TCC Exclusive: Inside A DV Police Operation

In a True Crime Conversations first, Gemma Bath is embarking on an exclusive ride along with the New South Wales Police Force for Operation Amarok. A high-impact, statewide blitz cracking down on high-risk domestic violence offenders. Expecting tactical helmets, battering rams, and dramatic door-busts, the reality on the ground turned out to be far more nuanced. Shadowing plainclothes officers in beanies and jeans, Gemma witnessed four arrests across Sydney's Central Metro region, uncovering a complex web of family violence, repeat breaches of ADVOs, and systemic challenges that extend beyond intimate partner relationships. In this special bonus episode of True Crime Conversations, we go behind the scenes on the frontline of domestic violence policing. Featuring candid interviews with Sergeant Price, Superintendent Danielle Emerton, and NSW Police Minister Yasmin Catley, we examine the scale of Operation Amarok. LINKS If any of the contents in this episode have caused distress, know that there is help available via Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636. Contact Full Stop Australia https://fullstop.org.au/ on 1800 385 578, 7 days, 24 hours. GET IN TOUCH Follow us on Instagram and TikTok @truecrimeconversations https://www.instagram.com/truecrimeconversations/?hl=en Want us to cover a case on the podcast? Email us at [email protected] mailto:[email protected] or send us a voice note. https://help.mamamia.com.au/en-US/send-a-podcast-voice-note-467960 Make sure to leave us a rating and review on Apple & Spotify to let us know how you're liking the episodes. CREDITS Host & Executive Producer: Gemma Bath Producer: Ella Maitland Video Editor: Jess Chan Audio Designer: Tegan Salder Mamamia acknowledges the traditional owners of the land on which we have recorded this podcast. Become a Mamamia subscriber: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribe https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribe See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Gemma Bath?

  It's just before 8am on a brisk morning in Sydney in Redfern and I'm outside Redfern Police Station. Feeling a bit anxious because today I'm going to be riding alongside police as they arrest high-risk domestic violence offenders as part of Operation Amarok. Tactical and high-impact teams conduct early morning raids to get the worst of the worst. Offenders who have breached ADVOs or bailed compliance checks or have evaded arrest, until now. I don't really know what to expect today. I've heard stories of police interrupting DV in progress or having to chase perpetrators onto public buses. What I do know is, this is the frontline of domestic violence policing.

• 0:44Gemma Bath?

  This is the force attempting to put a dent in the scourge that is DV in this country. But, is it making a difference? I'm Gemma Bath and this is a special episode of True Crime Conversations. When New South Wales Police invited us on an exclusive ride-along to witness arrests as part of Operation Amarok, a statewide blitz cracking down on alleged high-risk domestic violence offenders, I had an image in my head of what to expect. It was completely turned on its head. This blitz was to be the 14th iteration of the operation. And on the TV news, I'd seen footage of police at prior raids in helmets, carrying battering rams, marching single file towards people's doors.

• 1:29Gemma Bath?

  What I discovered, riding alongside officers in the central metro region DV offender team however, was that most of the arrests they carried out looked a lot less dramatic. In total, I saw four people arrested, two men and two women. Multiple officers were there to carry out each one, but they were all in plain clothes. I was told it's easier to sneak up on people that way. They also find victims see them as more approachable. But it was strange, being surrounded by cops in jeans and a beanie. Given the nature of the operation, I'll admit I was expecting most arrests to be of alleged male perpetrators for crimes of intimate violence against female partners.

• 2:11Gemma Bath?

  We are losing a woman a week to a former or current partner after all. But I only saw one arrest of that alleged nature. And as the two officers I was shadowing explained, many of the arrests they do are family members allegedly hurting other extended family members. I caught up with Sergeant Price at the end of our five-hour ride-along to debrief. So tell me about today, it's Operation Amarok. What did we do first up? We were in Surry Hills, Redfern. What was the plan when we got there?

• 2:43Speaker 01

  This morning we went to Surry Hills to arrest a female with an outstanding DV warrant. We knocked for a while, occupants initially refused to let us in. After a while, they did let us in. The female we were looking for wasn't inside, however, there was two people inside that address who had AVO conditions not to be at the address. Those two people were arrested and taken to Surry Hills Police Station. We're still making inquiries to locate the female that we were looking for.

• 3:13Gemma Bath?

  Can you tell me anything about the relationship of these people?

• 3:16Speaker 01

  One was the son of the female and the other person was the female's mother.

• 3:22Gemma Bath?

  So, we arrested a grandma and a grandson essentially?

• 3:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's right, yeah.

• 3:28Gemma Bath?

  Do you find during these operations, you're doing a lot of these family kind of arrests or checks?

