it was the place where people
went to enjoy themselves. But it was it was, as
I said, we go back to the Vietnam War as
being I think the crucial element in the development of
the drug culture in Australia. The American R and R
(08:57):
boys brought drugs back and it's sort of burgeoned after that,
and King's Cross was the place where everyone went, and
it was just there were so many clubs. You could
go to some clubs and you could get your weed.
You you can go to other clubs to get your
meth or your coke. There was a little well, I
(09:21):
suppose I don't know whether I should name the person
who was responsible. He's done his fifteen years, but he
was well known and he was represented in Underbelly. But
he added a little shoot where he It was like
a little service Winday, I don't get what you wanted,
but it was really really quite straight and back in
the day you had people who were in and around
(09:42):
the cross of Imember Sweethearts Cafe. It's famous from a
Jimmy Barnes song, Breakfast Sweethearts. I ate breakfast at Sweetheart's
quite a few times after going in at four o'clock
in the morning or two o'clock in the morning to
King's Cross police station to advise clients.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Okay, thew we're up now, we may as well have breakfast.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
But it was interesting times garrier because of the nature
of the location. It was just one of those places
at that particular time where from a person who didn't
have to be involved in the crime, so to speak,
was absolutely amazing.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Well, I think you do get then you're fortunate. And
I found that in policing, in the work that I did,
you get to look in to a world that you
don't want to be part of You don't want to
be fully embedded in it. But you get to see
what's going on and get an understanding of it. Because
Louis Bay you had dealings with him. Did you act
(10:42):
for him or just came across?
Speaker 2 (10:44):
No, I acted for Louis, and then I had Then
I had cause not to want anything else to do
with Louis. At one stage I was in some respects
I was naive in relation to the way I thought
I handled my relationship with him. But I can say
that on a number of occasions Louis said, I want
(11:05):
you to come and have a Chinese lunch out at
Parramatta with me. Well, I've turned up and I'm sitting
at a table with Roger.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Yeah, Roger Rogerson, the former New South Wales police officer,
corrupt police officer and convicted murderer.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Lanny McPherson, a couple of other people who wait, a
good crew, you've got the game, and Lurry and Sorry
and Louis. And it was a bit of an education.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Yeah, And it's funny, isn't it. Well it's not funny,
but that's how you get indoctrinated into that world, like
come and have a lunch and then oh, well, yeah
I've spoken to that person, and then the next thing,
Roger's on the phone. I want you to do a
favor for me, and you can get caught up in
that world, can't you.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Yeah. I never had anything to do with Roger. Wilst
it was a detective. He was actually doing wrought iron
and putting rowed iron in gold and jar you know,
different bars and things, which is quite it looks.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
I think he was doing some other stuff too, but.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Yeah, well and he didn't learn from his first job.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
His last one was a classic was yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Well yeah, anyone who can think they could walk around
a city the size of Sydney, you'll not be photographed
a thousand times. He's got another thing.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
And look, Roger was from a police point of view,
and like my early days in policing, I remember being
in the witness boxes. I was in the arm hole
up squad in the nineties. Again in the witness box.
I've never met Roger, but being cross examined. So you're
in the arm toole up squad, aren't you. I don't
think it was you. Okay, you're in the arm hole
(12:36):
up squad, aren't you? Yes, and so you're you're the
tough guys. You bash them, you lower them, you do this.
Roger Rogerson's your hero. And that was a narrative because
he put a stain on all of us, and not
just Roger, there was other people. But that's world that
you're in. Before the Royal Commission exposed it all and
people were accountable, it was a dangerous, dangerous place to operate,
(13:00):
wasn't it.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
I never felt it was dangerous, right, Okay? As I said,
and I've said this to others, the only person who
I really thought uncomfortable with was Lenny was with with
Netdie Smith.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Yeah, what what was it about that?
Speaker 2 (13:12):
I just think that it was Nettie's persona, his demeanor.
He was sort of this brooding character and just felt
slightly uncomfortable with him.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Yeah. Well, even look for the crimes and yeah he's
passed away, we can we can talk openly. But the
the crimes that he was involved in, and he sounded
like a grub in some of the things that he
did that you know, he had that persona of being
a gangster, but there was that other side side to him.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
He was psychopathical, didn't seem to have any regard for
human like now that others may say differently.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
I take on board that that's your impression.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
But that's but I and I was never exposed to
his really really outside but I just felt there was
sort of this brooding presence there that was difficult.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
It's interesting you identify him of all the people you've
dealt with, and you've come across a wide range of
let's call them villains or colorful identities, that he was
one that you got that got that sense from.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Well, when you think of a person who I had
some regard for, and that's Abbot Henry Graham. Abbot Henry.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
He's a former gangster that used to run with Neddie
Smith during the Roger Rogerson era.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Graham is the nicest flake and the funniest blake you're made.
And to put him in the same gang as Neddie,
I think he was ran in that sort of circle.
