The Day They Blew Up The Police Station: The Russell Street Bombing *Re-Issue*

Summary

Australian True Crime – The Day They Blew Up The Police Station: The Russell Street Bombing (Re-Issue)
Release Date: January 11, 2026
Host: Meshel Laurie
Guest: Retired Victoria Police Chief Inspector Rob Bailey

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Episode Overview

This re-issued episode of Australian True Crime revisits one of the most infamous events in Australia's history: the 1986 Russell Street Bombing. Host Meshel Laurie is joined by retired Chief Inspector Rob Bailey, a frontline witness and survivor of the attack. Bailey provides a gripping personal account of the explosion, the violent era of Melbourne’s armed robbery “war,” and the enduring impact of trauma on police officers and their families. The conversation is honest, raw, and reveals much about policing culture, mental health, and the long shadow cast by traumatic events.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Russell Street Bombing: Firsthand Account

• Rob Bailey’s Diary Entry and Experience ([01:18] – [04:04])

  • Rob reads the hauntingly terse diary entry from the day:
    "11:30 spoke to Senior Detective Ross Forster... 1pm Injury on duty during bomb blast." ([01:18])
  • The bombing occurred as he stood 12 meters from the car containing the bomb, describing an eerie emptiness in the street moments before the detonation.

    "I looked left and right... There was nothing... I looked at my watch... just about to run across the road. And I thought, no, I'll let this car go through first. And I'm glad I did, because I would have been standing beside the Commodore when it went up." ([02:03])

  • Despite being thrown back and injured, his police training and combat experience from Cyprus shaped his response ("just another day at the office at that particular time"). ([02:03])

• Miraculous Near-Misses

  • Other officers, including “Handsome Charlie” Bazzina, also avoided the blast through random chance.
  • Rob recalls unknown woman and girl present at the scene with lingering concern for their fate. ([04:09])

• Immediate Aftermath and Ongoing Danger ([04:09] – [08:00])

  • Despite injuries (hair on fire, embedded glass, cracked arm), Rob continued assisting for hours.
  • Describes chaotic scene with further small explosions, his reaction to a photojournalist, and being compelled to finally seek medical attention.
  • Incidentally, his wife walked past a bank targeted in a related diversion robbery: "I'm getting blown up as she's walking past where some of these offenders apparently were." ([08:20])

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2. Policing Culture and Trauma

• Fight Not Flight – The Policing Mindset ([08:54] – [10:00])

  • Rob reflects on the internalised “fight” response ingrained in police and veterans:

    "I was taught to fight, never to flight. I don't understand what flight is. I still don't... My natural reaction is, 'Oh, part of a day's work. I've been blown up before, have a couple of beers, go to bed, went to work the next day.'" ([08:54])

  • Even as he suffered hearing loss, glass wounds, and migraines, he returned to work the next day.

• Mental Health and Delayed PTSD ([10:00] – [11:05]; [17:04] – [21:58])

  • First panic attack came a month later, witnessed by his young daughter who subsequently developed anxiety attacks herself.

    "It was the middle of the night. And those people who have had a really severe anxiety or panic attack will tell you that's absolutely terrifying... I started getting treatment... Every time I had an anxiety attack for about the next 12 months, so did she... She got a bigger payout than I did because she was so young and she suffered from those anxiety attacks." ([09:36])

  • Critique of official injury counts:

    "I really challenge the 22 non-fatal injuries because I know at least two people have taken their lives as a direct result of that. I'm suffering because of that..." ([17:04])

• Cultural Shift in Acknowledging Trauma

  • Emphasizes past reluctance to admit psychological harm (“never admit that we were soft or go home”) and the failure to debrief with family.

    "I don't think I ever told my wife one story about whatever happened at work, which is horribly wrong... Now I tell people, you go home and you debrief with someone." ([18:04])

  • Personal impact on marriage and the importance of opening up to family.

    "I was never violent, but I would lose it occasionally and I'd drink too much occasionally... Wives and partners and kids should say to Mum or Dad... 'how was your day?'" ([19:09])

• Lack of Institutional Support

  • No counseling was provided by Victoria Police.

    "I had no counselling whatsoever from Victoria police. I mean, these days, the Victoria police handle it a lot better... But... how do you manage it? Do you send someone, counsellor out for every job you do?" ([20:08])

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3. The Violent Era: Policing and Armed Robbery

• The “War” with Armed Robbers ([11:09] – [14:48])

  • Describes the 1980s as a time of near-daily armed robberies: "There used to be armed hold ups on a daily basis... In those days, quite often I had a number of these criminals who came and gave themselves up... just to get out of the action." ([11:48])
  • The Armed Robbery Squad's tough, hard-drinking, high-stress working culture is recounted with a mix of nostalgia and candor.
  • Shift in criminal landscape due to advances in technology and changing patterns in banking and retail ([13:13]).

