The Ballarat search

[pmccarthy]

When the woman went missing we were in our caravan and out of phone coverage. I went to some trouble to get onto the police website to say that I know the area well and I would be looking along Skirkas Road Buninyong where there are hidden mine shafts. This morning I read that the police focus is now in Skirkas road! I don’t understand how they can have the perp but not the body. I guess they don’t use phone books any more.

[old man emu]

At the moment the accused person has declined to answer the question, "Where's the body?". If the answer was "I don't know", that could be either true because of innocence, or a lie to avoid admitting guilt. Obviously, if the location was given, that's a confession of at least involvement in the death.

 

41 minutes ago, pmccarthy said:

I guess they don’t use phone books any more.

Took me a few minutes to get the inference. Cunning!

[spenaroo]

unlikely they ever will unfortunately.
the undesirable person probably thinks they will get off as long as its never found.

from the killers perspective there is no benefit in giving that information sadly.

[old man emu]

13 minutes ago, spenaroo said:

the undesirable person probably thinks they will get off as long as its never found

A false assumption by the accused. Look at all the long-running investigations that police conduct having a strong assurance that the suspect did the act, but police cannot charge because they don't have evidence 'beyond reasonable doubt'. In the Ballarat matter, the fact that the accused has been charged indicates that police know they haven't got it wrong. The accused's failure to make this admission of guilt sometimes is an indication of the accused's desire to appear in control of the situation to mock Society.

[onetrack]

I saw where a coroner has recommended that VicPol should be acquiring cadaver dogs. They had a dog branch between 2004 and 2008 apparently, but disbanded it. I would consider a dog division vital to any police force.

 

I find it hard to believe how VicPol have put minimal effort from Day One into finding out what happened to Samantha Murphy - and how they put so little effort into finding the perpetrator of the womans unprovoked bashing in the same area a couple of years ago. They'll no doubt wait for 20 years, then declare they have an important cold case to solve - long after all the evidence has been lost, witnesses died, or memories have become fuzzy.

 

I thought the W.A. Police were largely incompetent, it look like VicPol are gaining on them. We have something like 18 unsolved murders of women here, some over 50 years old, and WAPOL just recently called for witnesses to these crimes to come forward. FFS!! Anyone possibly involved, either as associates or witnesses, would be on their deathbeds. The worst case here is the unsolved murder of Corryn Rayney. Her hubby is the prime suspect, but they can't pin anything on him, obviously because he hired a hitman. The hubby and a computer whizz destroyed a lot of recorded evidence, but got away with it.

It took WAPOL over 20 years to nail the Claremont serial killer, but they had all the evidence in front of them all the time, they were just led by a bunch of incompetent idiots who couldn't track elephants through snow.

 

Edited March 20 by onetrack

[old man emu]

I've long had the opinion that the Victoria Police are held in low regard by Victorians. It's an impression I got while doing traffic law enforcement on the Hume Highway in NSW. The truckies seemed, at worst, to be pretty neutral in their interactions, what we used to call passing the "attitude test". That response was obviously dependent on each particular constable's approach, but even Statewide, NSW people seemed to lack a dislike for police. No doubt there were pockets of dislike, mainly due to the societal mores of certain socio-economic levels which had more frequent conflicting interactions with police. Not to say that there were not some police who acted counter the the desired morality of a policing body. 

 

Perhaps the impression Victorians have of their police is a tribal memory of things that happened on the goldfields.

[spenaroo]

Nah,

 

I was pro-police, having a strong family connection (great, great, great grandfather arrived in Australia under commission of the king to head up the police force - his portrait is in the vic police academy.

great grandfather was awarded for defusing an armed robbery - while unarmed. and have several uncles who served)
 

but my illusion was shattered when I had a motorcycle accident.

as i was loaded into an ambulance I heard to officer on the scene exclaim "what, no F*%king fatalities"

this was later worsened when I called to get the indecent report for insurance.
where i was told by the same officer that there was none - as no one was injured (i had a spinal fracture) and if he had to write one he would make me at fault for speeding.
(i pointed out the truck blew past a stop sign causing the indecent - and his response was he didn't care, he'd find me responsible regardless)

 

 

spoke about it a month later with one of my uncles on the force - he basically said that the reality is its a job, and so many are in it to do the bare minimum like any other job.
its why they have such a large funding for settling claims of wrongful treatment.

when I was younger and looking at a career path the police force was very seriously considered (still feel drawn to it) but this uncle had a good in depth chat, where he explained it didn't align with my morals and sense of doing the right thing. and I wouldn't be able to deal with the culture needed to be successful and further the career.

still remember him saying there is two types of police officers - those who seek to help the people, and those who seek to use authority over people
(think his words were those who want to help the community, and those who go out to book people)
 

Edited March 21 by spenaroo

[red750]

My youngest brother spent his life as a member of Vicpol. Was a detective in the Homicide Squad, nabbed a couple of murderers, worked in the Drug Squad - grew a beard to act undercover - earned an Order of Australia for victim identification work after the Aceh (Indonesia) tsunami in 2004, earned the Police Service Medal, retired as Detective Superintendent. 

[facthunter]

In this Ballarat issue I thought the Police showed a great empathy with the relatives and friends of the victim and the people of Ballarat.  Nev

[old man emu]

23 minutes ago, facthunter said:

In this Ballarat issue I thought the Police showed a great empathy with the relatives and friends of the victim and the people of Ballarat.  Nev

Country people, country coppers.

