Patrick Joseph "P. J." Hasham is a fictional character in the long-running Australian police drama Blue Heelers, portrayed by Martin Sacks. An experienced detective, P. J. was attached to the gaming squad in Melbourne and was eventually disbanded due to corruption. He was transferred to the small country town of Mount Thomas as the only criminal investigator at the local station. Despite his stated preference for staying out of "uniformed matters", he worked far closer with his uniformed colleagues than many visiting detectives, and also preferred to dress down compared to the business dress usually favoured by other detectives. He was the last member of the original cast to leave the show, doing so midway through the twelfth season, and was the third-longest serving character, appearing in 483 of the 510 episodes to air.
Development and casting The character, then named Nick Schultz, was created by Hal McElroy and Tony Morphett to be the only detective posted to the Mount Thomas Police Station. The character's name was swapped with that of the show's traffic cop, P. J. Hasham, because the producers felt that those names better suited the physicality of the actor chosen. His early characterisation is that of a cowboy detective who has spent most of his career in city postings before being transferred to the bush.
Martin Sacks came to the role as an experienced actor, having first appeared in a bit part in The Love Boat and then in the cast of Australian soap opera The Restless Years. Sacks also had experience acting in Hollywood, but returned to Australia after a few years. After announcing his departure from the show, Sacks admitted that he wasn't keen on the part at first as he didn't think the show would last.
In later years, the death of both of his fiancées, the departure of many of his friends, and the changing attitude of his highly respected boss combine to make Mount Thomas feel like less of a home for P. J., and the character chooses to depart the town for pastures new. His exit storyline, which sees him leave for Melbourne to join the Cold Case Squad, was intended to allow the character to return for future guest roles, but the show ended before this could eventuate.
Character background In his fictional backstory, the character is the Lebanese Australian son of a store-owner who was born and raised in Melbourne, and has at least two sisters. Although his mother is a staunch Roman Catholic, P. J. gave up on religion when his father was killed. Despite this, he still remembers the teachings well enough to recite part of the rosary when prompted. He remains skeptical of the benefits of faith and religion, something he attributes to his role as a detective.
Role on Blue Heelers P. J. joined the Victoria Police an unspecified amount of time before the start of the series. During his early career, he was posted to the Fitzroy Station in Melbourne, where he remained living with his mother. About 1988/89, P. J. was serving as a detective on the Regional Gaming Squad when the entire squad was investigated for corruption by the Internal Investigations Division (IID) based on a tip-off from fellow squad member Monica Draper (Peta Doodson). The investigation found no evidence of any wrongdoing from P. J., but he was still transferred to the country town of Mount Thomas where he served as the sole member of the station's Criminal Investigation Branch (CIB).
By 1994, P. J. had settled in to his role at Mount Thomas and had established a comfortable working relationship with the station sergeant, Tom Croydon (John Wood). In February of that year, the annual Mount Thomas Cup brought an array of colourful characters to the town, and provided him with the prospect of settling an old score with Barry Raymond "Apples" Maxwell. A daring daylight attack on a bookie looked like it might be the opening that he's looking for, but the perpetrator turned out to be the younger Maxwell brother. Ultimately, Apples never made it to town, he died in a car accident earlier in the day.
Later in the first season, P. J. was reunited with a former flame when Stock Squad detective Hillary Edmunds (Jennifer Botica) arrived in town to investigate cases of cattle-duffing. After spending an overnight stakeout together watching a stolen prized bull, P. J. was prepared to reignite their romance, only to be let down when Hilary stood him up. Hillary returned again later in the year with her uncle, who hoped to retire to a property he owned in the district, only to find that another farmer was claiming the land as his own under an obscure law. When a building on the property is destroyed by arson, P. J. found himself drawn into the dispute by his relationship with Hillary, whose single-mindedness regarding the case threatened any chance of them learning the truth.
During the second season, P. J. was one of four officers targeted by an IID raid regarding allegations of police involvement in the sale and distribution of drugs. The IID officer assigned to search his house was Monica Draper, the senior sergeant who had reported corruption on the Regional Gaming Squad and had long suspected him of being "on the take". While the investigation was on-going, the news of a crashed prison bus saw P. J. placed back on duty, working with IID to question Susan Croydon (Beth Buchanan) about drugs found during the earlier raids. When Adam Cooper (Damian Walshe-Howling) and Chris Riley (Julie Nihill) are taken hostage in the Imperial Hotel, P. J. joined his colleagues in cordoning off the pub and, after Tom is shot, he took part in the interview of the shooter and the take-down of the escaped prisoners.
