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[Music] Kiwis love a thirst. Like Finn, we're making [Music] waves. Generate switch online today.
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Detective Inspector Scott Beard, welcome to my podcast. Dom, thanks very much for
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having me. I'm here with Scott Beard today. I'm just day off playing those
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undercover. undercover. So, you are you are you 15 minutes late. Um, which is is fine. U, but you said
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you you sent me an email uh um long before the podcast saying that you were going to be 15 minutes late and you said
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you'll explain everything when you get here. Yeah. So, by by the way, it was
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the most copish email ever. So, the point. No, look, I and breaking news. You know, my family know, close friends
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know, but my cancer's back and I've been up at Oakland Hospital all day today
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having had CT scan, MRI planning cuz I' got to have radiation which starts next
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month. So, uh, when I had the prostate cancer back in 2019 and the operation, you know, I was told at the time was a
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lot more advanced, aggressive than anticipated. So I've been monitored every 3 months uh since the operation
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and last year my PSA and I don't have a prostate PSA still sits there uh levels
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went up and they went over the line where you have to go and see the radiation oncologist and it stayed above
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the line hasn't gone up but it stayed above the line and so it's I'm been I've
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been told and I'm accepting it's more precautionary let's get in early fix it
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and radiation is what I'm going to have to have be a month uh starting 12th of
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May. So yeah, I know you weren't expecting that, but that's uh unfortunately been at Oakland Hospital
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and the staff there have been so good and as I've been there since 8:00 this
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morning and um why didn't you why didn't you cancel the podcast? Well, because I
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was sort of in the city and it was just, you know, we'd planned it and I've got
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in my mind, okay, I've got this, got this. Originally, I was supposed to be in the hospital yesterday. It was going
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to be on the Wednesday, but then late they changed and said, "Oh, can we do
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the Thursday?" I said, "Yeah, okay, that I have to look after myself, my
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health." And that's the thing about the prostate, you know, like I put the
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message out there and I don't, you know, I don't want the sympathy. I just want
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people to know that, you know, I diagnosed my prostate was diagnosed rather because I was getting yearly
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medical and blood test and my PSA back in 2019 was shown to going up. six weeks later was up higher and then I diagnosed
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prostate had prostate out and I think it's just men out there it's it's a
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simple blood test and it can save your life and that's the message I just want
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to get out there um you know woman's testing is so much more invasive than what a man has to go through as I say
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all I had was blood test and that's what I've been having every three months are
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you feeling um you I mean you sound really optimistic are you feeling optimistic and positive yeah I always
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have been positive and I take and it may we will be the medical people the oncologist saying look this is we've got
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it think we'll get there early and it's better to you know do the radiation now
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and wait to see and so I've I've had an MRI month six weeks ago um been seeing
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the radiation oncologist I've had to have hormone treatment to lower testosterone because the cancer feeds
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off testosterone so so then you have that hormone treat and there's a lot side effects and uh basically told my
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kids it feels like menopause because I get hot sweats and flushes and um yeah I can get a bit grumpy and my kids said
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yeah what's changed so so look it is what it is I can't change that but um I
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just want people out there sort of to know that there are a lot of people that go through it I'm normal human being and
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um yeah looking after health is a priority so if I have to watch my diet watch what I drink then that's what I
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have to do still exercise. Yeah, you you're very fit. You're you're a fit
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bugger. This this all feels um it feels quite it feels quite cruel. Like how old
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are you? You're 64 now. 64. 64. Yeah. So you're almost retirement age. you've had
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this um incredible life of service like from the age of 19 when you join you like you've done so much and it's like
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feels like it's the stage of your life where you should be winding down on the
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career and just enjoying the fruits of your you know lifelong service and um yeah I don't know it it feels unfair
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yeah well I don't I don't look that way I look at I look there's a lot people
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worse off than I am and I think hopefully I've got it early enough the radiation will
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I I have I know a few people have been through this and it was at the time I was on the prostate um the operation had
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it out you know the indication was that this could well happen and so while it hasn't been in the back of my mind now
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it happens okay stop that and you deal with it um I yeah it is what it is I can't change that I just uh do what I
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can you know I don't never wake up not wanting to go to work I really enjoy the
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work I do I enjoy you know the involve when I have cases and working for you know families faro just and so they're
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on tragic cases but you know like I've always said oh I treat people the way I
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would want to be treated and it doesn't matter what their backgrounds are you if
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they've lost a loved one to murder then they need this wrap around support yes what so prostate cancer 2019 um
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diagnosed shortly after David Melain's funeral around. No, no, it was so we had
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the Grace Main investigation in December 2018. In early January 2019, myself and
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the victim leazison officer flew to the UK for Grace's funeral, but there's a
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whole lot of investigative work to do over there. And you know every February I was having
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my medical checkup with the doctor and came back late January early February had medical.
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Since then there's been throat cancer melanoma. Yeah. It was back in it was during CO actually and once again my
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February check up with the doctor and he just did a test and what and then he says anything else I said oh you got
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this niggly cough but I think it's just because I'm wearing a mask all the time
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he goes oh he feels oh you got a lump so he end up having an ultrasound having a
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biopsy and oh hang thyroid cancer there so I had half the thyroid taken out most
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people stab me in the back um but it was funny and at the time at a time he said oh you've got a dodgy mole
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in the stomach I said well why don't you take it out and he said well I didn't
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have your consent I said like I wouldn't give you consent under anesthetic so I
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went back we took it out and then get a call three or four days later this is melan get back in here so they take a
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big chunk out uh and they came back and said look we've got it earlier had the
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it's almost yeah the tenles grow down and um hadn't And so he said, "We've got it." But
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every six months wake the skin check. Yeah. Thanks for sharing this stuff. Yeah.
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What a um Yeah, this has really rattled me. Yeah. Uh but that is life. And there's a lot of as I say, there's
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people who've gone through worse than what I'm going through. And you know, I
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can still exercise. Um yes, I get a bit more tired easier. Can't run as far as I
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like to, but um I can still exercise. And I have have a good life. f my kids, my grandkids, my partner. It's
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well, good luck with this this chapter. Yeah. Yeah. It's just another phase in
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my life and uh get through it. Yeah. So, uh on doing the research for this podcast today, I realized you and I have
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got something in common which I never knew. We both are from uh Palmer North. Yes. Um same um education background as
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well. So, the the Latin phrase nihil labor, what does that mean to you? Nothing gained without hard work. But
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it's hard labor actually lesson for labor. So yes, that's the Palms boys
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high school model school motto and uh yeah it was uh I went through there. I was a prefect there.
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Who was the who was the principal when you were there? Eric White. Oh yeah. They called him recctor then. Yeah.
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Yeah. Fantastic. And what was your what was your house? Gordon Albian Vernon. Vernon. I was
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club captain. Were you club captain? Yeah. I was captain of the first 11 football team. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Were
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you um did you embrace the marching? Of course. That's why so that's why I was
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so good at police college when I had to march. I could have done it. This is this is one thing I love about um uh
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this school that that that we shared Palmer North Boys High. Um I've been organizing a podcast in the previous
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week with um Ruben Love who's like an up andcoming rugby player. Plays for the
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Hurricanes, plays for the All Blacks. Um he's a lot younger than lot younger than
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you and I. um but same school background and on in our DMs we've been going backwards and forwards about what house
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we're in and the marching. So there's all these traditions that were at the
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school when I was there in the 80s you were there in the 70s I guess. Yes. And um they're still going on today. Yeah.
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It was interesting because I uh when was it end of 2023? I was guest speaker at the boys high school old boys
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association annual dinner. something went down there and then they had a few guys sort of, you know, at school when I
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was there and some of my good mates came along. It did really good catch up. Um,
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yes. So, and it was straight after school that you um went down to Trentham to um become a police officer at the age
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of 19. Got there's so much to talk about with you um Scott Beard. Um but in doing
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this research, so you've been a cop for 45 years. You you were in the news just
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last week for um you you were speaking outside court and it was for an offender that was found guilty for some covert
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filming. Pleaded guilty. Yeah. Spy camera, right? Yeah. And and it it just made me sort of think of the um just
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incredible changes you've seen in your careers. Like this crime would not have
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been possible in 1980 when you started. No. Technology has changed the world and
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sometimes for good like investigative wise CCTV what we can do around phones you know computers you know really helps
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with the investigations but it also is an enabler for those and you just take fraud scams u things like that uh you
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know the dare I say the child sexual abuse and exploitation online horrendous [Music]
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yeah other changes in your career, DNA, um drugs I guess as well, like just the complexity of drugs and the drugs that
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are available. Yeah, absolutely. Like I worked up in Kao as a detective for nearly 3 years way back in the early
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'90s and cannabis was huge. Yeah. You know, at times I thought the economy revolved around cannabis, but now it's
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the myth, you know, across society. It's myth is the scourge of society. Mhm.
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Um I've got a photo here. Oh gosh. What uh what do you think when you when you
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look at this guy? Yeah, that was the uh young console at the Trentham Police College cuz it wasn't
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Peru then. It we Trenth and uh Yeah. So 19 19. Yeah. I like I was at school in fact as a prefect my final year at
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school in 1978 and prefects were allowed to hand out detentions and so I was the first
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prefect to hand out attention they said oh you just be a policeman you know and guess what
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yeah is that what you why did you why did you want to be a cop did you want anything else well I had thought about
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being a lawyer it's just but I think the academics you know just yeah I there's I
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cuz I played football against some police officers who were, you know, at senior level at school and they were
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really good guys. I like them. And then my next door neighbor, their son was a detective sergeant, Snow Pratt in Palmer
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North at the time. And um yeah, just it was just that influence. I thought, "Oh,
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yeah. Okay. Yeah, do this." By the way, I've used the word cop a couple of times
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and I've noticed you've said um um police officer. Is is cop an offensive
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term or is it a uh I won't Well, no. not using it directly. Like way back it was
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the traffic cop and we were always just police and New Zealand police and I've
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always I just use the term police cuz I joined New Zealand police. Traffic? Yeah. Traffic cops. Ministry of
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transport. I vaguely remember them with the big boots. Black and white cars. Yeah. Yeah. You would have been you
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would have been a a police officer when the merger happened. Yeah. I was in KO at the time and you know like we Kao was
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small. You didn't have a lot of staff. you didn't have Dr. CB staff and we
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worked closely with MOT and so you know the merger was nothing too different for us really
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because we worked with them anyway so no one liked the e yeah it was different back then a different vibe um yeah that
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must have been an interesting change because suddenly you know you had police that did policing and then suddenly you
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had to you know I don't know hand out like speeding tickets and things and take on traffic duty abuse and and but
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look if you're looking to save lives and you know a lot of our work is around
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prevention you know and I want to talk about you know child sexual abuse later because you know that's one of my key
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worlds in terms of what I work in but it's just looking at the f trying to save lives and what and so speed alcohol
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drugs driving badly you know whether it's innocent or they kill themselves they're killing people dying and you
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just have to see the figures and uh and we got to have a role to play that Yeah.
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Yeah. I I mentioned on Instagram you were coming here and I asked if anyone had any questions and there there was um
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actually very few questions. They mainly just like um statements, people saying,
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you know, please thank Scott for his empathy and his compassion and you words like that that get bounced around. Are
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they are they good words to describe you? Do you think? Look, I can walk through an airport and somebody will
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stop me or straight someone say, "Oh, you're that policeman, aren't you?" And
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then they'll say, "Thanks for all you do." Yeah. Which is terrific. But I'm
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the public face and have the media profile. Yet my staff and the staff right around the country do fantastic
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work, you know. And no, we're not always going to get it right. It's just
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reality. But you know, investigative wise, you look at some of the investigations around the country and
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the results they get and you know, they put in a lot of work um working with the
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families, working, you know, and just getting to where they get to do a prosecution. And of course for me I I I
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would never go by without saying it's a team effort has to be the team and yes I
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sit at the top uh and I the media but it's a staff on the ground doing the hard yards and yeah we direct and
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guidance and that but they're out there doing it and uh it all comes together.
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Everybody it's no it's no different from a sports team the different positions if
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everybody does their part as a team you'll function well. So, um there's been massive changes in
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policing in the the time you've been involved. Um what about this guy here? Uh change big biggest changes in this
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guy here between then 1980 and now. Gosh. Well, I still Well, I'm playing walking football now. So, that's an age
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thing. Uh I I think it's just my knowledge. I think when you first join the police,
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you know, you look and because we deal with, you know, 90% of our work is dealing with some bad people, but in
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society, they're probably only 10% of society and it's easy to lose focus. And
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I think with experience, with age, you know, I look and I, if I use child sexual abuse as an example, uh I in fact
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I spoke up in Kaikoi beginning of last year, a group up there called massive men against sexual violence and they
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just wanted to highlight the sexual abuse of primarily children but also women up in society there. and they
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asked me to come and speak and I did and I I said look we get complaints we deal
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with them and we have to hold the offenders to account and that's our job but I said I've been around long enough
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now to say well what's happened to offender from this age growing up and as it was the speaker after me was a former
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gang member leader who's out of the gang his late 60s and he got up and started
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speaking and he just looked at me and he said from this age here I was physically
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being sexually abused are we not to do the same thing and so you know what are we doing in society to look after our
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young ones because they're the future and I I did a research paper health board and while what I what we're doing
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was more for juries around medical examinations but we looked at 20 years and one of the things I just because of
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my curiosity I just looked at where are these victims now and what he did from 1999 to
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2019. And so many of them were either alcoholics, drug addicted, criminals, lived in violent
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relationships, had health issues, mental health issues, and the worst thing I saw
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so much suicide. Now they are our children who are being sexually abused at a young age.
