Doubt raised on Senior Constable Rodney Miller’s dying words
AN altered and false police statement about the dying words of Senior Constable Rodney Miller — murdered in the line of duty alongside Sergeant Gary Silk — is set to embroil Victoria Police in a corruption scandal.
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THERE was nothing notable about the phone call — until the veteran detective asked the ex-cop about a statement he had made in the case of two murdered police officers.
For a few moments, the line went silent. Then came a startling admission.
“How did you know?’’ the ex-policeman said.
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“I thought only two members of Victoria Police knew about the two statements.’’
That admission, in March 2015, related to an altered and false police statement about the dying words of Senior Constable Rodney Miller who, with his partner, Sergeant Gary Silk, was shot in the line of duty in Moorabbin on August 16, 1998.
The 2015 call took place between former homicide detective Ron Iddles, then the boss of the police union, and former police officer Glenn Pullin, who had comforted the fatally wounded Miller.
Almost three years later, a Herald Sun investigation has uncovered a copy of Mr Pullin’s buried original statement.
Substantiating his admission on the phone, it is set to embroil Victoria Police in a corruption scandal.
At the end of 2012, Sen-Sgt Iddles, then at the homicide squad, was hand-picked to delve back into the case of the cold-blooded killings of Sgt Silk, whom he had known, and Sen-Constable Miller.
Bandali Debs and Jason Roberts were found guilty of the murders and sentenced to life imprisonment. Roberts, 17 at the time of the shootings, was jailed for a minimum of 35 years, and has always protested his innocence.
In 2009, when Simon Overland was police chief commissioner, queries from Roberts’ lawyers about his conviction had fallen flat.
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They then raised their concerns with the state’s top prosecutor, John Champion, SC.
Towards the end of 2012, Sen-Sgt Iddles was called in to a meeting at Lonsdale St’s Office of Public Prosecutions.
Present were Mr Champion, Chief Crown Prosecutor Gavin Silbert, QC, and solicitor Richard Lewis.
Sen-Sgt Iddles’ superiors allowed him to pick a team, and Operation Rainmaker was born. Its findings were presented to Mr Champion nearly a year later. Mr Champion asked Sen-Sgt Iddles what he thought.
The answer came as a shock. Sen-Sgt Iddles told Mr Champion that, on the basis of probability, Roberts had not been at the crime scene.
Afterwards, the case pitched and rolled, as Victoria Police backed Roberts’ conviction while his lawyers began building a petition for mercy.
This year, on March 24, Attorney-General Martin Pakula decided to deny Roberts his last-gasp avenue of appeal.
The Herald Sun would later reveal Mr Pakula had initially received a recommendation from his own Department of Justice, and independent advice from David Grace, QC, to refer the case back to court.
Following the Herald Sun’s July expose, Mr Pakula said that further advice from police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton had been critical in swaying him.
Mr Ashton’s submission is understood to have been based on evidence supplied by Superintendent Paul Sheridan, the lead detective of the Lorimer taskforce which spent four years investigating the case, securing the convictions of Debs and Roberts.
Mr Pakula has since steadfastly refused to comply with a motion in Victoria’s parliament to release all documents he relied upon in denying Roberts’ petition.
But a Freedom of Information battle in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal could see him subpoenaed to give evidence and put him at odds with Mr Iddles — now Premier Daniel Andrews’ crime safety watchdog.
But today’s revelation that a falsified police statement was used in the Silk-Miller trial could overshadow all that.
On the morning of the shootings, about 12.15am, Mr Pullin, then a senior constable, had heard the police unit Moorabbin 406 come on the air calling for assistance: “Member shot …”
He and a colleague raced their divisional van from Chadstone Shopping Centre to the intersection of Warrigal and Cochranes roads.
About a minute later, after donning a ballistic vest, he heard a cry for help. He ran towards the voice until he found the wounded Sen-Constable Miller.
It was a harrowing sight.
The wounded officer was lying in the driveway of the Silky Emperor restaurant, which police had been staking out. Other police arrived.
Sen-Constable Miller, struggling to breathe, tried to answer questions.
One officer recalled him saying: “Two … one on foot.”
This has been described as his “dying declaration’’.
Other officers only recalled the mention of two offenders nearly two years after the shootings.
