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Welcome to the Domavvey podcast. Great conversations with fascinating people. On this episode, forensic scientist Tom
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Coyle, who worked on over 20,000 crime scenes in his 30-year poling career. When you're actually at the crime scene,
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uh you you put that professional mode on. Uh so you you can't show any emotion. Uh that's the worst. If you
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show emotion at that crime scene, uh and you start crying, you might as well never do it again. It it really is that
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that straight to the fact you start crying at that crime scene, your job's over.
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>> Viewer discretion is strongly advised. We talk about his work during the Crush
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earthquakes, why he hates CSI, and how he has learned to live with images that never truly leave you. This episode is
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not an easy watch, but it's an important one. Thomas Coyle, welcome to my podcast. Thank you so much for the
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invite. It's a absolute privilege to be here which is really quite strange because uh I told some of my friends
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that I'm going to go on a podcast and uh they their eyes went up and their eyebrows went across and you know they
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said to me, "Oh, it's going to be someone in a little tiny dingy room and
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uh they're they're going to be just with a little tiny microphone and you're
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going to be talking rubbish for about 15 20 minutes." I went, "Well, no, it's
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with Dom Harvey." And their eyes just lit up and it's just amazing how many
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people actually recognize who you are. So, thank you so much. She's a privilege
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to be here. >> I'm I'm pleased you're here. And um just to clarify, we're going to be talking
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rubbish for 2 hours or so. >> Okay. Thank you. >> No, it's going to be great. I've um
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you've got a brand new book out uh called The Dead Speak. >> I have. Yes.
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>> My life and forensics, which I've read over the last couple of days. Um
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the first thing I want to know is did did you have a ghost writer or did you write it all yourself?
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>> It was all myself. All from everything that was up there. uh all those scenes I
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went to uh all that visual imagination was all up in my brain. I did everything myself. I did actually ask the
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publishers cuz I sent him uh a little abstract of what I wanted in the uh uh what I wanted to get out of it. And I
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said right at the end, I'm hoping you're going to give a ghostriter uh to do this
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cuz I've never wrote a book before. In fact, I'm very rarely read a book. I'm
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more of a journal person or a magazine person. So, it's uh it was very daunting
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for me to even think about writing a book. And they said, "No, just give us a
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chapter on something you've done uh as something passed in your life." And I
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went, "Okay, I'll give it a go." And I started to type and I just couldn't
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stop. And it just kept coming out and out and out. And I gave them that chapter and they seem to have liked it.
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And that's where we are today. >> I I pity the editor. >> I reckon the editor probably needed some
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counseling afterwards. It's a It's a full-on book. It did go from editor to
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uh to publisher to editor me to say uh uh that yeah they were quite not overwhelmed but they it was a completely
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different type of book that than they've been used to in the past and we did have
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I wouldn't say fun times uh going from us to the editor but when it came back
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from the editor first of all it was uh really strange uh I felt like I was back at school again you know when you get
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your first uh manuscript back and all you see is red lines red lines and crosses red lines and crosses And I I
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was going, "Oh, no. That's it." You know, they're not going to accept the
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book. It's all rubbish. Uh but it was apparently it's just part of the process.
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>> Now, you've um you've done really well. It's it's a great book. I I got through
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it in a couple of days, and I'm a notoriously slow reader. Um it's all about your life and career. 16 years at
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Met Police in London, 14 years with the New Zealand Police, uh 20,000 crime scenes, over 200,000 exhibits and
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laboratories. Did Did you find this process Yeah, how how did you find it? Was it was it cathartic? Did you did you
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open up um you cases inside your mind that you thought had been locked away? >> Yeah, it was therapeutic. Yeah,
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>> it was actually therapeutic to write because when we go to these crime scenes, we can't compartmentalize them.
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So, we put them in different places just to just to switch it off and uh to forget about them. Uh but you know when
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you someone talks to you and they say oh you know there's this certain crime
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scene that they've been to and they you know and it just comes back again >> and it just comes flooding back. So all
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you have to do is just uh start to think about that crime scene and it all just comes out. It was right really quite
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strange but it was very uh therapeutic as well doing that. >> I I' I've written some books as well. Um
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but my my the and I know exactly what you're talking about. It's like pulling
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a thread and it just keeps coming. It's amazing. But the stories that I were
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talking was talking about were like silly stories about my childhood. Like um the stories that you were talking
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about are quite unpleasant things that probably should remain buried for a reason.
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>> Uh yeah. Well, I I won't say buried for a reason. I think I was trying to be
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honest, but I was trying to give more of an insight onto the forensic aspect within a crime scene. I didn't want it
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all blood gore and, you know, because there's somebody's life we're talking
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about. >> Oh, no. I was I was meaning like for self-preservation. >> Okay. Yeah. I I I see your point. Yeah.
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Uh I I I I'm one of these people that uh openly talk about uh my experiences uh
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when I was at you know with work colleagues and with other uh police officers and I trained as well in the
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past uh quite frequently. Uh so I was training officer so all of those kept coming out all the time. I wasn't one of
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the kept in like a pressure cooker. That's not to say I've not had my problems.
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>> Yeah. You know, I I have had my problems, >> mate. The things that you've seen and
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and done and witnessed. I Yeah. I don't know how you can come out the other side
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unscathed. I think it'd be impossible. >> But I think that's not not just from the
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crime scenes. I think from my early youth as well, you know, some of the things I've seen and was in with my
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older youth. I think that, you know, I've had that all the way through my life. So, it wasn't just for 18 years
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old, I go straight to see murders, uh, or something like that. So, I've not been introduced into it. It's just that
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I've I've witnessed things uh throughout my whole life. >> Yeah. We're going to loop back and get
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into that um the childhood and the early years. But first of all, um anyone that
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buys this book, uh the dead speak, what do you hope they feel when they reach the final page?
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a respect for those that go into these crime scenes uh and how the police are humans, those that work within the
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police, those that scientists, uh that we're all human and uh we we're there
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for a reason and that's to to get the information from a person or a deceased
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person or a crime scene itself. It doesn't have to be the deceased person. It could be a crime scene just to get
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information uh from that crime scene. Yeah, we we were discussing this in the office yesterday uh because I was I was
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reading out um some passages of the book. Um some of the staff uh really enjoyed it and wanted more. Others
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refused to listen and I said, "Look, this is a this is a this is a reality of
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life and it's a really important job and it's a necessary job and we're just
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lucky that we're not doing it." >> I know that's a it takes a certain
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individual to do that. You you've got lots of people that love all the blood
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and gore on the TV and you know you've got these games that assert 18 that 14
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year olds are shooting people's heads off and all that. So it's norm it seems
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like normality for a lot of individuals but get them into a crime scene or describe a crime scene in reality.
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>> It's completely different aspect of it. You know, it's completely different to
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that two-dimensional uh plastic you see on uh you know, on the TV to what you do
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with a three-dimensional where there's a deceased person in front of you with
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blood spatter all at the wall. >> Yeah, there's actually a joke about the
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the shows that you were talking about earlier in the book. Um you call them CSI made up and CSI stupid.
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>> Um have have the popularity of those sort of shows made your life hell?
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>> Yes. Well, it's when I first joined when I first joined uh uh this job, it wasn't
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glamorized. It was like a dirty man's position. Uh so it was like the position
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nobody really wanted to do because it was that that job that was after the event. You're not actually going out
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investigating it with uh you know arresting people and you're at the that end of the the crime scene looking at
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all the evidence that nobody else wants to do. CSI came along. It's glamorized
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it all and people want to now uh feel like that, you know, that that they can do that. Uh, and they they imagine
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somebody going into that crime scene, you know, with with what you see on CSI and the the the beautiful person with
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their hair flicked over and they walk over to the crime scene and they they flick their hair as they they they go
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down to the uh the deceased person. No PPA. Look, if they're wearing gloves and
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they pick up a hair, I've just found a hair sample. Well, I'm not surprised,
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you've just shedded 20 airs all over the place. That's not the reality. For
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goodness sake, >> you're just getting terminated with the whole crowd.
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>> I can't watch them. I really cannot watch them. I actually broke a TV once.
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I threw something at it. It was just just really really I got so overwhelmed with the the uh the way they portrayed a
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scene examiner on uh on the set that it just it just got to me and I can't watch
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them anymore. >> Well, it's light entertainment, isn't it? I had I had one of New Zealand's
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greatest golfers of all time, Michael Campbell. I've had him on the podcast and he refuses to watch Happy Gilmore.
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>> Oh, really? >> Like he refuses to watch anything to do with golf cuz he's like it's just so
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far-fetched. >> I can see I can see his point. But that Yeah. Yeah, that's a really good point
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actually. >> Yeah. Okay. Um based on everything you know, what is the worst way to die?
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>> Alone. It's simple as that. I would say be being alone >> is the worst way to die. the victims of
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uh uh which I've had many of is suicide. Uh I think they're the worst ways to
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die. Uh you do get you get the violent ones and all of that. That's all of that, but I truly believe they're the
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worst ones. That was an unexpected answer. Oh, sorry. No, no, no. I need to apologize. I I
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don't don't know what I was expecting. It was it's a fantastic answer and it's
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an honest answer. I appreciate it. when when when people ask you in social situations about your life and career,
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um what do they generally ask? >> Like if you're at a barbecue or somewhere,
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>> what's the worst crime scene you've ever been to? That's that's the number one
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question. Or how do you put up with it? They're the two question. Even when I go
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to schools and you got like 14, 15 year olds that we teach forensic science to, they always come up to you afterwards
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and we give them a question and answer time and the first question I can guarantee, what is the worst crime scene
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you've ever been to? and they want me to describe it, which I can't, you know,
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they're not uh audio. I wouldn't describe it to, you know, to to most individuals anyway. Uh even in the book,
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I describe the crime scenes, but I do it in a uh so you can imagine a forensic science collecting those items. But
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>> uh yeah, they're they're the they're the two main questions I get at a barbecue
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or some someone asking me that, what is the worst crime scene you done or how do
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you cope with it? >> Would you answer it here or no? what the >> the worst crimes scene.
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>> Uh the I I could, but it's it's I wouldn't want to go into detail with it. And that
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that was a child death. Uh that was the worst one I ever went to. And the the the things that happened to that child
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and then going to the postmortem and seeing that child being cut into when they should be playing in the
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playground. >> What age? >> Uh they were I think they were around about 5 years old.
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And that gets you. It still gets me now. You know, it's it's just you go you go
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to the crime scene, you go, they say, you know, this is what's happened to this child. This is and you do you feel
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you you've got a family yourself. We're all you all the police have got families, but you expect to go in there
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with this strong presence and then somebody describes exactly what another person's done to a child and then they
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say to you the next day, "Oh, we need you. We because we've found evidence
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within there. Now we've got to go to the postmortm and then you're there with the
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pathologist and the pathologist is doing their job uh in an excellent way and we
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cut it in or they're cutting into a 5-year-old and we gain evidence off that. So they're the worst
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>> when that's the worst. >> When do you um Yeah. When when do you
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stop being professional and become a human? Like do do you do you do you like cry at the scene or is it when you get
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home after the end of your shift? Is it driving home? No, it's you you when you're actually at the crime scene, uh
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you you put that professional mode on. Uh so you you can't show any emotion. Uh
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that's the worst. If you show emotion at that crime scene, uh and you start crying, you might as well never do it
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again. It it really is that that straight to the fact you start crying at that crime scene, your job's over.
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>> But you're only human. >> I know you're only human, but you take
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that you you switch like the switch that goes on inside your mind as soon as you
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put that PPE gear on. You're still shaking because you know you're going to
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expect something horrible. But as soon as you put that PPE gear on and that mask goes on and you've got your
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notebook, it's like and there's a switch that turns over. Now you're in your
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professional mode and you are there for the victim of that crime. Uh but when you leave your heart does go, "Wow, did
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somebody just really do that?" And you can I I've sat there and I've sat in my
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car before driving over and I've gone, "I need 10 minutes to myself. I can't
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drive straight away because I'm I'm angered with the situation. I'm angry
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that one fellow human can do this to another human. And I just sit there just for 10 minutes just to to recoup myself.
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>> But then I get home and I've got a family support like no other. You know,
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um I've got a wife that's very intriguing uh or she she's very intrigued with crime scenes. So uh she
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>> she married the right guy. >> She did. So, she sit she she allows me
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to tell her everything that I've been through throughout that day or week or
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how long I've been at the the scene itself. And uh she will just sit there and let me get it all out. And I have
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sat there a couple of times with tears, you know, I've cried >> with her just for what I've seen. We're
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all Cuban at the end of the day. You know, we we have emotions, but we don't
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show them at that crime scene. And I haven't put that in the book because I I
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and I think part of that was uh taken out for that reason because I think that's a complete and utter book all on
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its own. >> Uh you know the the the the for the things we see and the the the trauma
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that stays with us for the rest of our lives and like I say I have been I have been depressed in the past with it.
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That's perfectly understandable. How can how can you not take your work home with
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you like from a mental perspective? like how are you able to just um like you block that off and not think about it?
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>> I Yeah, I you could never ever take your work home with you. It's like I say,
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it's that professional uh block that you have in your mind. You can't you can't go home and take all of that
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weight with you. uh or you do take that weight with you, but you can't actually
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uh take the the emotion from that crime scene uh and bring it to to the house as
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well, unless you like I've just uh said about talking to to your to to Ali myself. Yeah.
