Tom Speaks Again: What Happens Behind Closed Doors.

A potay production. Look, I think, like I was pretty nervous at the time and I guess I'm still nervous, but what I'm really happy with is that it sparked a lot of discussion and maybe some more transparency within Tasmania Police. A lot of people are talking about and maybe having more courage to come forward and talk about the things that they know. So I think it was all worth it, but yeah, as always, remain a little bit nervous. That's Tom and that's not his real name and it's also not his real voice. You'll remember him from our first three episodes. He was really the reason we began this investigation in the first place. The information he shared with us helped us understand what was going on inside Taspole because Tom is a current serving high-ranking officer. Recently, we've had another interview with Tom and he was forthcoming on more information that helps this investigation. If you're interested in learning more about our process and some of the behind the scenes investigative work on this show and others, you can join us on Patreon. Our channel is called Podshape True Crime and I've placed a link in the show notes. Back when I first spoke to Tom, he was worried not just about the repercussions but more about speaking out. He told me back six months ago that you were apprehensive because speaking publicly felt like stepping outside the police family, did you still feel that way? To a degree, but I guess I've been pretty happy to start to hear that others are now talking more openly about these things and probably been willing through your podcast even to come forward. And I guess in some ways validate some of the things that were being said. So yeah, it still feels that way. I think that's probably something I won't ever get past but I think it's important. These things are important and they've got to come out. They've got to be in the open. Do you believe anybody inside Taspole suspects that you are Tom? That's hard to say. I think it's been a lot of speculation about who it might be. I'm not concerned about what eventually being known because I think it's the right thing to do. Until it all comes out and there's full transparency, I think the focus should be on how the system went so wrong, so many ways and what the failings were, not necessarily who's talking about it. Has anyone ever directly or indirectly asked you whether you've spoken or listened to the podcast? Yeah, look, I've been asked if I've listened to the podcast or heard it or did I know anything about the things in the podcast. I've even had people speculate to me who Tom could be. So yeah, it's sparked a bit of discussion. When we first spoke, you said Taspole had serious misconduct and criminal allegations involving officers that you've ever had seen six months later, do you still stand by what you told me six months ago? Yeah, I think there's been even more stuff. There probably shows that that was accurate and still remains accurate, even as recently as last week, we had a number of police officers stood down facing allegations of serious offending. Now they're entitled to the presumption of innocence until they found to be guilty of something. But I am seeing a bit of a change in behaviour. There's a little bit more transparency of people, the allegations, people are making against police. Coming out in the open a bit quicker in the last six months. But I remain concerned that this is mainly for officers at the lowest level. And I've not seen any changes about allegations that have been made about people that hold really high office in Tasmania Police. You're a senior officer in Taspole and you still are. One of the questions I guess is and it goes to what you've just said. At that higher level, why do you think that is? Why do you think senior police aren't as quick to react as junior? I think it's because they have to deal with the consequences of both public perception and the questions that come. Lower ranked officers can just watch it and watch it unfold and probably feel the sad or upset that, you know, the people they work for, the agency they work for is getting a bit of a bruised image. But at the upper levels, they have to deal with the consequences of it and they're complex, they're difficult, they have relationship issues, they have consequences. And I think that's the problem that they feel really conflicted about how to even admit fault and deal with it without there being a lot of fallout. And there's a lot of protectionism that starts to kick in. And what does in your view, what does that protectionism look like? It's pressure, it's unspoken, it's almost whispered in the corridors that you don't break ranks and you don't talk about anything that could reflect badly on the senior executives or the agency. It's almost a rallying call to say we're all in this together so let's all make sure we're all okay rather than at the first and primary position where all should be the most ethical people. I think even some of the stuff that happens is misguided and ends up with outcomes that aren't great rather than ethics being right at the forefront of every decision. There's a really significant groundswell that I'm hearing through the people that I know, that I work with, that I'm friends with at all different ranks. There's a divide between the way the lower level officers see and perceive they're being treated from allegations of misconduct