In early 1992, James Sweetin told Pilarinos they'd have trouble finding the vital ingredient needed in the production, methylamine, but Pilarinos said he had a corrupt police officer who would give them what they needed.

Pilarinos, Sweetin and associate Ken Milton drove to Attwood and parked away from the compound. 

Wearing gloves, and using the keys Hicks gave them, they took 150 litres of methylamine.

They returned again and again, stealing more chemicals and replacing the liquid with Coca-Cola, and red phosphorous mixed with tile grout.

Hicks did much more than just provide the keys.

He stole phenyl-acetic from the compound and dropped it off in a rubbish bin at a sports ground near Attwood.

There were allegations, never proven, that he stole truckloads of seized cannabis and sold it back through Pilarinos.

The criminals stole chemical text books from the lock-up to ensure they were producing speed of the highest quality.

Hicks kept them up to date on the state of any investigations into Pilarinos's group. 

He also tipped them off that police planned to put a secret video camera outside Pilarinos's Doncaster home and had James Sweetin's home under surveillance.

He even told Pilarinos of the evidence McCulloch had found in his garbage.

The gang needed ketone to make a batch of amphetamines.

Pilarinos ordered six litres for $12,000 from an unemployed criminal who owned a 60-square home in Yarra Glen. 

When it was delivered in a blue bag to a Doncaster house,  Hicks staged a raid using a bodgie firearms warrant. 

He gave one of the crooks a clip over the ear and threatened to arrest the others.

The man who delivered the drugs was allowed to leave.

The chemicals weren't.

No one asked why one detective in a station wagon was conducting raids.

They knew they were being ripped off but who do amphetamines dealers complain to?

Pilarinos did something that a succession of senior police had failed to do.

He got Hicks to work.

But the cop didn't come cheap. 

Before he took his girlfriend to the United States in 1993, he demanded travel expenses.

Pilarinos and another man met him on a footbridge in Glen Iris and gave him an envelope with cash.

Pilarinos was pleasant to his copper when they met, but behind his back he called him "that fat pig".

Meanwhile Hicks was making a comeback of sorts.

He was taking his job quite seriously. 

When he arrived at the squad he had been struggling with alimony payments as his marriage had broken up.

In police circles his battered 1975 Ford station wagon was a standing joke, often parked for up to a week in the no-standing zone outside the old watch-house in Russell Street because he could not afford to fill the tank.

Now something had changed.

He had bought a Mitsubishi V6 four-wheel-drive and a top-class motor bike. 

He took his girlfriend to Disneyland, Hawaii and California for eight weeks.

He bought into a racehorse and seemed to be doing well on the punt.

Colleagues simply thought his luck had changed and he was getting his life back together.

They never dreamt the quiet man was talking to the wrong people.

In June 1992 police launched an internal inquiry. 

Through fingerprint tests they found a glove impression on one of the exhibits.

That suggested a burglary had taken place, but they could not work out whether the drugs had been switched at the forensic science laboratory or Attwood.

Denis Tanner too had also been accused of selling out covert drug squad investigations.

In 1988, he had been involved in informing amphetamine dealers, Terrence Moon and William Hackett, of the undercover police operation 'Mint'.

At the trial of Peter Pilarinos in 2000, his lawyer, Mr Brian Cash, said that Hicks had once threatened him saying, "would you like to go on a picnic with Denis Tanner, no one comes back from a picnic with Denis". 

Tanner of course came under heavy investigation after the death of his sister-in-law Jennifer Tanner and when the skeletal remains of a St Kilda prostitute were found near his North Eastern Victorian property.

Hick's name was on a short list  of suspects drawn up by investigators.

"We believe he was certainly implicated," a senior police source said. 

One theory was that Hicks provided security and layout details to another person who conducted the burglary.

Another was that the information was passed directly from Hicks to Higgs.

On May 6, 1998, the Melbourne Magistrates' Court heard a drug squad detective took his policewoman girlfriend to meetings with an alleged drug boss.

Constable Maree Davies told the court Sen-Det. Kevin Hicks took her to meetings at the East Doncaster mansion of alleged drug boss Peter Pilarinos on his motorcycle.

In a statement tendered to court, Constable Davies said she and Sen-Det. Hicks regularly met Mr Pilarinos and other members of the drug squad at a Bourke St bar.

Constable Davies said she knew another police officer named David Waters who "seemed to have a similar relationship with Mr Pilarinos to Kevin".

