During the late 1990's, the head and public face of the drug squad was Chief Insp. Victor John McCoy.

McCoy's experience and expertise were sought by former Commissioner Neil Comrie and former Premier Jeff Kennett, whom he clearly admired. "I think our Premier is a breath of fresh air for this state.

He's in the mould of Henry Bolte, and that's the sign of a good leader".

McCoy was dogged by controversy from his days as a young cop on the beat in St Kilda.

Those who worked closely with him spoke of his sense of understanding and compassion for the victims of the drug trade and their families - a trait that some say can be traced back to his own great personal tragedy when his childhood sweetheart died shortly after their marriage.

Former Homicide Squad head Carl Mengler said: "John's life experiences have fitted him well for the position he now holds. "

Like Mr Kennett, Chief Insp. McCoy had a military background.

As a young police officer he trained to be a soldier in the Vietnam War.

John McCoy, an outstanding recruit during his national service training, did not take up an invitation for officer training.

Victoria Police have resisted any external investigation since an inquiry into police malpractice by QC Barry Beach in the 1970s.

Beach made findings of serious or criminal misconduct against 55 police.

But resistance from the force was so powerful that most of his recommendations were overturned.

22 officers were charged.

All of them were either discharged or acquitted.

It did their careers no harm.

McCoy is one officer who prospered.

Despite having faced charges he became head of the Drug Squad.

In 1976 McCoy was acquitted of assault charges after a brawl outside a suburban hotel. 

McCoy was found by the Beach Inquiry to have assaulted a man he was arresting and then conspired to lie about the assault.

When interviewed about his second assault trial, McCoy had no qualms about what he'd done.

McCoy was interviewed on ABC TV and said of the charge, "I did assault him, technically, but as a police officer you've got certain rights that other people haven't got, and if a guy's resisting arrest you're allowed to use a certain amount of force to effect that arrest. 

"You can't work by the rules all the time.

"He had minor injuries, he had a couple of lumps on his forehead, he had some hair out of the back of his head, and I think he had a bruise on his thigh, now you could get those wrestling with your wife.

"Every policeman who's ever done any work would've committed some misdemeanour... I believe that's one of the reasons the crime rate is so high now, because most policemen are working by the book, and even though they're getting results, I don't believe they're getting the results they used to a few years ago.

"Probably the first time I saw a bloke get a decent hiding from a copper it upset me, but when you worked in that environment you understood why they got a hiding, even though it was wrong it was an accepted thing amongst the police and amongst the criminal element, that if a guy played up badly enough he got a biff, and they used to accept it, a lot of crims wouldn't talk to you till you gave 'em a biff, and a biff ranged from a smack in the mouth to a decent hiding".

McCoy's version of events was accepted by a judge and jury, who found him not guilty on the second charge of assault.

But the pressure caused him to resign from the force, and cook hamburgers for a living instead.

Still, the young McCoy had no regrets.

He was later welcomed back to the force and chosen as one of its rising stars.

He was made Inspector then Chief Inspector and head of the drug squad, where he'd been since 1989.

But allegations of misconduct continued to dog him.

But McCoy loved his time in the drug squad - it was a dirty business but the most satisfying time in his police career.

However, there can be a downside to working in the mud.

Sometimes it sticks.

In the mid 90's McCoy was the subject of at least two separate complaints.

The events that led to the first complaint occurred on Magnetic Island in Queensland, the island where he went each year for holidays.

One of the island's more notorious residents, Joe Reading, was a long-time target of the drug squad.

Reading had moved up there to get away from it all.

He ran a laundry business on the island but was also involved in the amphetamines trade in Victoria.

In March 1994, Reading was reporting for bail at the island's police station.

When a detective from the Victorian drug squad rang to check on him, he was told by a worried local policeman that Reading had been in close contact with Inspector McCoy.

McCoy was later cleared of all the allegations against him.

McCoy recalled in a media report: "I didn't know of Joey then and my mate introduced me to him in a hotel.

I had a beer with him, he was very friendly and gregarious."

Much later, when they were both back in Melbourne, Reading was charged with drug trafficking.

His wife was seriously ill at Magnetic Island and he asked McCoy if he could get bail to return to care for her. 

"I spoke to my detectives and they had no problem."

Reading was later bailed.

Reading told the ABC's Four Corners he had the occasional drink with McCoy, who he considered a friend.

The information passed on by the local police to the Drug Squad was that Inspector McCoy had phoned in on Reading's behalf... and that the two had been seen together in a car near the police station.

When word got back about Inspector McCoy's contacts, there was alarm at the drug squad.

Some of the detectives were so concerned they raised the matter with their superiors.

Soon after that Inspector McCoy was told of the complaint that had been made.

The detectives were not interviewed until about a year after the event.

They later learned that Inspector McCoy had been cleared.

But, McCoy says, the drug suspect liked to make up stories and while showing a young Melbourne policeman the local sights he popped in to see the Magnetic Island police to report on bail.

Reading couldn't help himself.

He started bragging to the local police that the policeman in the car out front was his great friend, John McCoy.

The whispers began: the long-serving drug squad boss was bent.

When Reading went to court, his lawyers subpoenaed drug squad documents.

The police fought all the way to the Supreme Court to keep the documents but lost.