compared to those who are in the highest paid and the most accountable jobs. And to think there's two processes that exist and they're sick of it. They think that part of all the fuss that's happening is entirely preventable because they didn't do it and that somehow someone else has been responsible for it and should be held accountable to it. So it's really difficult. There are more and very serious allegations of matters that I think are just as serious as the Reynolds matter are starting to come to light now as well. In our latest episode of Badger Betraya, we talk about a senior officer who, and we've spoken prior to this call and you know of the officer I'm talking about, these allegations of fairly serious. What we've reported on so far, do you believe some of those allegations to be true in your view? Yeah, I have spoken with and know people that were directly involved in the case you're talking about and they're openly talking about it which I think is one of the things I said earlier about people coming forward now because of the previous podcast and stuff and what they're saying. Absolutely gives me confidence that these new serious allegations are a very accurate 100% accurate. When I say that not everyone has all the knowledge of all the things that happen but they're so involved in this and doing ethically the right thing. And some of these people I'm talking about as observers and reporters of misconduct from years ago that have been told stories that they were witnessed to certain things and they've never been interviewed and never been asked to make a statement. They can talk accurately about events that have really serious serious offending involved and the investigation store didn't go ahead for years and were largely covered up and and the offending is actually my viewers serious if not more serious than the than the allegations made against Reynolds. That's a big thing and when we learnt of these allegations we felt exactly the same these sort of surpass you know which is hard to say because Reynolds's offending was disgusting over a long time. These new allegations that have come forward that we're investigating and no doubt will form part of the commission are completely shocking but to you not surprising I'm guessing. Sadly they started around the same time so some of the procedural failings that are now known in the Reynolds one. It's not surprising those proceed. procedural failings evident in this new line of allegations. The allegations against Reynolds were shocking because the scale of grooming and number of people involved, these new allegations are more shocking because he involved contact based offending actual sexual offences being committed beyond grooming. So, this is actual offences against people, grooming of people over the same sort of length of time and then involving non-police officers. Some people that were children at the time were actually sexually offended against, according to the allegations, made against this senior officer. Do you believe rank or relationship influenced those allegations? I think both. And I think at the very core of some of these things is the desire to cover up and protect for the reputation of the agency and make things not come to light so the agency doesn't have to deal with the consequences to avoid things like a full-blown commission of inquiry has taken priority over what should have been the primary goal, which is to identify and prosecute offenders and where possible prevent them from committing further offences. And in this case, it's clear that the offender and their offending were known as early as the early 2000s. And despite that offending being known, no effort, legitimate effort was put into investigating the matter completely and thoroughly. And it really has removed a lot of victims' rights for this matter and this offender to be prosecuted and brought to light. What's normal in any major criminal investigation, whether it's for sex offences or others is, often there will be a call for victims so common across every jurisdiction striker. What's clear in both the Reynolds case and this case is there was never any calls for witnesses to come forward until their offending got discovered 20 years later. And in the most recent case, how many victims are out there having suffering and have suffered and continue to suffer, thinking that they were the only ones and that they were powerless to do anything when all it might have took was someone to say, we know about this, others have complained about this, we're doing something about this, if you're a victim or if you have information or if you are a witness, come and tell us how many opportunities have been missed because those simple things were not done in preference to slowing this investigation down, not ever declaring it publicly and allowing the person to continue to offend. And the evidence shows that not only did they offend really significantly in the early 2000s, that they continued to offend over a long period of time. Is it was this widely known, do you think, in senior police about this alleged offending? It's hard to say, but what I can say is because of the people I'm speaking to now, it can't, it's inconceivable that it wasn't known across most of the senior, senior top echelon within the department, because they would, they would have been in control of managing that person, if that person worked in their area of responsibility, they