Under Siege

by Belinda Neil

  Various other statements changed throughout the interview. At one point Mailes said he saw Tony dragging the girl across the road and he himself stood opposite acting as a lookout for Tony in case somebody came. He remained adamant that as soon as he saw Tony cut the girl’s throat he had left the crime scene and Tony caught up with him five minutes later. This, of course, did not fit with the length of time taken to drag Kim Meredith’s body around the crime scene, undress her, hide her belongings in various areas then leave her body, naked except for socks, lying underneath the light.

  He said Tony had given him Kim Meredith’s Guess watch, but also threatened him if he told anyone what had happened. He then asked for his own clothes back and put them on, even though they were covered in blood, and went home.

  Mailes agreed that he had sometimes lied in his previous interviews. However, he still denied having Kim Meredith’s credit card and using it at the ATM in the early hours of the morning, even though he had been identified. About the footprints found near the body, he said they must have been Tony’s as he himself had never gone near the body, however, he couldn’t escape the fact that his own shoes had been stained with Kim Meredith’s blood.

  At the conclusion of the interview my head was pounding with a full-blown migraine. When I read the transcript later, I saw that I had asked Mailes at least eleven times how his mate had been holding Kim when he cut her throat. Usually you ask an important question two or three times throughout the interview if not satisfied with the answer; to ask as many times as I did is not particularly professional, but it does indicate my state of mind.

  The next day, 10 April, I was back at work and continuing inquiries. We were contemplating wiring up a family member whom Mailes had asked to see, and who had agreed to be part of the investigation. I rang the Office of the Solicitor at police headquarters and asked a solicitor whom I knew from my Drug Squad days to arrange the affidavit necessary to use a listening device.

  When the affidavit had been granted, we wired up Mailes’s relative and Wayne and I took her to Long Bay. Wayne and I waited in another room while the meeting took place. When it was over, we took Mailes’s relative to our office to get her statement. Mailes had apparently repeated what he told me: Tony had committed the murder.

  The next day Wayne and I travelled back to Albury and continued our investigations. Among other things, we went to every clothing bin in Albury to see if Mailes’s story checked out in any way, especially as he had said he climbed into the clothing bin to get black track pants. We found that only certain bins could be accessed in the way he had described.

  Mailes had been staying at Quamby House on the night of the murder, and we spoke to the other residents. We were trying to find Tony. Taxi records and a carer’s evidence showed he had spent the weekend with his girlfriend Gillian. Both Tony and Gillian had intellectual disabilities. Tony was exonerated.

  In early June we needed to return to Forbes and Albury to carry out further investigations. Wayne and I had intended to go together, as we would achieve more in the least possible time. Unfortunately, budgetary constraints meant I had to go alone, and keep it short. This didn’t make much sense to me, but it was pointless to argue, the work needed to be done, and so after spending most of a day at the office I drove the 370 kilometres to Forbes. I was so exhausted that I narrowly avoided a collision after running off the road. After a day’s work in Forbes I drove on to Albury, another 380 kilometres.

  Later that year Mark Smith in Albury notified me that the committal hearing for Graham Mailes would be held at the Albury local court during December, nine months after the murder. This was to determine whether there was enough evidence for the matter to proceed to trial at the Supreme Court.

  I drove to Albury. The following day I waited outside the courthouse but did not get into the witness box. I met Kim Meredith’s parents June and Bob, who sat in the courtroom every day. They were lovely down-to-earth decent people and I thought how difficult it must have been for them to listen to the evidence, to hear how their daughter’s body had been found and what her last few moments must have been like, let alone having to look at the man who had allegedly killed her.

  On Friday 6 December it was my turn to give evidence. I was asked to describe the state of Kim Meredith’s body and the crime scene, and also taken through my interview with Mailes. He was later committed to stand trial for the murder.

  It would not be the last time I had to evoke these awful memories. Almost three years after the murder I gave evidence at the Supreme Court in Sydney for Mailes’s fitness hearing. This, which takes place before a judge, is to determine whether or not an accused person is mentally fit to stand trial, whether he or she can understand the legal proceedings and the evidence and give appropriate instructions to his legal team. Mailes was found fit to stand trial for the murder of Kim Meredith; the trial would be held later in the year at Wagga Wagga.

  Because of budget restrictions, I was only allowed one trip to Wagga to assist Detective Sergeant Mark Smith with pre-trial preparations. Mark did a remarkable job of organising the numerous witnesses. In May 1999 I had to give evidence and knew Kim Meredith’s family – her parents and her brother would be sitting in the gallery and would have to listen to the tape of my interview with Graham Mailes. As I sat in the witness box listening to my own questions about the way Kim had had her throat and neck cut and Mailes’s replies, I could not bring myself to look towards her family. I simply could not handle seeing the pain in their faces. At the end of the day I met Bob and June for a drink at the local pub and apologised to them because they had to listen to the taped interview.

  After a lengthy trial, the jury found Graham Mailes guilty of the murder of Kim Meredith. A few months later, in September, I met Mark Smith and June and Bob Meredith in Sydney for the sentencing. Judge Newman handed down a sentence of twenty-five years in prison with a minimum parole period of eighteen years. While it was not the maximum sentence we wanted – a life sentence without parole would have been preferable – it afforded some closure for Kim Meredith’s family. Or that’s what we hoped.

