Jacks and Jokers (31 page)

As a result, the rumour and innuendo was investigated by the Internal Investigation Section of the force down in Brisbane, conducted by Superintendent C.D. Dwyer and Inspector M.H. Stephens. Their confidential report was subsequently presented to Deputy Commissioner Vern MacDonald, who forwarded it to the Solicitor-General. Was there enough evidence to lay charges?

Advice was given on 1 June 1978 that there was insufficient evidence to proceed with charges against officers Connor, Sergeant First Class John Milner of the Atherton police and Detective Senior Constable R.C. Bevan.

Despite being cleared, however, Milner and Connor were to return to uniform duties at Mobile Patrols in Brisbane – a demotion marginally above being sent to Police Stores – while Bevan was to take up a position in a suburban station in the capital.

In the end, Milner’s transfer was stopped and he remained in Far North Queensland. He was apparently saved by deputations from prominent local citizens who appealed that he be retained in the region.

Interestingly, on the afternoon of Tuesday 26 September – just a few weeks earlier – Commissioner Lewis had flown to Cairns and then on to the remote Aboriginal community of Kowanyama, on the western edge of the Cape York Peninsula, to open a new police station. While he was at Cairns Airport, waiting for a connecting charter flight to Kowanyama, Lewis’s diary recorded: ‘Met Hon. Camm [Minister for Police], messrs Armstrong and Tenni, M’s.L.A, and discussed transfer of Sgt. 1/C Milner.’

There was no mention of Connor, who had even formally appealed to Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen to have the transfer reversed.

A royal commissioner would later assess the impact of Milner’s transfer being blocked. He noted: ‘An unfortunate implication of this change was … that a number of people saw in the change, and in Sergeant Milner’s continued presence and activity in North Queensland, an indication of the influence of drug producers and traffickers.

‘There is no evidence … to suggest the slightest foundation for this belief which, albeit unfounded, does affect public confidence in the police.’

It transpired that Milner was a member of the National Party and in the past had been active in raising campaign funds for his local member, Martin Tenni. Milner had also, at one time, held a small amount of shares in Tenni’s company, Tenni Hardware.

Connor was upset about the demotion and the move to Brisbane. He had settled well in the small community, and had served in the Mareeba CIB since taking over from Detective Senior Constable Graeme Parker in 1972.

Parker had worked with Jack Herbert from the late 1950s in the Licensing Branch in Brisbane, and was part of The Joke. He had taken up his Far North Queensland posting in 1966. Parker had rented a house – owned by a local businessman called Tom Magro – during his time in Mareeba. Tom ran an illegal game in downtown Mareeba; Parker turned a blind eye.

It was common knowledge around town, too, that Magro was good friends with Griffith winemaker Antonio Sergi who was a regular visitor to the region. When Parker was transferred back to Brisbane in 1972, local uniform police shut down Magro’s game. Connor kept it closed. He received threats for his action.

That weekend in October, however, there were strange things afoot in the little township of Mareeba.

It was later revealed that a ‘notorious drug racketeer’ from the New South Wales Riverina district town of Griffith – a place of national infamy as the home of the Italian Mafia since the disappearance and presumed murder of Griffith identity Donald Mackay in 1977 – had arrived in town the day before and had secretly met with Connor. The racketeer was believed to be Antonio Sergi.

Also, it was later revealed that Brisbane criminal identity Tony Robinson Jnr – son to Commissioner Terry Lewis’s friend Tony Robinson Snr – they had known each other since the 1950s – was also sighted in Mareeba on that same weekend.

On the morning of 15 October, Connor reportedly met up with some colleagues at a hotel with some dynamic news. He told them he was going to make an arrest that would ‘shake Australia’. Was his target the so-called Griffith Mafia boss who had been seen around town?

Connor was seen that day in casual clothing. He was also armed with his service pistol although it was supposed to have been under lock and key at Mareeba police station since his suspension over the drug allegations.

