Unmasking the West Perth Rapist: Luke McCulloch Pt.1

What does it take to hunt a predator in the dark? In this episode of I Catch Killers, Gary Jubelin sits down with Luke McCulloch, a former police diver and officer whose career was defined by the motto: Profundus, Obscurus, Suridus - Deep, Dark, and Dirty. Luke recounts the chilling moment a routine traffic stop for a motorbike with no headlights led to a major breakthrough in the hunt for the notorious West Perth Rapist. From his early days as the youngest sworn officer in Western Australia to the gruelling selection process of the police dive squad, Luke shares the reality of life on the thin blue line. Dive into the psychological and physical challenges of policing in the "Wild West," the importance of de-escalation, and the split-second decisions that can lead to solving a high-pressure case. In this episode, we discuss: -The traffic stop that caught Steven Michael Adams (The West Perth rapist). -Luke's experience patrolling the remote Pilbara and the unique challenges of country policing. -The intense, hypothermia-inducing training required to become a police diver. -What it’s really like searching for evidence and bodies in pitch-black water using nothing but touch. Subscribe to our new Youtube channel. https://www.youtube.com/@ICatchKillers-Podcast Follow I Catch Killers: Instagram:@icatchkillers https://www.instagram.com/icatchkillers/?hl=enTiktok:@icatchkillerspodcast https://www.tiktok.com/@icatchkillerspodcastFacebook:@icatchkillers https://www.facebook.com/icatchkillers/ See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  The public has had a long-held fascination with detectives. Detectives see a side of life the average person is never exposed to. I spent 34 years as a cop. For 25 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. 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.

• 0:46Speaker 00

  There's nothing glamorous about being a police diver. No crystal-clear water, no coral roofs, no visibility. Just darkness, cold, and waterways so grim that most people wouldn't want to go near them, let alone get in. And when they go under, they're not looking for treasure. They're searching for items relating to crimes, dead bodies, firearms, drugs, often with nothing but their bare hands. In this episode of I Catch Killers, I speak with Luke McCulloch, who has spent 15 years in the Western Australian Police. He patrolled the remote Pilbara as a country cop. He helped crack the West Perth rapist case and spent nearly a decade diving into places no one else would go,

• 1:29Speaker 00

  searching for the things no one else wanted to find. Today, we're going to take a deep dive, and I mean that literally, into the world of a police diver.

• 1:40Speaker 00

  Luke McCulloch, welcome to I Catch Killers.

• 1:43Speaker 01

  Hey Gary, how are you, mate? Thanks for having me.

• 1:45Speaker 00

  Well, I always enjoy speaking to police or former police. It's always nice to speak to someone that's been in the same business and industry.

• 1:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, me too, me too. Thank you.

• 1:55Speaker 00

  But I never had an ambition of being a police diver. And I saw a lot of police divers during my time. And you're not exactly snorkeling around the Great Barrier Reef, the areas that you've got to search and where we send you in. What made you want to be a diver?

• 2:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, you're definitely right there, mate. It's not the lovely Rottnest Island diving, especially from over here in the West, that you're used to. I didn't actually ever intend on being a police diver when I first joined the police force. I did policing for seven years before I jumped into that. And it was mainly just based on the fact that I didn't want to do general duties anymore. I sort of appreciated that lifestyle and that style of work for about seven years, as I said. But then I wanted to specialise in something. So that came up and yeah, threw my hat in the ring.

• 2:50Speaker 00

  Okay, so it wasn't naively, you think, this is Perth's beautiful waterways and all that. It'll be nice swimming around Rottnest Island on a beautiful summer's day. Or down at Claremont, the beaches, yeah.

• 3:03Speaker 01

  No, I knew what I was getting into, that was for sure.

• 3:05Speaker 00

  Well, your book, I've been reading your book, Tales of a Diver, Profundus, Obscurus, Suridus. Now, for those who don't know what I just said, including myself, that's Latin, but translated from Latin, that's deep, dark, and dirty. So the book, Tales of a Diver, Deep, Dark, and Dirty.

• 3:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was our motto in the dive squad at the time. So yeah, Profundus, Obscurus, Suridus, deep, dark, and dirty.

• 3:32Speaker 00

  And that pretty well sums up the type of places you go and what you do under the surface?

• 3:38Speaker 01

  Pretty much, mate, yeah. Sewers, swamps, we do get some nice occasional diving out in the ocean where we can see a bit of stuff. But more often than not, yeah, it's touch and feel, searching around in pretty black water.

• 3:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, I've seen you guys go into the sewer and I was glad it's you guys, not us. What's the clean-up procedure after you dive in the sewer?

• 4:01Speaker 01

  Um, oh, look, I'll be honest, I'm not sure what it's like over there in New South. But here, we get out, there's a lovely garden hose on the back of the dive truck and one of us sprays the other one with that and we're good to go.

• 4:13Speaker 00

  Okay, you're a little bit rough and ready, but very good. Okay, before we, and I want to have, it sounds like a pun here, a deep dive into your life as a police diver. But talk about your police career before that. When did you join the police? Why did you join the police? And tell us about your early days.

• 4:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, so grew up here in Perth, born and bred. I was sort of a bit lost in high school whereby I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I was initially gearing up for university, going to become a physiotherapist. And funnily enough, my little brother actually became that. Started working out that study wasn't for me. Didn't really want to, you know, commit to the university sort of lifestyle. And I also knew that I was a bit too hands-on to be working indoors all the time. So it didn't end up being for me. I subsequently decided by about year 10, 11, I was going to go into carpentry. Because I figured using my hands was a good idea.

• 5:17Speaker 01

  But then my dad, on the other hand, was saying, well, now you've gone the full opposite. Now you're going to be outdoors all the time and you don't want to be doing back-breaking stuff and get to the age of sort of mid-30s and hate your life in that regard. So I was sort of a bit lost in year 12, didn't really know what to do. My dad is actually a police officer, still is. So he's, he just ticked off 40 years the other day, which is a good effort for him.

• 5:40Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 5:41Speaker 01

  And my mum was a police officer at the time as well. So it's sort of felt natural to go into that. However, they definitely had a different mindset in that regard when I pitched the idea, because I saw a cadet advert on the TV one night. Thought, oh, I'll just do that, that sounds smart. Because then I get a bit of both worlds. I get to do some office-based stuff and I'm a bit hands-on. And immediately, as soon as I told them, they said, no, that's the worst idea in the world. You shouldn't be doing that. So what does a young teenager do when the parents say, no, I don't like that idea? They go head-first at it. So I chucked the application in, they eventually came around. I think they half-thought I'd put in for it and eventually get to a point where I thought it wasn't for me.

• 6:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:23Speaker 01

  I was a bit of a pushover as a little kid. Wasn't the biggest, toughest thing in the world. So I think they thought I was a bit too soft for it. And I probably was, let's face it. But definitely grew up when I got in there. So I actually joined at 17 as a cadet. And the cadet programme at the time that they were running was a two-year programme because to become a sworn police officer here, you had to be 19. Little did I know, that year, they actually changed the age app to 18 as a sworn officer.

• 6:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:51Speaker 01

  So as soon as I'd finished all my cadet book, I could put my hat in the ring. And I did, and I became a police officer at 18 and something like 18 and two months. So I was the youngest ever sworn police officer in WA at that stage.

• 7:02Speaker 00

  You're, well, you think you know things at that age, but you're a baby, baby, aren't you?

• 7:07Speaker 01

  Hundred per cent, yeah. The only thing I had going for me at the time was my size. I was six foot six at that stage already coming out of high school.

• 7:15Speaker 00

  Right.

• 7:15Speaker 01

  So I was able to rely on that. However, if I went to a domestic and told someone that they're not allowed to, you know, do something to their wife or do something in a domestic household, they'd just look at me and go, who the hell are you to tell me? So yeah, I struggled a little bit with that. As I said, it grew me up quickly, so I don't regret it. But do I recommend doing it at 18? No, definitely not. I reckon go and get some experience.

