Readers of The Australian may know his story. Based in the Murray River town of Mildura, Ryan attempted to prosecute a prolific pedophile, Monsignor John Day. By the end of 1971, Denis had taken statements from 12 of Day’s victims and a statement from a motel owner who provided corroboration to one of the victim’s claims. It was more than sufficient for charges to be laid and for a prosecution to commence.
Instead, elements within VicPol buried the evidence. Denis was offered a promotion to run dead on the investigation. He refused it. Within a month, he was ostracised within the force, placed on general duties, and ordered not to leave Mildura.
Denis resigned from the Victoria Police in 1972, losing his pension and superannuation benefits. Offered numerous jobs by former police officers, he declined them all. Instead, he remained in Mildura agitating for the rights of victims of clerical pedophilia.
Courage comes in many forms. It is felt by many Australians under great pressure every day. Often, it is the courage to persist, to merely put one foot after the other. To do so for almost 50 years with the demons of anxiety and panic hovering daily is almost superhuman.
I first met Denis in 2011. I had been given an outline of his story from one of the great coppers in this country, the one and only Bryan Harding, who had risen to the ranks of Chief Superintendent with VicPol. Bryan should have become a Chief Commissioner and indeed he was groomed for the position until rough internal politics got in the way. Later Bryan would become Secretary of the Victoria Police Association.
Denis and I had a book deal with Allen and Unwin. Contracts had been signed and advance payments made. An author might be inclined to enjoy a little leisure time with no deadline looming but Denis was having none of that. He and his second wife, Norma, jumped in their car, pulling a caravan across the Hay Plain and drove to my country town, taking up residence at the local caravan park.
For the next 12 weeks, we worked on the first draft, six days a week, eight hours a day. The book would become known as Unholy Trinity, so named because Day was supported in his appalling behaviour by Denis’s direct boss, Detective Sergeant Jim Barritt and the senior office of the court in Mildura at the time, Clerk of the Courts, Joe Kearney. The three men ran Mildura like they owned it.
Denis’s life was a link to Australia’s rich social history. He was born in Sydney and grew up in Sans Souci, then a working class suburb. His father was badly wounded on the Western Front and returned home with a leg injury that would not heal. Denis spoke of the screams emanating from his father’s bedroom at every attempt to lance the wound. With his father unable to work, the family was plunged into poverty and received basic assistance from the local nuns. His mother was a Seventh Day Adventist but the nuns’ charity so impressed Denis that he became a Catholic.
His Roman Catholic faith was challenged but it never left him. While he refused to cross the threshold of Mildura’s Sacred Heart Church for many years, he remained friendly with a number of priests, including his old friend Fr Pat Mugavin who will lead the service in Mildura next week.
Denis was also a talented cricketer, an all rounder of the strangest type. We used to joke about the utility of being a leg-spinning wicketkeeper. As a teenager, he showcased his array of wrong-un’s, leg breaks and top spinners with St George while two Invincibles, Arthur Morris and Ray Lindwall plied their trade with bat and ball in the adjoining net.
Denis had a wiry, nimble frame. He was not a tall man. He knew he barely made the height requirements to become a Victoria Police officer but he fretted he might not make the weight. So, on the steps of the police academy with his assessment an hour away, Denis ate a pound of bananas. The scales tilted his way and he joined the force as a cadet.
Vindication came through the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in December 2015. I was there in the gallery at Melbourne’s County Court when Denis gave evidence. He read from his statement. Counsel for VicPol declined to cross examine. Denis rose from his seat to a round of applause. Finally, after 46 years he was believed.
A year later after receiving a formal apology from VicPol, Denis spoke before senior police and gave them a withering spray.
“My own circumstances have been distinctly grim since I left the force but as dark as some of those days have been, they have no parallel with those forced to endure the pain and suffering of sexual abuse. What makes it worse and haunts my dreams to this day, is that if we as a police force did what we were supposed to do, what we were charged to do, what we took an oath to do, so much of that pain and suffering would not exist today.”
It is impossible to disagree. Monsignor John Day’s many crimes against children went unpunished. Gerald Ridsdale had been lurking in Mildura in the late 1960s, abusing children with no sense or expectation of consequence. The length and breadth of the Ballarat Diocese, was infested with clerics who were abusers. The lesson of Denis’s forced removal from the job he loved meant that these crimes would continue. Hundreds of victims would have been spared a life of trauma had Ryan been supported by his superiors.
Also giving evidence at the Royal Commission was former Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police, Mick Miller. Miller had read Unholy Trinity and was aghast. Under oath, he told the Commissioners: “This entire episode was a shameful event in the history of the Victoria Police Force. It might well be remembered as a definite disincentive to others, confronted by a similar set of circumstances, to emulate former Senior Detective Denis Ryan’s peerless, principled performance of his sworn duty.”
Demons exorcised, Denis lived a simple life in Mildura with his third wife, Bev. I became something of a gatekeeper for him. Many wanted to meet him, be photographed with him and post the images on social media. Denis wasn’t interested in becoming a tourist attraction and I would politely but firmly decline requests on his behalf. Denis had done more than enough.
We spoke on the telephone often, our conversations dwelling on politics and sport. The tumultuous events of his life had fallen into the background. It had all been said and done. It was a privilege to know him and call him a mate. As I wrote in tribute earlier this week, Denis Ryan was quite simply the best man I have ever met.
Punctuation is endangered. Full stop.
Intimidated by the semicolon, the ellipsis, the fullstop? The world of punctuation is ever more complicated and difficult to navigate.
Why don’t the pro-Palestinians ever call for Hamas to surrender?
All wars are horrific. Hamas started this war with Israel, and can end it at any time by returning the hostages. Eventually, that’s what Germany did in 1945.
Former Victoria police detective Denis Ryan passed away on Tuesday after a brief illness. He was 93.