Leave A Light On Podcast
Welcome to "Leave A Light On Podcast," the podcast that brings you inspiring stories of ordinary people overcoming extraordinary challenges in their lives. Join us as we delve into the lives of individuals from all walks of life, exploring the adversities they face and the resilience they demonstrate in overcoming them.
In each episode, we'll introduce you to a new guest—a parent, a teacher, a healthcare worker, a student, a veteran, or perhaps your neighbor next door. Through heartfelt interviews and candid conversations, we'll uncover the personal battles they've fought, whether it's overcoming illness, navigating through loss, breaking free from addiction, or facing societal barriers.
From tales of triumph over adversity to stories of perseverance in the face of hardship, "Leave a Light On Podcast" celebrates the human spirit and the strength found within each of us. You'll laugh, you'll cry, and most importantly, you'll be inspired by the resilience and determination of these everyday people who refuse to be defined by their struggles.
So, tune in and join us on this journey of hope, empowerment, and the celebration of the human spirit. Because in the end, it's the stories of everyday people that remind us all that we are capable of overcoming anything life throws our way.
Leave A Light On Podcast
Episode 8 - From Undercover Ops to Mental Health Advocacy: Mel McLachlan's Story
What happens when a dedicated police officer transitions through some of the most intense and specialized roles within the force over an 18-year career? Meet Mel McLachlan, a former member of the New South Wales Police Force, whose journey is nothing short of extraordinary. From her early days at the Police Academy in 2000 to her promotion to sergeant in 2011, Mel’s story is one of resilience, facing the unexpected, and ultimately, a testament to the importance of mental health in law enforcement.
Listen as Mel recounts her unexpected leap into police rescue work in the Blue Mountains and the emotional toll of dealing with traumatic events in such a picturesque setting. She opens up about the culture of the police force back in 2002, where discussing the personal impacts of trauma was discouraged, and the stigma around mental health was rampant. Mel also shares her thrilling experiences as an undercover detective, from street-level drug busts to high-stakes operations, highlighting the constant risks and need for quick thinking in such dangerous roles.
We also delve into Mel’s time working in Mount Druitt, navigating its socio-economic challenges, and how these experiences shaped her both professionally and personally. Her reflections on the transformation in mental health support from 2018 to 2024, offer hope and guidance for others facing similar struggles. Mel’s insights on balancing personal life with career demands, the evolving roles within law enforcement, and her journey of resilience after retirement, provide a compelling look at the realities of life as a police officer. Tune in for an inspiring episode filled with courage, challenges, and a strong message about the importance of mental health support.
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Hello and welcome to Leave a Light On Podcast, a show that looks to tackle the everyday struggles in our everyday lives. It's time to shed some light on it. Leave a light on podcasts not a licensed mental health service. It shouldn't be substituted for professional advice or treatment. Things discussed in this podcast are general in nature and may be of a sensitive nature. If you're struggling, please seek professional help or contact Lifeline on 13 11 14. Here's your hosts Shane and Shiv.
Speaker 3:Yo, good morning, good afternoon or good evening. Wherever you're listening to us in the world. I am Shane, one half of Leave A Light On podcast, and my other half is Shiv. Hello.
Speaker 4:Shiv. Hey, hey, welcome, welcome. This is awesome. Another episode, Another one. Yeah, beautiful weather as well.
Speaker 3:It is Another one. Yeah, Beautiful weather as well it is.
Speaker 4:It's really good. I'm starting to have some good feelings about the spring coming.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 4:Warm weather, beers all around Happy days and you've got a singlet.
Speaker 3:Obviously I do Get my guns out. Yeah, guns out. I mean they're all only pistols. Good job, that deserves a little.
Speaker 4:Good job, you're damn right. Yeah, all done. Yeah, so our guest, let's introduce.
Speaker 3:Let's introduce our guest. Well, shiv, this is big for you because I'm going to leave this one up to you today, for the first time. You've got to crawl before you walk. You get to introduce our guest today. You've got to crawl before you walk. You get to introduce our guest today. So, shiv, before you get into it, this is a little one for you.
Speaker 4:Good stuff Go for it.
Speaker 3:Introduce our guest.
Speaker 4:So our guest today is pretty cool is Mel McLaughlin. Welcome Mel McLaughlin. Yeah, yeah, really keen.
Speaker 3:Yeah, when we were going through it in the beginning with Mel, I was like, oh, I can either just give you like a standard applause, yep, or the other one obviously would have been the, which was quite interesting Because it's kind of like Counteractive to what she did, but I still think she's a gangster. That's awesome. It was either the applause or the gangster music. I'm going to go with the gangster one.
Speaker 4:She is probably the one that pulled up those. Oh yeah, Pull your pants up, you idiot. You're going to tell us why You're not a gangster.
Speaker 3:But first of all, welcome Mel. Thank you so much for being on the podcast with us.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 3:As discussed, it's not Melissa or it's not Melanie.
Speaker 4:No, just it's not Melissa, or it's not Melanie. No, and it's not Rachel either, and it's not Rachel either. The listeners will find out that later.
Speaker 3:That was great, so good to have you on the podcast and we're going to hear, obviously, a little bit about your career and what you did, yep, so, shiv, tell us who is Mel.
Speaker 4:All right, Shane's giving me the reins today. I'm going to crawl before I walk and see how we go with it. So, yeah, feedback would be awesome. Yeah, let's go. So in 2000, Mel embarked on what would be a career spending 18 years with the New South Wales Police Force. She graduated from the Police Academy and she then moved into Police Rescue and did a course. In 2006, she moved to an investigation position and then eventually moved into COVID intelligence unit. Well done.
Speaker 3:Because you initially said COVID, that wasn't around in 2006 and 2007.
Speaker 4:Well, it could have been. No, it's all good. So then in 2011, she was promoted to a sergeant, which is really awesome, and then in 2018, she retired from the New South Wales Police Force due to being medically unfit. So that's roughly what we got for our guest today, and just reading what she's got here, it seems like she's had a hell of a career. A hell of a career, yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, firstly, welcome to the podcast, mel, as we've said, and secondly, thank you obviously for the service that you did. Yeah, definitely Within the police force, thank you. I think, as we discussed, I don't think police officers get enough credit for what they did and obviously your 18 years span in that it's a long time to dedicate your life.
Speaker 5:It is.
Speaker 3:It is a very long time, yeah, and I think I mean I was blown away at some of the stories we've discussed, which we'll get into in the podcast, but I just want to say from our side, thank you so much for your service. It's very easy to obviously, like we said, when it comes to the military, they get a lot of credit for what they do even after their service in it, Whereas police officers tend to kind of just be forgotten about. So we want to honor you and say thank you so much for your service in that and thank you so much for just dedicating a lot of your time and your efforts into just helping people. And I think that's why, when I said to you, why did you get into the police force, you said, well, it's pretty cliche, but you just wanted to help people.
Speaker 5:That's exactly right. I thought I could help people and I could change the world and it'd be a better place.
Speaker 3:I went in with my eyes open and quickly closed them. I mean it's such a beautiful thing to go in and be like I just want to help people. And then you realize that I mean the world is such a crazy place and the stuff that you encounter then kind of changes your perceptions from just helping people to like how can I just make a difference really?
Speaker 5:100%. How can I make a difference? How can I survive in this environment? What do I need to do to make it a better place for not only the people, but yourself as well?
