0:00

A Warning. This

0:06

episode contains graphic descriptions

0:08

of child sexual abuse.

0:11

If this content affects you, the number for Lifeline

0:14

is 13 11 14. G'day,

0:24

I'm former Police Officer Brent

0:26

Sanders. And for

0:29

the past 25 years, I've

0:31

dedicated myself to sharing what I've learnt

0:33

on the force to the

0:35

Australian public so they can

0:37

better protect themselves from falling victim

0:39

to crime. So

0:42

with the help of some of

0:44

the most respected current and former

0:46

detectives and high ranking law enforcement

0:48

agents, I'm going to pull back

0:50

the curtain on what life is

0:52

like on the force and what

0:54

they've learned about how crime and

0:56

criminals really work. These

1:00

are real stories from

1:03

real detectives. This

1:06

week, a detective who

1:08

uncovered the horrific offending of

1:10

a fellow Queensland Police Officer.

1:15

Brett Lee is a 22 year

1:17

veteran of the Queensland Police Force.

1:20

Sixteen of those spent as a

1:22

detective in the field of child

1:24

exploitation. We'll

1:27

hear about a number of intense

1:29

operations, but to start, we're

1:32

going back to a case that rocked

1:34

Brett and much of the force.

1:38

An officer he worked with as a

1:40

constable has just been flagged as a

1:43

potential sex offender. And

1:45

Brett is now tasked with leading

1:48

the investigation. Unbeknownst

1:54

to me when I was a

1:56

young uniform police officer at

1:58

a small regional office, I

2:02

worked with this guy for a

2:04

few shifts and I never

2:06

thought about it at the time but many years

2:08

later I always remembered some of

2:10

the conversations he was having. He

2:12

was having conversations of a, talking

2:15

about a perverse sexual nature in relation to

2:17

him and other people and I later

2:19

thought that was really strange what he

2:22

was talking about and unbeknownst to me when

2:24

I would go home after

2:26

the shift he was

2:28

going and executing an

2:31

incredibly sophisticated and

2:34

ongoing criminal ruse

2:36

against people who were in his

2:38

life who were part of a

2:41

very, very fundamental Christian

2:44

organisation. So for a

2:46

period of 20 years he

2:49

was committing this ruse against members

2:51

primarily of his family but also

2:53

part of this fundamental Christian organisation

2:55

that he was part of as

2:58

well. He was a police

3:00

officer throughout that whole time, that 20 years

3:02

while he was also involved within that Christian

3:04

organisation. Absolutely went

3:06

totally undetected. What

3:09

he was doing, he was preying upon

3:11

the naivety and the innocence of people

3:13

who were part of this Christian organisation.

3:16

He was perpetrating ruses whereby

3:19

he made the victims believe that he

3:21

was part of a secret undercover organisation

3:26

that was established to shut

3:28

down paedophile rings. There

3:30

was another one where he instructed young

3:32

people, I can say under 18 years

3:35

of age, to get naked and

3:37

he photographed them. Now

3:39

the interesting thing about this case is

3:41

that it was all based around

3:43

his sexual perversion and control. He

3:46

never touched a victim himself. He

3:49

just instructed them to do

3:51

these bizarre acts,

3:53

not only the instructions to help

3:56

him catch the paedophiles but also

3:58

bizarre sexual acts. that

4:00

would have to be one of the

4:03

strangest cases that I have ever been

4:05

involved with. Just

4:07

to backtrack on that Brett, the

4:09

information that you got to start

4:11

this investigation, it came from his

4:13

wife who obviously

4:16

at some point discovered that there was

4:18

some things going on which

4:20

then leads in your role

4:22

to start to investigate this individual. How

4:25

does that unfold? Like what are

4:27

the dynamics of you working in

4:30

Crime Misconduct Commission, receiving that information

4:32

and then putting in place an investigation

4:35

which ends up with you gathering

4:37

the information. How does that unfold?