• Police Shootings and Retaliation

  • Mutual escalation between armed robbers and police, including infamous police shootings.

    "The armed robbers were saying that coppers were killing them... So they went out and killed some coppers. And a lot of it was payback, interrelationship between the bad guys..." ([14:03])

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4. The Investigation and Aftermath

• Apprehending the Perpetrators ([14:48] – [16:27])

  • Describes the raid that caught Craig Minogue, Peter Reed, Stan Taylor, and Rodney Minogue, its deadly aftermath, and lasting impact on the officers involved.
  • Emotional impact of the committal, including being spat on by Minogue and the controversial behavior of a magistrate.

    "I remember walking out and Minogue was in the dock and he spat on me as I walked past... a certain magistrate... thanked the Minogues and the other offenders for behaving themselves during the committal. And I cracked it big time..." ([15:04])

• Questioning Official Statistics

  • Reiterates disagreement with the official casualty numbers, affirming the “invisible” toll on first responders. ([17:04])

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5. Long-Term Trauma and Support for Veterans

• Mental Health Support Developments ([21:58] – [27:08])

  • Vividly recounts the lack of protocols or aftercare for traumatic incidents ("You relied on your sergeant... Just get on with it.").
  • Efforts to help establish support networks for retired police based on Veterans Affairs, identifying need for trauma-informed psychologists. ([22:11]; [25:15])

    "General run-of-the-mill psychologists and psychiatrists haven't got a clue. They just simply don't understand. You've got to have those people who are savvy with the actual work that happens." ([25:15])

  • Candid about his own dependence on alcohol as a coping mechanism but highlights improvements in awareness.

• Policing, PTSD, and ‘Deaths by Natural Causes’ ([27:13] – [31:28])

  • Lack of systematic recording for veteran status on death notices hides the real toll of policing-related trauma.

    "We need to have data about that so we can actually measure it... they drink themselves to death. So that's a means of suicide, in my view." ([27:30])

  • Rob’s role in helping peers confront and manage trauma, sometimes with “brutal” honesty, and his perspective on what rehabilitation means for him personally.

    "People say, you know, why do you do what you do? And I said, it's part of my rehab... I have this innate ability to start talking to people and I'm actually seeing... I can see that the devil's dancing around in their brain." ([28:44])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Rob Bailey’s understated police diary entry:

  "Injury on duty during bomb blast. See report completed. Off duty 5pm." ([01:18])

• On narrowly escaping the explosion:

  "I looked at my watch and I said, I've got an appointment at 1 o'clock and I'm just about to run across the road. And I thought, no, I'll let this car go through first. And I'm glad I did..." ([02:03])

• On police culture and mental health:

  "We are taught to fight, not to freeze or flight. So my natural reaction is, oh, I'm part of a day's work. I've been blown up before..." ([08:54])

• On the cost of trauma:

  "Time doesn't heal it. Time doesn't change it, make it any better at all. It's still really present."
  — Meshel Laurie ([32:21])

• On the legacy of unaddressed trauma:

  "There's some people can handle it and there's some that can't. And I mean, it's the aggregation of things... all of this stuff aggregates." ([18:04])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Intro and Diary Reading: 00:00 – 01:48
• Bailey’s Account of the Bombing: 02:03 – 08:00
• Effects on Mental Health and Family: 08:33 – 11:05
• The Armed Robbery “War”: 11:09 – 14:48
• The Investigation and Aftermath: 14:48 – 17:04
• Trauma Figures and Institutional Response: 17:04 – 21:58
• Lack of Support for Trauma: 21:58 – 25:12
• Creating Veteran Support Services: 25:12 – 27:08
• Deaths, Data, and Ongoing Consequences: 27:08 – 32:21
• Cyprus, Military Trauma, and Perspective: 32:21 – 33:34

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Closing Thoughts

This episode is an unfiltered exploration of one of Melbourne’s darkest days, the price paid by police officers, and the evolution of mental health awareness within law enforcement. Rob Bailey’s harrowing testimony underlines how split-second timing, randomness, and institutional inertia can shape — or scar — entire lives. His efforts to improve support for police veterans, and his reflections on a lifetime of trauma, offer a vital, human context often missing in official histories.

Listeners are reminded of the raw humanity behind the badge, the ongoing nature of trauma, and the importance of support networks — both for those in the job and after they've left it.

