[7] His early years were spent growing up on a dairy farm in Rochester, where he assisted his father milking 120 cows before school each day, and on the weekends carting hay and driving tractors.
[9] His interest in police work came from watching a long-running, local television drama series, Homicide (aired 1964–1977).
He became a homicide detective in 1980, and his first case was the murder of 38-year old Thornbury resident Maria James on 17 June 1980 (which was covered in detail by the ABC podcast Trace in 2017–2021[11][12][13]).
Within three years, he worked his way back to his former rank as a detective senior sergeant with Homicide Division where he was involved in investigating serious crime.
"[19][20] During his career, which spanned 37 years, 25 of which were spent in homicide, he investigated more than 300 murder cases and hundreds of suspicious deaths.
[23] Iddles is also the subject of a 2017 book, The Good Cop, written by Justine Ford and published by Macmillan.