4:40

We gathered all the different people

4:42

who may have been connected, other

4:44

parishioners, other witnesses or potential victims

4:47

and then we just started interviewing and

4:50

getting statements from everyone that was

4:52

involved. We started photographing potential

4:55

crime scenes. We started

4:57

getting a list of all the exhibits

4:59

together and the exhibits that we wanted

5:01

to find. So that's how the

5:03

investigation sort of started by gathering

5:06

evidence from witnesses. When

5:10

you're investigating these crimes, these offences, you're

5:12

interviewing these people, is this

5:14

individual, this offender, this police officer, is

5:16

he still actively involved in carrying

5:18

out this behaviour in conduct or is it

5:20

something that had happened in the past and

5:22

finished or was it still ongoing as you're

5:24

investigating it? As

5:27

soon as the investigation started, of

5:29

course superior officers are notified, particularly

5:31

because the police officers involved. He

5:34

was suspended pending

5:37

the investigation. So he knew the investigation

5:39

was going. Yeah so

5:41

he was suspended from active duty. Of

5:43

course he's a threat, he's a risk,

5:45

potentially at that stage.

5:48

So he was suspended while the

5:50

investigation was being conducted.

5:53

And I would imagine that anybody that

5:55

has with him the capacity to have

5:57

the sort of control over those photos.

6:00

those parishioners, members of that church, to

6:02

have those women do the things that they did, he

6:05

would have also exercised a fair bit of control over

6:07

those that you are wanting to speak to in interviews.

6:09

So there would have been a little bit of a

6:12

cone of silence that fell upon many of

6:14

those folks I'd imagine. They, you know, similar

6:16

to investigations into be at the Catholic Church

6:18

or any others, there's a sort of a,

6:21

there's a lot of sort of shielding information

6:23

from police investigation, isn't there? The

6:26

nature of the offences, Paul,

6:28

I can understand for a lot of people would

6:30

be embarrassing. But as soon as the church became

6:32

aware of this, he was excommunicated

6:34

from the church. And

6:36

of course, he was instructed not to contact

6:38

anybody. And we found that people were, they

6:41

were quite open. I

6:43

think they felt relieved that finally someone,

6:46

they all sort of were carrying the burden

6:48

themselves. And I think that finally it was

6:50

being looked into, that something was being done

6:52

about it. So of course, during

6:55

that period, we executed a search warrant

6:57

on his house as well looking for

6:59

evidence. We found so many things that

7:01

were mentioned by witnesses in his home.

7:04

It was very hard to balance it, protecting

7:07

the health and well-being of witnesses, gathering the

7:09

evidence, making sure it's going to be admissible

7:11

in a court of law, making

7:14

sure that obviously he doesn't interfere

7:16

with potential witnesses or complainants. So

7:19

it was quite a delicate balance. But I think

7:21

that this has been

7:23

conducted through the Crime and Misconduct Commission.

7:25

So they do have extra powers. Senior

7:29

officers there had a direct involvement

7:31

in this case. The

7:34

detective inspector who was, if

7:37

I can say my partner in this, she

7:40

addressed the board of the church that

7:42

he was involved in. And she was

7:45

the first female to

7:47

ever have addressed the board of

7:49

that church ever.

7:52

So they were very fundamental and it

7:54

was very male driven. And I think

7:56

that's why he had a fair bit

7:58

of control over particularly female. emails

8:02

from that church. These were

8:04

people who were very naive. But

8:07

in summing up, I don't

8:09

know whether it was the prosecutor or the

8:11

judge said, you've preyed upon people who have

8:13

a right to be innocent,

8:16

to live their lives without hurting anybody

8:18

else. You've taken advantage of that. You've

8:20

abused that trust. Interesting.

8:23

Also, the connection between yourself

8:26

and this individual. I mean, there

8:28

are thousands and thousands of police

8:30

in the Queensland Police. For

8:32

you to be investigating somebody that not only

8:34

did you have a connection with,

8:36

may have worked alongside on section or something such

8:38

as that, but always had that strange

8:41

sort of feeling about this bloke that

8:43

things weren't quite right. Was what he

8:45

was saying just bravado? Was there more

8:47

to it? And here we are. Everything's

8:49

sort of gone full circle and you're

8:51

heading up an investigation against him. You

8:55

know, Brent, it's funny to say that I

8:57

never liked him. It's

9:00

easy for me to say that now, but

9:02

I never liked him. Now, no dispersions

9:04

on police who work in

9:06

traffic branch, but he was

9:08

very drawn to traffic branch and he

9:10

was someone who was not very personable

9:12

with people. And he would intentionally

9:15

try and rile people up

9:17

to have that control, to

9:19

stand over people. And

9:21

a lot of the police I worked with, they

9:23

didn't like him either. And he didn't

9:26

have many friends. So it all started

9:28

to fall into place, but you're right. How, you

9:30

know, there's a lot of police, a lot of

9:32

water goes under the bridge. And how ironic that,

9:35

you know, I spent a couple of

9:37

shifts as a young constable. I

9:39

really don't believe he remembered me. I

9:41

don't think he even knew who I was when

9:43

we executed the search warrant and ended up

9:46

arresting him. But yeah, how

9:48

that you're right. It just came back

9:50

full circle and it

9:52

was ironic. Yeah. The

9:55

crime misconduct commission, is that

9:57

purely investigating criminal misconduct of

10:00

serving officers of police or is it a broader scope?