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If you or someone you know requires support, help is available:

• Lifeline: 13 11 14
• 1-800-RESPECT: 1-800-737-732
• 13Yarn (for Indigenous Australians): 13 92 76

Transcript

[A]

Please be advised, this podcast contains descriptions of graphic violence and is not appropriate for children. Our guest today is retired Victoria Police Chief Inspector Rob Bailey, who's seen a lot over the course of his career. Among other things, Rob was part of the legendary Victorian Armed Robbery Squad. In its heyday, the war between the squad and Melbourne's armed robbers is the stuff of legend and it's behind some of the biggest Australian true crime stories of the last hundred years. It's also been the inspiration for many a fictional plotline, including for that of the hit movie Animal Kingdom. Unfortunately for Rob, he had a front row seat for one of the biggest real life stories to come out of that war. The Russell street bombing. Rob was standing outside the Russell Street Police headquarters in downtown Melbourne at the precise moment a car bomb exploded on 27th March 1986. Constable Angela Taylor was killed and 22 people were injured. We begin this episode with Rob reading the entry he wrote into his official.

[B]

Police diary that day on duty, 8.05am Admin duties diary and ratings to 11am Packing of equipment pending move. The Fraud Squad was relocating to st Kilda Road. 11:30 spoke to Senior Detective Ross Forster, Castlemaine CIB regarding Frontier Homes Proprietary Limited office to 12:20 to 350 Collins street tax office to 1pm Injury on duty during bomb blast. Sea report completed off duty, 5pm It's.

[A]

A short sentence for one of the most significant events in Melbourne history, isn't it? Yeah, I think you gave the move more words. Moving officers, the fraud squads moving over to St Kilda Road. And then I was injured in a bomb blast.

[B]

You know, one of the amazing things that I was in Cyprus during the Turkish invasion. Wow. And so I'd been blown up several times and shot at and strafed and mined and mortared and whatever. So to me it was just another day at the office at that particular time, which sounds a little bit ridiculous, but at that particular time it was profound because I recall I'd actually been to the tax office to get forms for the all the detectives. I was a detective Senior Sergeant at the Fraud Squad and I got the troops. I think there were 74 of us back in those days, all their tax forms and whatever, just being a good guy. And they ended up on the rooftops sometime later and I. I walked up Latrobe street and turned into Russell street and there was two parked cars and I saw the Commodore parked across the north door and I've gone. That's a bit strange. And it was bloody eerie because I looked left and right There was no one. Basically, at that one o' clock on a Thursday afternoon, you would have buses, traffic, people walking everywhere. There was nothing apart from one car that was driving north through the intersection of Latrobe street and Russell street towards where I was standing in between the parked cars. I'm 12 meters away from the Commodore and I looked at my watch and I said, I've got an appointment at 1 o' clock and I'm just about to run across the road. And I thought, no, I'll let this car go through first. And I'm glad I did, because I would have been standing beside the Commodore when it went up. I know that Ian west, who's a magistrate, was standing in the doorway of the court and there was no other cars traversing through that area at all. Nothing.

[A]

I know one of our favourite people, Charlie Bazzina, Handsome Charlie, we call him, had parked his car a couple of cars down and he was going camping with his children that weekend. And so instead of walking towards the police station, he walked in the other direction to buy camping gear. And that's why he wasn't next to the car.

[B]

Yeah, I know Charlie quite well.

[A]

It's a miracle that there was one fatality.

[B]

Look, it was bizarre. And the only other people that were there was this woman and a young girl who were actually standing on the footpath behind me, and I was on the road between these two parked cars. To this day, I'll go to my grave wondering what the hell ever happened to that woman and that young girl. Wow. There was no mention in the 21 or 22 people that were hurt of them. Crimes, compensation tribunal, all the police reports and whatever there was just. It's just, you know, it's bizarre. Everything goes in slow motion. And it does. It is actually like a video recording in slow motion. And I look back at this car and when it exploded and a front piece of the bumper bar was flying towards me, and this sounds ridiculous, but I actually chose a rounded bit on that bit of the front bumper bar to let it hit me on the wrist rather than my head. Now, it would have been traveling at the speed of sound, but it was in slow motion and I avoided the jagged edge of this piece of metal. Wow. I was blown back into the court wall, about one and a half meters up. So I've been blown back 10 or 12 meters airborne, and there's still a big hole in the bluestone wall there where you can put your fist in, which is the bit of metal that hit that wall. Two detectives who I'D I'd previously seen just on the corner of the Trade Street. Two fraud squad guys came running around the corner and picked me up and I immediately, I still got the notebook somewhere. I immediately took my little notebook out and my first entry was at 1:01pm now mind you, my hair was on fire, I had glass embedded in parts of my body. My arm wasn't broken, it was cracked. I couldn't hear anything and I made my first note at 1:01pm and then I saw this guy running from the scene and I thought that could be the offender and so I took off after him. Anyway, he got away and there was a guy from who was a reporter whom I knew from the Herald son photographer was running up towards the scene and there were still explosions going off and particularly they were the tyres actually of the cars that were parked nearby, including Charlie's. And I told him to f off, flashed my badge because I wasn't in uniform, of course, and he just kept running. So if you have a look at the scene, one of the favorite famous pictures of the scene, you'll see a camera lodged on the footpath near the car. That was because I round armed him and coat hangered him and he dropped his camera and another explosion, explosion went off and glass was strewn everywhere. So he decided to bugger off, which was probably a good idea because he would have been standing beside the tyres that were exploding. I then worked, believe it or not, for the next two hours I was assisting with keeping people out and whatever. I jumped on the radio at some particular stage because everyone was saying there's multiple explosions and whatever. And I described in very verbose terms to shut the Weldhuff up. I'm actually at the scene and their tyres exploding. There's only one car that's gone up. And then probably, I don't know, probably two hours later, Paul Delianis, Assistant Commissioner grabbed me and he said, rob, you're off the hospital. They threw me in the back of an ambulance and I ended up at St V's and they were flushing my eyes out and getting glass out and whatever. To this day I still find bits of glass coming out of my body. And so I went home and my wife was beside. She'd rung my ex wife and rung the fraud Squad and said where's my husband? Because she'd heard about it. And another bizarre thing is that at that particular time, to create a diversion, these fellows had, as I understand it, attempted to rob a bank, Tunstall Square.