He just too totally different type of people.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Well, I know Graham pretty pretty well now and he's
been on the podcast and I've caught up with him
a bit. When you say it's a nice blake, I
grew up in the same area and they used to
terrorize people were young, changed Yeah, he's changed, let's say.
But yeah, I know what you're saying. Very personal saw
the blake. You can sit down and speak to Graham
(15:06):
and have a laugh, have a drink, and yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
You see, there's the difference between police officers and criminal lawyers.
When you're dealing with the same people, they have a
totally different attitude to you than they do to me. Yeah,
and so you see them from different perspectives.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Gary, Well, that's true, that's true. What you had interesting
when you were dealing with Louis Baya that he had
a young.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Driver that was Johnny Ibrahim.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Did you identify john as someone that was going to
rise to the level he did?
Speaker 2 (15:38):
No, No, I didn't recognize it, but having observed it
over the many years, I have no doubt that he
was always going to do well for himself. Yeah. John
reads situation as well, and he was. I think he
found himself in the right place at the right time,
(15:58):
with the rights skills to be able to gain from
his good luck.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Yeah. Well, he's where he's at now, He's many his
way through, so he must have something going for him.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Yeah. He's sort of that old expression about laying down
with dogs and getting up with fleas is relevant to
all of us. But John's been able to deal with
that aspect of his life in a reasonable sort of way,
so that he's come out relatively unscathed.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Charlie Staunton, you would have had dealings with Charlie Staunton,
greg He was a former New South Wales police officer
and he got into some trouble ended up leaving the police,
so I think he became a private investigator and did
a bit of wheeling and dealing around King's Cross Again.
I'm looking at all the people we've had on the podcast,
(16:54):
but that's what happens when you've been going for a
few years. But I've got to say, if Charlie didn't exists,
you'd have to invent him quite the way he's lived
his life.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
One of Well's lovable rogues.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Yeah, what what's your what's your take on Charlie? Because
I had to laugh at some of the things that
he got up to.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
He's got up to so much. One book's not enough
for Charlie in terms of what he's been through. But
Charlie is is is a rogue to start with, and
we all love him. We don't always want to see
him because he's gonna he's going to put the pinch
on us. But when he comes you can always have
(17:32):
a laugh and you always know what you're getting with Charlie.
He's pretty upfront.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Yeah, I found that with him in my dealings with him,
and I've caught up with him and bumped into him
at certain certain places, and yeah, he's a character, and like,
we're not condoning crime. We've sit here, we'll put that
out there on things. But back in those days there
(17:57):
were larger than life characters, weren't they. And I I
don't know. And you mentioned in part one and I
reflected on it during the break about the way the
gangsters go about their business now and look at me
type attitude. It has changed, hasn't it.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Well, everyone wants to know what you're doing, starting off
with what you had at the last restaurant you were at,
who you're laying by the swimming pool with now, and
who you're killing.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Don't you take those of your breakfast each morning?
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Don't face it to everyone. It's going to be the
same every morning, I'm afraid.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
But yeah, I know what you're saying. Interesting, if we're
talking the way things change, is it harder to be
a crook now than it would be let's say twenty
thirty years ago, with all the technology that's changed.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Do you think it's harder. Certainly harder. But if you're
switched on crook and you know how to run under
the radar, I think that you are likely to last
a lot longer than these guys who have no regard
to the fact that everything we do in public is scrutinized,
(19:06):
either by virtue of public cameras or private cameras. Everyone's
running around with a camera to take photos of you
these days. Your likelihood of your telephone calls being monitored
is real. So if you're going to do anything, you've
better to do it face to face because telephones aren't
safe and people don't wake up to that. It keeps
me in business.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Yeah, I think you've got a phone on you like
just the tracking, the ability, and I look at from
an investigative point of view, if there was a murder. Yeah,
pre mobile phone days, it was you check who you
phoned on your landline, what public phones were in the
area of fingerprints. Look at the technology available now, see
(19:50):
we could track you from the time you left your
office in the city to come here and your movements
and basically everything you've done it so much harder.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
I think I'm involved in a murder case at the moment,
my client, I think will be I've negotiated him out
of that aspect of the case or his accessorial involvement
in the case. But when you looked at the evidence,
the police were able to track the vehicle that the
(20:23):
shooters or the assassins if I can call them, that
used from the time it was stolen until the time
it was burnt, and in relation to my client who
was involved in picking them up, exactly where his vehicle
went as well, because you can't drive around anything that's
you'd regard as a main arterial road or any arterial
(20:46):
road without being photographed.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Yeah, that's a reality of it, isn't well talking about technology,
And I understand that there's some appeals going through court
or currently, so if you can't talk too much about it,
but just your take on that you involved in that
at all.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
I am involved in that from three different aspects. I've
got an appeal currently running in relation to a couple
of clients who pleaded guilty and got rewarded for what
we call facilitating the course of justice, but that's under
appeal by the ground as to the inadequacy of the penalties.