Neil Comrie stated that he believed the apparent close relationship between McCoy and Reading was improper.

In 1995 McCoy was made head of the drug squad, one of the most sensitive areas in policing.

This was despite repeated allegations against him throughout his career.

On August 9, 1995 police raided the home of big-time drug dealer, Peter Pilarinos, and found on the kitchen table copies of the documents relating to Reading.

Pilarinos said he'd been given the confidential drug squad documents by Joe Reading's brother, Len, another Drug Squad target.

The criminal said Reading claimed to have paid a corrupt Drug Squad officer $70,000 for the documents.

The documents had been stamped with court numbers, proving they had been released officially.

Pilarinos named John McCoy as the corrupt Drug Squad officer.

Pilarinos said the Readings had a very large file implicating McCoy in taking bribes.

Some of the allegations were repeated on television, causing McCoy and his family further pain.

"My wife said: "How can I go to work tomorrow after that?' I couldn't answer her", McCoy said.

"There is no doubt the tongues were wagging. It had a dreadful impact.  We were involved in some investigations with other forces and some were concerned about me and whether I could be trusted."

Amazingly, the detective sent to Pilarinos' home was from McCoy's own Drug Squad.

He took the documents and took down the allegation, then reported straight back to McCoy, the subject of the complaint.

There was no record of interview.. because the detective said the music was too loud.

The allegation was then passed on to Internal Investigations.

Len Reading told Four Corners the allegation he'd bribed McCoy was false.

Once again, Chief Inspector McCoy was cleared.

But the concerns about the investigation remain.

The records show only one civilian was interviewed.

Neither Reading nor Pilarinos were ever interviewed about the matter by internal investigations.

McCoy was investigated by the internal Ethical Standards Department over the Magnetic Island trip and the court documents and exonerated.

Chief Commissioner Neil Comrie rang his counterparts around the country to vouch for McCoy's integrity.

Joseph O'Reilly, Police Ethical Standards Committee: The lack of integrity of the internal investigation process of the Victoria Police is I think demonstrated in very stark terms in the Chief Inspector McCoy incident.

"The Drug squad, suggestions of the Drug squad's investigation of itself and the lack of due process and the lack of integrity in that process is very significant."

In the now-infamous Christmas burglary at the drug squad in 1996-97, files were taken from the investigation into amphetamines boss, John Higgs. 

The theft of the files seriously compromised the safety of a secret informer, known as E2/92, whose evidence would be critical to the case against Higgs. 

The theft also created a severe moral problem within the drug squad.

"It tore into the heart of the drug squad," says McCoy.

"I have no idea who did it, although I know it was none of the investigators involved in the case. It had to be someone with knowledge of where the brief (of evidence) was."

John McCoy was subsequently promoted to Chief Inspector, and from acting head to head of the Drug Squad.

Early in 1998, McCoy and legal team successfully put paid to the ABC's Four Corners program televising a story centred around drug squad corruption.

The story implicated McCoy and those investigating him.

On the night of August 18, 1998, drug squad detective Malcolm Rosenes, later jailed for drug trafficking, was part of a series of raids on several sophisticated amphetamines factories.

More than 200 police searched 32 Melbourne premises and arrested 20 people in the hours before the funeral of murdered policeman, Gary Silk.

McCoy said that this was the biggest series of simultaneous raids ever conducted by the squad.

On February 22, 1999, the Herald Sun reported that the hit on Alphonse Gangitano was ordered by a $200m cocaine cartel also linked to the killing of  Vincenzo Mannella. 

Inspector David Reid said that Gangitano was the head of the cartel run by top members of the business establishment.

Some of Australia's most violent criminals are involved in the drug ring, police said.

There were several facts and statistics quoted in this story: "There has been a 200% increase of cocaine coming into Melbourne since 1997, the number of cocaine dealers has grown five fold, the Melbourne ports have become a major arrival point for cocaine."

The existence of such a cartel was denied by John McCoy.

On July 14, 2000, McCoy retired as the longest-serving senior drug squad investigator in Australia.  

He called for prescription heroin for long-term addicts and supervised injecting room trials.

"This goes against my training, upbringing and beliefs but I believe we have to look at these alternatives," he said.

"Prescription heroin would save a heck of a lot of lives and would reduce other crime problems dramatically. What we are doing is not working and we have to try to find a better way."

"I firmly believe the government should try at least one safe injecting house and see how it goes."

McCoy said police could easily arrest twice the number of drug traffickers, but the courts and prisons could not handle the volume.

"If we had another 200 full-time drug investigators we could use them, but the system couldn't cope. The system is already choked ..."

In a wide-ranging interview with The Age on the eve of his retirement, McCoy said narcotics syndicates had greater resources than the drug squad.

The explosion in drug trafficking in the past few years was partially due to mid-1990s government cuts in resources for the Federal Police, Customs and the drug squad.

McCoy said judges were not reflecting community concerns when sentencing traffickers.

"The law allows for a 25-year sentence for trafficking a commercial quantity, yet the highest I've seen is 11 years. When a major trafficker gets a minimum of four years when the maximum is 25 years then to me it is not a deterrent."

After a career that has included numerous major arrests, McCoy said he now gets most satisfaction from breaking up drug syndicates.

"Drug suppliers are worse than armed robbers because they steal your children. "