10:03

No, look what it is now it's the

10:05

Crime and Misconduct Commission so there's two arms

10:07

to it one is crime and

10:10

they investigate organized and

10:12

serious crime and the pedophilia. The

10:16

other arm is misconduct which

10:18

investigates to my best knowledge because

10:20

I didn't work in that arm

10:22

they investigate police but also government

10:24

departments as well so it's

10:26

government officers that they are investigating. Was

10:30

this the first time and perhaps

10:32

the one and only time Brett

10:34

that you were investigating what

10:36

I guess is clearly a fellow officer even

10:39

though he's not one that you that you warned

10:41

to or had a connection with. Was

10:43

this the first time you found yourself

10:45

investigating a police officer? Absolutely

10:48

and when the complaint was initially made

10:52

you know I was in the process

10:55

of coming from the child and sexual assault unit so

10:57

that's where it was initially made and

10:59

you know at first I'm glad

11:01

you asked that question because at

11:04

first it really started to make me think this

11:06

is a fellow police officer I have

11:08

never done this before and sometimes

11:10

there can be this underlying code that

11:12

you know you look

11:15

after your own so I did

11:17

think about that as soon as

11:20

I started talking to those complainants I thought

11:22

well this is someone that

11:24

shouldn't have my sympathy this is someone

11:26

that shouldn't have my protection they're making

11:28

the job harder for everybody else

11:31

you know eroding away trust

11:33

that law enforcement works

11:35

very hard to

11:37

keep and expand on so you

11:40

know what after I got into it I

11:43

had no problems whatsoever how it was perceived

11:45

by others I really don't care. So

11:47

he was obviously prosecuted

11:50

criminally went went to court you

11:52

mentioned earlier about the the judges

11:54

summations can I ask him do

11:56

you recall there would have

11:58

been a range of charges multiple offences.

12:00

What was the final, did he do a

12:02

custodial sentence? What sort of happened in the

12:04

end of that? Yeah, I mean

12:07

he was charged with, as he said, a range

12:09

of offences and it wasn't only me that decided

12:11

which ones I charged him with. It was, you

12:14

know, we had legal officers as well and,

12:16

you know, offences like false pretenses,

12:18

assault, bodily harm,

12:20

misappropriation, aggravated assault,

12:23

fraud. So a whole

12:25

range of different offences that some

12:27

of them normally don't go together. But

12:30

he faced all of them and

12:32

yes, he faced a custodial sentence.

12:35

The thing is he didn't plead guilty to any of

12:37

it. He pleaded not guilty. He took it all

12:40

the way and made all those witnesses testify. And

12:42

I think that's why he got a bit longer than

12:44

he would have got had he just said,

12:47

you know, it was me and

12:49

pleaded guilty. Brett,

13:06

I can take you to, if I could, around

13:08

2005 or thereabouts, you're working in the area

13:12

of child sex crimes, child exploitation.

13:15

When you virtually took on the role of

13:18

a 12-year-old boy, can

13:21

you discuss that case with us

13:23

and your involvement in it? Yeah,

13:26

well, my primary function in that unit

13:29

was to create fictitious identities or fake

13:31

identities of Australian children, of course not

13:33

real children. And then to

13:35

go out on the internet, not

13:37

go and hunt people down, but to go where young

13:40

people would go online and behave like a young person.