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Now, if we can do something now, we're going to save society so much money down
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the track. You know, the alcoholism, drug addiction, criminality, suicide, mental health. Um, and you know, I've
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worked in child sexual abuse 1989. I started working that field as a detective for three years. Uh, I've been
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a detective sergeant in charge of a child abuse team as it was as a detective senior sergeant. I uh oversaw
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the child abuse team or became a child protection team. And even now as a DI, I still and I, you know, I have child
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protection team, the child exploitation, which is all online stuff, child sex offender management, so the sex offender
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register and all the people on the register who have to be monitored by the team. So, so right through my career and
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yes, I've done other done homicides and I've worked with organized crime and
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financial crime stuff in general work, but that child sexual abuse has always run through my career. And um I just as
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I say when I go back to all the football coaching I've done it's because I see
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that as being kids in sport has been really positive a it's mentally good for
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them but physically it's good it teaches them life skills teamwork discipline
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punctuality I was a tough coach at times um and yeah and it's and if they're
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teenagers you've got them off the street and they're sort of involved they got to
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focus and I just I look back and I think gosh can society can we do more with some of the children who don't get the
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opportunity what can we do but what can I do and anyone listening to this is is it a is
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it a a neighborhood thing and a community thing oh yeah it it is a community thing like there's a lot like
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one of the things I've always thought of was you know say in the lower social
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economic where it's difficult and parents can't afford children being sport and um you know like if you had
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some type of social worker volunteer social worker pick kids up in a van, take them and then whether it was
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basketball, whether it's women touch rugby, whether it's football, you know,
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by just getting them out active and just it's something positive. But yeah, and
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it's easy for me to say, but it's hard to put into place, but you know, that's
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where you have volunteers out there who or sports, cultural groups, whatever. And it's fantastic. and I've been a
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volunteer and so I take my hats off to them because you know they give up their own time and it's for the betterment of
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future. Um it's hard to imagine a more like draining arm of the police to be in than
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um you dealing with the kids stuff. Yeah. And if I use child homicides, baby homicides, it's really difficult. And
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you know, a lot of our staff we work on there will have young children. Yeah. So
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I've got to be mind as a leader and boss. So I got more mindful of that and it's yeah I couple of years ago I was
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asked to facilitate management serious crime course at police college for two weeks which was for detective senior
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sergeants and senior detective sergeants um and the course theme was child homicide because I've run so many and I
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have a lot of contacts within the child abuse world. uh headquarters detective inspector and I ran the course and it
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was tough. You could see on those participants it's tough but you know the police are so good now compared to say
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when I started you know the wellness the welfare the psychological counseling you
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know psychologist available some of those squads you know my child protection child exploitation child sex
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management they are mandatory have to go for psychological counseling a couple times a year.
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Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The change changes in that time must have been seismic. Like um when you started I
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suppose you couldn't sort of show any sort of weakness or vulnerability at all. Um people tell you to harden harden
00:21:44
the [ __ ] up. Yeah. Basically it was it was take a concrete film. You're Yeah.
00:21:48
You're a [ __ ] if you But but it was Yeah. It was just a little bit the way
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it was the culture of it at that time. But you know like I look back at some of my DIS that I had as bosses and yeah
00:22:01
what they said went. But there was nice good guys and you learned a lot and look
00:22:05
as a boss you I've got my good points I've got my bad points and people can
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learn from me and I really enjoy now passing on my school's knowledge experience to the staff like I've been
00:22:14
in Wellington this week uh you know presenting the course and uh you know I've got to that age where you know like
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what can I do to help this staff grow and be better detectives better police officers. you what are the biggest sort
00:22:28
of leadership lessons you've got over the years? I think communication with the staff is
00:22:34
important. like you know there was some bosses I had who it was just bang bang bang you do this there's no consultation
00:22:40
no and I think communication is really key and important for our staff particularly the younger generation and
00:22:48
consultation and I remember couple of years ago homicide we're working on and
00:22:54
we're going places and so during the night my mind raised right should the business so I had a meeting with the
00:23:00
NCOs's before we had a big team meeting and I said right this is what I want
00:23:03
blah blah blah blah And one of my detective sergeants said I thought what what if we did this and did it that way
00:23:09
and I thought actually that's better than my fault and you know he's operational he's on the street you know
00:23:15
I basically s my office stuff like that and I thought no you're right and so I
00:23:21
was quite prepared to change my view on what we're going to do because yeah and
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that's listen to my staff and I think that's important for staff and as leaders you know we've got to listen to
00:23:31
our staff because they're the ones out on the You know, it's different on the street
00:23:35
now than what it was when I was on the street. And I can have my views and I've
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got, you know, I've been there, done that for a lot of things, but it's different now. And so talking to the
00:23:44
staff, it's that communication, that interacting, and you're not there as a
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boss, bang, bang, bang, you know, like you do as I say because I'm your Yeah.
00:23:54
It's, you know, how's things going? You know, what's happening at home? you
00:23:56
know, you know, like and like for me with my football, there's a number of staff who support various English
00:24:02
football teams and so we have a good banter, you know, and I think that's that's really good for them. They
00:24:06
haven't come to work. Yeah. I know some staff, well, I don't really speak the
00:24:10
boss, but you know, the staff that know me come to life. And have you always been um like quite a compassionate and
00:24:17
caring guy or is this something that you've um sort of developed over the years after dealing with, you know, so
00:24:22
much sort of misery and grief? Well, I think early on in my CIB career, as I say, you know, there are some
00:24:30
cases and you work on them and there were quite big cases, you know, the Rex Bill homicide in North Motel in
00:24:37
1988 and then in ' 89 had the Swedish inquiry uh operation Stockholm and just
00:24:44
dealing particularly operation Stockholm. I was involved with Swedish families when they came out. It was high
00:24:51
department hogman at that time it hadn't been found and you know you feel for
00:24:57
them and I think then I started working in child abuse and you these young children who are being abused and what
00:25:08
can you do for I remember there was one young girl and it was a gang member sexually abused her
00:25:15
and in the end he sort of made partial admissions when I interviewed him but back in those has Cor in New Zealand had
00:25:23
cor and needs to fly a plane load of children over to Disneyland and I managed to get this young girl he's 9
00:25:29
years old to um on the flight to go to Disneyland and I think if we can do something for our children they've been
00:25:37
through grief you know my partner Gory Masters she's a survivor but she's just
00:25:42
written a book keeping kids safe and it's just gone out to every school in New Zealand and you know that's about
00:25:49
looking after the adult survivors of child sexual abuse because the triggering things that trigger them in
00:25:56
life and just carry on and on and on and whether they've been to the police,
00:25:59
whether the person's been charged, convicted, whatever, you know, they have to live their whole life knowing what
00:26:05
happened to them. And it's so abusive and yeah, intrusive. I Yeah. So I I do a
00:26:13
lot um quite happy to support he runs a charity called Handing the Shame Back. It's all about supporting adults
00:26:20
childish and I know I've been asked by them by have a help promote a global hand sign for children under 16 which is
00:26:29
a simple because children can't talk in certain situations. They don't know how
00:26:37
to verbalize or they're very scared or be believed. And so how do teachers, parents, family, friends pick up if
00:26:48
they're not saying anything? But if they use this a hand signal and it has been used and it has
00:26:56
saved some. So yeah, I'm I'm as because my career has lot in child sexual abuse.
00:27:04
I'm keen to work in that area. Yeah. even voluntarily just to help out so that as a society, as a country, we can
00:27:13
do something better. You mentioned a couple of um high-profile cases there from earlier in
00:27:19
your career. Um yes. So, let's go back and we'll run through some of these. So,
00:27:24
you graduate in 1980 as um a 19year-old and then um so all you're known at that
00:27:30
point is Palmer North and then you get sent to Oakland for some reason. paint a picture of Oakland in 1980. So
00:27:37
you're living you live in like some sort of police barracks, right? At the police
00:27:40
station. Yes. So some good homework. No, the uh Yeah. So you get when you join the police, I was asked, you know,
00:27:48
what's your four um main where would you want to go? You know, rank four places.
00:27:53
So I put I want to go to big cities. So Wellington's close to Palm. So I put
00:27:56
Wellington. I thought I like Napia, Hawksway, Napia, New Plymouth. And I'll put Palmer last. And they sent me
00:28:02
Dorland. So hello. Uh we used to have to live in barracks in Vincent Street right
00:28:08
next to the central police station and that was a 100 me walk to work and but there's an intercom in your room so they
00:28:15
could get you anytime they wanted and I I'd been to Oakland once for a football
00:28:20
tournament and you stayed on the shore and the tournament was at college and so I had didn't know at all and I remember
00:28:27
my first couple of weeks I was walking beat in Queen Street and someone comes up to me and you expected to be a
00:28:33
walking side and Someone came up to me and said, "Oh, where's the Canterbury
00:28:38
Building Society?" I looked and said, "Christ Church." Well, it was across the
00:28:43
road and about 50 m down. So, you soon learned, but that was that's what I knew. I that's all I knew. I didn't know
00:28:50
Aland at all. And uh you know, back then you had the boots, the skin, um some of
00:28:56
the bad boots. What are they? It was like a gang. Yeah. The skin head the boot boys. Yeah. Back then there was a
00:29:01
Yeah. Was that when um the the King Cobras were the Ponsby gang or uh they were? Yes. No, they were starting out.
00:29:08
Yeah, definitely out there. The head hunters were around. Uh yeah. And what were your big crimes then?
00:29:16
Oh, well, bank robberies, right? Yeah. I remember when I first joined the CV, bank robberies were huge. Yeah. All the
00:29:23
time. And um yeah, but we'll go into a bank, jump up the counter, fire a shot
00:29:28
through the ceiling and take money and run. And we did a lot of work around those. Uh be fair, fraud, like when I
00:29:36
first joined the CI, I was actually came as a uniform attachment and the weekend before I
00:29:42
started I broke my uh thumb playing football and a ball kicked into so they put me on fraud squad and course it was
00:29:50
check series back then. So you had the the checks of course. Yeah. It's a long
00:29:54
time ago. A long time ago. Checks have bounced and stuff like that. And uh yeah, sort of credit cards are just
00:30:00
starting to come into play. And it was different from Broadway where you look at it now and look at the online scams.
00:30:06
Look at the telephone scams, all that stuff. Yeah. You reflect on that now. It's a simpler time. I remember going to
00:30:12
the fish and chip store and there'd be like a wall of dishonored checks hanging
00:30:15
up there and please um and I've heard you make what what I think is a joke. Um, so the the police barracks where you
00:30:22
were staying, they had three rules. No women, no alcohol, no drugs. I've heard
00:30:26
you say in another interview you um obeyed one of the rules. Well, I think Yeah, you had drugs. No, sorry. Just
00:30:34
Yeah. Yeah. Jeez. Um, yeah. Can you remember your first arrest? I Funny you say because because I was thinking of
00:30:43
coming on here and it was in those days we could arrest people for being drunk in a public place.
00:30:50
And it was a female in her 20s and she was paraly. So we arrested for Ben. She pleaded not guilty cuz sometimes they
00:30:59
can plead guilty and pay a fine and go back then not guilty. Went to court and I had to go to court and the judge said
00:31:07
to me when I was giving evidence, could you understand her? And I said yes. He said she wasn't
00:31:15
drunk then and quitted her. And I thought to myself, I should have said yes because I've been drunk and I know
00:31:21
how to slur my words so I could understand. But anyway, it was but that was back then, you know, we don't do
00:31:26
that now. Yeah. Yeah. Um, when you started, how long how long did you see this career lasting? Did you imagine it
00:31:32
would be a entire your entire working life? Well, I I think back then, you know, it was one vocation in life sort
00:31:39
of thing, but I didn't know I didn't know where it was going to take me. Uh,
00:31:43
yeah, I I joined, you know, I was brand new in Oakland. didn't really know anyone couple of guys who were in my
00:31:48
wing and yeah you get to know people started playing sport get to meet more people uh you know met with wife then
00:31:57
wife and yeah married had children and you start to grow and then of course I've been in the job six years and some
00:32:04
of my mates had joined the CIB criminal investigation branch how is it oh it's
00:32:09
good it's really good you know lot of study it was bit fresher you know and I
00:32:14
thought Yeah, I'd been like spring block tour Queens riot. Um I just thought yeah
00:32:21
time you know murder is the number one crime in New Zealand and you want to be investigator that's what you want to
00:32:27
investigate. So joined the CRB in 1986. Just backing up a bit you mentioned yeah
00:32:33
the spring tour 1981. Yeah. Yeah. What was your involvement in that? So well I wasn't on the red squad but basically uh
00:32:42
particularly once the white Hamilton game was abandoned. Yeah. It was really ramped up. So I remember flying in
00:32:50
Hercules down to New Plymouth for the next game. Uh then we flew to Wonganui. In fact we flown to Wonganui. We got
00:32:58
down there. Intelligence was there was going to be a big protest in Ka Pass in Oakland. So we had lunch and we flew
00:33:05
back. We didn't even go to police the game and then you know you would obviously
00:33:13
every basically Wednesday and Saturday when there were games there were protests and so you'd have to police
00:33:18
those and yeah just yeah looking after Eden Park time security there for for a young man so 20 years old 21 years old
00:33:29
at that point um a relatively new cop um is that that exciting and exhilarating Uh yes and no. You know, it was the
00:33:36
unknown. Hadn't been through this before and you know, the training was different. We we certainly didn't have
00:33:43
the protective gear that police have to have now. And but it was also quite sad.
00:33:49
I remember one time there was a protest and was marching down Simon Street and we had to get on a bus
00:33:56
and line up as protest walk past and they'd be yelling at you and have phones. And I remember standing next to
00:34:04
one of the um Mari police officer and he got abused. Yeah. You know, they they seem to target him and I just I didn't
00:34:13
like that. And then but we had to then they'd walk past the protest would walk
00:34:16
past, we'd have to get back on the bus, drive further down the street, get out
00:34:20
and go through it all again because we didn't have enough staff and that's how
00:34:24
we had to police it. And uh yeah, so it was interesting and I I know people have
00:34:28
their views and I don't get into politics around that. Um my only thoughts is that police staff had to be
00:34:35
there. We didn't have a choice. That was our job to be there. Whether we be supported or not, uh we had to be there.
00:34:42
And sort of the worst thing for me was one of the guys I knew been on the Red Squad ultimately commit suicide cuz he'd
00:34:49
been severely injured. And um what was the Red Squad? So like the red squad was well no that they were a squad formed
00:34:57
trained and they traveled around with the spring box at their hotel and they did the Yeah. And they were the ones who
00:35:06
went on you know white cattle went onto the field um highly trained. Really good
00:35:10
guys. Really good guys. Yeah you know I knew quite a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Um yeah, in in terms of um like mental health and
00:35:18
and suicide within within police, is it much of an issue? The things that you guys you guys do and experience, it's
00:35:24
it's not normal. Well, I know of three star three star who have committed suicide way back. You know, the police
00:35:33
now, as I said before, have really moved on and in terms of their wellness and welfare for the staff, it's a priority.
