Whisper in the Shadows
Welcome to ‘Whispers in the Shadows’, your gateway into the nerve-wracking work of undercover policing. The true stories of a real-life undercover cop. I’m Michael Bates, an ex-undercover police officer, and this was my reality for over two years. If your fascinated by the truth that lies beneath crime shows, if you hunger for the real-life stories that leap beyond the boundaries of fiction, ‘Whispers in the Shadows’ is here to satisfy your curiosity. From infiltrating drug syndicates to living a double life, every episode uncovers a thrilling true story that pitted me against the face of danger. Don’t miss out on the chance to step into my shoes and experience what it takes to walk the thin line between law and crime. Subscribe to ‘Whispers in the Shadows’ and join me, as we delve into the gritty world of undercover policing.
Whisper in the Shadows
Behind the Thin Blue Line, a Conversation - Episode 5 with Greg Kingston - Part 1
What happens when a seasoned UK police officer moves across the globe to Australia? Join us in a compelling discussion with Greg Kingston, who takes us from his early days navigating the high-crime streets of Dover and Dartford to the intense world of surveillance operations. Discover the thrill and rigor of undercover work targeting drug dealers and how Greg's transition into a specialized surveillance team marked a pinnacle in his career.
Greg’s journey doesn’t stop there. Learn about the cultural and operational shifts he experienced when he moved to Australia, and how his communication skills honed in the UK became a valuable asset Down Under. As Greg reflects on his career, he opens up about the emotional toll of policing, the political pressures that come with the badge, and the surprising warmth he encountered in Australian communities.
This episode also exposes the myths and realities of police surveillance, shedding light on the long hours of waiting and the unpredictable nature of the job. Greg shares his personal story of managing stress and trauma through exercise rather than alcohol, offering a raw and heartfelt look at the human side of law enforcement. Join us for an authentic and eye-opening conversation that reveals the true essence of life behind the badge.
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Welcome to Behind the Thin Blue Line, a Whisper in the Shadows podcast. In each city, in every neighbourhood, on every street they stand tall, those in blue guardians of our community, our protectors. But who are they really? Behind the Thin Blue Line is the podcast that takes you behind the badge, beyond the headlines, and into the hearts of those who serve and protect. We're here to break down barriers and to tear down the walls of misunderstanding. We're here to listen to their stories, their triumphs, their fears. Ever wonder what it's like serving undercover, or what's the real-life impact of policing, or how they cope with trauma? Listen as we step into the shoes of those who walk the thin blue line. You have heard my true stories of what it's really like to be an undercover cop. I want to give a voice to all those living amongst us, unseen and unnoticed, who have put their life on the line being a police officer, hopefully to give you, the listener, a glimpse into something you will likely never get to experience Uncover the complex world of law enforcement and the raw human experiences behind the badge. Join me, jason Somerville, your host and a former police officer myself, as we navigate through these stories on Behind the Thin Blue Line. Let's go and meet our next guest line. Let's go and meet our next guest.
Speaker 1:Welcome to Behind the Thin Blue Line a Whisper in the Shadows podcast, where I explore the human side of policing and law enforcement. I hope you're enjoying our conversations with former and current police officers and delving into the complexity police complexity of policing, rather and how it affects the human side of police. As a person, I'm Jason Somerville and I was a Queensland police officer for nearly 14 years as well as and how it affects the human side of police. As a person, I'm Jason Somerville and I was a Queensland police officer for nearly 14 years, as well as an undercover cop for two of those years. You will have been listening to my stories of my time undercover through my alter ego, michael Bates. Well, I've decided it is time we heard from other cops and let them tell their stories. Today I'm chatting with Greg Kingston, who is a current serving police officer in Australia and who also worked as both general duties and surveillance in the United Kingdom.
