Wednesday 21 September 2022 05:32 PM Stuart Bateson's four year affair with mistress exposed after wife Milka's ... trends now
They look like a loving power couple in black tie - but behind this picture of a top gang detective and his wife lies a dark secret that has publicly exploded in their faces.
Victorian Police Commander Stuart Bateson, 54, was secretly in the middle of a four-year affair with a junior officer when this picture was taken in 2017.
And when his police forensics expert wife Milka found out the truth, the mother-of-two tracked down her love rival and angrily confronted her after having a 'brain snap', the Fair Work Commission has heard.
But the doomed affair would throw the careers of both husband and wife into turmoil.
Victorian Police Commander Stuart Bateson, 54, was secretly in the middle of a four year affair with a junior officer when this picture with his wife Milka was taken in 2017
After he finally ended the affair, Bateson was charged with telling his lover secret details of an Independent Broad-based Anti-Corruption Commission (IBAC) probe.
And his wife was sacked for pretending to be a journalist from The Age when she confronted his mistress - who can't be named for legal reasons - during work hours.
The love triangle was revealed when Milka Bateson successfully appealed her dismissal from Victoria Police at a Fair Work Commission hearing.
Love rat Bateson was a former top detective who rose through the ranks and played a lead role investigating Melbourne's gangland wars in the early 2000s.
He was played by actor Roger Corser in the Channel Nine Underbelly series that dramatised the gang war murders involving Carl Williams and Jason Moran.
Stuart Bateson told his wife Milka the full story including his mistress's identity and that she also worked for Victoria Police - and admitted she knew he was married with kids
When Stuart Bateson's police forensics expert wife Milka found out the truth, the mother of two tracked down her love rival and confronted her after a 'brain snap'
But in 2015, Bateson began an illicit affair with a junior police officer who was five ranks below him, Melbourne Magistrate's Court was told in 2021.
He ended the affair in 2018 - making his mistress 'demonstrably upset and angry', the hearing heard - but soon after he was charged with telling her about his role in the IBAC probe and suspended.
His wife found out about the affair, her husband's suspension and the charges he was facing in June 2019, leaving her 'absolutely devastated', the hearing was told.
She demanded to know who the mistress was and the 'where, when, what, and why' details of the affair, the hearing was told.
Ms Bateson immediately said she wanted to speak to the mistress, but her husband 'begged her not to'.
Love rat Stuart Bateson was a former leading detective who rose through the ranks and played a lead role investigating Melbourne's gangland wars in the early 2000s
Stuart Bateson was played by actor Roger Corser (above) in the Channel Nine Underbelly series which dramatised the gang war murders involving Carl Williams and Jason Moran
But after a 'stressed' phone call from her husband after a court appearance in December 2019, Ms Bateson decided to confront the woman.
'It made me more angry at him because again, I said why would [she] do this?' she told the hearing.
'Supposedly this affair was meaningless, there was no feelings involved.
'It went over a four-year time frame, he breaks off the affair and suddenly [the mistress] makes these false accusations against him which is what I wanted to speak to [her] about.'
She added: 'What I wanted to discuss was that my belief was that my husband had strung [her] along for four years on the promise that he was going to leave me for [her].
'He denied [that] which
