Under Siege

by Belinda Neil

  We both agreed that Jake would come first and Rob was welcome to see him whenever he liked, or have him when I was working and he was off. I knew Rob had nowhere to go so I took Jake and moved into my mother’s home.

  I sought help from a clinical psychologist. I was not worried about my own mental health, not thinking I had a problem, so I only asked for advice about our marriage and Rob’s apparent mental state. The thought that I might be suffering from anything work-related did not even enter my mind; it was easy to put everything down to Rob’s issues. We only told one person at work what was happening, as he knew both of us well and had guessed something was up. We were both trying to keep work and personal life separate, which was difficult when we worked at the same LAC.

  Rob agreed to marriage counselling, and after six weeks I agreed to move back into the family home to give our marriage another go with help and advice from the clinical psychologist. I didn’t really know how I felt about Rob at that point. Did I still love him, or was I just numb? I did know that I really wanted to try and make the marriage work, particularly for the children. Rob also genuinely expressed a desire to make the marriage work.

  The next few months were a blur of marriage counselling sessions, family and work. In fact I loved going into work, it allowed me to take my mind off the problems at home. Work kept me busy and gave me focus. It was also making things worse, though I did not know it at the time.

  In June 2001 there was a spate of armed robberies in the Georges River region with all evidence leading to the same gang. A strike force had been set up to which Kogarah LAC had provided investigators.

  Then two things happened simultaneously. I was asked to give the general duty car crew negotiating tips after they had been to a domestic violence callout involving a married couple who had recently separated. The man had grabbed a knife and their six-week-old baby and driven off in his car before police arrived. The constable spoke to the man on his mobile phone, and the man said he would kill the baby before giving him up.

  This was a high-risk situation and the type of job I thrived on. It gave me a chance to block out everything and focus on the situation at hand. Different strategies and options were going through my mind when the second event occurred. The police radio sounded with two beeps which meant urgent: ‘Kogarah car, any car in the vicinity, we have an armed holdup up in progress ANZ Bank, Rocky Point Road, Ramsgate, cross street Ramsgate Road … for any available Kogarah car …’ My gut instinct told me that this was the same gang the strike force had been set up to investigate. They were extremely dangerous, and were usually armed with machetes, screwdrivers and other weapons. We now had two critical incidents at the same time.

  General duties cars quickly called onto the job, as did two vehicles containing investigators. Additional car crews advised they would circulate the area for any getaway vehicles. Although my mind was busy with possibilities the police might find when they got there, I could only monitor the radio and wait for the responding crews to report back. Both teams of investigators knew what to do if the armed holdup was still in progress, or if the offenders had left.

  I returned to the high-risk domestic situation and asked the general duty crew if they knew where the man was. They could only tell me that he was in his car driving somewhere in the Sydney area. I told them to get back to my office fast so we could see what information we had and what we needed to find him as quickly as possible. I was concerned that the father’s mental state might become worse if the baby started crying or screaming; the mother had told us that he was still being breastfed and also needed to take medication.

  The car crew arrived with the relieving duty officer in tow. I assigned an investigating team to find out whatever they could about the father and where he might possibly go. They would check his driver’s licence, car registration details, any criminal history, associates, and involvement with police. We urgently needed to contact the father again. The fact that he was mobile made it all the trickier, and the on-call negotiation team were stretched between two other jobs and therefore unavailable.

  As I was eight months pregnant I decided it best not to make contact with the father in case the situation changed and I had to meet him face to face. Fortunately Detective Andrew Marks, or Marksy, was still in the office. He was switched-on, calm and had very good negotiating skills. We spoke about what he should say and I gave him some advice, telling him I would stay beside him for support. My office became the forward command post. The superintendent and the crime manager both sat on one side to watch the action while Marksy and I sat on the other.

  Marksy made the call. He established rapport with the father very quickly; the man was upset because the relationship had ended and he did not have access to his baby. He and Marksy spoke for some time. We knew he was somewhere near Campsie about thirty minutes away; this was confirmed when he finally agreed to meet with Marksy. Marksy now went mobile with a team of investigators, continuing his conversation with the father while he was being driven to the address.

  When Marksy returned to Kogarah LAC he said that the father had given himself up without a fight. He had just taken the baby in a fit of anger, and now understood he might consider other ways of gaining access to his child. The end result was that the baby returned to the mother unharmed but hungry.

  By this stage I knew via police radio that the armed holdup had been committed by the same gang as before. All the police vehicles had circulated the area but the offenders were long gone. My investigators organised for an examination of the crime scene and for statements to be taken from witnesses and the victims and all this information was passed on to the strike force.

  In July 2001, a month before I was due to give birth, I started eleven months’ leave. I’d always regretted not taking extra leave at half pay when I had Jake, but financially it had not been an option; Rob and I had just bought a house. More importantly Rob really needed, and was looking forward to, a lengthy amount of time off work. This was a special time with Jake, as it would be my last time with him before the arrival of the new baby.