Speaker 1:Good afternoon, greg. How are you today? I'm very well, thank you, and yourself, mate. I cannot complain. It is almost time to sit down and watch the news. Yep. Thank you for agreeing to join the podcast and for agreeing to have a chat about your policing experiences. You're welcome. Now, what I always like to do is start off with our guests giving us a brief overview of their career to date, where they started, what they did, etc. Given you've got two careers, I guess we'll start at the beginning and work to where you are now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I joined a camp police in england in 19 I was just approaching 26 years old at the time and I worked at two police stations doing general justice, policing Dover, which is a port town, closest port to France, to Europe, so that was very busy. And then my partner and and then wife Katie, was a police officer in London. So we made the decision to move closer to London and I then moved up to a place or a town called Dartford, which is nearly an outer suburb of London now but very close to London. So again, very busy.
Speaker 1:When you say very close to London. So are we talking two?
Speaker 2:hours or no, we're talking 15 minutes. Oh okay, you could be in one of the outer boroughs of London in 10 to 15 minutes. Okay. So, quite a lot of cross-border crime between both Ken criminals going into London and then London criminals coming out. Okay. So yeah, the four U's General Duties.
Speaker 2:During my time at Dover we had a guy come to our team, our General Duties team team, that had been on the surveillance team yeah and while he wasn't very forthcoming with a lot of information, as I'm sure you and the listeners, viewers can imagine, it piqued my interest to follow that, if I could follow that kind of career path is there a reason he he wasn't very forthcoming about it.
Speaker 2:More because they're quite secretive about the tactics that they use, and some of the operations were still ongoing, particularly where we were working. So he didn't want to give away who we were looking at, because you know what general duties coppers are like they like to get involved in stuff they shouldn't do so and gossip, yes, exactly. So he gave enough away.
Speaker 1:that piqued my interest yep, so he was actually still working there. He's not like he came back to general duties yeah, no, he was.
Speaker 2:He came back to general duties, okay, yep.
Speaker 2:So he had been a surveillance officer, was kind of winding down and just wanted something a little bit more consistent, time-wise, yep, and came to general duties for his last few years, okay.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I was quite fortunate that a sergeant on promotion came to my team at Dover from the intelligence unit and we then worked extremely closely with the intel unit which led to some it wasn't unauthorized foot surveillance but we would do some operations in the town, yeah, and we ended up catching one of the better known local drug dealers with a fairly substantial amount of heroin. And again, that just kind of really piqued my interest and wanted, or made me want, to pursue a career or certainly a position with the surveillance team. So after two years at Dover I then moved up to Dartford and during my time at Dartford I completed an, a UC course. Yeah, like it was a test purchase course rather than the UC, so you weren't a full UC but you did some of the UC course and I then deployed a number of times as a test purchaser against drug dealers and people with stolen property and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:What do you mean by a test purchaser?
Speaker 2:sorry, so you would, almost you would pretend to be someone you weren't, as you've said previously, and you would contact people that we knew were selling drugs and you'd eventually try and persuade them to meet you and sell you drugs them. But you know you get wind of people that were selling stolen cars, so you would go along and have a look at the car and find out where it came from, etc. And just build up that evidence picture and if you ended up buying the car, you'd drive away with it and that was your evidence to then go back and and arrest them. So it was almost like by busts in a general by busts, yeah. So you know a very short term, almost a very short term, uc role, yep, okay but did you enjoy?
Speaker 1:that?
Speaker 2:I did. Yeah, unfortunate was so. Fortunately or unfortunately, I was deemed what was probably a little bit too clean cut for the heroin trade. Yeah, so I never really went against heroin. So it was more cocaine, the higher end drugs, and cocaine ecstasy, that kind of thing, yep. But the test purchases I did, you know, were for not reasonably high-end cars, but some certainly nice cars, and but on one occasion I got scruffed up as a gardener and went in and bought a thousand pounds, so a couple of thousand dollar lawnmower which had been stolen from a local place and we knew this place was selling dodgy gear.
Speaker 2:So it wasn't just lawnmowers it was. It was generally that kind of stuff, but it was a dodgy secondhand place. But the unit that ran the test purchase team was also part of what was called the central operations group, which had the surveillance team under its banner as well. Yeah, and again I was aware that there were surveillance officers watching me when I was completing test purchases. Yeah, and they would then take away the baddie when I went off with the vehicle or the drugs they would then follow. So again, it was all kind of leading to, you know, just pursuing that surveillance role more. And then midway through 2002 an advert came out for the surveillance team which I applied for went through a fairly rigorous assessment process which involved a number of tests over the weekend, both individually and as a team, to see how you would get on, including driving around at extremely high speed through the British countryside, the English countryside, to try and make you sick.