• 7:42Speaker 00

  I think it's an easier path for you if you get that little bit of experience. If you're out working in the world, going straight from school, straight into the police, it's confronting and to have that power, power. Tell me, like, I've had a lot of ex-cops on and I think they've had parents that have been police. But having your mother and father in police, what was it like growing up as a kid with policing parents?

• 8:10Speaker 01

  I can't really remember mum being a cop, to be honest, because I think I'd, I can't remember the exact age, but I think I was about three or four when she actually resigned. It wasn't a, you know, the police force wasn't too privy with females having kids at that stage and, you know, young families. So it wasn't made easy for her, to my understanding. So she pulled the pin on that, went into her own businesses afterwards and did her own thing. But having dad, like, dad wasn't a hard arse or anything like that, like the stereotypical sort of version that you would think. I definitely had a lot of respect for him, but I actually had respect for him in other ways. He was my footy coach growing up, one of the toughest men that I'll ever know.

• 8:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:52Speaker 01

  So I actually had a bit more respect and fear for him from things outside the police force. He was actually, he's actually still is, he's a forensic police officer. So fingerprints is his specialty.

• 9:03Speaker 00

  Right.

• 9:04Speaker 01

  So it's not exactly, you know, shooting and running after crooks.

• 9:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:08Speaker 01

  So yeah, it was a bit different, I suppose, to what others would have gone through.

• 9:12Speaker 00

  Okay, so 17, you went through a cadetship, which is, we had it in New South Wales and I think there's even talk of bringing it back. And for people that don't understand what that is, that you're at an age where you're too young to join the police and they allow you to do the study and work, but not go out on the streets until you're a certain age. So it's not a bad system, is it? Because I think people, in that, you get a sense whether this is the life for you.

• 9:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, definitely. It's kind of like a try before you buy.

• 9:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:46Speaker 01

  Is how I sort of tried to describe it. We're the same, it's in the States, it's come in and it's left at times when they haven't needed it. I, from a policing point of view, like an organisation, it's a great way to capture people before they go off and do university, go get a trade.

• 10:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:01Speaker 01

  And we lose that. So it's getting them interested straight away. We had the benefit of going out. So you did all administrative stuff back at the station. But every so often, the idea was that you got taken out on patrol and you were just chucked in the backseat essentially with a mag light and a radio to appreciate what it actually looks like to go on patrol.

• 10:19Speaker 00

  And told not to touch anything.

• 10:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:24Speaker 00

  Okay, so you're 18 and two months, did you say? And there you are, graduating from the academy. And did you do it, your training at the current academy?

• 10:34Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah, yeah. I think Junelup had been up and running for 10-ish, 15-ish years before I jumped into it. So no, I didn't get Maylands, which was our original one.

• 10:44Speaker 00

  I've got to say, it's one of the most impressive police academies I've ever seen. And I love that lake in the middle of it and everything else. I was over there doing some lectures and staying there and I thought, wow, this is the guy.

• 10:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, and even their scenario village is second to none. You know, to be able to go through literally a village that's been made and they have paid actors go through and you're going through different scenarios along the way. That was, the learning from that was priceless.

• 11:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, okay, so you're six foot six and you've got limited life experience. They put you in the uniform, send you out in the street. What's the worst mistake you made in your early days?

• 11:26Speaker 01

  Oh, um.

• 11:27Speaker 00

  But you're you're not too embarrassed to talk about.

• 11:30Speaker 01

  Look, I probably not not a massive stuff up, but I definitely think the most embarrassing thing at the time was I was still on my bloody P plates. So I had to drive a police car with P plates up at the time.

• 11:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, that wouldn't attract attention.

• 11:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, I wasn't allowed engaging lights and sirens. So if we were doing patrols and a and a priority job came in, it was pull over on the side of the road, switch with my partner and then I had to keep going in the passenger seat.

• 11:52Speaker 00

  Take the P plates off.

• 11:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, to be honest, for the first, like, first year or so, I just actually preferred to not drive because it was less embarrassing.

• 11:59Speaker 00

  Understandable. Um. What what areas were you working in? Like, what geographical? What? You're in Perth?

• 12:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, so western suburbs generally. I I initially got stationed at Wembley. I went over to Subiaco. That then subsequently amalgamated with Wembley. Um. And then my last probationary stint was actually at a central metro traffic unit. And by no means, no, no hard feelings against traffic coppers, but that just wasn't for me. And luckily, I had a decent boss there who recognized that it wasn't for me. And I remember him bringing me into his office towards the end of my time when I could have gotten off probation. And he said, McCullough, get in here. So I walked in, I thought I was gonna get in trouble. And then he said, look, between you and me, mate, you're not gonna be a traffic copper and you never will. So how about I just sign you off probation?

• 12:47Speaker 01

  You get out of here and you move on to your next station. And I said, sounds good to me, mate. Shook hands and parted ways.

• 12:52Speaker 00

  There, and look, no disrespect, because I still drive and I love Highway Patrol, but they're they're a different breed and and good on them. The the work they do is important. Um. We can't argue with that. But yeah, you're either the the traffic Highway Patrol type police or or you're not. And some of them are very good at it. And oh, you can see why they're in that in that role, very efficient.

• 13:14Speaker 01

  Sure. I I I constantly say I love them because they do something that I don't want to do.

• 13:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, it's a good way of looking at it. And we know the the road toll, they they do make a difference. So we we definitely need them. So let's not, let's not attack Highway Patrol because we do drive and we respect them. Um. Okay, so in the areas, areas that you work, traffic, traffic wasn't for you. The type of crimes that you were dealing with or the type of work, what was your day to day work at your? And that's around Subiaco Oval, the station that you're talking about.

• 13:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, that that was the um, that small station that then amalgamated with Wembley. So Subiaco actually became um, part of Wembley's patch as well. Um. But typical western suburbs sort of, you know, crime, uh, general burglaries going in and around nicer affluent sort of areas. Our western suburbs is obviously very different to your western suburbs with the the difference of the east coast and the west coast. Yeah, sort of nightlife areas. So Lederville was in our patch, Subiaco. Clermont had a couple of nightclubs as well. I mean, the most sort of um, stress I got from the public was going out of out of control gatherings and some kid telling me that his his dad was a lawyer and was gonna get me in trouble.

• 14:27Speaker 01

  Um, not hard work, awesome crew we had at the time, loved doing what we did and we did it well. Um. And I just, I had a ball. Like I said, I'm eighteen, nineteen years of age at this stage. I've got a uniform on. I felt bulletproof. And I was just having fun. It was awesome.

• 14:43Speaker 00

  Um. What were the good mentors that you had? Did you have some good mentors that? Because I think that's crucial at the early stages of your policing career. If you can lock in to someone that can guide guide you through. Um. Did you have some people that you respected and then taught you a lot?

• 14:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, definitely. Um. So and different aspects of who I would sort of look up to as well. So I definitely had that old school sergeant that, you know, was was Teflon, nothing could stick to him. And you just thought, how does he get away with everything? But he he very much taught me, you know, like, don't take everything so seriously. You've got to have some fun at the same time because otherwise this job will take too much from you. Um. But I also, I was really lucky to have a couple of younger fellows who were a little bit older than me, but still respectively, looking back now, they were quite young. They just had really good level heads on them and they they didn't want to go into things, you know, half cocked or lazy. They wanted to do it properly. And they were, they were young, fit fellows as well, like one particularly went on to go to T R G.

• 15:42Speaker 01

  So he he particularly was a really good role model to go like, right, this is the this is the right way to do it. And also take care of yourself, always expect the most of of yourself and hold yourself to a high standard as well. Because it can be very, very easy as a young copper to, you know, slide in behind someone who's a nice, lazy copper in as jaded as anything. And I've seen it time and time again, where they just then, that they start acting like, well, the copper starts acting like they're seven years into the job or ten years into the job when they've done ten months and they've got that bad attitude straight away.