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>> Yeah. But is that something you learned over time? Like I'm just thinking if if
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as a civilian like if I if I happen to see like a dead a dead child, I don't
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think it's something I could ever forget. >> Yeah, it is. It it's over time you build
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resilience. Uh so it's all about building resilience over time. So the first few times I went uh it does hit
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you quite emotionally but you start getting uh that that emotional detachment from it uh but it doesn't it
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to say it doesn't still affect you is is untrue and I I don't think any scene
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examiner or scientist out there that has ever been to scenes themselves can ever
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say that they're detached fully >> and they can go straight out and have a
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jolly good drink afterwards. Now, we're recording this at the end of January 2026. Um, and there's been uh a
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terrible tragedy recently in Mount Monganoi with um the landslide. And you've probably got some former
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colleagues, I don't know, that are potentially working there this week. What are they likely to be experiencing?
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>> Uh first and foremost, nervousness. Obviously, this is somebody's loved ones
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they're dealing with. uh they have to be patient as well because they're they're
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waiting uh unfortunately for the deceased to be recovered. So it's that anxiety the anxiety of uh waiting uh for
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uh the the the victim uh to be brought to the uh morttery uh which I believe is Hamilton uh where they're going to be
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taken uh and then go through that process. So there's a that set process that they will go through uh but they
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will be treated with such humanity. So it's it's they're treated like a family
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member uh when they the the the deceased comes through. But it takes time and people have to realize it takes time and
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and it takes a great deal of effort to get that information from them. Uh so nothing's a you know nothing's a quick
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easy uh way of trying to retrieve that information. But they they will be showing anxiety at the moment waiting.
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It's a waiting game for them. And we all hate waiting. No matter what crime um
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sorry, no matter what disaster I've been to, it's always been a waiting game to
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wait for uh something to come so that you can get into that mode of working. >> You you said something before. You said
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it'll take a bit of time to get the information from them. The from them you're you're talking about the victims.
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>> The victims themselves. >> What what do you mean exactly? Well, we
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have to when we're looking at the victims from disaster sites, uh we have to go through a process of uh taking uh
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uh taking uh what's the word? Uh taking evidence from that victim. So, we're looking at odontology, which the
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the last uh uh person that was repatriated to their family or the first person that repatriated their family, it
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was odontology that was the primary identifier. What's that? >> Oh, do teeth. So, it was the formation
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uh the uh the the way that the teeth are set in there. So, what they do is uh they'll take an X-ray of the teeth of
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the deceased person and they'll have an X-ray from uh from where they've been to
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the dentist because when we all go to the dentist, we have our X-rays taken. And so, they'll look at the
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individuality of the formation of the teeth to make sure that it matches from the X-ray from the uh from the dentist
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to uh the deceased person. So, that's uh one way. It was the the person that was
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uh sorry I forgot the person's name but the person that was actually repatriated
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to the family the first one of those six uh victims that was I do believe through
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odontology and then the secondary was primary uh secondary identification so the clothing the height the the the
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features of the person but then there's other formats as well so we're looking
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at uh uh DNA uh from the person we're looking at fingerprints so that we can
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look at the antibotum from personal items that they may have touched uh We're looking at uh uh the even
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something if they've been to a hospital and they've got like a pacemaker or an
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implant that's been placed there because they've got unique serial numbers. So
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there'll be a postmortem to look at that effect as well and how they actually uh
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how they died as well. >> Yeah. I ask you that because you've been involved in a a couple of um big events
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that we'll get into in the 2005 Indonesia tsunami >> 2004. >> Oh 2004 big boxing day 2004. Yeah. Over
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into 2005. Yes. >> And um the Christ Church earthquakes of uh 2011. >> 2011. Yes.
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>> Um so when you were dealing with a victim of a like ah I was going to say a
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tragedy, you know, natural disaster, but I suppose any crime as well. So do you do you know their their name or do you
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know anything about them or >> we don't know anything about them? That's the the whole point of disaster
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victim identification. We have no prior knowledge of who those people are. So they're given unique reference numbers
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and you that reference number stays with them all the way through. So the antimortm has the person's name because
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that's the individual we're trying to recover the evidence from from their
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home or workplace. But the postmortem, so the pink forms uh is has all the information from the deceased person,
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but we don't know who that deceased person is. So we're trying to get in
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enough or as much information from that person themselves. So first of all, we'll look at their clothing. So, we'll
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take their clothing off. Sometimes they'll have a name placed at the back of their tag. Uh the the jewelry, some
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jewelry could be unique. So, a wedding ring could have the name of the individual who they've married inside
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with love. But we can't rely on that as formal identification because people
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swap clothes. You know, people hold somebody's wallet. You know, my wife's
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always holding my wallet. Uh so, you can't have that as primary identification. There's got to be
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secondary identification, but it's a great indicator of the who that person is
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>> uh before they go into the uh the uh the the the next stage of those process of
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uh postmortm uh processes to get the other information which I said the odontology DNA path postmortm and uh uh
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fingerprints. >> We just need to move your mic a little bit closer to you. Jeez, we're 20
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minutes in. This is going to be this is going to be a great chat. I'm so It's
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already really good. >> Oh, okay. Cool. Okay. >> How are you? How are you feeling? How do
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you feel? >> I'm I'm feeling a lot uh more relaxed now. Yeah. >> Okay. Cuz I I I you know, we I've had a
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couple of interviews and they seem to to go off onto a tangent and trying to lead
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me down to a god a garden path that I don't really want to go down to. But you
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you I must admit you're a lot more relaxed than Thank you for >> Oh, thank you. Oh, there's there's no
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agenda here at all. Um, so these these are just questions from a place of natural curiosity and uh yeah, I just
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want your your answers as a uh >> an experienced forensics guy. >> So let's Okay, let's go to your
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background first of all. So what what's your earliest memory? >> Earliest memory at a crime scene or
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earliest memory of being in trouble. >> So So you're from um a council estate in
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the UK? >> I'm from a really rough counselor state in the UK. you know, lots it's one of
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those council states where very few people ever get out. They get uh they get into that situation where they feel
00:22:15
that the their their life's not worth that great deal. Uh undereducated and they they feel this is where their life
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is. And a lot of people are there's many many people I know that have never left,
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never even gone out of Leicester. My mom's only ever been to Skesh, never been abroad. Uh so I I get into that rut
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of well this is where I'm going to be. >> Uh but yeah my earliest educ my earliest
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one is school you know being bullied at school. Uh and to to overcome being bullied at school I became a comic a
00:22:53
comedian. I made people laugh especially the bullies that were bullying me. So the big hard chaps that went around
00:23:00
bullying people, I used to make them laugh and uh they seem to enjoy it and they protected me and that's how I got
00:23:06
through my childhood part of life is just by making people laugh. >> I think that's very relatable. I think
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there's a lot of people that are probably listening to this or watching this that have done that themselves. You
00:23:17
used, you know, humor as a defense mechanism. >> It is. It's a massive defense mechanism
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and it's and it helped me. It helped me out so much. Uh I could have I could
00:23:25
have gone two ways. is I could have just hid in a corner and been an isolated victim or I could have just gone out
00:23:30
there and uh you know uh cuz I heard I you know it was just it was just one of those things I didn't hear about sorry
00:23:38
where am I going with that go back a step it was just that I I tripped over it once in front of somebody as I was
00:23:46
going away and I banged banged myself on the side and they started laughing and I
00:23:51
thought oh okay that's that's stopped me being beaten up and I carried on with
00:23:55
that and It just progressed from there and that's that's the way I lived.
00:23:58
>> And um 1979, how old were you how old were you in 1979? >> I think I was 11 years old. That must
00:24:05
have been. Yeah. >> Yeah. Okay. Christmas Eve 1979. You talk about this in the book. Um why is that a
00:24:10
pivotal pivotal moment in your life? >> I think are we talking about uh the
00:24:14
beating of my mother? >> Yeah. Domestic violence. >> Domestic violence which was quite common
00:24:18
in my uh household. Uh >> your stepdad, right? >> My stepdad. Yes. Uh, so my my uh my dad
00:24:25
left when I was uh really young. I never knew who he was, but then I found out later when I was uh 17, 18 that he was
00:24:33
he was a drunk as well and he went off and uh I've never ever actually seen him. And then my stepdad came in when I
00:24:39
was younger. Uh he liked the whiskey. He was a Jordy lad. Uh and uh when he liked
00:24:45
a whiskey, you got on the wrong side of him. Uh it was just the the back of his hand. And uh he got more and more brutal
00:24:52
as he went along. Uh and he just didn't do it just to to to my mom. He had done
00:24:57
it to us as well. Uh he my he resented myself and my sister because we weren't
00:25:03
his kids. Uh he had two kids of himself with my mom. So they're my you know my
00:25:08
other brother and sister. And he resented who myself and my daughter uh my daughter my my uh my sister and uh
00:25:16
yeah he was forever you know giving me a a good smack. But that that and my mom was always getting the brunt of it. She
00:25:23
she used to always step in and then he just didn't like that and he used to just clobber her. But that that evening
00:25:29
this it was Christmas Eve. We were all excited to see our Christmas present. It was a nice relaxed evening.
00:25:35
>> Uh my dad was in the stepdad was in the kitchen. He was playing his guitar,
00:25:39
drinking his uh whiskey. We thought it was going to be a great evening. My mom said something wrong. He just snapped.
00:25:45
And my god, that's me. Did he punch the living [ __ ] out of her in front of us?
00:25:50
We were trying to stop him and he was smacking us out the way. And all we could do uh cuz I was a real little
00:25:56
skinny [ __ ] I was nothing. And I couldn't I couldn't I couldn't hold
00:25:59
back. He was a big chap. And uh you know, he just smacked us out the way and uh pushed the living [ __ ] out of her.
00:26:06
And I had to see that. I had to watch him do that for a good 10 minutes until he knew that she was unconscious
00:26:14
on the floor and then he he he left and I never saw him after that. >> Tom, that's so [ __ ] sad.
00:26:21
>> It is. >> I feel How do you feel when you reflect on that little boy?
00:26:25
>> It actually makes me tear up now just thinking about it. >> Yeah, I'm just thinking like you weren't
00:26:29
you weren't really safe at school. You like you made it work to the best of your ability. You weren't safe at home
00:26:35
either. >> [ __ ] It was a it was a tough time. Tough times. And you know, my mom was in
00:26:40
hospital for seven days. And she'd kept the secret away from her family. She had
00:26:44
a big family. You know, we should we're talking >> How do you hide between Christmas and
00:26:47
New Year's? >> I Well, she didn't. The family found out that cuz they had to take us in.
00:26:52
>> Yeah. >> And her brothers found out and they never knew that she'd been a part of
00:26:55
domestic violence cuz she hid it so well. She had the black eyes. Well, uh we never could tell uh anybody uh
00:27:01
because, you know, my mom was keeping this secret. And uh you know we loved our mom uh very much. So we we just
00:27:07
wanted to protect protect her and so her brothers found out and that's why he
00:27:13
never came back because the her brothers would have killed him. I I truly believe
00:27:18
they would have killed him. >> I mean if your mom stayed with him eventually like she would have things
00:27:25
tend to escalate. Right. I I again that's always at the back of my mind and I think she the next punch uh would have
00:27:33
been the fatal one. I don't think there would have been another one after this
00:27:36
the after sorry the next one after this because he got that violent on this one if my mom would have uh you know let him
00:27:42
come back into our lives again or the brothers weren't after him cuz my mom would I don't know why but I think she
00:27:47
would have had him back >> and uh it would have done it again maybe not in you know it' have been all fine
00:27:52
for 2 3 months everyone's happy we're all lovely and everyone's hugging and
00:27:56
then suddenly something will snap again and uh I think the next blow would have killed her.
00:28:00
>> How's your mom now? >> She's fine. She's uh she's
00:28:05
uh she's she got with somebody else afterwards. His name was Sirill a few years later. Wonderless man ever.
00:28:12
Complete the opposite. And you know he was the he would just treated her like a queen. And so for that and he he was
00:28:19
only uh with her for I think it was about it was about 12 years but then he ended up with serious Parkinson or
00:28:25
Parkinson's disease and we watched him wither away to nothing. Uh and you know
00:28:31
that was my mom's life in front of her that she this bloke could change changed
00:28:36
her concept of uh husbands cuz the first cuz the first husband was a you know a real [ __ ] second husband was a bigger
00:28:45
[ __ ] and then this this bloke comes along midway through her life when she's
00:28:48
in her 40s early 40s 50s and treats her like a queen and she's taken 4550 years
00:28:55
to get to that point of someone treating her with respect and uh you know and then somebody takes him away. So where's
00:29:03
the irony of that? You know where's life when you know somebody's been with you
00:29:07
for you know 50 years of [ __ ] life and then someone comes along and loves you so much and then somebody takes them
00:29:14
away through really [ __ ] illness. >> She must be so proud of you. Like her
00:29:20
boy did good. >> Yeah, she's really really proud. It's uh she's got like a what do we call them
00:29:26
where you've got a a place on the the got like a shrine. >> Right. That's the word. She's got like a
00:29:32
shrine. It's really weird. And I'm expecting when I go when I say cuz every
00:29:36
time I talk to her on the phone, we do we do quite a few Zoom meetings. Every time she cuz she's uh uh she's starting
00:29:42
to get dementia slightly. So we she says the same thing over and over again, but
00:29:47
every single time I can guarantee she'll turn that camera around and there is in
00:29:51
front of her the the shrine of uh you know the things I've done in the past.
00:29:55
I've sent her a little medal and uh you know some of the little medals I've got
00:29:59
and uh she puts them on there and she just sits there and enjoys looking at them. Not just of me obviously there
00:30:06
obviously other family members up there. >> No, but um you got a royal title in the
00:30:11
the king's birthday honors list. You got a um order of merit thing. >> I did. Yes.