  In August I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, Melanie. She had the most enormous eyes, a shock of dark hair, and oh my goodness, what a voice. She certainly let us know she had arrived. Melanie also realised all my worst fears. My intense feelings of protectiveness towards Jake had now doubled with Melanie. I was responsible in every way imaginable for not one but two little beings, and at times I felt I couldn’t cope.

  After Jake was born I had started to have nightmares that involved me holding him and being chased by rapists, child molesters and murderers. This recurring dream had me running to a clifftop where I was cornered, and always with the same question: What could I do? If I jumped I would leave him at their mercy – I couldn’t do that. Did I take him with me? That would kill us both. What was I to do? And now the dreams were back, but this time I was holding both children.

  I would wake in a state of panic, sweating, my breathing all over the place. I never spoke of these dreams to anyone: I felt embarrassed and didn’t understand what was happening to me. I always felt that my fears were as a result of my work and the awful things I had seen. Consequently I felt that I would just have to live with them. It never occurred to me that perhaps I was suffering a mental illness, that the early signs of post-traumatic stress disorder were manifesting itself through my thoughts, actions and even dreams.

  During my time off with Melanie, I also spent more time with Jake. He was, and still is, a lovely-natured and active little boy who loved to get out exploring in the backyard. The ‘terrible twos’ of child development did not occur with Jake. However, by the time he was four, we knew when he was frustrated or cranky, for his feelings showed in his face and the tension of his body. This triggered images of the De Gruchy family murders. Jake was slightly built with very dark hair and when he was angry I would immediately think, irrationally, of Matthew De Gruchy. My beautiful four-year-old son was starting to remind me of that horrific killer
. I started to think: What if my son turns out like Matthew De Gruchy? Is my family in danger? These thoughts invaded my mind every time Jake expressed his frustration, and I shut down and emotionally distanced myself from him whenever this happened. I was fine with Jake when he was happy or sad but not when he displayed anger. I knew I was keeping him at arm’s length and I didn’t know what to do about it.

  CHAPTER

  18

  The art of effective communication

  Early in 2001 I had decided to apply for the job of duty officer at the rank of inspector, which carried a fifty per cent increase in salary. This would mean being in charge of the day-to-day running of the Local Area Command, reporting directly to the commander. For Kogarah LAC this involved some 170 staff, and the job was both strategic and tactical. I enjoyed my job as a detective sergeant but was becoming irritated because relieving duty officers persisted in calling me at home at all hours of the day or night, asking me things they should have known. As I am an action-oriented person, instead of sitting around complaining I decided to do something about it.

  I passed the first round of assessments. Then, as luck would have it, I was eight months pregnant for the interview stage. Fortunately Melanie decided to stay put and I got the job. I was not due back at work from maternity leave until mid 2002.

  In early 2002 the commander at Kogarah LAC called to speak to me. He congratulated me on winning the inspector’s position at Kogarah. I was most grateful.

  While I still had some time off I approached a personal trainer to assist me to return to a decent level of fitness. I knew I would be returning to shift work, as well as having two children to look after, and I needed to be fit and healthy.

  In June 2002 I returned to work as an inspector. I felt very proud; I was only thirty-four and this promotion made me one of the youngest operational inspectors in the NSW Police, if not the youngest. I loved the job. It had more responsibility than my previous position but was in fact easier, probably because of my background in criminal investigation and negotiation.

  One of my new portfolios was in emergency management, something I thoroughly enjoyed. This involved risk assessment or identifying potential hazards and threats to the local area, which included sections of the M5 tunnel, the international airport, major roads, the railway and a major trauma hospital. It meant looking at prevention measures, our preparedness to cope with future disasters, including training staff, our emergency response and resources. I also completed a number of emergency management courses, extra training for this portfolio. My other responsibilities included mental health and employee management.

  By now Rob had won the inspector’s position at Sutherland Local Area Command some twenty minutes south of Kogarah. Sometimes we worked the same shift, which was on the same police radio channel. We were very fortunate to have my mother and a good day-care centre close by for Jake and Melanie. Rob and I made a good team in some ways, and mutual respect for each other’s abilities and knowledge of the high-risk nature of the work brought us together. Rob gave me advice about general policing and I returned the favour with various investigative issues.

  Still, wearing a police uniform again after fourteen years in plain clothes, and coming to grips with all the gadgets, lights and sirens in the marked police car, took some getting used to. I also felt somewhat inadequate in my knowledge of officer survival techniques and lack of physical strength, having always relied on my voice and communication skills to get out of trouble. I had always depended on professional Tactical police in high-risk situations, knowing they had effective weaponry and equipment as opposed to our tiny Glocks, batons and capsicum spray. Now I was no longer working with them, and that was disconcerting too.