Speaker 2:And were you, I wasn't. No, I've actually got a reasonably strong stomach, but I have been in cars when I then became a surveillance officer and we'd do those same assessments where we were successful in making some of the poor guys and girls stop the car and open the door. So yeah, then late 2002 I was. I completed a national level one surveillance course, but it was run in-house by kent officers who were level one trainers, yep, and at the end of that I was successful in obtaining a position on the surveillance thing so you did the hard yards, you, you, you basically built your career with that goal in mind I did
Speaker 2:I was never entirely sure I was going to get there because it was always deemed as being a bit of a dead man's shoe spot. But once you were in you almost get carried out in a box. Yep, or it was jobs for the boys. So if you knew someone, that knew someone or that kind of thing, then you were more likely to get a spot. But they struggled for a time to get officers to join the surveillance team and it kind of opened out a little bit more and some of those of us that thought we might never get there got there and I stayed for 12 years eventually.
Speaker 1:And now you're currently sitting in. I'll let you just I really want to say which state where you're sitting. How did that all come about so?
Speaker 2:my mum's Australian. She was born and bred, raised in Sydney. Yep, she left on a boat with a friend of hers in the late 60s, met my dad in Canada. They got married and ended up living back in the UK. So I've got, or had, australian sisters in ship from birth. Yeah, I've visited a number of times through the 70s, 80s and 90s, and I came out after I'd finished school in the early 90s and spent a good number of months in Sydney and eventually went back. It was kind of tight. It was a recession time, things were quite tough, yeah, so I went back to the UK but always kind of felt that I wanted to come back and at least try and live in Oz if I could. But then, as I said, joined the police mid-20s and life just gets under you then, doesn't it? You know you, you're working. You then get married, you buy a house, you have kids and you kind of think, well, it's never going to happen.
Speaker 2:And I just chanced to see a friend on Facebook of all things, in uniform, which is where I am yep and I hadn't seen him for a number of years because my role in surveillance and he, as it turned out, been out here and we reconnected and he was actually applying to come back to WA again. He'd been out here once and left the police here. Gone back to my old force in kent. Yeah, I was applying to come back out and I went home from work one day and said to the wife what do you reckon about moving to australia? She'd never been before but said, yeah, give it a go, kind of half tongue-in-cheek thinking, yeah, it'll never happen. And a few months later we were getting on the plane with two kids. And and here we are, 10 years later.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because at WAPOL they went through a really lean time of getting people, and the only people they could get were qualified people from the UK, which meant and I don't mean this in a bad way that just about anyone who applied from the UK provided that you didn't have any real issues. Qpol did the same thing and VicPOL did the same thing as well. You know, you got a job. Basically, yes, yep.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, again, it was a relatively rigorous assessment process. Yep, I was initially told, because I'm an Australian citizen, that I would have had to come to Perth, but I must have said something right to one of the recruitment ladies, because they managed to fit me on the assessment process in London. So we had a fitness test and interview. We then had to do exams as well. So the problem solving English and maths, yep, which I believe they've got rid of now, oh, have they. Yes, yeah, it literally. I think it is an interview. You have to do a psych test at the fitness test and complaints history, and if you pass all of that, you basically get a visa nomination.
Speaker 1:It's not like you need to be able to understand english or reason or anything like that, is it not really?
Speaker 2:no, but I wonder whether part of that is you know they're lowering standards to maybe increase the numbers.
Speaker 1:I'm not saying those that are coming out are thick as a plank of wood, but you know, being honest, the majority of forces slash services around the country are losing members at a high rate of knots. We may get into that, we may not, but there is a huge attrition rate for a number of reasons. So I guess when that happens you have to lower the the. I mean, when I went through, the standards were lowered because they had to have an intake of 400 people. Well, yep, now is that how I'll get in? Some people will say yes other people will say no but you know we had.