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely so. Let's go back all the way to 2000, where you started. You started out in obviously rescue. Tell us about that a little. You started, you started out in obviously rescue. Tell us about that a little bit and that journey of coming into the rescue.
Speaker 5:Yeah. So I obviously finished with the police academy and was stationed in the Blue Mountains at the latter end of 2001. I did 12 months in general duties before I was asked one day if I wanted to go on the police rescue course. I'd never had any interest in it whatsoever, had no idea what they did, just they were these fancy white trucks in the driveway. Anyway, one of the guys that was due to go on the course actually broke his leg and so a position came up.
Speaker 5:So they were like Mel, do you want to go on this course? I'm like oh yeah, sounds cool. What do I want to go on this course? I'm like oh yeah, sounds cool. What do I have to do? Well, come out the back. We'll get you to jump off the roof, climb under the building and then cut a car apart and make sure you can handle it. Righto, this sounds interesting. Off, I go out the back, jump off the roof, climb under the building and cut a car apart. So then I went off and successfully completed the rescue course, and at that time I was one of only eight females that had ever done the course successfully.
Speaker 5:That's huge congratulations, that's awesome um, yeah, so finished the course, headed back to the blue mountains where I started doing both police rescue and general duty. So police rescue was like a part-time gig, so you'd drive around in your normal two-tone blues doing general duties, so that's any calls that come in in, and then if a rescue call came in, you'd effectively get changed on the side of the road into your white overalls and off you'd go and you'd do the rescue job. And yeah, so I did that for a few years I guess. During that time I obviously saw a lot and I attended a lot of jobs, and a lot of those jobs were to do with people that had committed suicide, self-harmed, and I often wondered back then why people would do that in the Blue Mountains. But someone told me at some point that it was actually because it was such a scenic and beautiful place that people went there to be at peace with their life, and I guess, looking back at that, that kind of makes sense to a degree.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because it's a stunning place to be.
Speaker 5:Yeah absolutely gorgeous. So over the next I think it was 18 months I attended a lot of jobs and there was one job in particular that I went to. It was a suicide, mid-mountains, on the train line, and I remember that afternoon and I still remember it clearest day to day I'd spent some time under a train collecting body parts and bagging them like as respectfully as you can, and I'd come out and come up to the command area and I was covered in like railway dust and blood and whatever else, and I was carrying gear and I remember that day that the duty officer that was on patted me on the back and was like you'll be right, mel, you're in rescue, you're on call tonight, so clean yourself up and off, you go go home. And I kept doing that stuff and, like I continued to see a lot of stuff.
Speaker 5:But I started to look then to where I was going to go next, um, and I decided at that time I wanted a new challenge and I was. I was going to move on. I was going to become a detective, um, and if I look back at it now, the reason why I think I wanted to become a detective was because I was being conditioned to being okay, that I needed to be okay with everything I was seeing and I needed to be okay with what I was feeling, with what I was seeing. So the best thing to do was to run away to the next opportunity and see what I could achieve next.
Speaker 3:When you say you were being conditioned, who was doing the conditioning?
Speaker 5:The police force as a whole. Back then so we're talking back in 2002, no one spoke about how they felt. So no one spoke about the impacts that anything had on them. So if you went to a deceased or a suicide or a murder, even you didn't talk about how it impacted you. You had a joke with your colleagues, you went home, you came back the next day and you continued on with the job. That's as a whole. Everyone conditioned you to be okay.
Speaker 4:And that's exactly what me and Shane are trying to do is obviously shed that light on. So you guys know to speak up. You know it's not weak to speak, and we want to shine the light on you guys and what you guys see every day.
Speaker 3:Yeah, did you guys have any tools that the police force had back in 2002 that helped when it came to, obviously, the horrific things that you as a police didn't see?
Speaker 5:Look, there was obviously there was a peer support program, which I was a peer support officer so you could do a course to support people. But really at the end of the day you were still just one of their colleagues. And then they did bring in the employee assistance program. So that's a program where a lot of workplaces have it. You can call up, you can speak to a psychologist, you get some free sessions. But there was a stigma in the police where if you called that assistance line, what was going to happen to you? Were they going to report back to the police? Were you going to be taken off the duties you were doing? How was it going to be perceived? Was it going to affect you in the future, like, were you going to get promoted or was it going to be on your record? So there was a lot of unknowns back then as to how that worked, so a lot of people were really reluctant to talk about it.
Speaker 3:I think, even just still today, I feel like that stigma still applies.
Speaker 3:Where people feel like because they're seeking help, it immediately puts them at the back foot of their current job or position that they're doing because people feel that, oh well, look, so-and-so is going to counseling, so we can't promote them because they're barely getting by with what they're doing now, for instance, whereas no one knows what's happening in their personal life at home or their personal circumstances.
Speaker 3:Or even, like you say, with a particular case, every case was so different so you might go to a murder case today and a murder case tomorrow, and the murder case tomorrow will be completely different to the murder case you're in today. So it's such a stigma where we're saying like it shouldn't be judged on the fact that, oh well, because they're seeking help, they can't get further in the career or something like that. So I feel like that's such a key thing that you said there, where it was such a stigma for people to be like, well, people are going to view me different or they're going to judge me different, or so therefore, instead of getting the help I need, I'm just going to kind of keep quiet and just plod along.
Speaker 5:Keep quiet and change direction. I think, if I look back at my career now and I achieved a lot and I went to a lot of places, but I think, reflecting, I was changing direction to avoid what was happening to me.
Speaker 3:I mean, yeah, I mean you've changed direction so many times as we went through in your bio there, yeah, yeah, so I can only imagine when it did start to get to that point where you're trying to like grapple with the hardships of the job that you were just like, well, I'll just kind of change direction and move to a different one and now handle other.
Speaker 5:Exactly, handle new challenges and, yeah, something different, something interesting. So then, you put what's been happening sort of on the back burner until it comes up again and then you change direction again.
Speaker 3:Yeah, All right. So you moved obviously from the rescue side of things. In what 2005? Yes, Is that correct?
Speaker 5:2005,. As I said, I'd been doing rescue and general duties and look, I loved the Blue Mountains, I loved the people and I love the work at the end of the day. But I got to that point and I was like, okay, I want to be a detective, I want to do investigations, I want to get into the nitty-gritty of okay, well, this has happened. Where's the end game? And I spoke to Chev before the episode and he's a law and order buff and I explained I am.
Speaker 4:Indeed, when I had my first conversation with you, I was like so into it because I'm a massive like crime buff so I thought you'd be interesting and I instantly thought of law and order.
Speaker 5:So I can confirm no case is generally solved in 50 minutes. Okay, including all of the forensics. Yeah, most of the time that does take months or weeks. Yeah, so most of the time that does take months or weeks. So, yeah, I was successful in getting a position down at the Professional Standards Command. So for people that don't know what that is, that's actually a command that investigates police as well as other crimes, so it worked in conjunction with the Crime Commissioner as well.
Speaker 4:Oh, so you were part of the Rat Squad. I was the Rat Squad for a while. Oh, total fish. Wow that you were part of the Rat Squad. I was the Rat Squad. Oh, internal affairs.
Speaker 3:Wow, that must have been very interesting.
Speaker 5:It was very interesting being able to work with Internal Affairs or Professional Standards Command and the Crime Commission. You got the best of, or the worst of, the bad stuff in the cops, but also the organised crime that was happening with the Crime Commission.
Speaker 4:That's pretty cool.