[A]

I think the entire Thing was a diversion, was it not? Well, partially. It was just part of the big war going on between the armed robbery squad and the armed robbers of the day. But also a diversion so that they could carry out this robbery.

[B]

No, no. Well, it probably was, but the bizarre thing is my wife was walking past the bank when.

[A]

No.

[B]

So I'm getting blown up as she's walking past where some of these offenders apparently were.

[A]

My God, what a small town.

[B]

Yeah, it is a small town. But anyway, she was beside herself, of course, and I got home and I thought nothing of it. A couple of beers.

[A]

Did you really, though? I mean, I'm wondering about your, your mental health. Like in that moment, were you kind of hyper vigilant and the fact that you went back to work and had to drag you out of there, were you. I'm imagining you sort of fighting like a cat being dragged out of this situation. Were you wanting to get back into it? Were you? I can't imagine you wanted to lay down and rest and relax.

[B]

It's a very, very interesting question. And I mean, I was in the armed forces in the weekend warriors of CMF for about six or seven years. I did a lot of full time training and then I was also in the police force and I was taught to fight, never to flight. I don't understand what flight is. I still don't. And this is where people don't understand where first responders are coming from. They are taught to fight, not to freeze or flight. So my natural reaction is, oh, I'm part of a day's work. I've been blown up before, Have a couple of beers, go to bed, went to work the next day.

[A]

Yeah, well, it doesn't surprise me because the situation's ongoing. It's not like it's over. You're in the. In battle.

[B]

I couldn't hear, I had trouble seeing. But I met up with Gary Ayes and Gary led the investigation, Arson squad and did a fantastic job his team and walked through the scene and how the hell I did that I'll never know. But I walked through the scene with them very carefully and described what had happened. I was actually the first witness at the committal because I'd seen what was happening and whatever's now, I was fine. I went home. I had to go home that afternoon because I had a shocking migraine headache and I was off for a couple of days. I can't think what it was. But a month later I had my first panic attack. And that again was a very interesting story because it Was the middle of the night. And those people who have had a really severe anxiety or panic attack will tell you that's absolutely terrifying. And my daughter Rachel at the time witnessed it with my wife. And they called. It's like you're having a stroke and you're dying and I'm crawling along the ground. Of course I'm hyperventilating and all that sort of stuff. And my daughter Rachel saw me having this panic attack. Anyway, I started getting treatment and I won't go into all of that. I still suffer a little bit, but most of it's from Cyprus rather than the Russell street bombing. But every time I had an anxiety attack for about the next 12 months, so did she. We weren't even together. She'd be kilometers away and I'd ring her and say, are you okay? And she said, I just have one dad, same as me. And she actually went to the crimes compensation tribunal along with me. And she got a bigger payout than I did because she was so young and she suffered from those anxiety attacks.

[A]

As we were saying before, it was a particularly hairy period.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

There was this war going on, wasn't there? And I think these days people don't understand, they don't know about it. And certainly we don't have the armed robbery that we had then. Why? Why is armed robbery not a common crime anymore like it was back then? Armed robbers back then were the biggest, heaviest crims in the country.

[B]

Well, I was actually in the Armed Robbery squad before I went to the fort.

[A]

Wow. And that was the big like. Now homicide's seen as the Glamour Squad and that's what all the TV shows are made about. But back in the day, the Armed robbery squad was the Glamour squad.

[B]

Well, thank you.

[A]

You're welcome.

[B]

We worked for eight, drank for six and then did the same the next day.

[A]

You were the hard man of the coppers.