Speaker 1:We had people in there who openly had juvie records and and and those sorts of things. They got weeded out over the 12 month process but still that's how far the standards had dropped because we were taking people, just about anyone, because they had such a huge intake now a question in regards to the difference between the, the policing.
Speaker 2:Obviously, in the, the UK, when you're in uniform, you don't wear a firearm, a sidearm, no, no the only thing I had yes, yeah, the only thing I had when I initially joined was a metal stick and some hurti pepper spray, and that was it. We didn't have tasers and in fact I believe not every copper in the UK carries a taser still. Wow, there might be two or three on the team that are trained and authorized to use it or carry it anyway trained and authorized to use it or carry it anyway. So and I think that's where a lot of uk coppers succeed in coming over to australia particularly because without that use of force option, ie firearm or taser, you've got to use your mouth to get out of a lot of situations. It's all well and good having a big metal stick and a bit of spray, but it doesn't work on everybody. So you had to be good at talking to people to get yourself out of situations or resolve a situation.
Speaker 2:And I remember going through the interview process for Waypole in Australia House in London and I had never had a complaint when I applied to join Waypole. So 16 years in the police, never had a complaint. And the inspector there said how the hell have you got through? And I said well, you know, I always wanted to come in with the attitude that I want to treat people the way I would expect to be treated, so I was never one that was going going in fists up ready for a fight. I would now always want to talk to people and find out what and why and how we could help. Or you know what was going to be the easiest way to get people in the back of the car or whatever. It didn't always work, but you give it a go and if it succeeds, then you know. It's a better situation, I think, than just going fisting and having all sorts of problems.
Speaker 1:Oh, most definitely. How long have you been in Australia now? Sorry, 10 years. Have you had any?
Speaker 2:complaints? No, I had one, stupidly. It was when I was on liquor enforcement, yeah, and we were dealing with a situation outside a nightclub and it got quashed. To be honest, it never went anywhere and it was just about the way that these people had been spoken to. It wasn't a use of force. Issue.
Speaker 1:No, no, and I guess where I was going with that was that it seems to me that here in Australia people complain about the police a lot more for trivial things. Like you know, they were rude to me. I had a complaint. I was lying on the ground struggling with a six foot eight Samoan and a girl came up to me and said you know, I think someone's stolen my phone and I'm lying in the middle of the street struggling with this guy trying to arrest me. And I allegedly turned to her and said how about you fuck off? Mind you, the video shows it clearly, but I still didn't ask for that. But the point is, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1:It's like yeah there seems to be a lot more. What's the word people? People do it because we've made a big thing out of it with the various crime and misconduct commissions around the country.
Speaker 2:Yep, and I think people these days are too quick to make a complaint, rather than actually looking at their own behavior and thinking well, maybe I shouldn't have pestered that copper while he was wrestling on the ground? Yeah, and did I deserve to be told where to go? Yeah, probably.
Speaker 1:But I'll make a complaint because it makes me feel better yeah, well it is, it got looked at and they said, yeah right, fair enough, maybe you shouldn't have sworn. I said I didn't. I told her to go away, so now you're finishing up. You said very soon.
Speaker 2:I will be. Yes, so probably end of September, early October, I'll be leaving Waypole. And why is that so? My wife started a business in 2020, which has just become more and more successful year on year. It's a canteen catering business that currently operates in 19 school canteens in the south of perth or south of perth area. Yeah, we're getting more inquiries all the time, so I'm part-time at the moment have been for the last three years, initially to help out with my daughter, who was diagnosed with autism around 2020 as well. Yeah, she had therapies through the school day that my wife couldn't always leave her work for, so we kind of reversed roles she went full-time and I went part-time, but I've kind of ended up working more for the business than running my daughter around.
Speaker 1:So it's just easier to leave the police.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is. It's either I leave the police and come across and help my wife full-time or we pay someone to do what I'm doing. And given how much the business has grown and continues to grow, it just makes sense for me to leave and take the opportunity to go full-time and run the business, and that's fair enough.
Speaker 1:I just want to circle back to something we were talking about in regards to the difference, you know, not having a firearm and then having a firearm. The difference, you know, not having a firearm and then having a firearm. Did that concern you when you first started working, uh, in western australia, that you know, or perth, that you had to carry a firearm?