• 16:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's a that's a shame. I think it's crucial who junior police are uh, partnered up with and uh, working with in those early stages. Because you can get these uh, yeah, disgruntled police that steering them in the wrong, wrong direction. The other thing that you've got to look out for not being caught up in, and it's easy to say, but it's also easy to fall into the trap. Get the excitement of the adrenaline, like when you've got a couple of young blokes and you say, you're working with people that were more senior to you. They might have two years' experience and you and them are out on the on the car at two o'clock in the morning and chasing the adrenaline and the excitement. That can bring you unstuck as well.

• 16:51Speaker 01

  Oh, definitely. Yeah, you know, you've got guys that are going around looking for, looking for fights and they're trying to annoy people and get them mad. You know, egged up just so they can get into a row with someone. And I um, I suppose that was a benefit to to coming into the police force, not not a hot-headed young fellow. I um, don't get me wrong, I wanted to have a ball and have fun and and appreciate it what what it was for, but I didn't, I didn't like fighting. I uh, I still to this day, like, I I like the fact that I I'd drawn my firearm once in my whole career. I never tasered anyone. I never pepper sprayed anyone. I never had to baton anyone. And I put that down to being able to talk to people at the same time and not having to worry about going hands, hands on. Because I could actually speak to them and de-escalate the situation from that.

• 17:35Speaker 01

  It, yeah, it used to rile my feathers up a little bit, to be honest, when someone would come into the team and they would go out and they'd start annoying crooks or people within the nightclub industry just to get a bite out of someone. And I'm like, what are you doing? It's just not worth it, mate.

• 17:48Speaker 00

  Uh, not worth it. And what you talk about is a uh, a skill that's uh, yeah, it needs, some people just have it in them. Other people can be taught, but there's some people just miss the point entirely. But being able to de-escalate a situation is crucial to good policing. And I used to laugh at, you'd have some police in the station that were always assaulted. And you think, hold it, what's the common, common theme in this? Have you stopped to take a step back? The majority of us haven't been assaulted. You've had ten assaults in the twelve months, in the past twelve months. Um. Is it perhaps the way you're speaking to people that might uh, might lead that way?

• 18:30Speaker 01

  Exactly. Yeah, yeah.

• 18:31Speaker 00

  And look, Perth, I I spent, as we were saying the other day when we were having the chat, I I lived over in Perth for a while and it would have been around that time, like two thousand and seven and and those times. So I spent a lot of time over in Perth. And I call it the Wild West in some aspects, like there was no disrespect to uh, W A, love, love, love the people. But there was a wildness, there was a rawness to to it. And you could see how things could escalate very quickly. Like in in pubs and that, people were willing to fight. And if you backed them into a corner, they were going to fight.

• 19:06Speaker 01

  A hundred percent. And like, yeah, you, there was definitely this sort of, I don't know, viable feeling in the air that, yeah, young, young fellows at the time were trying to make a name for themselves. Northbridge was definitely the one that would kick off.

• 19:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:19Speaker 01

  I um, I as an eighteen year old in the police force there and then, like, I I never experienced Northbridge from a civilian point of view. Because because of what I was doing at the time, but it completely ruined the idea of Northbridge ever for me. Because I just saw it from a different light to what all my other mates were doing at football and and from school and stuff. Um. But yeah, the amount of times we got called into Northbridge to back up because there was just massive, massive brawls going on. Um. Yeah, it was, it was a bit.

• 19:47Speaker 00

  Well, that's the, that's the sense of it. I know Northbridge well and I I know what you're you're talking about. It felt like a powder kegging. The mining industry was very big at that time. So you've got a lot of people that were uh, fly in, fly out workers around Perth that were cashed up, ridiculously cashed up at the time, working hardcore for ten days and then having ten days off or, you know, figures like that. So they were coming into town to have a good time.

• 20:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, blowing off some steam and spending some cash. Yeah.

• 20:17Speaker 00

  And a good time they had.

• 20:20Speaker 00

  When you were there, there was one, I was watching a show, Australian Crime Investigations, and there was a job that, I think it was a couple of years into your career when you were still working in the metro area, that you pulled a motorbike over that turned into a fairly big investigation. Do you want to tell us through that story? Because that's the type of thing you look for as a young cop, isn't it? You want to be the person that gets the information that leads to solving a significant crime. Tell us about your involvement in that matter.

• 20:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, so we were, yeah, we were just doing general patrols in the Wembley area and we were going down a street called Cambridge Street, main drag within Wembley. Very, very late in the night, if not early morning. And I was with my sergeant at the time, he was driving and I had another probationer in the back, when we saw a motorbike on the left-hand side of the road heading west with no headlights on. So at the time, it was just going to be a standard traffic stop. A bit weird that the lights weren't on, that sort of just hinted straight away to someone trying to hide and not want to be seen, obviously. When we stopped and put the lights on, he stalled. So I got out of the car, went and had a chat with him and as I was talking to him,

• 21:36Speaker 01

  he was trying to kick the bike in and it was obvious that he couldn't get it to start at the time and the bike was having malfunctions. So that sort of eased me a bit at that point. And he was talking to me, he didn't seem too evasive at that stage.

• 21:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:50Speaker 01

  He was telling me the bike was having troubles and to be honest, it was probably just going to be a quick name check and I was actually probably going to offer him and go like, mate, look, if your bike is stuffed, we'll give you a lift and we'll, or we'll follow you home or something like that. I'm so glad now that that didn't happen, obviously. He, he wasn't getting his driver's licence when I was asking for it and all of a sudden the bike kicked into life and he just took off. Took off quicker than I was able to run after him, but it still wasn't screaming down the street. So I ran back to the car and we chased him and he subsequently crashed into a bus stop, tried to go up one of those box curbs, wheel bent and he went headfirst into this bus stop. We got out, he stood up, tried to run off again.

• 22:33Speaker 01

  I chased him down, caught him and when we started searching him, because at this stage, we were saying, why did you run? What's, what's going on? Like, why, why have you been evasive now? He was stating that the registration on the bike was out. Still didn't make sense to, you know, run from the police.

• 22:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, run from the cops for that.

• 22:51Speaker 01

  It's a hundred dollar ticket or something like that. So we were searching him and the weird thing that I found on him was it was an EpiPen style object. I knew what an EpiPen was, I knew it wasn't an EpiPen, but that's the best way I could describe it. And a couple of other weird things. He had some gloves on, on his, in his bag and a couple of other weird items, but that was the main one. So because he'd obviously had a police crash, I tackled him pretty hard when I caught him as well. We took him to hospital to make sure he was all checked out. And when I got to hospital, I thought, I'll, I'll show him this, I'll show the doctor this EpiPen and just ask what it is. Cause when I asked him, he said it was for blood pressure. The doctor subsequently said, I hope you've had gloves on the whole time because that's a, it's, it's used by males for erectile dysfunction.

• 23:35Speaker 00

  Right.

• 23:36Speaker 01

  You essentially put it to your, I don't know if I'm allowed to say it, your gooch. And, and yeah.

• 23:42Speaker 00

  We can call it a gooch or you can call it something else. Yep.

• 23:45Speaker 01

  Yep, whatever you want to call it. And.

• 23:48Speaker 00

  You do speak funny from WA. Yep.

• 23:53Speaker 01

  And you inject it and it, and it gives you an instant erection.

• 23:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:57Speaker 01

  So at that stage, now it's starting to get a little bit weirder. So due to the, due to the offences that he'd committed, we were actually allowed to, and only had just recently come in with the CIA Act, the Criminal Investigation Act, where we were allowed to take identifying particulars off him, DNA, fingerprints, photos and all that for the offences that he'd committed. So we did that just because we could, it was a new, new, new power that we had. Did a significant, what we call field report. Field report for the listeners is more like a, we, we couldn't, couldn't pin you to anything, but we're going to pin you to this location at this time, wearing this, so that if something else came out over the next couple of days to say that there was a weird person on a bike driving around.

