Greg Davies knows exactly where he was the day news came through of Robert ‘Rocky’ Lane’s fatal shooting at Kyalite. Thirty-six years after the event, the cold-blooded execution of the Victorian policeman over a stolen car remains firmly entrenched in Davies’ mind, as for an agonisingly long while he feared his own father was the victim.
Davies’ father Gomer, together with Lane the former Carlton footballer, were stationed at Swan Hill when reports filtered through of a stolen vehicle at Kyalite. Lane, then a 32 year-old Detective Senior Constable, made the routine trip across the border to question a man suspected of stealing a car – a move which would have tragic ramifications when the suspect turned a rifle on him and fired three times.
“It happened on Friday the 13th of July 1979, and the one who went was decided by the toss of a coin,” Davies, now the Victims of Crime Commissioner, recalled.
“I was working at Prahran. I was pretty young - gee, what was I? 20 at the time - and the first I heard of it was on commercial radio, 3KZ I think it was in those days.
“It came on that a policeman in Swan Hill has been shot dead and that narrowed it down pretty well because there was only two of them, Rocky and my father – and I’m sitting there thinking ‘Oh C….. Almighty’.
“It took a while in those days for the Police Force to advise what had happened and for all I knew it was my father. I probably waited a couple of hours but it was a pretty nervy couple of hours.”
For Davies, Lane’s callous killing at Kyalite had its dreadful sequel with the slaying of two members of the force some nine years later. As he recalled: “I was the morning Sergeant at Prahran on the morning of the Walsh Street shootings, and the two young fellows involved I knew pretty well”.
Davies remembered Robert Lane as “a terrific fellow”.
“He was probably my father’s best mate,” Davies said. “He was on my Dad’s crew in the Armed Robbery Squad – Dad was a Detective Sergeant there and Bob was a Detective Senior Constable.
“The old man played seconds and under 19s footy at Hawthorn, but did a knee and never went on, while Bob obviously played at Carlton and later Williamstown, and was quite a good footballer . . . and when Bob took on the captain-coach’s job at Lalbert Dad moved out there.”
In 1976, Lane captained and coached the then Mid Murray League outfit Lake Boga to its first Grand Final triumph in a decade, by way of a one-point win over Woorinen. A few years ago, Davies was afforded the honour of presenting a League award perpetuating Robert Lane’s memory to the Lake Boga ruckman “who’s now a bloke running around for the Crows by the name of Josh Jenkins”.
Asked if Carlton through the AFL could similarly honour the late Robert Lane, Davies replied “That would be a pretty wonderful thing if that was able to happen”.