  CHAPTER

  8

  Work, sleep, callouts, work

  Being a Homicide investigator meant working closely with families who had lost their loved ones under terrible circumstances. The pain these people suffer is indescribable. While I was attached to the Homicide Unit I attended at least three meetings of the Homicide Victims Support Group, founded by the parents of Anita Cobby and schoolgirl Ebony Simpson. The group offers twenty-four-hour support to families whose loved ones have been murdered. During meetings each person tells a heartbreaking story. My role was to answer any questions group members might have about police investigations.

  I found these meetings incredibly sad and confronting. I listened while Anita Cobby’s parents described their anguish at the loss of their beloved daughter, sexually assaulted and killed by five men. I listened to Ebony Simpson’s parents explain how their nine-year-old daughter had been kidnapped, sexually assaulted, and, bound but still alive, thrown into a lake, where she drowned. One man had lost his six-year-old son in tragic circumstances, then a year later his partner had been murdered. These meetings always affected me and I was often close to tears. How these families managed to soldier on amazed me.

  In addition to Homicide investigation, I really enjoyed working as a negotiator. Trying to change someone’s mind about committing suicide or causing harm to themselves or someone else I found very rewarding. This was particularly so as I was surrounded by so much death while working in Homicide; the opportunity to save a life was incredibly satisfying. It made my workload a lot more demanding in comparison with other investigators, but I never considered giving up my role as a negotiator. It never occurred to me that the type of work I was involved in, together with my workload, would have a major impact on my mental health.

  Whilst I was still involved with the Kim Meredith murder, I worked on other cases. On 1 April 1996, having just r
eturned home from Albury after the initial Meredith investigation, I started work with Task Force Honegger, based at Sutherland police station, investigating the murder of a suspected paedophile at Woronora south of Sydney.

  One of the first things I did was go out to the crime scene, a house tucked away along a bush track. The body appeared to have been there for a month or more. It had not been a pretty sight for the initial investigating police; thankfully it had been taken to the morgue before I got there. The first thing I noticed when I entered the house was the stench. It is difficult to describe the smell of a body that has been lying dead for a month, even if it has been removed; the waft that hit me was like rotting meat mingled with the sickeningly sweet smell of blood. There was a massive bloodstain on the floor where the body had lain. The smell was overwhelming and inescapable and I was grateful to finally leave that house. I spent the next two days at Sutherland. Initial inquiries indicated the potential suspect and possible victim of paedophilia had left the country.

  Over the next fortnight I continued with inquiries on the Meredith murder, arrested a man from one of my old drug investigations, travelled to Goulburn Police Academy to assist as a role-player on a negotiators’ course being held there and took nearly a week of rest days, not necessarily in that order. On Friday 3 May, I went out on the town, specifically to Oxford Street, Darlinghurst, on a girls’ night out, and enjoyed way too many drinks. I really needed to let off some steam after the last few hectic weeks.

  The following Wednesday I learned from my Homicide supervisor Dave that a young woman had disappeared from Oxford Street a few days earlier and concern for her safety was mounting. I went to the Sydney Police Centre, where I was briefed.

  On Friday 3 May Paula Brown, a thirty-year-old Sydney hairdresser, described by her friends as happy, bubbly, friendly and full of life, had dinner with some workmates then continued on drinking at the Burdekin Hotel, Oxford Street, Darlinghurst. She then disappeared. There were varying reports of last sightings. Her boss had last seen her alive about midnight, witnesses said they had seen her get into a taxi in Oxford Street about 2.30am but shortly afterwards noticed her walking back past the front of the Burdekin. Staff in Hungry Jack’s restaurant on Oxford Street said they had seen her about 3.45am.

  My skin crawled. I had been on a girls’ night out the very same evening. Paula and I had both drunk too much and walked along Oxford Street. At least I had made it home safe.

  I spent most of the next day going to various shops to buy copies of the clothes Paula had worn on the evening of 3 May according to her friends. The zebra print miniskirt and black lace shirt came from Portman’s, the black platform shoes from Scooters. We took statements from her friends and set up a mannequin wearing Paula’s clothes in Oxford Street, hoping to jog the memories of potential witnesses. We also set up a mobile police unit in Oxford Street.

  That night I finished late, but soon after I was called out to a negotiator job. I have no idea now what this job entailed, only that my duty book indicated I finished duty at 2.30am. I was so overwhelmed by work at that stage that I didn’t record where I had gone, only when.

  On Sunday 12 May 1996, nine days after she disappeared, the body of Paula Brown was found in a small area of bushland near a car park in Penrhyn Road Botany. Sometime after 5pm Dave picked me up from home and we drove to the crime scene. Other Homicide investigators and crime scene officers were already there. Because it was already dark, lights had been set up.

  The crime scene was sickening. Paula’s body was on all fours. Her zebra print miniskirt had been pushed up and her underpants or pantyhose were down around her knees, indicating that she might have been sexually assaulted. She had severe head injuries from multiple blows to her head. I saw a liquid substance on her leg which we later found out was the work of ants. She had obviously been left in the scrubland for some days, most likely soon after she disappeared.

