‘I just kept it to myself. I didn’t want to be known as the son of a murder victim’: From crime victim to crime investigator

Inspector Kane Robinson commands the elite unit handling Melbourne’s ugliest street clashes. His secret weapon? Empathy learned from tragedy.

It was nearly Christmas 1986 but for 13-year-old Kane Robinson there was only a sense of dread. His father, John, had headed out for a weekend shift driving a black cab and hadn’t come back.

He woke to be told by his mother Pat: “Dad didn’t come home.”

It had been a long shift, starting on the Saturday morning, and the last job was to fill the tank with petrol for the next driver. It was after 11pm, and he was a few kilometres from his Clayton South home.

Kane remembers detectives and then taxi colleagues arriving: “The house was full of people.”

John Robinson, 42, was the service manager at a Mitsubishi dealership and a part-time taxi driver. He disappeared late on December 20. His car was discovered a day later near Jerilderie in NSW.

There were bloodstains in the boot along with four spent .22 bullet shells. Robinson’s body was later found in a roadside drain near the Newell Highway. He had been shot in the head.

His rectangular gold-rimmed glasses and wallet, containing about $250 and his business cards, were never found.

For Kane, it was a blur. “All I can remember is a sense of sadness and wanting to know why.”

A student at Clayton Technical School, he had aspirations to join the police force, but he now admits that without a male role model he was heading down a dangerous path.

“I was wagging school and hanging out with the wrong crowd.” He wasn’t committing petty crimes but his mates were.

Pat rang Brad Penno, a homicide detective who had investigated John’s murder. Brad was working at the drug squad then and contacted Kane to advise him to start picking better friends.

“He kept in touch with me quite a bit and made sure I stayed on the straight and narrow,” says Kane.

Brad left policing to become a barrister. He recalls: “I did keep in touch with [the Robinsons] – to offer some moral support and guidance.

“There are some murders that stay with you. The violence was unspeakable. [John] was fuelling the taxi at the end of the shift when he was grabbed. All for about 250 bucks.”

The family did not have the satisfaction of seeing the killer tried and convicted.

Sean Downie, 22, was arrested in Cairns on January 13, 1987 and extradited to Melbourne over the murder. He told police he had pulled Robinson over at gunpoint, forced him into the boot then shot him.

Downie was later found hanged in his K Division, Pentridge cell. There was talk he was murdered, but the official finding was suicide.

K