I Catch Killers with Gary Jubelin
Murder in slow motion: Claude Robinson & Vince Hurley Pt.2
20 Apr 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The public has had a long held fascination with detectives. Detectives see a side of life the average person is never exposed to. I spent 34 years as a cop. For 25 of those years I was catching killers. That's what I did for a living. I was a homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead, I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.
The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some of the content and language might be confronting. That's because no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged. Join me now as I take you into this world.
In part two of I Catch Killers, I continue discussions with my two guests, Claude Robertson, a former prisoner who is literally making society a better place, with his innovative approach to reducing crime. And it comes as no surprise to me that the politicians are sitting up and taking notice of the work that Claude is doing in the managing of the Rainbow Lodge.
And we also have Dr Vince Hurley, who has a unique understanding of crime, having been a former cop, now academic. We talk about the dangers of people like Desi Freeman, and importantly, a program to reduce domestic violence, which I think is a great idea, and also touch on how the justice system doesn't treat everyone equally. Have a listen.
Vince Hurley and Claude Robertson, welcome back to part two of I Catch Killers. What I want to talk about, and I enjoyed the chat because it's good in part one getting your thoughts on crime from different perspectives, but what I want to talk about is domestic violence. How do we prevent it? What are the issues that we face? Claude, firstly to you, you sent me some statistics.
In the past 30 years, the murders of women have halved.
Yeah, so when I started doing some research, you know, because I was getting ā we're getting bombarded with, oh, there's a national crisis. You know, I think they even convened a national cabinet. I'm not ā Oh, no, no, no.
One, there's too many.
Why I, you know, similar to ā Oh, similar to both you in police. Like if you don't get the facts, you can't get a solution. You're going in the wrong thing. Yeah.
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Chapter 2: How does domestic violence impact society and the justice system?
Yeah, exactly.
That's all it's about.
Yeah.
You know, control, money and power. Just getting off the point, because we always do.
But talking about coercive control, a friend of ours, he's in the police, he went to a domestic argument and they went in and the bloke was doing all the talking and one of the police, thank God they switched on, goes, oh, this is not quite right. So the other bloke said, I'm just going to go for a walk through the house to have a look.
And on the kitchen fridge was a list of chores this woman had to do. And she signed it. It was a fucking contract. And they took that and they charged him for coercive control. Yeah, good on them. And the fucking... What type of fucking human, not even that, imbecile does that?
That's not on you. When I worked at the Salvos, we did some stuff with domestic violence and we had a lady and we had to drive down this street at the same time every day because the only time she could leave the house without a husband or the sons was at this particular time. So we would have to drive down the street to see if she was there to pick her up. And one day we picked her up.
That's the level of control. With the forced marriage, I remember we were getting a young girl out of a Western Sydney high school.
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Chapter 3: What statistics highlight the trends in domestic violence?
So this is the level of control they have over their life. And it's a form of domestic violence. We just call it forced marriage. And it was great. I worked with the federal police on this who were amazing. Really, really good things.
So what we would do with her, when we knew she was going to come out because the federal police had flagged it, they referred her to us, she brought one item a day to school for six months. That's the level of control that they had over her life, that if she had too much, too many clothes or two extra things in her bag, they'd be on to her.
So she would bring it to the school every day and leave it in the principal's office and it's six months. Because, you know, you're asking people, especially in force, to leave their whole life, their family, everyone. Like you can't go back. And potentially it's, here it's not at a level where you go to England, they kill you, you know.
And when you would hear their stories of the control, like I remember this young girl telling me this, she says, And this is frightening. My daughter's 10 years old. I think she was 10 or 11. And the frightening thing, this is not just the men. The mother's part of this is, you know. So they would have these men around. The girl just thought, oh, they're friends of the family.
And she would serve them tea and biscuits and all this sort of stuff. But what they were doing was showing her. Introducing her. Yeah. You know, and I just go like, wow. You know, and some of these, you know, were taken overseas. We had one who... And ended up overseas because we actually got her away from the husband and then coercively got her out and got her to America.
America has no forced marriage laws and you can marry 14-year-olds in some states still. Yeah, yeah. I remember working with the federal police and all we could do is we just had to get her to an Australian embassy or consulate, which was our property.
Yes, yes. And then we could get her.
But apart from that, like they couldn't call the police because it's not breaking the law over there. Yeah. That's the level of control. And I think, you know, with the murders have dropped down. So I think Vincent's right. They're using other means.
And I was speaking to some people at the note of violence conference and I sat in on a meeting with that the other day and a young female professor had done some research and we were speaking about this off camera.
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Chapter 4: How do current programs address domestic violence prevention?
This, they would have a worker straight away out there if the police deem that this person, the man can come into our service. He would come in for seven days. Initially, before he goes before the magistrate, we would work with him as psychologists and give him some insight.
So you have psychologists set up there to deal with this?
The caseworker will be working with mum and the kids about what they want. Because one of the things that was brought to my attention in our current system, the police come in and all that. If mum and the kids get a service, generally what happens is we've got a bed at a refuge. You've got an hour to make a determination on whether you want to go because the bed will go. Yeah. Yeah.
Our way, they've got seven days. So they don't have to make any rash decision. They've got their own worker. So mum and the kids can talk to them. And the other thing that was really important, and this is what the courts liked and the victim survivors liked, was that they'll write a letter. So mum and the kids will actually get to write a letter to the magistrate.
So when he comes up before about what they would like, because that doesn't happen now. You know, as you know, a magistrate at best gets it from the police, which is scratchy. You know what I mean? And, you know, he generally doesn't turn up. She doesn't turn up. It's not safe. So the magistrate's trying to make a determination of police facts with ours.