00:30:15
>> Um so I'm thinking like being from like a a council flat in the UK very close to
00:30:20
the royal family. Like that must have been super meaningful to your mom. It was brilliant. She I I think she must
00:30:27
have told everyone about it, even people she didn't know. She was just going out
00:30:31
in the street and telling people, you know, my son and she, you know, this little old woman on a Zoom frame, she
00:30:36
going, you know, my son is got appointed by the king of England and she was just telling everyone for
00:30:43
weeks. >> Oh, that's wonderful. Um yeah that um being in that sort of environment um
00:30:49
surrounded by domestic violence. What what impact did that have on you as a boy and now a man
00:30:56
to me uh you know you know how you hear stories sometimes if you got people that
00:31:02
go grow up in that child of they're being abused or they're being uh uh you
00:31:06
know they've seen abuse themselves and they say that that carries on and they
00:31:10
do that to you know that that's what why they carry on and do that. Well, there's
00:31:13
Yeah, there's a massive ad campaign here in New Zealand called Break the Cycle.
00:31:16
All about that. >> Yeah. Well, I went completely opposite. I've got utter and utter respect. That's
00:31:21
why I'm still with my wife after 40 years. You know, I have utter respect for the the uh for other people. Uh I
00:31:29
went down completely the different road uh on that which uh was a refreshing change uh to see uh you know going down
00:31:39
a completely different you. I could have easily have just put my hands up and just said, "Yeah, well, this is what
00:31:43
I've been used to for the last 18 years. This is what must life be." Uh, but
00:31:48
there was that incident that I'm presume we'll talk about where, you know,
00:31:52
something changed my life and I needed to to get out of this cycle uh to to move on.
00:31:57
>> Well, let's talk about that. Yeah. Who who was Paul Webster? >> So, Paul Webster was my a really good
00:32:02
friend of mine. We'd been together for not together, so it's a strange way to
00:32:06
say it. >> Yeah. We'd been mates since uh We lived on the same street. So, we'd been mates
00:32:12
since we were 2 years old. Um, that we I I had a position at Don Millers, which was a bakery in the center of Leicester.
00:32:20
And I was there uh one Friday night uh which we was baking uh bread Friday or Saturday. I think it was a Friday night.
00:32:28
We had to work evenings Friday and Saturday evening. And there was a commotion out at the clock tower, which
00:32:32
is a big iconic uh clock in the middle of town center. police cars going off in the lights and sirens and we wondered
00:32:40
what was going on. So went outside and there was a big crowd drawn around this person on the floor and the police
00:32:48
running all over the place and there was another police officer who was an inspector who was lying on the floor
00:32:52
further down the road uh who'd been stabbed and walk over there and there's
00:32:57
this individual on the floor uh that' been stabbed once in the heart in the back and died there and then and then I
00:33:06
only realized the next day not even it was that it was just then I realized that it was my best friend
00:33:13
>> that just died and I was I was mortified that a life could be snapped away for
00:33:21
something so stupid. You know, he had no knowing that this was going to happen. He was with a crowd of friends and the
00:33:28
person with a knife just came up straight behind them in this group and he was just in the wrong place at the
00:33:33
wrong time. M >> went down, died quite very quickly cuz it went straight into the heart. And it
00:33:39
was just it was at that point I thought I can't be doing this. I need I I I don't want to be here. I want to do
00:33:47
something different. >> And that what did that teach you about grief? I suppose that's your at how old were you?
00:33:54
16. >> I was 18 at the time. >> I suppose this is the first um the first
00:33:58
encounter with sort of death of someone that you love that happened. >> Yes. And it hit me like a ton of bricks.
00:34:03
I was uh very emotional for days, maybe even weeks. I just didn't realize that
00:34:08
somebody could be snatched away so young. Uh and witnessing it as well, which is even the worst part about it.
00:34:16
>> And yet it affected me a lot. Uh and I became I wouldn't say disillusioned with life.
00:34:23
I just became disillusioned with people >> and I just became insect with myself. I
00:34:28
didn't want to know anything. I really didn't want to know. I think that was my
00:34:33
first ever encounter with depression. >> I think it must have been. >> Yeah. I suppose you wouldn't have had a
00:34:41
label for it then. No, you look back. >> I just felt down. I just felt well what
00:34:45
what what am I supposed to do? And I just felt like there was this storm cloud over my head and shoulders uh that
00:34:51
I just couldn't get rid of. And every day was a rainy day. Even though it was
00:34:55
it could have been nice outside, it it just became such a uh ter came such an upheaval trying to get out of bed,
00:35:03
trying to get to work. >> Uh and even talking to people, I just just felt like I just didn't want to be
00:35:09
with anyone. Just wanted to be on my own alone and just think of the good times that me and my friend had.
00:35:15
>> How often do you think about where you be now? >> All the time. >> Do you? He's got a great uh I wouldn't
00:35:20
say it's a weird thing to say but following but every single year uh all his family and uh friends all say you
00:35:26
know happy birthday Paul uh on his birthday and we all say you know you know happy birthday to him uh via social
00:35:33
media uh so it's always constantly there but even when I go to you know crime
00:35:37
scenes sometimes it's there you go whoa okay this could have been Paul I'm here
00:35:43
now and I'm trying to solve this for the families uh uh which is what I've always
00:35:49
wanted to do since that event. >> Um that's so cool that you keep his memory alive even now. Always.
00:35:57
>> I'm probably projecting here, but it'd be like my worst fear if I was dying to
00:36:00
be forgotten. >> Yeah, that's why I put him in the book right at the beginning. uh you know that
00:36:04
I wanted to the book to be dedicated to himself and Joe which was my uh >> nephew that uh you know sadly passed
00:36:12
away as well which was a really unfortunate circumstance at few years ago. >> Yeah. Yeah. Sorry about that. We we'll
00:36:19
get into that later as well. >> Yeah. >> So yeah after we uh died that's when you
00:36:23
decided to make um a massive career pivot and um you became a cop. Can you can you remember?
00:36:28
>> I didn't first. The navy. The navy. I was I went into I I thought I wanted to
00:36:33
be I wanted to be a cop. I always want I felt afterwards that Yeah. I wanted to do uh the police work. But being a
00:36:40
skinny little runt, there was no way I was going to do it. And plus they wanted mature people then. They didn't want
00:36:45
anyone that was 18, 19. They wanted, you know, people in their 20s, 30s that uh had respectable academic career uh paths
00:36:52
behind them. Uh so I decided to go on the Navy go into the Navy part the Navy recruitment and I went down there just
00:36:59
to be a naval sea uh seaman and completed all the tests and the exams and they called me up and said oh we
00:37:06
you're actually really good uh we could have you as a naval officer and that's
00:37:10
when I went for the medical and the medical again said that you're underweight
00:37:15
and I decided okay well I'll put on weight and go go in 6 months and then it
00:37:20
changed again there was that uh position that came up at New Scotland Yard. >> Yeah. Can you remember your first day
00:37:26
there at Scotland Yard? >> It was so daunting, >> intimidating. >> It was really intimidating. It was a It
00:37:31
was the late '8s. It was a very big man's club uh building. You know, it was
00:37:37
a one of these where >> the hierarchy was very very well respected. Your peers were very well
00:37:43
well respected. You if they were walking down the corridor, you stepped onto the
00:37:47
side. You let them walk past. You always saluted people. Uh complete different nowadays. Obviously, you wouldn't never
00:37:54
do that. You know, there's respect on both sides. Uh but then there was only a
00:37:58
oneway uh respect and that was their way. >> That's um sort of around this part of
00:38:04
the book where you talk about someone that lost their life after falling 18 floors.
00:38:09
>> Yeah. >> Um you had to investigate whether it was um like an accident or they were pushed.
00:38:15
Um >> but there's some graphic detail in here including missing limbs. Yeah. Yeah.
00:38:19
>> Is that just as a result of the falling from that height? >> So they No, it wasn't just the falling
00:38:24
of the height. They they went through the So there was a walkway going into the building. So the back stairwell
00:38:30
>> and in that stairwell there was a a a conservatory roof. So there was glass
00:38:35
roof and skylight and the skylight had metal struts that kept the glass together.
00:38:40
>> So the person came down the 18th 18 floors went through the glass and they
00:38:46
the metal struts were like a guillotine. And so the guillotined the legs that went one way, torso went the other and
00:38:54
if you want to know the head went completely somewhere else which we had to try and find.
00:38:58
>> Yeah, there was a a decapitation as well which is the I I'm pretty sure this is
00:39:02
the first time I've ever read this in a book. So you're how old at the time?
00:39:05
This is fairly early in your pleasing. >> This was very early. So I would have
00:39:08
been uh I would have been about 24 then. >> [ __ ] She must have been wishing you
00:39:13
were in the Navy at that point. >> I wasn't. It was it was even worse when
00:39:17
uh the when I actually went to the body and uh uh removed the coat and there was
00:39:23
no head. >> That was the point where I went oh cuz I wasn't expecting that. That made me jump
00:39:28
for 24 year old jumping at the time when you you're pulling back somebody's coat
00:39:32
and you go there's no head. Where is it? And that's that's where we had a look
00:39:37
outside and it was in the uh alleyway. >> What distance? How far from the body was
00:39:42
the head? It was about 25 maybe 30 m away. >> Oh my god. >> It bouncing and rolling. It actually uh
00:39:49
it it it hit the because it guillotineed, but the the glass broke, but for some unknown reason, there must
00:39:54
have been slight part of the uh the neck skin must have kept on slightly and it rebounded backwards and then came away
00:40:01
from the torso cuz that went through and it went onto a car bonnet outside and then from that car bonnet it rolled down
00:40:08
and it went into a curb and that's where it was for about an hour and a half.
00:40:13
And then the the the coroner has to come and um confirm that there's been a >> it was the GP that came out. The GP
00:40:21
needs to come out in them days anyway to confirm ident paramedics do it nowadays
00:40:26
cuz they're highly trained to do that. But in those days it was a the GP that
00:40:30
used to come out and I'll always always remember it as if it was yesterday. I'm
00:40:35
standing there, the investigating team standing there. There was three of us standing there. The GP's running over
00:40:40
because he's late anyway. And he bends down. We pulled the red because we'd put
00:40:44
a red uh flannel over by then or something from the parame. It was of like a red cotton uh cover. He pulled it
00:40:52
back, knelt down, hand two fingers on the neck. Watch. And he was like that for about 15
00:41:02
seconds. Come off and says, "I can confirm the person is dead." And I just went, "No [ __ ] [ __ ]
00:41:09
Sherlock. This is this is this is a head on its own. Where the [ __ ] the rest of the
00:41:15
body, you know, but he couldn't get paid. He wasn't he wasn't to get paid is
00:41:20
£50 until he'd actually confirmed and done the whole procedure. Even as someone like me that hasn't done a first
00:41:26
aid call has told you the person was dead, >> which is really it's good because we we
00:41:30
laugh about it, but it's it's just one of those things that, you know, uh
00:41:34
sometimes these these type of scenes can bring laughter even though it's not,
00:41:39
>> you know, we're not really supposed to laugh about it, but we do. We we have to
00:41:42
to keep ourselves sane. >> So So this this the victim here, it's a complete stranger to you. Do you do you
00:41:49
in the the days or weeks afterwards find any more information about them? you learn anything more about them or does
00:41:54
it just pay you not to? >> It pays me not to. >> Uh I don't want to know their personal
00:41:59
life. I'm there for to try and give them uh their family and themselves answers,
00:42:04
but I don't want to get emotionally involved. So I don't want to start knowing about their background. We do
00:42:08
hear about the background sometimes. So we'll we'll hear about where they've
00:42:11
come from or what's actually happened. I I most of the time I' I'd like to know
00:42:16
what's happened pre uh the examination just to see if the things that I've
00:42:22
actually picked up and preserved and uh developed and preserved has been part of
00:42:28
that uh you know the the way that the person died but I don't want to know anything before then
00:42:33
>> and the reason for that as well is because we go to court in the future
00:42:36
>> and I don't want to be biased. I don't want to be emotionally biased knowing
00:42:40
that I know all about this previous person's life and I've had a [ __ ] life
00:42:44
and now I'm going to give evidence in that court and I'm going to try and push
00:42:46
that evidence as much as I can to the suspect. Forensic science shouldn't be
00:42:50
like that. Forensic science should always be unbiased. You should be going there to the court only, not for the
00:42:56
victim and not for the suspect. If if the victim in that scenario was um a friend of mine or a brother or someone
00:43:04
that I cared about, I I mean it's a very violent death. Yeah. And it's it's very
00:43:09
graphic and it's not a even without seeing it, just hearing it, it's not
00:43:12
something I'd ever be able to get out of my mind, I don't think. As a as a 24y
00:43:16
old, like how do you Yeah. Did you lean into alcohol or anything as a coping mechanism at that age? What did you
00:43:22
>> Everyone at New Scotland Yard lent into alcohol then. We we was virtually all on
00:43:26
the verge of being alcoholics. It was uh it was one of those it was one of those
00:43:32
times in one of those eras where we went to we played uh we worked hard play hard. So all of us uh once we'd been
00:43:39
done a day's uh work the first place we went to without any doubt at all especially at the the Thursday Friday or
00:43:47
well any day of the week really. I'm I'm just saying that to make myself not feel
00:43:50
really bad. But any day of the week, if we'd been to a major crime scene, the
00:43:54
first place we went to was the pub and we got pissed. But I'm young. I was young there. So I could wake up at 6:00
00:44:00
in the morning and I'd be bright as a, you know, bright >> bright and ready to go. If I did that
00:44:05
now, it would be no good at all. But >> yeah, also um like yeah, we all know now that that's not
00:44:12
the right way to cope with these things, but it was how it was at the time. I suppose back then there were no such
00:44:16
thing as you know psychologists or therapists and even if you did say that you needed help, you'd probably be
00:44:22
called a [ __ ] >> Yes, you was all the time. You know, there's uh there was certain
00:44:26
circumstances where I've been uh to some really serious crime scenes there and
00:44:32
you just needed to to to talk to somebody about it, somebody different. Not go you you know, I go home to the
00:44:38
wife and tell her, but that's the same person all the time. So, I just felt like I needed to to go and speak to
00:44:43
somebody. Uh in those days it was just not heard of. There was no such thing as counseling. There was no such thing as
00:44:50
going to uh somebody that uh could actually just listen to you. It was one of those, you know, big boy one of the
00:44:57
old boys clubs things again where if you didn't like it, you don't want like what
00:45:01
you see, piss off, >> you know, can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
00:45:05
>> You don't. And there's a lot of my colleagues now within the Met that have,
00:45:09
you know, it's been with the Met so long and the Met have got it in place now and
00:45:13
so is the New Zealand police. You know, they're very very good at it, looking
00:45:16
after their employers. Uh but then they've bottled it up so much they've
00:45:21
never had no one to talk to. And I I talk to a person now in uh the UK uh on a regular basis who's got PTSD,
00:45:29
>> uh who's traumatized by the crimes that they've seen but have never had anybody
00:45:33
to speak to. And it just bottled up to so much. It was a pressure cooker. And one day the person exploded and became a
00:45:39
hermit and didn't know what to do. He was he was he was ready to to uh throw
00:45:44
in the uh >> throw throw in the towel. >> Many decades have passed, so we can we
00:45:52
can laugh now about the absurdity of the the GP taking the pulse on the neck of the decapitated head. But
00:45:58
>> did you have nightmares about that or anything? >> I I did have nightmares. It was I
00:46:04
wouldn't say nightmares. I was I I that was the last thing I saw before I went
00:46:10
to sleep. It was all >> For how long? >> For I would say for at least a week.
