After nearly 10 years of confusion and controversy, the families of two police murdered on duty believed for a short time it would all be over – without the torture of yet another trial.
At the 2018 memorial service (from left to right): Val Silk, Jimmy Miller, Carmel Arthur and Peter Silk.Credit:Joe Armao
The Office of Public Prosecutions contacted them to say that Jason Roberts, whose original conviction for murdering Sergeant Gary Silk and Senior Constable Rod Miller had been quashed, was looking at a plea deal.
Under new laws an accused could seek an indication from the trial judge of the maximum jail sentence they would receive on entering a guilty plea.
Roberts’ lawyers asked Justice Stephen Kaye: what sentence could he expect if he pleaded guilty to 10 armed robberies and the murder of Silk? Under the proposed deal, the charge of murdering Miller would be dropped.
At the first trial Roberts and his crime partner, Bandali Debs, were convicted of the murders of Silk and Miller.
The prosecution case had always been that the police, on stakeout duty looking for two armed robbers, pulled over the two men in Cochranes Road, Moorabbin on August 16, 1998, and that Debs had shot Miller and Roberts had shot Silk.
For more than 10 years Roberts said he was innocent and was wrongly convicted and in 2020 he was granted a retrial.
During re-investigations and public claims of guilt or innocence, the Silk and Miller families have maintained a dignified silence.
Now with secrecy provisions lifted they can reveal what happened in the confidential hearings that they hoped would finally resolve the case that has stretched over four decades.
“We got the call from the OPP to have an urgent meeting with them because something significant had transpired,” says Rod Miller’s widow Carmel Arthur.
A court hearing over several days was held in secret because if there was no deal and it became public it could prejudice a jury at the later trial.
“It was a very respectful process,” says Arthur.
“We did victim impact statements. It was a closed court, and it was made very clear this was confidential and we had to keep it within the family.”
Eventually, Kaye said the maximum sentence would be 40 years. “We were quite taken aback with the length of the sentence he indicated,” says Gary Silk’s brother Peter, believing it would be closer to 35. “We were bloody shocked.”
“It was about 10 days between the time the OPP told us this was on the table until we were told that he was going to roll the dice,” says Arthur.
“We went from ‘Oh my god this is finally over. If he pleads guilty’ … it was also right that he didn’t have to serve life because it was off the table. It was almost a win-win.
John Silvester with Carmel Arthur and Peter Silk for the Naked City podcast.Credit:Paul Jeffers
“You think finally this nightmare is over for all of us. No trial, no witnesses retraumatised, [Gary’s brothers] Pete, Ian and [mother] Val get the outcome they need, and we can all finally move on with our lives.”
Roberts chose to exercise his legal rights and went to trial. (A sentence indication is not an admission of guilt.) In July, he was acquitted of the murder charges.
Some time ago, Peter and Carmel agreed to talk to me for the Naked City podcast once all legal procedures were completed.
Their stories are inspirational, showing how they refuse to be defined as victims and will not allow themselves to be consumed by bitterness.
About eight years after the murders they married and Arthur served for 18 years on the Sentencing Advisory Council and nine on the Adult Parole Board.
She has been awarded an OAM for services to the law and sits on the Victorian Post-Sentence Authority. She is a star.
When the government changed the law to effectively ban police killers from seeking parole, she felt it was unfair on Roberts, who was originally sentenced to a minimum of 35 years. She believed that if he had reformed, he should be able to seek parole.
On the night he was ambushed and murdered, Rod Miller had only been back at work for a week after six weeks’ leave following the birth of their first child, Jimmy.
After an afternoon shift and in the early hours he signed more than 60 handwritten ‘thank you’ letters that Carmel posted on the Saturday. “By the time they arrived, Rod was gone,” she says.
Carmel with baby James. He would never know his father.Credit:Simon O’Dwyer
After Miller was shot and was losing his battle for life, Arthur’s brother took the call and told her that her husband had been injured in an accident at work and she was needed at the hospital.
“When I realised he had been shot I asked ‘where’s his sergeant? I want to know what happened’, and his sergeant said, ‘Carmel, Gary [Silk] is dead’.
“The surgeon came out and told me of the injuries and I told him, ‘look you just have to save him, I have a little baby. This isn’t the way it is supposed to play out, so go back in there and save him’.
“About 20 minutes later the doors opened, and it was like one of those movies where they open up to doors of the operating theatre and the doctor walks out really slowly – it was like he was in slow motion and I knew then he was coming to tell me Rod had died.”
The three Silk boys, Ian, Peter and Gary, grew up in sight of the Glen Waverley Police Academy and Peter was the one who initially wanted to join. “I failed the test,” he says.
“I knew I was colour-blind, but I thought I had the system beaten. I was kidding myself.”
Devastated, he went home and his father, Morrie, rang his old friend chief commissioner Mick Miller to see if anything could be done. Mick leapt into action.
The next day he changed the order making the colour-blind test the first rather than the last, “to weed people like me out”.
The separate funerals of Silk and Miller were conducted at the Police Academy with full honours. For Peter “it is something that will never leave me”.
Rod Miller’s funeral Honour Guard.Credit:Simon O’Dwyer
The families were unaware of the size of the funeral. “We were told if we had some friends coming they should get there a little bit early. A little bit early? They should have camped overnight,” says Peter.
For Carmel, it was the long procession outside with the honour guard of police, shoulder to shoulder stretching more than a kilometre.
As she looked out she could see cars moving through traffic and thought: “Your lives are going along normally and mine has done this unbelievable pivot. You are completely numb. I just thought, ‘what now?’”
When Debs and Roberts became suspects, Lorimer Taskforce detectives picked up Debs on listening devices considering killing Arthur and her infant son to make investigators think the murder of Miller in Cochranes Road was a targeted killing and not related to the series of armed robberies.
When Arthur was told, she refused to be relocated because she wanted Jimmy to live a normal life.
“One night I went out into the front yard and yelled, ‘Just come and get me’. But I knew we were safe. I just knew Rod wouldn’t let anything happen to us.”
As police closed in on the suspects, Gary’s father, Morrie, was battling terminal cancer and would not live to see the arrests.
The head of the taskforce, Paul Sheridan, decided to take Morrie Silk into his confidence.
“What a beautiful heart Paul has. He came to the family home and dad was desperately ill and couldn’t get out of bed. Paul just said to mum, ‘I just want to go upstairs and see Morrie’. He went into the bedroom, shut the door, bent down next to him, grabbed his hand and reassured him that they were in control of the investigation and knew who the offenders were.”
Carmel Arthur and Peter SilkCredit:Paul Jeffers
Carmel and Peter grew closer and about eight years after the murders they married. They may have been thrown together by tragedy but they are connected by much more than grief.
Like many comfortable couples they can finish each other’s sentences, share the same sense of humour and look to have fun. They want to honour the past while looking forward.
When in 2002 Debs and Roberts were convicted, Arthur hoped that would be the turning point for her. She felt relief and elation but that night at a function she burst into tears. “You think you will be a new person, but I didn’t get that feeling. You realise the hard work was to commence in terms of rebuilding my life.”
From 2013 they have lived with a public campaign that Roberts was wrongly convicted. In 2020, his Supreme Court appeal was successful, he won a retrial and ultimately a jury acquittal.
“We are two or three months down the track now [since the acquittal] and it is now over for everyone. We can finally live a life free of legal process. There is no more. It’s done.
“These were the cards we were dealt and we all have to find the best way to play them.”
She refuses to drown in anger and bitterness. “I think it is the best way to honour Rod. It’s not who he was.”
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