For the better part of 30 years, the face of a total stranger has regularly haunted my dreams.
I was on the cusp of adolescence when I first saw him, with his perfectly styled hair, high cheek bones and wide grin, staring back at me from the television screen.
One of those unsolved crime shows was on and I was glued to it as the grim fate of Ross Warren, a 24-year-old newsreader from Wollongong, was revealed.
He had gone missing while enjoying a night out with mates on a weekend trip to Sydney and was presumed dead, although police didn’t seem overly interested in pursuing an investigation.
His death was one of dozens believed to be linked to a sinister spate of gay hate murders carried out across the Harbour City over the span of more than three decades.
When I was introduced to Ross, it was the late 1990s and I was living in a small town in regional Queensland, in an era before the internet was mainstream and when Ricky Martin was still straight.
There was much about life that I didn’t know, but there were two things I was sure of: I desperately wanted to be a journalist when I grew up, and I was probably going to turn out gay.
Both prospects weighed on me heavily.
The first required an escape from a place few have ever heard of, into a career that was the dream of many, and the second was an inevitable life most people seemed to loathe.
All I knew of the latter was what I saw on television as a kid. The sneering treatment of gay people as derided caricatures on popular television shows, the horrors of the HIV-AIDS crisis, and the distinct lack of out homosexuals and poor treatment of those brave few who ventured out of the closest.
And then there were all those murders.
Hearing the story of Ross Warren felt like I was getting a glimpse of the kind of future that might await me, where I would live in fear because of who I was, where someone who hated me could one day kill me.
Ross was the young man I hoped to be – successful, ambitious, fun-loving. He was robbed of so much just as his life was kicking off, likely bashed and thrown off a cliff in Sydney’s eastern suburbs.
His death and dozens of others are the subject of a Special Commission of Inquiry in New South Wales, which held its final public sitting yesterday.
In his closing remarks, Justice John Sackar repeated the goal of the probe was to “provide some recognition of truth” for victims and their families given “the response of the community, of society, [and] of its institutions to these deaths was sadly lacking”.
That’s what struck me all those years ago when I was a scared kid who felt the hostilities towards gay men. The underwhelming police response was stark.
It was clear they didn’t care. All those deaths weren’t of concern because of who they involved – the immoral, the loathed and the unwanted.
Crucial evidence was lost, destroyed or ignored, while in many cases – including that of Ross Warren – no real investigations were ever conducted.
Countless families were left devastated and without answers or closure because of the biased indifference of police, many of whom seemed to pick and choose which members of the community to protect and serve.
There’s even a persistent belief in the queer community that a few of those in ‘poofter basher’ gangs were police officers.
For decades, the queer community in Sydney was chilled by the orchestrated hunting down and murder of a staggering number of people and no one in a position to help wanted to.
When I arrived in Sydney a decade ago, the city had changed markedly from the one I saw displayed on TV as a boy.
It felt safe. It was a haven for the diverse and vibrant LGBT community and police had taken meaningful steps to make amends for the ills of the past.
The past 18 months of the Special Inquiry seems to have shown that the NSW Police Force’s new era of care and consideration has its limits.
Publicly, police expressed their support for the inquiry, but Counsel Assisting Peter Gray SC revealed their actions were sorely lacking.
Police were obstructive and defensive, delayed providing crucial evidence and documents, and didn’t seem overly keen to take part in the process, Mr Gray said.
“A reasonable observer might have thought those positions and stances often gave the appearance of a defensive, if not adversarial, mindset,” he said.
“If so, that would indicate an unfortunate missed opportunity on the part of the NSW Police Force.”
The inquiry provided an opportunity for police to right the wrongs of the past and to show up with enthusiasm to help resolve the murders they ignored decades before.
Like Crispin Dye, 41, who was bashed to death in an alley off Oxford Street in 1993 but whose bloodstained clothes were never forensically tested.
The inquiry arranged for DNA testing and a match was found – a man who died last year.
Ernest Head’s murder was also examined, including bloody handprints found in the Summer Hill home were his body, inflicted with more than 30 stab wounds, was discovered in 1976.
Forensic testing uncovered a person of interest, but he too is now dead.
In a letter, NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb acknowledged “the violence and discrimination suffered by members of the LGBTIQ community, and the NSWPF’s historical failure to respond adequately to that violence and discrimination”.
“Of particular importance, well into the 1990s, the NSWPF failed to create an environment where sexuality and gender diverse people felt able to safely report the true extent of the violence they suffered.”
And yet, when crunch time came at the inquiry, police failed time and time again.
Mr Gray said the Force’s public support, but “slow, incomplete and spasmodic” involvement, was “not easy to reconcile”.
At about 10pm on 24 June 1978, a small group of protesters gathered at Taylor Square on Oxford Street to stage a gay rights demonstration.
The police response was violent and borderline sadistic. Those dragged to nearby Darlinghurst Police Station could be heard screaming as they were bashed in their cells by officers.
Less than a year later, NSW Parliament repealed part of the legislation that allowed those arrests to be made, paving the way for the modern-day Mardi Gras – a now-joyous annual event that draws hundreds of thousands of people from around the world.
Among those who march are members of the NSW Police Force – queer serving members and allies, who wear the uniform with pride.
But how must they feel seeing the familiar abject failure of their employer at the inquiry?
Commissioner Justice Sackar will hand down his final report next month. For the sake of the community and those serving officers, here’s hoping police finally take matters seriously.
Shannon Molloy is a senior reporter for news.com.au