00:46:17
>> That head. So you always the actual movement of me moving that that coat
00:46:23
that stayed with me for Yeah. for at least a week. That that was the last thing I saw uh before darkness, you
00:46:29
know, before before I actually slept. But I've never I've never got up in a
00:46:34
cold sweat uh and uh you know panicked. Uh but it that's not to say I've not had
00:46:40
it on the last thing on my mind and the first thing in the morning as well. You wake up to it and you go, "Oh yeah, did
00:46:46
that really happen yesterday?" Yeah. Oh yeah, it was, wasn't it? Yeah. Yeah. You
00:46:49
start trying to put your uh you know, put your life in order again and go, "No, let's press on. It's another day,
00:46:56
>> another body." >> It's It's a lot for a human to process.
00:47:00
>> It It can be. Yeah. That's what people say. They they they can't understand how
00:47:04
you can keep so much in from the some of the things you uh seen. How do you process it? How do you keep it in there?
00:47:10
Uh you know, how do you how do you stop going sticking two pencils up your nose and go wibble wibble wibble and sit in
00:47:16
the corner? You know, rocking sitting facing the corner. >> Facing the corner.
00:47:22
>> Yeah. I mean, like it gets it gets bleaker in your book um The Dead Speak.
00:47:25
There's a story on page 129 about a man who murdered his wife with a hammer. Um,
00:47:30
knowing what we now know about your upbringing and your personal experience firsthand with domestic violence, when
00:47:38
you turn up to this crime scene and there's there's a lady upstairs that's
00:47:41
dead in bed having been had her head and face smashed in with a hammer and the her husband who's downstairs sobering up
00:47:49
at this stage, no doubt, confessing to it. Yeah. How do you how do you approach that with professionalism? I, like I
00:47:57
say, I switch on that the professional mind while I'm in there. And that's not
00:48:02
to that's not to say after I've left the crime scene. I that that that part of me
00:48:06
is going, "Oh, that that could have happened. Yeah, that could have happened
00:48:10
to my mom." Quite easy. Uh, it could have happened. But yeah, you you again,
00:48:15
you've just got to switch that off because that was quite a gory one. That was, you know, that was a really nasty
00:48:22
uh nasty offense. any murder is a nasty offense. But that that was really graphic. Uh that part the per the person
00:48:28
that did that completely lost it. >> Uh >> yeah. After she she came home and
00:48:33
confessed her having an affair and then she fell asleep and then he attacked her
00:48:37
in his sleep. >> He went Yeah. He went out and uh went to the shed and got a hammer and went
00:48:40
straight upstairs. Very methodical. He wanted to do it. Uh still drunk obviously. He most probably regretted it
00:48:46
in the morning. Uh put a put a uh a pillow over the head. that wasn't going to stop it. And uh yeah, just hammered
00:48:55
her. And it was really really quite graphic. In a case like that where um the husband
00:49:06
has called um and confessed to this crime and you've come around and he's
00:49:10
there and the murder weapon's there, why is it necessary to do such a thorough
00:49:15
crime examination? There's that saying an open shut case. >> Yeah, we get that. We get asked that
00:49:21
that a lot of times as well if it's if it's so open and short where the person's uh sat there cuz this person
00:49:28
did they phoned the police. They sat there and said uh uh it was me. Don't worry, I've committed the crime. Open
00:49:35
shut case. Okay, fine. But forensic science doesn't we're not there with a
00:49:40
forensic science. We get one chance. We go into that crime scene. We're looking
00:49:44
for the evidence on all evidence that could link a person to have committed this crime because once we go things
00:49:53
change, they're all going to change. So, they're going to clean up. Everything's
00:49:55
going to be put back to normal. So, we can't go back to that crime scene again.
00:49:59
So, what happens in two weeks time where that scenario changes, the person actually didn't do that. They've changed
00:50:06
their story and they're saying, "Well, it actually wasn't me. It was my brother
00:50:10
>> who uh came in. We were both here and he did it, but I I I just wanted to say it
00:50:16
was me or I thought it was me. I woke up and I thought it was me. So, who's to
00:50:20
say it wasn't somebody else? Who's to say that the person is going through uh
00:50:24
mental challenges and they've just made it up themselves or they've come in?
00:50:27
Nobody knows. Do you know that the the actual story could change over a period of time? So, we have to gather all that
00:50:34
information uh at the time just in case of those changes within the uh uh time frame and story. Was
00:50:42
it was it was it the story in the book where you move the body and the eyeball the eyeball falls out?
00:50:47
>> It was that was a terrible moment. It was it was uh the we was uh well I was
00:50:52
moving the body to put it into the uh the body bag uh because the the the face was quite badly uh deformed through the
00:51:01
injuries. Uh the the the side of the face was all caved in. Moved the head to the side. the eye popped out, rolled
00:51:11
onto my knee. We had to put it back in so that uh we could put it back in the bag. So yeah, the things do like that
00:51:18
things like that happen. It was just it was just one of those things. You you you just do it. It's just part of the
00:51:25
job. It's just you you just it's just a natural instinct. You you're not going
00:51:29
to sit there and cry because it's there. You've got to get on with it and just
00:51:32
put it back and carry on with it. What do you what do you do after a shift like that
00:51:38
>> then? Then >> oh go get pissed. >> You get pissed. Now it's completely
00:51:43
different. It's completely different way of life. You just you just go home. And
00:51:46
I just I used to just go home and I like watching TV and I like what reading journals. Uh I like going for a walk. I
00:51:53
like to see I like to see nature. Strangely enough strangely enough I love to feed sparrows. That's one of my
00:52:00
hobbies. I love to sit there and look at watch sparrows. I just think they're the
00:52:05
underrated bird of the the world. I really do. Forget your parents. No, forget your parents and all that. So,
00:52:11
the emuse's I think they're just overrated. I just love the common household sparrow and I just it just
00:52:16
relaxes me when they when they're eating. I don't know why. It's just
00:52:20
really sad. >> Um there's a phrase that uh gets used in your book um a few times actually or
00:52:26
variations of it. The stench of death. >> Yes. The stench of death. I would never
00:52:32
uh never get rid of that. Uh knowing what the stench of death is like. It's it's a really strange
00:52:40
smell uh that stays with you all the time. I know where when death is around and I know the smell of death before
00:52:46
I've gone into a crime scene because it starts hitting you especially in the
00:52:50
mort. A mortary has got a smell all to itself. You you no matter how much you clean a morttery that smell will always
00:52:56
be there. It's that smell of disinfectant and death all at the same time. And I was saying this uh earlier
00:53:02
which just popped up. It was uh one of those things that uh my sense of smell for death is so acute that a cat my cat
00:53:12
bought in a mouse put it underneath it killed it. Put it underneath the sofa and after I think it was 2 days I could
00:53:19
smell the death of the mouse even though it was that small. No one else in the house. They thought I was going mad and
00:53:24
and I said, "No, the smell of death in this house and I don't know where it is,
00:53:28
but the smell of death." Next day we moved the seti there was the mouse. >> Seems like you you've got a good nose. I
00:53:34
feel >> I've got a fantastic nose >> for this job. It's probably a bonus to
00:53:38
have a terrible nose. >> It would be actually a really good If you had no sense of smell, then this
00:53:42
job's for you. >> Well, what is there any way you can describe it? >> It's like compare it to something.
00:53:50
>> Yeah. Okay. So try having diarrhea and vomit at the same time put in a bowl
00:53:59
and uh smell that. It's it's a Yeah, it's so it's like a vomit and diarrhea that's just been cooked
00:54:11
slightly to give it that odor. So that odor that comes away from slightly cooking it and awful. So just a slight
00:54:17
awful. So if you got liver, cook liver slightly and then mash that up and be sick in it as well. That's the smell of
00:54:25
uh that that that seems to be like the smell of death. And when I went to one of my first mortaries uh with the smell
00:54:31
of death, the the pathologist that was there uh very animate guy that was uh performing it. Uh we went in there first
00:54:37
of all it was a really smelly body. It was a floater, what we call a floater, where a person had been uh found in the
00:54:43
the water and they popped to the top when the gases have come out. And uh we he we went in there and his assistant
00:54:51
went, "Right, you all need to put some mint on because it'll disguise the smell
00:54:56
of the odor that's going to come out cuz as soon as we cut into there, this gas
00:55:00
is going to come out and it's going to overwhelm you." So, we all put this mint
00:55:03
on. This was the first mortar I've been, the first postmortem I've been to. We
00:55:07
all put this mint on. It cut down the body. Gases came out and I was really ill at that point. All I could smell was
00:55:17
that vomit [ __ ] smell with mint and it was the worst smell ever. And I've never
00:55:24
ever put it on since. I've always wanted just that smell. Not just that smell,
00:55:29
but I've always I've always I've always preferred just the smell of death on its
00:55:34
own than trying to hide it or mask it. So, so meant like um like underneath your nose.
00:55:40
>> Just like a fix. It was like a vix rub from a vapor rub. >> Yeah. What else? Did you have masks?
00:55:45
>> Uh then? No. No. No. Well, no, you didn't have masks then. You do now, but
00:55:49
then it was a >> uh especially when uh he was going around and he he was picking out bits of
00:55:56
the body, uh the putrid parts of the body that all started to uh putrify and he was flinging about and blood was all
00:56:04
coming down. So, we had blood all over all over our suits. Uh, we had no over Oh, no. We had the green gown on. Uh,
00:56:11
but there was nothing else. And that that was the first time I turned around and was ready to walk out. Uh, but since
00:56:19
then standards have changed. You know, you don't get the pathologist walking in
00:56:22
with cigarette in his hand and a sandwich in the other one ready to cut over. And that's what they did. You
00:56:29
know, even my first few postmortems. There he is. cigarette in hand, sandwich in the corner, ashtray, and uh just
00:56:35
carried on as if it was just, you know, he was, you know, cutting into an animal.
00:56:43
>> Man, you've seen some stuff. >> I have. I've seen I've seen uh lots and
00:56:48
lots of things in my life. Uh some obviously some are good, but uh there's a lot uh that uh really really do play,
00:56:56
you know, that that I've seen. And it's not it's remember it's not just about
00:57:00
the the murder ones uh even the the the victims of crime that I see themselves. So going to like a burglary artifice. So
00:57:09
burglary artifice is where normally an elderly person and a person has come in uh play acting as a uh you know a gas
00:57:16
man or an electric man and they they say look I need to go and test your appliances and the little old lady or
00:57:22
the little old man says yeah yeah please come in and they they say they start sitting them down with a notebook and
00:57:27
they say right we go did you have a gas leak here and then they say oh do you mind if I go to the toilet
00:57:34
they're still sitting there and they're going around and they're taking all
00:57:37
their valuables M >> and then they go and then the little old lady afterwards they make the excuse and
00:57:42
go the little old lady afterwards maybe the day after uh finds out their life savings are gone cuz they never use
00:57:48
banks then they put it in there and that they those sort of crimes is really quite uh you know that that is one of
00:57:54
the worst of humanity. >> Yeah. There's a thing in in a quote I had written down from your book where
00:58:00
you talk about um things involving um young children and the elderly are the ones that impacted you the most.
