I Catch Killers

by Gary Jubelin

  We chat about the cricket, I say I’ll get his car sorted. ‘All right. Well you take care,’ I tell him.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘All the best to you over the New Year,’ says Paul.

  * * *

  A new year. If I was tough before, I resolve to be tougher. On 2 January, I email the team I lead in the Homicide Squad, telling them where their work over the past year impressed me, and what we need to do differently in 2019.

  Working on Strike Force Rosann has broken many staff, I tell them, but I want to thank those who have hung on in there and understand the importance of solving a crime of this nature, regardless of whether our organisation fully understands or supports it.

  I’ve also decided to act on my own sense of isolation, writing that it is detrimental to team harmony when decisions I’ve made are undermined, even after I’ve given everyone an opportunity to speak up on them.

  It has also come to my attention that some people on the team might not want to be here, I write. If that’s the case, and you don’t wish to be part of this team, for whatever reason, then I will help you leave it.

  * * *

  On 19 January 2019, I head northwest, to Glen Innes, to investigate a critical incident, where two cops have been shot. Watching their bodycam recordings is terrifying. They pull up at a house, get out of their car and start talking to a man on the balcony. Then he shoots them. Both of them survive, but are badly injured.

  A day later I go to Newcastle, on the coast, to help the local cops with a murder. We get some information into the local press and receive a tip-off in return. The suspect is arrested in a fast food joint opposite the police station.

  On 22 January, the day after I get back to Sydney from Newcastle, I’m preparing to travel north again the next morning, to meet the legal team involved in the inquest into William Tyrrell’s death in Kendall.

  If Dad hadn’t made me tough, this pace of work would break me, I think. It would be great to sit on the deck right now and have a beer and tell him what I’m thinking.

  Just before 3.30pm, I’m told an inspector from the force’s Professional Standards Command is here to see me. He is polite, professional, with greying hair and glasses.

  He hands me a three-page document. The first sentence reads, ‘You are a suspect in a criminal offence.’

  There are five allegations: that I prepared false affidavits; that I misused my authority to influence others to prepare false affidavits; that I made a surreptitious recording of a phone call with Paul, the elderly neighbour, over a year ago, in November 2017; and that I made surreptitious recordings of my visits to his house on 2 and 3 May.

  ‘As this is a criminal investigation, it is intended to caution you,’ the document continues. ‘You are directed not to interfere or compromise the integrity of this investigation in any way.’ There is a long list of cops I am not allowed to talk to, including my own strike force.

  I am also not to speak to William’s family.

  Why Are They Doing This to You?

  January 2019: 33 years in

  My mum is in tears on the telephone. She’s only recently lost Dad and now her son’s been accused of falsifying evidence.

  ‘Why are they doing this to you?’ she cries. ‘I feel like telling someone. I feel like ringing the Prime Minister!’

  ‘Mum, don’t be stupid.’ I try to reassure her. Jake and Gemma call, to ask if I’m alright. I don’t know what to tell them.

  On 23 January, Stuart, the boss of State Crime Command, emails every one of the hundreds of cops working under him, to tell them Professional Standards are looking at a case being worked by the Homicide Squad and ‘I direct all of you not to discuss this investigation.’

  The Homicide commander, Scott, also tells the entire squad I’m facing serious criminal charges and may not be coming back. Inevitably, news of the investigation leaks and I am front-page news.

  I am assigned a ‘Monitoring Officer’, who I am to meet with on a fortnightly basis. I don’t know if the choice is ironic or deliberate, but it’s Linda – my old partner from Hornsby and, later, the Homicide Squad commander I argued with about the Bowraville investigation. On 24 January, I write to Stuart and Linda, asking that I be allowed to keep working on Strike Force Rosann. Pulling me off it now, after years of work and just as we are about to go to an inquest, risks damaging the case itself, I tell them. ‘We will not get a second chance at this investigation.’

  The Police Association, the cops’ industrial body, also writes to Stuart, saying the force’s handling of this ‘will have an immediate dramatic negative effect on the investigation’. No one else has worked this case as long as I have. With the inquest two months away, why not allow me to keep working, even as an advisor? Put an independent inspector in place to supervise me if necessary, the letter says.

  A week later, Stuart writes back, saying this will not be possible ‘due to the complex investigation process underway and the potential of exposing either Gary or one of the team inadvertently to any further harm’. That use of ‘further harm’ makes me fear they have prejudged their own investigation. Stuart seems to think the harm I am accused of causing has already been done.

  * * *

  In February, I fly to Brisbane to watch Jake’s passing out parade before being deployed to Afghanistan with the army. As his father, I’m thinking, I’m meant to be the tough one, it’s my job to protect you.

  Before he leaves, I tell him to be strong. That night, we’re staying in a hotel with Mum, Gemma, her husband, Matt, and little Zion and my mum’s fussing over Jake, telling him to be careful and how she’s worried for him.

