Andrew Rule: At Peter Spence’s farewell, old-school police told tough tales

WE call them “old-school” police, which is code for whatever you want it to be. It’s fair to say most of them didn’t have much in common with Oscar Wilde except they could resist anything but temptation.

Former Victorian police officer Peter Spence in Melbourne.

WE call them “old-school” police, which is code for whatever you want it to be. It’s fair to say most of them didn’t have much in common with Oscar Wilde except in one respect: they could resist anything but temptation.

A few old-school survivors gathered late in the week to farewell one of their own, Peter Spence. Stories were told, some of them true.

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When Spence the country recruit signed on as a police cadet around 1970, he spent his entire first pay on Christmas presents for a family who had showed him kindness. There was a generous heart under the rugged exterior.

The rookie spent another pay packet on a new grey three-piece suit that year. The rangy, lantern-jawed youngster was still a teenager, but already looked like one of The Untouchables.

One of the older coppers he was working with grabbed a Thompson machine gun from the forensics firearms library as a prop and took a photograph of young Spence in his sharp suit with the “tommy gun”.

There would be plenty more photographs of Spence over his storied career — especially the stock image of him leading dangerous crooks across the road from Russell St police station to the old city courts to go before a magistrate.

He was never nervous about holding a mouthy crook by the belt — or belting the crook in the mouth if it was necessary to keep the peace or ensure public safety. He was once stalked by notorious hit man Rodney Collins. Another time, he raided the late Alphonse Gangitano’s house after “Al” made the mistake of threatening him.

There were other tough cops and dogged investigators, of course.

But Spence’s deep, slow drawl — he came from Gippsland timber country — never changed much. Pressure was for others.

Teenage police cadet Peter Spence in the 1970s.

The overcrowded corridor of the Armed Robbery Squad at Russell St police station in 1984.

He had the look of eagles, as the saying goes, although bird-watchers might point out that, technically, not many eagles have blue eyes.

“I never heard Spencey raise his voice,” one of his friends mused during the week. That bass voice was itself a little unnerving.

In football terms, he was like John Nicholls, Ronnie Andrews or Neil Balme, natural-born enforcers with a look that tended to subdue the young and the restless.

The 1970s and 1980s was a foreign country. Police, like footballers of the day, did things differently there. They wouldn’t get a guernsey in a more politically correct time, of course. But some people remember them fondly.

Not every story can be told at a church service but plenty get an airing at the wake.

There’s the one about Spence driving with two other major crime squad detectives past the Lakeside Oval, where South Melbourne Hellas soccer team was training. The crew was armed, ready for a raid.

Victoria Police headquarters on Russell St in 1971.

Victoria Police carry out car checks in Prahran in the 1980s.

Spence silently wound his window down as their unmarked car went by. Then, to the shock of his fellow detectives, he pointed his 12-gauge shotgun out the window and let off a shot into the sky.

The Hellas players all hit the deck, possibly fearing an attack from lunatic fringe supporters of their traditional rivals, Melbourne Croatia. Taking a dive was no novelty for most of them.

Spence calmly turned to his speechless mates and rumbled, deadpan: “Soccer … y’know, I just can’t warm to it.”

Clint Eastwood couldn’t have produced a better line for Dirty Harry Callahan. The big man was
just naturally dry.

The major crime squad of the era and their associates in the armed robbery squad, among others, tested the police hierarchy’s tolerance for bending and breaking rules.

There was the strange case of the new parking officer who decided to launch a one-man crusade against detectives who parked in the public car park behind Russell St police station. The zealous “grey ghost” was unhappy that busy crimebusters left cars for hours without being fined, so he wrote a blizzard of tickets.

Detectives watched the “ghost” from the windows above. One produced an air rifle and took long-range pot shots at the agitated parking officer. Every time he wrote a ticket, a slug whipped past. Some might have pinged him.

Former Victoria Police officers Peter Spence and Bob Hynninen were caught up in the ‘Operation Briars’ investigation.

The air rifle incident led to complaints from Town Hall to police headquarters. But it also led to the parking officer quitting his campaign, if not his job. The alleged marksman — not Spence — has almost always maintained his silence.

The same group of old-school police recall the mysterious shooting of a violent drug dealer, neo-Nazi murderer and wannabe cop killer named Phillip Grant Wilson.

Wilson was known to have lured a couple — Lina Galea and Ricky Parr — to a property east of Melbourne to kill them over a drug deal gone wrong. He got away with that murder but made the mistake of plotting to kill a certain policeman.

He unwisely boasted he planned to abduct the special operations officer and throw him from a light plane.

Police took the threat seriously. But, as luck had it, Wilson was shot dead in August 1987 as he walked to his car in a South Yarra side street. Given that Wilson had many enemies, his death was hard to unravel.

For years afterwards, a respected homicide detective would shake his head gravely and say to colleagues at social gatherings when the Wilson shooting was discussed: “A very troubling case, that one. I don’t think it will ever be solved.” He did not look especially troubled.

Former Victoria Police member Bob Hynninen, Peter Lalor, Dave Waters and Peter Spence.

There’s a fair chance the Wilson case was raised at Peter Spence’s wake, not that it had anything to do with him. It was another blue-eyed detective altogether. Allegedly.

Another evergreen yarn is about blowing up the front porch of a Carlton house where a troublesome bank robber called Joey Hamilton lived with his folk singer wife, Shirley.

Two rogue detectives with knowledge of gelignite are widely credited with the explosion and were later quietly sacked over various matters. Not as well-known is that a third person was in the getaway car with them — a police reporter of intemperate habits who would become a foreign correspondent famous for fabricating his expenses. He is now a wealthy retiree.

Another mysterious incident which might have been mentioned at Spence’s wake was the shooting of a screen on a deserted platform at Flinders St station late one cold night after the last train to Pakenham was cancelled.

It is alleged that a tall man in a tired and emotional state, left stranded, pulled a police pistol and shot the screen in rage. He allegedly spent the next few hours dodging from hotel to hotel around the city as uniformed police in “divvy” vans hunted in vain for the elusive shooter. His identity might surprise staid members of the respected city club he later joined.

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