00:35:40
And as a leader, it has to be my priority. I had to look and you know do I notice something going on here and if
00:35:45
I do hang on you need to take a few days off just um and you know the availability of going to a psychologist
00:35:54
you know which said before I've been to psychologist but it's a bit like I said
00:35:58
the analogy is you have a car you get a warrant for the car well going to psychologist means like get a warrant
00:36:06
just making sure that you are functioning last yeah I'm 100% what you what was When did you first see a
00:36:13
therapist? How old were you? Uh oh, no. This fact for me it wasn't no during
00:36:22
the around 2011 or 12 because some of the squads we had our child protection they were then had to go to see the uh
00:36:31
psychologist. And so I would go while I wasn't down in the weeds doing the dayto-day investig investigative work
00:36:38
you know because I had my staff there I had to deal with them. I would go so I could get a picture of a what's going on
00:36:45
with my staff if I needed to but also right okay this watch this with staff I've got to watch this myself thing but
00:36:53
you know I have to grace my own case I saw the psychologist just just to get essay it's like wonder if it get check
00:36:59
yeah yeah I I feel like in some areas there still is like a a stigma about it or it seem to be seem to be weak but um
00:37:06
it's definitely not it's it's wonderful it's like a personal trainer for your
00:37:08
head it's it That's brilliant. And you know, my children, we have grandchildren. You know, I want to be
00:37:14
good them. I want to be happy and playing and all that. Try to stay fit. Um, but Oh, no. As I mentioned earlier,
00:37:22
like I can't reiterate this. Um, I I think you're in great neck for for a man
00:37:26
that's almost at retirement age actually for any age. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I say I
00:37:30
just I've always believed that physically fit, mentally fit and cuz I've played sports. I've run, you know,
00:37:36
I used to run half marathons and stuff like that and uh yeah, age is catching up on me and some of the old football
00:37:41
injuries is catching up. So, I can't run as much as I'd like to, but you just
00:37:46
change what I do. So, I have a little routine now where you know I'll do press
00:37:50
ups, sit-ups, weights, um, and then go for a a basically K run, then do my sit-ups, weights, and do that again.
00:38:00
Then do five minutes on the X cycle, then do my sit-ups, press ups, weights, and stuff, then go for another run, you
00:38:06
know. So, I've just I've changed my fitness, but I still do that. I try and
00:38:09
do that two to three times a week. Yeah. So, I've heard stories about you from
00:38:14
previous colleagues that e even though you didn't have to do this, you still um
00:38:17
put your hand up to do the police fitness test like well into your 50s like dragging a trailer around and like
00:38:22
climbing up over a fence. You did it last year. Why? You're a desk jockey now, aren't
00:38:27
you? Yeah. But I just it's sometimes that's about leadership, you know. Hey,
00:38:32
probably for me personally, I'm not let them think I can't do it. Ego, but but I
00:38:36
for the Yeah, I'll go out and do it. Yeah. you know, and uh you know, like I
00:38:41
think at 50 you can touch the wall, but you know, last year I went over struggle
00:38:44
to get over it, but I got over someone took a photo of me going over. But yeah, no, it does. And that's
00:38:50
just a personal challenge. Can I stay fit enough to keep doing the PCT and the full PC going over the wall? That's
00:38:56
wonderful. I as a guy that's 52 now, I find that inspiring. Um yeah, I I hope
00:39:01
to be the same when I'm 64 as well. Um yes, so we talked about the uh the spring book rights in 81. And you
00:39:07
mentioned um also Queen Street Rights in '84. I had um I had Andrew Fagen on the
00:39:11
podcast last year who was the lead singer of a band called the Mockers. Yes. Yes. Um so they Queen Street Riot
00:39:17
um it was like an end of school year concert thing at AOT Square December 1984. Yeah. And andrew Fagen and his
00:39:26
band the mockers were playing in the afternoon. I asked him his recollections of it and he said, "Oh, there was some
00:39:30
bottles being thrown at him." But then afterwards, he just walked back to his
00:39:33
boat in West Haven. And of course, no internet, no cell phones, no technology. So, he slept blissfully unaware of what
00:39:39
was going on in his boat. And the next day, um, you know, managed to get to his landline and call his manager and his
00:39:45
manager was like, "Are you okay? Are you okay?" What What are your recollections
00:39:49
of that time? Okay. What caused it, by the way? Was it herbs in the afternoon? No. So, so what happened was there was
00:39:58
people who' got up on the o lane at the post office as it was then up on the ver and started
00:40:04
urinating. So police got up to put them down, you know, and you know, they got abuse, you know, and um
00:40:14
it started there and like that night cuz I was working at Aenddale myself and I had a permanent partner, a guy
00:40:23
car, but in it was a Friday night and that week we were our shift was 7:00 at night to 3:00 in the morning. But we
00:40:32
used to have to come in to this city to get a car for the night. And we had an inquiry, this is funny, we had an
00:40:41
inquiry section at Aenddale and they had this brand new, spanking new Ford Falcon. It was their pride and joy. You
00:40:50
know, it probably had even 100ks. It was so new and and we needed a car just to come to the station, get a car, go back.
00:40:56
So that's what we did. Took that on the way. And this is about 6:30 at night. on
00:41:01
the way. Oh, can you go to AT Square? It's disorder. It's out of hand. Um,
00:41:07
okay. Where do you want us to park? Oh, just park out where the picture theaters
00:41:12
are in Queen Street there. So, that's where we park this brand new packing gun. And at that time because we had our
00:41:19
PR24 to come out the longer pattern which come out during spring. Uh but we had had no he we just had a short sleeve
00:41:29
t-shirt and you get out there and next thing this riot is developing. It's getting worse and ultimately we ended up
00:41:38
doing bad charges down Queen Street but we had nothing in the bottle of flying. I think there's something like 56 police
00:41:44
officers taken to hospital that night. And I remember at one stage we were doing B charge down and you just go 20
00:41:49
meters instead of stopping the boss want to come back 10 meters which as soon as
00:41:53
you came back they b on but you'd be doing bon charge and the person I remember when the person beside me just
00:41:59
screamed and dropped you know and because all we had was our unifor we didn't have protective and yeah I think
00:42:07
I finished 3:00 the next morning and my partner was covered in blood. Yeah. And it was like a war zone. It was
00:42:16
horren. It was a riot and um yeah, I remember one time you'd heard that because we forcing them back down Queen
00:42:24
Street. Then you start hear the glass going and they were just smashing every shop window it was. And then you start
00:42:30
see the looting stuff. It was just out of control. And uh yeah, and the worst thing was that brand new wood falcon had
00:42:40
every panel smashed. He was on this roof and yeah, those inquiry staff because they're older policemen just gave me
00:42:48
grief. I still know see one of them and he still gives me grief. Oh, it was like your fault. Yeah, cuz we
00:42:55
took their car and you know cuz we're going to pick up our car we have the night and take their car back. You know
00:43:00
that didn't happen. So So I think um Dave Dobin faced some charges didn't cuz
00:43:06
I think his band Smash was on stage at the time. Yeah. Yeah. Um Yeah. Yeah. Do you like DD Smash or Dave D? I do like
00:43:13
the music. Yeah. I'm not impressed because I had friends who were cuz there was only police by a sergeant who I knew
00:43:21
I actually played football with and five star and of course it's a full AS square
00:43:27
and they turn on them and yeah it was pretty tough and they're just trying to
00:43:31
do their job. Um but yeah I do listen to that music. Does it is it triggering at
00:43:38
times? Yeah. Yep. And and in fact if Yeah. But when I hear the name, you know, yeah, right, am I automatically
00:43:45
where I go? Yeah. Yeah. And the funny thing just bringing up the differences between like then and now in terms of
00:43:50
policing, like a big part of the Grace Main case, and we'll get into that, centered around um this the incredible
00:43:56
um CCTV footage. Yeah. High definition footage everywhere back then in ' 84.
00:44:01
Yeah. Um none of those looters would have been caught, right? Because there was not a camera anywhere. No, no
00:44:06
cameras there. Um, and another one you mentioned before, um, Operation Stockholm, the
00:44:12
Swedish tourists. Yeah. So, what was your involvement with that? That was down Cormander way, right? So, what
00:44:17
happened was I was working a dirty weekend and it was a Saturday and or Sunday, it might have
00:44:22
been. And uh the Swedish couple were missing. Not that we knew uh cuz it last been in ts and it had a car and the car
00:44:31
was found in Wland Street in M. And so the DI John Hughes at the time got a group of us together cuz we were
00:44:38
working and uh he just basically said right you you and you'll be on this quarry and you and you you'll be on till
00:44:47
the end. And he pointed to me you'll be on to the end. Uh and it started from
00:44:51
there and so we started doing general inquiries trying to background and stuff and then um cuz I had a couple of young
00:44:59
children at the time so staff who didn't went to based in teams I was based in
00:45:04
Oakland and yeah we went for a few months and then David Tam Harry's name came up and I was we we had a code that
00:45:16
if the detective senior sergeant rang us and said copy's boiling. We were on to
00:45:22
it. Definitely on to it. And I don't know, Wednesday night, something like that in the week about
00:45:29
7:00 and I get a phone call from Danger Coffees. Well, you know, because been full time on inquiry and so I went out,
00:45:38
I had to get a search warrant for the address where this family lived in Aenddale. And then we found property
00:45:46
belonged to a Swedish couple and it went from there. And then the next morning, uh, I think I finished about 2:00 in the
00:45:53
morning back at work 8:00 briefing and they had a team to go up to Men where Tim Hi was and I was included in that
00:46:03
team part of the interview team and and it started from there and and of course that day admitted to stealing the car,
00:46:14
but that was all. And it just went from there. And then my one of my tasks was to do background into him or his
00:46:23
criminal offending or cases and stuff like that which which I did and yeah we interviewed him a number of
00:46:31
times and he got charged and trial and you know it was a circumstantial case you know nobody's been found in no scene
00:46:41
was circumstantial and yeah got convicted. when you're interviewing someone like
00:46:46
that. Um yeah, what's it like? Do you Michelle Obama's got this quote that um I've you
00:46:54
I've used on the podcast heaps. I'll probably botch it up, but it's something
00:46:57
like um most people are hard uh to dislike up close. I feel like there's probably exceptions to that rule. And
00:47:03
I've had um an old lady who was on the podcast, Chuck Henwood. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
00:47:07
Yeah. Yeah. Um we talked to him about um who was Malcolm Ray. Oh, Malcolm Ray Jerry Thompson. Yeah. Yeah. No, Malcolm
00:47:14
Ray. He said dead in the eyes. Yeah. Imp impossible to like up close or far away.
00:47:18
Yeah. Um when you with someone like Tamahi who's, you know, been convicted and at that point was accused of like
00:47:24
murdering these um these backpackers. Yeah. What's it like? Look, he was an intelligent enough guy. He could talk
00:47:32
quite willingly talk about a whole lot of things. Obviously talk about the bush um that he grown up in.
00:47:37
Yeah. Like Yeah. He wasn't I've dealt with people before who we left in a room
00:47:43
with them where I never got that that Yes. I totally believe and I know it's
00:47:48
been through appeals and you know just even last year the court of appeal still found him guilty and um and I've always
00:47:56
believed that he was guilty you know my knowledge of all the files where he was involved in and my dealings with him and
00:48:03
yeah he won't people won't convince me otherwise. M yeah mate of mine put out a
00:48:08
podcast last year this guy Ryan Wolf put out a podcast called Gil which revisits
00:48:12
that when um you do do things like that like like do you listen to it does it bother you does it piss you off are you
00:48:18
indifferent about it you know I I have listened to it and I've spoken to Ryan
00:48:22
and uh there's certain things in there I go oh no that's not quite right but
00:48:27
there's other things oh that's interesting um but then you know from the investigation I was based in Oakland
00:48:31
yes once a week we had to go to Tims for a briefing to catch up with anything. So, I wasn't involved in a lot of the
00:48:36
stuff that went on down in Temp and the Daily Breakers, but we had so much work in Oakland to do. Uh, yeah.
00:48:45
Um, yeah. Another thing in your um amazing career, the 1990 Commonwealth Games, were you were you involved with
00:48:52
Protecting the Queen? Oh, yes, I was. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, sorry been on a a brand new team basically called
00:49:01
witness protection. That's VIP squad and went down do personal protection officer training.
00:49:11
Did that and and that included driving, firing this. Uh we then when the Comwalth Games
00:49:22
were on and Prince Andrew came first and I was a security car driver behind their
00:49:29
car. So I'd have British personal protection officers in the car and yeah we went round and then
00:49:38
uh on the on a closing ceremony could by then the queen had come across and so I
00:49:43
was driver behind the queen's car. So, I've done a lap of Mount Smart driving around. So badass. Yeah,
00:49:51
it's cool. I know. I know. Driving, not running. Um, yeah, there's some good memories,
00:49:57
eh? Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. The job is fantastic. You know, like, and I'd say to people, everything is
00:50:02
what you make of it. Yeah. Within the police, there are so many different fears. Whether you want to be a dog
00:50:06
handler, if you want to work some search and rescue, if you want to work on eagle, you know, like in going work in
00:50:12
rural, like I've worked in Kaoi, it's totally different work in the big city.