Speaker 5:Yeah. So whilst I was there, I had the opportunity to get my detective's designation. So I went and got that. And then some more opportunities came my way in the form of undercover work. So I was offered the opportunity to do the street level operatives course, and I thought you know what Great Like this is exciting. Like, let me let me at this. What am I going to do? Street level operatives course. And I thought you know what Great Like this is exciting. Like, let me let me at this. What am I going to do? So I went and did the street level operatives course, and so that's your low level purchase of drugs. So I had an assumed identity. I'd dress up as a prostitute or a homeless person or whatever it was on the day. I'd hang out at a train station. I'd buy drugs.
Speaker 4:That is pretty cool.
Speaker 3:That is awesome man, that is awesome I mean it's so interesting, you see it in a movie but you don't realize that it's real. Like people do this and, like you say, you're literally trying to protect your identity while you're going out there and posing to be a prostitute or a drug you know, drug buyer or something like that.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I remember I was at one of the Western train stations in Sydney. I had this dodgy stroller and it had I think it had a beer carton in it, an empty beer carton and newspapers and all of this other crap and I was just buying drugs. It was fun. It was some of the best times of my life.
Speaker 4:Wow, that's pretty good. That's insane.
Speaker 5:So I got a taste for that at that street level, operative level, and an opportunity came up it was probably about 12 months later to do the full-on undercover program.
Speaker 3:Is that where you're pretty much under for months?
Speaker 5:Yeah. So those jobs are prolonged jobs and they're not your street-level stuff. So that's your mid to high-level stuff. You're driving a decent car, you've got hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's business, it's not. You're not a junkie, you're not trying to get a hit, you're going after the dealers, not.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you're not a junkie, you're not trying to get a hit. Yeah, you're going. You're going after the dealers.
Speaker 5:That's right. Yeah, you want to buy a quantity because you want to on, sell it, um.
Speaker 5:And so I was doing that kind of work all over the state and loved it like it was. It was certainly a highlight of my career, but also, um, some of the jobs didn't go as they should have. There was one particular job I was out doing a buy in the western suburbs of Sydney and I ended up. I dealt with the guy a number of times. We'd met at a shopping centre, we'd met in a car park and then on the day that I was going to buy, I needed to go to an apartment block and I went by myself, which was absolutely normal. You generally wore a wire so that your team could hear what was going on.
Speaker 5:And I remember I parked basically at a park, so it was like a big open field. There was kids playing soccer, like it was suburbia, and I walked across the road and I walked down this driveway, and the driveway was probably sort of a level below street level and that was just because, like, the car parking was underneath the apartment. So I'd walked down the driveway and then I'd ended up in a stairwell that was a concrete stairwell. So that then reduced any communication I had with the outside world, because I was obviously surrounded by concrete and steel, and when I entered that stairwell, that's when I knew things were not okay.
Speaker 5:The guy that I'd been dealing with was there, but there was also a whole lot of other people there as well. There was a guy there with a firearm, um, there was a couple of guys above me, a couple to the side of me and the guy that I was talking to about doing the deal. So at that point, um, you have to identify, and I apologize for swearing, but how the fuck am I getting out of? Here yeah.
Speaker 5:And how am I getting out of here alive? And I want the drugs too Like. Let's not forget why.
Speaker 3:I'm here. Yeah, it's kind of like it's that too in your head. It's like the fight or flight 100%.
Speaker 5:It's like how do I get?
Speaker 3:out safely, but how do I complete the job at the?
Speaker 5:same time. How can I run quick enough to not get shot? But You're not normal, mel. So I remember standing there and this is going through my head and I'm talking and I'm talking about the piece that I can see and I'm describing it and I'm like why have you got a piece? Like seriously, mate, we're in a stairwell. Who's going to get us in a stairwell?
Speaker 5:And the reason I was talking about that was so that my team knew that this was not good and at that point I had no idea that they couldn't hear me. So I'm like I'll just keep talking. I'm going to talk my way out of this. This is my weapon. I'm going to just keep talking, anyway. So it was clearly just a test. He never held it to my head or anything like that. I eventually got my drugs and I got the fuck out of there, wandered back across the road, nice, and casually got back in the car, went back to my team, gave them what I needed to give them, gave them a description, and that then started a roller coaster of debriefs and what happened in there and what was going on and how they were then going to coordinate, getting in there to obviously secure that on, and how they were then going to coordinate getting in there to obviously secure that weapon and any other drugs and stuff. So, um, that was, I guess, another turning point in my career.
Speaker 3:I can imagine Maybe anyone's turning point.
Speaker 5:I didn't give up undercover. I still kept doing it. Um did start Seeing a counsellor and a psychologist Just so that I could go. You know I am okay with that. In my head I was okay, but was I really okay? So, yeah, that was the beginning of my undercover career. Sorry, I just keep talking. No, that's alright, that's incredible, like honestly.
Speaker 4:It's honestly like the things that you hear or see in movies, the whole time she was talking, I was thinking about like detective Benson from law and order and I'm like, wow, this is amazing.
Speaker 3:I literally just had this movie. Like your guys are out in like an ice cream van or like a laundry van, outside All the audio stuff you know, looking going, oh, we can't hear you, we've lost the audio. And you're just going in there and being like, okay, guys, let's go, I want my drags in, you know. Yeah, so insane. Like just the thought of like that actually being a reality must be just frightening. Frightening. Like you say you've got to be trained quite well, because in that moment the panic sets in and you go, you just want to bail. Yeah, because it's literally just like you say that fight or flight, where you're just like I'm just panicking and I can't show it on the outside. I've got to be so calm and collected, yeah.
Speaker 4:They obviously didn't frisk you either. No, no, like you would have got, did you get frisked? And stuff like that. Look every now and then you would, every now and then people would touch you just to see.
Speaker 5:But like I mean the technology that's out there now. It's not like you're walking around with a mobile phone strapped to your chest or something. That's true.
Speaker 4:I just figured being drug dealers and all that. They would have done stuff, especially with the peace and all that I had you build quite a good rapport with people before you get to that level.
Speaker 5:So, like the guy that I was meeting there, I'd met with him a number of times, I'd talked to him on the phone a number of times, like yeah, we had that rapport and yeah, I was one of them, but obviously to the other people there, I was someone new being introduced.
Speaker 3:So just but obviously to the other people there, I was someone new being introduced, so it's just a test. Do you ever worry about the aftermath of something like that, like them finding out like after, let's just say, they get busted and they get arrested? Obviously you would have had to have then compiled a case against them.
Speaker 5:Yeah, that all comes in in about 2012.
Speaker 3:Okay, we'll get there then. Yes, we absolutely will. Yeah, okay. So obviously, like you said, I went into the covert intelligence side of things, went into the undercover.
Speaker 5:Yeah, so I kept doing that. Um, I was doing that on a part-time basis as well, so I was doing my investigation stuff and the undercover work as cases come up. It was kind of a you get offered a job, If you could get released you'd go do the job. If you couldn't get released then you'd go to the next one. But part of my detective training when I was at Professional Standards Command was that I needed to go back out into the real world. I guess you could say, and I selected Mount Druitt to go back into the real world.
Speaker 3:You selected it voluntarily, I selected Mount.
Speaker 5:Druitt.
Speaker 4:Okay, it sounded like you had your work cut out for you.
Speaker 3:Well, I think it's quite funny. I mean, you and I are talking about the beginning. You've got a real like rescue mentality about you.
Speaker 5:I do.