[B]

Probably. Yeah, I was lucky. I worked with a fellow by the name of Jeff Cronk and he was Superman. But when he got changed in the telephone box, he turned into a monster. But you're right, there used to be armed hold ups on a daily basis. Tobs, banks, all that sort of stuff. In those days, what would happen is that quite often I had a number of these criminals who came and gave themselves up. I had a reputation for being fair and not physical. And they give themselves up for some tobacconist or something they'd rob just to get it for four or five months to get out of the action because.

[A]

It was too hectic.

[B]

It was Too hectic. And there was other things that they'd done okay. And of course there was now on Monk Seed. So the best way to get out of it was to go to Pentridge and get out of the lay low for a while. Yeah, that's right. They're career criminals and. But there was horrible things happening back in those times. I'm not so sure you'd call it a glamour squad, but it was bloody hard work.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And you're dealing with the shit of society most of the time. But I've got a lot of time for the armed robbers detectives that I work with because they are able to deal at any level. And I've gone from the armed robbery squad to the fraud squad and people have asked me what the difference was. I said, with the fraud squad, you knew he did it but didn't have a clue what they'd done. With an armor hold up, you knew what had been done but you didn't know who did it. You know, it was a real change for me to go to the 40s, but I was there for many years and loved it.

[A]

So is it technology, is that what's made, is it harder to do an armed robbery now? Is that what's changed?

[B]

Well, there is. And you'll find that, you know, the cash out thing doesn't leave a lot of money in the registers and places, the CCTV and the. Most of the banks and whatever have got the automatic shutdowns and whatever and alarms that close the place up, lock the door sometimes and whatever. I'd find it strange myself that there's not more now. There is petty stuff, stuff with, you know, just smokes and alcohol and stuff like that, but that's usually juvenile stuff.

[A]

But back in the day, these were the biggest crims in the country, were the armed robbers. You know, those, those shootings of young police officers in the streets, the silk millers and those, those cases. Armed robbery usually, wasn't it? Armed robbers and that sort of back and forth, tit for tat stuff going on.

[B]

You might recall that there was also an inquisition about the use of firearms by police shooting people. Yes, well, they did, yes.

[A]

The armed robbers were saying that coppers were killing them.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

So they went out and killed some coppers.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. And a lot of it was payback, interrelationship between the bad guys because the bad guys were territorial as well. And if they didn't like someone moving in on their patch, well, away you go. And as part of the Russell street inquiry, most amazing investigation, I Mean that Commodore's been put back together piece by piece. So they found parts of that car a kilometre away on the roof of a building, and they rebuilt that whole thing. Now, when they went to arrest these guys, Reid pulled a gun on one of the policemen who unfortunately died, suicided. And he never recovered from that raid. Yes. Really?

[A]

So the raid itself, the perpetrators, Craig Minogue and Peter Reed, Stan Taylor and Rodney Minogue, were acquitted of the crime. What can you tell us about the raid?

[B]

Well, there was 10 police that raided the place, including my friend. I don't want to mention his name because we get very upset about it.

[A]

Yeah, no worries.

[B]

And we dealt with him for many years after that was a very, very fantastic fellow. And Reid shot him. Okay. And he never recovered from that. And one of the other detectives shot Reid. So that raid was successful and they charged the four people with various offences. And, you know, they say that there was no main offender, but I think Craig Minogue was the orchestrator of the whole thing. Interesting story about the committal. I was, as I said, the first person to give evidence about what happened because obviously chronologically I was able to. And I remember walking out and Minogue was in the dock and he spat on me as I walked past. And one of the other offshoots of that particular committal, which I'm not happy about, is that back in those days there used to be the night footy of North Melbourne at whatever, and there was a whole heap of coppers and magistrates and lawyers that used to get together and have a drink and a bit of a chat. And after this committal, I had heard that a certain magistrate, and this was hearsay, had thanked the Minogues and the other offenders for behaving themselves during the committal. And I cracked it big time. And I suggested to this particular person that these people had tried to kill me, Ian west, one of his fellow magistrates and other people, and indeed had killed one. And he thanked them for coming. I've never been able to forgive that person if that was true.

[A]

After the break, Rob talks about the truth behind the so called deaths by natural causes of many veterans of policing and other first responders. Coming up on Australian True Crime. Rob reminds us of the stressful day to day reality of policing. But first he talks about the Russell street bombing statistics. History tells us that the bombing claimed one life, that of Constable Angela Taylor, and injured 22 people. Rob takes issue with those numbers.

[B]

I really challenge the 22 non fatal injuries because I know at least two people have taken their lives as a direct result of that. I'm suffering because of that, but there's quite a few others that have suffered all the way through and may not be fatal, but it's absolutely.

[A]

I can't imagine having my workplace attacked in that way, going on with life normally. My workplace and my vocation, you know. Really?