Sen-Det. Hicks and Mr Pilarinos are both facing charges over the manufacture of amphetamines from chemicals stolen from a police drug facility at Attwood.

Constable Davies, who said she now had no relationship with Sen-Det. Hicks, told the court in a statement:

She twice found packets of white powder with Sen-Det. Hicks' cigarettes which he told her were exhibits.

On one visit to Mr Pilarinos's house, Sen-Det. Hicks pointed out police surveillance cameras but told her: "It's all right, they have been cut off".

Sen-Det. Hicks and Mr Pilarinos met two men at Barfly's in Bourke St who were shot dead a week later after a suspected drug deal.

Sen-Det. Hicks kept a cache of guns in their garden shed, which he explained he "collected" while in the major crime squad.

Constable Davies told the court Sen-Det. Hicks became agitated after the shooting.

She said he told her not to go to Barfly's because he had been tipped off it was "hot".

Constable Davies said in her statement Sen-Det. Hicks became nasty after reading newspaper stories about a break-in at Attwood.

She said Sen-Det. Hicks was prone to violence.

"He was a quiet violent man but in public he was a completely different person," Constable Davies said.

On the same day, Jurgen Hadler, 41, of Greensborough, and Gary Sellman, 45, of Peregian, Queensland, pleaded not guilty to charges of trafficking amphetamines.

At an earlier hearing, Warwick Harbour, 29, of Ferntree Gully, Albertus van Donkrelaar, 48, of Eltham, and Allan Colson, 48, of Eltham, all indicated they would plead guilty to similar charges.

In May 1999, after an Ethical Standards Department investigation, Operation Guardsman, Hicks and Peter Pilarinos were finally arrested.

Pilarinos, of St Clems Road, East Doncaster, pleaded guilty to bribing Hicks, 45, of Lima East, near Benalla, between January 1992 and May 1993.

Denis Tanner apparently went to a local chief inspector to find out what was happening.

According to one police source he was told it related to Hicks's time at the drug squad.

The chief inspector then said: "It's amazing how old matters can come back to bite you on the arse."

Tanner looked back and said: "Yeah, tell me about it."

Police found that Hicks provided the keys to the drug squad storage facility at Attwood to allow admitted drug dealer Peter Pilarinos and others to steal back amphetamine chemicals seized in earlier raids. 

Hicks resigned from the police force in December 1999 and later faced the Supreme Court.

On March 28, 2000,  Hicks sat in the dock of court three of the Supreme Court.

On either side sat police.

To his right was a handful of old friends, to his left the investigators who put him there.

Before the trial, one of  Hicks' close friends in the force had told anyone who was interested that the case against Hicks was a "souffle", and would be exposed as such in court. 

When Hicks pleaded guilty, many officers were stunned.

His barrister, Joe Gullaci, had given every indication he intended to fight the case.

Then after a lunch break he said his client would plead guilty.

According to some legal sources, Hicks may have pleaded guilty because he thought Pilarinos was about to plead guilty and wanted to plea bargain.

If Pilarinos had given evidence against Hicks the former policeman would have faced 10 years inside.

Instead a deal was done and Hicks was told he was likely to get four.

He decided to cut his losses.

Lachlan McCulloch went to the court to watch the man who sold him out admit his guilt.

McCulloch had resigned from the force in November 1999.

He'd had death threats for his role in the long corruption investigation, and some of Hicks' friends in the force had vilified the young detective for his refusal to ignore what he discovered.

Wearing a grey suit, striped tie and gold framed spectacles Hicks, 45, sat with his head cocked to the right as he listened to witnesses speak on his behalf.

He stood and with a slight lisp gave his occupation as a truck driver.

He did not give his address as he was staying with a serving police officer.

He didn't appear to be wearing a watch.

Where he was going he wouldn't need one.

Gullaci told Justice Hampel how his client had lost his friends, job and reputation.

"Mr Hicks was one of the failures of the system and a victim of it."

The defence suggested a non-parole sentence of four years.

The prosecutor, Bill Morgan-Payler, QC, said "we do not view the defence submission as inappropriate".

It was an anti-climax.

Hicks stood up.

His bald guard allowed him to shake the hands of his few mates before he was taken to jail.

He picked up an old overnight bag at his feet and before leaving forced a thin smile, then a tired wink to a former colleague.