Speaker 3:And so you probably look at like the worst in terms of situations and go I can fix that, I can sort that out. So you looked at Mount Druitt and said I can go there and make a difference.
Speaker 5:I can go there, I can make a difference, but I can have fun too. I was still young. I was still young and stupid, I suppose you could say, and I was like yeah, mount Druitt, that's where I'm going to go. There's like there's great jobs at Mount Druitt, like if you're a detective cutting your teeth into the detective world, that's where you want to go, because that's where stuff's happening. Yeah. So I don't want to go to some sleepy town where nothing happens, because I'm going to be bored doing fraud cases.
Speaker 4:Yeah, who wants to do that? You want to be in the thick of it.
Speaker 3:Absolutely At this stage, obviously in 2006,. We've got up to now. What was your personal life like at this stage? Because obviously you were putting a lot into your career.
Speaker 5:Yeah, so I had a few failed relationships already by that point, because I always put my career first and especially with the covert work I found people couldn't handle not knowing where I was. So I would go away. I might only go away for a weekend, I might go away for a week, but they wouldn't know where I'm going, they wouldn't know who I'm with, they wouldn't know when I'm going to be back, they wouldn't know if I'd call. So that put a lot of strain on relationships. So yeah, Was that?
Speaker 4:because obviously that was for their protection.
Speaker 5:My protection.
Speaker 4:Oh, right, okay, yeah, cool yeah.
Speaker 5:So yeah, everyone's protection. I suppose to a degree, because if they then linked my undercover identity back to my real identity, then that then put everybody around me at risk as well. So, yeah, so everybody's protection. So I was, yeah, failed relationships, primarily single. I was living in the western suburbs, but I was having a great time.
Speaker 3:So yeah. So I suppose, like you say, you take all the energy that you would normally pour into your personal life and you pour it into your career, and I suppose that's, like you say, why you achieved as much as you did.
Speaker 5:Yeah so.
Speaker 3:Sacrificed one for the other.
Speaker 5:That's it, that's it.
Speaker 3:Do you look back now and regret?
Speaker 5:I don't regret what I've done because it makes me the person that I am, but I do have regrets for the person I've become that has then given me the life that I have. Does that make sense?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. I feel like what you're trying to say. There is like the circumstances that you've gone through have made you the person you are, and you're very proud of the person you are, but at the same time, you wish you could have maybe done it differently, where you didn't have to sacrifice as much as you did in order to be the person you are today.
Speaker 5:Yeah, you do wake up some days and and look at your life and go. Why wasn't I just that like admin chick with the white picket fence, the two kids and the dog and the husband that? Seems so simple yeah, yeah definitely not exciting, very simple.
Speaker 4:Play our big garden.
Speaker 5:Absolutely. Actually, I'm not very good with plants. Fair enough, the dog probably would hate them.
Speaker 3:So obviously you went to Mount Druid.
Speaker 5:I did.
Speaker 3:And you would have seen some incredibly.
Speaker 5:I did.
Speaker 3:Wonderful situations.
Speaker 5:It was a great time of my life. I learnt a lot, I saw a lot. I guess it's probably the 5% of society, and that 5% is everywhere, not just Mount Druitt, but it's the 5% of society that no one should ever have to deal with.
Speaker 3:Why do you think Mount Druitt particularly has that um attached to it?
Speaker 5:I think it it's developed from what it was. But back then it was very much central to a lower socioeconomic society. Um, there was a lot of alcohol, there was a lot of drug use, um, and a lot of unemployment. So it sort of, I guess, fed off each other and and in the lower socioeconomic and housing commission clusters they were clusters of those people, so that crime fed within it. And then obviously they had kids. They didn't know any different, they grew up in that environment and that crime just continued. I haven't been to Mount Druitt for a very long time now, so I think it has improved. But back then that's just that's what it was. But as much as it was like that it was, it wasn't safe, but it was because you knew that when you went to a job you were more likely to get punched in the face than shot.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you kind of had that expectation already, hey, so it wasn't like you were going to be surprised by something, like you say.
Speaker 5:You went there with the expectation that something was dangerous yeah. But you probably weren't going to get stabbed or shot.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 5:You might have, but it was lower than, say, if you were in Auburn or somewhere like that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay, it's very interesting that you kind of, because people would have the stigma obviously saying oh, it was such a dangerous place. But I suppose if you go there with the mindset that it is dangerous and you're prepared in those situations.
Speaker 5:But at the end of the day too, everywhere is dangerous. Everywhere has a pocket or a street or a group of people in that suburb. There's always going to be a 5% everywhere.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 5:You just don't say it.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:You live in Singal right. Yes, so I've done for 34 years. You know just as much as I do. We've got our own fish here in Strix.
Speaker 5:We definitely have some Strix.
Speaker 3:Definitely Good old. Singleton. There's wonderful people in Singleton.
Speaker 4:There is Shout out to all our Singleton people out there 100% Millsy, yeah, and on there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm not in Singleton, but shout out to Singleton people.
Speaker 4:You guys are great we go all right, Okay.
Speaker 3:So you obviously then moved on. What do you think was your? Because you obviously said there was always a moment at each position that then kind of changed the compass for you. What kind of changed the compass for you? What was the moment in this particular role that then said, okay, well, I can't do this anymore, I'm done.
Speaker 5:So just to. I never said I can't do it anymore, I'm done. It was more of a. If I look at it now, yes, I probably in my mind was subconsciously saying that.
Speaker 3:But I Wanted a new challenge.
Speaker 5:Yeah, there was one particular job that will stay with me. It'll stay with me forever. Most jobs stay with you forever, but this one in particular. I remember I'd been out, we'd been out on a team thing the night before and I got a phone call early in the morning, woke me up and I was like hey. They were like hey, mel, we need you to come into work. And I'm like why it's my day off? Like what's happened that's so bad? Why can't you deal with this? No, there's been a murder. We need all hands on deck. Yeah, rightio, give me half an hour and I'll come in.
Speaker 5:So I arrived at the station and was told then that there'd been a stabbing. It was a young mother and off you go. We need to get this sorted. We've got a suspect, but we need you out at the crime scene. I went out to the crime scene and saw her there. She'd been stabbed 42 times. She'd been at her home. She'd been at her home, she'd been in bed. She was with her partner and it was an ex-boyfriend that had decided I can't have you, so no one can.
Speaker 5:So I remember we worked that job for days and I went from the crime scene back to the station and then I had to go to the morgue and there was that point when I was at the morgue with the doctor and the doctor was doing the examination and she was talking to this deceased female and she was telling her what she was doing. So for every one of the 42 stab wounds she was like so she'd say her name. I'm just going to measure this one. Now I'm going to do this, now I'm going to do that. And I remember sitting there thinking what did I do in my life to be sitting here watching this happening? I know I want to help people, but what have I done wrong? And I guess that was the next point where I've gone. I need out of Mount Druitt.
Speaker 5:Where am I going to go next? But I finished that investigation. We arrested the offender, he was sentenced, but there's still that young child that's never going to have a mother. And, yeah, that was the next turning point, I think for me. And headed to the Covert Intelligence Unit.
Speaker 3:You're like I'm done with detective work.
Speaker 5:No, no, not done with it, I'm going to move, move locations.
Speaker 3:I'm going to move locations.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And then yeah from there you went to St Mary's, is that correct?
Speaker 5:No, so I went back to the covert intelligence unit for a little while. Yeah, did some more investigation work there where I was doing surveillance, decided I'd go back undercover again for a little while.
