Undercover

One

1985–1991

For six years, my life was one big lie. Actually it wasn’t just the one lie; there were hundreds and hundreds of them. I told them for a living. They tumbled effortlessly out of my mouth, and when I was at the top of my game, no one, least of all me, gave them a second consideration as they manipulated their intended targets.

Of course, over those six years I had a form slump or two. There were times when I questioned the nature of the work, and my role in it. For instance: what other field rewards bullshit artists? Used car sales, politics and law, just off the top of my head. I was all too aware that I wasn’t travelling in the best company.

Paraphrased, the job description of a Victoria Police undercover operative reads rather simply: ingratiate, establish trust, dump person in shit. Sometimes, especially on lengthy jobs, I’d find myself ingratiating a bit too much, and I’d end up feeling guilty when the shit-dumping was on the agenda. The psychologists used to call this sort of behaviour ‘Stockholm syndrome’. I just thought it was second nature.

Yet despite all the guilt (and the lies), I managed to play a role in over fifty operations, often working up to three or four jobs at the one time. Some operations were intricate and involved, played out on a grand scale. Others were so small that, when I read through my old police diary, I have trouble recalling any of the details.

But there’s one thing I do know about every last one of those jobs: I was just being me.

Some people think you need a degree from NIDA to work as an undercover cop. But from my experience, acting is just that—acting. I found that undercover work was just a matter of tapping into different facets of my personality when required. For the most part, good undercovers will pretty much be themselves, revealing only what’s necessary to get the job done. That’s not denying that your primary aim is to manipulate a target, but everyone has a capacity to manipulate. Kids do it every day. If you wanted a bike for your birthday, you had to take your parents along for the ride as well.

Undercover work was never something I actively pursued. One minute I was a young cop in uniform, the next I was an undercover Drug Squad detective. It all happened so rapidly that I barely had time to comprehend what I was doing, or any of the consequences. Looking back, I’m just happy that I managed to bullshit my way through criminal circles without making a complete fool of myself.

And even though my expectations weren’t particularly lofty, I’m proud of one thing: I was always eager to learn. Right from the outset, I wanted to be the best undercover operative I could possibly be.

A good undercover has to process information in the most pressured of circumstances and environments. On top of that, you have to be able to act on three or four things at the same time. A drug dealer might say he wants to sell me some smack outside a video store on Smith Street, Collingwood. I’d be taking this in, but my mind would be racing: ‘Why does he want to do it there? If I were a crook, would I want to do it there? Will it lock me in to doing further deals at that same location? Is the area surveillance-friendly? Will the surveillance cameras capture my best side?’

Once a relationship with a target was established, part of my job was to pick up on things that he would want from me—qualities he admired or expected from a fellow crook. When those signals presented themselves, I’d just give him what he wanted.

Maybe a target had hired me as a hitman. Some personality traits are expected when you pose as a gun for hire. Well, I found there wasn’t any great demand for warm and cuddly hitmen. So I’d sometimes put on a show, if that meant keeping the operation’s objectives on the right track. It could be as simple as a no-nonsense stare after the target (the bloke we were hoping to arrest at the end of the whole job) said something I didn’t like.

Although one time I posed as a hired killer with a thing for flowers. It just seemed right at the time, and I didn’t mind screwing with the stereotype.

‘You can’t be doing this job forever,’ the target said to me one day.

‘I’ll be right. I’ve been saving up.’

‘What are you gonna do then?’

‘Open a florist’s shop.’

‘Flowers?’ he said, laughing at the thought of a hitman gift-wrapping daffodils for little old ladies.

‘I like flowers,’ I said, fixing him with a set of cold eyes that looked like they were already reaching for a gun. ‘What’s wrong with liking flowers?’

In other situations the targets might have preferred to do business with a clever bloke. I tried my best on that score. I remember once doing the sums on a piece of paper for a brain-dead smack dealer: ‘How to Deal Drugs 101’ by Damian Marrett.