Of opinion that if you want to get people to
(21:24):
plead guilty, you've got to show them that it's going
to be worthwhile, because at the end of the day,
they get locked up, cost one hundred and fifty thousand
dollars per prisoner to keep them in jail, and in
some respects they don't come out any better than what
they went in. So you've got to change the system
in that regard. I'm involved with others who are waiting
on the outcome of the High Court appeal, and it's
(21:45):
a very interesting aspect picture.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Sorry, and I probably should have because you and I
know what we're talking about. But that was the sting
operation that started in America but also used in law
enforcement over here.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Operation Inside and cuphibially didn't know the creator or the
person who organized the creation of what we call the
phantom Secure Phones, which is one of the encrypted phanes
that was used some time ago. He was arrested by
the police and charged with racketeering offenses, which are their
(22:22):
conspiracy offenses in relation to providing telephones to the Sinaloa cartel.
So by doing that he was facilitating their ability to
communicate large drug trafficking enterprises. And he was threatened with
thirty years in jail and was given the option of
(22:44):
doing the thirty years or assisting the police and getting
a lesser sentence. Well, he took the latter, and whilst
that was in train, he got one of his technicians,
at the request of the police, to put together the plat.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
For that and people involved in criminal enterprise or I
won't say that as a defense so you object, your
honor great as a podcast listener, but that they were
passed out to people that may or may not have
been involved in criminal activities, and the police were monitoring
(23:20):
the cause on phones that the people that had them
felt they were encrypted and safe, that there's no way
that law enforcement could monitor what was going on. Is that?
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Well? The way the way that worked was that like
you or I would send a text and I was
intending it to go from me to you, I would
type in the text. That text would then be copied
within the platform and when when when the text text
press send, the copy would immediately go through a system
(23:55):
called called bots eyebots to the police who were monitoring it,
and there were several agencies that were doing so, and
there was some suggestion that it had gone through an
overseas country like Romania, I think, or somewhere like that.
It was quite kite of complicated. But the South Australian
Supreme Court, in a case involving I think a conspiracy
(24:17):
that murder, dealt with the matter first and Justice Kimber
there decided that it was admissible because it didn't contravene
the definition of what an actual intercept was because of
when you press sent. It didn't go to the receiver,
it went to the police and it was very technically
and that's a very very simplistic explanation. But the accused
(24:43):
then appealed. It went to a three court bench who
upheld Judge Justice Kimber's decision that it wasn't an intercept,
and now it's gone to the High Court. In the meantime,
Mark Drayfus, our Attorney General, decided that he'd put through
legislation and declaring that that particular function that platform, what
(25:05):
at the anom phone did was not an intercept right
and that's created a possible constitutional problem because it raises
the separation of powers and what the courts are there
to do, and what the High Court is there to
do to interpret the laws as they apply and the
definitions as they apply. An interesting question which will now
(25:27):
arise is has the Attorney General usurped the functions of
the court and basically denied the operation of the separation
of powers of which there are three. That Parliament makes laws,
the Executive enforces the laws, and the judiciary interprets the laws.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Okay, is going to be interesting. So when we looking
at decision coming back about.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
That, we're looking at it. I think it'll probably get
to the High Court between June and August sometimes.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
And there's a lot of people because there's some large
numbers of people that were charged flowing on from that,
so high stakes.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
A lot of political pressure out there. I think I'm
being practical.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Yeah, I would imagine it's well, get on.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
It's a really interesting It is.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Interesting because if you're making legislation and make it, well,
it's retrospective, isn't it. It's capturing something from the past.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
And you'd agree. The interesting part about well, your former
job and my current job is that it's it's all
about how society works. From the underbelly to the very top.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Yeah, it's interesting. I've got to say, from an ex
detectives point of view, I thought it was a great
plan when I heard about it. I'm thinking, damn it, well,
didn't I think about something like that that's simplistic in
the planning but very complicated in the actual getting it
up and running. And I'm surprised. I'm surprised. And I
(26:58):
can talk like this because I'm not invold them, but
I'm surprised it didn't get out like there would have
been a lot of pot.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
You started to get out because someone realized there was
a leak at the end of it, and that was
going straight to the police. But it's my turn to object.
It's my turn to object in criminal law. And I
think in life, there's a saying which a lot of
people don't get better, that ninety nine guilty men go
free than one innocent man be wrongly convicted. And it's
(27:27):
the chance of using these mechanisms, these platforms, these things,
or creating a case against a person wrongly that puts
in a position where people are wrongly convicted. And I
say to people who say this to me, do you
really care about these people and how can you act
for criminals? It's all this sort of stuff, and I say, well,
(27:48):
hang on a sec We've got a system that should
be fair, should be reasonable, and shouldn't it shouldn't be
adam and even giving them the apple again to commit
a mortal sin because you might get dragging in an
innocent person and that innocent What I say, do you
want your son to be that innocent person and do
twenty years? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Look, and you can't argue with that. Let's saying I
might have been the old days. I'm not going to.