Speaker 2:it didn't, and I think that probably goes back to the fact that I was an authorized firearms officer for my surveillance role, so I understood firearms training in 2019 for the glock. It wasn't a routine carry. It was only when we had intelligence that either the subject we were following or any associates of his had ready access to firearms that we would carry, and I think in the five years following my course I probably only carried five or six times.
Speaker 1:It wasn't very regular at all okay, so I was used to handling and carrying a firearm do you think it makes a difference to how the public interact with you?
Speaker 2:it's certainly a point of talk of conversation yeah but I also think that Australians are used to seeing coppers with firearms, so for everyday Australians it's not a big issue, I think for the UK cops or anyone from the Commonwealth countries that comes across that haven't carried firearms, I think it is certainly something that you have at the back of your mind, probably more than the local recruits, but so it never bothered me and all of the what they call the transitional officers that have come across. Yeah, I've not had an issue with it. It's just another tool of the job really it is it's like your phone, it's like your baton.
Speaker 2:It's there. If you need to use it, touch wood. I've never had to draw it in anger and hopefully that stays the case before I go.
Speaker 1:I used to hate what's the best way of putting this? It used to scare me that I had to carry it. Yeah, but I was glad it was there.
Speaker 2:Yes, because.
Speaker 1:I have had to pull it out and point it at someone Yep, and it was there, yes, because I I have had to pull it out and point it at someone, yep, and so at that stage I was glad it was there, but it used to scare me having to carry it because it was like you know, you don't want to have this thing here, where you might actually have to use it on someone.
Speaker 2:It's a massive responsibility and the consequences if you have to draw it and fire it, we all know. You know of coppers and it's well documented in the news. You know what happens to coppers that do shoot people these days. Yes, and I often think I think I'm fairly convinced now that any copper that shoots someone, regardless of the circumstances, the outcome will always be politically motivated, because the executive in the police forces don't want to be the ones to say we're not charging him because of this, we'll let the court do it. So they will charge the copper, put the copper through the ringer for a number of years before it gets resolved and either finding a guilty or not guilty. That comes through.
Speaker 1:But and I think you know that that's the way it's going at the moment I, I, I agree, and that probably has a big bearing on why there are so many people leaving the various police, police forces around the country all right let's change tack a little bit. What did you want to be when?
Speaker 2:you were growing up, I didn't have a clue. To be be honest, yeah, I left school, so I went through my last couple of years at school. I did A-levels in sports studies and business studies. Yeah, and my intention on leaving school was to take a year out, do the travel which I did, came over to Australia, as I said, in the early 90s.
Speaker 1:That's quite a gap year, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 90s gap year, yeah, yeah, and I had all intentions of going back to the uk at some point, whether it was six months or a year later, and doing some kind of sports degree whether that was in sports management, sports center management, something like that yeah, never. I mean, you see the emergency services, I want to be a fireman, I want to a policeman. I want to do this when you're growing up. You know, seven, eight, nine, ten kind of tongue in cheek, but I didn't leave school wanting to be a police officer.
Speaker 2:As I said, when I got back from Australia it was in the middle of a recession and the only job I could find was in real estate of all things, which was suffering probably the most of anything at the time during that financial crisis, and I just kind of bumbled from different company to different company and it got to the point where I was probably 24, I suppose, and I thought I can't just keep doing this for the rest of my life. I thought I wasn't enjoying the job particularly. Yeah, it was very cutthroat, the pay was pretty crap for the hours that you were doing, and I'd had a few friends join the police from school and I kept in touch with them and we'd often catch up and talk about. Particularly one guy talked to him and and he was still very complimentary in the police at that time, the late 90s I think we were still seen as people to be respected. Not, I don't think we are now, but I think that respect from the public has probably dwindled over the years.