13:43

Then it was my role to

13:45

identify people who I may

13:48

have thought could be a threat to children. They were

13:50

there for the wrong reasons. They were looking to abuse

13:52

children. So

13:55

that was my job. And then

13:57

it was to glean evidence when

13:59

I committed communicated with that person

14:01

that may have constituted a criminal

14:03

offense. We then obviously, you

14:05

know, locate that person and they would

14:07

be arrested. That's the short story. So

14:09

I did that for thousands and thousands

14:11

of hours and I

14:13

arrested many, many online predators

14:16

and they were all slightly different. They

14:18

were the ones who were looking for

14:20

children, but also the opportunists. So the

14:23

one who weren't, people who weren't so much looking

14:25

to harm a child, but if they were presented

14:27

with the child online, that they would act on

14:29

that, whether it was virtual online or whether it

14:31

was a combination of online and then want to

14:33

meet in the physical world. And I think most

14:35

of your listeners would have heard where police go

14:37

on the internet. They pretend to be kids and,

14:40

you know, they catch child

14:42

predators on the internet. So that

14:44

was my job in essence. What

14:47

we hadn't done because

14:49

we observed and it is

14:52

statistics, the vast majority of

14:54

young people who get sexually abused of females.

14:57

The biggest majority of offenders are males.

15:00

So quite often that's what

15:02

we would focus on. But

15:05

on this one occasion, I assume the identity

15:07

of a 12 year old boy who

15:10

lived on the Sunshine Coast in

15:13

Queensland, totally fictional. I

15:15

was online as that 12 year old boy, that

15:18

persona, and I was playing a

15:20

game on the internet and

15:23

I was approached by a 15 year

15:25

old young man online.

15:27

He started playing the game and communicating with

15:29

me. He introduced

15:32

me online to

15:34

an adult who was a friend of his and

15:36

it was an adult man. And he said, I'm

15:38

an adult man. He disclosed that a lot of

15:40

predators, of course, assume to be children themselves. And

15:44

then he started communicating and this

15:46

went on for a period of a couple weeks.

15:49

I call this type of predator the

15:52

slow patient groomer. They're speedy

15:54

predators, but this guy was

15:56

a slow patient groomer. And what he started

15:58

to do was to sensitize me to

16:01

sexuality and to things

16:03

of a sexual nature. And he did this through

16:06

a 15 year old identity

16:09

online, which we always believe and

16:11

we still do we couldn't prove

16:13

this was him pretending to

16:15

be the 15 year old to

16:18

give himself credibility there and then

16:21

introduces to his real self. Now

16:24

I sort of worked out through my

16:26

experience the only reason that

16:28

this adult man would want me to know that

16:30

he's an adult man and that's who he is

16:33

is because his ultimate goal

16:35

was to meet me physically face to

16:37

face in the physical world. Otherwise he

16:39

would have just pretended to be a

16:41

young person himself. So

16:43

he started talking to me about

16:45

things of a sexual nature in

16:47

relation to homosexuality. He

16:52

started off by well after a couple

16:54

of weeks he started he distributed a started

16:57

to distribute images showing

17:00

adult men engaged in sexual

17:03

acts. It then

17:05

progressed to exposing me

17:07

to images of

17:09

adult men with sexual activity in

17:12

relation to children, child abuse. After

17:16

a while we got all the information we need we

17:18

knew exactly who he was. But

17:21

what he'd done he wanted to arrange

17:24

a meeting. He said he was

17:26

prepared to fly up to Queensland and this

17:29

is going over a period of weeks where

17:31

he has slowly chipped away to desensitise what

17:33

he believed was a child. He

17:36

did it very slowly and very

17:38

methodically and very believably. So

17:41

he arranged to come up to Queensland. He was

17:43

going to meet me. We then discovered that he

17:46

may have had access to children. As

17:50

you probably worked out he was in another

17:52

state so we decided to close the operation

17:54

down and remove him from the public. So

17:57

we got all our paperwork together.

18:00

which was quite extensive because we

18:02

were crossing our jurisdiction, Queensland, into

18:04

another jurisdiction, New South Wales. So

18:07

we travelled down to New South Wales, we worked

18:09

with the local police, the CIB, Criminal

18:12

Investigation Branch, and we went to his workplace and

18:14

he was arrested. We executed

18:16

search warrants on his house, got all of his

18:18

devices and we found multiple evidence

18:20

on his devices that established he was the

18:22

person I was talking to. So

18:26

the reason we wanted to close that quick

18:28

is he then started to indicate he had

18:31

access to actual children so we couldn't let

18:33

that continue. Why this

18:35

case was interesting, it was the first

18:37

one, certainly for our office, and

18:39

it was the first one that I know of, maybe

18:41

I'm wrong, but it's the first one I know of,

18:44

where we extradited somebody from

18:47

another state to Queensland to face

18:49

these charges. Now

18:51

what's interesting about that is

18:53

that he didn't come into Queensland to

18:55

commit those offences, but

18:58

he used the telecommunication lines,

19:00

the internet, to come into Queensland.