I'm not going to now. But yeah, I do understand
what you're saying, and there needs to be checks and
balances exactly and to make the system work. But yeah,
that's going to be fascinating how that comes across, because
(28:29):
this is a real test is this is the High Court,
This is making the big decisions, and.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
It's not just lawyers being nerdy. It really has an impact.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Look, I in regards and I always make comments about
lawyers and slices and whatnot. I do understand the need
for proper defense, and I take issue with some people
that I think cross the line, as you would take
issue with where you think police have cross across the line.
I've seen come up against some lawyers. I just think
(28:59):
that that's stooping too what they've done there. And it
might be just the way that they're they're cross examining
someone or the way that they're playing, but we do
need the checks and balances, so I think we're on
a grance there. I have now seen it, and I
keep saying it because it did change my perspective, like
having the full way that the state coming after you.
(29:21):
And I know when I was going to court, I
was thinking, well, that the worst that's going to happen
to me, you know, I might get a fine or
something like that. I can't imagine the impact that would
have on you. If the consequences were when this jury
comes back or this judge comes back, that could dictate
the rest of your life.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Like its high stakes, but the Lord doesn't always work
in favor of the accused. It also works in favor
of people down the track in terms of how evidence
is considered and recrafted. For instance, in the Hey Dad
case where the Hughes was charged with there's a multiplicity
(30:01):
of terrible child sexual asside offenses that changed the tendency law,
so that a lot more material can come in. Now,
if you've got if you've got a tendency to do,
then that can be established. So that's in favor of
the person who's saying that. Those people who say, well, oh,
but he did this and he did that, why wasn't
that raised, Well, now things.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Like that, it can be raised.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
It's called tendency.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Yeah. Well, I was involved through campaigning with the Bearable
community on the double jeopardy legislation. It hasn't changed the
changed the landscape, and I don't think there's any I
don't think there's been a situation where someone's being convicted.
And what I'm talking about there is that if someone
was acquitted of a crime, they couldn't be retried until
(30:46):
the double jeopardy legislation was changed. Now fresh and compelling
the evidence and that and that's in the interests of justice.
The fact that sitting there, I think is a good
thing because I would hate to have someone and what
could have been someone that acquitted of a murder could
walk out of court and go, well, I got a
way of that and we could never recharge. So the
fact that the legislation is sitting there hasn't been implemented.
(31:09):
I think is a good thing. But I've always been
on about legislation or the justice system, and I get
your thoughts on it. A justice system is set up
to serve the community. That's therefore, and if adjustments have
got it, if it's not serving the community, legislation needs
to be changed. Are you an advocate for changing legislation
(31:30):
where it needs to be changed or is it more
old school? Now we've been doing this for two hundred years,
white change, No.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
No, I hear what you say, and what I don't
like is knee jerk. Yeah, let's just live changed where
you get change for the sake of satisfying some particular
publicity agenda, agenda, and then you end up with victims
of that agenda who are wrongly convicted or wrongly accused,
(32:00):
and we find that the law is then used to
assist politicians in their electoral cycle.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
Well, let's you talk about changing the law agendas and
the media interests and all that. The bail laws on
youth crime and baiol laws. I know there's been a
lot of talk about that, but I think you articulate
very well that quite often it's changed for a political agenda,
and it doesn't always work, and innocent people can be
(32:34):
caught up in it.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Yeah, that's because we live in a reactive rather than
proactive society. We're reacting to what we see as being
a problem, and we're chastising and punishing those who are
involved in perpetrating those problems. But we're not going back
in the way that we were talking about how jails
are changing Gary and saying, how can we stop young
(32:58):
Indigenous kids from running right in our springs? How can
we stop them before they leave home to go and
run right? And how can we stop kids in Sydney
or in Melbourne, and then the poorer parts going out
and creating habit and getting into postcode gangs or getting
into whatever it is. We've got to look at those
aspects and we've got to put our resources into stopping
(33:19):
crime before it starts.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
Diversionary plans you talked about keeping someone in custody come
across one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year to
keep a person in custody when you look at the
expense that is spent. There had Tim Watson Monroe, a
criminal psychologist, on them. He made the point that for
one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, you could have each
(33:42):
inmate with their own personal psychologists looking after them to
keep them on the straight and narrow. It's a huge amount,
and I know there are people that we need to
protect society from. I've got no problems, and there needs
to be deterrens, there needs to be punishments. All the
things that you talked about get taken into with sentencing.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
Tim being a psychologist, would say that I might say,
spend one hundred and fifty thousand. Not a good lawyer.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
And look, Greg, we've got to be on us here.
