Gary Jubelin - Badness

All dialogue and other direct speech in this book are taken from interviews conducted by the authors, publicly available records tendered during the relevant court proceedings or, in some instances, from the memory of those involved. In particular, the material described as having been captured on both authorised and unauthorised listening devices used to record Paul is taken from records tendered in the local court proceedings involving Gary Jubelin during February 2020.

Dan Box is a Walkley Awardwinning journalist who has worked for The Australian, as well as Londons Sunday Times and the BBC.

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First published in Australia in 2022

by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited

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Copyright GKJ Phoenix Pty Limited and Dan Box 2022

The right of Gary Jubelin and Dan Box to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.

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ISBN 978 1 4607 6053 6 (paperback)

ISBN 978 1 4607 1390 7 (ebook)

ISBN 978 1 4607 4273 0 (audiobook)

A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia

Cover design by Christine Armstrong, HarperCollins Design Studio

Cover images by shutterstock.com

For William Tyrrell

26.6.2011

Its not what they are doing to you, rather its why you have been chosen.

You cant win against the system by adhering to the rules chosen by the system.

So this moment in time is what you make of it.

Enjoy your day

Text message sent by Adam Watt before I gave evidence in the Supreme Court

I was a cop; he was a crook. Were not supposed to understand one another.

Its January 2020 and, only a year ago, Bernie Matthews was still shut in his cell, watching the sun set on his latest, decade-long, prison sentence. This time around, hed been jailed for selling drugs and guns. Previously, hed been inside, more than once, for armed robbery and escaping from prison. Around the same time January 2019 I was working out my last few days as a Homicide detective, unaware that I was the target of a criminal investigation by my employers, the New South Wales Police Force. The same force that had arrested Bernie.

Back then, if youd asked me who he was, Id have told you he was a hardcore crook. I was just a kid when Bernie first made headlines, escaping from Sydneys Long Bay prison, and the newspapers back then said he was dangerous and not to approach him. When I was in my teens, Bernie was again on the front pages: part of a group of inmates one paper called the brutes of Katingal. Katingal being the countrys first super-maximum security prison complex.

These brutes were so violent, according to the newspaper, that a fortress was needed to contain them. They could not be allowed to mix with other prisoners. And, as a cop, I would have agreed with that assessment; during his time in prison, Bernie tried to rip a guards throat out using his teeth, beat another inmate close to death for giving evidence against him, and tried to burn down one of the workshops with himself inside it.

In early 2019, I would have told you there was no place for men like Bernie in the world outside of prison. Today, experience has changed me.

I handed in my police badge and warrant card in July 2019, after being charged myself with criminal offences. The same month, Bernie was released from prison. Six months later, the two of us are meeting here as equals, sitting across the table from each other in an upmarket Sydney coffee shop, him drinking his hot chocolate, me with my green tea steaming in its cup. Im here on the recommendation of a mutual friend, who told me theres more depth to Bernie than the newspaper stories ever let on.

Also, Im here because Im curious about what it is like to sit down facing a crook like this. Watching him wipe the chocolate from his white moustache, I wonder if, maybe, Id been wrong about him. As a cop, Ive faced down many men like Bernie across the interview room table. Always, I was trying to catch them lying, or to snatch a confession from them. But this time, it is different. For a moment, the two of us just sit here, looking at the other. Its like looking in a mirror, I think. Nobody moves. Nobody speaks.

Bernie says he knows who I am, also. He knows some of the cases that I worked on, or at least he knew the people I was going after. Bernie was mates at school with Terry Falconer, he tells me. For years, I led the investigation after Terrys body was discovered, dismembered, his limbs and torso wrapped in plastic bags, floating in the Hastings River.

Bernies also seen me in the papers, he says, in the stories about my upcoming trial, which is due to start next month and where I will be the one accused of doing something criminal. The charges are four counts of illegally recording my conversations with a witness. To Bernies mind, he says, Im still a cop, whatever the court outcome.

This has never been done before, he growls. Where two of us from the opposite sides are sitting down and actually talking. He says the scene reminds him of the gangster movie Heat, where an armed robber played by Robert DeNiro is sitting in a diner, over coffee, facing Al Pacino, whos playing a career detective.

In the movie, you can tell the two men like each other. Each of them confesses something. Pacino talks about his failing marriage. DeNiro says a guy once told him to never let yourself get attached to something youre not prepared to walk out on.

I dont have anything else, says Pacino.

Neither do I.

I dont much want to either.

Neither do I.

Pacino says that now theyve sat there, face to face, if he had to put DeNiro away, he wont like it. But, as a cop, if he had to, if it meant saving another innocent life, then he would kill DeNiro.

DeNiro nods. He says there is a flip-side: What if he has to shoot Pacino?

Bernie looks straight at me and I know what hes thinking; what if he and I had come face to face with one another, back when we were working? As a young cop, I was part of the Armed Hold-Up Squad, set up to target crooks like Bernie. The squad got a reputation for shooting first and asking questions later. Bernie would have been a desperate man, ready to do anything to secure his freedom.

It would have been simple.

Now, everything is complicated. Bernie has done his time in prison. Hes going straight. A month from now, in February 2020, my trial will take place inside a confined, windowless Sydney courtroom. Two months after that, in April, the magistrate will deliver his judgment. Hell find my evidence is unbelievable. My actions were above and beyond legality. I will be disgraced. Found guilty on all four charges I am facing.