• 24:39Speaker 00

  There's a record of it.

• 24:40Speaker 01

  You're, you're a suspect. So did that, kicked on with the rest of the night, finished seven AM in the morning, went home, went to bed. I got a call at about 10 or 11 AM in the morning and it was one of the detectives at Sex Offenders, yeah, management unit. And my uncle actually at the time was, was working with him and he, he had called me and texted me as well, saying, hey, my boss is about to call you about the traffic stop last night.

• 25:04Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 25:04Speaker 01

  I don't know, it's a bit strange. So got a call from him and he said that this bike now matched the description of a bike that they'd been looking for for a couple of months now, that they hadn't, hadn't been able to track down or solve. It turned out that that was, that was their guy. So they went and did the warrant on his house. DNA profile came positive for the DNA found at the scene. And when they did the warrant on the, on the guy's house, they'd also worked out that I think he was, it was a customs or AFP or, or both. But at the time, he was customs, I think it was. And he'd had a lot of those, those arrival cards. When you come back into the country, you write down all your details, your name, next

• 25:45Speaker 01

  of kin, email address, address. And they all had notes on them for female descriptions, you know, blonde, blue eyes, tall.

• 25:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:54Speaker 01

  He'd kept a heap of them essentially, which was, which extra creepy. But yeah, he ended up subsequently getting, getting put in the bin for, I think it was six or seven years, I think it was.

• 26:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, he was, I read some media reports, a West Perth rapist, Operation Bastille. And he's named Stephen Michael Adams. But that's, break it down in a couple of things. That's very rewarding when you're just doing your job and you come across something like that because.

• 26:23Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 26:23Speaker 00

  And that, that's where, yeah, a lot, 99% of the time, doing that, it wouldn't pay dividends. But it's that small percentage where it does, the fact that you've, you've taken the, taken the time. It's in the early hours of the morning, you're tired, it's easy. Oh, okay. Your car, your bike's not, not working properly and just dismiss it. But there are little things that you can do in uniform that I know from a, a major crime perspective, are crucial. Like when we're investigating homicides, those details that the uniform police have put down for a stop just like that. And looking at him as, as an offender too, that's quite worri, or not quite worrying,

• 27:03Speaker 00

  it's, it's very worrying. And we have over here and, you know, across the place, a lot of serial rapists and they start, they get away with one and the crimes were quite chilling that he was committing. So full credit to you for, you're buying into that and doing your job.

• 27:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, thank you. It was, it was a really good feeling to, to know what we had just stumbled across. Cause I won't, I won't put it down to we were hunting him or anything. Like to, to be honest, we got, they're called lookout to be kept for's. You know, you get three or four of them a day. You go into the, you go into the office, you look at them, three or four come in and it's the latest person doing bergs or armed holdups or whatnot. And you, you remember that face or that car to, to look out for, for that shift. But the next day, there's another three or four and you're looking out for that person. So the motorbike probably came up on one and months ago, I had seen it, but I wasn't looking for it. And it was just sheer dumb luck. But as you said, the, doing it correctly and doing your job correctly does pay dividends later on. And that was, again, just because a good sergeant at the time, that was the sergeant I was talking

• 28:04Speaker 01

  about, that liked to have a bit of fun, but he also did his job properly. And the other probation in the back as well, wasn't, wasn't, you know, a halfwit either. He, he wanted to do the job properly and get it all, all squared away. So they, yeah, they have full credit as well.

• 28:18Speaker 00

  And they're those little things that sort of, call it gut instinct, I don't like to use that word too much or rely on it too much, but it's just something doesn't feel right about this person. And you, you identify that the, the things that, the way he's acting and, and different things. So that's sort of, okay, let's look at a little bit, a little bit closer.

• 28:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. And like police, you'd know as well as I do, Gary, you know, we're, we're very good at reading people. Well, the longer you're in the police force, you, you get better at it. It's, it's not too often now that I don't read and judge someone and I'm incorrect. Like my, my wife constantly has a giggle about it and, you know, we'll be sitting in a restaurant and someone will come in and I'll go, that guy's a prick. And 20, 20 minutes later, they're the one standing up, having an argument with the waitress or something like that, you know?

• 29:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:02Speaker 01

  We're, we're good at it. We've, we've honed it in and, and yeah, that's, that, that was one day where it definitely was, you know, the spidey senses were tickling as, as so to say.

• 29:11Speaker 00

  It worked. The other benefit you get working in a, a local area, in, in those stations, the longer you stay there, you start to, not only you know the community, you know where something doesn't quite feel right within the community too. That's, that's a benefit that you get from it.

• 29:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. When it sticks out, something different.

• 29:29Speaker 00

  Yeah. Hey, when you joined the police so young, how did the perception of the public and your friends and family? Because I, I know once you become a police and it's a trap that you, you fall into, that every, that becomes your identity. And people, oh, you're a cop, you're a cop. Like you'd go to a party as an 18 or 19 year old and people would be pointing out, you're, you're a cop. And how, how, how did you deal with that? Did you notice a difference that once you joined the police, that's what you were marked as the cop wherever you went?

• 30:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, bit of a, bit of an interesting one in terms of like definitely my, my community, I suppose the biggest thing, the, the biggest part of my community that. Didn't really affect me, but was the biggest change was definitely my footy club.

• 30:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, just standard footy club full of a bunch of boys. Um, there definitely wasn't female football, um, teams at that stage, um, playing in my local club. I was quite lucky in the sense of though, when I played, when I was in high school, I played all basketball and in my junior years I played footy, but when I left the high school, I went straight back to footy.

• 30:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:34Speaker 01

  So I actually entered into the club again as a copper. So it wasn't, I wasn't a police officer before I joined and then they had to deal with that. They, they knew me straight away from the outset as a copper. Um, I, I think I held myself in good regard and I was a good professional kid and I, I didn't, I didn't make too many enemies or anything. So I, I generally got a lot of respect out of my mates from that. Um, and they, they quickly tuned in to go, right, cool. Well, there's, there's certain things we don't do around Macca or, you know, there's certain things we don't say, and let's just respect what he does for a job. There was one or two times it got a bit sticky if I saw them out and about, you know, in, in clubs and

• 31:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:13Speaker 01

  they were, they were intoxicated. I had one mate take my torch off my belt once and my partner subsequently went, went ballistic at him. And I was like, mate, yeah, there's certain lines you don't cross because if you'd taken something else, obviously that's a, that's a lot worse. So he, he quickly learned that one. Um, but no, like I, I didn't get any grief for it. Um, and, and I'm very thankful that those mates who I'm still all friends with now, obviously respected what I did at the time. Uh, and within my family, yeah, obviously dad being a police officer didn't, didn't, uh, didn't change anything for me there.