If we clear up, if we solve all the solutions
of crime, you're going to be out of business.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
I don't think that's going to happen, Gary Ott. But
I think we're entitled as members of a great democracy
to have a system that's fair and that's reasonable and
we get it right as many times as is possible
within a fallible system. And all systems are fallible. But
I think we do.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Okay here, Okay, let's talk other clients that you've had
and if I mentioned someone and you're not comfortable talking
about it, but got a lot of media publicity, so
we're not talking out of the school. But John Abraham's girlfriend,
Sarah Budge, that was charged with the possession of the firearm.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Yes, decent, lovely girl, Sarah. I've got a lot of
time for Sarah Budge and now she's John's wife, A
really really decent gale. As you might say, that was
an interesting case. I was part of a really really
good team of lawyers and had a fair jury who
(35:19):
came back with the right decision.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Yeah. Yeah, and that people haven't heard about that there
was a firearm found found at the premises and it
was what was the actual charge.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
It was The charge was possession of an unlicensed pistol,
which I think can carry up to fourteen years in jail.
It's a guns are something we take seriously in our
community and rightly so, as you'd recall and you'd agree
with that, And it was the prosecution couldn't establish that
(35:54):
she had knowledge that was there or even put it
there on you, and given that other people had access
to her apartment, I thought that was the right decision.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
An element of doubt, of doubt there absolutely Another high
profile person that you've represented was Scott Miller, the former
and I think it's a sad case. And I know
sentencing you addressing the issues that created that situation. For
those that don't know, Scott Miller, he was a silver
medalist at the Olympics, a swimmer and got involved in drugs.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
You should when you say silver medalist, you've got to
put that in context. Garat, he should have been the
gold medalist. He was the fastest butterfly swimmer on top
of the water. Now, if anyone knows anything about swimming,
and you dive into a twenty five meter peol or
a fifty meter pool, you go fifteen meters and you
look up and there's all these flags. There's a big
string of flags across. You've got to be surfaced by them.
(36:49):
His nemesis was a guy called Dennis Pankrotov, a Russian,
bloody Russians again, yeah, absolutely yeah, And it was invading
the swimming pool and he was spending probably sixty percent
of the time that he swamm the butterfly under the
water doing a dolphin kick, So it wasn't butterfly at all.
(37:11):
But strangely enough, you can swim faster underwater than you
can by breaking the surface on top of the water.
And he beat. He came up probably a body length
in front of Scott in the nineteen six Olympics and
he beat Scott to the wall by a bee's knees.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
Right, Well, I didn't think. I didn't think we're going
to dissect the and Scotty.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
Then they then changed the rules after that, and so
Scott's had that you know is an also rad you
don't win the gold.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
Well, that's yeah, okay, I didn't realize the backstory to it. Okay,
so you've gone in depth there.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
And then he got injured coming up to the Sydney Olympics,
which was which was every every sportsman's dream who was
an Olympic class at sporting events, missed out on that,
tried to come back for two o four and injuries
put him out, but then found himself, like a lot
of swimmers do, suffering what we call post elite sportsman's suppression.
(38:11):
You go and swimmings, you know, you follow the black line.
It's you're in your own world training and then you
come out of this bubble into the limelight. You're some
hero and you've got to deal with that with no
training for it. No, it's a sad story.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
Is a sad story. How did you come to be
representing him?
Speaker 2 (38:31):
Because just through associations and through well actually through his
wife and through my associations with other people involved in
swimming got to know got to know Scott and looked
after him.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
You see a lot of elite sportsmen that have had
the highs and then struggle after it. But yeah, it
plays out in rugby league for a lot of different reasons,
but you see a lot that happened with a lot
of a lot of sportsmen.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
I think rugby is a sort of different category. Yeah,
it's well in that it's young men weekly being involved
in this glamorous, high profile Adelatian type sport and you
know there's cocaine around, and there's good looking girls at
clubs and so forth, and it's not the sort of
same sort of the isolation of a swimmer. And you
(39:30):
look at a lot of our swimmers have had Lisal
Jones had problems and so you know Scotty wasn't is
not alone. He was just one that fell further than others.
As I said, it's a sad.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
Story, and representing him, you're obviously the way that you
relay the story, you felt felt it personally the responsibility
of representing him.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
Oh yeah, Yeah, people commit crime, but doesn't stop them
from being human beings. And you can set the crime
aside and you've still got Sometimes you've got a really
decent human being there. He's made a lot of bad mistakes,
but you can't throw the good person out with the bathwater.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Another person that you've come across in your career, and
we're going back into the dark, well, the King's Cross.
But Sally Anne Huckstep who was by way of introduction,
people probably heard her name, but Warren France, Warren lan
Franchi lanb Francie's girlfriend at the time that Tea was
(40:36):
shot and killed by Roger Rogerson and was sort of
considered she might have been an informant giving information, but
she ended up being murdered.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
Yeah. Sure, her body was found in one of the
Centennial Park lakes.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
And she was at the time she was vocal in
speaking up about police corruption.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
Well, she was speaking up to the extent that she
believed that Roger Rogerson had had killed Warren in cold blood.
