Bandali Debs gave crucial evidence in Silk-Miller trial but everyone called him a liar
He’s a liar and a four-time killer but Bandali Debs is also the only person who really knows if Jason Roberts killed two police.
Police & Courts
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Serial killer Bandali Michael Debs knows the answer to the most crucial question in the trial of Jason Roberts.
Was the teenager with him or not when two police officers were shot in the minutes past midnight on a bitterly cold morning in Moorabbin?
Debs was the prosecution’s most important, and riskiest, witness — called to tell the jury just that.
But his evidence may well have been crucial in the jury’s verdict to set Roberts free.
Debs, who was born Edmund Plancis, knows what happened at the shooting scene because he was there and he shot Sgt Gary Silk and Sen Constable Rodney Miller with his “big gun”, a .357 Magnum revolver.
But he would not admit to the callous murder of Sgt Silk, who was found with two different calibre bullets in his body – meaning he was shot with two different guns.
The big question the jury had to consider in the retrial of Roberts over the Silk-Miller murders was whether or not Debs was alone when the officers were ambushed on Cochranes Rd, Moorabbin about 12.15am on August 16, 1998.
If they were satisfied he wasn’t alone, then they needed to answer two more questions.
Was he with Roberts, his teenage armed-robbery partner? And lastly, did he participate in the Silk-Miller shooting murders?
The 68-year-old Debs had no hesitation in sinking Roberts.
The problem with Debs, though, is that he is a habitual liar.
Wearing a green bomber jacket, his glasses perched down his nose below his swept back thinning grey hair, it took about a minute for him to testify via video link from Goulburn prison he with Roberts when he took off from his home in Narre Warren in his daughter’s new hatchback bound for the Silky Emperor Chinese restaurant.
“Ever do armed robberies on your own?” prosecution barrister Ben Ihle QC asked Debs.
“You can’t do armed robberies on your own. You need a back-up in case something goes wrong.
“You need someone to tie people up. You can’t just go on your own.”
Mr Ihle QC then asked Debs: “At the time that car was pulled over do you know who was in it?
He answered: ``Um, myself and Jason Roberts.’’
Problems would, however, emerge in his story.
Debs explained that hours earlier he had loaded a pair of .357 Magnum handguns for himself and Roberts – dubbed “big guns” – before he claimed they discussed which restaurant they would do surveillance on that night.
Debs alleged they chose between the Bear House, a bistro in Cranbourne, and the Silky Emperor, a Chinese restaurant on Warrigal Rd, Moorabbin.
The older criminal got their equipment ready in the garage – taking out his attache case full of guns he had hidden in the wall cavity.
Debs testified he loaded the Magnum revolvers and prepared the clothes, duct tape, knives, a police radio scanner and masks for the job.
He even bragged he used “funny” masks, like a “Mr T” mask during his criminal career.
“We were ready for action, ready to go,” Debs said.
“The handguns were on our belts ready to go.”
Asked why he loaded the guns, he answered: “Just in case we could do a job.”
“You’re not going to with an empty gun. What for?,” he told the court.
“I’ve never heard of that in my life. I didn’t have any expectation (to use it). I didn’t know what was going to happen on the night.”
Debs maintained in his evidence they were heading to the Silky Emperor – a venue he knew the layout because he had done a tiling job there years earlier – just to “suss” it out.
“Let’s go,” he alleged Roberts told him before they headed along a back route through Endeavour Hills to the target restaurant.
What no-one knew, other than Victoria Police, was that more than 50 cops were staking out restaurants and other potential targets on this night, August 15, and into the morning of August 16.
The police members, in plain clothes, were sitting in undercover cars across Melbourne’s east and southeast as part of Operation Hamada.
They were waiting for the “Hamada” armed robbers to strike, again.
Both Debs and Roberts now concede they were the “Hamada” bandits who over the course of five months – from March to July, 1998 – committed 10 armed robberies, including stick ups at five Asian restaurants.
At the previous, and last, armed robbery the pair would commit at the Green Papaya restaurant in Surrey Hills on July 19, Debs had given the terrorised victims a final message for the cops: “Tell them Lucifer was here.”
On this ``surveillance” mission, close to the Silky Emperor’s closing time about midnight, Debs told the court nature called.
“Look, I was busting for a piss. So I said to Jason, I’m going to drive down the ramp and have a piss,” Debs said.
Whether Debs relieved himself or not, what is a fact is that the blue Hyundai he was driving was followed out of the car park by officers Silk and Miller in their unmarked Commodore.
“And when I went up the ramp another car put on the headlights and came after the Hyundai,” Debs said.
“Alls I seen is their lights.”
As the career criminal turned into Warrigal Rd and veered left again into Cochranes Rd, Debs alleged Roberts “scringed down” in the passenger seat as Silk and Miller activated their portable flashing blue light.
“He sunk in the seat. He just sunk in it,’’ Debs said of Roberts.
It is not known whether Sgt Silk or Sen Constable Miller could see inside the Hyundai as they pursued it from the Silky Emperor and into Cochranes Rd.
But despite Hamada operational instructions to do so, neither officer Silk or Miller radioed base station to alert them that they were pursuing a car and how many occupants were inside.
The version of events Debs said happened next would conflict with both the prosecution and the defence scenarios about how the fatal shootings of the policemen unfolded.
“The next thing that happened is that the big cop (Miller), he shone a torch into the car and said `Who’s the passenger?,” Debs said.