• 3:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's very common that multiple people in one house may have AVOs with each other, they're not complying with those AVOs. And it's quite common when we go into a house, there may be multiple people in breach of those orders.

• 3:46Gemma Bath?

  Would you say that you're doing more family kind of style arrests in these DV operations than like partner violence?

• 3:55Speaker 01

  Partner violence ones are definitely there, it just depends on the day when we go there I guess, but it is common that there is the family type domestic violence AVOs.

• 4:07Gemma Bath?

  From there, from that arrest, we had a few, I guess, false starts. You were trying to find people, what was happening?

• 4:13Speaker 01

  So, just after that one, we went to an address in Redfern. We confirmed on CCTV footage that a male, he had two outstanding warrants. He was at the victim's house with in breach of the enforceable AVO as well. The footage showed him leaving at 6:45, I think we got there about 8am, so we just missed him. We made inquiries with the security of that building, confirmed that he wasn't at the location. So we'll continue to follow that up and hope he goes back there, he'll be arrested. He's breaching the AVO by being in that building as well.

• 4:51Gemma Bath?

  And so that would have been for a domestic violence charge?

• 4:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's relating to domestic violence. The victim is the lady who lives at the address, he was at this morning.

• 5:01Gemma Bath?

  Is that happening a lot, where they just go back to the...

• 5:03Speaker 01

  Very common, yeah, that's very common. Very common, we pick them up when they're wanted or breaching the AVO conditions by being at the victim's address.

• 5:12Gemma Bath?

  Are you going back to the same homes a lot?

• 5:14Speaker 01

  Ah, yeah, it's very common that we do that, yes, definitely.

• 5:18Gemma Bath?

  A little bit further on in the morning, there was a man that had been convicted of manslaughter, what were we checking in on him for?

• 5:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, he was, I think it was some years ago, he's charged with murder, he's convicted of manslaughter, spent time in jail. He's been released in the last few years and he's been charged with domestic violence offences for his new partners. We did an AVO, or attempted to do an AVO compliance check at his address in Randwick. When we made those inquiries, he's actually in custody at the moment.

• 5:52Gemma Bath?

  When you're doing these operations, is this typical, that you're spending a lot of time kind of driving around, there's nothing there, you drive to another place, there's nothing there, yeah?

• 6:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, we try to get to as many places as we can, do as many checks, try to arrest as many people as we can. So yeah, it's very fast moving. Sometimes information comes in throughout the day that somebody may be at a particular location, so we respond quickly to that.

• 6:17Gemma Bath?

  I'll admit, I was expecting you to be in police uniform.

• 6:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, we don't wear uniform in our team. It's, I think, a lot easier for us to catch people who are wanted if we're not in uniform and I think a lot of victims prefer to speak to us outside of uniform as well, they feel a bit more comfortable.

• 6:35Gemma Bath?

  Tell me about the two other arrests we've done today. There was a gentleman over in South Coogee?

• 6:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, he had a warrant, it was issued two days ago, that was for a domestic violence offence, a breach AVO offence. He was arrested in South Coogee, he's gone back to Maruba Police Station. And one here in Maruba, it's a female, she had an outstanding warrant for domestic violence offence as well. And she's been arrested and going back to the police station as well.

• 7:03Gemma Bath?

  Most of these people, will they be out of custody by the weekend?

• 7:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's hard to tell, yeah. Possibly, some of these warrants, yeah, it's likely they will. Some will be, they were refused as well.

• 7:19Gemma Bath?

  Perfect, and from here, what's the plan? It's about lunchtime, we've done four-ish arrests, what's the rest of your day look like?

• 7:27Speaker 01

  We'll keep going, hopefully the guy we were looking for in Redfern comes back, so we'll put ourselves in a position to arrest him if he comes back. We'll just probably have lunch and then reassess and see where else we can go after this.

• 7:41Gemma Bath?

  Thank you so much for your time, good luck, I hope you get more arrests.

• 7:44Speaker 01

  No worries, thank you.

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• 8:21Gemma Bath?

  Across the three-day operation, New South Wales Police charged 732 people, executing 228 arrest warrants and 12,054 ADVO compliance checks. They identified 321 ADVO breaches and 225 bail breaches. 118 firearms were also seized. When you zoom out further and count up all of Amarok's work over the last three years, they've charged 9,067 alleged offenders and laid 18,756 charges. There's no doubt, they're impressive numbers. New South Wales Police has always said the goal is to show how relentless they are when

• 9:06Gemma Bath?

  it comes to this crime. Amarok is certainly proving to be a high visibility crackdown and it's pretty intimidating. I asked Superintendent Danielle Emerton for some feedback on how it's been going. I'm interested, I know that this operation is targeting high-risk domestic violence offenders. What exactly does that mean? What kind of offenders are we looking at?

