The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.

Detective see aside of life the average person is never exposed to.

I spent thirty four years as a cop.

For twenty five of those years I was catching killers.

That's what I did for a living.

I was a homicide detective.

I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys.

Instead, I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.

The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories from all sides of the law.

The interviews are raw and honest, just like the people I talked to.

Some of the content and language might be confronting.

That's because no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged.

Join me now as I take you into this world.

Today, I had a chat with retired Queensland cop Dennis Martin as a former detective.

Dennis had a diverse career with the police, where he worked on the Daniel Morkam case helped track down pedophiles.

Before he got into policing, he grew up in the remote country town of Mare, where there was a tough racial divide.

When he was younger, he joined the army as a soldier and then went on to join the Queensland Police, where he spent the next twenty years of his life.

I never worked with Dennis, but we've had lengthy conversations over the years after we're both out of the police.

Let's have a listen, Dennis Martin, welcome to catch killers.

No problems, Thanks very much.

It's been a few years in the making getting you on.

I think we first started talking and communicating after I'd left the cops and you were out of the cops.

That's great.

Yeah, yeah, it has been some years.

Yeah.

They slipped by it, don't they very quickly.

I'm going to ask you a big question up front.

When you look back, what's your reflections on your time in the police.

Look, I think the reflection would be that it was a good job.

There was a lot of satisfaction.

There was a until you started to climb the rank structure, and then you found out obviously there was some you know, issues that you had to comply with if you were to go any further, if you wanted to stay as probably a constable.

Yeah, I think everything was probably kosher and if you didn't want to do anything that was going to make anybody think adverse to you or make any decisions that other people didn't want you to make, you'd be quite happy.

Yeah, there's a bit of a compromise, and they have the further up you go up up the corporate ladder, there is a hierarchy.

Yeah.

The sooner you get to the the closer you get to the point of the pyramid, the more scrutiny you come under, and the more I guess you leave yourself open for other people to have a go at you.

Yeah.

I look at policing and I'm not sure, and we're going to talk about your army career.

But operational police and management police there two different streams.

There were people that I could respect in the police that were good managers, but I didn't think they had the skills or the experience as an operational police officer.

But it seems to get convoluted.

As you climb up the top.

Someone rises because they might be a good operational police officer, come management and they're not.

They're better offers operational police officers and managers.

Then on the other side you have these people who are good managers and they climb up the corporate ladder or the hierarchy, and all of a sudden.

They think they're operational, but they haven't got the experience.

That's exactly right.

Yes, you'll get some people that come never leave the academy.

Basically, they're like full time union students.

Stay there and then they may come out on the road for a couple of years, and they're back is teaching the academy.

Then they'll go to a managerial position, and then they're back on the road as an inspector giving you operational advice.

Yeah, they have got no idea, absolutely no idea, and the advice they give you might be legally sound, but it's not correct for that part of the area of town you're in, if that makes sense.

You know, they've got no feeling of what the crims are up to.

They've got no desire to put a criminal notice and maybe source him out for some information.

It's just there's the evidence.

Why aren't you arresting him?

Why hasn't this been done?

They've got no idea to play the longer.

Yeah, you know, and they are only there for one short period of time anyway, to get back behind a desk so they can go up to superintendent and someone say forth.

I think that's a big and I can only speak for New South Wales, but my observation of other state police, possibly even the federal police.

The way that people can climb the rank so quickly, I think causes problems.

I looked at New South Wales and thought you could simplify or make it a better structured police force if you had to stay for a period of time on the rank, like say you became a sergeant, maybe you had to spend five to seven years as a sergeant before you could rise to be an inspector.

Yeah.

Look, I don't disagree with that at all, and I think that, you know, I tried to bring in something at what they call a detective training school.

You've had some detective trainers there that were a detective sergeant, but you know they've been there for five and seven and eight years.

And my suggestion was that, look, why don't you know you use this as some sort of I guess, a bit of training for the operational police officer.

But a rest period gave him off the road after say ten years, give him two years there and then back on the right, fresh of them up, freshing them up and gives you up to date information and on road experience.

For the new detectives coming through.

Yeah, you thought I'd kill the mother.

You can't suggest such things, absolutely not.

He's been here for ten years and you know he's getting sized thirty eight in his trousers and wants to have small doughnuts for lunch.

And there leave him alone.

It's a strange world, strange world policing.

But yeah, there's good and bad, and there's good cops bad cops.

But anyway, your career and people, Yeah, whether you like it or not, but there's a lot of your profile is extrinsically linked to the Daniel Morkham case in that there was you're and we're going to talk about it in detail later on in the podcast, so that don't want to cover off on it now.

I want people to understand who you are before we get into the detail.

But people remember Daniel Markham that I think it was.

He was thirteen years old two thousand and three, seventh of December two thousand and three when he disappeared.

It was a horrendous situation and his parents campaigned for a long time and it took I think eight years before Brett Peter Cowen was finally arrested for Daniel's murder and convicted.

You actually spoke to Brett Cowen within weeks of Daniel's disappearance and you at that point in time you formed the view that he was should be the number one suspect for the murder.

That's greatky time, we're going to talk about that in depth because I think it's a very interesting gives you an insight into policing and the robust nature of policing, and there's a lot of pressure when you're investigating crimes of that nature.

Yeah, look there is a lot of pressure, but there's a lot of pressure brought from both ends, both from the families that want something completed and they want some I guess resolution, and then you've got from the manage and the management side of policing.