  I tell her to stop it. ‘Mum, we don’t want him soft now. Let him be hard. He needs to be a soldier, he is going to war.’ I think back to when I passed out of the police academy 34 years ago. Dad didn’t say much at the time, but I reckon he would have been thinking something similar about me back then.

  * * *

  On the morning of 13 February 2019, the custody manager at Sydney’s inner-city Redfern Police Station reads out the words of the standard police caution, which I have heard read or said myself to so many crooks before now: ‘You do not have to say or do anything, but anything you say or do may be used in evidence. Do you understand that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  On his paperwork, under ‘Name of vulnerable person’, he writes ‘Gary Jubelin’.

  Not that vulnerable, I think. I made my own way here this morning. I know what’s coming, and I’m ready for it.

  I’m shown into the grey interview room, and this time it’s me sitting at the far end of the table, facing the ERISP machine. Two detectives from Professional Standards are on either side of me, the desk between them crowded with documents and disposable cups.

  I don’t blink. Rooms like this used to be my happy place. I will stay calm and answer their questions. This is my chance to get out ahead of their investigation and have them understand exactly what I did and why I did it.

  ‘These five allegations all relate to a person of interest, Paul,’ says Darrin, the detective inspector who first served me with the paperwork notifying me I was facing investigation and who now leads the interview.

  I tell him why we looked at Paul: the stalking of the postwoman, taking our covert camera, his strange outbursts on the listening devices, the confusion over when he saw the Spider-Man suit. The fact we could not account for his movements in the hours after William went missing.

  Darrin sits in silence. He’s smooth, well-dressed, with greying hair swept back from his forehead, which is set in a frown. His offsider, a jowly detective sergeant called Neale, sits in his chair, with his chin in one hand.

  I explain we were trying to get Paul to talk, how our approach was documented and signed off by senior police. How, after I did a formal interview with Paul, he started saying I’d put him in a freezing room and not given him a drink.

  I did record the conversations, I say. I did so to p
rotect my lawful interests. I try to explain my thinking to the detectives: what if Paul made another allegation that I’d abused him? We’d had problems with the listening devices. I needed some protection.

  Darrin mentions the affidavits used in court to request a warrant authorising our listening devices. He asks, ‘Have you ever directed any officer of what material should or should not be included in that affidavit?’

  ‘No.’

  He hands me a copy of one affidavit I signed off on when working with the strike force.

  I read through it and look up. ‘I’m very comfortable and all the information there is reported accurately.’

  ‘Are you aware of any misleading information contained in that affidavit?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you aware of any false information contained in that –’

  ‘No.’ I cut him off. It’s obvious they have nothing. I’ve been accused of falsifying evidence used in a court process on the basis of what? They haven’t told me where the allegation came from and Darrin doesn’t seem to have anything to back it up.

  Darrin doesn’t press the point. But I am seething. These allegations, which make me look like a corrupt cop, have already been leaked to the media. I’ll never get my reputation back from that, I think.

  I hand over a stack of paperwork I’ve pulled from the police computer system, including Strike Force Rosann progress reports and the minutes of meetings chaired by Scott and attended by inspectors from the surveillance and undercover branches. Despite not being allowed back into the Homicide Squad offices, I still have access to the computers and, if I am going to be investigated for going after Paul, I want it understood that I didn’t do so without my bosses’ agreement.

  ‘In summary, a commitment was given from the various commanders to fully support the operation,’ I tell the detectives. ‘The strategy is not one person going off blindly, it’s a considered strategy supported by the top level of State Crime Command.’

  * * *

  Five days later, I’m sitting in the small office the cops have put me in while I’m under investigation when David, a detective chief inspector, walks in and says Scott’s told him to collect all the documents from the case, which I’ve been using for my defence. He’s well-meaning, with an old man’s white moustache and greying eyebrows, but just shrugs when I protest, saying he’s only doing what he’s been told to do.

  David will now be running Strike Force Rosann. He piles up the documents and walks out of the office. Watching him go, I hope he’s bringing a more positive attitude to the investigation into what happened to William.

  My new office has a glass front wall facing onto the hallway, so anyone walking by can see in, which makes me feel like a zoo animal. Each day, the senior officers who put me here walk past on their way to or from another meeting.

  I’ve been taken off my cases and given no work, so every day I turn up, take a seat and listen to whale song or meditation music, partly to relax and partly to show my bosses that if they’re trying to stir me up, it isn’t working. I imagine that they want me to snap, run out into the corridor and scream so they can suspend me. Instead, I prowl my tiny, glass-walled office, knowing full well that there is only one likely way out of here; the cops will put me on trial.

  In March, another of my former Homicide commanders, Mick Willing, takes over as the Police Commissioner’s assigned delegate, meaning it is he who will decide my future. I think back to how Mick and I got into a yelling match on more than one occasion. In fact, all the bosses who might have a say in whether I get out of here are people I’ve fallen out with. My relationship with Linda’s never been the same since I blew up at her over the Bowraville murders. Scott and I weren’t close when he started at the Homicide Squad, and drew further apart during his time there.