Speaker 3:What was your favourite role undercover?
Speaker 4:That's a good question what was? Your favourite? Did you have to wear a wig and like a moustache, or?
Speaker 5:something? No, no moustache.
Speaker 3:That would be really weird. Not Nardes, nardes is okay, exactly, yes, no, Melanie, melissa and Rachel had.
Speaker 5:They had their own suitcase.
Speaker 4:There we go. There's Melanie, Melissa and Rachel. There we go.
Speaker 5:Yeah, they had their own suitcase. So all the different outfits and I just I loved being able to not be me. Yeah, to assume the identity of someone else, to pretend that all of those things that were weighing me down from all of those jobs didn't exist anymore it's almost like act, like I was just about to say naturally it's like I'm a junk. I just want to get high now.
Speaker 4:I'm living my best life. I was about to say it's just like playing dress-ups. Yeah, pretty much yeah.
Speaker 3:So what was your favorite role? That's awesome. What was your favorite I say role? What was your favorite undercover sting that you did?
Speaker 5:The business ones. So it was the high end. Like I was Melanie then and like I that was Melanie then. Here's your backpack of cash, here's your car. Off you go into the affluent suburbs and get your gear yeah. Yeah, it was good, it was a buzz, it was a good feeling.
Speaker 3:Yeah, was it mainly like looking for the drug side of things, or was it like it was obviously to get to the source.
Speaker 5:Yeah, okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it wasn't like the fraud side of things like Wolf of Wall Street.
Speaker 5:No, I didn't do that stuff. There's a whole unit that looks after that. Mine was just sort of the periphery of yeah.
Speaker 3:So you did a lot of stuff when it came to like the narcotics kind of industry. Like that was pretty much your-.
Speaker 5:Yeah, drugs.
Speaker 3:Drugs, all drugs.
Speaker 4:Did you find a lot of accountants and lawyers had cocaine? Ah, look, that comes with a tag Cocaine. I feel like that's-.
Speaker 3:Not particularly that's dangerous to go and put that kind of tag on lawyers and accountants. I'm sorry to any lawyers or accountants that just-.
Speaker 4:Hey, I'm telling you Chev needs to learn. Close your drawer Seriously, because you've got a mirror and some gay candy.
Speaker 5:I think Chev is back in the law and order. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3:You watch too many movies because let me tell you something I dealt with many professional sportsmen in my life, and professional sportsmen are just as bad, are they really? I promise you, oh, wow.
Speaker 5:Every walk in life, yeah, every industry.
Speaker 4:You would have seen.
Speaker 3:It doesn't matter.
Speaker 4:It just seems like every movie. I watch is always a lawyer or an accountant well, that's what they say about drugs.
Speaker 3:Drugs does when addiction happens it doesn't discriminate yeah that's true, that is true it's got nothing to do with who you are, your position in life, how much money you have. It can have you, whether you have multi, a multi-millionaire, or whether you have nothing yeah, well, that's exactly what we're trying to go through.
Speaker 4:You know, mental health doesn't discriminate.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thanks, sorry, keep going, yeah sure.
Speaker 4:We'll go there.
Speaker 3:I love our listeners. Yes, I know you do so.
Speaker 5:Yes, you obviously went back to that side of things and then yeah, so I went back to that for a little while and I wouldn't say I was bored, but I wasn't challenged like I was at Mount Druitt and I missed that. So whilst I suppose I ran away from it to a degree to my next challenge, I missed it when I went back there. So I applied for a position at St Mary's, which is the neighbouring suburb to Mount Druitt. Couldn't get a job at Mount Druitt so I went to the next best thing. So I started in a senior investigation position at St Mary's. So that was one of the senior detective roles I think we're in an office of. I think there's about 10 people in that office.
Speaker 5:I built a house in one of the neighbouring suburbs. I was like you know what? I'm going to get my life together. I'm going to settle down, I'm going to work at St Mary's. I've got this. Yeah, I didn't. So I built a house, as I said, had another failed relationship. I don't want that to be the tagline of my life, no, so I threw myself back into work again. I experienced just as much at St Mary's as what I did at Mount Druitt, and there's two jobs from St Mary's that will stay with me, and they were both murders and they were both of kids.
Speaker 4:Oh my, yeah. Well, that probably would have been the hardest case as kids yeah.
Speaker 5:Regardless of what socioeconomic community you're part of, like, you're still a kid, you're still you haven't lived your life. And they were some of the hardest jobs that I did telling parents that their kids were dead and investigating those and just, yes, I got to the bottom of it, yes, I solved it, but it didn't lessen the burden that you then carried. And that's, I guess, another turning point where I started to notice that emotionally, I was very closed off. So the mother that's son just got murdered got treated the same as, say, you Shev that just got your wallet stolen.
Speaker 5:I had zero emotion. You were all the same to me. It was a crime it was and it was. To me it was just a crime, whereas, like for you, your wallet stolen would have been the most horrific day of your life and I'm like, hey, move on. Where the mother, their kid's just been murdered. Look, I'm really sorry, but I've got a job to do.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5:Like so there was a procedure you had to follow. Yeah, I'd follow that procedure and I'd just become less and less emotionally able to give. I'd still fix things, but I had nothing left to give. But I kept going because you were conditioned. You were conditioned to be okay and if you spoke up and said you weren't okay, you weren't going to get in trouble for it. But you also didn't know what the ramifications were going to be. Were you going to get sidelined? Were you going to get taken off the job? Were you going to? You just didn't know. And because I was so passionate about getting the jobs done, I wasn't going to be sidelined, I wasn't going to be okay. Well, mel, you're struggling. Let's take you off that job and let's put you on these cases. No, I don't want that. I want to find out who killed this mother's son. Like, let me do my job. So that conditioning it continued. I just kept going, kept going until I looked for my next challenge, my next turning point.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, we obviously were chatting a bit before this and I asked you the question I said do you feel that your career has desensitized you when it comes to seeing horrific things in life? And you obviously said to me absolutely. And that was prime example, like you were saying there, where it was, just like you looked at the situation and you said, well, I can't let my emotions get involved in this and how I feel I have to look at it from a purely procedural kind of.
Speaker 5:I was calculated. I was calculated every time I went out. I was calculated in how I approached things, how I communicated. Everything was a calculated move for me.
Speaker 3:Do you feel like this was starting to then progress into your personal life?
Speaker 5:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:So you're starting to be more calculated in things that you're doing in your personal life, in your relationships, yeah, I knew at that point what I needed to do to appear to be okay and to get through life. Okay, how did this culminate in relationships?
Speaker 5:More failed relationships.
Speaker 3:Yeah, did you feel like you battled to connect emotionally with guys?
Speaker 5:I struggled to connect to or partners.
Speaker 3:should I say so yeah?
Speaker 5:I struggled to connect emotionally. I struggled to connect to yeah, I struggled to connect emotionally. I struggled to let people in. I put walls up, I, um, I didn't want to be hurt, Um, and that just progressed. So, um, and even now people see the facade, I guess, of I'm strong, I'm resilient and I can do anything.
Speaker 3:Whereas if you get past that, that's not so much who I am. I think that's the case with most of those kind of personalities where they come across very hard and guarded and strong and independent. A lot of those personalities are very opposite when you break through the initial barrier, where they actually want people to come in and they want someone to be there for them and allow them to see the softer side of them, and it's just they feel they can't allow that. Because if I do that, like you say, I'm now making myself vulnerable, and you've seen what happens to people when they are vulnerable. Yeah, and you saw it more than most people did, you know, when it came to, obviously, the horrific things that you did see, and I feel like, yeah, it would have been very tough for you to not blur the line between your career and then your personal life and, like you say, eventually it did, yeah, it did Kind of cross paths, yeah, so you then moved on to a different role.