You were saying, look, we're not going to pay any overtime at the moment.

Either, do your own time, working your own time, So it comes down from money.

And then you've got pressure from the operational management.

We're saying we've got another murders just occurred.

You need to wrap this up, or we need to not give you as many resources.

It's just never ending and people don't understand these competing priorities.

Yeah, you know, and they think, well, what hasn't something happened?

Yeah, probaty only got one guy working on it.

Yeah.

Well so all those competing competing interest and we'll break that down a little bit.

But before we move on and talk about you, we're just in.

I've seen you speak about the Markham case and the empathy that you have for Daniel's parents family, about what they went through and how tirelessly they worked Denise and Bruce to get justice for their kids.

So I think we need to sort of pay some homage to them and the brutality of the crime.

It's one that captured the attention of the nation, really didn't.

It did, And they were just the epitome of what a family would be.

They were shed somebody's grandmother.

He was a nice gentle fellow.

They were a lovely family and that's just the way they came across and they were honest and open.

There was nothing you could say bad about them apart from just lovely people.

Yeah.

Yeah, it was a sad, sad case.

Was your life.

It's been an interesting and diverse life.

You grew up in Maury, western Town in New South Wales, it's a town that had a tough reputation.

There was a bit of a racial divide there between the Aboriginal community and the white community.

That's the perception that seems to come from the town.

There was a lot of issues there.

You grew up there as a young Aboriginal boy in that world.

Tell us your experiences of your childhood growing up in Maury.

Well, it's a very robust little town, you know, and I don't think it's ever changed.

It's always been around ten thousand people, ten thy five hundred, very much an itinerant working town, and a lot of people would come and do stick picking and cotton chipping and all of those sort of things.

You know, we lived what is now well inside the town limits.

But when we were there, our house was on the outskirts and all it was as soon as you walked out your door, you turned left to go into scrubland and then you just get big bribe bushes coming down the road, or if you turn right, you go up to Killick store near the school.

And that's the way it was, and that was the town.

You know.

There was never any I didn't see a great deal of racism in my early years it was later on when I realized what racism was.

But apart from that, whether you were playing black white Chinese, not that there were many Chinese, but there was the Chinese shopping down, so you might have seen them.

That was the only thing other than that they're all kids, and that's what it was, you know.

Yeah, it was rough tumble.

There was no shoes, There was no nothing to do other than you go out and play in the fields.

Really, that's that's all there was.

Do you have good memories of your childhood?

Yeah?

I do.

Growing up, my father was a grave digger and that's all pick and shovel, So I remember going with him to the cemetery on a lot of occasions, helping backfill graves.

And then he was also the senatory cart so he'd run down through the back lanes early in the hours and pick up the sanitary carts from the toilets in the back.

And so I jump on the truck and go and help him tar out the tin till we took in the van and washed them out.

So it was all of that sort of stuff, you know, And that's just and there'd been nothing to go and get a twenty two and go over and you get some rabbits and bring them home and you know, skin them and gut them and have some dinner that evening.

Or it was absolutely that's what we were allowed to do.

Okay, that was the life.

Well, it gives a bit of an insight and compared to life growing up in the city, no wonder you turn out tough growing up and having environment.

And I supped it self sufficient too.

Yeah.

Well, look, it's a funny story when you say that, because years later my daughter, I can't remember how well, she might have been about six or seven.

It was near Easter time and I didn't even give it a thought, and I took her over into the paddocks and we got some rabbits and he did shoot the yes, and she's still from to this day he brings it up that I killed Easter bunny.

Tasted nice.

Your por chop will have to get there on the on the podcast.

So how long were you living in Maur Did you join the army straight from Maur.

Yeah, look, I joined, I didn't join.

I I did some work at the local RSL club and I was sitting there one day after cleaning the toilets and our little things that used to do at the club.

And in came the recruitings ergeant from the army, so they were in town.

So I went and had a chat and he goes, look, no one joins the army for three years, mate, He said, you always do it for six wink wink.

I didn't know.

So in I went and signature before it walked out.

Absolutely yeah, So in I went and that was that was that, And I didn't come out until ninety seven and then stayed in as a reservist after that.

How old were you when you joined the eighteen and where'd you do your basic training?

Basic training was at one RTP kopooka Atana wagga yea.

I still clearly remember.

I was in Charlie Company, twenty four Patoon and it was a corporate kirk out and I still remember him.

Yeah, just it looked very similar to yourself.

My son went through the basic training down there, and I remember, I call it the best bit of par anything I did, because I sent him in as a kidney came out of man.

But it really I saw the difference.

And it was what three four months or whatever the training was, but you saw the kids get on the bus and be driven there and by the time they're passing out they were completely different human boots.

Absolutely love you know.

I was pretty straight up and down coming from Mari.

I thought, yep, jumped on the bus here in Sydney because so sorry, I got recruited and you had to fly from.

Actually, I think we've got to train over and not train from.

There's only one train every couple of days from Mari to Sydney, and then had to make our way to the recruiting section and then they got us on a bus from here to Wagga.

But during the bus trip they searched you took anything off of your like knives or anything that you shouldn't have had got you off for the bus.

At the end of the day, lined up all your gear, took it away next top with the barbershop, no hair left.

I was just that's the way it was.

I remember before my son joined though, I was saying, you probably want to do some training, get some training, get some fitness up, and that I'd go for a run with him in the morning and do a little bit and he'd be laying there, laying on the lands.

