Six years on, officers relive one of Victoria Police's darkest days

The death of four Victoria Police officers in 2020 remains the greatest single loss of life in the force's history. (AAP: Scott Barbour) Link copiedShareShare articleEven from the other side of the door, they could hear the television news report blaring: a man in custody, another on the run, four police dead. Outside, the three senior officers stopped and listened. Then Superintendent John Fitzpatrick knocked. "[They] knew why we were there," recalls Fitzpatrick, then the force's divisional commander for Road Policing Operations and Investigation. "But I still had to say … 'I've got some horrible news for you'." At 5:35pm, on April 22, 2020, four Victoria Police officers had been at the scene of a traffic stop on Melbourne's Eastern Freeway. The car they had pulled over had been speeding, and the driver had tested positive for alcohol, cannabis and ecstasy at the scene. But as the officers stood by their vehicles, a Volvo prime mover ran down the emergency lane and killed Constable Glen Humphris, Leading Senior Constable Lynette Taylor, Senior Constable Kevin King and Constable Josh Prestney. Constable Glen Humphris, Senior Constable Kevin King, Leading Senior Constable Lynette Taylor and Constable Joshua Prestney were killed in the April 22 crash. (Supplied: Victoria Police) Now someone had the awful job of informing their families. Their deaths marked the single deadliest moment in Victoria Police's history and became a defining tragedy for the force. It also set off years of protracted criminal prosecutions, the last of which was only finalised in a NSW court this month. But six years on, the memory of the horror on the freeway continues to cling to the force like smoke, stinging the eyes of all involved. John Fitzpatrick had the responsibility of notifying the next of kin on the night of the tragedy. (ABC News: Danielle Bonica) For the first time, some of those officers have spoken to the ABC about what happened on the Eastern Freeway, and the bruising investigation that followed. It was at 4:48pm that day when a Porsche 911 Turbo S coupe hurtled down the Eastern Freeway at up to 149 kilometres an hour — a black blur on the major road connecting Melbourne's eastern suburbs to the city. The Porsche's blistering speed caught the attention of Taylor and Humphris, who promptly pulled it over into the emergency lane near the Burke Road on-ramp at Kew East. They called for backup and a short time later King and Prestney arrived on the scene, parking behind their colleagues. Craig Pearson was one of the officers in charge of managing the crime scene on the Eastern Freeway. (ABC News: Danielle Bonica) Not long after, Inspector Craig Pearson, who was the duty officer responsible for the eastern half of the state that night, received a call from the force's media unit telling him there had been a fatal incident. They said the chief commissioner, Graham Ashton, wanted an update. It was an unusual request because Victoria Police has an internal communications system which updates commanders when significant events happen. A short time later, Pearson learned the four dead were police officers. "It's that sick feeling in your stomach." Pearson raced to the scene to take on the role of incident commander, snaking down the Eastern Freeway's internal emergency lane. He tried to visualise what might be at the scene, but nothing was able to prepare him. Craig Pearson says he will never forget what he saw on the Eastern Freeway in April 2020. (ABC News: Danielle Bonica) He recalls the shock on the faces of the first responders confronted with a collective loss of their own, but no tears. "I haven't forgotten their faces, they're just amazing people," he says. He returned to Doncaster police station in the early hours of the morning to find off-duty staff had come in to support their colleagues. The freeway tragedy briefly pierced the panic and haze of the COVID-19 pandemic, which had plunged the state into its first lockdown and left Victorians with little to do but consume the news. As they watched, appalled, that night, Victoria Police swung into action, trying to piece together how the tragedy could have happened. Dozens of officers, from the uniformed to the high-ranking, were called on to respond. Police immediately began piecing together what had happened on the Eastern Freeway that night. (AAP: Scott Barbour) At the centre of the destruction were two men: the Porsche driver, Richard Pusey, and the truck driver, Mohinder Singh. Moments before the crash, Pusey had stepped over the freeway barrier onto an embankment to relieve himself, a decision which would ultimately save his life. But it is what happened in the immediate moments after the crash that led a Victorian judge to suggest he was probably "the most hated man in Australia". Inexplicably, Pusey used his phone to film the police officers as they lay dying, providing a cruel, expletive-laden commentary. Then he fled. By the

Six years on, officers relive one of Victoria Police's darkest days

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Six years on, officers relive one of Victoria Police's darkest days

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