19:03

So it was one of the first ones, and

19:05

when we went to court in New

19:08

South Wales first, I don't

19:10

think the magistrate and even

19:12

the prosecutor really understood where they were

19:14

standing in relation to this. This

19:17

was quite a while ago, the laws have really evolved

19:21

in that law enforcement is starting to

19:23

appreciate the nature of technology. I mean

19:25

before technology came along, law

19:27

enforcement, you would know, Brent, nearly better than

19:29

me, that it was very jurisdictional.

19:33

If I wanted as a Queensland police officer to go to New

19:35

South Wales, I'm not licensed to carry a gun there so I

19:37

can't even really go across the border. If

19:40

I want to bring somebody back to Queensland, the commissioner

19:43

from Queensland's really got to sign off, and the commissioner

19:45

from New South Wales has got to say, hey, yeah,

19:47

that's okay, now let's go to a court and see

19:49

if they'll send that person back. So

19:51

it was a huge, huge process.

19:55

I believe it's getting a lot more streamlined

19:57

now because technology has changed the goalposts.

19:59

So we've got to change our thinking a bit

20:01

and there's a lot more coordination in

20:04

relation to particularly offences where, I mean

20:06

if you can imagine someone sitting

20:09

in Victoria sends child exploitation material

20:11

to a child in Queensland, I

20:13

mean you've just gone across two

20:16

totally different jurisdictions, state

20:18

jurisdictions. So it

20:20

is a lot more streamlined now, it's a lot

20:22

easier for police that I believe, look I haven't

20:24

done the job for 16 years but

20:27

from talking to people and still being sort

20:30

of on the fringes involved with what's happening,

20:32

it's a lot more streamlined. But back then,

20:34

you know when we had this investigation, I

20:37

believe it was one of the first and

20:39

people were really struggling to find out

20:41

how do we deal with this information

20:44

in a legal sense. Brett,

20:46

it's so interesting you say this because like you say early

20:48

2000s, it was early days with

20:51

regards to police doing what we would

20:54

call now like an undercover role virtually.

20:56

You were going undercover as a 12-year-old

20:58

boy which is quite a bizarre concept

21:00

at the time because we were chatting

21:02

about an ex-colleague of yours, a gentleman

21:04

I had the privilege of interviewing

21:07

last year, John Rouse. John Rouse was

21:09

very much a pathfinder for a lot

21:11

of this and he spoke about not

21:13

only interstate jurisdictional barriers in those early

21:15

days, like you say like well, this

21:17

guy was in New South Wales but

21:19

he was contacting what he thought to

21:21

be a child in Queensland. Where

21:24

was the offence committed? New South Wales or Queensland?

21:27

But of course then as we go further into

21:29

this realm of online grooming and one

21:31

thing or another, as John said and Brett

21:33

you would be well aware, we

21:35

start to go internationally as well. It

21:38

took quite some time didn't it for not

21:40

any state to state in Australia to come

21:42

to terms with it but also

21:44

international jurisdictions to go okay, we need to

21:47

work together on this and not sort of

21:49

put these barriers up because it was actually

21:51

enabling a lot of this stuff to go

21:54

on and everyone was sort of looking at each

21:56

other's, okay how do we deal with this

21:58

because you know we talk about it now in 2024

22:01

but we're going back over 20 years and all this was very,

22:05

very new, wasn't it? Look,

22:07

the internet had been around for a little

22:09

while but when it came to, you know,

22:12

free programs that enabled people to connect and

22:14

share a lot of information and it became

22:16

very user friendly. So it's when all these

22:18

programs started to emerge and some of the

22:20

first ones that, you know, the ones we

22:23

were working with and we forget about them

22:25

like MySpace, MSN Messenger,

22:28

media and instant messaging programs, that's

22:30

when it exploded. And

22:32

I mean, internationally, laws

22:35

can differ dramatically but

22:38

you also may deal with countries

22:40

internationally that may not possess the

22:42

same values that our

22:44

country does and they don't

22:47

investigate that at all and, you know,

22:49

criminals have a free reign. So that

22:52

was a huge, huge, I

22:54

think we're going to look back and say that was a big

22:57

milestone when

22:59

it came to policing

23:02

in a global sense and

23:04

sort of that's the mindset we have to have.