00:58:06
>> It is. Yeah. the the ones that uh where they've got no uh self-defense of themselves. You know,
00:58:13
if you if you're caught in a fight going through that, there's a there's a slight
00:58:16
chance that, you know, you you could fight back. But when you're a vulnerable
00:58:20
child or a vulnerable uh elderly person, >> there's no fighting back. That that's
00:58:26
the cruel thing about crimes. Yeah. When you when you're talking about uh uh
00:58:30
crimes against those those sort of individuals. >> So, everything we've we've been going
00:58:35
almost an hour. Everything we've discussed so far is from your time um at Scotland Yard in the UK. Then you moved
00:58:40
to New Zealand in 2003. >> Yes. >> First observations. >> I loved it because we came over on a
00:58:46
holiday first of all. So it was >> there's a quote in your book that I
00:58:50
really liked and I'd never heard it before. Something like um you go on a plane for 24 hours and you go back in
00:58:55
time 20 years. >> It Yeah. So you you come you turn your clock back 12 hours. Okay. Or you put
00:59:01
your clock forward 12 hours. You put your life back 20 years. And that's how
00:59:05
it was. That's how I felt, you know, cuz you you you you was in the hustle and
00:59:08
bustle of uh New Scotland Yard and Westminster and all of these people all around you and then you get off the
00:59:14
plane in uh in uh Oakland and you go, you know, I was over on the Northshore at the time and there's kids walking
00:59:20
around barefoot, you know, people in jandles. I never knew they were called jadle. We call them flip flop flip
00:59:25
flops, you know, and it took me at least 2 years to actually get the term jandals
00:59:30
in into my head. But there's people wandering around so relaxed and they've
00:59:34
got the shorts on and it was like, wow, this is a different world, is you know, you just wouldn't get that in the UK.
00:59:39
>> Well, it must have been a shock for you the first time you went to a packing
00:59:42
sale and you saw people in pajamas or >> it was I just thought I'd actually come
00:59:47
to some Ludy bin. It was like it was it was a completely different aspect on life. It was just like, "Oh,
00:59:54
these people are really cool. They're so laid-back." It was uh and and I I got
00:59:59
that I got that saying. I'm thinking, "Yes, it is. This is 20 years ago. This
01:00:03
is how it was in the 80s for me." >> What about escalators here at the mall?
01:00:07
Did you find them weird? I I I This is one thing I love about the UK where you if you're not walking, you stand to the
01:00:13
left. >> Everyone's in a hurry. I love the efficiency of the UK. >> Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
01:00:19
I always remember the first time I was s standing there on the escalators on the
01:00:23
left hand side and people are plowing down me and I'm going where the [ __ ] are
01:00:27
you going and they're trying to knock you out of the way and I'm going cuz you
01:00:29
always are especially on the under underground the underground if you're not on the left hand side you're going
01:00:34
to get swept away you learn that on day one. >> Yeah. You don't know where you're going.
01:00:39
It's just like keep to the left. You're all it's it's always best.
01:00:42
>> So um you joined the New Zealand police here almost immediately. Um what were
01:00:47
your first impressions? Were we backwards similar or more advanced? >> No, I I wouldn't say backwards. The New
01:00:53
Zealand police here was uh cuz we we I wouldn't say piggyback the UK. Uh but we
01:00:59
have the same influences and the same uh uh jurisdictions, so the same court proceedings as they do in the UK. So we
01:01:07
piggybacked or we piggyback each other from there. So the the I I the it was just the way of working that was
01:01:17
slightly different. Everyone's more in a rush to get a job done in the UK where
01:01:22
over here it was a little bit more at the beginning a little bit more relaxed and uh you know she'll be fine.
01:01:28
>> And uh the the the processes the the the actual working tools were really really
01:01:36
cool. There was they were second to none over here. I can't, you know, I can't slag off the
01:01:42
the the equipment or anything like that cuz it was we we over here we had, you know, some of the best technology
01:01:48
because the we had a lot of the companies that wanted to test it because we were like a testing ground. We only
01:01:53
had a population then of about 5 million people. So we was a perfect testing ground for the new forensic uh you know
01:02:01
databases. So DNA database of the the fingerprint database. we had such a nice population but in a big area just like
01:02:07
the same as UK that we they could use and test these uh these these instruments.
01:02:13
>> Yeah. And I feel like yeah I mean it's only 23 years ago that we're talking but
01:02:16
I feel like New Zealand was um a different place then may maybe more innocent than what it is now. Like
01:02:22
violent crime and stabbings in particular are fairly you know common place sadly in New Zealand now. But um
01:02:28
back then I suppose you you could sit around twiddling your fingers and thumbs for a while waiting for something.
01:02:34
drastic to happen. >> It was Yeah. So, was it was a it wasn't common, but we dealt with a lot of
01:02:40
deaths that uh on the other side as well. So, you know, uh people just been found uh dead on the side of, you know,
01:02:48
we don't know how they died. So, we was at the mortuary all the time trying to
01:02:52
identify them. Uh so, they didn't need to be in a you know, certain in, you know, a typical murder crime. It could
01:02:59
have been any time. any unknown deaths uh that they could have come from and we would have gone to them.
01:03:05
>> Yeah. How long were you here before you started to feel like a Kiwi? >> It actually took me a few years. I must
01:03:12
admit it wasn't an overnight experience. Uh especially Christmas. >> Well, we're recording this in a January.
01:03:17
You're wearing a Hawaiian shirt. So, >> yes, I am. I'm here now. Still got jeans
01:03:21
on. Still still got away from >> I've still not wear the shorts. So, that's that's still a few years away
01:03:29
yet. Well, can you remember the first time you had like a conversation with someone
01:03:34
back home and they they told you you'd turned into a kiwi? >> Yeah, that was a I get that all the time
01:03:39
now, but I think it took about 5 years. I got quite a course accident. You can tell, you know, it's there's the accent
01:03:46
there. Okay. >> But you talk to my family over in uh in Britain. Oh, you're posh. You know,
01:03:54
>> you're where where's your accent gone? you know, and they're all ebaggum, you
01:03:58
know, no and bul and all that. And when I speak to them, my I still think I've
01:04:04
got a really bad northern accent, especially when I speak to people. Even now, my daughter, you know, she when
01:04:08
when she used to be at school, it was like, "Dad, don't say anything to the
01:04:12
teachers cuz, you know, they won't understand you." >> That's so
01:04:18
And I I lived with that for for ages. But then you speak to your family members back in the UK and they go, "Oh,
01:04:24
you've gone so posh nowadays. you know, you you've lost your accent. It's all
01:04:27
gone. >> So, they think you you don't fit in here. >> I don't fit in there. Fit in there. It's
01:04:31
like no man's land. Okay, I'll just keep quiet. >> Um Yeah. So, you're you moved to New
01:04:36
Zealand. You're here for I suppose like 2 years or so. And then um the um Boxing
01:04:41
Day tsunami happens in Indonesia and you're over there um in a role called DVI. What's DVI?
01:04:49
>> So, disaster victim identification. So there's a team of us that go over there
01:04:53
uh to be part of a big uh multinational team to identify the victims of the disaster.
01:05:00
>> And that was really overwhelming. Yeah. >> For anyone that can't remember um or was
01:05:05
maybe too young to remember, 275,000 >> 275,000 that we know of uh on average uh
01:05:12
died from those massive waves that hit I think it was 12 continents in Asia. How do you feel when you get
01:05:20
asked to go? Are you apprehensive or excited? >> No. Always apprehensive. It's the
01:05:25
unknown. You don't know what you're going to face? You don't know if uh
01:05:28
there's going to be another earthquake. You don't know if something's going to
01:05:32
happen on route, what you're going to see, how bad are the body's going to be. So, you're
01:05:39
always on edge until you get there again and you put that PPE gear on and you start going into it and you start doing
01:05:46
your job. M yeah there's a passage in the book on page um 32 which I marked with a post-it note. Uh this is one of
01:05:54
the the passages where I was reading it uh in the office and some of the girls were really enjoying it. Some of them
01:05:59
couldn't listen to it. Um yeah. Should I read this out? Do you want to read this out?
01:06:05
>> How's your eyes? How's your eyesight? I'm sure I can do it at arms length.
01:06:10
>> Everything's at arms length now. It's getting further away. See the the bit
01:06:13
there about you wearing wearing um so uh so we're doing during putrification.
01:06:20
>> Yeah. >> So during putification the body is rapidly uh rapidly decaying emitting
01:06:25
foul odor and becoming wet and mushy. The epidermal layer of the skin detaches from the dermal layer. So when the body
01:06:32
uh body bags were opened the skin was often found floating in the goo and ooze uh released from the body. So we had to
01:06:40
reach into the uh odorous goo to retrieve the skin from the hands and feet and clean it with soapy water. We
01:06:47
would then place the skin of the deceased fingers on our own hand like a glove. It's called deg gloving and uh
01:06:54
record the fine detail using black powder and white sticky labels or black ink on a specialized fingerprint form.
01:07:01
Uh this process is known as de- gloving. And then you got the mummification one as well which is the boiling hand one
01:07:06
which it might be too graphic to go into. Yeah, I mean it's it's not not an easy
01:07:14
read and it's not easy to hear. Um but it's important work that you're doing.
01:07:19
>> It's extremely important work. It's uh that that's what keeps you going is
01:07:23
because of the importance of the work knowing that you're you're there for a
01:07:28
purpose and that purpose is to get these uh these individuals back to their loved
01:07:32
ones. And you do it which way you can, you know, the best way you can. And if if it means uh which seems strange, if
01:07:41
it means being part of them by putting their skin on you to to to get that uh information, then so be it. We'll do
01:07:47
that. >> Uh because if that's the best way to record that fine, rich detail, then
01:07:52
we'll do that. >> I I don't know. I I I suppose it's just alarming. Like it was alarming for I'm
01:07:57
I'm a 53 year old man. I'm old as [ __ ] I've got no idea. >> I'm 58.
01:08:03
No, but this has been your your life and it's um it's it's a it's a it's a world
01:08:07
that luckily I've been um you know completely um sheltered from. Um but this is a reality and it's a it's a it's
01:08:14
a job that you and many other people are doing. But that's what I wanted to show
01:08:18
in the book that you know the the processes that these these professional people within the police uh and the the
01:08:25
you know the scientists that go with them uh of how we actually go into so much detail to try and make sure there's
01:08:32
no mistakes. That's the last thing we want to make is those mistakes. It happened in Air India as we know you
01:08:37
know the wrong bodies went to the wrong people should never happen and uh you know then that was just through you know
01:08:43
the the the way that it was processed you know the the information was put in the wrong places uh but it's it was it
01:08:51
would never happen over there and it would certainly never happen over here you know the DVI team here is second to
01:08:56
none >> when you're over there say um Indonesia or Christ Church for the earthquake um
01:09:03
and you call home to speak to Alien Hannah Um, and they ask how your day was like,
01:09:07
do you do you lie or do you just brush over it? What do you >> No, in the Thai tsunami one, I lied.
01:09:12
>> I told them uh what they wanted to hear that I was safe and well. >> And then all I wanted to know was their
01:09:19
day, what they've been through, you know. I wanted to hear the good part. Yeah. I I just wanted to feel good
01:09:24
inside that somebody uh you that I loved was going through a normal day when I wasn't.
01:09:33
I'm probably projecting here, but how how do you not get impatient with them
01:09:36
on the phone if they're venting about trivial [ __ ] That did actually happen once. Yeah,
01:09:43
that that happened with the wife and she's she's telling me, "Oh, well, you
01:09:46
know, I've got I've got to do this tomorrow and I really don't want to do
01:09:49
that." And I went, "What the [ __ ] Come on." And then I realized I'd said it and
01:09:53
I went, "Oh, you know, okay, maybe, you know, I'm going to I wanted to hear
01:09:57
about your your day and then just because you said something that was just slightly, you know, out of context, I go
01:10:03
and take it out of you, which it should never have happened." >> It's understandable though cuz you were
01:10:07
surrounded by by death and just this unimaginable grief. And I suppose it just realizes just how inane
01:10:13
>> almost everything else is in comparison. >> It is, especially when you're being at
01:10:17
the morttery, you've got bodies after bodies. They're just coming through.
01:10:20
It's just constant flow. It's like a production line. And then outside when
01:10:24
you're having your break, so you're sitting there trying to eat. Okay. And
01:10:28
then in front of you there's 20 porter cabins. Oh, not porter cabins, 20 containers. And within those 20
01:10:34
containers, 50 other bodies. So now you've got hundreds of people. You're
01:10:38
eating and you've got hundreds of people that are now waiting to come and see
01:10:43
you. >> And that's the reality. That's not that's what I didn't want to say to her
01:10:49
at the time. Oh, it's it's all I'm seeing is just there's a body. There's a
01:10:54
body. >> And you know, I didn't want to say that. So, but that that was the reality of it.
01:10:58
We knew that we was going to get body after body after body. >> You you mentioned eating just before,
01:11:04
not not the lobster. >> That was that was a really foolish mistake I made. It was my first night in
01:11:12
Thailand. And I'm it was because we was in the a really good class hotel that
01:11:16
they'd uh made ready uh really quickly for the the police personnel from around
01:11:21
the world. And I sat there and I looked at the menu and they went, "Don't worry,
01:11:25
we can eat anything. You can absolutely have anything on the menu." So me being
01:11:30
a greedy council lad, you know, from the past, I've not had lobster for years.
01:11:34
And I seen it on there and I went, "So can I have a lobster?" "Yeah, yeah, you
01:11:38
can have lobster." Okay. Got ordered, started eating the lobster. and a German
01:11:43
uh from one of the German DVI team came over. He'd been here for about 2 and 1/2
01:11:46
weeks and he came over and goes, "You do you know what you're eating?" "Yeah,
01:11:51
it's a lobster." "Do you know where that lobster's been? It was caught
01:11:55
yesterday." "Yeah, do you know there's hundreds of bodies still in the sea and
01:11:59
that lobster was most probably eating them the couple of days ago." And that was when reality hit. And
01:12:06
that's when I be I started becoming a vegetarian just for that just for that
01:12:10
period while I was over there. I ate I ate no meat. I ate nothing to do with animals. Uh just because of that one
01:12:17
fatal uh mistake of making it on, you know, eating that nighttime. >> I mean um yeah, you you have to eat. You
01:12:24
do. Anyone is I think a lot of people listening to this will probably wonder how you how you you could keep your
01:12:29
appetite in that sort of environment >> because you because you're uh working so
01:12:33
hard in a hot environment. So it's like 35°. You've got your PPE gear on. Okay.