• 31:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's, it's funny, isn't it? When you, you talk with your, your mates and around that footy culture and all that, you, there's some places you, you'd rather not be or, or known, known as the, uh, known as the cop, but I can just imagine thinking that's funny when you're coming into the pub and your mate's taking your baton or whatever he's taking or run off with your hat and think it's hilarious. I had to, uh, very, I think it was in the first year, I'd just come out of probationary constable on night shift, been to a party, a, a, a big party, an out of control party is the type of parties that you would go to. I have a very good friend and had a live band there. And when I started the, uh, night shift, the area that I was working covered that party. And there was a, you know, you have

• 32:24Speaker 00

  the job list when you start night shift and the jobs, what jobs. And there was about four noise complaints to, uh, to that particular address. And I said to the, uh, senior constable or sergeant that I was working with at the time, look, I actually just came from that party. This could be embarrassing if we go there to, to close it down. And so we pull, uh, pulled up there at the party and the, it was a good, uh, cop, the, uh, the person I was working with. I said, look, I think I might be able to handle this better if I just go in on my own. I don't think you really want to go in there and see what's going on. How about I just go in and if I can get the music stopped with everyone's

• 33:03Speaker 00

  happy. And, uh, so I've walked in and I'm, I'm in my uniform, walked in and, uh, yeah, my mates and, and friends are all, you know, giving it to me. What are you doing here? Great. You can come back. I'm here to tell you to turn the, stop the band playing, turn the music off and, and stop it. They thought that was hilarious and I had to make my point and like, no, it's got to stop. This is, yeah, uh, I'm going to get in all sorts of shit. As I was walking out, uh, there, uh, I'm hearing mates yell out, Jesus jubilant, you've changed more than your clothes and, and that sort of shit. The next day they phoned up and apologized or in the afternoon, they weren't, weren't awake in the morning. But yeah, they're the type of situations you can, uh, fi- find yourself in. So it, it tests you in a way too, doesn't

• 33:46Speaker 00

  it? You have to, have to know the parameters that you can, uh, hold.

• 33:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, definitely. And that, that just reminded me then of like, there was, there was one sticky sort of scenario where two of my mates from my footy club were starting, starting to blue with each other at the front of a nightclub.

• 33:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:58Speaker 01

  We, we subsequently get there and I work out that I know both of them and they're just, they're quarrying over something stupid. And I was trying to sort them out and go, guys, like if you don't pull your heads in, my, my offside has got to arrest you. Well, I, I have to arrest you quite frankly.

• 34:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:12Speaker 01

  You know, there's all members of the public that are watching and I'm getting other guys in the footy club to tear them apart. And they, they eventually did. And same thing. Yeah. Next day at footy training, very, very apologetic, just full of boos and, and bad ideas, obviously. But yeah, it does put you in a weird position, that's for sure.

• 34:27Speaker 00

  Yeah. And, and that's where it, it's important if you, you're working with good cops that, uh, yeah, can guide you through that because most cops have been through situations like that where they're going to make a, uh, a decision on, uh, yeah, in, in an environment that makes it a little bit awkward.

• 34:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:42Speaker 00

  You spent, uh, three years in the metro area, then you, uh, you applied to, uh, go out into the, uh, the bush. What inspired that and where did you go?

• 34:52Speaker 01

  Uh, went up to South Hedland. Um, and I, so I'd left Wembley due to, uh, that was due to tenure. Um, so I had to, had to move on from that area. We, we have to move on continuously over in Wapole here at certain locations. And I went over to Scarborough initially and I think I'd only been there for two or three months. And my partner at the time, she wanted to go bush. Um, so she applied for South Hedland, got it. And I subsequently just followed her up, got, got the plus one ticket. So, um, look, I'd never, I had never intended on going when, um, when I was younger, my dad had to go to Geraldton for his country service.

• 35:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:33Speaker 01

  And I say have to go for country service. Um, I put that lightly because it just depends where the police force is at at the time. He, he subsequently had to go because forensics, um, forensic specialists were, were short in different country areas and he hadn't gone yet. So they can pull the card on you. And obviously you sign the dotted line when you apply and, and part of that is that it's expected you will go country, but you can very easily go your whole career and not have to go country. Cause quite frankly, that's where the money is. And a lot of people will fight tooth and nail to go country.

• 36:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:04Speaker 01

  So South Hedland was definitely one of those places where you actually had to apply yourself and put a good application in to get it because not everyone could get there. Um, there was good, good coin to be made. Um, so I was quite lucky that my partner at the time got it. I got the plus one. Um, and I had a ball. It was something that I, I just sort of said yes to at the last minute. I had no intention of it, like I said, but I, I loved it. For the small community that it was, um, it was the best footy I'd ever played, played country footy up there as well. That was a, that was an eye opener as well to play against different people within the town. And quite frankly, people I'm locking up.

• 36:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:40Speaker 01

  People who I'm going to out of control bar, parties and, um, and shutting down. And then the next weekend I'm subsequently playing them. So that went down like a lead balloon sometimes. But no, it, it was a great experience. That's for sure. It grew me up again.

• 36:53Speaker 00

  For, for people that don't know Port Hedland up in the Pilbara?

• 36:57Speaker 01

  Yes. Yeah. So you're looking at about 16 hour drive north from Perth. Um, if you go through the guts, if you go the coastal way, I think it's another eight, 18 or 19 hours. Yeah.

• 37:07Speaker 00

  And, uh, okay. So it's, it's very isolated in there. The people who have seen that movie Red Dog, that was, uh, filmed up, up round there. And, uh, I, I spent a lot of time up in that, uh, that region. And the Red Dog is not that, the movie, the Red Dog is not dissimilar to the, uh, the type of people in towns.

• 37:26Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 37:26Speaker 00

  In there, it, it's isolated, great, beautiful, beautiful area. Like it's just, it's, yeah, it's, it's hard to describe. But, um, that would have had its own, uh, own challenges and, and being a cop in a small community like that, you're never really off duty, are you?

• 37:42Speaker 01

  No, definitely not. Like to, to be in a, in a town where quite frankly, I could, I could jog around town. I could probably do two or three laps of that place, um, for, for a good jog for the day. So, yeah, you, you, you know, you're in a place where you walk into work, you go into the, the shops where the local crapheads are. Um, you're probably going out to have a beer and there's probably going to be someone that's, that you've locked up before or you're going to be expected to do something because everyone knows that you're a copper in town.

• 38:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:10Speaker 01

  Um, as I said, same at the footy club. So you're, you're never off duty, but also you're always watched as well in the same sense. But then it would get even more remote again whereby we would go and help out out stations. So, you know, I'd gone and worked and acted up in a place called Marble Bar, where it's only a three man police station and you, your backup is two hours away.

• 38:31Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:31Speaker 01

  Um, so if something goes wrong there, you, you're, you're it. And, and yeah, you're not relying on anyone else. That's for sure.

• 38:38Speaker 00

  That's, uh, that's, uh, the responsibility that those country cops carry, isn't it? Like you are very much on, on your own. You, you've got to make, uh, make decisions and, uh, you, you just don't have that, that backup. But, uh, yeah, I, I don't think for, for people that haven't been up in that region can appreciate how isolated the region is. You, you can drive for hours on the road and not, not pass anyone. I, uh, the first time I went there from Sydney and you drive along the road and people wave every time a car goes past. I couldn't understand that. I realised cars don't pass that very, very often. So

• 39:10Speaker 01

  You're doing a social interaction.

• 39:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, you're meant, meant to wave. Um, it, it would have been, uh, some difference from the, uh, policing in the metro areas because you've got some, um, uh, like indigenous communities up there and, uh, that would have been another aspect of, uh, policing.

• 39:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was huge up there. Obviously that, you know, quite frankly, 85, 90% of our work, I'd say. So dealing with the mining FIFO persons, but also, yeah, that, that very much indigenous community in and around the area as well, coming in from like, uh, I'm saying a bush, bush place and South Hedland is, is a city to them. And just assimilating, trying to work out the ins and outs and what's right and wrong. And their law versus our law, white versus black law, it, it's just, it, I, I do feel for them and it, it must be such a confusing thing. And

• 39:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 39:58Speaker 01

  you're, you're treading around it so carefully as a copper and you're dead right. It is, it is completely different policing to the metro area whereby you've got a lot more, um, You've got a lot more say in the outcome and we talk again about that, that ability to de-escalate a situation because you, you can't afford for it to get out of hand and out of control and it, it can get out of hand very, very quickly, obviously. So, um, so yeah, you've got to tread water very carefully for, in that regard.

