‘The memory of Glen is always with me … it is the worst moment of my career.’

August 3 is date firmly etched in the mind of Northern Territory Police Commander Jamie O’Brien

Brevet Sergeant Glen Anthony Huitson was killed in the execution of his duty in Darwin on 3 August 1999.

August 3 is a date firmly etched in the mind of Northern Territory police Commander Jamie O’Brien.

Every year when it clicks around, Commander O’Brien pauses to remember his mentor and good mate — the late Brevet Sergeant Glen Huitson.

He also gives thanks to be alive.

This Saturday marks 20 years since he and Brevet Sergeant Huitson were ambushed by Rodney William Ansell, the Territory bushman who it has been claimed was the inspiration for Paul Hogan’s character in the 1986 film Crocodile Dundee.

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Rod Ansell catching buffs on his property at Malaluca station.

In 1987 Ansell was named Territorian of the Year.

Twelve years later he died as a drug-using killer with little love for police, who believed the freemasons were conspiring against him.

Commander O’Brien says he remembers as if it were yesterday the 1999 gunbattle that cost Brevet Sergeant Huitson his life at a Stuart Highway roadblock. The roadblock was a response to a shooting the night before in which Ansell wounded two men.

Police Commander Jamie O'Brien was just 26 years-old when he was caught in life or death decision when ambushed by bushman Rod Ansell in 1999.

“The memory of Glen is always with me … it is the worst moment of my career,” said Commander O’Brien, who on August 3, 1999, was a 26-year-old constable at Adelaide River. “We were talking to two motorists when Ansell’s first shot from the cover of the bush took down one of the civilians. His second bullet deflected off the police car door in such a way that it came back down, hitting Glen in the side and incapacitating him immediately.

“From there it was a survival situation with a severely injured civilian in the open, a police officer incapacitated, another civilian in a highly distressed situation and a well-trained person who was obviously committed to his cause of firing shots at us.

“When the TRG

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arrived Ansell turned his attention to them and exposed himself enough for me to get off a clear shot from my shotgun, which took him to ground.”

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Scene where Sgt Glen Huitson was gunned down by Rod Ansell

Ansell died about 10.50am at the scene. Brevet Sergeant Huitson died about 11.30am at the Accident and Emergency Department of the Royal Darwin Hospital.

“I think about Glen, you wonder what would have been, where he would’ve been these days working,” Commander O’Brien said. “It wouldn’t have been an office.”

The full story of that tragic day and how the life-changing chain of events unfolded is told in tomorrow’s NT News Weekend magazine