  To him, I guess I was just another problem. He wanted cases dealt with quickly, while I was prepared to fight to keep working on them. That’s who I am. I’ve fought everyone since Trevor challenged me in school, shouting, Come on, come on, I’ll fight you!

  I fight for my cases now, like every other detective should go in to scrap for theirs. That’s what our victims’ families are expecting. That’s what I promise them, and I hold that commitment sacred – more so than loyalty to my bosses.

  I don’t regret this combat, though, looking back, I realise I am war-weary now as well as battle-hardened. The person I am now is so fucking different from when I joined the cops. That’s because, in Homicide, every case is life and death. We bleed for them. They never leave us.

  Each case I’ve worked has taken a piece out of me and added a piece. Until there’s only pieces.

  * * *

  After telling me they are only looking for specific files, the cops decide to go through my phone again, downloading everything this time and finding two more recordings.

  One is from February 2018, during one of the darkest days in my separation from Tracy. Representing myself in court against barristers dressed in braces and bow ties, trying to understand what was being decided about my private life and unable to afford a transcript, in desperation I’d recorded the conversation on my phone, to listen to it later. The second recording is from my last visit to Paul after Christmas.

  Once again, I am cautioned and, on the morning of 5 April, sat down for another recorded interview with Darrin from Professional Standards.

  The interview is brief – I tell them, yes, I did make the recordings. In court, I had been up all night working on the legal papers, and trying only to make sure I did not make a mistake in my written notes. There was no malicious purpose.

  Darrin asks if I’m aware it is an offence to record any part of a trial or conference in court?

  ‘No, I wasn’t,’ I say. Of course, I’ve seen the signs inside court buildings telling people not to use their phones during a hearing, but I wasn’t thinking clearly. ‘I’m aware in courts obviously you can’t take photographs, but, ah, no, I wasn’t aware.’

  Eventually, the cops drop this.

  Darrin moves on. What about the conversation with Paul?

  Again, I say, that was to protect my lawful interests. When the interview is over, Darrin tells me the most serious charges, accusing me of falsifying affidavits, are being dropped.

  I look at him. Am I supposed to be relieved? Does it even matter now? Everyone has read about those allegations in the paper. I’ve been taken off my cases.

  We take the lift to the ground floor together and, once outside, Darrin looks around and says he’s never seen so much interest in a case like this from the people above him.

  It’s out of control, he says. Some people are on your side. Other people want to crush you.

  This feels like a witch-hunt.

  A Decision Made in Anger

  25 March 2019: 33 years in

  The William Tyrrell inquest begins in Sydney. No one will explain the decision, but I haven’t been called as a witness. Bill is on the list, as is Paul. In the years I spent running this case, I oversaw the investigation of both but my name is missing. William Tyrrell’s foster parents, his birth parents and the lawyer representing Bill all ask that I be called to give evidence, but their requests are rejected.

  I ask the cops if I can attend, not as a witness but just so I can be there, and am sent a written Commander’s Direction from Linda saying no. She says she’s concerned my attendance might compromise the integrity of the police force and any ongoing investigation.

  Being shut out is offensive. I made a promise to William’s foster parents, Tom and Jane, that I’d be there.

  Fuck this, I think. I made a promise and the cops are telling me to break it. I’ll leave the force.

  I will retire.

  It’s a decision made in anger, by a man who feels abandoned.

  * * *

  On 8 April, I write to Mick Willing and Deputy Commissioner Dave Hudson, saying I no longer believe I have a future in the New South Wales Police Force. More details of the internal investiga
tion have just come out in one of the Sunday papers, yet there was no mention that the most serious allegations, of falsifying evidence, will not be going any further.

  I tell Mick and Dave how, after reading this online, my son, Jake, called me from Afghanistan, to ask if I was alright, when he should be concentrating on his own safety. My daughter, Gemma, is also now having second thoughts about joining the cops, because of the stigma that’s been attached to her father.

  I tell them I plan to retire in three months’ time, around 12 July. Being taken off the investigation into William’s disappearance has been soul-destroying, I write. I ask to be allowed to provide a handover of everything I know about the case before I leave the force.

  My email says we owe it to William’s family to do everything possible to find out what happened to him. I also need to de-brief with the Bowraville families before my retirement, and assure them their fight for justice will not be forgotten.

  As Homicide commander, I would have expected Scott would have made sure that this happened.

  I meet with Mick and Dave in April. Dave says he doesn’t want to see me leave the cops. If I do leave, Mick says the internal investigation will not have any impact on me.

  That won’t help if you pursue criminal charges against me, I think. At home, I’ve started smoking in the evenings, two cigarettes a day, a self-destructive habit I thought I’d given up before joining the police. I tell myself I just need something to deal with the pressure. I write again to Mick and Dave at the end of April, asking to provide a handover on the investigation into William’s disappearance.

  In May, I write a third time, trying to convince them it’s in everybody’s interest for me to pass on what I know.

  No handover takes place. On 13 May, I formally confirm my retirement, in writing.