But later that night, in the car park of the Mareeba RSL, Connor was found shot dead in his car. The windows to the car were wound up, and it appeared that Connor had put the muzzle of the revolver in his mouth and fired. The bullet exited his skull and went through the roof of the car. It seemed to be a case of suicide.

The press would later report that Connor had killed himself on that Sunday evening, but Lewis’s diary records a phone call he received at 10 a.m. on that Sunday: ‘Dep Comm Hale phoned re Det Connor, Mareeba, committing suicide.’

The next day, Lewis telephoned Justice Williams, the royal commissioner, about the death of Connor.

A week later on Sunday 22 October, the
Sunday Sun
ran an article on Connor’s death and it prompted Bjelke-Petersen’s media man, Allen Callaghan, to call Lewis twice that day.

Nine days after Connor’s death on Tuesday 24 October 1978, Police Minister Ron Camm rose in the parliamentary chamber at 11.40 a.m. and offered a ministerial statement that attempted to head off what he knew would be suspicions over the death of Connor.

‘I would like to make this ministerial statement to the House in order to circumvent any wild accusations or allegations that might be made regarding the death of a Queensland police officer in Mareeba, North Queensland, on 15 October this year,’ stated Camm. ‘I am sure that all members will appreciate the grief of this police officer’s family and friends at his death and it would be totally presumptuous of me or anyone else in this House to make an assumption at this time as to the cause of death.’

Camm then turned the tables and criticised the member for Archerfield, Kev Hooper, and his recent allegations about the force, blaming the working-class firebrand for putting the life of an undercover agent in jeopardy and wrecking a drug investigation with his reckless slander.

Camm also mentioned the internal investigation against Connor and others, and that there was insufficient evidence to proceed against them. ‘Therefore,’ Camm went on, ‘it is absolutely necessary that great care is exercised and careful investigation carried out before any disciplinary action is taken against police officers.

‘I can assure all honourable members that the policy of this government is to crack down hard and heavy on any drug-dealing whenever and wherever it may occur.’

It wasn’t until the following day that Tom Burns and the Opposition began probing more deeply. During Questions on Notice, Burns put a series of queries before Police Minister Ron Camm.

Burns: Was an Inspector Stevenson of Townsville assigned last year to investigate drug allegations in the Mareeba area concerning the late Constable Connor and another police officer whose name and squad are supplied?

Camm: Yes.

Burns: Following Inspector Stevenson’s report, were both Connor and the other officer listed for transfer on 10 June 1978 from Mareeba to the Mobile Squad, Brisbane?

Camm: The commissioner decided to effect the transfers of Connor and the other officer.

Burns: Was he aware that in the
Telegraph
newspaper of 23 October the member for Barron River [Martin Tenni] expressed serious doubts concerning the circumstances of Constable Connor’s death?

Camm: I have read Tenni’s comments in the newspaper.

Burns: In such circumstances of political interference, would he order an inquiry into strong rumours both in the North and in metropolitan police circles of large payments such as $40,000, which has been mentioned, being made into National Party funds from Mareeba sources for protection against prosecution?

Camm: There is no question of protection against prosecution for any person – police or otherwise.

Burns: Would the Minister investigate urgently reports that a notorious drug racketeer, whose name is supplied, who is from the Griffith district in the New South Wales Riverina and who was questioned before the New South Wales royal commission on huge amounts of unaccounted money, visited the Mareeba area and met secretly with Connor shortly before his death?

Camm was adamant that there was no information whatsoever available to the police department which would suggest that there was a secret meeting between the parties mentioned.

Though a coroner would find that Connor had committed suicide, the case – like that of the late Shirley Brifman – would refuse to settle. It would echo into the future.

An Incident at the Cleveland Sands

The mysterious Constable Brian Marlin – known among some colleagues as The Fish or Fisher – often drank at his local, the Cleveland Sands Hotel at Cleveland in the Redland Shire abutting Moreton Bay, 25 kilometres south-east of the Brisbane CBD.