  At the LAC I noticed how easily general duties police could be injured. They were always the first to be called out. Some police officers did not pay enough attention to safety and survival procedures and I also saw an associated lack of confidence as communicators. This apparent lack of assertiveness might have been due to sensitivity or to concern that there might be later complaints about their behaviour. I had seen this more than once when I turned up to a routine traffic stop and saw the car crew being verbally abused by the offending driver. This could be attributed to a change in the current initial police training at the academy or the way internal investigations were managed at the LAC, but it was an area I wanted to address.

  My goal was to help staff build confidence in their own abilities as communicators. I believe effective communication is the key to success, whether negotiating with a suspect, talking to a victim or listening to witnesses. I have been to crime scenes where multiple offenders were yelling at police, with blood everywhere, victims screaming, and police trying to work out what happened. This is not a good situation but it can be easily resolved by taking charge through communication and working through issues methodically. In leading by example, I knew my own communication abilities would be on display.

  One evening, a fight broke out at St George Hospital; a group of Middle Eastern men were brawling in the casualty department. When I arrived the atmosphere was tense. Ten or more men were lined up on one side of a walkway insisting on access to the hospital, with about eight uniformed police on the other side keeping them at bay. Both sides were eyeballing each other just waiting for someone to make a wrong move, at which point all hell would break loose.

  I approached the line of Middle Eastern men and asked, ‘Who is in charge of you?’

  One pointed to a man at the end of the line, at the entrance of the hospital. I continued up the walkway and approached him, saying, ‘I am in charge of my police and I believe you are in charge of your people. We need to talk.’ He was surprisingly agreeable.

  Apparently one of their friends had been taken to the hospital casualty by ambulance with serious injuries because of a fight so they wanted to see him. Emotion was still running high when hospital staff refused them entry. I explained hospital regulations and the leader agreed to go in by himself and check on their friend while the rest of the group remained outside the hospital. He assured me there would be no more problems; he had just wanted to see his friend and confirm the injuries for himself. Hospital staff agreed and there were no further problems. It was an obvious solution, and the problem proved to be easy to resolve. However, with emotional issues it can be difficult for those involved to think straight.

  Another kind of emotional issue arose involving the breach of an apprehended violence order (AVO). Two days previously a man named Bill had been involved in a domestic siege, and was eventually subdued after a difficult struggle with police. He was charged with a number of offences and an AVO was taken out against him, meaning he was not allowed to be within a certain distance of his victim. However, he breached the AVO and his victim told police he was sitting on a fence in a nearby street.

  Two general duties car crews were already on the way and I could tell this wasn’t going to be an easy arrest. This was a man who had spent seventeen of his thirty-four years in and out of gaol. I decided to head to the scene; if it turned into a siege I would already be in a position to coordinate the response. Because of my siege management background, this was a kind of situation I found interesting.

  When I arrived the general duty police had surrounded Bill, who looked as if he had been waiting for them. He stood up and took a fighter’s stance. Police grabbed his arms and started marching him towards the open police caged truck. He balked a couple of times but surprised police by jumping unassisted into the back of the cage truck.

  The issue now was that Bill had not been searched. He knew the system and prison craft well. Conducting a search is not only standard police procedure but common sense and experience tell you never to put a prisoner, male or female, in any vehicle without doing so (see Chapter 4). The suspect might be concealing weapons or drugs, resulting in self-harm or harm to others. There had been a recent incident when a prisoner shot himself with a concealed firearm while he was in the back of a polic
e truck.

  We now had to get Bill out of the police truck to search him. After being asked to step out of the truck a couple of times, Bill was very agitated and yelled out, ‘Come and get me!’

  Hands went to capsicum spray and batons, chests were pumped up; clearly the police were about to meet Bill’s challenge. This was not going to end well. Bill was a wall of muscle at least 1.8 metres tall. I did not want to see anyone hurt, especially my team.

  ‘Stop,’ I said firmly, holding my hand palm outwards towards Bill. I walked to the back of the police truck so I could see Bill’s eyes but stayed at an angle to the truck in case he lunged towards me. I looked straight at Bill, who was still very agitated and moving about the truck, and said, ‘You seem to be very upset; can I ask why?’

  Bill seemed surprised. He was obviously not expecting this approach. He then became teary and for the next ten minutes told me his life story. He was very upset about his life and how he had been treated; he was angry about the AVO. After he had vented we talked for a short time until he calmed down to a point where I explained the police procedures we needed to follow, including that police did not want him injured and nor did I want my police officers hurt. While still not happy he indicated he understood the process and agreed to leave the truck and be searched. He did, without fuss and was taken to the police station. It was all over within half an hour.

  When I returned to the station one of the constables who had been at the scene asked me to come out to the prisoner unloading area as Bill was ‘playing up’. I went out and saw the truck rocking from side to side. Bill was once again very agitated and yelling out to the police, ‘Come and get me, come and get me.’