I think you have no idea, You have no idea what's about to happen to you.

But anyway, it's an experience.

So where'd you go and what was your role after basic training?

Well, after that, I went to what they called, I guess initial employment training down at Pucketpanyol.

I went down there for another few months and then I ended up here at Mossman at thirty Terminal Squadron.

So I stayed there for a couple of years, and then I went to Uburudonga and then swapped over to Intelligence Corps and I went from there to One INC Company at in Brisbane.

Whilst there at One INC Company did tours of Somalia and they came an interesting Yeah, that was interesting.

Yeah.

I was caught up there with a few things that you know, yeah, I guess being investigated for war crimes and all that sort of stuff when we came back.

And that continued right throught about two thousand and nine.

They just kept sniping from the sidelines and found out there was nothing there.

And that's the way it was obviously until people started coming back from Afghanistan and Iraq and they thought we've got some new people there we can investigate, so turned the long.

Yeah, they left alone on there what's the role I think the people who have been listening to the podcasts long enough gather sense of what the role of an intel officer is in the cops.

What's the role of a military intel officer?

Yeah, well, look, a military intel also has a lot of hats they can wear, and you know the psychological operations, So on which turn you would go in and try to work out how you're going to I guess change the hearts and mind to the people.

You might be doing air drops of that sort of stuff, And I remember quite clearly and in Somalia the French Foreign Legion tried similar But what they did was, you know, drop things from the helicopters and say, look, come in and give us your weapons.

And they were waiting for them as were coming with the weapons.

They took them as combatants and just shot them dead.

Deal with the French Foreign Lesion.

Okay, well that's yeah, we're not formed for that point.

So then we have counterintelligence.

Obviously you're looking at owned forces counter intelligence and then counter intelligence on the enemy.

Then we have not eye ups, imagery, endless, linguist endless, and one analyss one intelligence operator can do the whole lot.

So it was quite diverse.

I thought, very good.

I do remember clearly talking to an old general from the division, and he never spoke to obviously enlisted people like me very often.

But I ended up being his intelligence sergeant and he said, look, I want ninety nine percent accuracy from here.

If you're not, I'll get somebody else in tomorrow.

So there was a lot of work to try and make sure that he got the accurate information.

Well, this is an important role, isn't it.

Like when you've just job description there of what you're covering.

If you if you got it wrong, you could you could create a disaster literally.

Look absolutely yeah.

You know, at the end of the day, if you give them false information to act on that information, you know, you've got other people's lives in your hands.

But I was actually very lucky that I went through that period of time that the intelligence operators went out beyond the field, right, and you know we're in different sort of clothes and trying to gain sources and get information like that, right, right, So that was it was very interesting.

So I had more control of the information that came in, and you could make your assessments and a better way to verify based on that.

What were the dramas in Somalia at the time when you were over there, What was going on?

It was just all they call it clans, but that really just tribes or whatever you want to call it.

They were just shooting, killing each other and the whole country was just a mess.

It was run by a couple of warlords, you know.

War's army was one in around the Bi Dull area.

The other was a deed was the I think the main one from Mogadishu.

Yeah, so I remember once I jumped on, I was told to go to mogad issue.

And it was one of those things that people don't say, well, how do you get the mogod issue?

Yes, you were told to get that.

You got there.

So I wandered out to the airfield and they I found an Irish fellow and it just happened to be Patrick's day and he was drinking a bit.

Said I I'll get you to Modishu.

So we went by Rwanda.

What I ever was doing in Rwanda, I'll never know.

And then we went from there, so I didn't go off the plane, so we'd come from there.

We ended up Mogadisha and then I was they said, I'll just wander over there and tell them who you are and what you're for.

And I did, and so I ended up with the Psychological Operations Group for in the seventh Marine Expeditionary Forts from America.

Yeah.

So we're at the stadium in in Mogadishu, and I thought Pakistan was on our sides, but they started to shoot inwards to the stadium, not outwards.

Just they were hopeless.

It would have been an interesting time for you.

It was interesting, you know, and it was a good experience.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So how long did you stay in the Army.

I got out in ninety seven to join the police, but day on as reserves.

Okay.

What rank were you when you left?

Sergeant?

Sergeant Okay, so good experience.

What made you leave the Army?

Well, the career.

Yeah, I wish I'd stayed in the Army, to be honest, But the issue with the Army was that it was a young man's game.

And after it, Yeah, the physical title was incredible.

You can only carry you know, seventy or sixty kilos on your back and dig holes to sleep in at nighttime for so long before you get a bit tired.

And every day is training, which is nothing wrong with that, but you're training for something that may never occur, and when it does occur, it's a bit of an anti climax, and therefore you think, well, if that's it, there's not much else.

I'm not putting it in.

Yeah, and I'd always wanted to join the police, So because I did a join.

I did apply to New South Wales as a cadet back in nineteen eighty two, right, but for one reason or another I didn't have the education or something they said, coming from Maria High School with great grades seas I thought to be fair.

Yeah.

So other than that, no, So that's when I applied to join the Queensland place.

Yeah, okay, policing.

So New South Wales didn't accept you.

No, okay Queensland may I'm not sure if you made the right choice or not, but okay with Queensland.

So when did you join the Queensland Police?

At ninety seven yea, I joined the Queensland Police.

I went from there to Goodner, which is a tough little area and it encompassed quite a large area.