Or sometimes I had to act a bit vague to get people to open up. By that I mean I’d play dumb if I was trying to glean information. And besides, when I played dumb, I sometimes got more on a listening device anyway. ‘Okay, can you run that deal by me again? From the beginning. Louder.’

Like most people, I often wonder what sort of person I would be now if my life had taken a different direction. At seventeen, I was convinced that I would be a bookmaker. My father was an accountant, and I had toyed with that idea as well, but the lure of the betting ring excited me far more than crunching numbers in an office. I’d also considered joining the police force but, to be honest, I hadn’t given it too much serious thought.

In 1985 I had a part-time job running around country tracks, laying off bets for my bookie boss. It was good fun. I was happy, and it seemed like the bookie’s life was for me. One drunken night, however, fate intervened on my behalf.

After well and truly tying one on at a party, I stupidly jumped in my old Ford XY station wagon. Hard to justify now, but drink-driving was almost a rite of passage back in the eighties.

Hurtling along Banyule Road in Melbourne’s northeast, I lost control on the first bend I negotiated, rolling the car in the process. It finally finished up on its roof, a total write-off. Somehow I got out of the wreck in one piece, and stumbled back up the road to the party. A quick drink to calm the nerves and I was tucked safely into bed.

The next morning I woke up with a hangover that refused to go away. A friend drove me to the car. It wasn’t there. By the time I made it home the police had already put in an appearance, checking in with my mum and dad. They’d found the car; now they were looking for me. So, after copping an earful from the parents, I was off to Heidelberg police station for another grilling.

When I got there, this old-school copper went to town on me. You will be charged, you will lose your licence. I was quietly taking this all in when I caught sight of a poster on the wall. A recruitment poster. It was a long shot, but I figured it was worth a shot.

‘Will this affect my chances of joining up?’ I asked as innocently as I could without coming across as a suck.

‘What?’ I don’t think he expected my query.

‘Will I still get accepted for the academy?’

‘Don’t tell me you want to join up,’ he said incredulously.

I dropped the bottom lip in a half-quiver and put on a long, sad face. The one that’s got bullshit written all over it in invisible ink. ‘Well yeah, it’s been kind of a dream of mine for years.’

He studied me for a couple of seconds to check if I was fair dinkum. I kept up the façade for maximum effect. ‘Mate, we can make these charges go away, don’t worry about that,’ he finally shot back at me.

And that was that. I was a free man…until the academy.

The idea of becoming a copper kind of grew on me again. Well, I guess under the circumstances it had to. Three months later, I’d passed the initial medical and psychology tests. I was called in and questioned on the psych component though.

One of the questions on the test was, ‘Do you fear metal door handles in hospitals?’ I told the truth. ‘Yes, I do fear metal door handles in hospitals.’ What can I say? I hate germs. Especially super-deadly hospital germs. And I told them so. After the call back they passed me, but they probably thought my response was a bit weird. I just thought the question was weird.

The academy was the next stop. I wasn’t the most disciplined soldier on parade, and my first day could quite easily have been my last. I rocked up in a singlet and pair of boardies, my trusty thongs shuffling underneath me. I was under the impression that the academy would smooth out the rough edges, especially the messy long hair I’d cultivated in the months beforehand. I figured it was a waste of money forking out for a haircut when the academy was prepared to foot the bill for a short back and sides. Seemed the logical thing to do at the time.

Not surprisingly, I was immediately ridiculed by the academy’s instructors and my fellow recruits. I got the feeling that I was in for a long four months.

To a man, the drill instructors were a bunch of pricks. They took it upon themselves to totally belittle and demoralise the less athletic and quieter recruits. I’m still not sure why they employed this tactic. Did they think they could turn us all into tough and rugged operators who could run a few Ks in ten minutes? Jesus, half the police force can’t even walk 400 metres unless there’s a pie at the end of the rainbow.