[B]

Yeah. Oh, yes, it's. Look, it was one of those things that, you know, I think there was one of the headlines in the age was Beirut comes to Melbourne. When I was in Cyprus, I had what's known as Holy Land leave, where you went for a week to have a break in Holy Land. And I was in Beirut staying at a hotel, and I decided to go and stay on a kibbutz for two or three days just to see what it's like. And I came back and the hotel was gone. And I'm thinking, I could have been sitting on my bed, picking my nose there, and for the grace of God go I. So.

[A]

So, I mean, it seems now, looking back that your PTSD was inevitable, doesn't it?

[B]

It may not be inevitable, but there's some people can handle it and there's some that can't. And I mean, it's the aggregation of things. You know, people used to say to me, oh, you're driving in a police car and nothing happens. These are worse times because you don't know what's coming next. And then you might go from job to job to job. It's quite mechanical what you're doing. But all of this stuff aggregates. And one of the things that we never did back in my day was admit that we were soft or go home. And I don't think I ever told my wife one story about whatever happened at work, which is horribly wrong, because now I tell people, you go home and you debrief with someone, and I talk to the wives and kids and say, debrief your dad or your mum.

[A]

Well, we've talked to a lot of police about this, though, because there's gotta be part of you that doesn't want to inflict these stories on them because some of this stuff's very difficult. Ron Iddles talks a lot about the fact that his wife Colleen was a mental health nurse. So obviously she was a great support to him and they were able to debrief quite thoroughly. So how big a part did all of this play in the fact that your then wife is now an ex wife, do you think?

[B]

Oh, look, I'd say that I've married for 41 years to Tina, and she's a lovely person and whatever, but I'm quite sure that my behaviour was sometimes. I was never violent, but I would lose it occasionally and I'd drink too much occasionally. But, you know, on the other side of it, I think that the wives and partners and kids should say to Mum or Dad when they come home, how was your day? Okay, just those simple words was, how was your day? And then debriefed by, you know, I would have said, well, you know, I had some really terrible things happen today and if they wanted to take it further, it's fine, but at least you've opened that door. Whereas I go home and nothing. Probably just wouldn't worry about it. And my wife, very real. I can't remember ever asking me, how was your day? Or what happened today, but that was more my fault than hers because I know we should have that contract. You know, I blame her. I don't blame my wife and everything, because it was what everyone did back then.

[A]

Yeah, you have to ask for these things that you need, don't you?

[B]

Oh, yeah. I put her through some horrible times. I'm quite sure about, you know, things that happened to me in the police force. And you might say it's understandable, but if I had been treated correctly at the time, and the story goes on, insofar as I had no counselling whatsoever from Victoria police. I mean, these days, the Victoria police handle it a lot better. If you've got one of the. But I mean, how do you manage it? You know, do you send someone, counsellor out for every job you do because you might go to a fatal accident, then get another one, so you can't just go home and wait for someone to. Whatever. You've just got to get on with it.

[A]

And also because, you know, things don't necessarily affect you in the moment, but maybe it is triggered later.

[B]

I have flashbacks occasionally and it's typically about the mass graves in Cyprus, which is for another day.

[A]

Wow, okay.

[B]

But also, you know, the one. There's one or two that I feel. You feel guilty. There's one in my book which really profoundly got me, which was a fire in Blackburn. And we got there and remember it was a Maltese couple and three kids and Mum. Dad. And one of the kids. Kids got out and the fire was well alight and dad, he had two more kids inside and dad had, apparently, before I got there, tried to go back in and rescue the kids. Well, he got about two paces in there and asphyxiated. Anyway, once the fire had gone, I had to go in with the fires and whatever and There was this four or five year old boy laying on top of his two year old sister, burnt to a crisp, trying to protect her. And you know, for anyone that sees kids and things happen to kids and whatever, you know, that is just something that just never leaves you. You just can't. The smell of it, the look of it, you know, this poor little kid, how brave he was, you know, and we're worried because we've got a sore.

[A]

Back, you know, and so what, what does happen after, after you've been to a scene like that, went to the next job. That's, you know, you can't have counseling after every job, but you've got to have counseling after that.

[B]

I never had counseling about that.

[A]

That's. Yeah, that's unbelievable.