So, you know, wage act worker would work with mum and they wrote a letter to court on the outcome they would like or conditions I would like. And we would work with the mail and we would put forward our recommendations with a psychologist about what we think would work.
And then of course the police would put their position and then the magistrate and the magistrate said to us, that would be amazing that we would be able to make this determination, a much more informed determination. And so at best, if they go, I know he's look, we think he can go home. They would let him go home, but he's had seven days from the incident.
And as I think you guys both told me that the most dangerous time for a woman is within 14 days of the initial AVO being put in place.
So that seven days, what interests me about it, because I worry, I just know the mentality of someone putting in a cell for seven days, they're going to come out angry. They might say they're sorry, but they're going to be in there with other people that have done the same thing. That seven days at your establishment. Yep. You've got counselors, psychologists, you've got people.
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Chapter 5: What innovative solutions are proposed for handling domestic violence?
Not currently. So, yeah, you know.
Where else do you put money into to stop this?
Youth prisons. Well, you know, I wrote a post on LinkedIn.
Sorry, I'm thinking because I'm trying to mount an argument. We're short of police, and that's accepted, that there is a shortage in New South Wales, and I think pretty much across the country, of police. And then there's also the situation that the police time taken up with domestic violence is, yeah. Yeah.
69%, I think, is Mount Druid at the highest.
Well, in fact, I've got a mate who's between Parramatta, what, cities out of Western Suburbs? Yeah. 85%. of police work is domestic violence. 85%.
I remember you telling me a story when you were at Mount Druitt, I think in your whole shift, there was 20 call outs and they were all domestic violence. Like it's insane.
Okay. So we're not accountants or economists or whatever. However, I reckon if you did the figures, you could solve a lot of problems by solving domestic violence.
And then the flow on effect, the negative offence of it, not just the victims, the impact it has on the children caught up in domestic violence and the flow on effect for their life, the shortage of police and the percentage of time spent investigating or being called out to domestic violence situations, you'd be wanting to throw money at a project that could potentially prevent that.
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Chapter 6: How does coercive control play a role in domestic violence?
They mean nothing. Whereas I know I've had a conversation with Vincent and you said you'd done some incidental research that targeted AVOs stop. I think you said that stops men who have something to lose.
Yeah.
Then I see the guys who are in the criminal system who don't give a shit. Yeah, that's right. So, you know, what I see at the moment is we just have this one size fits all. Yeah. And, you know, and I hear this, I go, oh, you know, the police did nothing. And I go, yeah, because you're the 20 person that's come into the desk that day, you know, and they go out there and nothing's done.
Nobody wants to make a report. Because they're so overwhelmed every time they go to something, they've got to put an ABO on someone.
Well, you know, I think in, I can't remember if it was last year or the year before, just rounding it up, there was 50,000 ABOs taken out in New South Wales. 22,000 were breached. There's just not enough people in the world that could even...
So my thing is why aren't we using the tools we have and targeting them? Like if it works on those men, then why aren't we targeting those men? And the ones that it doesn't work on, then why aren't we using brakes?
You know what I mean? Well, I think it has to be a multi-layer brake.
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Chapter 7: What are the challenges with existing AVOs (Apprehended Violence Orders)?
Yeah, yeah, different mechanisms.
There's one I'm dealing with, and this just irks me. Audrey Griffin, who was murdered on the Central Coast 12 and a half months ago. 19-year-old girl walking home from a hotel and she's found deceased in a river at Gosford. The person that was charged with it, and there was failings in the initial investigation because they wrote it off as a misadventure, which was outrageous.
But when he was charged with the murder, when they eventually agreed it was suspicious and tracked the person down, he was charged with murder and 11 breaches of AVOs over a couple of months period of time.
11.
11. Now, this wasn't on the victim. That was on his ex-wife. The breaches were on... But it doesn't matter.
It shows intent.
It shows a pattern. This person went to prison and he took his own life three or four days after he was arrested. But that history there, he had a history of violence and the system, whether it's... And I'm not blaming individual police. I'm just saying the system didn't identify that. I look at it now and I look at it and go... What the hell?
That was always going to happen, that someone was going to pay for this. And it was just a random stranger. She was walking home. He'd been harassing his ex-wife. He was angry and she was killed.
But surely with the technology we have available with AI and all that, we can take the human error part out of it and make it at least flag instances.
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Chapter 8: How can technology be used to prevent domestic violence?
You put it like that. I appealed my thing to the Court of Criminal Appeal.
And that's what we got after spending $5 million?
No. Good value for money. Good value for money. I appealed one of my cases in the district court to the Criminal Court of Appeal and got a $5,000 a day public defender.
You know what I mean?
And, you know, honestly, when I look at it, this is about, like, this has taken me years to heal and go, fuck, like, this is not okay. I did it because I was in prison. I had nothing better to do.
But understandable from what you're saying, but that's when it comes down to a way of looking at the problems. Like, if you look at it just from a fiscal point of view, crime costs so much.
My daughter's school, I've got to give them paper towel and all that, and I'm thinking, and they're giving me a public defender to, you know. Yeah, yeah. Annabelle, who's on the president on the board and has spent at Rainbow and spent a lot of years, you know, she goes, give them the $130,000 a year to buy their drugs. They'll never commit any crime. Well, save us all a whole heap of drama.
Tim Watson Munro, the criminal psychologist, he was talking about the money spent in prisons for each inmate. They could virtually have their own psychologist appointed to them 24-7.
Annabelle talks about that. You could get a social worker to follow. Yeah. And the kids, like in New South Wales, a million dollars to keep a kid in juvenile prison. And I think it's 99.4% will never be convicted and serve a sentence. Oh, God. All their juvenile detention is remand. Yeah. Right. It's crazy. Wow. It is crazy. A million.
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