Thankfully I was on top of the physical and academic side of the program, but I was always landing myself in trouble for one thing or another. If it wasn’t the length of my hair, it was the condition of my room. If it wasn’t for being late to class, it was for being a smartarse when I was there. I couldn’t wait till the weekend for a chance to get away from all the rules.

Four weeks into the course, I was close to going home for good. It all started when I was woken up at 6 a.m. for assembly. I was a bit tired and irritable after a few drinks at the local pub the night before. My duty that morning was to pick up cigarette butts from the academy’s stairwell. I made an executive decision to go back to bed, and someone from the squad dobbed me in.

When I was called out, I told the drill instructor that I’d prefer to pick up the butts before I went to bed. You know, get an extra lie-in. Made sense to me. Well, you’d have thought that I’d just slept with his wife and eaten his dog for breakfast. After ten minutes of him carrying on and screaming in my face at close quarters I was handed another incident report, probably my third at that stage. I was told that if there was one more report, I’d be turfed out on my ear.

The very next day I managed to get another one, this time for hiding in a ditch during a cross-country run. It was a circuit course, and the plan was to rejoin the group on the final leg. I thought I’d timed it perfectly, even coming in second. Didn’t want to make it too obvious, even though I looked remarkably fresh.

Again someone from the squad put me in, but I denied it. The sergeant who wrote up the report laughed at my denial. In the end, he even congratulated me on my initiative. For some reason, I was never kicked out.

The only part of academy life I enjoyed was the canteen food. I saw no point in not eating well. I’d be up and down for thirds and fourths at mealtime, flirting with the old ladies behind the counter. They were only too happy to help out their best customer.

At the same time, my roommate wanted out. Not out of the academy, but out of our room. He told an instructor that I would hide my mess in a cupboard before inspections. He just had to get it off his chest. Was there another recruit he could bunk down with who wasn’t a lazy prick come inspection time, sir?

The days went so slowly, and graduation couldn’t come fast enough. I ranked second out of thirty in my squad. I don’t know who was more surprised, me or the instructors.

My first stop after the academy was Reservoir, a suburb in Melbourne’s north. It was a shock at first. The crooks were scum, real Reservoir dogs. I couldn’t understand their way of thinking at all. They were just pieces of shit—shitmen. And they were treated with the disrespect they deserved.

My stint at Reservoir was also back in the days of touch-typing. There were no tape recorders during interviews, and after you typed one page the crook was usually asleep from boredom. At the end of it all, no one could be bothered reading ten pages of police speak and they’d sign their lives away, case closed.

I was at Reservoir for about a year, then it was headquarters: Russell Street. I spent a lot of time on the State Parliament steps. That’s where coppers with discipline problems hang out. Say hello to them next time you’re there. They’re nice people.

Although I did spend a disproportionate amount of my time patrolling the Spring Street steps, I wasn’t a bad copper. I’d say I was just misguided, and I grew bored way too easily. When I was told to do something I had every intention of doing it, but I’d get pulled in a different direction, and before I knew it I was sidetracked again. I guess my real problem was that I found it difficult to take the job too seriously.

I liked the camaraderie of the force though. Coppers would all stick by each other. If you had a problem, it would be solved…one way or another.

After Russell Street I landed at the call centre, D24. My job was to answer phones, collect the information, and then pass on the details to the units in the field. In a way I suppose it was like administering triage in a hospital’s emergency ward. You had to judge the severity of a crime, and act upon it appropriately. For example, the policeman with a gunshot wound in Preston would be treated with far more urgency than the cat up the tree in Camberwell.

The discipline of the place was probably good for me too. D24 had a real in-your-face command structure. Young coppers often did a stint there, and we were too green to question much of anything. Our superiors (who probably would’ve preferred to be elsewhere too) were straight down the line, and for six months I played the game, and kept my nose clean, before being transferred to Box Hill in Melbourne’s leafy east.