According to Sen-Constable Pullin — in both his statements — Sen-Constable Miller said: “Silkie’s dead, Silkie’s dead.’’
READ THE STATEMENTS IN FULL BELOW
He said he checked the chamber of Sen-Constable Miller’s Smith & Wesson revolver and found four shots had been fired.
In both statements, he said he asked Miller: “Did you hit him?’’ and that Miller replied: “I don’t think so.’’
In his original statement, he said the only other words he could recall were Sen-Constable Miller’s pleas for an ambulance.
He made his original statement to homicide investigator Charlie Bezzina at Moorabbin Police Station at 4.25am, more than four hours after the murders.
At least two years later, after the mid-2000 arrests of Debs and Roberts, a new version of the statement would replace the original, which was buried. But both were stamped and dated as having been made on August 16, 1998.
Critically, the second statement referred to Sen-Constable Pullin hearing a dying Sen-Constable Miller refer to multiple offenders.
It recorded Sen-Constable Pullin as saying: “I also asked him, ‘were they in a car or on foot?’, and he replied: ‘They were on foot’. I asked him, ‘how long ago did it happen?’, and he replied: ‘couple of minutes’.
Miller was quite obviously in pain so I didn’t ask him any more questions, I tried to comfort him.”
This month, at a meeting with Mr Iddles, the Herald Sun showed former homicide detective Charlie Bezzina — whose signature as a witness appears on both statements — a copy of the original statement and the doctored version.
Mr Bezzina was curious, and then alarmed. He had never seen the altered version of the statement that made the final brief.
Mr Iddles explained the background to Mr Bezzina.
On Saturday, March 14, 2015, while working as head of the Police Association of Victoria, he had called Mr Pullin about a WorkCover matter he was helping him with. During that call, Mr Iddles brought up his review of the Silk-Miller case.
He told him he was aware that Mr Pullin had been at the scene and had comforted Sen- Constable Miller.
So far, so good.
Mr Iddles then raised a suspicion about Mr Pullin’s statement — homing in on the date it was made. After being confronted with this question about his one and only statement on the police brief, there was a silence on the other end of the phone.
Then came this: “How did you know? I thought only two members of Victoria Police were aware I’d made two statements.
“I made two statements, but only one went on the brief.’’
Pushed for more, he named a name. He claimed a detective involved in the Lorimer taskforce investigation had approached him to add some detail to his original statement.
The detective had put it to him that a colleague had heard him talking to the wounded Sen- Constable Miller, but that the conversation did not appear in his original statement.
“(Name removed) told me the other member was a ‘bit of a dickhead’ and they needed to rely on me for the conversation,’’ he told Mr Iddles.
“I could not remember whether I had a conversation with Rod Miller or not, but to the best of my recollection, I had not spoken to Rod. I was just comforting him.
“(Name removed) told me the second statement was needed so as to make all things fit.”
Mr Pullin claimed he was told by the detective to forget about his first statement.
He also told Mr Iddles he could not vouch for the additional material in his second statement.
He said he was concerned about the second statement, but was reassured that the conversation had been overheard.
Mr Iddles and officer Peter Abbey followed up with Mr Pullin. He repeated the story, and a statement was taken to him, but he refused to sign it.
Left with a festering corruption issue, Mr Iddles approached a “very senior officer’’ — current Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton. He was told to do what he thought was right.
He did.
A complaint was made to the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission, and an investigation began. Mr Pullin and the detective, among others, were hauled in for questioning.
Mr Pullin told them he had lied to Mr Iddles.
He had been angry at the police force over how it had treated him since his 2003 retirement.
The top-secret probe finished, and the case was closed. Some with knowledge of it now feel it was a “whitewash”.
IBAC certainly did not call Mr Bezzina to give evidence.
But this was not the end of the story.
The Herald Sun’s exposes on the Roberts case in July included the revelation that one officer at the murder scene (Mr Pullin, who was not named in the article) had told Mr Iddles that before the case went to court, he was directed by a superior to make a second statement regarding what the mortally wounded Sen-Constable Miller had said.
That revelation prompted a whistleblower to approach the Herald Sun and provide the original statement — an act of honesty that will shine a light into a very dark corner.