Speaker 2:Why do you think that is? I think they look at coppers as having the power and they don't like people having the power over them. I think the the days of like the facebook mentality, as you were saying earlier. People are too quick to make a complaint rather than stepping back and actually looking at the bigger picture and what has happened. Yeah, and yeah, I think it's just. It's all too easy to criticize and have not hatred, but have maybe a disrespect of people trying to do the job. Although, having said that, I do feel that the public in australia, when I certainly came across in 2014, it shocked me to a degree. I was walking along the street when I was doing my driver training. Yeah, and you know people were saying hello to us, you know, and it wasn't forced, it was. You know they were genuine, how are you going? And that kind of thing. And it did take me by surprise because you wouldn't have got that in England at all at all and that's right.
Speaker 1:Look, I think, I think one of the big things that that I've sort of over the years and you know it's been oh what, 20 years since I've been out one of the big things is, I guess, a lack of police promoting what they do. Police talking about themselves in a positive sense, yeah, anyone talking about police in a positive sense it's always negative, negative, negative, yeah, and I, I personally believe that has a lot to do with the slide in public confidence, to slide in in public awareness of police.
Speaker 2:If that's the right way of putting it yep, yep. And the media as well are very quick to jump on the negative. Yeah, you know the I can't believe the news stations here. I know wa is not a particularly busy state with things, but they're on everything quicker than you could shake a stick at and generally it's. You know they want the kind of the big ticket items which generally is going to be something serious. That's happened and it's going to be the headline grabbers and it's not normally. The policeman rescued the cat from the tree. It's going to be. The police chased down this person and this person crashed and they're injured. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1:So they just ran from the police exactly, yeah, yeah yeah, or why the person?
Speaker 1:ran yeah and yeah, that's a much bigger thing. But I guess part of me doing this this whole conversation interview series is to try and get out there to people to say, you know, police are real people. They've got things that that that probably impact them more than what other people have in their daily life. And maybe, you know, most of them went into the job with good intentions and and came out of the job with good intentions. Yeah, all right. So we spoke about how you became a police officer and we spoke about how you got into surveillance. What I might do is sort of move on to things that when people think of surveillance, they generally think of. You know people sitting in vans or shadowy people hiding, you know, watching what's going on or taping, tapping phones and seeing there with headphones on going oh, I've got them. Yeah, what do you think? Some of the common myths about being a surveillance, being in surveillance, are are I think probably the biggest one is that you're always on the go.
Speaker 2:You know your, your subject is, is always on the move and you never stop, whereas in reality you could sit in the car for eight hours and read the paper, have a coffee and maybe even close your eyes for a little bit of time and not see your subject all day. But there's stuff going on behind the scenes that you know will assist us to understand what the subject's doing and when things are likely to get busy. And you've got as a surveillance officer, you've got to have that ability to switch on at the drop of a hat. Yep, you know, you might have sat there for eight hours and be expecting to to be right, we're done for the day, let's all go home and, you know, at seven hours and 59 minutes the subject comes out of the door and you're on the go for another eight, 10, 12 hours and you don't know where you're going to end up at the end of the day.
Speaker 2:There's numerous times we used to have I suppose they're called go bags, but you'd have a bag in the boot of the car which would have a change of clothes and you know, fresh undies and toiletries and that kind of thing, because numerous times we would start the day and we'd end up in another part of the country and there's no way we were getting back to home base before you know a reasonable time had passed. Very much hurry up and wait. Definitely, definitely, but when it goes it's the best job in the world yeah, it really was.
Speaker 1:Now I know you've got some examples of that and we'll come to that in shortly. I just want to explore a couple of other things breaking into houses not breaking into houses, sorry, okay, breaking into houses or entering houses and tapping putting in phone, taps, you know, drilling holes in walls, put cameras in and that sort of stuff does that all happen? It did it does.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wasn't involved in that. The closest I got to that was putting devices on vehicles to to follow them without actually having a vehicle behind them, which everybody knows about. There's no secret. But we had a different team that was exceptionally highly trained that would break into houses and leave a trace and they'd be doing things with phones and recording devices that the movies pretty well cover these days. So it's not a trade secret anymore. But yeah, it does happen.