• 40:24Speaker 00

  Yeah. And the, the cultural sensitivity and as you identified, like people coming from very remote areas and yeah, that's coming into the big smoke, a small town like you, you were working at for, for people. So yeah, I could imagine there, there'd be a lot of challenges, but also rewarding, um, working in a, a country police station. Like you can really make a difference for a community.

• 40:45Speaker 01

  Oh, definitely, definitely. Like I, um, I've still got one of my, one of my favourite photos were, um, it was on Christmas Day, I think. And we were driving around, um, driving around town. I was on day shift. We had the, you know, the Santa hats on and stuff. And we came to one household, which was normally a problem household. And it was pretty early in the morning. So we weren't getting many dramas, but rocking up and just having three or four young indigenous kids by the ages of, you know, four to six coming out. And they just thought it was the best thing in the world that we were there just in Santa hats. That was all it was. Um, I think we had some lolly bags or something. And, um, and they jumped in the back of the van, door open. I sat next to it and then they were just jumping all over me like a playground. And I've got a photo of that. And it's still

• 41:29Speaker 01

  one of my favourite photos from there, just to

• 41:31Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:32Speaker 01

  have that, you know, that happiness from those kids in that regard. But then also out in the, out in the vast communities and what you'd get from them if you connected well and you, you de-escalated a situation, which, you know, was, was a good outcome.

• 41:44Speaker 00

  That, that's crucial. I know, I know a lot of indigenous communities and they say, we, we get the police in and it takes us a couple of years to train them. And then when we train them, they, they leave. But I, they say, and I, I've seen it in communities, if they got a, uh, it might only be one, one police officer, but gets that rapport happening with the communities, it can, uh, make a, a world of, a world of difference. You also up those parts had to deal with the, uh, the mining guys and, and girls now?

• 42:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're different again. Um, you know, they're, they're quite highly strung. You're, you're dealing with the mental health side of the FIFO life, you know, their families are back at home. Um, some people that have come up and they're just working their arse off to be able to, you know, provide for someone back at home. And they want to let some steam off every now and then. They go to the local pub and it might just get a little bit out of hand. So there's that side of it.

• 42:38Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 42:38Speaker 01

  They're also usually nine times out of 10, not small people. Um, so yeah, you, you, you're dealing with some pretty big lads. Um, so yeah, that had its own dynamic as well. Definitely.

• 42:50Speaker 00

  Yeah. And you, you talk about the mental health and I, we're going to touch on it from policing, but I think they're starting to identify that, uh, yeah, the fly in, fly out life is not, uh, not that healthy. I, I saw a lot of people over in WA, young guys that were getting paid ridiculous amounts of money, that probably wasn't really warranted. The work that they were doing was hard. They were working in the mines, coming back to the city and think, yeah, at, uh, 18, we all should be getting paid a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Uh, it was just unrealistic. And I, I know it crashed at, at certain stages, but that causes problems. And then the people away from their families, it, it seems good on paper, but doing it for an extended period of time does have an impact.

• 43:32Speaker 01

  Oh, definitely. And that's, that's the price that you're paying by earning that money is, is your, your, your say and see it to, you know, work, life balance and, and, and family life. Um, and you're secluded. You are out in the middle of nowhere sometimes. Um, you know, you, you'd be considered very lucky to work inside, inside a town like South Headland. Normally they're, you know, and South Headlands, you fly in place and then you're actually working another hour and a half, two hours out of town, which is even more remote. So they're getting better at it. It's, it's same as everywhere in society right now. You know, there's the jobs are now, you know, uh, advertised within the FIFO industry with mental health work programs and all these mindfulness things, which is good. Can still get better, obviously. So, yeah.

• 44:11Speaker 00

  Yeah. But at least it's been identified. Another issue I found fascinating in, uh, in WA was, uh, you had a lot of English cops over there that, uh, that came in from the UK, you, a recruiting program that came in. I met a few of them when I, I was over there and, uh, then the people that, uh, yeah, were talking about the UK cops have, uh, come over. But a lot of them ended up leaving the, um, WA police because they could make more money in the, uh, in the mining industry.

• 44:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, they did, um, they did two waves of, um, of, they called them transitional police officers at the time. Um, and the first wave was supposed to be the UBT thing. It was going to top our numbers up. Um, all these UK coppers were thinking brilliant, I'm going to go for the, you know, the sunny lifestyle of, of Perth and Australia. Um, they came over to my understanding, I think they all got citizenships, you know, with, with that. And then they rocked up, thought nah, I'm going to go up north and earn a bit more money. And they resigned straight away after. So they spent all this time and money's, you know, swinging them all over. And then we lost most of them. Or they applied for regional police stations, thinking that they could go and do that, either for a quick promotion or a quick, quick pay and going, what the hell have I jumped into here?

• 45:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 45:26Speaker 01

  That would have been an eye opener.

• 45:28Speaker 00

  I, I spoke to a couple of them that, uh, yeah, come from, uh, London and, uh, ended up in, uh, yeah, somewhere like Caratha or somewhere and they've just gone.

• 45:37Speaker 01

  Horse Creek or.

• 45:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. What, uh, what is going on here? But, uh, okay. So you had, had four years up there and that was, you considered that a good experience?

• 45:48Speaker 01

  I loved it. I absolutely loved it. The, um, you know, I got, got some lifelong friends from it. I, um, as I said, the footy, footy I loved the most. That's probably my, my best memory from it. Um, even though, you know, you'd be playing footy, you'd get rid of the ball and probably 10, 15 minutes later, you're copping an elbow over the back of the head and it's the last crook that you're locked up. But I actually enjoyed at the end of those games, going up to the fella, buying him a beer and going like, yeah, you got me. No dramas, but we'll, uh, we'll wait till next game and I'll get you back.

• 46:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 46:15Speaker 01

  And that, that gained me also respect within the community as well. Like the fact that I could take it. Um, I remember going to some, some out of control parties after a night of playing the, like the, um, the Derby team. So Port Headland versus South Headland. I played for Port Headland. And, um, I'd go to night shift straight after, dealing with an out of control party. And I'd just played this whole team. And one of the guys I bought a beer for, I'd a can of Solo, cause I was going to work after. Um, but he was the first one out the door when I said, hey mate, you know, we've, we've been called here to, cause you guys are a bit loud and noisy. He actually was the one that went inside and turned it down for me. Said, yep, I've got it sorted. It's all good. No dramas. Um, so that paid dividends. Um, the things I learnt, put me ahead a mile and a half of all the other coppers that I'd graduated with.

• 46:59Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 47:00Speaker 01

  Who stayed in the, stayed in the metro area. However, it did get me to that point where I was like, you know what, I've, I've done my decent amount of general duties now and I'm happy I've done a stint in metro, a stint in country. What's, what's the next thing? Um, and that's where, that's what brought me to diving.

• 47:15Speaker 00

  And that's, uh, so diving and you thought laying on the beach and, uh, just snorkeling every now and then, and coming out and drying, drying off. Okay. You, what, what inspired you to diving? Why, why particular diving? Cause it's a very specialist area of policing.

• 47:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. Um, it, it, it was purely that. I actually was just, I was willing to cut my teeth on whatever I could get into that was a specialist role. I initially tried out for the tactical unit.

