Gary Jubelin ‘I Catch Killers’ Podcast: ‘Hunted’ show lead reflects on cases

The lead investigator on the hit TV reality series Hunted has revealed he had to “tap out” as a police officer while dealing with sex predators.

The lead investigator on the hit TV reality series Hunted has revealed he had to “tap out” as a police officer while dealing with the stress of handling sex-crime cases.

In a hard-hitting interview with former Detective Inspector Gary Jubelin for his I Catch Killers podcast, retired Wodonga detective Graeme Simpfendorfer looks back on some of his biggest cases.

Now a Wodonga City councillor after retiring from the police a year ago, the former detective told how he struggled while working on child abuse cases.

“I had to tap out or I was going to do some bad things to some bad people,” he told the podcast.

Cr Simpfendorfer, who originally joined Victoria Police after being caught up in an armed robbery while working as a bank teller, became a homicide detective.

Graeme Simpfendorfer with Gary Jubelin. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

He said his “heroes” were the respected detectives Tim Day, Charlie Bezzina and Ron Iddles.

Discussing his lengthy career on the podcast, he said his time on the sex crimes squad proved challenging.

“I didn’t last long to be honest,” he said.

“I don’t think I got two years out. It just wasn’t for me. I’d be honest.

“And that work just wasn’t for me. I was frustrated by laws, frustrated by what actually goes before a court.

“What’s prejudicial to the accused — it just wasn’t for me. I was happy chasing your kidnappers, armed robbers, burglars, assaults.

“It was too much of a toll, especially with the kid stuff.”

Graeme Simpfendorfer has had a lengthy and varied career. Picture: AAP

During the interview, Cr Simpfendorfer called for an overhaul of the procedure for rape victims reporting crimes in Wodonga, agreeing with Jubelin that the police force was “under-resourced” and that “the amount of cases one detective is covering is ridiculous”.

He highlighted one case he worked on, where a rape victim had to endure a four-hour drive to Melbourne to undergo an examination despite the service being available in nearby Albury in NSW.

“So on the border, you have a rape victim that reports 72 hours to try and get your medical done,” he told the podcast.

“And there’s one in Albury, right? We can’t use it. We’ve got to travel to take the victim and sometimes, in one horrific case, we had to go to Melbourne.

“You’re trying to convince your victim to undergo an examination and report. This (alleged rapist) shouldn’t get away with it.

“But you’ve got to spend four hours in the car with me to go to Melbourne because we haven’t got our s**t together.”

Graeme Simpfendorfer sat down with Gary Jubelin for I Catch Killers podcast. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

Sex crimes, Cr Simpfendorfer said, were hard to prove as it was usually “one versus one”.

He agreed that it was hard for dedicated officers to “switch off” and told the podcast he eventually “had to tap out or I was going to do some bad things to some bad people”. ’

“You’re looking at the burden of proof of beyond reasonable doubt, it’s such a high bar, when you actually get into a courtroom at that level, for a rape charge or vulnerable victim,” he said.

“It’s just so sad to still see in 2022, that the laws around how evidence is given for a victim or a vulnerable victim, which is why they target in the first place, or a child.

“And we’ve seen a tactic is to delay, delay, delay, delay.

“Eventually, the victim or the other person will run out of steam and be too much for them. “And I think that’s a sad indictment on our society, that that’s where we’re at.”

Cr Simpfendorfer said the process “almost gives confidence to the offender” to re-offend.

Speaking of his time on Ten’s reality show Hunted, Cr Simpfendorfer described the series — which he said was not scripted — as “Australia’s Most Wanted meets The Amazing Race”.

The series featured contestants who are instructed to go on the run, while avoiding a team of Hunters composed of former and serving police, intelligence personnel, and on-foot teams

“I guess the benefit looking back at the experience, I’ve been asked this a number of times was what made it so good was that the reality of it, people thought it was scripted,” he said.

“Absolutely. We were never stopped at all to say hey, that’s not right.

“It was go from start to finish … it was go from the absolute start.

“And we were never stopped for absolutely anything. But we just didn’t want to lose. It was that Aussie way.”

Listen to the new episode on the I Catch Killers podcast here.

Originally published as Gary Jubelin ‘I Catch Killers’ Podcast: ‘Hunted’ show lead reflects on cases