So I did some a couple of years there in uniform.

Yeah.

Whereabouts is Goodnight, Goodner?

Is in the western suburbs of Brisbane out towards Ipswich Yep.

Still a bit of a rough area.

It really are Pauline Hanson stomping grounds, but so it was a bit of a tough area.

It was a very isolated area.

I know, it was still within the confines of a CBD, but the amount of police we would have maybe two overnight for a really really large area, pretty as big as you know, the Northern Beaches, you know, you'd have two coppers overnight and that was it.

Yeah.

Yeah, how did you find going into policing after the army?

Did you think it was beneficial for you the background that you had had in the army.

I absolutely think that.

I've seen a lot of people come from military, particularly army two police.

I see very few police going back towards military, right, So my only thought in my mind was, well, it's got to be better, yeah, because we aren't coming back.

Yeah, not that it's a backward, but I'm just saying they're not going transferring from there to military.

So they've seen the light and so they're staying.

There was always something about the military guys when they came across to the police and you saw quite a few that it seems to be like a natural progression, but they carry themselves a little bit different from from other police and that you always felt like when there was a lot of pressure on that was good.

Having the bloat that's come from now blake, oral woman, that's come from the army, that okay, well they'll they'll crack under the pressure of it.

Yeah, And I think, you know, with that came a lot of calculation from them.

They knew you know that, or they knew how to use resources a little bit better, they knew how to communicate a bit better.

They worked together well, they worked as a team, you know.

And I just just thought that they it was a good natural progression anyway, and they did a good job.

How did you find going like you retired in the army but as a sergeant and you've moved up up the rank structure, How did you find going from the army where you're you're running the show to an extent, then joining the police and starting right at the bottom again, how did you find that?

I thought it was very difficult.

Yeah, really I did, because I think coming across at the rank level I was from the army, you had control of quite a lot and a lot of people.

You know directly, you know, thirty odd people underneath you, and then you come in there and you've got a senior Connie, you're a constable.

They're probably about twenty three years of age, little live experience on their own.

I just found it difficult, you know what I mean, particularly if you had a bit of a bum of one of them that thought they were a lot better than what they really were.

But look, at the end of the day, I think we got it well on.

I hopefully provided some advice and they gave me something as well.

Well.

The type of person you're talking about, the sensible way and the good type of leadership, I think in that situation is that if you've got someone under you that's got more experience or who knows something a little bit more that than you, they use them, use you use your experience.

What would you do here?

What would you do here?

Dennis?

That type of thing.

But I think there's a fear and it's not just policing, but there's a fear that if you don't know and you're in the position of leadership, you've just got to carry on.

And I see them quite often over compensate, like make decisions because I'm the boss.

I'm going to tell you what to do, even though they haven't got the experience.

But they've got a team of people underneath them that could, Yeah, they could ask for some advice.

Yeah.

And look, and I did find that quite a bit too, you know, that they weren't prepared to take advice.

Yeah, because it looked weak.

Yeah.

Yeah, And obviously a lot of people and I didn't realize as particularly in the Queensland place.

I don't know what was like in the New South Wales.

But they were looking for comments and they said to me, make sure you keep comments.

And I said, what do I want to keep comments for?

I said, someone commidentates to me every day.

And what they mean is that if you turned around and said, oh look, Denners, you've done a great job today, thank you very much.

Your good time management.

It's all just made up so that you can keep your email put on your resume for a promotion.

Yeah, you know, mister Geel detectives Google and said that I was a good operator and I did good time management.

Hence KSC one for the resume, and that's all they were doing.

Look, we could talk about this all day, about that type of person in policing that's just looking for Oh if I do this, I'll look good on my next application.

There in lies the problem with the leadership in the police.

I think in that you should just be concentrated on doing your work and then the leadership will flow organically from that, or that's how it should, but it certainly certainly doesn't.

What made you what, first of all, as a policeman, not a young policeman.

So you've gone in there with life experiences, but I don't know about you.

I made a lot of mistakes when you're first in the cops because it's a new world and that is there anything that you did and you look back and go to Jesus, what was I thinking?

Yeah?

There was, and there's still there, still would have been should have been in there?

Yeah, yeah, Look I remember clearly we were a little bit I guess, a bit of Alerican.

Yeah, that's a little bit of my attitude.

Unfortunately a lot of people don't dislike it.

But we had an old inspector and I know this's got nothing to do with cream, but it's something to do with our alaric.

Yeah, and he was just a funny, funny fellow, but a nice fellow.

And so we waited until he left the evening.

We're on nightwab and so he sneaked in his office and deleted, sorry, shredded all his introy And so he came in and he thought, oh this is great, someone's done my work and sat back.

And the next day about the day later there superintendent got stuck into him.

You know, yeah, don't look at us there.

We have none to do with it.

You've got a little bit of laugh.

I don't know.

I can't.

We can't encourage that.

Don't try that in the place.

Some mar chaoso goes in there, and I don't know.

Maybe it's a way of balancing out that you can go from that to attending a car accident where family's been killed.

So it's sort of leaving a little bit of steam off.

I don't think it's a bad thing.

Yeah, no, I think it's good.

Yeah.

What about playing clothes?

What what drew you to working in detectives?

Well, look where it really came from.

I was in Queens and they give out a bull It's like an advertisement of jobs every week I think it was, or maybe every fortnight.

I think it was every week, and you know, if you sort things.

And I saw the undercover course come through and I thought, that really suits to what I used to do.

