As seen on Foxtel's Logie winning The Good Cop and Channel 7's Homicide with Ron Iddles
'A - Assume nothing. B - Believe nothing. C - Check everything.' Ron Iddles
In an incredible twenty-five year career as a homicide detective, Ron Iddles' conviction rate was 99%. Yet that only partly explains why Iddles is known to cops and crims alike as 'The Great Man'.
Tough, inventive and incorruptible, stoic in the face of senseless horror yet unafraid to shed tears for a victim, Ron has applied his country cunning and city savvy to over 320 homicide cases - some of them the most infamous, compelling and controversial crimes in the nation's history. To the victims of crime, Ron is both a shoulder to cry on and an avenging angel.
Ron Iddles never gave up on a 'lost' cause. He became a regular on the nightly news - the dogged face of Australian justice. Working long hours, dodging bullets, chasing leads and outwitting killers, Ron would tell his teams: 'The answer is just one call away'. And in 2015, that belief saw him crack Victoria's oldest unsolved homicide, yet another remarkable feat in a life devoted to keeping the public safe.
This is the extraordinary inside story of a real crime crusader. Ron Iddles. The Good Cop.
Ron Iddles grew up on a dairy farm south of Echuca. Inspired by TV cop shows Homicide and Division 4, he joined the police cadets in 1972. His first years in uniform were on general duties on the mean streets of Collingwood, where he became known as the best thief-catcher on the force (often arresting burglars when off-duty). Fearless, tireless and incorruptible, Iddles rose fast through the ranks and became a homicide detective in 1980, often working 50 hours straight to crack cases. After 17 years on the job, Iddles quit and drove trucks to free up his mind, only to be wooed back in 1994. Remarkably, he started afresh as a constable. But Ron's gifts for police work won through and he rose fast again and was soon working the big cases - the Melbourne Gangland Wars, the murder of Jill Meagher and more.
Justine Ford is a true crime author, TV producer and journalist. Her first forays into crime were as a reporter on the top-rating Australia's Most Wanted. She has covered the Melbourne Gangland Wars and scores of chilling homicides and missing persons' cases. In that time Justine has won the trust of many families who are victims of crime, and developed deep access to police all over Australia, enabling her to bring crucial, never-before-published case information to her reporting. Justine has written three books, Missing You, One Piece of the Puzzle and Unsolved Australia (Pan Macmillan, July 2015). www.justineford.net The true story of Ron Iddles, Australia's greatest detective.