00:50:15
So I know both aspects you there's different you can work in the school community officer roles, all that sort
00:50:22
of stuff, youth aid, there's a whole vast range and yeah, everything's what
00:50:26
you make of it. And make sure you're happy. And that's my job. Make sure the
00:50:30
staff are happy because if they're not happy, they're not going to do a good
00:50:32
job. Yeah. Yeah. Most of the career um has been in Oakland, but yeah, there's
00:50:36
been stints in Kaoi and Hogs Bay. Yeah, they they eventually got you to Hogs Bay. I got there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:50:43
Yeah. What were How long were those stints for him? What was that? So, uh Kao I went up there because I had some
00:50:49
in-laws who lived Kitaya North. I had very close friends who lived Kerry Kerry and I just wanted something to you. I
00:50:55
just wanted to experience something totally different and believe me it was uh you know they called me the tar seal
00:51:01
detective when I got up there because a lot of the 80% of the roads in Northland
00:51:05
or the far north were not tal you know they're just yeah dirt tracks up um so but it was a
00:51:14
different and like I try and explain even to some of my staff now that I remember going out getting called to a
00:51:20
homicide at the back of openoni there was a single man I Uh there was myself as a detective. It's 45minute drive. You
00:51:30
go there, you could see the person in this house and then Foreman had been a convicted murderer. Uh if you go there,
00:51:37
you see the person and he's obviously dead in the house and his blood know he's been murdered. But a double story
00:51:42
house and thought gosh, we'll say someone else is in the house. Need to check. Stepping plates that you see at
00:51:47
crime scenes now haven't got to Northland. We had them in Oakland, not here, but we didn't have them in
00:51:52
Northland. So I have to rip pages out of my pad and to climb so I didn't in case I
00:51:59
contaminated the scene. There's none there. We get back. We then had to drive
00:52:03
5 kilometers to get communications. So we're out of comps where we were and then you have to wait 3 and 1 half hours
00:52:12
for the DI and staff to arrive from Pere. That doesn't happen in the big cities. But so I know what it's like in
00:52:21
rural small town New Zealand. What was Do you Did that feel like um Yeah. Is it a small town sort of job? Do you know
00:52:28
what I mean? Slower pace of life for a cop police officer. It was It wasn't a
00:52:33
slower pace of life. It was horrendously busy. I don't think I've ever been so
00:52:36
busy in my life. Wow. The serious crime was just Yeah. Bl. And but of course they didn't have they didn't have social
00:52:44
media. You didn't have media mainstream media up there. And so stuff that we
00:52:50
worked on would be front page news under the radar. So you had to work on it. And
00:52:56
you know if you had to go have a high court trial that was in fun. So you could have a case in say open which is
00:53:03
45 minutes away from Kaoi and the trial would be in fun and you've got to get
00:53:09
your witnesses there. So you start really early and get them. It's yeah it's a totally different world. And then
00:53:15
Hawks Bay what was what was going on down there? Was it a lot of gang activity? Yeah. Yeah. I I first one of
00:53:21
the reasons why I went down, you know, good out of Kao was we we'd come back to
00:53:26
Oakland for holidays and the traffic and of course there's no traffic lights in
00:53:29
KO at the time. I thought I'm not going back to Oakland. And uh then we lived on
00:53:35
a farm. We moved into the farm got moved into a police house and everybody knew where the detective lived. And then my
00:53:42
oldest son got beaten up to school cuz his dad was a detective and I thought, "Oh, that's not fair." and I've got a
00:53:47
you know yes it's an invention for kids but I've got to also look after them and
00:53:51
so I thought would always like horse bay so I was trying to get promotion to sergeant down there but a detective job
00:53:59
came up in so applied got that went down there and within about four or five months got a sergeant job at Hastings
00:54:06
which was a real open because I didn't know my way around and uh yeah had the
00:54:11
staff but it's also going back to uniform sergeant was leadership management 101 time. So, yeah.
00:54:21
Yeah. One thing that amazes me is like how much you've you've done. So, there's
00:54:24
the the career side of things, but also um your dad of four, three sons and a daughter. Yep. And a granddad now. We'll
00:54:29
get to that chapter of your life later, but um also like a a mate of mine, Brad,
00:54:33
messaged me and he said, "You coached his football team for a while and you
00:54:36
were president of the club." Um how Yeah. First of all, the extracurricular stuff
00:54:42
blows my mind and I suppose it's an essential thing to have that sort of balance, but I don't know how you how
00:54:46
you prioritize and fit it in. But also, um the family stuff like did you were there a lot of sacrifices made like
00:54:52
things that you missed because you had to drop everything in order to get back to a crisis at work? Absolutely. It was
00:54:59
um and and probably a really good example is we moved to Kaoi and we lived out on a farm in Kai. It was during the
00:55:06
school holidays. I had four children. My daughter was only six months old and within I think it's a week of being
00:55:15
working starting working up there. It was school holidays and cuz we live on farm so your nearest neighbor is about
00:55:20
200 meters away and you know my then wife didn't know anyone around and there's a homicide in Pong
00:55:29
which I got sent to and I was out of town for 10 days. So she's left by herself with the children and that's
00:55:36
where those small communities the wives and partners really get together and support each other which is really good.
00:55:43
So uh yeah I just think that there was times where yeah I did miss birthdays um which was
00:55:54
sad. Um but they understood you and we taught and kids are fantastic. They've
00:55:59
grown up now they're adults. I I know they're proud of me, but I am so proud
00:56:04
of them and what they've achieved and what they've done and uh Yeah. just
00:56:08
Yeah. that that they're my will. I just um the grandkids it's yeah and that's
00:56:15
you and you of course when your children start to grow up and they get to start playing sport and so I was involved with
00:56:21
coaching which is really great. as I said had three boys and a girl. Um I said to my boys once you reach teenage
00:56:27
years I'm going to stop coaching you because I don't want to lose the relationship the father son relationship
00:56:32
and give you advice but I'm not going to be coaching you and of course my oldest
00:56:36
boy at high school first year high school played football then I'm going to play rugby.
00:56:43
What? And that was but good on him. Yeah. He ended up playing league end up being vice captain of the college verse
00:56:49
15. Uh yeah that's it didn't matter as long as there's multiple boards you know
00:56:55
my daughter well gymnastics net football um some sons that surf I surf life saving all the kids that surf life
00:57:03
saving uh athletics I just anything to keep them occupied and yeah and I just got involved as a volunteer just got
00:57:11
involved coaching managing help me out uh and yeah then of course football club coast and 96 came back to Oakland
00:57:20
and just started coaching. One of mine in the police said, "You should get on
00:57:24
the junior committee did." And then, you know, just through the coaching, I I
00:57:31
ultimately did the international team coaches license back then through New Zealand football and I wasn't competent
00:57:37
yet at the end. So, I didn't gain that, but I had my national license. Uh but I
00:57:43
worked with New Zealand football coaching in theirmies and yeah I'd take you know week off work to run school
00:57:49
holiday programs up this coast and um yeah and then just giving back and then I got I like coaching the little ones
00:57:56
you know sort of seven eight years old but I also like coaching the 17 year olds the teenagers and because you can
00:58:03
have a really good a good role model and I know police throughout the country who
00:58:08
are involved in sports clubs and I've got some friends who've done it and I
00:58:11
think it's in the DNA to be community oriented, to be community-minded and get
00:58:15
out there and help in the community. And yeah, I see it. And you know, like for me, the big honor really is that there's
00:58:25
probably nearly a dozen players I've coached, both boys and girls, that join
00:58:28
New Zealand police, you know, and I think, well, you know, if I was a good role model for them and that's what
00:58:34
they've done. And I know there's other police out there around the country who
00:58:36
do the same thing. And I'm sure there's other kids who could have been doing the
00:58:40
police. God, you've been so generous, eh? You know, be easy to go, listen, you know,
00:58:47
I'm I'm tired. You I've got a I've got a family and my job and that's enough. Um
00:58:52
yeah, Brad, who I mentioned, a friend of mine. Um he wanted me to ask you about some FBI training. He said, "I've got
00:58:58
some you've got some great yarns about that." Did you What was FBI training?
00:59:01
So, you know, like I've been fortunate with New Zealand Police. Um some of the
00:59:05
leadership courses I've been on like back in 200 six I went to CRA for a month on a
00:59:14
what's called a management series crime course which is like almost a South Pacific type course but run by AFP in
00:59:21
CRA and there you get a lot of media training like we had almost a week of media training which was good you know
00:59:27
starts to repair you and although I'd already done some media I was I was a detective seen about it. And then in
00:59:35
2007, I went back to CRA for a um human trafficking for sexual exploitation course, a 3-week course um
00:59:46
which is around human trafficking, you know, forced labor, sex servitude. Uh and then I was really lucky in
00:59:55
2010. I was off the chance to go to quantico FBI academy over in the states for basically it's a 3 month or two and
01:00:04
a half month course which is like a university semester so you had to do seven subjects and I remember at the
01:00:12
time I was booked to go in January 2010 in the December my mother had been and she had had cancer 14 years earlier but
01:00:20
had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and I remember between the Christmas and
01:00:24
New Year I' taken down to the oncologist and she got off the toilet and I just
01:00:28
said to him, "Oh, next week I'm off to the States for 3 months and he just
01:00:31
looked at me and he shook his head." Oh. So I had to ring up and they changed it
01:00:36
to July and my mother passed away in February. Um so we yeah went across to Quantico seven sub you had to do witness
01:00:45
and law enforcement was compulsory. Uh the international students there's seven
01:00:49
uh there's sorry 272 people on the course and 30 of us were from all around the world. There was one from New
01:00:56
Zealand and the New Zealand police was at that time was sending one staff member every two years. So I was really
01:01:03
fortunate to go. Uh there's a couple from Australia but just Europe all around the world and uh yeah I'm still
01:01:10
Facebook friends with most of them and it's great. But yeah the course yeah so
01:01:16
fitness and law enforcement um international law paper. I did public speaking. I did police and the media did
01:01:25
strategies for dealing with violent crime, managing death investigations and last one was the
01:01:32
psychological profile of street and prison gangs. So it was like being at university the whole semester because we
01:01:39
had sort of small tests and presentations to do on it and uh but yeah it was fantastic but what I saw was
01:01:46
like my roommate he had shot and killed someone in the line of duty. There was a
01:01:51
guy across the room from me who had shot and killed a guy in the line of duty, but at the same time he had been shot
01:01:56
and you can see the facial reconstruction. Uh, and but that was the normal thing. That was life then. And
01:02:03
you know, dare I say, we're starting to see that a little bit now, New Zealand
01:02:07
police. But yeah, it was different like cuz in the FBI academy and they're from
01:02:12
all the law different law enforcement agencies across the state, police department, immigration type, um, drug
01:02:19
and alcohol Okay. Um, yeah. And they weren't allowed to have their fire for firearms. Well, they felt
01:02:26
naked. I remembered one time we went to a Walmart and they just couldn't believe
01:02:31
they were going without their fire for firearm. What? So what? You know, but not to them. Yeah. Yeah. What do you
01:02:38
think? Should should it should New Zealand police be armed? Look, I have I have views and it's easy for me because
01:02:44
I sit up in the office. I'm not on the street daily and I if I look at say small rural town small town rural New
01:02:53
Zealand where's your backup where's your and maybe they should you know in the
01:02:57
biggest cities there's a lot more backup it's getting to a stage you ultimately
01:03:02
you know a decision will be made now yeah I sort of swing both ways I sort of think in the big city maybe not um some
01:03:12
of the things that we put in place seem are doing well. They won't be perfect,
01:03:16
but once again, I'm not on the street. I'm not the one basic. And I read our
01:03:19
occurrences every day and there's always firearms being found. There's and you've
01:03:23
just seen the media. One of our team um this week found a 3D um firearm, you know, and all these guns
01:03:30
and there's a photo in the herald and and they look real and they do operate
01:03:35
like real and that's a real concern about firearms out there and the safety for our staff is huge.
01:03:43
So all this training you had the FBI staff and the media training in CA CRA I suppose um and all the experiences you
01:03:50
had as a police officer um pre Grace Main I suppose it all sort of you comulated yeah commulated commulated
01:04:00
yeah and to being the right man at the right time to be fair I had as a detective in Kao I'd done media as a
01:04:07
detective sergeant in Ory I'd had to do media so it wasn't knew and including like I was the 2 IC
01:04:16
of as a detective sergeant of the Joan McCarthy homicide in Pong 1998 and you know that role went for six
01:04:25
and a half weeks and there's lot and as to see you've got to organize coordinate
01:04:30
put the file together yes you have a team and you have a um B manager but everything falls on you to make sure
01:04:38
everything works and so there's a lot of pressure stress on that and so but my
01:04:43
boss let me do some meeting around that you know and and that's what I'm doing
01:04:47
I'm trying to get some of my staff to do more media some of them really nervous
01:04:50
don't worry but um it gets easy anything gets easier the more you do it correct
01:04:54
correct and so I had already done uh different media aspects and even leading up to before Grace Main I've done um
01:05:02
cold case series uh different TV show different media for different homicides crimes so you you the more you do the
01:05:10
more confident you get um you can never predict every question that comes and you can't answer every question
01:05:16
unfortunately because that's that's the nature of the work we're doing but yep
01:05:21
it's you get to grace me and and it was interesting because you know while I wasn't involved
01:05:28
in the media with the Swedish inquiry is international and the media and I know there's a lot of media involved uh
01:05:36
coming over particularly around time of resident court cases like that And you know I sort of was aware of me I wasn't
01:05:42
involved in that aspect of it obviously as as a detective but I was very conscious of it and you know there's
01:05:49
some other cases that came up where international and media and so as soon as that grace case the media was going
01:05:56
to be huge and and one of the things that happened was um and the family and like a lot happens here in New Zealand
01:06:02
now had put her missing on a community Facebook page and the Essex media had picked that up. So essentially some of
01:06:10
the British media knew before we even had the complaint that she was missing in New Zealand. And of course it didn't
01:06:16
take long once we had the complaint started investigating uh that media museum media picked it up
01:06:27
and it was even on day one and so came in on the Wednesday afternoon just got some basic inquiries
01:06:35
done and it was getting updated up to about 10:00 that night and the next day we start with the investigation get an
01:06:41
investigation team start and the media questions had already started And so I ended up having two police
01:06:49
media staff with me the whole time because it was so intense. Yeah. So So this all happens um in your
01:06:58
late 50s. You're 58 59 years old. Pro prior prior to that, what would you have said was your like career
01:07:05
definfining moment? Uh I'd had a couple before that like the you know the Swedish inquiry was huge
01:07:13
and you know the result and my involvement because I had been part of the interview team with Tamary. Uh and
01:07:21
so that was big for me. The Joan McCarthy homicide was really big because Travis Burns was the offender
01:07:30
and it had gone on for four months before we got on to you know him as being he is the offender
01:07:40
and there's a lot of pressure during the trial and so I was basically two years
01:07:45
on that from time of investigation in the November 1998 right through to when the trial ended tidy up everything uh
01:07:53
yeah two years on and of course a trial that big and there's a lot of pressure
01:08:00
right there's pressure um because that time you know DNA And you know crosscontamination was an issue uh
01:08:08
raised as defense and I know the SR scientist was under a lot of pressure and you I was told at one stage that if
01:08:15
we lose this case we could lose ESR from New Zealand and we police would have to
01:08:19
send their exhibits across to Melbourne testing. So there's a lot of pressure.
