Rose garden tribute for Russell St bombing victim
CONSTABLE Angela Taylor paid the “ultimate price” following the Russell St bombing — now a permanent tribute has been unveiled at Victoria’s Police Academy.
Law & Order
Don't miss out on the headlines from Law & Order. Followed categories will be added to My News.
A MEMORIAL rose garden for Russell St bombing victim Constable Angela Taylor has been unveiled at the Victoria Police Academy.
Constable Taylor’s parents, Marilyn and Arthur, other family, friends, high-ranking police, and officers from the taskforce which hunted down the bombers attended a moving ceremony on Tuesday.
RUSSELL ST BOMBING: THE DAY POLICE WERE TARGETED IN 1986 MELBOURNE TERROR BLAST
RUSSELL ST BOMBER CRAIG MINOGUE APPLIES FOR PAROLE AFTER 30 YEARS IN PRISON
ANDREW RULE ON RUSSELL ST BOMBER CRAIG MINOGUE
“It is a special day for us, and wonderful for us to be here with people who have been with us through this journey,” Mrs Marilyn Taylor told the Herald Sun.
Constable Taylor, 21, became the first Australian policewoman killed in the line of duty after a bomb blew up outside the Russell St police headquarters on March 27, 1986.
She died of her injuries on April 20.
Acting Chief Commissioner Andrew Crisp said Constable Taylor, who had been set for a long and successful career, “took a solemn oath and paid the ultimate price”, because of an “appalling crime”.
“This rose garden will provide a place for people to come and reflect at the start of their careers and also when people come back (to the academy),” Mr Crisp said.
The rose garden is situated at the front of the academy in Glen Waverley, and is overlooked by the building’s famous spire.
“To have the rose garden at the front, to greet everybody as they go in, it is beautiful,” Mrs Taylor said.
A series of raids and tip-offs ultimately led detectives investigating the bombing to arrest Stanley Brian Taylor, Craig Minogue and several other men. Taylor and Minogue had been behind a string of violent armed robberies in the four years before the bombing, bringing them more than half-a-million dollars.
Their Supreme Court trial lasted almost 100 days and heard from 156 witnesses.
In July 1988, a jury found Taylor and Minogue guilty.
Justice Frank Vincent jailed Taylor for life without parole and Minogue for life with a non-parole term of 28 years.