23:06

This is a global issue. So

23:09

law and order moves very slowly because

23:11

it has to be right to

23:14

change anything takes a while so

23:17

people can understand and what is needed. I

23:19

mean, sending an image that's an illegal image

23:21

from Canada to Australia,

23:23

I mean, to

23:26

get the evidence from Australia back to Canada,

23:28

how are you going to do that? Because,

23:30

you know, it's a consideration that on distributing

23:32

child exploitation material even though it's for a

23:34

good purpose. So, yeah, there's

23:36

all those considerations and that the guest

23:39

you had on John Rouse, he's probably

23:41

best positioned of anybody in the world

23:44

to explain that at length and, you

23:46

know, where we've come in that period of time of which

23:48

he was a big part. You

23:52

received some training through the FBI with

23:54

regards to working in these roles, is

23:56

that correct? Yes,

23:58

Brent, look, I consider myself... very

24:00

fortunate. I had an opportunity to

24:02

work over there with the FBI

24:04

and most of it was training

24:06

for me. So I did the

24:09

advanced undercover internet course, I attended

24:11

their conferences and we

24:13

learned different strategies. Of course one of the

24:15

things that always used to get thrown up,

24:17

oh this is entrapment and

24:19

of course that's frowned upon. They called

24:21

it Agent Provocateur of course, meaning

24:25

Agent Provocateur or entrapment is when you

24:27

create an offence that

24:29

wouldn't have existed had you not created

24:31

it. But that's not what we

24:33

were doing and we had to be very

24:35

careful with the questions that we asked and

24:38

how we went about the investigations. Everything was

24:40

screen recorded and it had to be admissible.

24:42

So we only ever presented ourselves

24:45

as a normal child. We didn't

24:47

create offences and the FBI sort

24:49

of ran us through all that

24:51

and that was

24:53

very, very beneficial. You know

24:55

what I would say the most interesting part of

24:57

these investigations was before I started doing

25:00

the undercover investigations a

25:02

complainant would come to us like the last case and

25:04

they'd say look this has happened and

25:07

we'd investigate it from there. When

25:09

I was actually pretending to be the

25:11

child online I was there when

25:13

the offence was being committed. So

25:15

I could see the inner workings of

25:18

child sex offenders minds. I

25:20

was there when they were going through all

25:22

their tactics and their methodologies. I

25:25

could see what they were asking. I could

25:27

see the actual level of depravity that

25:30

goes on in the minds of the

25:32

small minority of people from our community.

25:35

So that was the most interesting part

25:37

of these investigations that I was there

25:39

when the offence was being committed which

25:42

I'd never experienced before. That's

25:44

a really interesting connection that

25:46

you make Brett because all

25:49

of the work or a lot of the work

25:51

that you do as a police officer is looking

25:53

at an offence retrospectively from the outside in, gathering

25:56

evidence from the past, putting it in the

25:58

present. representing it in court to

26:01

get a conviction. Here your

26:03

positioning is totally different. You're within the crime.

26:06

The crime is technically being committed

26:08

against you as a virtual child

26:10

and that's, like you said, that's

26:13

a really interesting way to look at

26:15

it and I guess one that respectfully

26:17

some police would

26:19

possibly have some difficulty in trouble with

26:22

dealing with that. Look,

26:24

yeah, look, I had a conversation recently

26:27

in relation to this. I

26:30

feel that, you know,

26:32

the reason police do it obviously is

26:34

to identify and remove offenders before they have a chance

26:36

to do it to a real child. That's

26:39

the purpose of it. For a

26:41

lot of police, it wasn't their

26:43

type of investigation. Some did it

26:45

and couldn't handle it. I don't

26:47

feel it affected me in such a

26:49

negative way. I feel that I could

26:51

distance myself from it quite easily. Probably

26:55

one of the things that helped was my particular

26:57

role was not actually dealing with real child victims

26:59

when I was doing this job. I

27:01

was the victim. So I didn't have to empathize

27:04

with an actual victim. I just had to focus

27:07

on the offender but certainly there's police

27:09

who don't understand the investigation. They don't

27:11

like doing this sort of investigation or

27:14

it affects them in a deeply personal

27:16

way, you know, in

27:18

a psychological way and I really

27:20

understand that because of course part

27:22

of doing this job is you're

27:25

exposed to some very concerning content

27:27

on the internet and concerning

27:29

behaviour. I

27:32

put a few of my cases, I wrote them down

27:34

into a book. There were

27:36

cases I couldn't put in the book because I didn't think it

27:38

was in the public interest. It was just

27:40

too gratuitous. But I don't

27:42

feel that that really had that negative

27:44

effect on me. I found that I

27:46

could distance myself easily but everyone's got

27:49

a different personality. People face different experiences

27:51

and maybe some trauma in their lives.

