Former Victorian SOG officer Don Stokes will never forget the moment he stared into mass murderer Martin Bryant’s “crazy, lifeless eyes” as they took him down for the Port Arthur massacre, with the cold-blooded killer screaming revenge.
One of Australia’s leading counter terrorist operatives has been revealed as the secret agent stopping ISIS supporters and plotters from using Australian courts to combat moves to boot them out.
After years of being dubbed the “plastics” for not doing real police work, new AFP Commissioner Reece Kershaw says his top cops will outsmart serious, organised crims and hit them where it hurts as he shakes up the federal agency.
At just 21, off-duty police officer Michael Pratt didn’t think twice about thwarting a trio of armed bandits as they entered a Clifton Hill bank, ramming his Mazda at the doors and earning himself a bullet in the back and a bravery medal in the process.
IT’S been 45 years since the Whiskey Au Go Go firebombing in Brisbane and the man convicted of killing 15 people appears to be living a simple life in an English country town.
ORGANISED crime groups are sending out shopping list requests for Australian wildlife to be smuggled to buyers overseas in an alarming escalation in the racket.
DONNA Naylor has learned that reality and horror movies aren’t so different from each other … “but for me life is worth living, even if it means cleaning up after the dead”.
SHE had no name, no suspect and no forensic evidence, just the knowledge of the terrible harm a serial paedophile had caused 30 years before. Three years of painstaking “old fashion detective work” later, she found him.
HE was a troubled businessman, she was a former prostitute, her lover was a callous killer. Shyam “Sam’’ Dhody met a brutal end, found dead in his bed after a horrific execution-style murder that had Gold Coast detectives baffled.
HE was one of Australia’s most wanted men, with a daring prison escape and multiple robberies on his rap sheet. But Greg Smith turned his fugitive years into an international bestseller, with Johnny Depp set to play Smith. NEW PODCAST — LISTEN NOW.
HE jokes about police attempts to link him to a string of crimes — but when his name came up in connection with notorious drugs kingpin James Kinch even Roger Rogerson admitted: “It’s an amazing story.”
THE Gold Coast has long been the backdrop for disputes between rival outlaw motorcycle gangs, but rarely have these arguments spilt into the public sphere. All that changed in 2006 when a violent public confrontation between bikies set plans in motion to have the city’s gangs completely dismantled.
IT started with needles found in strawberries packed by two brands. It’s exploded to more than 100 incidents of ‘spiked’ fruit. Has the uproar inspired a wave of ‘copycats’?
IF you ask any long-serving Gold Coast cop what their worst day on the job has been, they’ll answer May 29, 2011. The day when one of their own — a young father and a good mate — was cruelly gunned down in a brazen tavern robbery.
Original URL: https://www.ntnews.com.au/truecrimeaustralia/behindthescenes/page/43