Speaker 5:Yes. So I decided I was going to be a sergeant. So I was sick of being told what to do as we all do.
Speaker 4:You were the one that was pointing the finger. I'm done with this.
Speaker 3:I am the sergeant Shiv, you're mine.
Speaker 4:I'm going to take you to HR. We're going to go to HR.
Speaker 5:I've done this work. I'm going to become a sergeant and I'm going to have a little bit more control. I'm going to be able to sort of change the direction of what's going on, maybe take a bit of a step back. And so I undertook the sergeant's course and exam and stuff that's what it was back then and got ranked and a position came up at Parramatta. It was a position in general duties and I was like, oh, I don't want to go to general duties. And then I was like you know what? That's probably a good idea. That'll give you a step back from everything that you've been dealing with. So the complex, long investigations, the murders and all of that stuff and go to Parramatta, have a change.
Speaker 5:The next turning point.
Speaker 3:The next turning point. You were still involved in covert operations at the stage. Yeah, so you were sergeant and still wanting to get undercover work and stuff like that. Yeah, that must be quite tough, sorry. That must be quite tough to try and balance being a sergeant and then still wanting to do the undercover work.
Speaker 5:This is where things started to get messy.
Speaker 4:Okay, I just wanted to know, like in the sergeant for people playing at home, what is involved in that to get ranked up Like do you do paperwork and like is there a course?
Speaker 5:Yeah, so it's changed a number of times and it changed a number of times while I was in the police, but I know it's changed again. So when I went through the process, you had to do an exam and you had to do some role play stuff and then you got ranked and you were given a number in the ranking and then, as jobs came up, you could apply. Whoever was highest in that ranking would be successful in attaining the position.
Speaker 4:Yeah, okay, cool. Yeah, I just wanted to find out how you.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah. So I got to Parramatta and obviously I was back in a uniform, so I was wearing two-tone blues and had a name tag that had my name on it, which was not Melanie, melissa or Rachel.
Speaker 3:Sergeant McLaughlin.
Speaker 5:Back then it was Sergeant Bauer. I was still a Bauer then.
Speaker 3:Oh, you're still a Bauer.
Speaker 5:Yeah, okay. So yeah, it was Sergeant Bauer, and I had to go to court. So by this stage the offenders from the drugs and the firearm had been locked up, so they'd all been arrested.
Speaker 3:This was the staircase one that you were telling us about. Yes, the staircase.
Speaker 5:They'd all been arrested and they were due to go to court. And I had to go to court too, and my commander at the time gave me a direction that I was going to go to court in uniform, which was highly problematic because that's not who I was.
Speaker 3:When you were undercover.
Speaker 5:Exactly Correct, yes, so he wanted me to go to court as Sergeant Bauer, not as whoever I was at the time, rachel, melissa or whoever it was yeah. So obviously we had some concerns around that and then about a week later my car was torched out the front of my house.
Speaker 3:A week after going to court you say I didn't get to court yet, oh wow.
Speaker 5:I still haven't been to court.
Speaker 4:So they knew something was going down.
Speaker 5:Yeah, well, we assume so no one was ever convicted for the car. It was parked on the street.
Speaker 4:Hopefully it was a shitty car.
Speaker 5:Oh, it wasn't that bad, it was a Skoda.
Speaker 3:It was very like suburb-ish yeah fair enough, so it was parked on the street.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it was parked on the street out front of my house and I was living just outside of St Mary's Like I wasn't living anywhere too exciting, and someone had thrown a brick through the window and set it on fire and I didn't even notice. So I was so wrapped up in my own world I didn't even notice. I'd been drinking with a friend, I'd gotten home, I'd gone to bed. I got up the next day I'd went to get in the car and was like okay, this is not okay. So I rang the local station, which was St Mary's, which I'd obviously worked at before they came around, and an investigation happened. Nothing ever came of that investigation, but I went through a period then of I went through a period then of I was trying to deal with what's going on, like how do I deal with this?
Speaker 5:And I remember an inspector came to my house to talk to me about security and I was like, yeah, okay. I'm like, well, what are you going to do for me? Like my car just got blown up. Well, we can't identify an offender, so there's really nothing we can do for you. So you probably just need to be a bit vigilant. If anyone's following you or something seems amiss, then give us a call. That was it. That was it. I was like Wow.
Speaker 5:Okay then. Yeah, that instills so much confidence in me, right? So my bedroom was at the front of the house. I didn't sleep in my bedroom for a little while because I was like I don't think I want to sleep at the front of the house. So yeah. So I went through a period then of okay, like I'm really not okay with this. I'm not okay with the thought of having to go to court. This has happened. Are they connected? Are they not connected? Is this just a random vandalism? Was it just kids? Like I've got all these things going through my head of what is going on like what is happening.
Speaker 5:So I was like I can't continue to work at Parramatta. I don't have faith in that commander that he's going to protect me. I'm going to go again. So I applied for a job at the police association. I took about a two-year break from the police. You're still a police officer, but I'm a fixer. So I was like I'm going to go to the police association and help everybody else. I can't help myself right now, so I will help everybody else. I'm going to fix the world again.
Speaker 3:So for those who don't know what the police association is, so it's the union for the police.
Speaker 5:Yeah, so I was successful in getting a position there as an organizer. So I left Parramatta and went to the police association. So I was responsible then for central metropolitan, which is all your city stations and also the southern region all the way up to Albury and all around that, so I'd traveled around helping people. I still lived in the same house. Work had given me a car at that point, so I was okay, I could get around, wasn't?
Speaker 4:a Skoda.
Speaker 5:It wasn't a Skoda.
Speaker 4:Oh, that's good, then that's all right.
Speaker 5:I think it was a Camry. I had to step up. That's all right, camry's all right. It wasn't too bad. It got me from A to B.
Speaker 5:I was travelling around, I was single, so it didn't matter where I was and what I was doing I cover world. Because you couldn't like, with everything that had been going on, I was like, oh, I can't do that. Um, and I remember I was at the shopping center in Wollongong. I'd been to Wollongong police station, um, called in and checked on the members there and I was on my way through. I think I was heading down to Wagga and I'd stopped at the shopping center because I was like, oh, I'll just stop at the shopping center, grab some lunch. And and I remember getting a phone call and the phone call was from an inspector I didn't even know. He identified himself and he's like look, I'm just giving you a call. We've had information over the lines from one of the jails that there's going to be a home invasion. We're not a hundred percent sure if it's going to be on you, but you've been flagged as a potential target. So I'm in Wollongong buying Subway, I think it was.
Speaker 5:Like what the hell is going on in my life. My car's been torched. Now someone wants to do a home invasion. Is it all linked to the staircase?
Speaker 3:Bloody staircase. Bloody staircase, the staircase.
Speaker 5:So and the things that you go through, like how do I deal with that? And I was lucky, I had a really good support network of friends and stuff. That sort of kept me on the right path of like, okay, like we can talk about it, we don't have to talk about it. But I wouldn't talk about it. I was just I'm okay, just keep going, go and fix all the problems in central metropolitan and southern regions.
Speaker 3:Got this. Got this Fix everyone else's problems.