[spenaroo]

1 hour ago, red750 said:

My youngest brother spent his life as a member of Vicpol. Was a detective in the Homicide Squad, nabbed a couple of murderers, worked in the Drug Squad - grew a beard to act undercover - earned an Order of Australia for victim identification work after the Aceh (Indonesia) tsunami in 2004, earned the Police Service Medal, retired as Detective Superintendent. 

probably knows my other uncle. who had a very similar career path. though think he ended up in internal investigations before retiring

there is a story about my father and another of his brothers giving him crap about a silver buckles on his boots.
then quietly when they were the only ones in the room he lifted the pants leg to show the buckles weren't on the boots but on the ankle holster.

I know there is good cops out there, I just don't expect the officer I'm dealing with to be one until proven now.
 

[facthunter]

The kids they gave a hard time to, grow up and remember how they were treated.. What happened to "My Friend . The Policeman"?  Nev

[old man emu]

7 minutes ago, facthunter said:

What happened to "My Friend . The Policeman"? 

The Americans made sure that police were always depicted in a bad way, from incompetence to sadism. Then the Americans exported those depictions in the various visual media.

[spacesailor]

To be honest, 

I find the " revenue " police person " is not our " local Bobbie " .

spacesailor

 

[facthunter]

They used to do school visits in NSW.  Using that saying.. Public Relations. Nev

[Marty_d]

They don't help themselves much sometimes.  Check out the vision from these bodycams and tell me if that's a reasonable level of community policing.

 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-18/how-proactive-policing-quotas-sent-nsw-police-searches-soaring/103579210

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

No.. They don't. We have a similar problem here and the police have had to tone it down a bit..

12 hours ago, pmccarthy said:

When the woman went missing we were in our caravan and out of phone coverage. I went to some trouble to get onto the police website to say that I know the area well and I would be looking along Skirkas Road Buninyong where there are hidden mine shafts. This morning I read that the police focus is now in Skirkas road! I don’t understand how they can have the perp but not the body. I guess they don’t use phone books any more.

I hear what you are saying re the ifnromation to the police. We had a situation where two girls went missing quite a few years ago. Sadly, their bodies were found a week or so later (here is a story of a dramatisation of the event: https://www.walesonline.co.uk/lifestyle/tv/channel-5-maxine-carr-huntley-23335844). The school caretaker and his girlfriend abducted the two. What transpired is that on either the day itself or the next day, a report came in from the public of a car rapidly leaving the area with two adults and two young girls, and it looked like the two young girrls were struggling with the adults in the car. The problem was, so many people came forward with ultimately irrelevant information that by the time they sifted through it all, they got to that tip off a couple of days later. It could have been the difference between life and death for the girls - we will never know.

 

At the time, the police defended it based on the fact all leads have to be followed.. but at the end of the day, and this is a question for OME, if there is a lot of intelligence coming from the public, isn't there a process to quickly evaluate its likely effectivness? It could be there was too much coming in even for simple evaluation in time, I guess. This sounds like to could be a good fit for AI

Edited March 21 by Jerry_Atrick

[pmccarthy]

My uncle was a policeman and I remember him as a kind and gentle man. I don’t think he was much promoted.

[old man emu]

2 hours ago, Jerry_Atrick said:

if there is a lot of intelligence coming from the public, isn't there a process to quickly evaluate its likely effectivness?

You have to remember that police numbers are not infinite. I think that the patrol I worked in had about 50 police attached to it. That was to provide 24/7 policing. From those numbers you had to fill the shifts for General Duties, Station operations, Detectives, supervisions, court attendance, sick leave, annual leave and off-duty days. I don't think that there were more than six detectives attached to my patrol so while reams of information might flow in, there is never enough bodies to allocate to sorting through it.

 

Once again the media presents to the public the idea that large numbers of police can be called to action at the drop of a hat. Just think of the time delay you would encounter if you texted all your friends to invite them to a free bar-b-que with unlimited grog that was to be held in a few hours' time. It would take the attendees a while to converge on your hotplate. When you see large numbers of police engaged in a search of bushland, it has been quite some time since the receipt of the initial call for a response. The big search parties of police and volunteers at Ballarat did not form until a few days later.

[spenaroo]

Interesting NSW has a no body, no parole law.
wonder if it should be widespread

[old man emu]

1 hour ago, spenaroo said:

Interesting NSW has a no body, no parole law. wonder if it should be widespread

It worries me that a person can be convicted of murder when the prime evidence of the victim's death is not presented to the Court. The Prosecution can hand up all sorts of surrounding evidence that might implicate the accused, but without the body you can't nail the surrounding evidence to the death. Very pinpricky, I know, but modern forensic pathology can hammer in the nail, if the body is available. Without the surrounding evidence being nailed to the death, there remains the accused's saying "I didn't do it" to be disproved by the prosecution.

 

Let's look at a common situation portrayed in police procedural dramas. Person A dies by stab wound. The knife and body are recovered. Police believe that proving Person B did it is a lay down misere. Then the pathologist tells the police that the person who inflicted the wounds was left-handed and Person B is right-handed. Without the body, Person B would most likely be convicted.

[facthunter]

"Beyond reasonable doubt" is the test  In the USA. There's large numbers of innocent's convicted who are later exonerated by DNA or such. Too bad if they have already been electrocuted. Good reason NOT to have the death sentence. State sponsored Murder.  Nev

Edited March 22 by facthunter

[old man emu]

Beyond reasonable doubt appears to have first come into use during treason trials in Dublin in 1798, so it is a construct of English law.   It means that the evidence presented in court must be so strong and convincing that there is no other logical explanation for the events in question. Since the words used to express the concept are from over two hundred years ago, and words can change their meaning, judges are advised to explain the phrase as something like "It’s actually just a fancy way of saying really, really sure.”

[willedoo]

really, really sure doesn't sound as flash as beyond reasonable doubt.

[old man emu]

No, but it is better understood by twelve good persons, and true who have sat on hard benches for a week or so listening to people speak with words not generally heard outside the school gate at pick-up time, or on the sidelines on Saturday mornings.