27:54

It's a top of investigation I think. You've

27:57

got to select people who are...

28:00

be set up to do it. Interesting

28:02

Brett you humble

28:04

way that although you worked in time

28:08

and as you've so honestly

28:11

said you are

28:13

working in these environments having to look at thousands and

28:15

thousands of images of

28:24

child exploitation and I've had

28:26

the privilege of having many on the other side

28:28

of the microphone who've worked in those roles often

28:31

for many many years who speak

28:34

very openly about how they're trucking along, they're trucking

28:36

along and then all of a sudden it

28:39

just became too much and

28:41

many many police who work in

28:44

those roles, it can cause terrible

28:47

terrible ongoing post-traumatic stress and that

28:49

type of thing. I'm interested,

28:52

did you have to work on that? Did

28:54

you have a way of compartmentalizing this working

28:56

being able to sort of separate it? I

28:58

know John Rouse as we've spoken about very

29:01

kindly said his escape was

29:03

music. He was a

29:05

musician himself and he would do that. He

29:07

would have things outside I think running and

29:09

I've spoken to other offices that would swim

29:11

miles and miles every morning just to sort

29:14

of like almost cleanse themselves and wash this

29:16

stuff out. I'm interested Brett during that time

29:18

of working in this environment, did you have

29:20

anything that you did that you helped assist

29:23

you in this process? Look

29:25

I can't say I can focus

29:27

on something specifically but

29:30

look maybe I came from a generation where

29:33

you just box on. I

29:35

don't know and John would have come from that

29:37

as well. Like John I'm

29:40

a musician so I use

29:42

that now particularly to escape

29:46

but no I don't think I did

29:48

have anything in particular that

29:50

I used even though I did

29:53

have to view them because if you're going

29:55

to charge someone with possession of child abuse

29:57

material someone has to look at it. You

29:59

have to. to see it, to

30:01

say that that's what it is. So

30:05

someone had to look at it. There's those

30:07

who looked at it a lot more than I

30:09

did. I can't think of something that I particularly

30:11

focused on during that time. I

30:14

mean I had my friends, I had my social life,

30:16

I traveled, I had my family. So I had my

30:18

own kids as well. So I had

30:21

those things in my life, I

30:23

think, to focus on. But

30:26

when it comes to something specific, I don't think I

30:28

did. Maybe I should have, I don't know. So

30:31

Brett, having joined the job back in 1985, 22 years

30:33

down the track, takes us to 2007. And

30:38

for you, you felt that that was it. You're

30:40

done with the job, you had a lot of experience as

30:42

good, bad and indifferent as anybody in any job after 22

30:45

years. I'm interested,

30:47

Brett, in that transition from policing

30:49

because you had some interesting roles

30:51

after that. Also

30:54

what you're doing now and maybe touching

30:56

on some of the motivation that you've

30:58

spoken of with regards to writing those

31:00

couple of books about some of those policing

31:02

experiences you'd had. But you left the job

31:05

and did a bit of time in Iraq,

31:07

I think, training police there. Yeah,

31:09

absolutely. Look, one of

31:11

the most common questions I get asked is, oh,

31:13

you left the job because you'd had enough. And

31:15

I said, no, I love the job. I love

31:17

my mates. But working, as we

31:19

discussed earlier, working with the FBI and other agencies,

31:21

I thought, you know what, I want to expand

31:23

a bit. That there's got to be more

31:26

out there. So the opportunity came

31:28

up in 2007 through a former

31:31

police colleague to travel

31:33

to Iraq and work at

31:35

the Iraq Police Academy at a

31:37

place called Anumna. It was

31:39

training Iraqi men how to be

31:42

police. So it

31:44

was a police academy. It would have been

31:46

the first civilian police force Iraq would have

31:48

had because it was paramilitary before that time.

31:51

And over there in eight months, I like to tell

31:53

people I cleared my head when

31:55

I was in Iraq. And I knew what

31:57

path I wanted to take because when I was in Iraq, I was in

31:59

the the police doing

32:02

the undercover internet stuff. Our

32:04

inspector said, look, I've got a friend who works

32:06

at a school and some of the girls are

32:08

talking about things that are happening online and the

32:10

school's getting quite concerned. And

32:12

this was back in the early 2000s. They

32:15

said, can you go and talk to the girls? So

32:17

me and my partner went out and we spoke

32:20

at a girls school in Brisbane. It was the

32:22

year 10 girls. And I was just flabbergasted

32:26

by the

32:28

naivety of these girls as

32:30

it related to what was going on online.