Speaker 5:Fix everyone else's problems yeah. And that's what I did for 18 months. I didn't end up having to go to court, my house didn't get invaded and yeah, I just was. You know what? I'm going to fix everybody's problem, Not going to fix myself. I'm not going to speak up and say I'm not okay, but I'm going to help everyone else.
Speaker 3:Wow, and this all came to a head, obviously, when you left the police force and you had so I still went back.
Speaker 5:So I was at the union for 18 months doing that and then I met my husband ex-husband, sorry whilst I was doing that work with the police association, and he was stationed down south and I decided, rightio, I'm going to see where this goes and I was successful in getting positioned down in Wagga and, yeah, then we got married in 2013,. I think I should remember this, because I've wiped it from my memory.
Speaker 5:Yeah, 2013. It's an excellent memory, yeah. So we got married in 2013 and I moved down to Wagga and, yeah, as a general duty sergeant down there, but I also did some detective sergeant work down there as well. So, getting back into life, I moved right away from undercover work then because he look, he didn't not want me to do it, but he certainly wasn't okay with well where are you going and what are you doing?
Speaker 3:Which I think would be natural for any husband. Yeah, probably.
Speaker 5:Yeah as hard as it would be knowing, I think it would be natural for any human being.
Speaker 3:Yeah, which, as hard as it would be to like know, coming into the relationship, that that's what you did and things like that, I think it would still be very hard. I can look from a personal kind of side. For me, if my partner or my wife was like that and she was in a position where she was doing dangerous work like as you were, especially given obviously, like we've said, the stuff that had occurred up until this point, it would only be natural for me to be like do you maybe want to think about doing something else? Maybe?
Speaker 5:Stacking shelves of wool yeah. Paper delivery yeah, anything.
Speaker 3:Desk work. You know, Remember the white picket fence thing that you said.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:The flower bed. Yeah, the flower bed.
Speaker 5:Yeah, no. So down there I went and I had a couple of great years down at Wagga. It was very different to policing in the western suburbs. It was isolated. Wagga's a big town. I don't know if you know Wagga, but it's a big central. It's like a city in the middle of nowhere. Yeah.
Speaker 5:But there's no support. So if I was in Mount Druitt and I called urgent, which is like get here really quickly and help me cops would come from everywhere. They'd come from Blacktown, st Mary's, penrith and you'd have 50 cops within minutes. If you call urgent in Wagga, you might get one.
Speaker 4:Oh, wow, wow.
Speaker 5:There's certainly no helicopter, there's definitely no dog squad and the riot squad? They just didn't even exist. So you were isolated.
Speaker 4:It was a handle yourself type of thing was very much back to you.
Speaker 5:You're going to talk your way out of this, because that's all you've got. You were good at that, though. Yeah, yeah, I talk a lot. I think I've realized that, um. So yeah, I was. I was a supervisor down there. I had, I had a great team. I had some like great kids that came through and really had settled in, like I was happily married. I was like I had a dog, life was getting better Still no picket fence, but I was getting there. And then, in 2014, I had my eldest son, noah, and I think I had six months off work, but after six months, I was like I can't do this anymore.
Speaker 5:I need to go back to work, like, yeah, parenting's cool, but let's go back there where the fun is. So I went back to work, moved into a detective's role there, had some really good investigations and then, towards the end of my time in Wagga, I was pregnant with my youngest son, bailey, and I got called to a job. I was the supervisor at the showground and I went to the showground. I took another car crew with me. They were two young kids, early 20s, and we got there because a gentleman had said that he was being harassed, which is a run-of-the-mill job just off. We go, go to the showground. And we got there and he was there and he was telling us about these kids that were harassing him. There was no one as far as the eye could see. It was 2.30 in the morning, I think, and he was so drunk, but he was a functioning alcoholic, so he was actively pouring his 700ml bottle of vodka into his 1.25 litre bottle of Coke, didn't drop a single drop, but couldn't stand up.
Speaker 4:Wow, that's talent.
Speaker 5:It's very impressive. I struggle when I'm sober, fair enough, and I remember talking to him and saying there's no one here Like you're effectively wasting our time. There's no one here like you, you're effectively wasting our time. There's no one here. And if I look back at that now, I probably could have handled it better. Um, because at that point he changed and I was. He had his caravan towards the back of the show, like towards the edge of the showground, and my car was behind me, and then the two younger cops were like to the other side of me and he walked away from us towards his caravan, and instinctively you start to walk back, which is what we both like I did and the two younger cops did and he came out of the caravan with a machete and like a chef's knife and started running at us.
Speaker 5:So you're trained, obviously, to face the threat. But by that point I was far enough back that I could retreat and I got into the car and got out of there and so did the other cops, and then we spent the next probably hour negotiating with him and eventually he was arrested. No one got hurt. But I remember going home that night or that next morning sorry, at 6.30 in the morning and sitting in my eldest son's room. He was still asleep, thinking like what are you doing? Like this kid needs a parent.
Speaker 5:Like is this really where you want to be? Like you're pregnant, some guy just run after you with a machete, you've got a kid at home. You're emotionally detached, like, what are you doing? And I think that was late 2016, where I was. I had recognised now that I was cutting myself off from emotions and normality and functioning, and even though I had those support networks around me, yes, I was seeing a psychologist and yes, I was doing all of the things that I had to do, but was I doing them to get better or was I doing them to tick a box?
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 5:And I was doing them to tick a box, so that I could keep functioning and I could keep portraying what I needed to portray, to do what I had to do. So, 2017, january 2017, I had my youngest son, bailey. He was eight weeks preemie, probably due to all of the stress that.
Speaker 5:I was going through, but that'll never be proven. He spent a long time in special care. He's got cerebral palsy but he's completely functioning, Absolutely no issues. He's doing really well. But I knew then that something had to change and I needed to speak up about where I was and what was going on and that I was not okay anymore.
Speaker 3:And that obviously led to you then leaving the police yeah, being medically discharged.
Speaker 5:Yeah, so I spoke up and I started going through the process. I was allowed to continue seeing my own psychologist and psychiatrist, but that then started the process of exiting the police, which, yeah, it's not a great process.
Speaker 3:I can imagine. Yeah, you obviously mentioned a little bit before with regards to, obviously, the programs that they had. It was very much outsourced by the police force, so it wasn't necessarily very personal like you were saying no and tick a box, kind of thing. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5:And if I look back at the EAP, like I know it's a great service and if it's used properly it'd be great. But I was ticked the box. I'm not going to connect with you, I just need to be here, Move along. So yeah, it wasn't good.
Speaker 4:That's a bit bullshit, I reckon.
Speaker 3:Well, I suppose it's a personal choice, like you say.
Speaker 4:No, but there's nothing there for them. They just tick the box. I think it's changing now. It is changing for them, and they just tick the box.
Speaker 3:I think it's changing now. It is changing. It's changing more and more nowadays, like with, obviously, the push in mental health, obviously, and the light that is being shone on that particular field, companies and organisations are forced more and more to have more tools and more strategies to combat those kind of things. So I think it would be very different nowadays, in 2024, to when it was in 2018, when you went through it, I think, even in just six years, yeah.
Speaker 5:Things are continually improving. I still do know a lot of place and I still think a lot more can be done. So when I went through the process of exiting, I was obviously pretty unwell. My marriage broke down Like my younger son was not well. I was obviously pretty unwell. My marriage broke down Like my younger son was not well. I was not well, and so my mum was in Singleton at the time and she would travel back and forth to Wagga to try and help me where she could. I had a really good support network in Wagga, but I couldn't function properly either. So that's when I ended up moving back to Singleton.