Speaker 2:But there's a big circuit circle of security around those guys that are doing that, because you can't have them compromised at any point no, this is very true yeah, as a surveillance officer, my role wasn't to to do that element, it was to provide the security, you know, that part of that ring around the outside of them, and I don't mean sitting outside the front door watching. I mean we would either take the subject away or we would provide a barrier between the you know the location, the vehicle, whatever and and the guys doing the bits, what's what was the most difficult part of doing surveillance, apart from the hurry up and waiting my wife always says to me, if we hadn't moved to australia, we probably would have been divorced by now because as a you know young family and my wife was a police officer in london as well yep
Speaker 2:she couldn't rely on me for child care at all because monday to friday and then we were on call every other weekend. I didn't know when I was going to start and when I was going to finish, so I couldn't be around. And I think that's the biggest thing is the take away from the family. The days where we don't do long hours it's great because you're home, but that's few and far between. So it's a single means game. It is or you've got to have a very supportive partner, and I was very lucky that my wife was supportive.
Speaker 2:As I say, she was a police officer as well, but when our first and then second child came along, it was a big burden on her. Although she went part-time herself, she was still travelling from where we lived into London, which was probably an hour each way for her at minimum. So she was working 12 hour days and then having to worry about the kids and you know the kids before she went to school or sorry, work, and then when she got home from work. So yeah, it's a massive impact on your personal life and, you know, unless you've got someone that can support you in the way that my wife did, it's really not a married stroke family person's game.
Speaker 1:And that's fair enough. Undercover's probably very similar. The Undercover of the Week is probably very similar as well. Yeah, what's something surprising. You've learned about yourself doing policing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think maybe my I'm not the biggest, toughest, roughest guy out there. I was never a fighter. At school I'd always rather walk away from something unless I had to but also my mental resilience going into it. I'd never seen a dead person, I'd never dealt with copious amounts of blood, I'd never had to. Kind of, as I say, you take someone to liberty and you get the sob stories and probably a little bit of a soft in. You might fall for them every so often, but I think you kind of have to detach yourself from the person that you are outside of work and compartmentalise. What you see at work is what work is. And then you know, know, when you go home you kind of keep back to yourself, unless, as I said, my wife was a police officer and she saw some pretty grotty things herself, so I was able to offload on her as she was able to offload on me. But it's not something that you talk to your mates about.
Speaker 2:You know what you've seen at a road accident or you know someone hanging out of a roof hatch with a rope around their neck and that kind of thing. So, having been maybe a softie at school and growing that was, one of my concerns was how I would deal with those more difficult, darker issues that you encounter as a police officer, yet still trying to remain human with those that you have arrested and you want to. I always wanted to be as fair as I could, yet still trying to remain, you know, human with those that you have arrested and you know you want to. I always wanted to be as fair as I could, yeah, and I think I've achieved that through nearly 26 years, or over 26 years now, but yeah, sorry sorry.
Speaker 2:Let's say you see some things through this career that you don't anticipate you're going to see when you first join. It's one of those things that you know happens but and that you're likely to see it, but when you do come across it.
Speaker 2:I remember the first time I saw a dead body, and it was an old lady in a nursing home, so it wasn't anything gruesome it was this little old lady lying in a bed and all I could think about was my nana, who was about the same age and lived probably 10 minutes away, unfortunately. I could go and give her a hug after I've been to that job, yeah, but you know, it's just. You know, the first time you see it. It takes, you know, a little bit of getting used to and you do become a little bit, not blasé desensitized desensitized definitely okay.
Speaker 1:So and this is this is what I find really interesting how did you learn to cope with those sorts of okay? You become desensitized over a period of time. My first dead body was way worse than a little uh little old lady in a bed dying at home well my second was probably twice as bad as well. Yeah, how do. How did you learn to cope with those sorts of things? You talked about compartmentalising. Was there anything else you did?
Speaker 2:At the time I was fairly big into cycling, yeah, and that was my release. So when I got the opportunity certainly before kids I would just get on the bike and I would not punish myself, but I would push myself to the limit just to kind of not exercise the demons but just kind of wear myself out to the point where you know I was absolutely exhausted and that exercise really was my way, my way of dealing with it, I think was, was it exercise?