might have been involved in transferring that person to move them away, I mean, we do know over history that one of the greatest complaints against religious institutions is when they become aware of allegations of sexual improprietry of priests and clergy, they simply move them from one location to another to avoid having to deal with the matter. That's evident in this case. So senior officers would have to have known that they were moving people for, or that were under investigation. The reasons they wanted them moved to start with and by rights, they should have alerted the person that was going to become the manager of those people, or the senior officers, the commander, or the superintendent, or the assistant commissioner in charge of those people, that they were receiving someone that was subject to an investigation or at least allegations of serious misconduct to avoid, you know, to make sure the appropriate protections and workplace safety mechanisms were put in place. None of these, based on any of the people I'm speaking, do ever happen, but it's inconceivable that the senior managers didn't know about the investigation and the extent of the offending. After my first conversation with Tom at the end of 2025, we agreed that we wouldn't speak again until it was right. This was largely due to Tom wanting to protect his identity. Once the government inquiry was launched into Tazpole and Paul Reynolds, Tom reached out and said, "It's probably time we speak again." We spent a couple of hours across the few days on the phone, not recording, just understanding what we could and couldn't talk about, again to protect Tom's identity for now. In those chats, Tom told me about what he termed an off-book investigation was, and I wanted to know more. Yeah, for all of my policing career and nearly everyone that's still a serving member would know that there are really established procedures that should happen when a complaint of misconduct is made against a police officer. Those procedures get reviewed from time to time. They do change from time to time, but largely those procedures are updated to ensure they remain best practice for dealing with what are complex and sometimes really serious allegations of misconduct for police officers. Of course, police officers can and should be held to a high standard of account because of the role that we play in the public and the powers and authority that we have. What's clear, and I think it came about from, although not the introduction of the Integrity Commission in Tasmania around, I think, 2010, 2012, for the first time Tasmania Police had to report all instances of serious misconduct to the Integrity Commission who had a role to oversight those investigations. In the instance of every senior officers, any allegations of misconduct, whether it be serious or not, were reported for oversight to the Integrity Commission, and they report on those and do review both quality of the investigation and the outcome of each of those matters, and that's publicly reported by them in the annual reporting. What an off-book investigation is, is an investigation that's conducted into police misconduct that isn't reported through our police misconduct framework. Remember the view that it would be assessed and managed outside of the framework and to do two things. Avoid the reporting to the Integrity Commission and external scrutiny. Of course, if it is of such a significant matter that requires discretion, that they were able to do that by holding it at a higher level, but again, completely to avoid the declaration of it and the scrutiny of both the reporting, the investigation, how the investigation was conducted, the quality of the investigation and the outcomes and whether the results, including penalty or otherwise, were justified. Am I right in saying, then, that an off-book investigation does that mean anything's recorded? Like, if a statement's taken, is that written down anywhere or is it just conversations? Well, that's a thing, unfortunately, it's freeform, so on certain occasions, it could be conducted as discussions and chats, and it may or may not result in anything being recorded somewhere. On other occasions, it could actually be a high quality investigation conducted at the commensurate standard of an internal investigation, but just not reported through that way. So, that's a problem, then, with an off-hook investigation, it's got no parameters, it's got no guidelines, it's got no rules, and it's used, in some cases, weaponized to ensure that certain matters can't embarrass either the commissioner of the day or the executive or damaged or, you know, turn each the reputation of Tasmanian police. So it's a deliberate management decision, really, based on what the consequences for the executive are as to whether it would be reported and investigated through the proper normal channels or whether, in fact, it would be effectively hidden and managed off the books, as that said, now, the term off the books is just a term for what it is. It's not the name, there's nothing or no folder or file anywhere that says off-book investigation, so there's no way, then, when it comes to things like journalists or enquiries knowing what they should ask to receive, because normally, if you were applying for the Reynolds matter, you would ask where the investigation was, if it was recorded in a particular complaint recording system that existed in the day. you