01:12:38
Some so some of the time I was working in in the uh offices at the IMC center the information center where the
01:12:44
antimortar and postmortar were being brought together wonderful air conditioned room but I wanted to work in
01:12:49
the morttery as well. So I I had hate to say it but the best both worlds so the best both of experiences of working at
01:12:55
the IMC and the morttery but in the mortary it's completely different. There's no air conditioning there's no
01:13:00
cooling you've got full PPE gear on. We've got all of the mass because we
01:13:04
don't know uh what uh we know the state of the bodies where they're going
01:13:08
through putrification uh but uh we don't know what diseases they may have. So
01:13:12
you've got to get fully kitted out 35 degrees of heat all say all in. So you
01:13:17
have to hydrate all the time completely after kit that's number one is just drink but you do get hungry because you
01:13:24
are actually you know taking >> uh taking a lot out of you from that day and if you don't eat you're not going to
01:13:30
be ready for the next day. So you do force yourself time to eat uh because you know that you've got to be fit and
01:13:36
healthy for that next day. You're not you're not going to be doing anybody any
01:13:39
good by collapsing or fainting inside the morttery. >> What what was the the main cause of
01:13:45
death uh over there? It wasn't drowning per se, was it? >> No, it was actually most of it was by uh
01:13:53
implements hitting people as they're being swept away on the water. So bits of car, bits of wood, shrapnel that was
01:13:59
actually going into >> the uh the the person's body which was caused slicing major arteries and they
01:14:05
were bleeding to death. >> So that was a lot of the injuries. We seen a lot of tear issu tear injuries
01:14:11
and cut injuries from the deceased people. When there's that much death in a concentrated area, um the stench of
01:14:19
death that you talk about, is it confined to your working environment or can you smell it like all over the the
01:14:23
region? No, it was like it was just in the mortaries uh area they were the that you could
01:14:31
you the people were getting back to trying to get back to normality. So the locals were starting to cook in the
01:14:36
streets again. So that was actually uh mimic uh you know getting getting rid of any of the odor that was coming around
01:14:42
anyway. But the the the mortar itself you you could smell the morttery from I would say 300 m away.
01:14:49
>> Okay. >> So going into the morttery you could smell that from quite a far away. I
01:14:53
mean, yeah, life go life goes on. That's one thing you learn. Yeah. How how quickly after the tsunami were people
01:14:58
like cooking in the streets again and selling the fake watches and the DVDs. >> Yeah. Yeah. That was alo only after a
01:15:05
couple of weeks they trying to get to back to some normality because a lot of the time they're not getting any money,
01:15:10
>> you know, they have to carry on. They have to Yeah. They have to carry on with
01:15:14
life or else they're they're they're going to starve to death. >> Yeah. I bring up the watches and the
01:15:19
DVDs because you talk about that in the book. Um, even though you're an officer
01:15:22
of the law, >> that was you were still purchasing these goods that were you knew were less than
01:15:29
ethical. You know, there was three or four times when I was going to admit that from the book. I thought I was
01:15:35
thinking about it so often and I I actually thought the publishers were going to re take it out. That that was
01:15:41
my part. I thought that's going to be too close to the cuff. They're going to
01:15:44
take that part out because I was going to take it out myself three or four times. And then I thought, no, that's
01:15:48
that's that's the reality of it. I actually bought those items because I
01:15:52
thought at that time I was helping the economy of the region. >> Oh, come on, Tom. You could have just
01:15:58
made a donation. No, it's it's it's very relatable. Like anyone that went to like
01:16:02
Thailand or Vietnam or Puket around that time probably came home with a with like
01:16:07
a wallet full of DVDs. >> Yeah. Yeah. Don't don't get me wrong. I wasn't like Dellboy when I opened my my
01:16:11
coat and there was watches all down the side. I only bought one watch, you know.
01:16:15
I'm not I'm not going to sell them at home. Okay. Buying it from personal
01:16:18
supply. Does that make it any better? >> That made me feel better. >> And then um so you come you come home uh
01:16:24
and you there's like one um a debriefing with the psychologist which is like a
01:16:28
1-hour mandatory thing. >> Um >> I don't The synic says that's like a box
01:16:34
tick ticking exercise. What can you do in 1 hour? >> No, it was so you had that debriefing
01:16:40
when you came back anyway. That was just to make sure that you were signed up. You could be signed to go back to work
01:16:45
again, but there were follow-ups. So you could get follow-up ones uh if if required or you felt there was a need to
01:16:52
uh the the police always had them uh open and ready for anybody, not just from going to the tie, but for anyone
01:16:59
that had been to any crime scene. So it's been it's it's it's been well put in place for uh police
01:17:06
employees. >> Back then 2005, we were like were you honest with the therapist or did you put
01:17:14
on a brave face? If you want to know the truth, I put on a brave face. >> Yeah. It's 20 years ago.
01:17:20
>> Yeah. Yeah. I put on a brave face. >> I was hiding uh a lot of the things that
01:17:28
cuz it was a stranger. I'm not one of these people that was very good to talk
01:17:32
to to strangers. You know, most of the jobs I do, I'm not talking to anyone because they're not going to talk back
01:17:36
to me. But, uh it was really difficult for me to tell somebody that I never knew before what I'd seen. Mhm.
01:17:45
>> But then after about half an hour, they're very good at bringing and
01:17:49
drawing that out to you. But I still hid quite a lot. I was never ever going to tell anybody, not even my wife some of
01:17:56
the things that uh uh that I've seen uh over over there or some of the incidents
01:18:01
I've been to >> and I would never would. >> At the time, did you find that
01:18:06
beneficial or did it feel like just an unnecessary speed hump? Then >> I found it uh just as a a way to get
01:18:14
back into my position and get back to work. >> But since then I've been so you know for
01:18:20
after those periods so that the the Christ Church earthquake and that we went uh more frequently to the
01:18:26
psychologist and I actually felt uh more comfortable talking about who I was. Maybe it was cuz I was older. Maybe I
01:18:34
was because I was maturing more, but I felt more comfortable being more open and transparent to to the person I was
01:18:41
talking to. And I felt better for it. >> It did make me feel good that I'm
01:18:45
speaking to somebody that's not going to uh give a verdict on me or, you know,
01:18:50
patronize me or tell me that, you know, what you're doing is wrong. Somebody
01:18:54
that just sat there and just went, just tell me how do you feel? >> And that really was helpful for, you
01:19:01
know, and it took me years to realize that. took me a long time to realize that just being open to somebody is is a
01:19:08
is a good thing. >> Oh, you're a product of your environment, aren't you?
01:19:12
>> Yeah. Yeah. >> So, you just want to want to fit in. If no one else is doing it, you don't want
01:19:16
to be the odd one out. Um but no, it's incredibly beneficial and I think there's much better systems in place
01:19:20
now. >> Without a doubt. >> Yeah. See, um yeah, you mentioned Christ
01:19:25
Church just before. So, yeah. Um February 22nd, 2011. >> 11. Yeah. >> Yeah. What are your recollections of
01:19:31
that day? It was very surreal. It was one of those where most people, we was at work at the
01:19:38
time, most people were sitting watching the TV as it was coming out uh live at the time with people running around and
01:19:45
you know there was a lot of chaos about and but there was no reports of death. Uh so we just carried on as it was and
01:19:53
we had the radio on in the background and then >> you were in Oakuckland at this point. We
01:19:56
were in Oakuckland >> and then then throughout the day uh in fact it was while I was going home there
01:20:02
was a there was a uh the radio station stopped their music and it was like oh there's reports of the bodies have been
01:20:10
uh recovered and there may be uh more to come because rescue teams are going out
01:20:15
to to start looking and that's when I thought well okay this there is going to
01:20:21
be need for a big disaster victim identification uh uh team to go down there. Um, I got a call as soon as I got
01:20:28
home to say, "Get prepared. Uh, you're going to be one of the you're going to
01:20:32
be the first down there." And, uh, that's when I got there the next very
01:20:36
early the next morning after trying to get through the Oakland traffic. Uh, which was a nightmare. Uh, you know, the
01:20:42
the the uh, RAF plane was leaving supposedly leaving at 9:00 or 8:00 in the morning and I'm stuck in traffic at
01:20:49
6:30, 7:00 in the morning trying to get there. Uh, and I was never going to get through. So that's when I called the,
01:20:56
you know, 111 and said, I need I need to get through this traffic. Police. Yeah.
01:21:01
And we did. We got police escorts from there. And that's as soon as got to the
01:21:04
police station. I couldn't even get out my car. It was like everything was dumped in the back of my car. And they
01:21:08
said, follow that police car. >> And so their lights are uh the lights and sirens are going and I'm in there in
01:21:14
my little Volvo trying to keep up with them going 120ks an hour round streets to get to to the place. And yeah, we so
01:21:21
we made it there to get onto the to the plane straight away. >> Well, thankfully that was uh 15 years
01:21:26
ago and Oakland traffic have sorted out all their problems. >> Of course they have. Yes, I it's so so
01:21:30
free flowing. It's a wonderful so much. I look forward to it every morning. >> God, it is it is 15 15 years to hard to
01:21:38
believe. >> Do you know it's only seems like a week ago. It's just so you know when you they
01:21:44
report it each year they have the anniversary and they go okay it's year 13 it's year 14. I'm going no. I'd have
01:21:50
to look back, >> but life's going so quick and you you think really it was that long ago.
01:21:56
>> The older we get, the faster it goes. >> It does as well. >> What is happening? And you so you you go
01:22:00
down there and you experience your first ever earthquake. >> That was the most petrifying thing uh
01:22:07
that I've uh uh had in so many years. It's it's it's really quite strange. you
01:22:13
you're standing there and then all of a sudden the the the the floor starts to
01:22:17
feel like jelly and it's you start moving about but then your body's going
01:22:21
with it and everything is just like out of control and it's like you're having a
01:22:26
a fit but you can't control it and you can't control the movement you can't be
01:22:31
stable and it was really strange the first time and that was when we was at the b you know we called it the base
01:22:36
camp but where you know everyone was at the central area within Christ Church uh
01:22:41
trying to form a plan of action to see, you know, how we're going to >> identify these the victims that we knew
01:22:49
were going to be uh recovered. >> When you're on the phone uh from somewhere like that or before you leave
01:22:56
to go to a place like that, how do you assure your family everything's going to
01:22:59
be okay when you don't know that for sure? >> Yeah. That you just I hate to say it,
01:23:05
you lie. You just say everything will be fine, but we don't know. You just reassure them. You have to reassure
01:23:11
them. uh the last thing you want is them uh going through uh trauma themselves not knowing what is
01:23:19
actually uh going to happen. Even though I knew at the back of my mind, my my wife, you know, she's not she's not
01:23:25
silly. She knows that I'm going to go into the unknown. She knows I've been to
01:23:28
these type of incidents before. Uh and she knows they they are going to be terrified,
01:23:33
>> but we we're there for our, you know, for the daughter as well. We're trying
01:23:36
to comfort her, say, "No, it's going to be fine. And it's, you know, it's just a
01:23:39
it's a working uh it's it's a normal working day for us. >> She probably knows you're telling little
01:23:45
lies as well. You were already engaged when you first meet her. >> Yes. >> That's a great a great you you could
01:23:53
have kept that one out. I was reading that thinking, Tom, why did you put this in here?
01:23:58
>> Which which one was that? >> What was that about again? >> You were you were engaged when you met
01:24:03
um you to someone else. >> Yeah. Don't say that. and she had a um she had a partner in
01:24:08
>> Oh, don't go back to that again. That brings back memories that to us.
01:24:12
>> It's your book, mate. You don't. So, okay. So, so Christ. So, you're down
01:24:16
there for a month um to get the job done. Um initially, from what I can gather, it's like full intact bodies and
01:24:23
then it becomes like parts. >> It does. So, uh yeah, there Christ Church was a completely different
01:24:29
incident to the Tai tsunami. Tyunami, we had wet bodies. Christ Church, they were
01:24:33
dry. Uh so it's a completely different uh uh cadaavver we're looking at. Uh so
01:24:38
the the techniques may be slightly different to how we examine them. Uh but uh we still treat them exactly the same
01:24:47
in every uh scenario we go to. But uh the yeah Christ Church was we we had the first uh the first deceased
01:24:56
coming out and uh we we go through that process quite quickly at the first ones because they're quite fresh. So there's
01:25:04
no real damage. They've just been f, you know, been hit on the head or something
01:25:07
and they unfortunately gone down. Uh, so that they they what hate to say, but they're quite easy to examine.
01:25:15
>> So there's no there's no uh deformities and so you can you can actually get all
01:25:21
that information relatively quickly. But we know as the stages go along, the more
01:25:28
the the the more the time goes on, the more that we know we're going to see more atrocities from the the actual
01:25:35
victim itself. >> But I don't want to dwell into them because there's there's parts of the
01:25:40
book that the description of that that I've left out the book anyway cuz I don't think it needed to be added.
01:25:47
>> Do you invo avoid media at that point? like whether it's um like I'm I'm just
01:25:52
I'm just trying to think back like um current affair shows at the time like Campbell Live for example.