• 47:42Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 47:42Speaker 01

  Uh, the T I G that we call them over here. So I trained, trained while I was up there. I had no guidance whatsoever to do that. I was young and dumb. I, I trained poorly. So I didn't make the cut for that. Um, but I was, I was bloody fit at the end of it. And I was never, ever going to be a detective. That was for sure. I wasn't good at investigating. I just wanted to, you know, physically run and, and catch crooks. And then I was willing to handball them off and someone else could take the glory in that regard. I just wanted to do the running part. Um, so as soon as the tactical side of it, it was over. It was a couple of weeks after the, the expression of interest came out for the diving side. I hadn't ever done a job with water police or divers. I'd not had anything to do with them. I knew one guy, um, who nowadays is still a very good friend

• 48:25Speaker 01

  of mine. He was in the police footy team and he had just made it to divers as well. So I remember it coming out. I text him and said like, hey mate, you guys just put an expression of interest out for, for diving. Um, what, what's involved with it? Like, I'm pretty good in the water. I like swimming. Um, but I don't have my dive ticket or anything. What, what do you, what do you recommend? He straight away said, look, we've, we've only just recently changed it up. You need it, you need to actually have a dive ticket now. Cause we used to teach you how to dive, but that just obviously took too long. So we want you to have the basics and then we'll, we'll train you the rest of the way. And when, oh shit, where am I going to go in South Headland to learn how to dive? So I actually had to drive, uh, some, some five or six hours south down to X mouth to go

• 49:06Speaker 01

  and get my dive ticket. So I did that. The only course that was available during that time though, was literally 24 hours before the selection course started. So I applied for it saying, hey, I'm going to go get this dive ticket, pick me and I'll come down and show you what I got. And it somehow worked. So, um, yeah, I drove back down to South Head or drove up to South Headland. Got on a plane, came down to Perth, stayed with mum and dad, and the next day started the selection course for a week, yeah.

• 49:33Speaker 00

  Okay, and what sort of things did they run you through in the selection course?

• 49:38Speaker 01

  Uh, so that one week selection course is, believe it or not, it's actually no diving. So that's purely just determining whether or not you're going to be the right fit. So you've got a lot of running, a lot of finning, so just laying on your back with the group of people that you apply for, uh, apply with, sorry, um, up in the Swan River, you're just finning from edge to edge. They'll put you in, um, positions where they say, right, we're going to get from this side of the.

• 50:02Speaker 00

  And, and when, when, when you say finning, just to explain it to people, just on, on your back in the water, just with your, your fins on and just keeping your head, head up and doing what you need to do.

• 50:11Speaker 01

  Hours and hours on end of just finning and kicking, it just, it turns your, um, turns your hip flexors into E chords, I tell you. Um, but it's just about endurance and perseverance and what you're going to do when, when it gets shit essentially. So, you know, they would stick us in the side of the river and go, right, we want you to get from this side to that side. And they knew farewell that the tide was about to go out and you're about to go against it. It's only a hundred and meet, hundred and fifty meter sort of fin, but they know that you're not going to be able to get there. In fact, you're actually going to go backwards. So, and it's just to see what you're going to do. So all unachievable tasks, want to make sure that you don't quit, you don't give up and you just keep going.

• 50:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:47Speaker 01

  Uh, a lot of late night wakeups. So middle of the night, you're, you're sleeping in your swag and sergeant will come in, start ringing the bell. Right, we've got a swamp that we need to go search. So we'd, we'd be, you know, jumping into this swamp. God, God only knows what was in it and what we were smelling, but, you know, searching that at two or three in the morning.

• 51:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:05Speaker 01

  A little bit of, um, study in terms of the physiology of diving, just to somewhat understand in a bit more about it. Um, but yeah, that was a big, big wake up for me in terms of like, shit, I haven't actually done a, a selection course before. And I found out a lot about myself in that regard in terms of pushing and, and what I was willing to do, that's for sure.

• 51:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, uh, sleep deprivation and, uh, not giving you much feedback, I would imagine. And, uh.

• 51:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, definitely, yeah. And, and I, I hated no feedback because I always liked, like I, I like succeeding, everyone does.

• 51:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:39Speaker 01

  And quite frankly, if I fail, that's fine as well, but just let me know so then I can correct it. But when you're just getting told, oh, yeah, okay. And then they walk off, you're like, shit, did I do good or do bad? And, and that eats up at people and they, they leave subsequently just because they think they failed and they're actually were doing fine, so.

• 51:54Speaker 00

  And I, I would think some people, uh, uh, they'd have to weed them out because it would confront like, you know, get into this swamp and, uh, yeah, or a sewer drain, whatever.

• 52:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:04Speaker 00

  They, they put you in and it wouldn't be for everyone, I would imagine.

• 52:07Speaker 01

  No.

• 52:08Speaker 00

  So when, when did they start taking you below the surface?

• 52:12Speaker 01

  Um, so you do that one week course, um, once you've, once you've finished that, um, they'll say yay or no, you, you've been invited back for the three week. You actually go back to your station at that point. So I went back to South Headland, couple of weeks later, you get invited back for a three week course. Um, and that one is very, very much tied alongside the, the diving aspects of things. So how you actually react underwater, confined space, very dark areas, obviously no vis. And then also the cold, the cold was a big one. So they, they put you essentially into hypothermia to see what your cognitive load is, how you can react, if you can pick up on it.

• 52:47Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 52:47Speaker 01

  What you're going to do to counteract it. And the benefit of, of me being in the squad for so long was I got to run these selection courses later. So I got to find out the other side of it. Um, so yeah, those three weeks were quite intense as well, but not as, not as physically demanding in terms of endurance, running and finning and all that. It was more technique, I suppose, um, but a bit more mental.

• 53:07Speaker 00

  But, uh, and the mental aspect of it, the hypothermia and in cold water, that, that can break people down.

• 53:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, big time. Like it's, it's just, it's another uncomfortable feeling.

• 53:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:18Speaker 01

  And we want to make sure, yes, like, you know, there's a component of the course where we're cutting a piece of metal for.

• 53:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, I, I, I reading it in, in your book and I was fascinated by it. Tell, tell people, tell people about that.

• 53:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I mean, like it's a, it's a great, it's a great exercise to find out if people will really, you know, be able to respond well and, and operate within cold environments. But we're never going to operate in that environment, you know, it wouldn't be conducive with operational needs and requirements, but we're taken to the worst case scenario. So we know that I can operate in anything else. So what we do is we, um, we start off the, the unit or the, the, um, candidates on an afternoon shift. You'll, you'll start it, I don't know, twelve in the, twelve in the day and, uh, they'll do a little bit of P T, get some sort of study out of the way. And then we just got told by the dive sergeant, right, have a big feed, get a lot of water into you because there's a long exercise coming and we're working till 10 P M. at night or something.

• 54:14Speaker 01

  So you go and get a feed in, scull as much water as you can. Obviously we're going to be diving for a while, that's the exercise. And we got to the wharf and the sergeant goes, right, there's been some cast iron rods that we've thrown into the, uh, to the river. There's a hacksaw blade next to it. Go down, find yours, yours has got your diver number on it, um, your candidate number. If you don't find it, don't bother coming back up because you're not a good police diver, if that's the case.

• 54:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:38Speaker 01

  Um, and what we want you to do is start cutting off a slither off that metal rod. We only want it to be 10, 15 mil, whatever it was at the time. You got to the end of the shift, go in there. So you go in, you find it to start with, the vis isn't that bad, um, at the time, but they purposely do it while the tide's coming out. So you're getting the muck from the rest of the river. So it's making it difficult. I tried to establish like a sort of a workbench as such and, and later I found out that that was one of the, you know, one of the, the tests, I suppose, to, to get a, a, a workbench going to articulate how you would operate underwater in a comfy environment and make it efficient. Start hacksawing, um, I stupidly got about half an hour in, I think it was. And I was like, jeez, I'm not moving very far on this thing.

• 55:23Speaker 01

  And I pulled the hacksaw blade up to look at it and the guys had put it the wrong way around on me.

• 55:29Speaker 00

  So it was in, it wasn't just the blade, it was in a hat, you had the saw on it, but they'd put the hacksaw blade in upside down.

• 55:36Speaker 01

  Upside down, yeah.

• 55:36Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 55:37Speaker 01

  I end up doing that for other candidates later in life. Um, it's just a, it's something that you, you do to make sure that, you know, they're operating well and smart and efficient, as I said. So worked that one out, flicked it over, started getting into it at that stage. Um, and then I got to about the, the hour mark and I thought, I'm starting to run out of air here. So eventually ran out, came up, sorry, I, I should also say that it wasn't till the end of the shift. It was like, right, you need to cut this slither off by the end of your cylinder. So don't come up until it's done.