I'll give it a go.

So I went through the recruiting process for that and the betting process and got accepted.

So I remember handing no, I didn't.

I jogged home that afternoon with my pistol in my back back because I had to take it to the new unit, being the COVID unit, And I've got instructions to get on the train at Goodna, get off at Rama Street, get on a train to wooll and Gabba.

Somebody be there to pick me up, and then they were half an hour later.

Then they took me to a warehouse and that was where I would be stationed for the period of time I was an undercover.

And then you came home a day or so later in an old bombed up car, a new identity and you and you sat at home until they called you for a job.

Okay, so it wasn't part time.

It was it was full time, full time undercover years working out of the covert premises and new identification and all that that would have been been exciting times.

Yeah, it was, you know, and the process of how they all these identities came about and all the backstop that goes with it.

It's a lot more work than what people think, you know, and they obviously later on I became involved in that as a controller, But that's down the track.

Yeah.

Yeah, so what tell me about your first without giving away methodology, but you would have found yourself in some interesting situations as undercover.

Yeah.

Look, a majority of the cases were for drugs, yep.

And it's not just small time drugies of course.

Obviously we get inserted through sources, and human sources much about much must vouch for you, because you might't go any further if you don't have anyone to vouch for you.

Those outlook Modell gangs or or big corporate drugs gangs.

You know, you need somebody to say I've known them for a lot of years and this is how I've known them.

You can trust them.

Basically, that's how it works, and you're getting inserted and then we try to ditch that source a little bit further down to track with.

Most sources are unreliable drugs themselves, or you know what they're in for, whether they're in it for some motivation that doesn't really reflect all their friends going down.

So then you work your way up into the into the group, and everything you do is you're recorded in one way or another.

And once you do a buy, you've got to meet up with your control I hand the drugs over and then continue on.

But it's also very difficult to have that, you know, I guess try to portray to the gang that you know you're buying that to sell it to somebody else.

Because you're in a gang, they're trying to make money.

You've got to give money.

You can't just be the buyer all the time.

So it's a big game.

It really is a big game.

It's a complicated game, and there's so many moving parts and it takes a lot of planning.

So I can understand from the intel background in the military and working in places like Somalia that it would all these moving parts in your head and you'd have to think, think on your feet.

Yeah, And look, I think I was very lucky back then because the technology wasn't around when I say that is and I don't do it at all, but you know, Facebook, Instagram, all those sort of things.

It's hard to build a legend or a profile, isn't it.

Yeah, And it doesn't take long for the crooked to just jump on.

I'll go and have a talk and they do face recognition.

Now take a picture and I'll put it on through your Google app and it'll say, oh, Dennis here, he is here.

What's going on before?

Exactly?

Yeah, So it's not hard.

So I was pretty lucky really that I was around that period where there was very limited social media.

Yeah, what was the saying that you're undercover persona?

What what sort of roles did you play?

The first one I played was a glazier, So I was running a glazier business.

Yeah, and that was how I could get my people that I could sell the drugs to just go into the houses and whatnot and pull up on the side of the road, so they'd give you a little band with glazyer written aside and all that sort of stuff and a phone number on the side.

But go to another I'll bust a detective sergeant or detective senior Connie somewhere that would answer the phone.

And he did all this phone numbers, ringing Bill's glaziers.

Next one I need to answer it to you know Tom's.

Pub like I look at I've seen like undercover guys and girls.

But even when you're running a couple of jobs and you've got a couple of phones going on, you've got to be switched on the whole time, isn't it Absolutely it's high high pressure.

Yeah.

Yeah, Look when I end up doing controlling, I would stick little stick at notes on each phone.

Yeah, because you don't want to ring answer the wrong phone to do a different name.

You know, it makes it hard.

Was it conducive to having a life outside or did you have to fully commit to that lifestyle?

No, fully committed.

You have to, and you very limited time at home, especially with the young boundy.

You don't get home, yeah, you know, and you have to do a lot of when you do come home.

Yeah, you know, you really have to do a lot of surveillance, combative surveillance, making sure you probably go about twenty thirty forty k's out of your way just to get home.

Yeah, you know, make sure no one's following you and all that sort of stuff.

So a lot of times you've got police surveillance following you as well.

As well, because they haven't you haven't been declared to place that they've got someone in the exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah, any tricky situations you found yourself in.

Oh, look, I think there's always tricky situations.

You know.

One funny one that I thought I just couldn't do was it was going to a nightclub.

And it was way back when our tape recordings we were wearing weren't as COVID as they are today.

A strap in the brick ground, yes it.

Was, and you had to watch your watch all the time, every thirty minutes.

The little C ninety or C sixty I think that were the tapes would swap and go overside.

So here's picting and I think, oh, this is not good in a quiet area, you know, especially to say at midnight when you're trying to do a deal in a park.

I think they'll know you've got a tape on.

So that was hard to get around.

But then so we want you to go.

They would give you know, some some agencies.

I think this was for the federal police.

There was a new drug on the Gold Coast and I think it was ice at that time, and they said, we want to want you to see if we get us a sample of ice and we'll see the purity and we'll try and find out, you know, if it's coming from the same source.

And I said, well, you know, wearing tapes won't work in a nightclub because you just won't hear me and you won't hear the people.

Oh video, I said, well, how are we going to get a video?

So I am not joking.

I am.

They gave me a great tool peak hat that you're aware if you're running side.