[B]

But there was no, look, it wasn't set up to do this. Yeah, we didn't have any. There was no procedures or protocols in place at that time. You know, you relied on your sergeant or whatever, on your sergeant. Just get on with it. You know, the police club back in those days used to stay open in Mackenzie street until the last copper left. Yeah, and yeah, I've had some real battles with people about, you know, drinking and whatever and I'm still a little alcohol dependent, but I'm not alcoholic. I've had that all tested and whatever. I'd like to drink less, but it's not too bad. I've got it pretty much under control. But you know, we had a saying that all of us people, don't you dare have a drink. I mean, what do you do? I mean, how do you debrief something like that? You know, we used to just go and drink ourselves stupid. Look, I had a couple of years in charge of the audiovisual division and our guys used to go to every bad fatal and videotape and take photos and also to all murder scenes and whatever. And I was a chief inspector then and I went with them if they got called at 2 o' clock in the morning, I went as well because my view was I couldn't support what they needed if I didn't know what they did. So I carried the camera and with my gumboots on, walking through scenes where there was blood up to your ankles. And I think the Last count was 126 different fatals that I saw or saw the result of during that time or saw videos of that my trips had done. I got 1000 pornographic videos given to me that they did a raid in Doncaster and I had to rate them in 1989 of just segregate different pieces of them. I'd walk out and vomit, you know, and someone would have to take my place for a while. And then I'd go back in and walk out and vomit. And there was no setup back in those days. And I'm not being critical, it's an observation that Victoria Police, you know, should have had something set up. And indeed, I had a little bit to do with what's happening now with the. With the retired police, because as you'll see on the back of my book, Ken lay giving me the police star. Ken. I had lunch with Ken and the other three, four other commissioners that particular day when I was getting that award. And Ken said to me, he said, how are you now, Rob? And I said, ken, you are the first police officer to ask me that since 1987. And he said, it's not good enough, is it? And I said, no. And I started to do some work on a similar model for Victoria Police as they have with Veterans Affairs. And unbeknownst to me, a lovely policeman by the name of Vicky Key was doing the same thing out in the western suburbs. So we got ads together, I had a couple of meetings with her, and we developed a bit of a business plan to establish the same sort of foundation and structure as Veterans affairs for retired police. Because once you're gone, that's the end of you don't care. Couldn't care. Anyway, to get that going, we needed some funds. So I said to John Laird, who's the president of the Police association, he said, what do you need? I said, we need $6,000 and we had the money in five minutes.

[A]

Yeah. Cause that does not seem like a big ask.

[B]

There's a much greater understanding now of the needs of veterans and first responders. And one of those things is that we identified is the general run of the mill. Psychologists and psychiatrists haven't got a clue. They just simply don't understand. You've got to have those people who are savvy with the actual work that happens. So part of that whole structure was to identify people out in the regions who were psychologically savvy about first responders. And I'll go back to my initial point was fight and flight. You know, if you go back to the army, the Australian army were totally different to the us. If you were ambushed, you run out of them. And that's how we dealt with an ambush. Whereas the Americans go to the high ground and blow it all up. But UK and the Australian soldiers were told, if you ambush. Right, you say ambush. Right. And you run out of and run through them and get to the other side. So if you can. So that's the sort of attitude that I have with everything. And I've had recent incidents where I've stepped in. I'm 72, I'm reasonably agile and fit, but I've stepped in and actually took a knife off a bloke in the train who's going to stab this Indian boy. And I got attacked in near Flagstaff Gardens by a couple of Sudanese boys who wanted my wallet and my watch. And I told them it wasn't a good idea. Anyway, the van pulled around the corner as these guys were limping away, and anyway, the van crew got out and said. Because they went down a lane and they said, you've probably dealt out better punishment than they'd get from the courts. We'll see if we can find them. So I still haven't lost that. If I get into an argument, you know, I've got to be very careful. I get into an argument because whether I'm right, wrong or indifferent, I want to fight so that. I pulled me in a lot on that. You know, socially we know.

[A]

Oh, God. Socially we know the AFP has got a problem and they know they've got a problem.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And I guess maybe it's a similar situation. Do you think that they don't have the specialised psychological support, perhaps? We're up to four Australian Federal Police officers who've taken their own lives on the premises with their firearms in the last three years.

[B]