01:08:24
Um dare I say Joe Karum sat in the back of the court at time. Um you know you're
01:08:28
dealing with a family and it's restaurant is hard really hard for them. So that was a big case and that yeah had
01:08:37
a big impact because I was a detective sergeant. Yeah. I was living up on the coast and that's where it happened upon.
01:08:44
Yeah. So then then um 201 14 but again November 2014 the 1080 and the milk powder scare operation
01:08:58
Concord came on and I sort of ran that from the November through to February when because of the blackmail
01:09:05
implications on the government pressure. Yeah. a D super came in to run it and I
01:09:09
ended up being in charge of the suspect team and we had something like over 2,000 persons of
01:09:17
interest and we finally got down and got the offender and he pleaded guilty court
01:09:23
which was huge because there's huge that's probably one of the most politically motivated well not motivated
01:09:30
but um investigation political investigation we've done because we had to brief the
01:09:36
prime minister daily. Was that Helen? Uh, no that was John Ke and yeah because the implications what we were told
01:09:46
was in front collapsed then the New Zealand comes and that's huge. Yeah. And so yeah
01:09:54
there was a lot of pressure on that and like every day I had to brief headquarters on everything that was
01:10:00
going on and that included Christmas Day, New Year's Day. Do you want to pour? Yeah. Pause for a
01:10:08
drink of water. Oh my god. These the Yeah. Spent such a career. These these stories are just the things that you've
01:10:19
seen and done. It's remarkable. How you feeling? You going okay? Yeah. Good. I'm
01:10:22
fine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um I watched The Lie last night on Netflix. Oh, yes. Um Yeah. I should have asked
01:10:28
royalties. No. Sorry. You've you've seen it. I You're involved with that. Have
01:10:33
you watched it? And how do you feel when you watch it? Uh well I watched it way back when it first in fact it was really
01:10:38
interesting because obviously I was involved in the production of it and the director from UK came over and then last
01:10:46
year I was in Europe and I went over to London and I actually stayed with Jillian Main for three nights just to
01:10:52
keep up which is really good for her because she could just talk to me about things. She couldn't talk about family
01:10:55
and friends cuz I knew everything gone on the uh like about what sort of stuff what sort of stuff would she would she
01:11:03
chat about with with you. So some of the Julian would chat to me about some of the personal stuff, you
01:11:14
know, around around grace, around the case and some of the things that went on which, you know, because there was some
01:11:21
stuff that was suppressed and, you know, I could talk to her and because cuz she
01:11:26
couldn't talk to her friends or family because they didn't know in the detail,
01:11:30
but I could talk and I think there's a very good outlet with her to and I remember a couple times we sat have
01:11:36
breakfast and then 3 hours later we're still talking. So that was good. Uh but
01:11:43
was while I was over in the UK and I had a friend in Aussie contact me and said,
01:11:48
"I just been looking at Netflix. I see this girl on there. Next thing I hear
01:11:52
your effing voice. What the heck?" I said, "What?" And uh he said, "Yeah." So then
01:11:59
I contacted Brenon New Zealand and said, "Hey, this the lie. What?" Oh, yeah.
01:12:03
It's going to start on Netflix next week. So I actually caught up with the director over in London. She didn't even
01:12:09
know. So yeah, it wasn't until I got home and then I watched that. Okay, I watched it. So I thought it was done
01:12:17
really well and I thought the message behind it, you know, in terms of the rough sex defense was really really good
01:12:23
and um particularly at the very end and you see all those names of all those women
01:12:29
that have died as a result of rough sex. Yeah. Um, so I'm just stuck on um Jillian Melain like yeah whenever I
01:12:40
think of her like it just it breaks my heart in a way like um first of all what she's done um you post losing um Grace
01:12:47
and David is remarkable like Kilamanjaro and she's done all this charitable stuff
01:12:51
the handbag charity and love grace campaign handbags. Yeah. Yeah. I can't imagine, you know, because people say
01:12:57
time heals the wounds, but I don't know. I don't think that's the sort of grief
01:13:00
that you could ever get over. And even though medically there's no way of knowing it, like there's um there's
01:13:04
there's Yeah. Uh yeah, her husband's um cancer had to be caused by stress, right? Absolutely.
01:13:12
Absolutely. It was interesting because Yeah. I got it really well. It was when we heard that he was flying over and
01:13:20
then we heard that he was a self-made billionaire and he's bring the media with him. I thought, "Oh my god, this
01:13:24
last week." So I said to my family l lay off, "When you pick him up, bring him to
01:13:29
my office." So he comes into the office and we we're just chatting away and I
01:13:33
said, "Look, one of the things I will do is I'll tell you everything before I
01:13:37
talk to the media cuz it's only fair that you're here first." I said, "Okay." I said, "There's
01:13:43
only one condition on that." I said, "If you talk to the media out of turn, I'll
01:13:49
have to be careful what I tell you. I'll stop talking to you. like that and he looked at me and I
01:13:56
thought, "Oh gosh, no one's ever spoken to him like that before." And and but he
01:14:00
was really good. Um he said, "No, no, I'm not here. This is your job. That's
01:14:04
your job." Blah blah blah. So I' just gone from saying, "I don't want you to
01:14:08
speak to the media out of turn." And then I said, "I want you to sit with me
01:14:12
at the media conference this afternoon," which he did, which and you know, he got
01:14:17
upset and it was pretty tough. Where were things at at that point? Did you She was just a missing person. Still
01:14:23
a missing person. And that and yeah, so she gets reported as a missing person. And this is one of the reasons why we go
01:14:29
to the media. It wasn't a homicide. And I totally understand the family violence
01:14:33
homicides, but usually we have that offended within 24 hours. And so you don't go to the media. But this is a
01:14:39
missing person. And so we can go to the media and because of the red flags right
01:14:45
from the start, you know, we had to go to the media. red flags as in a girl that was active on social media that it
01:14:51
wasn't. Yeah. Here's Grace um been in contact with her family every day since
01:14:57
she'd been overseas and she'd been in Peru before she came to New Zealand. Um
01:15:01
she had it was her birthday on the 2nd of December and of course she went out the night of the 1st December. She'd
01:15:09
messaged a friend while she with Kempson and then there's nothing. All communication stopped on her birthday.
01:15:20
Her family can't get hold of her. She doesn't get hold of her family. Friends
01:15:23
can't get hold of her. What's going on? So it was definitely rip. Yeah. And so
01:15:29
it came on the Wednesday the Thursday we start then we actually cuz he had been on space her Facebook page last one
01:15:37
comment and the Thursday afternoon he comes in. Well we found him. He came in and talk and of course he told the lie.
01:15:45
Um, not just one. Yeah. Where he said he was working when he wasn't working. Um,
01:15:51
he did just everything. Everything he said apart from his name was lie basically. Yeah. So, so, so, so when you
01:15:56
meet David Melain, um, what do you say to him? Do you do are you honest and you say, "I've got to
01:16:02
say like it's not looking good or do you do you try and keep things positive?"
01:16:06
And Well, you you have to you know, you have to be honest because Yeah. And like
01:16:11
I said, look, we're hoping that maybe, you know, there's some islands out here.
01:16:15
Maybe she's met someone just gone to an island. I said, it's not likely cuz you
01:16:19
know your daughter, she hasn't been in contact on her birthday. I said, that's
01:16:22
why we've got a big investigation team and we're doing everything we can to
01:16:25
find. So I said, um, you know, there is a worst case scenario. And he said to me, he said, Scott, I've been on a plane
01:16:32
for 24 hours. Okay. So you know I met him then and of course it's stressful for him and
01:16:40
we were his support. We had to wrap ourselves around and support. His brother came over the next day but of
01:16:46
course on the Sunday when we found Grace and um then he flew home and then of course we've gone across to the UK for
01:16:53
the funeral and that so met him and saw him in his home environment and with his
01:16:56
family and but I'd never known him prior to that all accounts a lovely guy. Yes,
01:17:03
he was a boss um businessman, but then when it came for the trial, he I just knew he wasn't right.
01:17:13
And I just it's the stress. There's no doubt. Such a burden. Of course. And you
01:17:18
know, every day we're sitting during the trial and they bring up the rough sex
01:17:22
defense and Jillian sitting beside me. She's sobbing, shaking, crying. And um
01:17:28
they had to listen to that, had to go through it. And yet we' done all the prep we could. And I remember on the
01:17:32
Sunday they write on Saturday, Charles Trolls Town Monday. On the Sunday I had them office and I was going through all
01:17:37
the evidence and of course one of the things I had to show them was the CCTV showing Kempson and Grace going up in
01:17:45
the lift and then see Grace walk out and that's the last time you see Grace alive
01:17:49
and of course Till was natural it. So, it was really tough, you know, and um you trying to be strong, but it does get
01:17:58
emotional as well. And you then go through the trial and every day to listen, hear, and yeah, you just And I
01:18:07
just knew David just wasn't the same person I'd met the year before. How could you be?
01:18:13
Yeah. Yeah. And so, yeah. And then you know basically soon as they got back from a trial which the verdict came out
01:18:23
on the Friday they flew back on the Saturday um he goes gets tested he's found cancer
01:18:30
and at one stage they thought come right and I spoke to him 3 weeks we passed and all your media stuff around this um
01:18:41
yes I've watched a heap heap of footage the last couple of days there was the um
01:18:45
yeah the media briefing after the suitcase was found um after the verdict comes out there's um the melaines and
01:18:51
you standing on their shoulder just outside the court. How um yeah how do you not break down? It's
01:18:58
tough. It is tough. um you know inside you know on the exterior I try to put on the brave wrong face but inside
01:19:06
you know you're feeling them you know like and as I've said in the media you
01:19:10
know I'm a family man with children around the same age and what they've had
01:19:15
to go through surreners but that's same with a whole lot of other homicide you
01:19:21
know families of homicide you know and I've talked before about one day on a
01:19:26
Christmas day having now of a homicide victim the more tree to identify their son on Christmas day. Yeah.
01:19:36
Yeah. That's just wrong. Just so sad for them. And um so for me it doesn't matter
01:19:43
what the background is. It's a loved one and we've got to work with that. We got
01:19:47
to support we've got to bring in victim support and our victim support to our
01:19:51
homicide staff are well trained. They do a fantastic job. Did did um David have to identify the body like a formal
01:19:58
identification process or was he that No, we did that through dental exciting circumstances. So I had a
01:20:09
podcast earlier this year with Mark Longley. I don't know if you've had any.
01:20:12
Yeah. Um and it's almost like the Maines and in reverse. He was in New Zealand.
01:20:17
His daughter's in the UK. He had to fly over there. And um yeah, one thing we
01:20:21
talked about is Yeah. He was like 20 I think it was 2011 or 2012 when his daughter's murderer um was incarcerated
01:20:28
and he was like good I don't have to think about this for at least 17 years and he sitting here now in 2025 with me
01:20:34
he's like that date's coming up alarmingly quickly and it's like another
01:20:38
trauma that he has to deal with again. Yep. It's [ __ ] eh? It is. It is. And uh
01:20:43
yeah, it was interesting. During the Grace M investigation, I had families of homicide victims of cases I'd run and
01:20:52
been involved in who sent me, sent letters, support. [Music] Um before Grace went missing, did you
01:21:01
did you know anything of Jesse Kempson? No. Was he? No, I didn't at all. No.
01:21:05
who's on the police rate but just not your personal Yeah. Yeah. Um and someone
01:21:11
who's um articulate or well presented like wearing a a waist coat. Do do you
01:21:16
naturally treat them better or sort of presume innocence even if it's a bias?