Less than three months later, P. J. found himself under investigation by IID again when the local branch of the bank is robbed and the offender fingers him as an accomplice. The investigation was complicated by his mutual animosity with Monica Draper, who was assisting the "toe-cutters" with the inquiry. When his former boss, Peter Grantham (David Glazebrook), arrived at the station to taunt P. J. about the investigation. P.J became suspicious that Grantham was setting him up, and his fears were realised when a search uncovered a portion of the stolen funds in his freezer. With her friend's career on the line, Maggie Doyle (Lisa McCune) approached her father, Pat (Dennis Miller), for help and together they uncovered evidence that Grantham had framed P. J., allowing him to return to duty.
Late in 1996, the return of young offender Luke Darcy (Jonathan Brooks) from the juvenile justice system corresponded to a spike in assaults and thefts, leading the police to investigate the family. The situation came to a head when Nick Schultz (William McInnes) and Adam Cooper responded to a domestic disturbance at the Darcy house, followed shortly by P. J. and Maggie Doyle. Luke had soaked his father in fuel and was threatening him with a cigarette lighter when he was tackled by Nick and Adam. While Luke was struggling with the police, his mother Raelene began threatening P. J.with a machete, saying that they wouldn't take her son away. Backed against a lattice frame, he ordered her to drop the knife, before shooting her three times as she continued to advance towards him.
As the investigation into the shooting began, P. J.'s colleagues were supportive of him, but with the media and the brass clamouring for answers, the investigators from the Homicide Squad were anxious to keep everything above board, to prevent any implication of a cover-up. The situation was made worse by the arrival of journalist Paul Carson, who aired footage of the shooting which appeared to implicate P. J. as a cold-blooded killer and suggested that the shooting was a police reprisal for the murder of Wayne Patterson by Raelene's cousin. During the coronial inquest, P. J. suffered a crisis of confidence on the back of a death-bed confession which put one of his earliest convictions in Mount Thomas in doubt. With P. J. tied up in the inquest, it was left up to Maggie to find out the truth, and potentially save his career. Eventually, the confession was proved false, and P. J. was cleared of any wrongdoing by the coroner.
In 1997, P. J. and Maggie were drawn into an investigation at the local gold mine when Adam and new constable Dash McKinley (Tasma Walton) found prospector Hec O'Farrell in the mine, despite him no longer holding the lease. Hec's mate, Bert, is found bashed and their jar of gold dust is missing, with P. J. believing that Hec had taken the gold himself, but Tom and Dash are skeptical. The investigation took an unexpected turn when the new miners, Matt Kinsella and Jamie Burgess, discovered a nugget of gold just when the police are on hand to play witness. A routine check into the men's backgrounds uncovers the fact that both men were guards on duty during a bullion robbery. With this information in hand, P. J. and Maggie return to the mine to investigate, only to be trapped by a cave-in caused by an explosion. Trapped in close quarters together, they finally have a chance to explore a side of their relationship which they'd been suppressing for a long time.
While waiting for rescue, the trapped couple discussed, among other things, their hopes and dreams for the future while managing to stay hydrated thanks to water dripping from the mine ceiling. Through mere chance, and a discarded Minties wrapper, Dash and Adam realised that their colleagues were trapped in the mine while searching for Kinsella and Burgess. The rescue was complicated by the fact that the blast which caused the cave-in had made the rest of the tunnel unstable, but the State Emergency Service volunteers managed to extricate them both before the roof caved-in completely. Once free of the mine, Maggie and P. J. were set on nailing the two men for the bullion robbery, and for attempted murder, only to learn that Burgess' partner had killed Kinsella, and tried to kill Burgess.
During the fifth season, P. J. found himself under investigation by Monica Draper yet again after a suspect claimed that his confession was obtained while he was in intense pain and in need of medical attention. P. J. invited Monica to listen to the tape of the interview, but when he presses play on the tape recorder, he discovered that the tape was missing. During the search for the tape, he realised that there was only one place he hadn't searched: Monica's handbag. To the shock of everyone, the tape was there, leading Monica to admit that she'd taken the tape to protect the suspect, who is her biological son. When P. J. realised that she was covering for her son, who actually took the tape, he put aside his animosity and decided to do everything in his power to help her.
For a brief period in 1998, P. J. returned to the uniformed branch after he was selected as the acting sergeant following the station's upgrade and Tom's promotion. He found himself unable to stay out of CI matters, however, and quickly decided that he was better off as a detective, and passed the acting sergeant's role over to Nick.
Later that year, P. J. became concerned that he may have contracted HIV after he cut his hand while rescuing a bloodied driver from his mangled car. No-one knew about the driver might be HIV-positive until a nurse at the local hospital contracted the virus after suffering a needlestick injury while treating the man. P. J.'s secretive behaviour and his contact with the nurse led Maggie to suspect them of an affair, until he explained the situation. When the driver was seen on security footage holding up a service station with a syringe full of blood, it appeared certain that he was HIV-positive. The police soon discovered that everything isn't always as it seems when the truth comes out, the nurse actually contracted the virus while having an affair, and it was unlikely the P. J., nor Maggie, had anything to worry about.