would know to be able to do that. And off-book investigation allows this all to be, you know, less than transparent, hidden away, not disclosed if you know someone has a desire for it not to be, depending on whether they're there, they've got an exposure or what you know, what the mood of the day is. I'm assuming that when we reach out for an RTI release on a particular instance, let's use Reynolds as the example. And, you know, there are a couple of things that, you know, sort of for me, highlighted in this conversation around off-book investigations. The first is the 2008 incident in the Academy Bar and the second is the funeral. There are documented conversations that we've seen as part of an RTI declaration that we're able to get to, but there's a lot of gaps. Is it possible, but some of those gaps are filled in in an off-book way? Yeah, yeah, 100%. They're likely to be, so the Reynolds matter and what we know about that now, though, the couple of inquiries that have never really got to the heart of it is that the allegations that were made from the police academy overheard in the police academy bar in 2008 should have been reported in a formal complaint reporting system in the first instance. And the Tasmania Police Manual, even back then, made it very clear that anyone receiving a complaint, whether it was for a serious matter or otherwise, has an obligation to ensure that evidence is taken as soon as possible and is not lost or to avoid it to prevent its destruction or loss. They should get those things and they should report them formally into a system. The Reynolds matter was never reported that way. It was informally transferred and what is, well, now has been admitted, is the investigation back then wasn't up to standard. What that is not really saying is that it actually wasn't reported and reviewed in the way any normal professional standards investigations would have started or internal investigations would have started back then. Normally, what would happen is a formal investigation or sorry, formal allegation would be written down and the evidence to support that, whether it's a statement or other evidence would be gained as quickly as possible. That would be assessed by the commander of professional standards who would do that on behalf of the Deputy Commissioner. And the reasons the Deputy Commissioner is the largely the highest person that has the operational span to deal with those things. What we know about the Reynolds matter, it was never done that way. It was assessed by an assistant commissioner, professional standards were never involved. It was never written down and documented and no statement was ever taken. So they refer to that as that. There was an assessment undertaken. Well, there wasn't. There was an off-book process that really wrote the inquiry off without investigation. That's really what they're saying. Who has the authority to initiate something like that? No one has the authority to initiate something like that. What it is is an accepted practice that has emerged over time. And as I say, it has become almost a management decision. Other consequences of declaring this, carrying with it both reputational and perhaps personal consequence that people would start asking, well, what the hell's going on with the management in Tasmania Police, if this could happen? So they make conscious choices to run these things outside of normal reporting. Very mind, I think. And I don't know when it started, but it certainly was a long time ago. Every year the Commissioner puts out an annual report and in that annual report we declare how many internal investigations have been undertaken. If you go back and have a look, this isn't only a case that these things were run off-book, they were not reported in things like annual reports. So when you ask who could authorize something like this, I think the question goes further is, well, who also allows a process to ensure that it doesn't get discovered in normal reporting is just as important. That says a lot about culture that there are these parallel systems that can't possibly make it into other types of reporting. So Tom, if this parliamentary inquiry wanted to establish whether these investigations exist, what sort of documents and systems and emails should they be looking at? Unfortunately, they would have to go broad brushware, that have to say any reports, any allegations, any communications, and nominate the names of the persons or the victims or the series of behaviors that came up. Because if you simply, like anything, if you nominate a system such as the complaint management system called Abacus, and it's not in there, they won't give it to you. They won't declare they've got it elsewhere. They'll just simply say, well, you ask for what's in the complaint system, and that's not in the complaint system, so we have no record in the complaint system of that. So it's really hard, this, you know. Let's talk about the parliamentary inquiry. When we first spoke, he said you wanted it inquiry into an inquiry and it needed to be broad enough. The terms of reference in particular, what was your feeling like when you heard the parliamentary inquiry was announced? Well, look, I was amazed. And look, when I first heard about it, I wasn't able to see or I wasn't aware of what the terms of reference were. So my immediate thought was, I was really happy to hear that there was an inquiry, but then I wanted to make sure