01:21:20
Well, at that stage we didn't know. He just happened to be the last person to comment on her Facebook page. So, we
01:21:28
didn't know his involvement. And of course, the circumstances us finding him
01:21:34
was interesting. and that would establish he limit the city life hotel. We'd seen him in the morning and he had
01:21:41
agreed that after work he would come to police station after 4:00 and so because city life we're just
01:21:51
after the city life to do some inquiries and it was early afternoon 1:00 and he walked
01:21:59
past and one of the cons says oh there he is there and of course when he looked in
01:22:06
and he sees the detectives there and of course they're in piece. Yeah. Saba bullet or bass which
01:22:13
is the body armor. And uh he sees soon as he sees him he turns his head away turns around and walks walked back to
01:22:20
Queen Street. Concier says oh there he goes there. So they go and start had to run
01:22:25
to catch him. and they get around to Queens and he's gone and can't find he'd
01:22:28
gone down um the steps of a shop and stood behind a um yeah display cabinet so he couldn't
01:22:39
be seen but they found him and he said oh no I was just in here looking for and he came back he came back station
01:22:48
and uh so that was well hang that and then of course during that interview he he
01:22:55
head. You know, yes, we met. We went up to um Sky City, Andy's Burger Bar, and
01:23:02
we left. I crossed the road, went down to Victoria Street to Queen Street, end up in a
01:23:07
bar, back home, and she just wandered off back to her backpacks I never saw again. And so that's what we had. And we
01:23:16
had no other evidence to disprove that. Uh and of course CCTV is a huge component nowadays particularly in the
01:23:24
big cities and so we had a team on that and then one of the interesting things at City Life Hotel there 14 cameras at
01:23:31
Sea Life Hotel. There are seven that we identified as key to what we needed to be looking at but their system at the
01:23:38
time was that you could only look at one camera at a time. So, if you wanted to watch eight hours, it's going to take 56
01:23:44
hours. And we You just don't have the time, do you? Well, no, but then I'm
01:23:51
sorry, I had to say this. You cannot pass forward because we could not afford to miss anything. So, they had to watch
01:23:57
it second by second, minute by minute, out. Uh but one day they picked up one of the cameras and they actually by that
01:24:05
stage we had during his interview and he said yeah he didn't wake up till 9 or 10
01:24:11
in the morning and they found CCTV of him going out at 8:00 in the morning. So when we went back with him to
01:24:19
investigate you and settled a detective put that to him and had the photo in the
01:24:24
lift. Is that you? Yep. Is that the lift? Yep. Uh this is 8:15. Oh yeah, that's right. Before he said he said
01:24:31
just confirming you said you sort of didn't wake up till 9 or 10. Yeah. This
01:24:36
is 8:00 in the morning. This is you. So yeah. And from there it was well okay now we're right on to it. We've got
01:24:45
something here which work on. So we did a search excuse that night at his apartment. Um and of course then it just
01:24:52
rolled from there. We found that follow the Friday night we did the luminal testing and so Saturday morning when I
01:24:57
come to work there's a photography photo section did a great job they had a photo
01:25:01
book it all ready for me they've been up all night and um yeah you can see the luminal and we
01:25:09
see all the blood around yeah we knew were and of course David's here we breeding him on a Friday afternoon he'd
01:25:17
been sent media conference with me and done a media conference on the afternoon. It's Yeah, it's just how it
01:25:25
happened with, you know, we'd had staff out of the way. By that time, our technology experts had said his phone
01:25:32
had been pulling the taceries. So, we had our staff out there and then he in his interview the second
01:25:40
time cuz we brought him in on the Saturday and one of the things I was doing when because I'd spoken to the
01:25:44
crown in the morning. I've been to the scene, had a look myself, spoke to the
01:25:48
crown the morning and we agreed circumstantially he had sufficient evidence to charge. So, we're going to
01:25:52
bring him back and while he's been interviewed, of course, I don't watch
01:25:57
these interviews. I have other things. Sometimes I do media, sometimes you other
01:26:02
administrative stuff. Um, but I had the head of search and rescue and we were talking about the way tack as we know
01:26:10
there's been other bodies found out there and he just said, "Look, it's got
01:26:13
to be somewhere where there's a layby or a car park because you can't just park
01:26:19
on C drive because we know it's windy. narrow. So I'm thinking like this and
01:26:23
one side of the road there's houses. Yes, there's bush in that and you know
01:26:27
covers the houses on the other side it's just bush. So case it's going to be the
01:26:31
other side of the road. And then during the interview, the second interview of course rough sex defense says everything
01:26:38
which I was saying was self serving and he actually indicated where described where and we
01:26:47
weren't far from that location and we went there and yeah there there was that
01:26:51
grave. So yeah and we just kicked in from there. Yes. That was probably the most um I
01:27:00
suppose memorable if that's the word um like media briefing that you did. So you
01:27:04
you went to site the body and then you face the media and um you it seemed like you were like getting emotional towards
01:27:11
the end. What what's what's the time between you um citing Grace Main in in
01:27:16
in a suitcase and then fronting the media? So it was interesting that day because you know as I say the media
01:27:23
intensity was huge as I had two full-time media people because there was just so many barrage questions media
01:27:29
from UK New Zealand and of course within the media you know the New Zealand bosses were saying to their staff don't
01:27:36
let the Brits get a scoop type scenario. The Brits were wanting to get a scoop. Um it was it was a frenzy within the
01:27:43
media itself let alone from a police perspective. So I' taken the pathologist out there
01:27:52
Scenic Drive around lunchtime because you know we thought it was going to be early afternoon and there's a lot of
01:27:56
media I had to close Scenic Drive for the safety of the staff cuz they're working side the road. Uh so Peters in
01:28:03
and of course the media down so put a barrier across so that the media could come up so they could see get the shots
01:28:09
in the distance cuz I I understand the media you know I've always tried to work
01:28:13
with the media when it's appropriate and um and then we sort of said oh look
01:28:20
we'll do a stand I'll do a stand at 4:00 and knowing that our New Zealand media
01:28:25
have to prepare for the six news the TV media so it did editing stuff like that So, well, it took longer to get the
01:28:34
suitcase out than we had anticipated. And of course, then the medium get a bit anty, oh gosh. And uh yeah, and then we
01:28:42
get it out. We had an X-ray machine there. I had the pathologist there unzip and you can see and open it right up,
01:28:48
but you can see this body in there and we just knew it was crazy. So, they had to get a message over the lane. Um and
01:28:54
so you go from once sort of here with the staff um and Grace making sure we get a message to David Melain. My media
01:29:05
person said say this. So within 5 minutes cuz we had got hold of David within 5 minutes I was standing in front
01:29:11
of press. Now it hadn't been a long investigation. had only been four days, but we'd worked some long hours and so
01:29:19
and it had been emotional, you know, because the case was it was getting sadder and sadder every day. And it's
01:29:24
like for me being in the media telling this crime novel that is getting sadder and sadder and so everybody's missing,
01:29:32
everybody's grouped. Um, and ultimately the worst case scenario is there. And so
01:29:39
within 5 minutes of his grace, they would have been told he stand in front of international and no prep like at
01:29:47
all. You know, every time I'd gone out to do a media release for that. And on
01:29:52
with most media stuff, you know, sit with the media team half an hour before you go
01:29:57
out that up. You do your presentation, they ask you questions. So you get in the zone and you go out. And I've done
01:30:03
that with the Graces case with a different media except this one. There's no time
01:30:08
to prep and you have to go out and and it is sad because you know we have found it which is yeah it is great on one hand
01:30:16
because at least family get to have great but you know now I've got this case and course we're charged against
01:30:23
not the murder and yeah it was tough holding back and then I got the question how the
01:30:32
family feel how do you think family feel you know I have a daughter and you know, in
01:30:38
the 20s and it just came out. It wasn't planned. It wasn't prepared. It was
01:30:42
just And it just Yeah, it gets you. You looked like you were um on the cusp of crying at that point. Yeah. I was having
01:30:49
to hold it together. Yeah. Yeah. Just Yeah. accumulation of long days and just the moment. It was just tiredness. It
01:30:56
was the stress. It was the buildup. It was Yeah. It was, you know, there's truckload of media sitting there in
01:31:02
front of you. And um Yeah. And then when is it that you find out about the you know you said it gets grimmer and
01:31:10
grimmer and it got even grimmer still like when when do you find out about um yeah the nude photos on his phone
01:31:15
googling how to you know get rid of a body and the white hackeries all the all the other unpleasant stuff that came
01:31:20
afterwards. So that comes in afterwards, you know, because obviously investigation, we've only been going for
01:31:24
4 days. We can only do so much some CCTV. Uh but then getting into the technology
01:31:30
world, getting into your phones and stuff like that was, you know, it took a bit of time, but it came back came out
01:31:37
and of course what he had done, you know, he goes on, he'd organized a tender date, he'd taken photos, he'd,
01:31:44
you know, searched Googled certain porn sites. He Yeah. say it's hot as fire.
01:31:51
Yeah. Yeah. Especially eating birds like tacker rangers. Yeah. All that sort of stuff. And Yeah. And then and then he
01:31:59
actually goes out on a tin day on that Sunday and Grace is lying dead in his room.
01:32:04
Yeah. He obviously thought about he went he bought the suitcase. Um and the times that you've had to be
01:32:12
in his presence, are you in like disdain? Yeah. Well, I don't have to be. I you know like it's important as a DI
01:32:18
sort of like they call them senior investigating officers now that I sit up and I keep objective you know because I
01:32:25
have to make decision be decision maker so you have to keep that objectivity so it's no good me getting involved in an
01:32:31
interview because I'll start losing my objectivity so I didn't actually see
01:32:35
that interview because on that Saturday because I actually I was doing a press release you know and uh when that
01:32:43
interview was taking place not that I told the media at top. But yeah, um when you first this comes this comes
01:32:52
I guess much later. Um when you first learn about the defense case like are you furious?
01:32:59
No. Well, I have to say okay this investigator um the rough sex defense was raised in his second interview.
01:33:06
something. Okay, we're going to have to deal with this. And that's part of the
01:33:10
reason we go to the UK, make those inquiries around sex. And yeah, I think it was important because it meant that
01:33:17
when it came to trial, we went blindsided. You know, like Grace is 21, 22 years old. She's an adult. You can do
01:33:25
what you like. And that shouldn't impact on it just, you know, some of the lies
01:33:30
Kempson said around the rough sex. I didn't know what it was. some about, you
01:33:35
know, 50 shades. Yet we had through the investigation because it went on for a number of months afterwards, we
01:33:42
identified people who he had rough sex with consensually. So he knew what it was.
01:33:50
Yeah. Yeah. One thing in the trial that struck out to me was just how I think it
01:33:53
was from one of the pathologists like how long you have to apply pressure before someone passes out or you loses
01:34:00
consciousness. It's a very very long time. Yeah. It was uh couple of the range. One said 7 to 10 minutes, one
01:34:06
said 5 to 10 minutes. But it was constant pressure so that you don't start and then stop because when you
01:34:13
start again the clock starts again. So it has to be constant serious pressure for 5 to 10
01:34:21
minutes and you know Yeah. Come on. You know, common sense. 5 to 10 minutes. And
01:34:27
he said that he was intoxicated and he'd gone and have a shower afterwards. He
01:34:32
thought she'd got up and left. He would have tripped over her sh. Do Do defense lawyers piss you off? No,
01:34:38
they got a job to do. I understand that. I don't I get on fine with the defense
01:34:42
lawyers. Um, you know, I don't Yeah, it it's it can be frustrating. It's
01:34:47
difficult when you're sitting with the family, but that's their job. You
01:34:51
Everybody has a job to do and that's part of the system. And and it and I try
01:34:56
and tell my staff it's like sometimes sentencing people go, "Oh, they can get
01:34:59
a long enough sentence and stuff like that." Our job is to do a thorough investigation, good investigation, put
01:35:05
together a good pro prosecution case to work with the crown to put a prosecution
01:35:10
case and draw to the jury. The outcome is up to the jury sentencing. Yes, we get victim impact statements and stuff
01:35:17
like that. But it's up to the judge. Now, if I try and tell you you're going
01:35:21
to get focused and lose that, you might not work here because you know you're worrying about
01:35:27
something out of your control. Yeah, it's a great way of looking at it. And there there's that saying that
01:35:32
everyone um is entitled to a fair trial, which which they are, but it feels like
01:35:36
Grace didn't necessarily get a fair trial in this case. Well, well, that's
01:35:39
the thing. And I and I have publicly said that, you know, the rough sex defense basically just revictimize Grace
01:35:45
and she wasn't there to answer. And what I tell people is that there's no evidence that sex took
01:35:54
place. He says it but we know he lies. You know we have other people saying oh grace wouldn't do
01:36:01
that you know like that you know have a safe grace wouldn't do that and you know
01:36:09
and like something we had witness who said they had been back to tender dates back to kept and he flipped like J and
01:36:16
one of them managed I managed to get out before anything happened. Well, yeah. One of his former victims on
01:36:23
that documentary, The Lie, um she reckons that um he would have flipped out after Grace turned him down and that
01:36:29
would have been the But we'll never know, won't we? We won't we won't know,
01:36:32
he says. Do you do you hear any any like anecdotal feedback or stories about how
01:36:37
he's coping in jail and you get this feedback with a sense of glee or you just have no interest in it? Look, he's
01:36:44
there. He he got a minimum of 17 years nonprol then it doesn't mean you get out
01:36:48
after 17 years. Yeah. Um, I know Julie Mlain won't say his name, you know, because she says, "I'd rather use
01:36:56
Grace's name. That's who I love. That's who I think of. That's who I miss."
01:37:01
So, the the the the trial for you, um, obviously you had some work to do there, but it seems like you were mainly there
01:37:07
as sort of like a cheerleader or supporter of the family. Um, how Yeah. How how is it for you? Must be wonderful
01:37:14
experience. But I've been through roles before. I've done sort of that before.
01:37:18
Uh, you know, I had to give evidence during the trial. So, you know, you've got to get your head around it what's
01:37:23
going on in the trial and also just making sure everything's telling and working and but you got staff to do that
01:37:27
and they did a fantastic job. And the wait for the verdict, how long how long was that? Yeah. Uh, often
01:37:36
people put you like just amongst ourselves just as a bit of back humor. Okay. How long?
01:37:44
uh a day and a half, 2 days, 3 days, 4 hours, you know, like we just have a little bit and I thought ah they're
01:37:51
going to come back on Saturday cuz this is the Friday and of course they came back Friday night. Short turnound
01:37:56
usually means well we were obviously Yeah. Yeah. We Well, sometime sometimes come back quick not
01:38:03
guilty. Yeah. Uh but yeah, in this case, they went out just after lunch and they
01:38:11
were back by 5:00. And then um sense of relief. The sense of relief, you know, that courtroom was
01:38:19
packed. You know, every day of trial, courtroom is packed and there's a large
01:38:24
media contingent in there and cameras are in there. And of course when the verdict came out you know it's that
01:38:33
sense of relief obviously was emotional for Jillian and David um you know some of the public gallery were crying some
01:38:41
staff and tears you know a lot of the um reporters were young females you know in
01:38:46
the media and you can see they were up the jury some of the jury cry it was very
01:38:53
emotional so while waiting for the verdict are you are you with the messes like sort of managing their expectations
01:39:00
saying look this could go either way cuz you don't know. No, no, we don't know.