Speaker 1:and let me know if we get too too deep here, because you were just talking about the fact that you, you did this until you wore yourself out and you pushed yourself. Yeah, and my, my initial thoughts is that you did that, so you were tired and you can get some sleep.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and and that probably, looking back now, that was probably exactly it, you know I would go out and I would not hurt myself, but I would push myself to the point where I was physically exhausted, you know, and I'd get off the bike and sometimes just collapse because my legs were gone. But I found I never found alcohol was a great help. No, I wasn't a big drinker, and still not a big drinker. I enjoy a drink but you know, it wasn't something that I turned to because I'd seen a dead body.
Speaker 2:I dealt with a nasty situation and, as I say, the exercise was the one thing that I used to just kind of get out and just get away from everything. It was me and the bike and the fresh air and it gave me thinking time as well. You know, I'd often find myself thinking back to either events of the day or, you know, previous weeks, even years gone by, and it was a good way of kind of decompressing as well, I think, because you could talk to yourself while you're riding the bike. You could work things through on your brain.
Speaker 2:I probably look like some kind of weirdo riding, riding along before the days of you know, bluetooth stuff. So yeah, it was just a good way of getting out and resolving the situation in my head before it then became an issue, you know, at home or at work or with friends.
Speaker 1:Now this question is probably more around being in uniform and everyday interaction with people, but you know, working what you've done, you would have had to deal with people in different levels, in different ways as well. Do you think that any of that, any of the things you've experienced, has had an impact on how you've dealt with people?
Speaker 2:I'd like to say no yeah because, as I said earlier, I've always, when I've always put, or when I've put, the uniform on, I've always wanted to treat everybody with the respect that they deserve and I'm you know I expect that respect back. You don't always get it, but I haven't let situations that I've dealt with previously kind of cloud my judgment into how I treat somebody else.
Speaker 1:What if you don't get there? And you just you've said you know you expect respect back. If you're not getting that, what? What buttons does that push? And we can hardly talk about this if you don't want.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, no, it's fine, it pushes the wrong ones for sure you know, because you you're asking people to do things, they're not doing it or they're giving you a gob full of abuse. So I found at the beginning of COVID it's a fairly good example, I think. Yeah, my tolerance level because I was in an office, I was working at firearms licensing yeah, beginning of COVID, we got turfed out of the office because they deemed it not to be an essential service at the time was back in uniform, went to man what we called regional roadblocks, so people weren't allowed to move outside their region in wa and if you wanted to, you had to get basically a passport, an authority to go. And it ended up that the oic of the station, I, was asked us if we'd mind doing some tasking so the guys that were tasking could have a break and go to the roadblocks, because it was a fairly easy gig sitting on your backside for 10 hours checking everyone was coming through with the right authority. And we went to a domestic where the guy had gone wandering off with his kid in a pair of boxes, I believe it was, and she came out of the side door and just gave us a mouthful of abuse before we'd even said hello to her and I just lost it and I just went back off her and there was a few F's and a few Jeff's thrown in there yep
Speaker 2:and she looked at me, called me an old C, told me that I wasn't allowed in the house, which I was quite happy about. My younger colleague was allowed in and managed to resolve the situation. But it was just my tolerance level for people's own issues that aren't police issues. You know, everybody has an argument and I get. Domestic violence is a massive issue across the world, really not just Australia. You know we're not alone in that problem, but it was, you know, just it was a stupid argument and she'd actually thrown a thong at him which had gone through a front window which she was then trying to claim he'd thrown at her, and all sorts of things you know Must have been a big thong.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was one of those wreath things, I think.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, fairly weighty.
Speaker 1:And it I just my tolerance level had gone okay. So we've run out of time for part one of the conversation with Greg Kingston and we'll leave this episode here. Join us next week for part two of my conversation with Greg Kingston and we talk about how policing has affected him and what he's going to do next. Thank you for joining me on Behind the Thin Blue Line, where I have conversations with current and former police officers and they get to tell their stories. I hope you've enjoyed that episode. In the next episode we'll again explore the human side of policing through more conversations with police officers from around the world. Please make sure you subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. Lastly, if you're a current or former police officer, I would love to chat to you about your experiences or, if you're feeling dangerous, tell your stories on my podcast. Please get in contact by my email, which is whisperintheshadowspodcast at gmailcom. I look forward to you joining me next week.
