Ricky Maddison’s friend tells how cop killer ‘changed’, and of events of fateful day

Ricky Maddison was an unwell, sad and “broken” man whose behaviour changed in the lead-up to him killing policeman Brett Forte, according to a friend who “fell apart” after hearing of his chess buddy’s death.

Cop killer Ricky Maddison’s behaviour changed in the lead-up to killing police officer Brett Forte and he was firing an automatic gun for months to attract attention, his best friend believes.

Sen Const Forte, a father of three, was gunned down by fugitive Maddison on May 29, 2017, after being led into an ambush on Wallers Rd in the Lockyer Valley.

Maddison was later killed by Special Emergency Response Team officers after a 20-hour siege in which he fired on police and the police helicopter.

Adam Byatt - who struck up his friendship with Maddison years earlier through chess games - said his friend had been living on his family’s property on Wallers Rd since January 2017.

Adam Byatt, centre, said his friend Ricky Maddison, pictured right, changed in the lead-up to the shooting. Mr Byatt often visited Maddison as he was living on Mr Byatt’s family’s property.

Maddison had been couch surfing because he had no money but didn’t want to admit he was broke, often too proud to accept money from friends.

He said Maddison was paying the Byatt family $100-150 a week to live on the 500-acre property which had a shed with a generator, cooktop stove and camp shower.

Locals had reported hearing automatic gunfire in the area and police in Gatton had been investigating while officers attached to the Toowoomba tactical crime squad were separately looking for Maddison.

Mr Byatt said he didn’t know Maddison had the gun or had been firing it but was now of the belief he had been doing so to attract attention.

“They’re a hot round, they make a big bang,” he said.

“It (gunfire) reverberates through that valley.”

In the week before the ambush with police, Mr Byatt took Maddison some food his mum had made. His friend had become “more and more forlorn” and was “broken”, he said.

“He was increasingly not good,” Mr Byatt said.

“But I was under the impression he had some sort of stomach cancer or stomach problem because he was really crook.

“He told me, I don’t know if it was in the weeks before … he said ‘I’m not getting treatment anymore’. Sometimes I’d show up there and he could barely move.”

Maddison had given up on his business and spent all of his money contesting a domestic violence matter in the courts, which was discontinued but then pursued again by police after another incident with the woman.

Mr Byatt said he brought around a salad to give to Maddison the last time he saw him.

“He said, ‘I’ll fire up the generator, we’ll have a game of chess, it’s a special occasion’,” Mr Byatt said.

“I’m like’ what the f**k is so special about it’? He said ‘because you’re here visiting me’.

Mr Byatt said he found the comment unusual.

“But I didn’t think anything of it at the time,” he said.

“We played a couple of games of chess and I said, ‘I’ve gotta go’.

“I think I had a bain marie in the car to drop off to a business. So I didn’t stay long.”

Adam Byatt said his chess buddy Ricky Maddison was a “broken” man, and said he fell apart when he heard over the radio that he had died. Picture: Nigel Hallett

Mr Byatt said he had no idea there was an arrest warrant out for Maddison and in his view he wasn’t “in hiding” as his key card was being used and the pair had also been to cafes in the region.

After hearing of a shooting in the area - but not realising Maddison was involved - Mr Byatt said he was arrested by police at a roadblock as he tried to drive to the family property.

“I drove down there thinking of giving them (police) a mud map of where to find Rick so they don’t go charging in and him thinking the wrong thing,” he said.

In Toowoomba he said police wanted to know how he contacted Maddison.

“And I said ‘well actually, I’ve got a phone down there that I let him use’ and I rang him off it. It just went straight to message,” Mr Byatt said.

His mother then phoned him while he was at the station.

“And I started to break down a little bit. And I said to her ‘look, you know, they’ve arrested me’ because mum didn’t know what was going on, hadn’t been able to contact me.

“And the guy that was sitting opposite, goes ‘no no no, assisting police’.

Mr Byatt said once he knew the situation, he knew there was nothing that could save Maddison.

“It’s nice to romanticise that idea,” he said.

“As soon as I knew what the magnitude of it was, a few things fell into place. I’m like, ‘he’s not coming out of this alive. He won’t allow it’.”

Ricky Maddison killed policeman Brett Forte.

Pictures: Supplied

After going back to the property following the shooting Mr Byatt said he believes his friend cooked a stew during the siege as it was sitting on the stovetop.

His friend would always clean up after a meal, he added.

Mr Byatt heard over the radio his friend had died, while he went to pick up his car that had been impounded.

“I was gutted, I tried to drive off,” he said.

“I fell apart. I had to pull off the road. I think I made it like a kilometre, had to pull over.

“The reality is it struck me really hard. It’s a conflicting issue, where, there’s my mate and then there’s what he did. And I see two separate things. And I don’t expect anybody else to.”

Police had an arrest warrant out for Maddison and had spent months trying to find him, searching areas including another local property.

The inquest into Sen Const Forte’s death heard that 11 days before the officer was shot, Mr Byatt approached a man outside the family’s Wallers Rd property - Senior Constable Andre Thaler - who told Mr Byatt he was going bird watching.

Throughout the inquest into Sen Const Forte’s death, his police officer partner Cath Nielsen and his wife Susie Forte, also a police officer, have said they were mistreated and lied to for asking questions about whether his death could have been prevented.

During the inquest, questions have been raised as to whether Brett’s colleagues were aware of reports of an automatic machine gun being fired in the vicinity of Wallers Rd before his murder and whether concerns could have been raised when Maddison led police down that same road.

Despite being referred to in the inquest as a bikie’s associate, Mr Byatt said the claim was untrue, and while he had previous drug-related convictions, he had been a successful businessman and had multiple weapons licences which required police permits.

Mr Byatt also revealed that two tactical crime squad officers went to his Toowoomba address just a day before the inquest date was announced.

The officers work in the same unit as police who have been questioned in the inquest as to whether they knew more about Maddison than they have acknowledged.

After Mr Byatt’s lawyer became involved and he offered to see local police on the Gold Coast, where he now lives, the Toowoomba crime squad later claimed there had been a “misunderstanding”.

Mr Byatt also informed the inquest of the incident but said it was not raised again with him.

“What got my hackles up about this was that about four weeks earlier, a person unknown to me, completely third party, started asking me some odd questions about my interaction with Andre Thaler,” he said.

“Susie Forte’s career is over and Cath Nielsen’s career is over.

“But the reality is, these two people who were completely innocent in it all when you really look at that event in isolation, are the two that are the most affected.

“And I’m no police advocate but those two people are innocent of any wrongdoing in relation to the moment the gun fired onwards,” he said.

Originally published as Ricky Maddison’s friend tells how cop killer ‘changed’, and of events of fateful day