There was a little tape record about it's because I'll see ninety that you wear around him when you go running.

Yeah, so I said, no, it's not gonna work.

I forget it, not doing it.

It has has improved.

I remember I had an informant.

I'm sending him into bikis and we had the best equipment available.

And we're not talking methodology because everyone knows is completely trained.

But it was summer and I swear to god, that was the size of half a brick and we're taping it around his chest, going now you'll be right mate, and he's looking at me going, are you fucking kidding?

You want me to walking with this?

And he looked deformed by the time we put it on.

So yeah, it was.

It was a different, different world, wasn't it.

And it doesn't matter how good you are, you cannot walk into a situation like that feel threatened for your life because they do.

They'll kill you if they Yeah, if they catch you, Yeah, knowing you've got that on it and knowing somebody could see if they closely looked at you, and you can't move because it takes a hair off your chest.

And this is just not on the How about when you work, I'm not sure how deep you went under with different jobs, So I'm sure you made associations and friendships for on the surface with people that we're probably going to bring down.

How'd you feel with that?

Well, look, I had a really unusual time on the last job, and it was I ended up in a high rise on the Gold Coast.

They put a contract on me after they found out I was undercover.

Yes, we did a bio bus scenario type thing in the end and he was sitting there and he had a gun on his lap and he said, I wears the two hundred thousand dollars.

They wouldn't give me two hundred thousand dollars.

Yeah, they said, he's twenty thousand fluffed up to make look two or two hundred, and I thinking, ah, God, here we go again.

Yeah, well it sort of didn't.

Sort of didn't.

When I showed the bum bag I still wear one today, opened the bum bag up, he goes, oh, that's good.

He said, the drugs are in the safe.

He said, you're lucky you bought the money.

He said, I was going to kill you anyway and take the money.

So and of course my only tracking device then was a mobile phone.

Didn't work going up in the lift, so my control was down in the flour of this building, and so are outside and they couldn't hear me.

So I talked my way out of the room and said, look, I'll go back down.

I've got something in my car.

I want to come back up and show you.

All right, all right, So I straight out and just told them you better go up there quick.

Yeah, get back up there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But that's yeah, a lot of pressure.

You obviously had the capability of handling that pressure that you put.

Some people in that situation, they'd be shaking and yeah, couldn't go through it.

Is it something in your makeup, or it's something you trained for, or.

I think it's partly a bit of both.

I think makeup is a little bit.

You wouldn't apply for it if you didn't think you could do something.

But the training is very very good.

The training is very good.

The scenarios within the training is very good, very realistic, and I would think that even now, the better the resources are, the better the equipment you use, confidence you will get.

Yeah, yeah, you've got to be a little bit I think extrovert.

Yeah yeah, you've got to be able to play that role too.

I've had I've had jobs in the past where it just wasn't the right right fit I had and I'm not having a go at them.

It was quite funny, but I needed someone playing a gay guy to spend some time with this person, not think just out in public, spend some time.

And so the UC's came in and this is a long time ago, so I'm not telling tales out of the school.

They've come in and there, you know, he'd be a good bike, he he'd be good at this that.

Yeah, they came in the tough guy persona, and we wanted completely opposite.

We wanted an uber gay guy to play this, play the role that we needed.

And I still remember the look on their face when we're explaining what we're needed with we can't do that.

And one of the blokes sitting in there, big tough dude with his beard, I reckon, if we just trim that beard up and do the hair up a little bit, we can get you in there.

And yeah, they were mortified.

I thought of it, playing that they were right for the tough guys, but not playing the uber gay guy.

Yeah.

The problem I found that with that though, was you know, the tougher, the betrayal you gave.

Yeah, the tougher the response they would give you the crims and they expected from you.

Yeah, yeah, you know.

And that was another issue I found, particularly being in controller.

I'm thinking, well, don't it.

We'll send you in.

That would be my part, maybe your part, mate, but I think I might ask you to do something that you cannot do.

That's so that's that's a good point because I've had people in and not ucs but community sources, so member of the public in there, and tough guys, and they getting close to what we're looking at, and then they get called out and they're getting a call they want me to bash this bloke and blah blah, blah, and you get called in situations like that, So I see where you're coming from that point.

Knowing that they can't commit an illegality, yeah, yeah, you know as such like that.

Yeah, they can commit illegality is a sanctioned but if it's not sanctioned, you'll go down as quick as what they were.

Just don't put your orb in that situation where you're going to be called upon to do it.

But it's I think it must be one of the most emotionally taxing part of policing.

And we've had a few people that Keith Banks you might have known, know he did you see I think sort of a decade or so before you were doing it up in Queensland and that was rough and ready stages.

But we also had Joe Pistoni, the real Donnie Brasco on the podcast Going under Covering the Mafia, and what a story, what a person.

But he just he didn't come across as a tough guy.

He just he was obviously tough physically and emotionally, but he didn't project that image and he managed to stay in the mafia for that long.

And Michael France is the mafia dude, I know him and him and Jail got a lot of respect for each other.

That's funny, isn't it how it plays out?

Yeah.

Yeah, Look, the best bit of advice I ever got, I think, was for on a controller at that time when I was undercover.

She said, don't be nice to any of the women in the group.

She said, no one's ever nice to them.

She said.

If they're nice, they like you.

Doesn't matter what you look like.

They said, you know, if you treat them well.

So if you're going into a group where all the tough, bad guys don't treat their women really well when you come in and hi, mam or yeah.