You’ll find doors eventually open in the police force if you’re not a complete idiot, so I was recommended for a secondment to the Drug Squad in 1990. It was more of a familiarisation exercise than anything else. I just felt that I’d get to play with the big boys for a few months, and then they’d send me back into uniform again.

Eight of us rolled up to the course. There was nothing special about the group whatsoever. We knew next to nothing about undercover work, or drugs for that matter. I was no angel growing up, but drugs were something foreign to me. I knew the basics, but I’d never even smoked a joint.

On the first day, one of the Drug Squad’s undercovers spoke to us. Marty looked like one of those bikie scrotes with tatts all over him. He talked about guns, he talked about drugs, and I was thinking, ‘Holy fuck!’ I figured that I didn’t have the balls to carry it off. People always thought I was overconfident, but the truth is I was shockingly shy. It was excruciating to watch sometimes too. As an example: if I walked into a shop without knowing if they sold a certain item, I’d have been unable to ask for it. It was just a fear of looking silly in front of people I didn’t know. I’m a lot better now, but back then my mouth would go dry, my eyes would redden, and my palms would sweat up. No one knew this though. Years of practice ensured it was pretty well hidden.

Anyway, after Marty had finished his lecture he pulled me to one side. ‘So, what do you think?’

‘Fucken out of control,’ I answered. And it was.

‘Are you interested in doing undercover work yourself?’

‘I’m not sure. I don’t think I’d be able to pull it off.’ My hands were sweating just talking to the bloke.

‘Give it some thought. I reckon you’d be good at it.’

In all honesty the idea excited me, but I just couldn’t picture myself fitting into the role of a seasoned criminal. Working undercover, I knew it would be a lot more difficult dealing with crooks when no other cops were in the vicinity. It’s just like bikies. One of them is an unemployed bearded bloke with a Harley-Davidson. But when half a dozen of his mates are standing behind him twirling crowbars, his underpants are suddenly worn on the outside. There’s a reason cops go out in pairs. We twirl batons though.

Being so young, I was also concerned that crooks wouldn’t take me seriously. Plus, I didn’t know their capabilities. Probably didn’t know my own either.

Working for the Drug Squad at their headquarters was another matter entirely. That I could handle. It was a relaxed atmosphere, not so accountable, chilled out, wear what you want, whatever. My worry was the undercover component—but I didn’t have to deal with that yet.

After the secondment, life slipped back into the drudgery of wearing blue at Box Hill again. Next thing, though, I was taking a phone call from the Drug Squad. A position had come up, but not as a covert operative. And even though I was young, they wanted me.

Once I was with the Drug Squad, they were always at me to give undercover work a go. I was then informed, no, more like ordered, that the next course required my attendance. The bosses wanted me to do it. Resistance was futile.

Looking back, there was no need to worry. I was hesitant at first because of the shyness thing, but right from the first exercise, I enjoyed myself. The manipulation, the negotiations…it all just started to become really natural.

The Crimes Act (an official document I had to sign before I attended the course) prevents me from going into a whole lot of detail, but you’d be thrust into situations where anything could happen. Most people froze or crapped themselves. Some people reached for their guns when the blowtorch was applied, just like a good police officer’s trained to do. Others just kind of fell apart in front of you, unable to keep up the charade. They were simple exercises, but it exposed people. It really gave a glimpse into what sort of person you were.

I felt like I was in my element though. Under pressure, I didn’t resort to the copper mentality. I enjoyed the role-playing and, unlike most of the others, I knew I had some control over it.

Other field exercises were interesting too. I remember being dropped off at a bikie pub, this pretty blond boy chucked in among the great unwashed. I thought the instructors had done it on purpose—so I’d get my head kicked in. I was such a headstrong little turd back then.

The idea was to circulate around the pub, meeting and greeting. There were conditions attached. Conversations with one person could not exceed fifteen minutes,