32:33

And it was then I sort of thought, do you know what? Education's

32:37

needed. These girls

32:39

are end users. They need to know

32:41

the world they're in. And not

32:44

much was being done anywhere in Australian relation

32:46

to the education of the end user, whether

32:48

it be adults or kids. So

32:50

when I went to Iraq, I sort of

32:52

hatched a plan that when I got back,

32:55

I'd start a business and go

32:58

into schools and educate, use the

33:00

experience I had, my very unique

33:02

look on technology, the different face

33:04

of technology I'd seen to highlight

33:06

dangers and responsibilities and

33:08

then give them some strategies to avoid those dangers.

33:11

Because I thought that that's honestly the key.

33:14

So when I got back, I just contacted

33:16

some schools in Brisbane and a couple of

33:18

schools said, yep, love it, come in.

33:21

And that's where it all started back in 2008. In

33:25

May of 2008, I did my first cyber

33:27

safety presentation out of

33:29

school in Brisbane, Corinda State

33:31

High School, I can say. And

33:35

it just went from there. And

33:37

it just exploded. I think I

33:39

picked an industry that was growing

33:41

cyber safety. So it's changed

33:43

over the years. But for the last 16 years

33:46

then and now, that's all we do.

33:48

We educate children, teachers, parents, we do

33:50

face to face. We

33:52

got online courses and

33:55

we support communities and

33:57

families as best we can. So

34:00

there's a number of different people who go out

34:02

and speak for me, all got very

34:05

credible backgrounds and are very well positioned

34:08

to pass the messages on, particularly young

34:10

people. And look, I

34:12

think it's everyone's dream at some stage. You talk

34:14

to most people and they say, on my bucket

34:16

list I want to write a book. So

34:19

I partnered with a childhood friend

34:21

of mine who's a journalist,

34:23

a very good man, and

34:26

we wrote a book that included

34:28

some of my undercover internet investigations

34:30

and some of the other investigations that I did.

34:33

But a lot of it contains protective

34:36

strategies. A lot of it's awareness

34:38

for parents. So it's written for

34:40

the community to help support young

34:42

people, and that's what it's about. And

34:45

the book isn't there to gratuitise

34:47

the dangers or the bad stuff, but it

34:50

is to make people aware. And we're very

34:52

passionate as parents when it comes to

34:54

protecting our kids in the physical world because

34:56

we know the dangers, we know they're real.

34:59

It's about understanding that our role is

35:02

as important as it relates to our kids and

35:04

technology. Brett,

35:06

I just want to thank you so very much

35:08

for joining us here today. You've chatted to us

35:11

via the studio up there in Brisbane. You've

35:13

been so open and frank about what is, to

35:16

be fair, a very dark area of

35:18

investigation, of police investigation and that area

35:20

of cyber area with kids and that

35:22

type of thing. But you've been so

35:24

open and frank and so humble with

35:26

regards to your involvement in it. Brett,

35:29

I want to thank you for your service

35:31

of that 22 years to the

35:33

good people of Queensland, but also perhaps as much

35:36

the work that you've gone on to do in taking

35:38

all that experience from that time in the police. And

35:41

I hope that you continue with the work that you're doing,

35:43

and it's an absolute credit to you. Thanks

35:45

for coming in for a chat. Crime

35:51

Insiders Detectives is a listener original

35:53

production. It's hosted

35:55

by me, Brent Sanders, produced

35:57

by Ed Gooden and Sound

36:00

designed and imaged by Link Kelly.

36:09

If you're concerned about the thoughts

36:12

and behaviour of yourself or another

36:14

adult or child, there

36:16

is support available. Stop

36:19

It Now is an anonymous

36:21

Australian helpline that aims to

36:24

support adults who have sexual

36:26

thoughts about children to prevent

36:29

offending. The

36:31

helpline is for parents, professionals,

36:34

family and community members

36:36

who come across child sexual

36:39

abuse. If

36:41

you're worried about an adult's or

36:43

child's behaviour online

36:45

or offline, you

36:47

can call the anonymous helpline on

36:49

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36:59

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37:01

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