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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
ABC Listen. Podcasts, radio, news, music and more. When Deborah Richardson was 18 years old, she was living with her parents in the suburbs of Melbourne and working at a call centre job that she absolutely hated. She thought about the kind of work that her older brother got to do as a police officer and decided to give that a crack.
By the following year, Deborah was accepted into the Victorian Police Academy and graduated in 1984 as one of only a handful of female officers. One day, Deborah was at work at the Russell Street Police Station in Melbourne CBD when a car bomb exploded outside. And although she was lucky to avoid serious injury, the experience deeply affected her.
Chapter 2: What motivated Deborah Richardson to join the police force at 18?
Years later, Deborah and her husband took the child of another police officer into their home. The boy's name was Yuri. He was from Ukraine. His family were survivors of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Back home in Kiev, Yuri grew up to become a police officer himself.
And it was a project that Deb set up to support Yuri after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which ended up helping Deb in a way she could never have anticipated. Hi, Deborah. Hello, Sarah. You signed up for Victoria Police when you were just 18. What was life like at the academy?
It was tough, if I'm frank. I'd really struggled through school and, you know, I was actually reflecting over the last few days and looking back at my final report in Year 11 and it said that I completed Art, English and Typing, which was really actually a fail, but passing three out of my six subjects. And so life was a struggle for me.
I hated school, didn't want to work there and my mum was convinced that I needed to go and work in the bank. And of course, I'd failed maths, so I was never going to get a bank job, although she made me apply for a couple. And so I ended up in this call centre at the Gas and Fuel Corporation with about 200 other women sitting in a call centre, taking phone calls and
complaints all day long and then thought, no, I need to do something better with my life. So I applied. It was a time where there was so many men in the environment and only 2% of women, as you've said, Sarah. And so it was difficult. The academy was a hard life for me. I had to learn how to study and certainly the physical aspect.
You had to learn to run and jump and swim and all of those things on top of study.
And how did the sergeants in charge of training speak to new recruits like you?
Particularly the women. We got a very hard time. And in fact, they would often use, and I'm going to use the word lightly, intimidation, if you like.
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Chapter 3: What happened during the Russell Street bombing in 1986?
I guess they wanted to make sure that we could handle things once we got out on the road. And so to yell and scream at you and point at you and all of those things were not unusual.
And how did you handle that? I mean, was that something you were familiar with, had experienced in your life before?
No, absolutely not. It was very new to me. And, you know, I guess as a young 18-year-old, your first reaction is you want to burst into tears. But then I think your next reaction is, actually, I've got to prove to them I can handle this. And so it gives you a little bit of a steely resolve.
Yeah.
You had to take part in something called Alcohol Awareness Day. What did that involve? It's not something I think would fly with HR departments now.
I don't think it would be part of the curriculum at the Police Academy anymore.
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Chapter 4: How did Deborah and her husband come to foster Yuri from Ukraine?
What they were wanting to do was to demonstrate how alcohol affected different people, different sexes, different sizes of people. And so the sergeant in charge had told us that we were having an Alcohol Awareness Day and he said half of you will be the drinkers and half of you will be the observers. And then he looked at me and he said, Deborah, I'm nominating you to be a drinker.
Now, at 18, I'd barely had a glass of wine, Sarah. And why do you think he pinpointed you? Well, I was the youngest and I was female. And in those days, I was also very tiny. So I think it was going to be evident that I would be quickly affected by the alcohol. And were you?
Chapter 5: What impact did the Chernobyl disaster have on Yuri's family?
As you say, you hadn't drunk much before. 100%. I was completely and utterly drunk and went through every emotion that you can possibly imagine on the day. So one minute I was crying. I'd just broken up with a boyfriend. The next minute I was laughing hysterically. And throughout the course of the day, they put you through a series of tests. So walk a straight line, try and catch this ruler and
Yes, incredibly drunk.
Chapter 6: How did Deborah's project for Yuri evolve during the war in Ukraine?
I was asked to drink eight glasses of wine in the first hour and to keep drinking after that.
Oh, my gosh. So you made it through this day. I imagine woke up the next day feeling pretty horrible. Absolutely. But then what happened a few days later?
A few days later, I was sitting in a class and a sergeant came in and I was told that I needed to go to the superintendent's office and we only had about four weeks left in the academy. And so very unusual that you were being called to the superintendent's office.
