Naked City

Tyler Cassidy was a troubled kid. Police officers Colin Dods and Richie Blundell were working an afternoon shift in the Northcote divisional van. Their lives would collide on a balmy summer evening in late 2008 at a Northcote skate park.

A distraught Cassidy, 15, was in no mood to negotiate with the officers. He refused to drop two knives and kept approaching Dods. He was shot six times, and died at the scene.

The police involved lived for years with allegations that it was their fault. Vindicated in the Coroners Court of Victoria, they tell John Silvester their story.

Very few people have heard of Detective Sergeant Dion Achtypis - but there may well be no more important investigator in Australia.

You won’t see him holding a press conference at a murder scene or commanding a squad of detectives. And he doesn’t use a sledgehammer during raids - he gains access in a much more subtle way. He is part of a three-person team working in the present while exploring the future.

Cyber cop Dion Achtypis sits down with John Silvester to discuss Bitcoin, international crime syndicates and the Underbelly series.

Belinda Bozykowski was never a police officer. But her partner, Laurie Fox, was.

On the last day of 2012, Fox took his own life, leaving her with two young sons, a broken heart and a million questions.

Belinda is as brave as any Valour Award winner. After her partner's death, she completed her midwifery course, cared for their boys, and dedicated a great part of her life to the mental health of first responders.

It is perhaps the only way she could make sense of something so indescribable.

Between laughter and tears, Belinda shares her story with John Silvester.

Prodigious armed robber and expert escaper John Killick escaped custody in three states, once in a helicopter hijacked by his girlfriend. 

Most of the police and prison officers who chased or caged him over more than 50 years are long gone, while John has written five books.

But the brutality of Pentridge has stayed with him.

Killick takes host John Silvester inside the giant bluestone walls that hid callous brutality, resulting in angry men being released back into the community. 

It was early on Monday, June 18, 2007, just as city workers were arriving at their jobs that Hells Angel Christopher Wayne Hudson finally imploded. 

First he beat and kicked a woman in a strip club before dragging her along King Street. 

Then he saw his girlfriend, Kaera Douglas, who had just arrived on Hudson's orders to drive him home. He greeted her saying: "Today is the day you're going to die."

This is a story of unspeakable family violence, the courage of strangers, and it also shines a light on us: and what we see is not that pretty at all.