01:39:05
And yeah, I suppose you've been in situations before where you know the the wrong verdict has come out. Yeah,
01:39:11
there's been cases where we haven't got the verdict we thought we should have
01:39:15
got. Um, and then you got to deal with family. That's a different way to deal
01:39:19
with family. But it's that waiting is stressful cuz you don't know what is the
01:39:25
verdict and you know you've got to support the family and uh you know I know we had two other sex trials coming
01:39:32
up as a result of our investigation um against Kempson and one of the things Jillian did was fantastic was at
01:39:40
different times we brought the complaintants into court just to meet because they carried this huge guilt
01:39:46
that if they had reported Grace would still be And so went arranged and asked Jill if
01:39:54
she'd like to talk to them, meet them. And she did. And she said, "You didn't
01:39:58
do anything wrong. You didn't do anything, you know, like he did it. He's
01:40:04
the ones accountable. He's the don't feel bad." And that was really good and
01:40:09
reassuring for them. Yeah. And so for a mother in that situation, you know, to her situation to do that just showed how
01:40:16
lovely she she's incredible. Right. Yeah. Um yeah, the relationship you had with um yeah um the parents was seemed
01:40:24
like really close. Have there been other homicides like this or was this one different for some reason? Well, I think
01:40:30
this one was different because they were you know Grace was from the UK. She wasn't from New Zealand. They don't have
01:40:36
the port family here and you know David FL investigation. Her brother arrived today. So later we looked after that
01:40:44
there um and he was still here when we had the um individuals who's at the one sky city and then you know they came
01:40:54
back for the trial and once again it's just the two of them and family are all
01:40:59
back home friends their support so you have you have to support them you know I do you know speak to a lot of and with
01:41:08
the families and trials um in New Zealand and they're all New Zealand based and you'll there's a number of
01:41:13
there I know with them to support and that's great that's all they need but
01:41:17
I'll always be there to talk and they can talk me and just so so then so after that verdict
01:41:24
there's the um the media briefing outside where um yeah the are both sobbing and you're you're in the
01:41:31
background looking um stoic like you do what what happens after that you go do you go and grab something to eat you
01:41:38
just give them a ride back to their hotel what happens so after the verdict Yeah, we went back. We just quickly
01:41:44
debriefed. Um, we then because David then arranged to fly home the next day. So, nothing else to do. No. Well,
01:41:54
why? Yeah. The family, they had their sons back home, you know. Yeah. So, they need to go home. And so, we went out for
01:42:02
dinner. The crown, the police staff, close police staff involved in the lanes um at the hotel had dinner. And then the
01:42:08
next morning, that Saturday morning, myself and the picked them up and took them to the airport and it was really it
01:42:14
was quite sad because the airport had their flag at half mass and um but that was not as
01:42:23
noticeable. And one thing that I I will always thank you know airport for was they
01:42:32
allowed myself and the family as officer to walk in the lanes onto the plane. So
01:42:38
we had all that security and we could see them get in their seats and say goodbye. I thought wow I couldn't
01:42:46
believe we were to do that. But but that was important. I'm getting emotional
01:42:51
hearing this just like Yeah. Like um tears of of gratitude. Do um when do you cry about this? Like do
01:43:00
you on the car on the way back to your house? Are you are you having a cry? Like are there private moments? Yeah,
01:43:07
there's a private moment sometimes when um something comes up around grace or
01:43:14
Yeah. the lie, you know, or people talk to me. Some people come and talk to me. um you know just straight out of the
01:43:21
blue and like yeah you know and like when they the gratitude they show you know and uh yeah I was just one of the
01:43:28
team team and yeah but I do have emotional moments but it's in private yeah so um when I think of Grace Melain
01:43:39
um and this is probably the same with most people watching this or listening to this I I think of um the photos that
01:43:44
were shared. So there's one of her it looks like she's wearing activew wear
01:43:47
with a baseball cap on. There's another one. Hey, from the Bay of Honors, right?
01:43:51
Oh, was it? Yep. And another one of her with her um graduation cap and gown on. And both of them, one thing in common,
01:43:57
massive beaming smile. When when Yeah. When you think of Grace Main, Yeah. What do you see?
01:44:04
I just see this happy, lovely girl who is so loved by her family. You know, they were such a
01:44:12
tight-knit loving family. It was Yeah. And like we haven't talked about it, but
01:44:16
you know when David was over here for the investigation, Jillian, she had had cancer and she had had she was
01:44:21
undergoing chemotherapy treatment. So David's here dealing with his daughter, the only
01:44:28
daughter missing and circumstances aren't looking good. He at the love of his life, his wife Jillian is at home
01:44:36
undergoing chemotherapy and he's having feel that. That's why we had to really
01:44:40
wrap herself up because yeah, we just how do you deal? And then you look at Jillian now, you know, she's had to keep
01:44:49
living the fact that Grace has been murdered. But then David dies and it was the stress,
01:44:57
cancer. So she now has two, she has two sons and grandchildren, but two of Pope's family immediate family are gone.
01:45:06
And as she says, she'll never have them back. As much as she wants, she will
01:45:09
never have them back, but she'll never stop loving. Yeah. Yeah. And in the way she lost her
01:45:19
daughter as well, thanks for sharing that stuff. Yeah. Yeah, it is. It is tough. And there's,
01:45:26
you know, but but I sort of see it I see the sadness in a lot of family's eyes,
01:45:33
you know, at the homicide trolls. Yeah. When did you last speak to Jillian? Are you still in touch to your message or?
01:45:40
Yeah. Yeah, we we touch quite regularly actually. Uh like last year I was over in Europe and I went over to the uh
01:45:47
London and I stayed with Jillian for three three four nights and uh which was really good and it was good to catch up
01:45:54
and catch up with her family and their local in Essics the local um pub you know there's a someone who raised some
01:46:03
money and put a big oak table of chairs and cheers once David won races and and then you see what Julian and her niece
01:46:13
Hannah. So, Grace's cousin Hannah have done around the love grace campaign and
01:46:18
they got me to work in the garage packing handbags one day which is fine. It's you know like it's such a good
01:46:25
cause and in New Zealand now we have this love campaign and the thousands of handbags. So the women who are subject
01:46:33
to domestic violence and have to get out with nothing, they had this hand. And some of the letters that Jillian had
01:46:39
shown me that they get, you know, really touching sometimes these women just, you know, had nothing and
01:46:48
yeah, I was going to ask you at some point what like what joy have you got out of this job, but um I feel like it's
01:46:54
a most redundant question because I can probably answer it now. It seems like it's the the connections you form with
01:46:58
people at their potentially the most terrifying or the lowest point in their lives. Yeah, it's part of it. Yeah, that
01:47:05
is part of it. But I think it's the what you do for the community. What do you do
01:47:10
for our victims victims? What you do for the community and it's all police and you
01:47:17
know we're a good team and you know I look back on my career and we gosh so proud of that. And like as an example
01:47:26
during co I was contacted by a woman who when she was 9 years old was sexually abused at home. I was a
01:47:37
detective sergeant on the child abuse team and during co she had the courage to go
01:47:44
and get it was told you the family back then the now but get her file and of course and she got to me and said your
01:47:52
name's all through it you believed me you saved me so I've met that you know she's only
01:48:00
9 years old at the time I've met her and her husband and we catch up and um you
01:48:07
like one of the yeah as I've mentioned before you know the sadness as the result of child sexual abuse can be you
01:48:18
alcoholism, drug addiction and all that and you know I see her and she's come
01:48:23
through at the other end and we catch up and I just think gosh you know and I told myself you know what you do now
01:48:32
have a huge impact later these And and it does and I that's that is what and I look back on my career I go I
01:48:42
have helped someone come through life out of tragic situation that make me yeah and often police will never know
01:48:53
the impact they have this has been a we've been going an hour 48 I haven't even got the the Instagram
01:49:01
questions it's been a big day for you some bad news this morning Yeah. Um, yeah. How are you going for time? Yeah.
01:49:07
No, I'm fine. You okay? Yeah, I'm fine. Yeah. Um, you can leave it anytime you
01:49:11
run. No, no. I got to go home and run, go do some exercise. No, no, no. Yeah. You're not Are you doing You're doing
01:49:17
much running. You said before you run. I don't run as far now. I just I've just
01:49:21
changed my whole exercise routine. And of course, at the moment, because I've
01:49:24
had to go on to some hormone treatment or do all the um radiation and that makes you a bit more tired and so of I
01:49:32
don't have the same energy. And I think I should be faster than this, but I'm
01:49:36
not. But I'm not. Z age, you know. Yeah, that's what No one escapes it. I know.
01:49:41
Um, yeah. Has has fitness been like a big part of your sort of mental health strategy? Absolutely. Physically fit,
01:49:49
mentally fit. That's what I've always believed in and that's what I've always
01:49:52
adhereed to and I've just, you know, sometimes during cases I just want to go
01:49:56
for a run because it clears my head, you know, sweats out all the impurities and
01:50:00
I can think about and I just, yeah, I feel so much better. What about alcohol? Did you ever lean
01:50:06
into alcohol? Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. When you were younger. Yeah. When you're
01:50:09
younger. Not not I don't think I ever leaned as a coping mechanism, you know,
01:50:13
cuz I had my children had them when I was young and they grew up and grew up with my children. We used to go running
01:50:17
together, you know, like one of my sons and I played the same senior men's football team together, you know, which
01:50:23
is great. So, yeah. Look, I drank and him drink, but I don't, you know, say it's co mechanism. You know, I because
01:50:31
of my health issues, I don't certainly don't drink I drink 0% beer. Yeah. Yeah.
01:50:37
But who who do you who do you unpack stuff with? Is it just like internally with work mainly? Well, I have my part I
01:50:42
have my partner. Yeah. And you know, we can talk and um your partner as in your your life partner or a work partner?
01:50:48
Well, no. No. My my life partner. Oh, yeah. But but you can't there's things
01:50:51
that you just can't really you can't really share, can you? Or Yeah. No.
01:50:55
Well, you know, I can talk about just had a day like you know, like sometimes it's just you go bang bang bang bang. It
01:51:01
might not be investigation. There's a whole lot of emails come in. You got to
01:51:04
do stuff and you know, trying to mediate or negotiate or find out stuff. Um but yeah, like like I just talk and just get
01:51:13
out and just we do exercise together. Yeah. Like like one of the things I really like doing because I live close
01:51:18
to the beach is kayak fishing. And what do you like about it? Is it the solitude or it's everything?
01:51:24
It's just you go there's a bit of exercise to get out there. Uh and then
01:51:31
you know I generally like cuz I'm an early riser get out before sunrise and so you know like about a month ago I was
01:51:38
on the water and where there's the blood moon big full moon and so you have the
01:51:42
moonlight on the water on one side and on the other side the sun's not up but
01:51:46
it's coming up and you can see the orange haze on it. It's just beautiful.
01:51:50
and then catch fish on, you know, catch some snapper and you sit out there and you're at one with nature. It's it's
01:51:57
peaceful. It's just you can catch fish and then go in and Yeah, it's I I really
01:52:02
enjoy it. Um yeah, how do you not have a huge weight of all the all the stuff you've
01:52:08
seen and done? Like it's um there's some really crunchy stuff e that you've
01:52:12
experienced. How do you sort of compartmentalize that or Yeah. Well, that's what I I try and
01:52:16
compartmentalize. So work is work, home is home, families for family, sports for
01:52:21
sport. And you know there's there is you know been to the psychologist there's
01:52:26
ways to cope and one of the things and it you know it might not sound great but you know you have a serious case there's
01:52:35
going to be another one. So don't you know fall over this one cuz what about
01:52:40
the next one and then the next one and unfortunately that is a work and you can go from homicide to
01:52:49
homicide but you've got to you know this is job is a file one day it's also going
01:52:55
to be filed but at the time we have a job to do we have to be professional we have to be thorough and you know we've
01:53:03
got to investigate In in terms of retirement when do I look that young that old?
01:53:11
Really? No. No. Is um like is there a thing in the place where they sort of kick you out at the 65 or they start
01:53:16
like pushing you towards No. No. Well, when they used to have you you'd be able
01:53:20
to perf at 55 um because of the government superanuation public uh police superanuation scheme. You can go on till
01:53:27
you ever but you know I've got to look at the future and I've got to say I've
01:53:31
done most things in the police. I I really enjoy the level I'm at because I'm still operationally involved and uh
01:53:39
you know I've got staff get on well with staff but you know life is like a ruler.
01:53:45
It's only so long and I've had some health scares going through another one
01:53:50
now but um in terms of that ruler I'm 2/3 quarters of the way through it and
01:53:58
so what do I want to do? You know, I there's bucket list things I'm looking
01:54:02
to do. Like I'm I am thinking I'm convince you to follow the white at the
01:54:08
World Cup next year. Yeah. One more football. Um yeah, I know a number of the coaches after and Basley and all
01:54:17
those. And yeah, I want to travel a bit more. Uh yeah, I've got my grandchildren. I see them grow. How are
01:54:25
they now? How old are the grand? Oh, what? I got 15, 14 in a couple weeks. Uh, 10, and
01:54:34
cool age. So, yeah. And and that's I've still got others to come cuz some
01:54:40
children are married but haven't got children yet. Hurry up. No, no, no, no.
01:54:46
All right. From Instagram, um, someone wanted to know, uh, if you've seen the,
01:54:52
uh, TV show Adolescence. Yes, I have. Netflix. Yeah. What what are your thoughts towards that? Okay, so we have
01:54:58
our child exploitation team. Uh we did a lot of online stuff. I'm also involved my role is in Oakland City
01:55:09
as oversight of our national persons of interest and so they some of the younger
01:55:16
ones there can get into that incill stuff involuntary celibacy. Yes. Yeah. um that and there's other groups that
01:55:24
come out out of that and so it's very real and I'm aware that you know some of that stuff has
01:55:36
occurred in New Zealand with teenagers. Uh it's yeah it's not great and and it's
01:55:44
difficult for parents cuz how do you know what your children are doing online? And that's the one thing you
01:55:49
maybe we need to just be a little more harder to know because there are some manipulators out there across the
01:55:55
world who will manipulate your children and you know or the bullying. you take sexion, you know,
01:56:05
like initially people would take a teenager take a photo of the naked photo of themselves and send it to someone who
01:56:10
they thought was their age. It might have been, you know, a 50-year-old pedophile at the end or a relationship
01:56:18
breaks up and so that person breaks up, I've got this photo, you you pay me money, I'm going to send it to all your
01:56:23
friends. It creates stress. It's horrendous. We've actually seen some suicides as a result, you know, that
01:56:31
bullying. So yeah, I think you know the adolescence I think people parents watch
01:56:37
it and I' I've looked at a debate whether uh parents would watch it with
01:56:42
their children or parents should just watch it alone. You know some say they should watch it alone. Some say watch it
01:56:47
with your children and talk to your children because what you want you want your children to be able to talk to you
01:56:53
about what's going on if they're bullied or getting pressured to do something
01:56:57
because they want to climb a hierarchal Yeah. system in there and to do that you have to do something
01:57:03
different like say sextor tortion or blackmail someone or yeah so yeah what what what can be done is it is this a
01:57:12
job for um like parents to speak to their kids when they're sort of intermediate age or should the schools
01:57:17
be doing some programming around this well I always believe that it starts with the parent yes the school can
01:57:25
support but it does start with the parent and you know dare I say it there's a lot out there who uh have
01:57:34
difficult childhoods that don't have parents a single parent or whatever. I grew up never knowing my father, my
01:57:42
mother's sen mother until I was about 10 and stepfather came along and it wasn't
01:57:47
until my mother's dying of cancer terminal and my daughter wanted to find who's your father Dad I don't know never
01:57:56
met him and she did she should have been a detective she did some digging around
01:58:01
yeah she did some digging around and found him and yeah she ended up meeting him and then I met him and then he
01:58:07
said basically He said he didn't believe he was my father and um that's it.