And there's all sorts of different stories about that. Yeah,
and she was a victim of a time when collusion
I think between people in positions of relative power, either
(41:18):
from the criminal malieu or from the police mailieu, were
bound to catch up with.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
Yeah, and how did you find her as a person.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
We didn't, I don't. I think we may have acted
for when I was in to practice out at Bondi
junction with one of my older partners in with our
deceased as well. We acted for just on my smartor things,
I think, but we got more caught up in in
that aspect of it because we were alleged to have
had her diaries in my in my office, and in
(41:51):
my office was then broken into and ow and we nothing, no,
nothing of value taken except there was a nice neatly
cut section of our roof.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
Sorry break break this down. Just my detective minds thinking
hole it. So you the information was that you had
Sally's diaries.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
Well, that was a rumor that was out there and
that had come through another girlfriend of hers, for whom
we acted, and it was thought that that had been
left in our in our care.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
And that could be very damaging for certain people.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
We didn't have it. We didn't have it safe. And
in fact that when people were playing with checks, they
were stuck in a jar. On the top of a
filing cabinet. Well, they were all still there, but there
was a well precisely cut hole in our roof and
they got through the roof and through the ceiling, and
I think and there was clearly all our filing cabinets
(42:45):
had been rifled.
Speaker 1 (42:47):
You can't. You can't make this stuff up. You can't
make this stuff up. Okay, I'm just. I'm just I
hadn't realized that. Just thinking about that. Okay, that's interesting.
The diaries. Wow, what do you think makes a good solicitor?
I'm going to I haven't forgotten about the saying that
you've ever met and I'll exclude myself from this question.
(43:08):
Have you ever met a good detective? But before I do,
what do you consider is the good traits of a
defense solictener?
Speaker 2 (43:17):
Be a good listener, be compassionate and be prepared to
look at the case from every available angle, and to
do your best by your client and be truthful to
your client.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
Good advice. Did you have mentors throughout your career or
people that you learned from.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
I had different barristers who I worked with. I had
the benefit of working with some great lawyers and being
opposed by some great lawyers. A lot of them became
really good judges. And if you know, laws are really
rewarding place because you sort of feel like you're doing good,
(44:03):
you feel like you've not done and done. It can
be self critical too much sometimes, but now I generally
had the benefit of working with good barristers and with
people who were really, really smart.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
Do you have have barristers that you Is it Forbes
Chambers that you engage with a lot of barristers from
Forbes Chambers?
Speaker 2 (44:29):
Yeah, I regard Forbes is probably the premier criminal chambers.
But across the board there.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
I used to hate walking up there server brief Forbes Chambers.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
But across the across the across the span of barristers.
Samuel Griffiths have got some very good barristers, and there's
some other chambers spread around.
Speaker 1 (44:49):
And what's what's the working relationship with the solicitor and
the barrister, Like, what's the dynamic dynamics there.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
Well, I've always regarded myself as anything but a bad carrier.
I say jokingly, I'm anicat I'm anicating today which has
gone getting paid and not doing any of the work.
But I tell my clients that they're at a two horse race,
I says, as a prosecution, and there's us. I say,
I'm the trainer, the barrasses, the jockey, and you know
(45:17):
what you are. You're a horse, okay, So if you
don't run across the line first, you're in big trouble.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
I haven't heard that description. Break that down again, Run
it past me again, so I don't forget it.
Speaker 2 (45:28):
I say, the solicitors, the trainer, the barrasses, the jockey,
but the client's the horse. It's a good analogy because
if the horse doesn't run across the line first, the
jockey and the trainer walk away. They go home.
Speaker 1 (45:41):
That's not a bad way of describing it. Policing have
you seen. You've been in the as a defense solicit
for forty years, so you've seen changes in police like
you wouldn't even recognize what policing was in the eighties,
the early eighties compared to one of these is Now,
what do you think the quality of investigations are?
Speaker 2 (46:04):
Like? I think the quality of investigations has improved markedly.
I think that's because I came into law on the
cusp of a change where we'd gone through that period
where there were suggestions of corruption and so forth, and
police were prepared to make up conversations that they'd had
with suspects, which we called verbals, in order to gain
(46:27):
a conviction. So they were walking working more on gut
instinct than they were on real hard work.
Speaker 1 (46:34):
I think that's fair and say, and I think to.
Speaker 2 (46:36):
The credit of the police force, that's greatly improved and
with the advance that we advances that we've had in
what I talked about earlier about forensic technologies, which is
listening devices and telephone intercepts, better surveillance, long range cameras
and long range and basically putting in the time to
(46:56):
act on where you start off with a suspicion and
then were your way through to look at how things
work and whether you've got something that's just a spinoff,
And a lot of the major busts that have been
achieved by police is by just looking at that spinoff.
Is there something here this person's met that person, We're
going to look at what he's doing.