Yeah, yeah, don't treat them nice, he said, treat them as rough as they do.

And he said, you know, she said, and you'll get on well.

But if you don't, she said, they will either pick you or they'll know there's something different about you, because that's not how they get treated.

Okay, that's interesting, fair call.

I remember that all the time.

Yeah.

The little snippets like that come come with the experience.

When did you start working on argus?

I went straight from What they do is they do a retegration program for COBT so that when you come out.

I'll bring it back into the bring it back into the real world.

In the first couple of days or first couple of weeks is as a crime stopper.

So you can wear a uniform because you'd never want a uniform before.

Right, they get you back to wearing uniform.

That's interesting.

Let's just wind the wind it back a bit before we get onto argus.

So I hadn't even thought of that.

So you've been in there for years, you're hanging out and playing, playing a role, and then it's not like, okay, well you're transferred here and the next day you walk in and put on the uniform.

It would be you'd have to get decompressed.

Well they do.

And there was a lady, a psychiatrist, and she brought me in for psychological interviewing and she goes, I do hear?

She said, you've got an anger issued in it.

So I kicked the table and said, who fucking told you that?

And I should never have done that because I was only joke.

And you go, oh no, she said, people the joke really mean.

I said, I'm not.

I said, I'm so that's what's going on my fire, no doubt.

He tried so high that with humor, Yeah, it was.

It was quite funny anyway.

So yeah, well it's coming back, and it's basically I say, come back as a civilian, but you've you've gone from playing the role of a bad guy or whatever role you had to play into back into law enforcement officers.

So it is a bit of a mind mind change, isn't it It is?

You know, you go from one day drinking beer at six in the morning and whatever, driving your car going to get your drugs.

You got drugs and your back wallet or in your top pocket probably got around about you know, ten or fifteen twenty thousand dollars in cash.

You've got a gun stash underneath it your seat or your car.

Your car's all tricked up and all this sort of stuff, you know.

And the next day you're sitting your crime stopping and going, yes, how can I help you relieve blogs?

And you can't go and have a coffee because they don't know where you are.

You know, it's just the whole concept was just not quite right to me.

But that was the reintegration process.

Yeah, okay, so you got back in there.

Now, okay, we'll strike force argus, what tell us what that's about.

Look, Task Force Argos really was the investigation of child abusers.

Yeah, that's the end of it.

There are different areas within child Within some will sit in computers and pretend to be ten year old children online.

Yeah, that's that's another area I didn't didn't get into that.

There are a special breed of people themselves another area which I think they should only be limited time.

Yeah, some people has to play with your mind.

Absolutely, it does just leave it leaves the police open for big payouts at a later time silliness.

But you can't tell them, Yeah, I can't tell them.

So, but I was on the floor.

Yeah, and we would just get same as you would normally do as a detective.

You would just get files come through and then you pick up the files and run with that, you know.

So that's that's where I sort of started with the pedophilia type.

I did a couple of pedophile jobs Willson and undercover, but an investigation of them was quite tricky.

They're very unique individual to pedophile.

Yeah, is there a type like in the area that you work and if you've done under cover work on it too.

But then going to the strikeforce concentrating on them.

Is there a type?

How would you describe them all?

The fact that you can't describe.

Them, well, I don't think you can.

I don't did there is a type?

People say there is, and I actually illuminate that with Cowen there was a bit of a type, but that was really maybe not the type.

It was the way they would behave.

The behavior was similar nature, of course, because their end goal is similar.

But you know, they could be women, they could be children offending against children.

They could be adults opending against you.

The groups of adults opending against children.

There was a pilot that was involved in the baby club and he was in and I never knew this existed.

To this, it even amazes me today.

He was in the baby club.

So when he went home he would change into a nappy and crap his pants and suck on bottles.

Jesus, and he's flying the plane.

For us and flying the plane for you, or cooking the stake at the local pub.

But that's what they would get online, and they'd trade little children, and they would have their own children that were in nappies to be traded.

Yeah, he was just bizarre.

You know.

I went into one room and here he is a man, not a big man, but a man.

Nonetheless, you know, thirty five maybe forty years of age, lying in a cot, sucking on a bottle in a nappy.

The hell is going on in Okay?

I don't know if I'm laughing, crying or whatever I'm doing that.

We hear a lot on this podcast.

Shocked.

Yeah, I'd be shocked to and you said, what did you say to him?

Honestly, my first question was said, what do you do when I go to the toilet?

And he looked at him other fool.

He just said, I shipped myself.

Well, you're in a nappy?

I was why not?

That's his thing, that's his thing.

That's just I'm just I'm still shocked to this day that that that and still goes on to this day.

Baby club, baby club, Yeah, okay, just puts a different connotation on it.

When people say, anyway.

What was he charged with that he was high, he was grooming children?

Yeah, not charge with dressed in the product, the charge for that, no charge, but grooming children?

Yeah?

Well rape was rape and the children.

How big is that?

There's a team, how many members on them?

What's the reach of it?

Look back then it was governed by a superintendent who at that time was Ross Barnett, who went on to be the Assistant Deputy Commissioner.

There's a couple of inspectors for each area, like for the computers area and the general floor.

Then there would have been maybe four senior sergeants, probably five or six senior sergeants and basically detective constables after and senior constables.

Okay, so it was a fair size.

It was a fair size.

Yeah, there would have been maybe forty forty old people.