that the terms of reference weren't so narrow that it couldn't get to the heart of the matter. And I was really stoked when I did read the scope of the parliamentary inquiry. Well, what's Reynolds is certainly a very strong matter that needs a lot of inquiry. There's a lot of questions left, and a lot of things left unanswered. And it's very prominent in their terms of reference. The terms of reference are good enough that it talks about what is the systemic failures, the systems and procedural issues, and culture of Tasmania police for dealing with allegations of serious misconduct. And that is broad enough then to understand why these things continue to go wrong and what cultures and cultural aspects and systems are in place that allow this. And I think we just talked about off-book investigation and that's one of them. I'm not sure how police can even maintain the confidence of the public if they run secretive investigations into themselves that they never declare and there's no independent scrutiny. Police need that. We need to be trusted by our community because we work for the community. And I want to make it really clear that there are so many police out there doing their best all day every day. These things reflect on their professionalism, even though they're not the offenders, and they've not had any role in the mismanagement of these things. And they are the ones that I'm hearing from that are really keen for all these things to get exposed for things to change and then to be able to move on and rebuild that trust and get on and do their job because they all want to do their job. They join the job to help the community that they live in, be that they're a part of and that's what they want to do. And these things are a great distraction. But the people I'm talking to agree that they're so important that we can't maintain trust or can't continue unless these things are all dealt with and we understand why and we put processes and procedures in place to never, never allow these things to happen again. What would need to happen for Tom to actually finally wear his real name badge? Well, it's an interesting question. Don't believe anyone can do this unless they have the courage to eventually come forward until what they know and how they know it. So I'm keen to do that, but unlike others, one of the dangers that I face is that first coming forward to you and your podcast has exposed me to potential discipline reaction. If the agency wanted to view it that way, and even if I was to put the name badge on and walk into the parliamentary inquiry, I may open myself up to other actions that the parliamentary inquiry are offering as protection to anyone else that comes forward. Unfortunately, I may put myself in the position of not being able to rely on that protection because of my previous engagement in the podcast. Now, I say I haven't done anything wrong because I haven't disclosed anything that I knew in my official capacity. I've gained all of the knowledge that I said and the things I told you through private discussions with my colleagues and my friends and even people outside of policing. But it doesn't mean that the people that feel affected by that don't have the power to launch an investigation and make my life as a police officer very difficult and wield some powers and stuff over me and they could, you know, they could take action against me. Although I think in the end I would be able to defend that. It's just one of those strange things and I'm glad to see the parliamentary inquiry are giving that protection to anyone that wants to come forward. I do always hope that this would always or that this would have continued to have been questioned and that we we do know that parliamentarians outside of me speaking with you had had been calling for further inquiry into this. So I had hoped regardless of whether I'd come forward or not that that would probably have ended up in the same position. I think maybe my role in it might have just expedited that but I do believe that there's so many questions that are unanswered. There's so many half-tolled truths and no transparency in who who played what role in the Reynolds matter and other senior senior misconduct allegations. I think an inquiry whether it be a parliamentary inquiry or later on a commission of inquiry was inevitable at some stage and it's hard to say but I think that's probably also necessary to change the culture because it appears that the management culture isn't changing regardless of the scrutiny today. The parliamentary inquiry submissions into TASPOL have now closed. I can say that I've placed a submission into the inquiry on behalf of the podcast. It contains six high-level allegations that have been put to us across the last nine months. Most have never previously been aired. For now I can't go into detail on what those submissions are. As you know once you submit to the inquiry you can't talk about them publicly. The next step to the inquiry is to approve the submissions that have been made and then start the lengthy investigative process that will follow. We promise that we will follow this story until the end. If you'd like to support our independent investigative stories like this one and our little lady you can head to our Patreon page just search Podshape through crime in Patreon or you can click the link in the show notes. Thanks for listening. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]