Speaker 1 (47:18):
It's definitely evolving and changing changing landscape for criminal investigation.
A good detechnic if you've come up against in your
career someone because there's been some ding dog battles in
the courts and over time, is there one that you
could say that you respected for the way he or
(47:38):
she went about their job.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
Well, in terms of just dogged determination, i'd have to
talk about Justin Murray. I've actually got Justin in a
case now. But Justin was the officer in charge of
the investigations into the Armor Guard robberies across the pavement
Armorgard robberies. When I think Chubb an Armourguard security trucks
(48:00):
were being attacked as they stopped to fill up ATMs
and so forth. And I think overall seven at some
point one million or seven point six million dollars was
was stolen by the police.
Speaker 1 (48:14):
Well, I stule was I said, yeah, and go, okay,
we're going make sure we're recording this the alleged cross
highlight that trip. There's your headline in the paper. Okay.
Speaker 2 (48:30):
I made the mistake in court last week this last
week of referring to one of my clients as as
a graffiti artist. Well, the magistrate went ballistic and said
I said, said, and it criticized me for that. I
was trying to get in. Well, I'll refrase that and
say he was an exponent, but it wasn't the police,
(48:50):
and we eventually won that case one hundred and sixty
one charges to nil, which was a great success justin
to his well, I won't say to his credit, but
he was so convinced of their guilt that he tracked
down everyone and got them all for something else.
Speaker 1 (49:07):
Right, Okay, Well I like that type of dog inness.
Speaker 2 (49:10):
That was reginess. I've met a lot of police officers,
but who now, being armed with the technology and the
ability to track crime, do an amazing job.
Speaker 1 (49:22):
Yeah. Yeah, Well it takes the pressure off to a degree.
Is a police officer that you can rely on the
technology and that because before I won't say before, but
there was a lot of hard graft. You had to
get the statements and then you've got a brief that's
not Yeah, there would be I'm saying here just from
my thoughts, there seemed to be a lot more trials
(49:42):
because you didn't have that evidence. You didn't have the
technical evidence of the phone records or things that could
back it up. So it came down to witness testimony,
which you'd know and I'm sure you're sure you've exploited
in a fair way that eyewitness testimony is not always
that reliable.
Speaker 2 (50:00):
Nor his memory. Yeah, and psychologists will tell you that
constructed memory can be really fallible. But it's then up
to the jury to decide whether they believe it or not,
and that itself is a fallible system. We saw that
with George pell and a lot of people that have
their views on that. But knowing from my point of view,
looking at what the High Court said, you know, I
(50:23):
think the jury didn't make a mistake that other minds
would differ. Also, having been seeing bishops come to Catholic
churches and know how many people they drag with them
and never were alone, I thought it was pretty difficult.
But you've got to look at the system and look
at the fallibilities and say, well, the police are getting
better tools these days to take suspicion to the point
(50:43):
of proof, and that's it. And even though I'm a
criminal defense lawyer, I'm a member of a society as well,
and in that respect, I expect prosecutors to do their
job properly. In his hard I don't expect to get
to cut me any slack because I'm paying them to
do their job. And so, yeah, police are getting better,
better resources and that's to our advantage.
Speaker 1 (51:02):
What about the court system? Is there things that you
think could be improved? And you said I think in
part one that you've believed the system where God is
as good as any other other system across the Well, yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (51:18):
Think what needs to be improved in our court system
is not the system of the determination of guilt or
the application of court time. When you've got judges and
juries and magistrates actually doing the sentencing jobs or doing
the trial jobs. The problem we have got is we're
(51:39):
over burden with administrative stuff. I was in a court
the other day out of Campbelltown and the magistrate had
to deal with one hundred and fifty matters in this list,
and these were all serious matters, and the majority of
them gary were matters that could have been done by
our registrar. They were just adjourney matters because they weren't
ready to proceed. Now we're paying big money to have
(52:02):
a judicial officer sit there and do an administrative job,
and so there are ways and means of cleaning up
that system which would save money and I think expedite
the system as well.
Speaker 1 (52:14):
Yeah. I see what you're saying there, because the time
that appears to be wasted in court going through what
you've just described is.
Speaker 2 (52:22):
Yeah, it's we call them mentions.
Speaker 1 (52:24):
The mentions sit there what's the called on in at
down in center that wherever they have the mentions and
you've virtually got to fight your way in to get
in there.
Speaker 2 (52:34):
Oh that's the registrar's court four point four. But they're
get through the mentions really quickly, by about by eleven thirty,
it's all over and done with. But it's yeah, but
sometimes you've got to you've got in the custody courts,
it's all dealt with by a magistrate, and the magistrates
are basically just shuffling paper in the journey matters, and
sometimes you've you've got to go before a magistrate. Fortunately,
(52:57):
in the Supreme Court we have registrartions who do a
lot of that work. Less there's an issue that needs
determination by a judge which is just not shifting the
dates or saying this has got to be filed in time,
you're getting get referred to a judge. It doesn't happen
in the local courts and sometimes in the district courts.