And they did a lot of good work.

A great lot they had, like worldwise as knowledge.

The work that Task Force ARGUS has done.

Absolutely it's a heavy work and I think that type of work.

I'm not sure the numbers on ARGUS, but I know in New South Wales child sex crime investigators they always seem to be overworked.

It didn't really impolicing.

I'm not sure if it's changed now, but it didn't really give the importance to it that was needed and the staff to it.

And I always felt for people on those because it's such a horrible crime.

Yeah, and look what I found you were overworked for a reason is that you took it personally.

Yeah, And that's and I think you put more into it than what you did at the times.

That's what I found while I was overworked.

Yeah, you know, apart from having a lot of files.

Yeah, once you got into something with a bit of meat about it, you know, I would stay from six in the morning till six or seven at night and you're only getting paid from eight to four.

Yeah, and they darn't give you any extra you know.

Yeah, Yeah, I know we went through that in New South Wales as well.

But you're committed to it.

It's a vacation, isn't it.

It is a passion.

And I would imagine we've child sex cases too.

You can't sort of just walk away from because it's five o'clock knockoff.

Yeah, the kid might be in danger, not to your child that gets offended.

Yeah, there's so many reasons why you need to stay back and put the work work in.

Yeah, you're dead right.

So finding your way in that field?

Did you ask to go into that field or is it just how the cards fell.

Look Once you come out of undercover, they they take part of your undercover as detective training.

Yep.

So they give you a bit of credit towards being a detective.

Yeah.

So if you wanted to say, well, look I'm not going to go that way, I'll stay in uniform, you could have stayed in uniform.

Yeah, yeah, so I thought, no, I'll continue on.

Yeah, and so they said, well, look we I behooved now to put you in a placement.

Where would you like to go?

I said, well, I'd like to go to Cairns, I said.

So I went up and had a look at a house, got anything sorted out, and they said, we're not going to Cans.

So that all fell apart.

I said, where am I going?

They said, I starting next you are, but you can go to Argos.

Yeah.

I saw what the hell's are gus?

And they told them.

I said okay, I'll start Monday.

So that's where we went.

Yeah.

Yeah, okay, fell into it that way.

Now, it was because of your involvement in Argos.

It was while you're working there that Daniel Morkham's disappearance.

So tell me how you became aware of that and how you became involved in going to Brett's Cown's.

Well.

Obviously, Daniel went missing early December two thousand and three.

So then we were a group of people that were called upon to go up and continue the investigation because it was going to be a little bit protracted.

So I think it was about two weeks later that we were up there, So it would have been probably a week before after he was missing, but a week before that we went up there that they called us in and said, look, your team's going up.

This team's going up and whatnot.

So you get up there and you get into your accommodation and then you rock up for your briefings and they give you a well, at that time, they gave you a series of folders convicted released sex offenders in that area, and a whole sole job was to go around and check out their bona fighters.

You know, if they said I was at the shop at that time, you would spend half the day going to the shop getting CCTV and come back and say, yes, verified alibi at that time, and then you can discard that person's That's sort of how we come up and whether it was fortunate or unfortunate.

One of the people in the file was Brett Peter Count.

Okay, do you when you get the file, has the background checks being done or you're aware of it, or you get the file, he's a name this Blake's a pedophile sex offender.

Do you then build a profile before you go out, prep before you you go out to speak to I would like to.

Yeah, Sometimes you don't get the chance.

But we did on a couple of occaves, and we did on Cowen.

Why we did on Coun I couldn't say there was any reason why we did it more than we would have others.

I do not know at that stage, but only because I think that going through his criminal history, he had some history in Northern Territory.

Yeah, you had some history in Pride to Ordon Territory, right, and he was brought back from Lordon Territory to Queensland to complete his sentence from the one in Darwin because you want to be close to family.

I think it was right something along those lines.

For the offense in Queensland, we had Darren Edwards on it.

That you know, and I think you think highly of Derek and so that I worked with him.

We had a couple of crossover investigations.

But he locked Brett Cowan up for that crime.

That was a horrendous crime.

So you would have seen that type of history when you're looking at him before you've gone out to his place.

Yeah, we did.

But there's no detailed about the history.

Yeah, you know, I mean, there's no storyline behind it.

I guess just these are the charges, a short title of the offense.

You would like to know that it was first of all, in a public toilet.

You would like to know the injuries to the child.

You would like to know what age he was at the time, what age the child was, the physical description of the child, and that sort of stuff.

That's what I would like to know all factors in Yeah, I suppose, And it's very much the way at different stages of terrial investigations approached that perhaps a pedophile is involved.

The three year old child was a little bit different because there wasn't a lot of that type of crime to rely on.

And I know that what we were looking at that pedophiles normally aim for children a little bit older, if in an induction type situation.

But going there you might be able to eliminate the inquiry straight off, like you go out there, knock on the door.

No, I was in prison during that time all this, so there might be an alibi that's readily Okay, Well you can move on to the next because in jobs like that.

That's surprising when you're cast a net on all the people who are being convicted of child sex offenses.

Has a lot of people caught up, isn't there?

Look there is a hell of a lot of people.

Yeah.

Look, Dennis, we might take a take a break here because I want to delve into what and when you went to Brett Cowan's place.

And I've got a sense of it, but I think people are going to find it fascinating just what happens when police came knock on the door for what, for all intents and purposes, a routine inquiry.

So we might delve into that in part two when we come back, if that's all right,