Well, how many have we got in Victoria that have taken their own lives? I mean, there's some that you don't know about. And one of the things that I've asked to happen, and I hope it is, is when there's a sudden death, police fill out a form called a set of 83s, which is a death notice to the coroner, goes to the coroner's court. And that's every death, pretty much. There's no facility on that form to say whether they're a veteran or police officer or a first responder or whatever. So how do you measure this sort of stuff? So what we've got as a result of that, we've got people taking their own lives of dying or dying of, in brackets, natural causes. And we don't know how many of them are ex military or whatever. So what are we measuring? We need to have data about that so we can actually measure it. Because I know dealing with some of the veterans that I deal with, I mean, they are in a Shocking way they are, in a shocking, shocking way. You know, they've got. They forget to take their medicine and, you know, they just. They just drink themselves stupid. They've got nothing to live for. And it's, you know, they die of natural causes. Well, it's not natural causes at all. It's alcoholism, liver and all that sort of stuff. So they drink themselves to death. So that's a means of suicide, in my view. People say, you know, why do you do what you do? And I said, it's part of my rehab. Absolutely part of my rehab. But because I see it when I deal with new people, I see it's like looking in a mirror. So I find it quite easy to get at their level. And I find that I have had a great deal of success with some people in terms of turning their life around. Okay, I was never suicidal, I've got to say that. But I do recognize. I remember walking into an ex policeman's shop in Croydon and with my partner at the time and said, hello. I hadn't seen him for 20 years. Walked out and I said, I've got to go back. She said, why? I said, I've just got to go back. I went back and said to him, richard, his name was. And I said, richard, let's go out the back and have a smoke. Went out the back, and I said, tell me about it. He's broke down. He was drinking a bottle of whiskey a night and having two or three Xanax before he went to bed and smoking 100 cigarettes a day and all that sort of stuff. And he turned his life around. I'm not saying that, but I think that was the circuit breaker that actually got things moving along for him to get himself a lot better. He said, I was brutal with him and we're great mates, but if he listens to this, they're bloody brutal. Well, and I don't think he enjoyed me being brutal. But at the end of the day, there is some people you've got to be really kid love, and other people got to be brutal. And, you know, I probably went over the top a bit with Richard, but at the end of the day, he's fine. You know, he's fine. He's off the alcohol. I've stopped smoking as well. So is he. He drinks moderately, and I call mine moderately. So I have this. I seem to have this innate ability to start talking to people and I'm actually seeing. It's like watching a TV show and I'm looking at these people and I can see that the devil's dancing around in their brain. And I'm able to get in there fairly quickly and say, have you ever thought about having a chat to someone or whatever? And it's amazing how many people respond pretty much straight away and say, no, no, I'm fine. No, you're not. Yes, look, it's been interesting. It's been. It's actually quite rewarding in lots of ways. You know, we've had some really good victories and. And apart from one or two, and particularly the guy that was shot by Reed when we lost him, we still all just suffer. And in fact, I've got one traffic conviction for 0.05, which happened the night that he died. And I. I just blew over a little bit. But we'd met at the pub to talk about it, and I was only a little bit over, but it was the only thing. It was just. I just said, yeah, do what you have to do. You know, we were really in a bad space and it seemed quite innocuous compared to him hanging himself. And we'd only spoken to him, you know, fairly recently, so. And that was a direct result of Reed shooting him.

[A]

How many years. How many years after that raid did this man take his own life?

[B]

Three years ago. So that's over 20 years. Yeah. Wow. But he was. He wasn't. Well, all the way through.

[A]

That's what I mean. I think we don't understand that either. How long people can battle and fight, think to ourselves, that was 20 years ago.

[B]

Yeah, I know. Seems like yesterday.

[A]

Yeah. Really?

[B]

Oh, yeah, it seems like yesterday.

[A]

And when you say something like, oh, the mass graves of.

[B]

Oh, yes, of where? In Cyprus.

[A]

Cyprus. I can see when you say that. I can see how present you are in that. And yet. How long ago was that?

[B]

1974. But when you see an open grave with the bodies in there that have been set alight. Alive. Wow.

[A]

Yeah, okay.

[B]

Or some of them would have been alive when that was set. Alive. That stays with you forever. I mean, it's like yesterday. I can still smell it.

[A]

I think that's part of what we need to understand about this kind of trauma is that it doesn't. Time doesn't heal it. Time doesn't change it, make it any better at all. It's still really present.

[B]

We saw some horrible things and it did affect her. I mean, I was 26, I think, or 27. We didn't think we were coming home. We just didn't think we were coming home. We lost one fella. He got blown up in a landmine. And I think they said, a shirt sleeve home in a coffin or something like that. And we had the opportunity. Whitlam said he'd send a Pontus plane over or RAAF plane over, pick us up. And we all. We had a meeting and said, no, no, we've got a job to do. We're stone, we're quite safe.

[A]

Fight, no flight.

[B]

That's exactly right. And we all said, no, we're stone. We've got a job to do with these people. We were unarmed. We were very highly regarded by everyone except the Turkish invaders and the Greek invaders because the two mainlands got involved. The only uniforms they understood were their own or the enemy. So we got caught in crossfires and all sorts of things that happened to us, but we got through physically unscathed. I had scratches and bruises and got blown up a few times. Just the periphery.

[A]

Just minor shit. Yeah.

[B]

So, yeah.

[A]

That is amazing. Thank you so much. If you need support after listening to this podcast, you can call Lifeline on 131114 or contact 1-800-Respect on 1-800-737-732 or 1-800-Respect. Org AU. Indigenous Australians can contact 13 Yarn on 139276 or 13yarn.org AU.

[B]

The producers of this podcast recognise the traditional owners of the land on which it's recorded. They pay respect to the Aboriginal elders past, present and those emerging.