IN underworld parlance, Paul Ronald Skews was running red hot. Skews, 35, was granted parole and released from Morwell River Prison Farm on 5 January, 1994, after serving two and a half years of a seven year term for armed robbery and attempted armed robbery. Police say that within weeks of his release he was talking big and trying to recruit others to commit armed robberies.
He had big criminal ambitions and a raging drug habit. It was a recipe for disaster.
Detectives had been told that Skews, who had also been acquitted of a 1991 murder, had bragged he would shoot it out rather than go back to jail. His criminal record went back to 1973 and included firearms offences, stealing cars, escape, burglaries and intentionally causing serious injury. He showed no signs of reform and went straight back to crime when freed.
Within weeks of release, Skews was picked up by police, who found amphetamines in the vehicle. Despite his record and his probable breach of parole, Skews was bailed to appear in the Oakleigh Magistrates’ Court on 27 May. As an added precaution, he had to report to the Springvale police station daily. Being charged with a criminal offence did nothing to slow down the drug-addicted fringe dweller who wanted to be a gangster, but lacked the brains and contacts to be anything but a reckless fool. While on bail and facing more jail Skews, armed with a sawn- off shotgun, robbed a butcher at Hallam Square Deal Meats on 22 April, 1994.
The butcher, Brian Craik, was about to load up his van to deliver to a supermarket. He had just hopped into the van in a back lane when he was confronted by a man wearing a black balaclava, a blue, loose-fitting jumper and carrying a shotgun.
‘He shoved the gun through the window and put it to my head. He said “Give us the money”,’ Craik said later. Told there was no money in the van, the gunman and his unarmed accomplice ran off. “He was very cool and not really aggressive. He didn’t appear to be excitable and wasn’t worried. The gun didn’t shake at all,’ Craik said.
The butcher said he recognised the jumper worn by the man who threatened him as the same type worn by one of the balaclava-wearing men shot dead by police weeks later. ‘I saw a picture of him on the ground in the newspaper and it looked very, very similar,’ he said.
About seven hours after attempting to rob the butcher, police believe Skews robbed an Ampol service station in Springvale Road armed with a shotgun. The gunman grabbed the attendant and demanded money. ‘He had a shotty and stuck it up his nose,’ the proprietor said later. The attendant gave the bandit around $200 and a few phone cards. The gunman was chased by two customers who saw him get into a nearby car driven by another man.
The proprietor said he recognised Skews from pictures in newspapers as a regular customer. ‘He lives around here and I know the face.’
If Skews thought he could keep his plans secret he was wrong, for he was a man with few friends but many enemies. He was desperate to recruit an offsider for further armed robberies, but the more people he spoke to, the more chatted to the police.
The Armed Robbery Squad targeted Skews, after being tipped off that he was planning to hit a $50,000 payroll from one of several factories in Blissington Street, Springvale, on 12 May. As part of operation ‘Short Time’ members of the Armed Robbery Squad got permission to enlist the surveillance police and the heavily armed Special Operation Group, to try to trap Skews. Eight days before the robbery was expected police watched Skews hide a plastic bag containing 13 twelve-gauge shotgun cartridges in a stormwater drain. They knew he had a sawn-off single barrel shotgun and a .44 magnum revolver.
They found a stolen car nearby, at the corner of Nash and Sullivan streets, which they assumed was the getaway car. And they had information that he was ready. On 12 May Skews drove up Blissington Street with an unidentified man in another car. But it was a dry run. He didn’t stop. Police were later told the job had been delayed a week.
Detectives believed they did not have enough evidence to arrest Skews and ordered 24-hour surveillance. But hours later they lost him. He was sleeping at different locations in the Springvale area and he eluded them.
Skews was about to pull a big job, but he also needed cash immediately. He owed $4500 to drug dealers and he was not sure if they would wait a week. People have been killed for smaller drug debts.
The following evening, about 6.30, he surfaced again. He was held by former policeman and part-time security guard, Jim Sheerin, 65, after he smashed the window of the Trewarne Antique Jewellery shop in Macedon Place, Lower Templestowe. He allegedly grabbed gold chains and diamonds valued at $25,000 which would net him about $8000 and clear his debts.
Travis Trewarne was in the shop with four other people when he heard the front window smash. ‘He was still plucking things from the window when Jim got to him,’ he said.