“I said, that’s Jase. We’re going to a club.”
Sgt Silk, he said, took down his details from his licence as a second undercover police car drove slowly by.
Its occupants were Sen Constables Darren Sherren and Francis Bendeich, who were paying attention to what was going on, just in case the Hamada armed robbers had fallen into their trap.
Officers Sherren and Bendeich have testified at two trials they only saw one suspect – the driver – who was with Sgt Silk while Sen Constable Miller took up a position at the rear of the Hyundai.
After parking in a side street where they could observe, officers Bendeich and Sherren saw Sgt Silk cut through the beams of the Hyundai’s headlights.
They assumed he was going to take down the registration.
Debs, however, testified Sgt Silk took Roberts from the passenger seat and guided him towards the Superfinish factory as Sen Constable Miller told him to open the rear hatch.
He said he complied by getting the keys.
“As I was walking, Miller’s got a torch in one hand and a gun in the other hand,’’ Debs told the court.
“I’m looking at him and can see the torch and the thing (gun) … I walk to the boot and I say I’ll open the boot for you.
“As I’ve opened the boot I’ve pulled my gun out and fired it twice and shot Miller.
“I fired straight through my cardigan. I didn’t even look at Miller. I just fired two shots.
“He was right behind me.”
Debs said he then heard shots from where he alleged Sgt Silk had isolated Roberts.
“Once I’ve fired there was shots where Silk and Roberts were and that’s what happened,” he said.
The father of five said he was “fuming” after the injured Miller returned fire, and, according to Debs, narrowly missed him as the bullet shattered the rear hatch window.
The court heard a gunbattle between Debs and officer Miller ended with the latter retreating, fatally wounded by a bullet that had pierced the left side of his chest and ran diagonally through his body, exiting his right hip area.
Debs’ version of the shooting — apart from testifying Roberts was with him on Cochranes Rd and shot Sgt Silk — did not cut it with prosecutor Ihle.
In the prosecution scenario, Roberts had initiated the shootout by firing a .38 bullet into Sgt Silk’s chest from no more than a couple of metres.
It sparked Senior Constable Miller, he said, to draw his .38 police issue revolver, firing shots at Roberts as Debs lunged for his Magnum and fired at Miller from the driver’s seat of the Hyundai, blasting shots through the car’s rear window
Miller, Ihle argued, changed direction firing towards Debs and hitting the Hyundai’s rear pillar before the police officer came under more fire.
In the extraordinary attack on his own witness, the prosecutor then accused Debs of minimising his involvement in the murders, putting to him that he shot Sgt Silk as he lay prone on the ground, which he described as a “callous” act.
“Do you agree that shooting someone in that state is a particularly low or callous act?” Mr Ihle asked Debs, who replied: “I agree with that.”
“I suggest you did that as he lay there on the grass,” Mr Ihle asserted.
“No I did not,” he answered.
“I suggest you are painting a picture which removes you from the callous acts on the night.”
Roberts’ barrister David Hallowes, QC, said the shootout could have unfolded another way. In this version Debs, acting alone, fires his .38 at Sgt Silk hitting him in the chest as he took the car’s registration details before a misfire.
Miller then returns fire and a shootout with Debs takes place as the career criminal fired his big gun, a .357 Magnum, out through the back window of the Hyundai, shattering the glass. Miller eventually retreats from the shootout, injured.
Debs was accused of then returning to where Sgt Silk lay and firing on him twice with the .357.
From officer Bendeich and Sherren’s vantage point across the road, more than 100m away, the jury heard they radioed in “shots fired, shots fired, Cochranes Road” over an encrypted digital channel before scrambling for their ballistic vests in the boot.
Officers Bendeich and Sherren watched the Hyundai Excel drive by west along Cochranes Rd and out of sight, leaving behind a trail of glass which would ultimately be matched to it.
They then drove towards the crime scene where they found Sgt Silk dead outside 156 Cochranes Rd, unaware of where Sen Constable Miller had gone.
Sen Constable Miller, by then, was staggering back to the Silky Emperor restaurant where he would wait for reinforcements to arrive.
Sgt Silk was shot three times, once to the chest with a .38 Webley & Scott, old English revolver, which probably did not kill him.
It was the .357 Magnum shots to his head and hip which were fatal, fired from the same gun used to shoot his police partner, a new father, who was 170m away and calling for help.
His cries would be heard by Sen Constable Colin Clarke, who had arrived at the shooting scene within minutes along with dozens of police.
Officers Clarke would run to his aid with new officer Bradley Gardner.
They were joined by others, including officers Glenn Pullin, Lou Gerardi, Helen Poke, Graeme Thwaite.
Up to a dozen officers comforted Sen Constable Miller as he struggled to breathe.
A few would hear him, in a staccato voice, utter what would become known as his “dying declaration”.
Officer Miller’s words would become the most scrutinised of this case.
“Two … one on foot.”
He never had a chance to elaborate on what he meant, dying in hospital from his injuries.
Debs is serving a life sentence with no parole over the police murders and the killings of two sex workers.
Although it was not known at the time he killed the officers, Debs had murdered before.
He killed 34-year-old Donna Hicks whose body was found outside a quarry in NSW in 1995 and 18-year-old Kristy Harty in 1997.
Debs had picked both the women up from the side of the road before shooting them in the head after sex.
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