• 56:03Speaker 00

  So how, how long had you been underwater at this stage?

• 56:07Speaker 01

  That'd be about an hour.

• 56:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:08Speaker 01

  So the depth we were at and how we're working, give or take an hour.

• 56:11Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 56:12Speaker 01

  So come up, tell the sergeant, I've effectively failed the mission. Yeah, I haven't gotten, haven't gotten your slither. And he goes, oh, I suppose you want another cylinder then to keep going. I went, yeah, cool, if I'm allowed to. So he throws a cylinder in, I had to change it on the surface, go back under and keep cutting. And at that stage, I sort of worked out, right, there's about four hours of the shift left. I've done a quarter of that. I'm about 10% of the way through this piece of metal. Look, I'm, I'm not doing this today. So kept going anyway, and I just had this sort of mantra going through my head that, you know, that they're not going to do anything that's going to kill you. So just keep going is what it is, except that you're going to fail it, but, you know, they want to see you keep going. So kept going, they come down halfway through, they rip your mask off, you can't see anything now, your head's freezing cold, your, your mask can keep your nose and your eyes quite

• 56:57Speaker 01

  warm, believe it or not. But when that's exposed to the water as well and it's your whole head, the, the sting is just unbearable. So you're doing it with your eyes shut, not that you need your eyes, but it just makes it a lot comfier.

• 57:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 57:09Speaker 01

  Um, they give you mask back, you've got to put that back on, keep going. And we get to the end of the shift and they bring us all up. None of us have completed it. So we come up, the, uh, the sergeant goes, right, you've all failed, have a good hard think about what you want to do and why you want to be here. Um, go have a shower and, uh, and go home, be back in the morning. So I go have a shower and, uh, I just, I could not, I could not believe how cold I was. It was just down to my bones. And I actually went into the shower, turned the hot water on and the hot water hit me and I just completely blacked out.

• 57:39Speaker 00

  Right.

• 57:39Speaker 01

  Woke up on the shower floor all of a sudden and, you know, having some understanding of the physiology now of hypothermia, I knew that, yeah, I was in severe hypothermia and my body had just shut down with that heat, heat, um, exchange. So went home, came back, they subsequently go, right, you, you've, you've got another chance, go down and we want you to hurry up and get this done. And, uh, they all disappear off to the side. And I still remember one of the, uh, one of the teammates, uh, came up and said, right, boys, everyone come in. And he'd gone past a hardware store on the way and pulled out a couple of new hacksaw blades out from his wet suit and gave it all to us. So get it, these into you and then hopefully you'll be able to cut a bit quicker when you go back in. So went back down, started cutting and the new blade definitely helped, we were going like a bat out of hell.

• 58:21Speaker 01

  And I got to about the, I think it was a six and a half, seven hour mark, whatever it was, and I'd finished, came up to the top, as proud as punch, it was this piece of metal. I looked at the sergeant and said, I've got it. And he goes, yeah. One side looks a little bit too thick though mate, so um go down and get me another one. And I I just nearly died. Everything just stopped and I was like, are you bloody kidding me? So went down and I reckon I was putting ten percent of the effort in that I was doing beforehand to get another piece now. And it was only about ten or fifteen minutes later that a staff member came down, got my attention, took me over to where the others were, um were cutting. There was four of us left at this stage. And um went past the two bays where I thought there was two other candidates and they weren't there anymore.

• 59:06Speaker 01

  But on the last candidate, um they were all gathered around this last guy cutting. And the staff member basically communicated to us with hand signals, right? Everyone's to help out. You you need to get this guy done. And then and then it's and then it's done for the done for the session. And I was like, oh, sweet. So we worked out this method of someone holding onto the axle, someone pushing, someone pulling. We'd do two minute rotations. And before you knew it, we'd finished his cutoff, got all up. We were as proud as punch, handed these pieces of medals to the uh to the staff. And um it's it's actually one of the things that at the end of the course, we get um handed back to us. So you think it's done and dusted, you're never gonna see that piece of medal again. And that's that was like, no, that thing I spent eight cold hours on, like that thing's fucking

• 59:49Speaker 01

  priceless to me. Um but I actually put on a plaque and that that's your graduation sort of award, which is still hanging up in my office now. And I yeah, it's it's a it's a good memory of what you can do and what you push yourself to do. And there has there was a job that I actually got as cold as as that day. And I remember thinking, I've done this before for eight hours. Like, I'm gonna do this for forty five minutes to an hour, max. I can do it for seven more. I'm sweet. This is good. And that's why we do it. Like, that's it's a perfect example of why we do that.

• 1:00:20Speaker 00

  I I I think any course that you do, if if you have those challenges, it makes it more worthwhile. And I I can certainly understand why they got to um put you through your paces in in that manner. They gotta see that you got a degree of resilience and you're gonna hang in there because a lot of the tasks that you get uh to do as a a diver are um pretty uh difficult.

• 1:00:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, definitely.

• 1:00:45Speaker 00

  I think, and this is why it's interesting having a chat. And then part two, we're just gonna deep dive into the the jobs that you've done. Because the majority of people, including police, like I I never overthink what's going on under the water when I'd be at a crime scene and go, oh, can you search search that creek? We see, we see you dudes roll up at the uh at the crime scenes, the public see you in the media, they always get shots of divers uh searching for a body or searching for a weapon, that that type of thing. But what goes on under there? And I just, I I said to you this the other day when we were talking, I was blown away when I was talking to a diver at the scene. And I I thought,

• 1:01:25Speaker 00

  yeah, crawling round bottom of a uh a river, in the ocean or whatever, around the murky depths, no vision. I would have thought you'd have gloves on because a nail might come out and bite your fingers off, or you might grab something sharp. And I know, we we do it all with uh with our hands. You need you need the touch to feel what you you're looking for. And that touch, often uh and I'll get you to talk about some of the experiences that you've had in part two. But you're looking for a body. And yeah, in the pitch black, underwater, not to mention all the other creepy stuff that might get you in in the water, you're looking for a body. And your success is if you get your hand on a body

• 1:02:07Speaker 00

  that's been submerged in the water for god knows how long, or a skeletal remain, you just don't know.

• 1:02:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, definitely. And I said to you the other day, mate, it's it's, I think if anyone from the same um same style of work ever says that, oh, yeah, and I I started handling it better as I got into the job and it was less scary, I think they're full of shit. It the the last body that I ever had for eight years of the dive squad compared to the first one, I was shitting myself just as much.

• 1:02:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:02:34Speaker 01

  There's nothing that I think you're ever gonna is gonna prepare you for that. It's about the the professionalism leading up to it, and then what you do after it as well. But that that moment of of that touch and and grabbing onto that body, it it never leaves you, that's for sure.

• 1:02:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, I I can feel my heart beating quicker, just the thought of it, in pitch black, in the water, cold, uncomfortable, um and creeping round in the on the bottom of a a river, looking for or a dam, looking for a body part.

• 1:03:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:02Speaker 00

  Okay, well, we're gonna ask you a lot in part two, the, you know, scariest jobs you've had, the most difficult, the most rewarding. We're gonna talk about the emotional toll it takes, because I I think we you touched on it there, we've got to be realistic, like you're, the type of work, you get called in when something bad's happened. You're not being called in for something good. Maybe you've had some success where you you've helped helped someone. But invariably, it's a tragedy that's occurred, and that's where you guys get uh get called called into it. And I'm gonna ask you about sharks, because we've been talking for an hour and you haven't mentioned sharks. And I think if I was gonna sign up for police divers, that would be at the forefront of my thoughts. So we'll we'll have a break and we'll be back for part two.

• 1:03:44Speaker 01

  Awesome. Thanks, Gary.

• 1:03:45Speaker 00

  Cheers.