  I felt cold and shocked that anyone could have left her like this. They could have pulled down her skirt or covered her in a blanket to give her some dignity in death. She appeared to have been thrown out of a car and just dumped. I could not believe that someone would have such little regard for a human life.

  A few days later I bumped one of my old Drug Squad supervisors who used to work in the Homicide Unit, and told him about the number of homicides I had been involved in over the past couple of months. He told me that when he had been at the Unit he had had to deal with one homicide in eighteen months. I couldn’t believe it; I had been to four homicides in two months.

  About 12.30am on the evening the body of Paula Brown was discovered, my negotiator on-call pager activated. I’d forgotten I was still on call and as I was still at Mascot police station and there was nothing further I could do, I was free to attend the callout. The Duty Operations Inspector (DOI) told me there was a siege situation in Ward Avenue, Potts Point.

  I was still hyped from the crime scene and now I had another surge of adrenalin as I sped to Potts Point. The subject was believed to be armed and had barricaded himself in an upstairs home unit. No contact had been made with him. Over the next five hours we used all manner of devices to try and start a dialogue, including a karaoke machine and megaphone, but all we managed to do was wake up the neighbours and bore the Tactical police. Because we believed the suspect had a firearm, a remote-controlled bomb disposal robot was sent in to establish if he was still in the unit. This robot was equipped with a mechanical arm, CCTV, bolt cutters, and could even carry a shotgun. At 6.35am it was confirmed that nobody was home. In this case it appeared that someone made the initial triple 000 emergency call, however, the suspect had left prior to the arrival of police.

  For safety reasons it was always necessary to follow the protocols to establish whether someone was home before Tactical police entered. Once the unit had been cleared I went back to Kings Cross police station for a quick operational debriefing, then home to bed. I did not go into work that day as I had only finished at 7am.

  Later in May, I was having a discussion with my supervisor about needing time to complete a number of drug briefs of evidence for upcoming trials. Suddenly I burst into tears. I didn’t feel upset, and we hadn’t been talking about anything sad or distressing, but my crying was out of control. I excused myself and ran to the bathroom. What was wrong with me? This had never happened before and I was mortified.

  I finally stopped crying, cleaned myself up and returned to the Homicide office. Thankfully few investigators were there and no one made a comment about my actions. I returned to my desk and continued working on the briefs of evidence I had to finish.

  From 19 to 26 June I had another week on call as a negotiator. These extracts from my police duty book show my workload during this time.

  Saturday 22.6.96

  Rest Day 2

  On Duty 1.30am

  Off Duty 5am

  3 hours overtime submitted to SPG

  Called out as Negotiator to Sydenham Road, Marrickville re John Smith DOB 01.01.67 firing shots. Arrest made by TOU.

  Tuesday 25.6.96

  On Duty 4am

  Off Duty 5pm

  4 hours overtime submitted to SPG

  On duty 4am Liverpool Police Station see Detective Goodwin, travel to Bowral, see Senior Sergeant Steinborn and Constable Peters, briefing. Then to Bundanoon police station attend to duties re negotiators, then to vicinity P**** Road, Bundanoon, attend to duties as primary negotiator. Then job complete. Return to Bundanoon Police re equipment. Then to Bowral re debrief. Meal 10.30am–11am. Return to Sydney and continue duties in Homicide office regarding listening device operation re Graham Mailes, and drug trial.

  Wednesday 26.6.96

  On Duty 3.15am

  As negotiator called out to H***** Place, Dural re Mark Smith. Called off. Attend location see other negotiators.

  Off Duty 5.15am

  On Duty 8am

  Off Duty 5pm

  On Duty 8am

  Homicide Unit, Major Crime Squad S
outh

  These early morning callouts were the most difficult. The instant the pager was activated, the adrenalin kicked in so by the time I contacted the DOI to find out the details of the job and I was in the car ready to go, all my senses were alert and my brain was already thinking about what needed to be done on arrival. If the job was called off en route it was very difficult to calm down and go back to sleep.

  About 8pm on 4 August the on-call pager activated. A man was going berserk with a knife in a ground-floor unit at Fairfield. I arrived with lights and sirens to find that the Tactical police were setting up. Mark Goodwin, known as Goody, was the negotiation team leader, I was the primary negotiator. Once the Tactical police were in position I was ready to make the first phone call. I rang the number and the man answered, hurling abuse at me. Most of my conversations with him involved me trying to talk calmly while he screamed abuse.

  Eventually he smashed the phone down, breaking it, so I needed to go face-to-face. This involved being close enough to talk to him so he could see me. I donned a ballistic vest and continued talking to him. Again it was a fairly one-sided conversation, with me still talking calmly and him swearing abuse. He was obviously destroying his property; we could hear crashing, smashing and banging inside the unit. Some of the Tactical police appeared embarrassed by the things he was screaming at me, where as I was too busy trying to think of something to say that might calm him down. In the end our strategy, after advice from a psychiatrist, was to keep him awake as long as possible. He would eventually reach a point of exhaustion and flake out.