Sheerin, who had retired from the police force in 1986, chased Skews down a lane way into a carpark, then grabbed him. ‘He was puffing when I was on top of him. He said he did the smash grab because he owed about $4000 for drugs. He said he had received threatening phone calls and needed the money. He said he had been told about the shop and how to do it.’
Skews was charged with burglary and theft and bailed from the Doncaster police station less than four hours later. ‘The funny thing was that he was out before me,’ Sheerin said. ‘But the time I finished my statement it was about 10 o’clock. He was walking up and down outside the station waiting for a lift.’
For the second time since his release from prison, police had their man, but he was released on bail. The coroner, Graeme Johnstone, was concerned at the way Skews was given bail while he was running red hot. He said he understood why the Armed Robbery Squad wanted to keep the operation a secret but he felt that the police officer, Sergeant Michael Pearcy, who granted Skews bail, may have acted differently if he had been briefed by the squad. ‘Had Pearcy been given (full) information, his investigatory and decision-making process would have been different.’
‘Skews, having been granted bail, within a short period of time completed his plans and the end result is known. Whether a bail hearing by an agency independent of the police would have actually changed the events or merely put off the fatal day is a matter of conjecture. Had bail been refused and Skews sentenced he would not have been in a position to undertake the robbery on the 16th. It is a moot point as to whether he would have continued with his plans after his eventual release.
‘It must be recognised this situation is a dilemma for police concerned with the overall safety of the public. However, that is a regular difficulty managed by police working within our legal system when dealing with potentially dangerous and violent criminals like Skews. The real problem in this case is that appropriate procedures in the circumstances were not taken. The consequences of that failure are unknown.’
Skews became suspicious when he went to report at Springvale police to report on bail and noticed his picture had been removed from his file. Police made up an excuse so that he didn’t realise it had been sent to the Armed Robbery Squad.
The Templestowe arrest had not slowed him down. He cased a video shop and two service stations as possible robbery targets. At one point he returned his hire car and borrowed different vehicles, making it difficult for surveillance police. Detectives countered by getting a friend of the target to lend him a known car so he was driving so he could be identified and followed.
On Sunday, 15 May, the informant, code-named ‘Mr Smith’, rang police and said Skews was going to hit a real estate agency the following day, but he didn’t know which one. At 9.30 am the next day ‘Mr Smith’ rang and said it was Deacon Real Estate in Dingley. The office was also an agency for the Bank of Melbourne at the time, which made it a lucrative target. The SOG went to the scene and quietly checked the area, working out the best spot to grab the gunman. A few hours later they were confident that all was set. It had been done so quietly that the estate agent, Jim Farrell, said later he did not notice any police in the area that day.
At 11.45 ‘Mr Smith’ rang and said Skews had just stolen a car from the Hallam railway station. Everything was going to plan. Five minutes later they got the call to say three members of the public had been shot by a robber who raided an Armaguard van at the Hoyts Cinema Complex in Chadstone Shopping Centre. It was not related to Skews, but it meant the Armed Robbery Squad’s resources were going to be stretched that day.
At 12.40 pm ‘Mr Smith’ rang again and said the robbery had been switched to Finnings, a real estate office in Somerville Road, Hampton Park.
The plan had always been to intercept Skews before the job, but now time was running against the police. The SOG had to move to an area they had not checked. They had just over an hour to get everything set for an ambush. The job was a rush.
Surveillance police swept the area, looking for a getaway car. They found a stolen Falcon parked in Keppel Drive, Hallam, and sat off it. It had been stolen from Hallam railway station earlier that day.
Police knew there would be a second man with Skews. They did not know who he was, but had been told Skews would have a shotgun and the second man a heavy-calibre hand gun. Detectives don’t know then that Skews had recruited Stephen Raymond Crome, 18, for the robbery. Crome had convictions for burglary, theft, possessing drugs of dependence and assaulting police. In June, 1993, he was driving a stolen car that crashed and killed his passenger, Ricky Carpando. Crome had suffered serious head injuries and walked with a limp afterwards.
At 1.56 pm Skews and Crome approached the stolen car and drove off. Surveillance police notified the SOG that the job was on. The surveillance police, known as ‘the dogs’, kept a loose tail on the two, who doubled back and drove up side streets to check if they were being followed.