Built in the 1920s, the hotel sported mature poinciana trees out front. In the late 1970s, the pretty suburb of Cleveland was mainly known as the departure point by barge for nearby North Stradbroke Island, despite its rich history and importance in colonial Brisbane.

Marlin was a curiosity to his colleagues in the Licensing Branch. The young constable had seemingly arrived out of nowhere and constantly boasted of his important contacts, including local MP John Goleby and even Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen.

Marlin had brokered earlier in the year the two secret meetings between the Premier and Alec Jeppesen, then with Basil Hicks.

Marlin had bragged that if he could prove the powerful Tony Murphy was corrupt and was intending to dismantle the Licensing Branch under Jeppesen, who Murphy saw as a threat and an obstruction to the workings of The Joke, then he would make Queensland police history and vault from constable to commissioned rank in one go. Marlin had proved to be a self-starter. He also had a history of violence.

‘It was incredible violence,’ remembers former colleague Jim Slade. ‘You would have to be very careful of Marlin.

‘I was told Marlin was after me at one stage of the game. I can tell you that I would have had no hesitation whatsoever in getting the first shot away because he had a side to him … I couldn’t work out what made that man tick.’

Similarly, another colleague, Bruce Wilby, found Marlin puzzling and at times unstable. ‘I stopped him from shooting himself when his wife left him,’ Wilby says.

Marlin also used an alternative moniker – he referred to himself as Nestor. Was he referring to Nestor of Gerenia in Greek mythology? The Argonaut with the solid gold shield who fought the centaurs, and was considered wise and hospitable? Or, as a fan of American comics and in particular The Phantom, did he take the name from Nestor Redondo, the graphic artist who in the 1970s illustrated several editions of a comic featuring The Phantom Stranger, a supernatural assistant to superheroes including the Justice League?

Marlin lived in Ormiston, and on the night of Friday 27 October 1978, attended the Cleveland Sands Hotel with Constable C.P. Sidey and an associate, Peter Moore, to meet an informant in relation to a drugs investigation Marlin was conducting. The three men arrived in the lounge of the hotel at about 9.30 p.m.

According to Marlin, the three men sat at the bar and ordered drinks off barman Steven Guthrie. Marlin noticed that sitting at the bar was a man known to him as Brian ‘Snowy’ Collins – unbeknown to Marlin he was an informant of Tony Murphy’s – and an ‘assailant’ named Ron Morris.

Soon after, Collins supposedly said in a loud voice: ‘I know Tony Murphy, Pat Glancy and Alan Barnes, I’ll fix these cunts for you if you like.’

Collins then approached the trio. ‘You’re Licensing coppers, aren’t you.’

Marlin then made a decision to leave, and walked out into Middle Street.

‘I’m talking to you, cunt,’ said Collins, who followed the three men out of the hotel.

As Marlin recalled in an official statement: ‘I turned around and saw COLLINS behind me … he punched me on the left temple and chopped me across the windpipe … I fell to the footpath, dazed.

‘I saw COLLINS strike SIDEY about the head and SIDEY fell to the ground. COLLINS went to the boot of a green Fairlane parked immediately outside the hotel … he removed a wooden bowling pin from that vehicle and struck me across the chest with it. I fell to the footpath again. COLLINS then knocked Moore to the footpath … I saw blood coming from MOORE’S ear and temple.’

There followed a monumental struggle between Collins and the two police officers. Marlin described him as ‘like a mad bull, he did not appear to feel pain, he was immensely strong and no hold I took on him was able to be maintained’.

Collins then began kicking Marlin in ‘the region of the testes’ and the officer drew his gun. ‘COLLINS on seeing the pistol kicked me in the stomach and the pistol discharged into the air,’ Marlin alleged.

Marlin and Sidey eventually restrained Collins at gunpoint and ordered him to lay flat on the footpath.

‘That’s it boys, I’m out of puff,’ Snowy Collins supposedly then said, ‘No charges, eh, it was a good blue.’