01:25:56
>> I think every night for a couple of weeks they would have had like survivors
01:26:00
or victims on talking about their loved ones and >> yeah do do you try and avoid media for
01:26:05
that reason like because it's just too hard and it puts a human face to the bodies that you're dealing with
01:26:10
>> to to watch the media to so so you actually to to so you mean to to watch
01:26:14
the program itself or >> Yes. or or to read the paper or whatever. We we we don't we don't do
01:26:20
once we're in that zone. We we very rarely actually uh read the paper or watch the news. Uh we get the
01:26:26
information from the police themselves. Uh because normally it's a lot more lot
01:26:30
more factual uh the information. So we don't want to be downdress it or play it
01:26:36
by what we've read on the news and think oh that's what we're going to get the
01:26:38
next day. We get the factual information as it comes in all the time. So yeah we
01:26:42
keep we try and keep that media part out of it. Uh but it was coming on from that
01:26:48
the the mortar itself that we had uh that we uh did the the that's the victim
01:26:53
identification itself. We had containers at the the front to to block any cameras
01:26:58
that could uh find their way in and that they were the containers that had the deceased people in. And then we had the
01:27:04
morttery itself which was an old uh truck container station uh which got converted within about 24 hours so that
01:27:10
we could get the morttery set up. But there was a line. So between you you had the you had the containers here, you had
01:27:17
the morttery here, and then you had the line that goes through. And that was for
01:27:22
uh for people that not people, so dignitaries that came along. So the the the PM uh the and uh other dignitaries
01:27:31
that wanted to thank us for our work uh that that were allowed to walk past that
01:27:36
they could see it uh see us actually working and say thank us for everything. But it was so strange. Every time they
01:27:42
came down there, there was it was like a quick they they seen what we was doing and it was quickly run off again because
01:27:48
it was it was the site that they were seeing was overwhelming for some of them. >> Is it um I don't know if you've got an
01:27:57
answer for this or not, but is it easier to accept death as an act of nature like
01:28:01
that versus a murder or is it no different to you? >> To to me it's no different as a deceased
01:28:06
person. We're trying to get the information from that person as best as we can. But it makes it feel
01:28:13
it just makes it feel I don't know. It's a strange thing. When you've got a
01:28:19
murder scene, somebody else has committed that murder scene. So there's somebody else at fault. When you've got
01:28:23
a natural disaster, you've got no one to blame except for nature. >> So there's no blame except for nature
01:28:30
itself. And you can't ever put that person in prison. You there's no ending
01:28:34
because nature's always going to carry on. It's always going to cause disasters
01:28:37
from now to eternity. It's it's always going to be there. Whereas crime could
01:28:41
be stopped. >> Uh you know, oh no, it couldn't be stopped. Crime couldn't be stopped as
01:28:45
well. But you you know the the drugs and the alcohol and that goes with it, you know, could could be cut
01:28:52
back from, you know, some of these people. Some of them know they're doing it. Some of the people around them,
01:28:56
their family members know they're doing it. So yeah, that that part of it could
01:29:00
be escalated down. Nature you can never mess about with it's always going to
01:29:04
happen. Are there moments from Christ Church that still sit with you today? >> Uh,
01:29:12
yes there is. Well, sits with me. All of them sit with me, but yeah, Christ Church was
01:29:19
>> more to the fact that the people that we were looking at were could have been the
01:29:25
people that we were walking down the street with the day before. >> Yeah, >> that was the that was the crunch that
01:29:30
only affected me after a week with doing it. And I I actually stood there and I went and I was looking at one of the
01:29:36
deceased people and I went, "My goodness, I I really could have been talking to you uh a couple of, you know,
01:29:42
a week and a half ago." And it that was the reality of it with the Christ Church, knowing that the people there
01:29:50
were all either local Kiwis or Kiwi uh people or, you know, people that have been just uh wandering around having a
01:29:59
good time. >> Hello. Sorry. Very quickly, we need your keys, Tom. We just need to move the van
01:30:05
cuz Mel needs to move a car out. >> Sorry. No, no, you're right. >> Thank you.
01:30:11
>> You're doing great, by the way. >> I felt horrible interrupting cuz the
01:30:16
conversation was so good. >> Sorry. >> There you go. That's all right.
01:30:20
>> Thank you. Hi. Hi. I'm JJ. >> Hello, JJ. Oh, hello. >> I was in my own podcast.
01:30:25
>> I was seeing you. I noticed you in there. I I got the privilege of seeing
01:30:29
you there. Yeah, I was talking about a very different subject to you right now. >> It's okay. We're just talking about one
01:30:34
of New Zealand's worst natural disasters. It's fine. >> Sorry. Um, all right. Cutting my mic and
01:30:43
keep going. >> There was another um awful incident that happened in Christ Church. This is after
01:30:48
your retirement, the the mosque shooting. Um, >> when you hear about that, like from an
01:30:54
outside perspective, are you pleased you retired or is there a sense of wishing you were still there so you could help?
01:30:59
I actually uh what I did was I contacted the police myself and stated if they needed any further assistance from an
01:31:08
exe employee that was still active within forensic science then I'm here to to help. Uh but I've as I've said before
01:31:15
that the the disaster victim team in New Zealand is second to none and they will
01:31:19
always be able to manage uh any incident that's put forward in in their way. So
01:31:24
it was uh it was declined at the time. Uh but I again I'm always open to assist. I'm I'm actually I'm I'm part of
01:31:32
a DVI team anyway. So Blakes International uh if there's a a big incident around the world then uh I
01:31:39
could get called up at any time to to uh be part of that team >> uh of Blake's international disaster
01:31:45
team. >> Oh, how good. >> How good. >> Yeah. I mean you got so much experience.
01:31:50
It's it's a shame if it's just like a steep drop off the intel goes to waste
01:31:55
>> and I'm teaching it quite often as well. So I teach for teach disaster victim
01:31:59
identification uh globally. So uh do online uh uh teaching >> uh around the world for that
01:32:07
>> from your career. Is there a single worst day on the job or a single worst
01:32:11
call out? >> Uh a single worst call out. Uh again, the single worst call out is is
01:32:24
going to those that can can't defend themselves, knowing that you're going to
01:32:29
go to a a child's death or something like that. They're they're the worst
01:32:33
ones knowing that you're going to go into that uh that type of crime scene uh
01:32:38
when somebody that's that vulnerable has been affected >> within many of them.
01:32:43
>> I've been to a few. Yes. I mean, we have to realize that this that New Zealand is one of the worst,
01:32:50
you know, uh, places in the world for child deaths, which is unfortunate. >> What about unsolved cases? How how do
01:33:00
they sit with you? >> Again, we just move on straight to the next one. Unsolved cases will always
01:33:05
happen and they happen more on the volume type crimes. uh very rare in uh murder investigations because there's a
01:33:12
lot more resources, there's a lot more manpower that can go into the investigating that crime. So, you know,
01:33:18
the clear up rate for murder scenes here and abroad is is extremely high. Uh but
01:33:24
then you go to the more volume type crime, so the robberies, the the the burgies, the theft of motor vehicles,
01:33:30
they're always always lots of those that's going to be unsolved. But you
01:33:34
just you you just do your job to the best you can, to the best of your ability. you gather the information
01:33:38
you've got because it could be used in the future. >> And we we you do get that. There's a lot
01:33:43
of people out there that go to and commit these crimes that have not got a DNA sample, that have not got
01:33:48
fingerprints uh on the record, and they just carry on doing it thinking that they're, you know, that they're never
01:33:53
going to be caught and then one day they will be caught >> and we can look back at all of those
01:33:58
crimes that they've done before from some of the evidence that we've collected and then we can just pile on a
01:34:03
lot more uh charges to that person from all these unrelsolved crimes. >> Yeah. Oh, you Yeah, you raised a good
01:34:10
point. Like you think about the DNA um developments and changes and advancements in your career. Like when
01:34:15
you first started, you probably needed like a liter of someone's saliva. >> It was really different. It was really
01:34:21
diff different since uh the uh the early 80s before Alec Jeff did the DNA fingerprinting. We used to have to get a
01:34:31
great big piece of blood just to uh group it. So the [ __ ] it uh which has changed so much now. M uh because today
01:34:40
we could actually get there called a DNA wand. Uh and you could actually walk around in this room and go back out
01:34:47
again and then your that DNA could be you could pick up the DNA of people that have been in this room previously.
01:34:53
>> Unbelievable. >> Just by walking around with that DNA wand. >> Wow.
01:34:57
>> And that is that that is the how advanced it's gone from just 40 years.
01:35:02
>> It's just the development and it's gone so much that we we have to be careful
01:35:06
with it. We have to be careful with uh anything that's advanced and that's
01:35:10
sensitive because what do we have behind us? An air conditioner. >> So that could have been introduced from
01:35:15
the outside. So if we get an identification from a something like that, then we have to be careful with
01:35:21
how we approach it on the investigating side because it is that sensitive because it's not an actual part of it's
01:35:27
not a piece of blood that's physically in within the crime scene. >> Crimes are always going to happen, but
01:35:32
do you think it'll get to the point where it's going to be just impossible
01:35:34
to get away with the crime? No, I don't think so. >> Yeah, somebody someone asked me that the
01:35:42
other day. Will AI take over and will they actually commit, you know, will they actually find all the corporates in
01:35:47
that? It'll never happen. Uh within the the like of the like I say within the
01:35:53
serious crime scenes with the advancement of technology, the the the you've got less chance of getting away
01:35:59
with it. But again, you've got uh with the the lesser crimes, there's still the
01:36:04
manpower and the resources that you can't put everything in to it. If we did, if we treated everyone every scene
01:36:11
like a murder scene, >> then yeah, we there would be a lot more people that would be behind bars or a
01:36:16
lot people more caught. But the reality is it was it's never going to happen
01:36:20
because you would have such a you know a long list of people that you would never
01:36:26
get to see >> when you're it's maybe this is just me but you I remember the first time my
01:36:32
house got burgled and it was like the cops were like oh yeah we we send someone over in a couple of days and
01:36:37
they dusted for some prints and I was like can you believe it they took two days I suppose every victim of crime
01:36:41
wants whether it's a car breakin or whatever you want it to be treated like a
01:36:46
>> but the thing is we don't want to be there 2 days later. >> But that's the reality of it, you know.
01:36:50
And the the the more we leave that crime scene >> uh vacant without actually being
01:36:55
examined, the less we're going to retrieve from it because the own the the householder wants to clean up. They're
01:37:01
going to put things back to normal. Uh so it's it's, you know, it's down to the
01:37:05
the the the responding officer first to try and retrieve some of those items to to preserve them.
01:37:12
How did um decades of exposure to death change you as a like a husband or a dad if at all?
01:37:19
>> It's not changed me as a it's made me come become more resilient
01:37:23
>> and uh I have a lot more empathy as well uh as a person uh towards other people.
01:37:30
Uh seeing the worst again what people can do to other people uh does change your concept of life. you take every day
01:37:38
as as you can uh as much as you can and live it as much as you can as well with your family.
01:37:46
>> Yeah. I suppose it crystallizes just how precious life is and how quickly it can
01:37:49
be >> and it could be taken away in an instant. You know, you don't one minute
01:37:53
you could be just walking down the street and the next minute a bus is straight over you.
01:37:56
>> Yeah. >> It's just simple as that. Life is so so easily taken away from us. M
01:38:01
>> I don't know if you'll have an answer for this one, but um and innocent
01:38:04
civilians who discover a a a gruesome crime scene, how do they recover? >> Yeah, George, you uh you say that
01:38:13
because my wife is uh not she's not seen a crime scene, but it was a serious
01:38:18
accident where uh the person was caught under the the tractor uh that had gone back on them. not a tractor, it was a
01:38:25
big loading truck and it the the the brakes failed and it went over the person and it squashed them completely
01:38:31
and she was one of the first people that actually seen that and went down there and uh yeah, so anyone that can see that
01:38:38
sort of graphic injuries to anybody whether it's an accident or by harm harmful act uh it's going to affect them
01:38:46
and it affects people differently. Yeah, >> it it all depends uh you know uh what
01:38:51
they're going through at that time whether it's emotional or physical. Uh
01:38:56
it can affect pe people differently. We we know that each one of us are all different. Uh some people will just
01:39:01
brush it off. You know some people are just you know quite cold and hard. Some people are quite sensitive and they they
01:39:09
they'll take it on board and they they'll take them days and weeks. Sometimes never get over it. Sometimes
01:39:14
they'll wake up or they'll have that vivid vivid uh image into their etched
01:39:20
into their brain that they can't get rid of. >> Yeah. Some of the stuff that we've
01:39:25
talked about just in this episode like the uh the decapitated head for example like I I think if I saw something like
01:39:32
that I think it would change me as a person. >> Yes. It just just as a person myself it
01:39:38
just changed me to look on the uh the good that life has. Mhm. >> Uh even though I have been through my
01:39:46
ups and downs, you know, and the ups and downs, you know, one you know it most of the time it's
01:39:55
you know be have a good optimistic outlook on life >> but yeah over over a period of time some
01:40:00
things can dwell upon you and it has you know and it's not just about the crime
01:40:04
scenes I've been to. It could be something that uh you know within personal uh things or work and it all
01:40:12
comes to to together and it's just that point where you know that there's
01:40:16
something not right within yourself. >> Yeah. How how did that look for you?
