Spies, Lies, and a Disappearance: Ron McQuilter on 37 Years as a Private Investigator and How He Solved the Lee Sheppard Case

Ron McQuilter came from the “hard” part of Glasgow to New Zealand in 1983 with a Kiwi girlfriend and little else. Over the next 37 years, McQuilter has built a reputation as one of the best private investigators around. In his new book, McQuilter reveals some of the tricks of the trade and some of the puzzling mysteries he has solved.

Ron McQuilter thought he would be dead at 40.

“I don’t know why, I just assumed I would say or do something stupid and someone would kill me,” McQuilter laughs, a nod to the occupational risk of being a private investigator.

“I never looked that far. When I got off the plane I was scruffy, I had nothing. I didn’t see this … nice house, good money.”

We are standing on the lawn of his renovated home in the heart of Mount Maunganui, complete with a huge pool: “It’s the largest pool on the Mount, it takes a week to fill up!” – with a new car parked in the driveway.

It’s the pitfalls of success, but McQuilter says it without arrogance, just genuine enthusiasm and gratitude for what his extraordinary career has brought him since he emigrated from Glasgow in 1983.

The hilarious ups and downs of his 37 years as a private investigator in New Zealand are detailed in his new book Busted!

It’s an eclectic collection of some of the thousands of cases McQuilter has solved: blackmail, unfaithful spouses, corporate espionage, thieves, scammers, and insurance scams.

But there is one case of particular importance: the disappearance of Lee Sheppard in London.

Sheppard and his wife Juliet, both from Pahi near Whangarei, had been living in Britain for several years before Lee disappeared in January 2003.

Juliet had just found out she was pregnant with her first child when 26-year-old Lee never returned from a night shift at the refrigerator recycling plant where she worked.

His disappearance was completely out of line. An investigation by the Metropolitan Police did not produce any leads, leaving his shattered family without closure.

Three years later, a documentarian approached McQuilter to investigate the missing person’s file.

The production company offered him $ 10,000 to travel to London with a film crew, but McQuilter soon realized that the case would never be solved in a week.

After meeting individually with members of the Sheppard family, McQuilter was convinced that something unpleasant had happened to Lee rather than the future father simply leaving his family high and dry.

Any documentary that didn’t adequately investigate her disappearance would simply leave more questions than answers, so McQuilter took up the case as a personal mission to find out what happened.

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“Lee could have been anyone’s son, living in the UK like so many Kiwis,” says McQuilter, a father of two grown children.

“I didn’t want to have the only memory of Lee being this documentary and leaving a stigma on his character. That’s how I got engaged.”

He was blocked by London detectives for two years, until they finally agreed to give him access to the police file and witnesses. In doing so, McQuilter became the first private investigator to work with the Met police.

He spent countless hours and thousands of dollars re-investigating the case, until he gathered enough evidence to show that Lee Sheppard never left his workplace.

Later, a Crown investigation agreed with McQuilter’s investigation that Sheppard must have climbed onto one of the machines used to dismantle refrigerators, which had been frozen during a blizzard that night.

The lengths McQuilter went to to solve the case are detailed in a book excerpt published in the Herald Sunday morning. It’s a remarkable story of persistence and never taking anything at face value, especially the flaws of the original police investigation.

“I don’t think it’s welcome for another joint investigation,” laughs McQuilter. “But the truth is the truth”.

He understands why the London police were so suspicious of him at first, as private investigators are not licensed in the UK and have a terrible reputation for unethical tactics, such as hacking voicemails for tabloid newspapers.

Telling the true stories of private investigators in New Zealand, where McQuilter is the chairman of the industry licensing body, was the main motivation for writing Busted!

“You tell someone ‘I’m an IP’ and they think you’re just collecting debts, or following unfaithful husbands. Even my family at home doesn’t really know what we’re doing,” says McQuilter.

“Private investigators have a bad reputation, people think we are ghosts or spies. As in any industry, there are some bad apples. But there are hundreds of private investigators in New Zealand working today to save people’s livelihoods and save jobs. from the people”.

He points out that the police will rightly investigate an armed robbery at a dairy and will arrest the culprits within days.

But if a business owner shows up suspected of theft or fraud by an employee in the workplace, McQuilter says police are struggling to find the resources to investigate.

“And that’s where we come in. Catching crims, that’s what we do.”

There is also much of McQuilter’s trademark humor in the book; including the story of how he was so well camouflaged on a surveillance watch that someone urinated on him.

McQuilter remains the head of Paragon, the private investigation company he founded, but handed over the day-to-day running of operations when he and his wife Gillian moved to the Mount in May 2014.

Gillian was the reason McQuilter moved to New Zealand in 1983. She fell in love at first sight when they met in Glasgow when she was in her OE, they have been inseparable ever since.

He recently turned 65, far exceeding his prediction of an untimely death, and despite seeing the worst examples of human behavior in his long career, McQuilter insists he is neither tired nor cynical.

“I grew up in the tough part of Glasgow, the slums, but my mom and dad taught us kids to be good people. I think I’m a good guy, and they taught us to be ourselves.

“No matter what, no matter how bad the other person is, you don’t let them change you. That’s my philosophy,” says McQuilter.

“Everyone is different too. I don’t look at a gang member and think you are a piece of shit. They have had different lives or made different decisions.”

Plus, if it weren’t for the criminals, McQuilter says he’d be out of a job.

“I love you, I want to give you a hug. Otherwise, I’d be flipping burgers somewhere.”

Arrested! Stories from New Zealand’s Leading Private Investigator
By Ron McQuilter
Posted by New Holland
RRP: $ 35
Available October 26