01:58:12
Walked away. But how was that? Was it was that Yeah. Although I'd gone through my
01:58:19
whole life not having a father. So I was an only child. So I had no brothers and
01:58:23
sisters. My mother was from the UK. She had no family here. Um so yeah, so that's why sport was really important.
01:58:30
But I just accept I just accepted, okay, you've never been in my life. You've
01:58:35
never shown any interest whatsoever in me. And that's what you say. That's
01:58:38
fine. I've got my family up to Yeah. It's not like you're missing anything,
01:58:42
but it's almost almost like double abandonment in a way. Yeah. Yeah. Sucks. Yeah. It's really shitty.
01:58:49
Um, when you retire, what will you miss most and least about the job? Oh, what will I miss most? Oh, I think it's the
01:58:58
companionship, the camaraderie, you know, it's, you know, like So, it doesn't matter what investigator,
01:59:03
whether it's homicidal, you know, major case, you know, you work as a team. It's
01:59:07
that teamwork. I really like that. And uh I've made some really good friends.
01:59:11
New Zealand police. Um so that's what I miss. What won't I miss? Uh get up at
01:59:19
4:30 to get to work. No. Uh to be fair and and the staff who listen to this are going to laugh at this. I won't miss the
01:59:28
meetings cuz I meetings in my head. You know, particularly if the meetings for meeting sake. meters are good of a
01:59:34
value, but if I can get out of a meeting, they know I'll get out. No one loves a meeting. Is that a side of place
01:59:40
that most people would would be um surprised by? Like just how much how much BS and paperwork there is? Yeah, I
01:59:48
think and the higher the higher you go rank wise, you the more meetings and I talk about political [ __ ] you have
01:59:56
to deal with, but it's just Yeah. Yeah. And that's why I enjoy where I'm at. M
02:00:00
um best and worst days on the job. Uh the best days, you know, it can be both getting a result for say a
02:00:15
long-term investigation, whether it be a homicide, whether it be like the 1080 in
02:00:19
the milk powder. Um they're good plus the guilty verdict or guilty plea, you
02:00:25
know, because then done your job. you know you've done a thorough investigation that they they are really
02:00:30
good days the worst days dare I say it is hearing that a police officer and take Matt Hunt for example
02:00:44
my daughter went to primary intermediary school with him a lot of the people at the football club knew him um particular
02:00:52
of our area actually been to my house to play not that I knew that and so I know
02:00:57
and I know a lot of his close friends and you know it just it doesn't matter
02:01:01
but it's really sad. It's just gut-wrenching and it's a reality of the the job you're
02:01:09
doing isn't it? It is. You're putting yourself in harm's way on a daily basis.
02:01:13
Yeah. Um any regrets? No. No regrets. No. Uh I recommend the New Zealand police. I Yeah. my none of
02:01:22
my children joined the police. But for me, yeah, still in the police 45 years, like in a month's time and uh you calm
02:01:31
down. You haven't made it yet. Yeah, I know. Uh but no, I've just th I just
02:01:36
enjoy giving back to the community. I enjoy, you know, being successful, being a leader, working with the staff,
02:01:43
developing the new staff. from Instagram. Uh, do you take an interest in cases that you're not
02:01:49
directly involved with, eg Pulking Horn, Scott Watson? Uh, it depends. Like obviously Pulking
02:01:56
Horn was run in Oakland City District, so I had knowledge of that. Um, you know, because I took the team that run
02:02:02
it and uh, so I'm not into the weeds and the detail like I would be in other cases. Uh the Scott
02:02:11
Watson I I the only reason I really took a real interest was he had sailed past Great Barrier Island and way back in 96.
02:02:19
I've been over there for missing woman Nancy Hershey Fray and on the island two
02:02:24
weeks looking for her and um yeah he had sailed past the island. But to be fair so much going on
02:02:33
you at work in my own work world and then my private life. Well, you know the football club. Well, I've stood down
02:02:38
president now for the club. I didn't realize how much time it took up. But yeah, I'm wanting to get into with my
02:02:44
partner working with handing Shane back doing more work to support the victims of child sex. Yeah. Is there a time you
02:02:53
feared for your life? Uh there was one time when when I was in uniform was over North Shore. We gone to domestic
02:03:05
hospital at a house and the guy started up a chainsaw and came at us chainsaw and that's where fight of flight kicks
02:03:14
in. Boy, I ran. I ran. Uh yeah. So there was that. But I have had a situation where I
02:03:22
didn't know at the time but been in uniform we' stopped a car in the middle
02:03:27
of the night and it took off. We chased it. It stopped in the back streets of Andal. I get out on the passenger. I
02:03:33
walk up to the back passenger side of the car and the car took off and eventually car got stopped, caught and
02:03:41
the driver, the young guy said they were going to rob a service station in the middle of the night and had stopped. The
02:03:49
bender in the back of the car had a torn off shotgun and he said, "I'm going to
02:03:53
shoot the pig when he walks up," which was me. Um the young driver panicked and
02:03:57
took off. So you have to live with that. Um, and you don't know that at that
02:04:02
time, but within a few hours found out and I had a little baby son at the time. And so that has an impact. You think,
02:04:11
gosh, what could it have been? Do you tell your wife that at the time? Yeah, it was in the news,
02:04:19
right? Okay. Jeez. Yeah, that Yeah, for for the partners. That's um yeah I've also before been in
02:04:29
a domestic situation the the males left and gone to another dress. We've gone to
02:04:34
the address and through the a glass door basically front door and you know knock
02:04:40
on the door and all you see and you can see the shadow behind and he's got and
02:04:44
it's just sergeant. Yes, please put the gun down. But yeah, how long does it take you to come
02:04:53
down after that? Uh, when you're young, I don't think it takes as long as when
02:04:58
you're older. You older, you think about things a lot more. But look, look, it's
02:05:01
it's there. It's happened. I know it's happened. And that's why I feel for some
02:05:04
of the staff out on the street with what goes on now. Yeah. Uh, what has been the
02:05:08
most rewarding moment in your police career? Gosh, there's a there's a lot. I
02:05:16
think when we have an award ceremony and the um Grace Millions investigation team got
02:05:27
an award and I got a commissioner's commendation and it was also my 42nd year anniversary and so you have this
02:05:36
big um the race course um race course is full place pack the commission M police
02:05:45
was there and when they called my name out and I come up and the whole audience stood up and
02:05:52
applauded. It was just yeah it was quite emotional. Um but yeah I just oh gosh like there's lots of others who've done
02:06:00
a lot of work in this job. I just happen to have a public media profile. There's
02:06:05
others. Do you do you have like a a pool room at home or like a man cave or a I've got a
02:06:13
table to this table but do I put up occasionally but yeah my kids say I've got a shrine because you know we used to
02:06:21
have have an office then open plan so I can't put all my photos and yeah stuff
02:06:26
up so I've got a little office which I call it the shrine and all my photos people from these college days and all
02:06:33
that. Yeah. How do you feel when you go in there and see that stuff? Proud. Oh I
02:06:36
feel quite proud. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. How can you not? Yeah. Um, someone wants to know, uh, cop shows on TV. Any
02:06:42
favorites and any resemblance to real life? I don't really watch them. Yeah.
02:06:46
No, I like to watch sport on TV. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I do I do watch um, you know, I've got a case and it's been in
02:06:54
the media. Um, a cold case, Alicia Riley, a little six-year-old girl who in 1980 was raped and murdered in a home in
02:07:01
Aendale. And we're working on that and we're going down the genetic genealogy
02:07:05
path. So, I'd like to watch some of the YouTube clips around genetic gology. Do cold cases occupy much space
02:07:13
in your mind? Yeah. Yeah, I've got a few. Yeah. Um suppose that's what you
02:07:19
doing. Simon Bose 1980 murdered in Bruce Park. Do a bit of work on that. Yeah. Yeah. But you're not you're not thinking
02:07:28
about that when you're out kayaking, are you? No. No. No. No. I'm enjoying the
02:07:33
moment. I'm just enjoying being at peace and like particularly when the water's
02:07:36
calm, there's no wind, you just it's just so peaceful. So come down. That's
02:07:41
good. You deserve that peace. Yeah. Yeah. Um if you could give parents one tip to help keep their kids safe, what
02:07:48
would it be? It's it's difficult but just be aware of a change in them because what happens is people notice
02:08:04
change in the ch their children you know they don't want to go to someone friend's house anymore or something they
02:08:11
just react and they just changed a lot of times it's because they've been
02:08:16
abused and not necessarily in their home. So yeah, just if you see particularly the young children, if you
02:08:24
see something that changes, be aware of that. Plus, you do say the technology just have a little bit more
02:08:33
conversation. I know it's difficult to talk to teenagers. Uh but you know what
02:08:39
are they doing online? You just try to have a bit more knowledge about that because as I say lead down to horrible
02:08:47
past. God, it's never been more difficult than it is now to be a parent. Eh, I know. I know. I feel, you know,
02:08:52
say I've got my children got their children and I think they do a fantastic job, but it's not easy. You don't want
02:08:58
to be like a control freak parent or a helicopter parent, but then, you know, you got to be careful of the policeman
02:09:03
granddad. Yeah. Yeah. Um, what are the what are the greatest challenges police face on the front line
02:09:12
today? Uh, look, I think it is the violence towards police. Yes, when I was younger,
02:09:20
we had violence towards police, but now it's getting younger and younger. There's children's violence out on the
02:09:26
street, and it's also directed at police and yeah, it's tough. What do you hope your legacy will be
02:09:35
both within the police force and in the broader community? Wow, what a legacy. Uh yeah, I like to think that, you know,
02:09:46
police staff, we can be empathetic. You know, we are human and we can be empathetic and we're out there
02:09:55
doing our best. Yeah. As I said before, we don't always get it right, but you
02:10:02
know, there's a lot of things police staff do that the public will never see
02:10:06
or never know. You know the death and tragedies that my staff have to attend, you know, in one shift, one squad
02:10:14
attended three suicides. They have to deal with that. And that's why the counseling is Yeah.
02:10:26
Um that was a very selfless answer, but the question was um what do you hope your legacy will be? And you
02:10:34
managed to turn it into the broader. Yeah. I don't think there's a lot about
02:10:37
you. I don't about me. I don't want to be about me. I want it. Yeah. Yes, I'm a
02:10:41
policeman. Yes, I have a media profile. But the police in general, we're a team.
02:10:47
The team wins. Oh, you won because of him. Yeah, you might have scored a goal. We'll try, but the team wins. And uh
02:10:56
[Music] well as as I mentioned at the beginning um when I said on Instagram you were
02:11:01
coming in um there were some questions which we've just shared but they were
02:11:04
mainly just comments and the words that sort of came up repeatedly were I suppose like kind, compassionate and
02:11:09
caring. Uh which I think speaks volumes. Like if if your kids or grandkids or people that know you better than anyone
02:11:16
else had to come up with three words to describe you, what would it be? What would they be?
02:11:22
Yeah. kind like I'm a disciplinarian that's it's my thing I am but yeah like
02:11:30
see my granddaughters they grandad they come running up to me and um a father just says you're so loving you know they
02:11:38
just love you so much and yeah I whatever I just think yeah just put yourselves in other people's shoes just
02:11:49
be kind be nice you Sometimes as a boss of it a bit harsher, but in general, you know, like be kind.
02:12:00
Yeah, I love that. That's a great way to end it. Um, so what's what's next for
02:12:05
you in terms of the health stuff? Uh, 12th of May, a month of radiation, and then see where it's gone. Yeah.
02:12:13
Did you just find that out this morning? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I've It was
02:12:17
last year that my PSA levels started to go up. I don't have prostate PSA levels
02:12:23
uh cuz I get through nothing test. So to come up test it again and they gone over
02:12:28
the line and then they sort of stayed above the line and that's where they at. So
02:12:34
yeah it was just okay you need to go and see the radiation oncologist and it started from there now okay you need um
02:12:41
hormone treatment radiation and so yeah today was a pain day. So you ready for the battle? Yeah, been there before.
02:12:51
Yes, this this is this don't like losing. I don't like losing. I'm competitive and even on this sports
02:12:56
field, I didn't like losing. Hey, this has been so great today. Uh, Detective
02:13:00
Inspector Scott Beard, thanks so much. You truly are a great New Zealander and I can't thank you enough for we've been
02:13:05
going backwards and forwards for maybe 6 months. Yeah. Even though your office is
02:13:09
like um 15 meters from here. I know. And when we get the alarm goes off, the backyard comes through. See? Yeah. Yeah.
02:13:17
And and that's the thing that I noticed about you now that since we u have offices just over the road whenever I've
02:13:22
seen you you just have this good energy like you bounce in. You're always smiling. You're always laughing. Always
02:13:28
happy. Always lean and fit looking. Um yeah, you're a great New Zealander. Thanks so much mate. Thank you for that
02:13:34
Dom. It's been great. Yeah. And I just hope you know people will hear and take
02:13:38
something from it and particularly around the hills. Yeah. And metal. Well, thanks on on behalf of me for being on
02:13:44
the podcast today and also on behalf of New Zealand for a lifetime of service. No, thank you very much.