And when I arrived, one of the other policewomen that was in my squad had walked out of that room and I looked at her and I said, are you OK? And she gave me the thumbs down and she said, see you later. I'm gone. And I was like, oh, my goodness, what what is going on? And so I walked into the room and there was about 12 people.
various degrees from sergeant up to the superintendent, sitting around in a semicircle with one chair in the middle of that that was for me. And I sat down and during the course of the Alcohol Awareness Day, they had filmed us. And so they had video evidence of what had gone on for the day. Did you know that? I can't say that I recall anything.
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Chapter 7: How did Deborah's experience with sexism shape her police training?
that we were even told that that was going to happen, possibly. But again, I was drunk. So my awareness is that I'm not sure. And all of a sudden, the sergeant opens up and he said, we've called you in here today because we believe you have an emotional disturbance and you shouldn't be a policewoman.
From viewing that footage of you after being forced to drink all of this alcohol. Exactly.
Yeah, yeah. So I think it was also on the back of this particular sergeant on day two of me being out at the academy, Sarah, was yelling and screaming in my face, pointing at me, telling me I was too young, I was too pretty, I was female and I wouldn't last and he would do everything in his power to make sure that I didn't.
And so this was the same sergeant that had filmed me and obviously put in the complaint. And I was fired all these questions, particularly along the lines of, you know, what are you going to do when you get called to a brawl? I'm assuming that you're going to sit in the van and you're going to lock those doors and not get out to support your police officer beside you.
And so left, right and centre, these questions were coming at me. And how did you respond to all of this? I fought really hard. I kept my dignity. I kept my calm. You know, I was like a swan, smooth on the top and frantically paddling underneath the water because this was what I wanted to do. And I was not going to let them win.
And I knew I had something to offer and that I could do the job and I could do it capably. And so I fought really hard.
And it succeeded? I mean, you succeeded in that? I did.
So I left the room not knowing what the outcome of that was, although I kind of thought, well, I must have done okay because the lady had gone in before me was packing up and already out of the academy doors. So I knew in some regards that whatever I had said meant that they needed to deliberate on that. And I think it was the next day that I was informed that I could stay.
The day I graduated, my law instructor came up to me that evening. We had a dinner and he said to me, Deb, I'm so proud of you. He said, we had made the decision before you walked in those doors that you were no longer going to be a member of Victoria Police. And the decision had been made. And he goes, if you hadn't fought as hard as you did, you would have been gone. And I'm so proud of you.
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Chapter 8: What were the challenges Deborah faced while delivering aid to Ukraine?
Of course, we'll be behind you. And I was really struggling in that moment going, what am I going to do? Is my career going to be over because I'm going to say no? And I just couldn't do it, Sarah. I was sitting there going, all the doubts flooded into my brain that I'm not an actress. And this is not my life. And I can't do this. It was all these negative thoughts going through my head.
And I said to him, boss, I can't do it. And so he walked out to the squad room and he goes, it's off. And I came back to work the next day and he said, Deb, we want to offer you a job. We want you to stay with the squad. And in that moment, I said to him, I need to think about it. And I went home that night and I spoke to my boyfriend at the time and my parents and
And I just said to them in that moment that if I accept this role, then I can no longer say no to a job and I can't do that.
How do you look back at that young woman who had the courage and kind of self-knowledge to push back on that?
I don't think I've really thought about that before, Sarah, but I guess now with hindsight, I think it was pretty courageous. You know, it wasn't something that you did. Every time someone said something to you, it was yes, sir, no, sir. And so I suppose it was courageous.
In 1986, Deborah, you were 21 and at that point working at the district training office next to the Russell Street police station. Tell me about the start of your shift on March 27.
Yeah, March 27, 1986, it was Easter Thursday. I was on a one o'clock shift and ordinarily I would walk through what we called the south door entrance of Russell Street. There was a main entrance and then there was the south door entrance. The district training office was the very next office beside the south door.
For some unknown reason, normally on a one o'clock shift, I'd get in at one o'clock and I'd walk through that south door and That particular day I got in early. I came through the rear car park, which I'd actually never done for the whole time that I had been working there. And I arrived at about 20 to 1 and I sat down at my desk, which was right beside a window.
At 101, Sarah, there was a bomb blast and I was literally blown off my chair to the other side of the room. And, you know, when people say to you time stands still in those traumatic moments, it truly does. I can still so clearly today remember. visualise everything that happened in that moment. There was a red flash, one window popped, the room filled with smoke.
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