Brett Forte inquest: Gunman Ricky Maddison’s explosive final phone call
LISTEN: It was a 30-minute expletive-riddled phone call that led police in Toowoomba to their most wanted man. In a matter of hours the game of cat-and-mouse turned deadly. WARNING: EXPLICIT LANGUAGE
Police & Courts
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It was the phone call that led Toowoomba police to their most wanted man - and tragically saw the murder of one of their own.
At 1pm on May 29, 2017, paranoid gunman Ricky Maddison - wanted over allegations of torture and deprivation of liberty and accused of firing a gun during a domestic violence incident - made a call to his local police station.
They’d been waiting for his call. He’d done it before - several times - and they believed it was their best shot of finding him.
Police had been searching for Maddison for weeks. They believed he’d been living rough in the bush.
But he’d also been calling them from payphones to demand details of the case against him. He believed police were out to get him.
The plan was, Sergeant Peter Jenkins told the inquest into Senior Constable Brett Forte’s murder this week, to keep him on the phone while patrol cars searched payphones for the wanted man.
When he called on the afternoon of May 29, it was Sen Const Forte who answered the phone, before transferring the call to the Sergeant.
Sgt Jenkins and Maddison argued about the case against the gunman, with the police officer at one point telling him to “man up” and hand himself in.
“What complaint?” Maddison can be heard saying.
“Am I not in my right to know what is alleged against me?”
“Yeah, come in,” Sgt Jenkins says. “Come in mate. I’ll tell you. I’ll sit down with you.”
The gunman tells the sergeant he doesn’t want police visiting his friends and family anymore to ask where he is, claiming he hasn’t seen them in months.
“I don’t live in society anymore,” he says
“Youse (sic) have ostracised me from society.
“So therefore I don’t live by your motherf---ing rules no more.
“Now youse are just c-nts with badges and guns and I don’t give a s---”
Sgt Jenkins responds: “How come all of this is everyone else’s fault but yours?”
Maddison hung up after about 30 minutes and left the Lindsay St phone booth.
Police spotted his dual cab Nissan Navara on nearby Mary St moments later.
Sen Const Forte was killed after being shot in the groin and the arm.
Maddison held specialist SERT officers at bay at a nearby “stronghold” where he had hundreds of rounds of ammunition. He was killed 20 hours later after running at police with his automatic weapon.
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