• 9:32Speaker 03

  So, the operation is intelligence-led and offender-focused, so it aims to ensure the safety and wellbeing of domestic and family violence victims and the broader community. So we're looking at offenders who have that access capability and intent of harming their victims.

• 9:50Gemma Bath?

  Does that mean it's often repeat offenders or people that have been in the sights of police for a while?

• 9:57Speaker 03

  Yes, usually that is the case. We have intelligence that will direct our police to those offenders.

• 10:03Gemma Bath?

  I know you've done 14 iterations. Would the same names be coming up in those arrests?

• 10:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, often yes, they are repeat offenders. A lot of them have outstanding warrants, firearm prohibition orders and weapons prohibition orders that we go and do compliance checks on. So yeah, that's what Operation Amarok is all about, us checking on the compliance of offenders who have existing apprehended violence orders and the like.

• 10:37Gemma Bath?

  Do you have a breakdown, or no even anecdotally, if it's more men or more women being arrested?

• 10:45Speaker 03

  I do have a statewide gender breakdown.

• 10:48Gemma Bath?

  Okay, great.

• 10:48Speaker 03

  Of pay-wise for Operation Amarok 14. So there were 27% female offenders and 73% male.

• 10:57Gemma Bath?

  Okay, so it is majority alleged male perpetrators?

• 11:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's correct.

• 11:02Gemma Bath?

  And are the majority of those charges around intimate partner violence?

• 11:08Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 11:10Gemma Bath?

  Is it working? Is the operation helping people?

• 11:14Speaker 03

  Absolutely, it's getting really serious offenders back behind bars. It's also ensuring that they know that police are on to them, particularly now that we're working in partnership and with cross-border policing. So we're working with a joint operation with ACT Policing and AFP. And ACT Policing, they've modelled their Operation Shepherd on Operation Amarok. So we've got that, they've got an operational blueprint and strategies and resources to help them organise their first operation. Domestic violence is a crime that affects all communities and it remains a scourge on our society.

• 11:56Speaker 03

  So we're pleased to be able to share our successful operation with another law enforcement jurisdiction.

• 12:05Speaker 03

  The number of arrests and charges are a huge for this operation and in previous Amarok operations. And it sort of talks to the scale of domestic violence in New South Wales. The numbers are concerning and one incident of domestic violence is one too many. During the operation, we deploy all available resources, including specialist officers, to surge and use intelligence-led approaches to target offenders and we see these good results.

• 12:42Gemma Bath?

  Obviously with those huge amount of numbers, there's victims at the other ends of those. So have you heard from victims? I know you guys are mainly arresting and, you know, placing AVOs and stuff. But have you had any feedback from the victims on how they feel about it?

• 13:00Speaker 03

  Well, yes, in cases that will, the police will attend homes, we do get to speak with victims. Obviously, a compliance check of an apprehended domestic violence order involves the speaking to both parties, so the person in need of protection and the defendant. So police do get to speak in first hand to our victims. And anecdotally, we are told that, you know, often these domestic violence incidences occur behind closed doors. So it's a time that they're actually usually very relieved that the police are ensuring that the compliance of these orders is occurring.

• 13:43Gemma Bath?

  I couldn't help but notice, doing a ride along with some officers in Redfern on Friday, that 100% of the places we went to were lower socio-economic areas, lower socio-economic housing. I know that DV, we all know that DV happens in any postcode, no matter where you live. Is what I witnessed an accurate representation that a lot of these arrests are happening in those lower socio-economic areas?

• 14:12Speaker 03

  No, domestic and family violence occurs in all socio-economic areas. It knows no bounds, it doesn't discriminate. We respond to 160,000 incidences of domestic violence every year, which is one every three minutes. So, and also responding to domestic violence incidents takes up 60% of police time. So we are seeing it in all walks of life, all socio-economic backgrounds, all different cultures. And yeah, it's definitely, it's a huge problem and it's a whole of government and society problem. And obviously, police cannot arrest our way out of this issue alone.

• 14:53Gemma Bath?

  What's the plan from here? This has been going on since 2023. We've got another three years left of Operation Amarok?

• 15:01Speaker 03

  Well, we've also launched other additional operations throughout the year, including Operation Surge to target domestic violence offenders. So we'll, we'll work every day. It's not just during these operations to investigate domestic violence incidences and arrest offenders. So while this operation, Operation Amarok, has been held over three days on this occasion, it forms part of an ongoing year-round strategy to apprehend our high-risk offenders.