Speaker 4:And you have a good support in Singleton.
Speaker 5:Yeah, oh, awesome. All my family's in Singleton and I've still got heaps of friends in Singleton. So that's why I came back to Singleton. But I started the process with obviously exiting the police and you're pushed into an insurance space which it makes you feel like a number. So the whole way through my career I was like you're Mel, like you're your number Sergeant Barlow. Yeah, you mean something.
Speaker 5:Like people look up to you. You make a difference. Like no one's going to forget you, are they? Yeah, they forget you pretty quick, literally overnight. So then I started the process with the insurance companies and it actually led to me suing the New South Wales Police, because I really struggled with the pressure that was put on me by the insurance companies to be okay when I was not okay. So I identified that okay, I need to be okay and I need to get better. But this is not helping, so I needed to distance myself from that process, which I did, and that's when I started to get better.
Speaker 3:That's amazing. I mean, like you say, just that personal journey of you realizing that it needs to be me who makes the choice to get better. I think that's where it all starts. All healing, all kind of progression forward or growth starts from that position of me saying I need to do better here.
Speaker 5:Yeah, so, and I needed to do better. I was a single mum. I had a three-year-old and a one-year-old and I needed to be there for them and I needed to get myself back to a point where I could support them, where I could make a difference in their life and make sure they had the life that they deserve. They didn't need a mother that was emotionally disconnected and, yeah, functioning, but not really. So I was like right, you're gonna sort yourself out, you've got your support network around you. Um, you've got your strategies in place what were those strategies?
Speaker 5:to to actually talk about it. So my strategies were to to actually go to my psychologist, go to my counselor, talk to the people around me and build that resilience that I needed and start to move forward. So I used those tools and started to rebuild my life. I initially became a swimming instructor. Ten out of ten don't recommend. Wow, I would have never thought that you would have been a swimming instructor. Ten out of ten, don't recommend.
Speaker 3:Wow, I would have never thought that you would have been a swimming instructor.
Speaker 5:When I tell people I was a swimming instructor, they're like why would you do that? Yeah, such a weird swing. You got all of this experience and you went swimming instructor. So I did that for a little while successfully, because I like to always be successful with what I do. And then I was talking to a friend of mine who was a solicitor and she said to me, would you consider investigating again? And I was like at that point I was like no way. Like.
Speaker 5:I am never, never going back to that. And then I was.
Speaker 3:Fast forward.
Speaker 5:Yeah, fast forward. I was like, actually you need to do something you can do around your kids and you need to do something.
Speaker 5:You know how to do. And I'd gotten myself to a point where I was good, like I was in a good place. I still had walls up, I still had a facade which to this day I still do of you're invincible, but I was in a good place, Like I knew myself, I was okay. So I was like, yep, rightio, let's do this. So I started doing private investigations again, got my license, was doing some contracting work and progressed that through to full-time work and now obviously I'm a team leader leading a state of investigators. So yeah, that's huge.
Speaker 3:That's awesome. That's amazing. I mean congratulations on the journey. Yeah, it's been.
Speaker 5:So I think my point to all of it is that, no matter how dark it gets, you can succeed after the police.
Speaker 3:That's literally what I was going to ask you. I was going to say, if you had one bit of advice from someone who was listening that was like I resonate with you, mel what would that advice be?
Speaker 5:Yeah, there is so much more to you than the police that is awesome.
Speaker 5:And the skills that you have from the police are absolutely transferable. A lot of people will tell you that they're not. But you're a HR representative, you're a leader, you're all but a legal representative to people Like you have so many skills that you can use in so many fields and most of them are transferable. But you've been in such an insular environment that you don't realise that until you're out. So yeah, so obviously I've gone back into investigations, but I still have that fix-it mentality. So I'm also in local government as well, because I can make a lot of money.
Speaker 4:Oh God, so you're a politician? Oh, she's a politician, shane.
Speaker 3:That's amazing.
Speaker 4:That's awesome, Honestly congratulations on your colourful career. It's been really cool, honestly. Congratulations on your colourful career. It's been really cool yeah congratulations.
Speaker 3:I mean congratulations not only on the career, but congratulations on the personal journey as well.
Speaker 3:I know like you say, it's been a long road and you're aware of things that you need to work on, and I think that's such a beautiful place to be, because you are in a position where you're just growing every single day. So congratulations and thank you for sharing your journey with us and for everyone that's listening. I mean, I'm sure even like you were saying, I think it's not just the police, I think it's any career you can transfer from any career and you're not just limited to whatever it is that you're doing. There's so much more to you, 100% and yeah. So thank you for that message and for sharing with us. It is a beautiful message that you can share. So thank you.
Speaker 4:I do have a question Do you miss the police and what you've done in the past? Do you miss that now that you're out?
Speaker 5:I don't miss the police, but I do miss the people.
Speaker 4:Okay, yep, yeah, yeah, right. And is it true that donuts are a cop's favourite food? Okay, fair enough, stop.
Speaker 5:I am partial to a caramel donut.
Speaker 4:Hey, that's for our listeners. I was asking because they're probably going. Oh, I wonder if the cops really like donuts.
Speaker 5:No, they don't get free maccasinos.
Speaker 3:That's bullshit. Well then, there's no point to being a cop. No, there's not.
Speaker 4:No donuts and no free maccasinos. That's bullshit.
Speaker 3:Well, that's awesome. Thank you so much for obviously taking the time to be with us today, Mel, and for sharing your journey and for being personal and open with us. I don't think there's a person out there that would listen to this and not resonate with some aspect of your journey. Thank you for sharing the crazy stories that you have.
Speaker 4:Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 3:I really appreciate it. It's been great. So who knows, there might be scope for you to come back on and share some more.
Speaker 5:Let's not get too excited.
Speaker 3:You're always welcome. Like a true crime version of Live Alive, that would be awesome.
Speaker 4:She can use some of her aliases, so she might not be Mel. She might come back on as Rachel. Come back as Rachel, who knows? That's awesome. We really appreciate it. We really hope that the message out there for police is you know, speak up, you guys aren't alone, yeah, so thank you so much for sharing, Thank you for being here.
Speaker 3:We really appreciate it and we obviously hope you well. Wish you well, hope're well.
Speaker 5:I am well now.
Speaker 3:Yes, wish you well for the journey moving ahead and all the best for your career, obviously, and your PI and local council. Thank you Get out there and do the fixing. Yep Keep fixing.
Speaker 4:Vape mill. Singleton people, vape mill, vape mill. So thank you Chef, thank you no, thanks again. It's been a great episode.
Speaker 3:It has it's been a great episode.
Speaker 4:It has. It's been awesome.
Speaker 3:And, yeah, we will continue Yep, next one. I'm really excited. I think we've got some really cool guests coming up, which has been great yeah.
Speaker 4:I think you've got a couple lined up which I'm looking forward to. Yeah, it's going to be great.
Speaker 3:So you go out and have a good week.
Speaker 4:Continue your personal growth journey as you go on as well. Yeah, sure.
Speaker 3:Keep growing, keep learning, and from us. Yeah, leave a lot on podcast. That's always leave a lot on yeah, and stay safe, stay safe.
Speaker 2:Hey, thanks for listening. We hope you've managed to gain some insight from today's episode. Jump onto our socials and reach out, and until next time, wherever you are, let's leave a lot on.