Speaker 1 (53:12):
What would you say when I throw this to you
that an inquisitorial system is better than adversarial system. Why
because you talked about going into the Royal Commission, which
is more of an inquisitorial type system in quest than
as compared to an adversarial system. Do you think there's
(53:34):
any value in leaning more towards an inquisitorial system rather
than adversarial system. Not.
Speaker 2 (53:41):
While we are entitled to the right.
Speaker 1 (53:44):
Silence, Okay, that's a stickler for it.
Speaker 2 (53:48):
Yeah, and proof beyond reasonable doubt. And I think that's
if you're going to take away a person's liberty. And
we're talking about Jarles before. People don't understand is that
every day you and I can get up and we
have a choice as to what we do. Now, choices
are limited because life's repetitive, but we don't have to
go to work if we don't really want it. We
(54:08):
can take a sickie, we get our four weeks holiday.
At the end of the day, we can go and
have a beer with our mates. But if you'll get
up and you put on your green shorts and your
T shirt and you know exactly what you're going to
be doing for the rest of the day in the
next four or five or ten years, that's not liberty.
Speaker 1 (54:22):
Okay, and look, I agree with you, and to understand
the punishment. The punishment has been taken away from society
and it's not a nice place to be in prison.
And even the prisoners acknowledge that some people have to
being there. They're not saying that everyone, Yeah, we should
(54:42):
open the jail gates. They know that people should be
in there. What about the jury system. I've had a
problem sometimes throughout my career where there's a voir the
year and the jury is excluded because there's evidence that
might be prejudicial if the jury hears that. The problem
I have is that we select the jury that there
(55:03):
he is to judge the person's guilt or innocent based
on all the information available. We're saying the jury have
got the skill set, the life experience to form a view,
and then the jury are excluded from so much information
that I think is relevant. Then perhaps we've got to
give them the benefit of the doubt that they can
interpret the weight that should be placed on that evidence.
Speaker 2 (55:25):
Well, that comes back to what I was saying about
the hey Dad tendency aspect of evidence where there's other
like events that this person has perpetrated, and then the
jury just in some respects and still don't hear that
all the time. But there are rules of evidence which
are there to protect the person who is entitled to
(55:47):
a fair trial. And as I said before, no system
is fallible, and that is always up for reassessment and
for change. The laws of evidence are constantly changing and
constantly being find and you can have faith in the
fact that if there's a problem that law reform commissions
are looking at those and trying to make things better. Now,
(56:10):
from my point of view, they don't always make them better.
And there's been a very very substantial drift in the
criminal law to taking for granted what the victim says
is being true and not being able to challenge the victim,
particularly in sexual assault cases. I have a certain view
about that. The me Too movement has a totally different view.
(56:30):
So you've got to accept what a person says has
been in gospel. Well, sorry, but there's as many truths
come out as a person's mouth as lies do as well,
and you should have the opportunity, if you're an accused person,
to test the evidence that's being given against you. So
I think adversarial systems in that respect.
Speaker 1 (56:49):
Other way to go okay, fair, fair comment. Would you
I see young solsteners especially, I saw them more with
the DPP, but I saw it with defense as well.
Always seem to be overworked, underpaid, and stressed. It looks
like a tough career. But I also see people like
(57:09):
yourself that spend lifetime in the career, and I can
tell that you've enjoyed your career, and yeah, you think
it's a worthwhile vacation. Would you recommend law to people?
Speaker 2 (57:23):
Strangely, I tell people if someone some young kid comes
up to me or a prayer and comes up to
me and says, I agree, Do you think I think
Johnny should go into law? I say, listen, doesn't matter
whether it's law or medicine or any profession. Get a
job dealing with people's money, not people's problems. But no,
(57:45):
it's professional life as a lawyer is satisfied if you
if you understand that it's not going to make you,
you know, a billionaire, but it's it's a it's it's
a worthwhile profession if if you take it and you're
actually helping people.
Speaker 1 (58:01):
Yeah, Now, well, I see the lawyers that I respect,
You can see that they've put in the time and
that might be where they're turning up in the middle
of a trail and it's clear they've been up all night,
not on the drink, but up all night working on
the brief and that type of thing. I think we'll
wrap it up at this point in time. I just
want to say I've really enjoyed sitting down and having
that chat with you, for you guys are not as
(58:23):
bad as other people are telling me you are.
Speaker 2 (58:27):
I'll go wait, I'll go await, enlightened and hardened by
that character.
Speaker 1 (58:32):
No, but you've given a good insight, good insight into
the world of world of crime, and some funny stories
that I think anyone that's spent a career like you
have is going to have. And thanks for giving us
the opportunity to sit down and have a chat with you.
Speaker 2 (58:47):
My pleasure.
Speaker 1 (58:47):
Cheers,
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