A retired NSW detective who helped put former NRL player Danny Wicks behind bars on drug trafficking charges has spoken about the case, saying the former Newcastle Knight "thought he was a bit of a gangster" at the time.
Former detective sergeant Craig Semple was interviewed by Brent Sanders, also a former police officer, about his role in Strike Force Welham on the latest episode of the Crime Insiders: Detectives podcast.
Semple's retelling of how the Newcastle Knights star was covertly surveilled and arrested should, he says, serve as a warning for sportspeople who get involved in drugs.
Wicks was released from Glen Innes Correctional Centre in March 2013 after serving 18 months of a three-year jail sentence for drug trafficking.
It was a dramatic fall from grace for the footballer who was on a three-year contract with the Knights worth $240,000 a season when he was arrested on the morning of December 16, 2009.
"I had a team at Coffs Harbour and also another team at Grafton and they started to get hold of a fair bit of information through informants that there was this syndicate working between Newcastle and Grafton, dealing out cocaine and ecstasy and amphetamines and stuff like that," Semple says in the podcast.
"And so we worked the job up and one of the main suspects was Danny ... and some other associates ... there was an organised crime figure that had somehow come in contact with Danny and became his supplier, and then Danny was transferring those drugs up to the north coast and also supplying other teammates within the Newcastle Knights as well."
Semple says Danny Wicks, at that time, "thought he was a bit of a gangster and a high flyer in those sort of circles". Listening to phone-tapped conversations involving Wicks, he says, gave him "an insight into some of the problems associated with drug use, drug dealing and criminal associations at elite levels of professional sport".
"The further we sort of dug into it, the bigger it got. We started investigating things like performance enhancing drugs and stuff like that as well," Semple says.
"A lot of the stuff I listen to, there's a lot of stuff that I just can't share. But it really opened my eyes up to the level of these sorts of problems in our community and, yeah, we eventually charged Danny. We arrested him on his way to training one morning."
Sanders talks in the podcast about the status of first grade footballers in "a one team town like Newcastle" where they are "looked up at, you know, as almost gods in the eyes of some". He also refers to comments made by Semple about "how at the time it was almost confronting how easy it was" to get hold of HGH or human growth hormone which he says "was quite widespread in its use".
"There must have been a fair few first grade footballers feeling a little bit nervous about getting a knock on the door, I guess," he puts to Semple, who replies: "Well, there were a lot of knocks on the door. It was pretty disappointing, to be quite honest, to see the sheer level of illicit drug use at that level of the sport and the number of people that fell into our crosshairs."
Sanders continues: "So this was a massive takedown ... that disturbing link between illicit drugs, professional athletes and organised crime, and how organised criminals would see these athletes as a doorway because they're well known. They're almost celebrity status, but they're earning good coin, too, as young blokes."
Semple concludes the interview by saying that he "hopes things have changed. I mean, this is going back to 2009, and I hope things have changed to some degree and there's a lot more accountability ... it's just not NRL either, I don't want to sound like I'm bashing the NRL. I'm a keen Knights supporter, but some of the administrators of these organisations really need to take some responsibility with it.
"We had so much evidence on one particular employee of the club in the conditioning staff who was dealing performance enhancing drugs. And there was so much evidence there for it on our telephones. But back then, and I don't know if things have changed now, but there's certain criteria for what evidence you can actually use from telephone intercepts under the act.
"If that crime carried at least three years in jail and back then, steroid dealing only carried two. So it sort of showed how apathetic everyone was to the whole problem because you don't even have adequate legislation to investigate and prosecute it."
Semple has investigated some of Australia's most high profile outlaw motorcycle gangs and is an open book when it comes to discussing the toll his job took on his mental health and his family. He penned an autobiography called The Cop Who Fell to Earth, which was released in August, and these days works as a mentor and educator.
Sanders, while working in the police force, was deployed in riot control, investigated sexual assault cases, and studied the methods and psychology of rapists. He is now a full-time educator, teaching personal and psychological safety and self-defence to women and men, and expanding the conversation around consent and social safety. He is the author of bestselling book How Dangerous Men Think.
Sanders tells the Newcastle Herald he is enjoying working on the Crime Insiders: Detectives podcast, which is a LiSTNR produced original.
"I was very happy with the latest episode - Craig's honesty and candour came across really well," he said.
"Rightly or wrongly, ex-police tend to communicate with other police a bit more openly. Similar themes have come through, such as the pressure the job places on individuals and their families.
"I like to think the podcast shines a light on the human aspect, the human side, of these high-ranking police officers, not just the work they do."