01:40:22
You've sort of um touched upon this a couple of times in the chat so far about
01:40:26
your own uh mental health struggles. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. How did that look? So uh I went
01:40:31
through uh a bout of uh depression about 10 years ago and it was I wouldn't say
01:40:36
severe but it was enough to make me feel that I wasn't comfortable with myself. I
01:40:42
I the outlook uh wasn't as positive as I normally was. I felt I felt disillusioned with everything. I felt
01:40:50
disillusioned with life itself. I I didn't I didn't I didn't feel like I
01:40:55
didn't want to wake up at times. It was it was really strange. You know, I do I
01:40:59
felt uncomfortable feeling that way. I felt uncomfortable uh not knowing what tomorrow is going to
01:41:06
bring. >> And uh you know, and it was just a really strange horrible feeling. And
01:41:13
that's when I did approach Alli and said, "I'm not this is this isn't not
01:41:17
me." And it wasn't it wasn't an overnight. It wasn't just a click. It
01:41:20
was just over a period of weeks >> and it creeps up slowly and slowly. you
01:41:24
don't realize at the beginning and then until you start, you know, some something will trigger it and you get
01:41:31
very emotional or you you start having a go at somebody that you wouldn't do
01:41:35
before >> and it's, you know, you start thinking, "Wow, why have I told my daughter off
01:41:41
like that? Why have I just shouted at my daughter and I'd never do that again
01:41:44
before?" Or you start, you know, you storm out or you smash something on the
01:41:48
floor and I'm thinking that's not me. that is somebody else and I don't like
01:41:53
being that person. >> And that's when I I went to the the to the the GP and uh yeah he he gave me
01:42:01
some uh what we call magic medication to to happy pills. >> Happy pills to to make me resolve myself
01:42:08
and that's how it was for a few I'd say six months. >> Thanks for sharing that. Yeah, I'm
01:42:14
exactly the same. I can tell if my mental health isn't isn't where it should be by say if someone cuts me off
01:42:19
in traffic. Yeah. If my mental health is where it should be, I can just look in the rear view and go, "Fuck, that
01:42:23
person's going through some [ __ ] and laugh and get on with my day." If my
01:42:27
mental health personally isn't where it should be, that's when I'm like,
01:42:30
>> "What the [ __ ] are they tooting at?" You know, I I'll get angry and agitated
01:42:34
about it. >> Yeah, that's just how I felt. Getting very very agitated and uh
01:42:39
>> about small things. >> It felt out of control. That was the main thing. Feeling out of control of
01:42:43
myself uh when I was always fully in control. uh which was uh yeah that just didn't feel comfortable with me.
01:42:51
>> This is uh about 10 years ago you say. Is this about when you left the police?
01:42:54
>> No, it was just be it was about uh I would say about a year and a half to two
01:42:59
years before the police. >> Okay. >> Uh so I started to feel uh feeling not
01:43:03
feeling myself then I came right uh I stayed with the police for another year a year and then I thought well 30 years
01:43:10
I've seen my part. I just wanted to to change my direction and I didn't want to
01:43:15
because there was a lots of things was you know at that period was happening there was a lot of work commitments
01:43:21
there was a lot of personal life commitments and uh I just felt I don't want to go through that again and I
01:43:26
needed a different change in career career path uh I don't like I say I did my 30 years but I still love forensic
01:43:32
science and I just wanted to try something else >> jeez and boy you had a career pivot um
01:43:39
motellia in Tatanaki >> oh I hate I hated it. I couldn't stand it. >> Yeah. Worst worst decision I'd ever made
01:43:47
>> after some of the guests left and it looked like a crime scene. >> Oh, that's all I treated it as. It was
01:43:51
really horrible. It was a Yeah. My my wife loved it. But I went into there and I was still treating them as a crime
01:43:58
scene. You know, there was uh you know, [ __ ] on the on the on the bedding and I
01:44:02
was examining it. There was blood in the toilet area and I was thinking, "How did
01:44:06
it get there? Let me look at the blood spatter. Where did it come from? Oh yeah, it must have been over there." And
01:44:10
I was looking at I even entered the septic tank because we was uh rural and I was looking for things in the septic
01:44:17
tank that shouldn't have been there and trying to describe to myself how did
01:44:21
they get there and what was the reason for it and where did they come from and how could I put it back to that person.
01:44:26
It was so strange and I treated it all as a crime scene. I just thought no I can't do this anymore. I just don't like
01:44:31
it. >> Was what Yeah. What was it? Was it too too slower pace of life after the 30
01:44:37
years before that? Yeah. I still had that because I was consulting uh in forensic science. Uh that was uh just
01:44:44
starting it took it took few uh you know a good year for people to start recognizing what I was doing and I just
01:44:52
wanted to carry on with that. I had this urge inside me that I for what I've seen
01:44:57
and what I've been through for the last 30 years. I want to teach others uh you know the background of you know
01:45:07
what I've been doing and to teach them forensic science. I I had this burning
01:45:11
ambition because I was teaching in the police as well the the you know junior staff members and junior police officers
01:45:16
uh forensic science. Uh I just wanted to do that to the public as well. And that's when I it was like Alec Jeff. I
01:45:23
had that eureka idea of forming forensic insight. >> Yeah. >> Which is what you're doing now.
01:45:29
>> It is. Yes. >> So we we we deal with uh three avenues uh in forensics. Uh we do forensic
01:45:36
science training for uh going around schools. Uh we also do forensic consultation for the courts of New
01:45:42
Zealand. for defense uh barristers to to ensure that everything's you know all the processes and protocols
01:45:49
are complete from uh the police side or anyone that's given evidence from the
01:45:54
prosecutor >> and also we take fingerprints for immigration for uh for police clearance
01:45:59
checks around the world which has become really successful for us. >> Does it does that give you enough um
01:46:05
excitement? Does it scratch the itch? I always have that urge and I still do to this day that I uh I always have this
01:46:14
urge that I want to go back to a crime scene examination and I've had the opportunity a couple of times to to go
01:46:20
back uh uh into uh uh crime scene examination whether it's here or Australia but there's just something
01:46:28
saying no do I really want to go through all of that again I've done like I say
01:46:32
30 years of that do I really want to put my mind set trying to set my mind again
01:46:37
from you know dealing with life people the students and you know the people out there
01:46:43
>> or do I want to go back to death again so the live people always win >> and that's why I said that you know I've
01:46:50
had that urge to go back like I say with the the mosque shooting I put my name forward because uh you know I'd love to
01:46:57
assist them at that to give them my experience and expertise >> uh but yeah just I don't think it'll
01:47:03
ever happen again. >> N don't do it. Look, look, the man sitting in front of me today, he looks
01:47:07
happy, healthy, relaxed. He's wearing a Hawaiian shirt for God's sake. Don't do
01:47:11
it to yourself. This is your time in the sun. Um, yeah. So, you dealt with um your own mental health struggles and
01:47:19
then um you address this in the book and uh May 2022, you lost a nephew uh to suicide.
01:47:26
>> Yes. >> Is there any way your career could prepare you for something like this?
01:47:30
>> Never. It was one of the most traumatic events of my life. It was that. Sorry, I
01:47:35
get emotional one day. >> Yeah. >> Uh, the phone call, sorry. The phone call from my brother
01:47:48
was the worst I've ever had. Him just telling me that, you know, my nephew that I'd seen, it was only a year before
01:47:59
>> cuz I, you know, I don't go over there that often. and to say, "Tom, Tommy's
01:48:04
gone." And I'm say, "Who's gone?" "He's gone." "My son, he's gone."
01:48:09
And I said, "What are you talking about? Is he left again or is he gone to do
01:48:13
something silly?" "No, no, he's dead." And I say, "Why? Why is he what? What?
01:48:17
What do you mean he's dead? Stop taking a piss. He's not dead." And then he just
01:48:20
breaks down. He says, you know, he he's taken his own life. And I found him.
01:48:26
And I just didn't know what to do. So what all big brothers do, I just went uh back to England and just to be with
01:48:34
him. But the worst part was well, I wouldn't say the worst part, he just my brother was
01:48:41
still couldn't fathom out how uh how he died, but even worse, whether he'd actually gone through any pain uh
01:48:50
through his death. and he was kept insisting that I I I I needed to go to the house to see exactly where he died
01:48:59
uh because everything was still there because I'd uh that just taken the the
01:49:02
deceased away because it was uh my nephew's house. It was all left in situ. Nobody went back in it afterwards.
01:49:09
>> Oh, so he wanted you then um to to inspect the house not as an uncle but as
01:49:13
a forensic strike. Okay. Okay. >> So, as a as a brother and as a forensic chap to reassess the crime scene to see
01:49:20
exactly if uh he had gone through any pain. >> And that was the worst crime scene I've
01:49:25
ever ever attended. And it wasn't a crime scene, but it was a you know, it was a it was going in there and seeing
01:49:32
my brother break down and put his arms around me when I said he would have gone quickly.
01:49:39
>> Just that. But just just see my brother going through that mental breakdown, you
01:49:45
know, and he's still obviously he's not, but he's still going through really
01:49:49
traumatic events now because it was his only son. >> I don't know how you can never recover
01:49:54
from that. >> You can't >> you never recover, you know, until it
01:49:57
goes and there's a lot of people out there that it's, you know, it's affected
01:50:02
gone through the same thing again. But unless it goes through your own family and you've personally been there to
01:50:07
witness it, >> it's nothing I would ever ever wish on any other person in this world.
01:50:13
>> It is so traumatic and so traumatizing to go through that. And I'm sorry I got
01:50:18
emotional. That's one of the first times I've uh >> ever got emotional with it.
01:50:22
>> It shows you care. >> Who was Joseph? >> He was a kind, gentle soul, which they
01:50:31
normally always are, aren't they? Yeah. >> Uh he was the person that you could
01:50:36
always rely on to be there for a laugh, to be there as a person, but he obviously had his own demons. He
01:50:43
couldn't he didn't he didn't like who he was, but he liked everyone else to be
01:50:47
with him and he liked to tell them that they were good and, you know, solve their problems, but he couldn't solve
01:50:51
his own problems. He was a young chap in a horrible world at the time for him. Uh
01:50:56
but he was just a wonderful, wonderful chap and I had so much time for him and that's why it was so devastating.
01:51:03
>> How old was he? >> He was uh 27 years old. >> So yeah, it wasn't he wasn't a young
01:51:12
chap, but he wasn't an old chap. >> Uh but my my brother and him uh were so
01:51:18
close. >> Yeah. >> And that my brother blamed himself. My brother blamed himself because he said
01:51:23
he got a call because he's he was been dep he was depressed for a good year.
01:51:29
>> Yeah. >> Uh and my brother got a call the night before and he said and he he'd had many
01:51:33
of these calls and he said, "Dad, I'm not well. I'm going to I don't think I'm
01:51:37
going to make it tonight." And my dad So my brother just went, "Yeah, yeah,
01:51:41
you'll be fine. You'll be fine." And that's what that that was my
01:51:45
brother's biggest regret was he didn't actually go to him that night time.
01:51:49
>> And he still says it to this day that he could have saved him if he'd have gone
01:51:53
there. And I keep saying to him, "No, it's just it's if it wouldn't have been
01:51:56
that night, it could have been another." But he still takes that on board. That's
01:51:59
still on his shoulders that he didn't go round to him that night time. >> Oh, it's unfair to live with that level
01:52:06
of guilt. >> Yeah. And then he, you know, they he called him the next day because he
01:52:10
actually did feel bad. And then that's when he kicked the door in and went upstairs and then found him himself.
01:52:18
>> How do you sleep at night? >> Uh on and off some some a lot most of the
01:52:27
time quite soundly. Uh but you do have your bad days, you do have your good days, but most of the
01:52:32
time I I see I sleep quite soundly. Like I said touched on before, some some sometimes when you've been to a really
01:52:37
vivid uh horrible uh uh murder scene, you that that will be the last image you actually go to sleep with, but I'm one
01:52:45
of these people that can sleep quite soundly. Uh yeah, I don't have any serious problems myself doing that way.
01:52:52
>> Do you have any regrets? >> No. >> No, >> never have any regrets. The only regret
01:52:57
I uh ever have is that uh I can't do it forever. Oh, that's a great attitude. What does
01:53:05
what does a good life or a good day look for you right now? >> A good day for me right now is uh being
01:53:12
able to go to work without any hassle from uh outside uh influences. So, it's
01:53:19
like a roller coaster ride at the moment. You know, you have your good days and your bad days.
01:53:22
For me, going to uh uh work uh doing a good day's job and making somebody uh
01:53:29
happy because even taking someone's fingerprints, it's quite traumatic for
01:53:33
them because they're going through a traumatic part. We just try and make that as easy as possible. And when you
01:53:37
see the smile on their face and they say, "Wow, that was really cool of you."
01:53:41
Thank you so much and assisted them getting their clearance check for immigration.
01:53:45
>> Just seeing that smile smile on their face is great for me. >> Yeah.
01:53:49
If everything stopped tomorrow, what would you be most grateful for? >> Alli and my wife uh my daughter.
01:53:56
>> They're the two rocks in the whole of my life. Without them, I'm nothing.
01:54:06
>> I think that's a great place to end it. >> Yeah, it's touching.
01:54:10
>> Thank you. >> Um, hey, the book is great. >> It's It won't be for everyone.
01:54:15
>> No, it won't be for everyone. That's the thing. Uh, it's not it's not for the
01:54:18
faint-hearted, but for those that are intrigued in forensic science and seeing how it's actually really used within a
01:54:25
crime scene. Forget the forget the the the horror and the gore that goes with it. Look at how we actually change uh or
01:54:34
how we actually uh assist with the investigation part. >> And there's some funny parts in there as
01:54:40
well. >> Yeah. Lots of lots of bleak dark humor. >> Yes. Lots of bleak dark humor.
01:54:44
>> I'm just pleased. Oh, you're in your 50s as well. You you remember this. I'm just
01:54:47
pleased it's not a a scratch and sniff book. >> Oh my goodness. When they first when
01:54:51
they came out, it was like you still get them sometimes. You going to you go into
01:54:55
the warehouse and you can see them on there. You go, "Oh my, if id have put
01:54:58
some of those on that pages, I would have loved to have put the smell of death on one of those pages. That would
01:55:04
have been perfect. >> Smells like lightly cooked vomit and diarrhea."
01:55:08
>> Hey, uh Tom Thomas Coyle, thank you so much for being a guest on my podcast.
01:55:13
>> Thank you so much for inviting me. It's been a real pleasure. Thank you.