• 15:31Gemma Bath?

  Perfect. I think we'll leave it there. Thank you so much, Superintendent.

• 15:35Speaker 03

  No problem at all. Thank you.

• 15:36Gemma Bath?

  If I'm being honest, it wasn't quite the answer I was after. Because while no one is outwardly against the Blitz, I've seen quite a lot of discussion from DV services saying they need more resourcing and funding to deal with the fallout. Because when police enforcement ramps up, so do their referrals. Right now, these frontline services are operating at above 150% of their funded capacity. And the bottom line is, they're struggling to keep up with demand. Both Domestic Violence New South Wales and Full Stop Australia have told the ABC the stronger police response needs to be matched with a properly funded support sector. In my search for answers, I asked New South Wales Police Minister Yasmin Catley

• 16:19Gemma Bath?

  how she measured success in this operation beyond the number of arrests.

• 16:24Speaker 04

  Oh, well, domestic violence not increasing, that would be the real measure of success, right? I've spoken on this programme before about, you know, it's, it's still going up. So the success is not certainly measured by arrests. But it's keeping women safe and that's important. That's really important. Unfortunately, in my role as Police Minister, I've seen too many women lose their lives at the hands of their intimate partner. That has to stop. That just has to stop. And we're doing our bit certainly in police. But broadly, community needs to do more too. We all need to, you know, be, and I, I know that, you know,

• 17:06Speaker 04

  various cohorts have different views, but, you know, I'm, I'm just really, I believe anyway, as a woman and as a mother, I believe that, you know, you have to say something if you know something. If I'm a girlfriend and my girlfriend's in a situation where she's experiencing domestic violence, I'd like her to talk to me about it and her and I to have that conversation. I'd like my daughters to be able to talk to one another and to talk to their friends so that they can have that conversation about, they may not want to go to police and that's okay, but they need to be talking to someone and getting some advice on what to do because otherwise they could be putting their life at risk. And those outcomes are not what we want to see or hear about.

• 17:45Gemma Bath?

  In the 2026 to 2027 budget, an additional 184 million was dedicated to six frontline specialist DV programmes over four years, which sounds amazing. But they've had no increase in funding for a decade. So even a 50% boost is just catching up on accumulated under-investment, not funding new growth. Ultimately, this is a good news story. We want our police to take DV seriously and they are. We want high-risk repeat offenders to be targeted and to put on notice and they are. We're just missing that support services element to be taken just as seriously.

• 18:26Gemma Bath?

  I've had some time to digest the morning and really think about what I saw and watch the videos back of me pre-operation and what I thought I was going to be getting in too. I feel quite sad having witnessed that. Was two women arrested, a much younger woman and then a much older woman, and then two men, a younger man and an older man. And speaking to the officers, you know, of course, it's domestic relationships, like romantic relationships that take up a lot of this work, but it's also families.

• 19:06Gemma Bath?

  So those first two arrests, you know, they were three generations of the one family that they were trying to arrest. The grandson, the mother, the grandmother. And it's not the first time that they've been arrested. And this is just a cycle, you know? The other thing that I am reflecting on a lot is all of the arrests we went to and all of the places we tried to arrest in were all in lower socio-economic areas or housing. And we know that domestic violence happens everywhere, no matter where you live, no matter how rich you are, no matter how poor you are. But this operation is targeting repeat offenders.

• 19:48Gemma Bath?

  And I couldn't help but notice where we were. And then you can't help but think about all of the other factors that might be at play. All of the officers involved in the operation I was a part of were in plain clothes. And they told me that they do that because, one, they want to surprise the people that they're arresting and two, because it makes victims more comfortable. They want to talk to them more. But it was just really weird to see all of these different officers. At the first arrest we went to, I thought one of the, what turned out to be officer was just a nosy busybody. You know, he was wearing a beanie, he was leaning on the fence. And it wasn't until I saw the gun in the holster that I realised that he was a cop.

• 20:34Gemma Bath?

  Another cop at the second arrest was wearing a Run Faster Pasta shirt. You know, something you might see on someone down at the local pub on a Saturday. But that's how they roll, especially when it comes to arresting people that are evading arrest. All four of the offenders came quietly, came willingly into the police cars. But they were all people that were being arrested for violent offences in the domestic violence space. But looking at them in a cop car or looking at them on the street, you, you, you don't see that. And I think that's the important thing to remember, that these people don't look scary, but you don't know what's happening behind closed doors.

• 21:18Gemma Bath?

  Thank you for joining us for this special episode of True Crime Conversations. Make sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss an episode and leave us a rating and review on Apple or Spotify. See you soon with another True Crime Conversation.