Police were told the job was to be between 2 pm and 2.30 pm. About 1.45 pm, two members of the SOG arrived and cleared two staff out of the building and took them out a rear door. Minutes later, the arrest team of six arrived in a van and the driver also joined the group at the rear, along with another office worker from the agency.
Five SOG members, led by a sergeant and armed with five and seven-shot shotguns, stayed in the back of the van.
The two bandits pulled up in Lakeview Drive and changed into blue overalls and put balaclavas on their heads to look like beanies. At 2.19 pm, they arrived outside the agency and ran towards the building. According to police reports, the five SOG members attempted to intercept them, yelling ‘Police, don’t, move.’
They claim Skews turned and pointed his gun at the police. Crome, who was unarmed, allegedly had his hand in a blue linen sack. Four of the five police fired a total of 17 shots. They were using heavy SG cartridges, each of which contains nine heavy balls the size of a revolver slug. The member who did not fire his gun was the last out of the van and believed the threat was over. The shooting took less than five seconds.
Skews and Crome were both shot in the head, body and legs. At least 12 shots hit them, indicating that up to 108 lead balls were in the two shattered bodies.
One SOG member fired three times, the second fired seven, the third five times and the fourth, once. The two were dead when they hit the ground. Crome’s hand was near the bag. Skews’s single barrelled shotgun was loaded and he had spare ammunition. By luck, no members of the public were hurt. Bullet damage was discovered in a house 62 metres from the incident.
The Homicide Squad and the then coroner, Hal Hallenstein, were called to the scene. The SOG members were separated, their guns seized and the area cordoned off.
They were tested for gunshot residue on their hands and clothes. They all made statements after being advised by Police Association lawyer, Tony Hargreaves, who was called to the scene to act for the police involved. But they refused to participate in a video reconstruction of the event on legal advice. All received psychological counselling on the night.
The death of the two bandits, while publicly defended by senior police, obviously created dissent behind the scenes. On 31 October, 1994, the head of the State Crime Squads, Detective Superintendent Darryl Clarke, wrote a confidential letter to Detective Chief Inspector Ian Henderson, which stated in part: ‘A question that may arise at the subsequent hearing is why Skews was on bail after being arrested on 11th May for drug offences and the 13th May for burglary and theft. On both occasions bail was on his own undertaking. An inference may be drawn that Skews was allowed bail in order to be permitted to commit an armed robbery and that the Armed Robbery Squad influenced the decision on bail,’ he wrote.
Henderson’s reply of 1 November, also marked confidential, clearly showed the tension in the police hierarchy.
‘The Armed Robbery Squad did not request that Skews be granted bail for the Smash/Grab, nor did Detective Sergeant Watson nor any other member endeavour to influence that decision. The inference referred to in your report is totally incorrect and have serious reservations as to the propriety of raising it in the current environment.’
Under the new ‘safety first’ police policy ushered in with Operation Beacon, it is most unlikely that an operation such as Short Time would now be authorised.
WHAT the Coroner, Graeme Johnstone, found:
‘Skews and Crome contributed to their own deaths and to each other’s death by attempting to undertake an armed robbery. Crome’s contribution must also be seen in the context of him being young, probably immature, intellectually slow and ‘led’ by the far more mature and experienced career criminal, Skews. Although he was clearly aware of Skews’ plans and ready to assist.
‘Skews was affected by drugs and Crome may also have been affected. However, as to the latter comment there is no certainty that Crome was affected by drugs.
‘The shootings by members of the Victorian Special Operations Group was lawful and justified in that all members fired after being put in reasonable fear that their own lives were at risk by Skews and Crome. The fact that Crome was later discovered not to be armed, does not, of itself, alter the view of the police response at the moment of the shooting. ‘Skews and Crome, by attempting the armed robbery put themselves, the public and the police at considerable risk and the eventual consequences of their actions would have been foreseeable …
‘In this case, whilst the management of the actual arrest situation was not unreasonable, it was the outcome that was not optimal. However, it must be remembered, the outcome was dictated primarily by the overt actions of Skews in presenting the shotgun in spite of police commands. In context of the management of an incident those commands inevitably occur rapidly with little opportunity for any rational thought by persons to whom they are directed. In that sense the potential for disaster is always present in the planned confrontation.
‘No other person contributed to the death.’