Jacks and Jokers (49 page)

The Clarkes were both shot dead with a shotgun. Doctors later recovered 132 pellets from the lower right-hand side of William Clarke’s chest, and 80 from the body of Grayvyda. The killer or killers then splashed fuel around the house and torched it. The fire was so intense it melted metal and burned off the heads and limbs of the Clarkes.

The murder was investigated by Detective Ross Beer of the Mareeba CIB, under the direction of regional superintendent, Tony Murphy. The case would limp along for years. Again, there were rumours that police had been involved in the double murder. Beer flatly refuted it.

When Beer was transferred back to Brisbane, he took the bulk of the Clarke murder file with him. He explained he did so because nobody was as familiar with the case as he was, and it made sense to have it at hand.

The Seductive Katherine James

In early 1981, after an addiction to heroin, her flight from Queensland and her subsequent imprisonment on drug charges where she had unwittingly been embroiled in the Basil Hicks photograph scandal, the former massage parlour owner Katherine James made a decision to get back into the game.

Things had changed dramatically since the 1970s. In this new world, the prostitution landscape appeared to be dominated by two figures – Hector Hapeta and Geoff Crocker.

‘I decided to work for Hapeta because he seemed to be working mainly in escorts,’ James said. ‘I had been told that the girls in the parlours got booked on an average every four to six weeks, while the escort girls didn’t get booked nearly as often.’

She was shocked at how flagrant the industry had become. ‘There was not even a pretense of any massage being done,’ she said. ‘The receptionist was quite open about what was on offer. The parlours were no longer equipped with massage tables. By 1981, there were beds in them and other fairly plush surroundings.’

She first worked for Hapeta and Tilley out of 66 Warry Street in the Valley – a narrow Queenslander on stumps. She also did jobs at the Top of the Valley, and Fantasia at 24 Logan Road, Woolloongabba.

‘I came to be a trusted employee of Hector Hapeta and Anne Marie Tilley,’ James said. ‘This was because I had known Geoff Crocker and Gerry Bellino from the earlier days in the parlours. There weren’t very many girls who had the business experience to actually run a parlour, so I was given a position of trust as receptionist/manageress at 612 Brunswick Street, New Farm.’

James was required to attend weekly meetings where the books and the week’s earnings were handed over. ‘Anne Marie Tilley appeared to be in charge of things,’ James recalled. ‘Hector’s role was not quite so clear – he seemed to be the overseer and he would try to make management decisions, but he really wasn’t bright enough. Everyone had to treat him like he was the boss but if anything went wrong you would always go to Anne Marie. Without doubt, Hector held the purse strings.’

Tilley had a different take on Hector Hapeta. She says he was infinitely more involved in the business decisions for their consortium than anybody ever knew. ‘Hector ran it,’ she says. ‘Hector was actually illiterate. He had dyslexia. I was the speller, but he used to plan the business. What we should open, what we should shut. I don’t think we ever shut anything, we just kept going. It was sort of … we both sort of ran it.

‘He had the fast brain. Extremely fast. He was faster than most people I’ve ever met in my life. His brain would go so fast. Extremely fast.

‘He was also fast with figures. If you gave him … this place earned such and such, he’d go, yeah, alright, that’s $45,927.65. His brain was in planning ahead.

‘If Hector had ever gone to school, he’d probably be running some multinational company. If you don’t know something, surround yourself with people that do. He surrounded himself – like the nightclub people, a manager who knew how to run bars, men who knew about the music side of things. That’s how smart he was.’

By 1981 the business was extremely lucrative. Tilley and Hapeta ran 15 houses. Each house brought in after expenses – wages for girls and drivers, phone bills and electricity – about $5000 a week. That’s $75,000 for the consortium.

James said she witnessed first-hand what happened to prostitutes who wanted to step out on their own. ‘Despite the fact that Hector seemed to be getting the lion’s share of the profits, it was never possible for girls to go out on their own,’ she said. ‘I can recall two girls who tried to set up on their own after working for Hector. Chantal tried to set up halfway to the coast, but Hector stopped her. Another girl [Melissa] opened at Kangaroo Point at Seafarer’s Lodge. She was assaulted by Hector outside Fantasia’s.

‘Even if a girl was working on her own, which was not supposed to be against the law, Licensing Branch would harass them.’

During this period word got back to Hapeta and Tilley that a Licensing Branch raid was imminent. Tilley ordered all of her brothels to close for the night.

‘She [Tilley] came to Warry Street, rang all the other houses from there and told the manageresses to send all the girls home, that we were being raided,’ James later recalled. ‘When I asked her who told her she said that Harry Burgess had rung her and just told her to close down for the night.’

James asked if they’d be open the following day.

‘It’ll be fine,’ Tilley replied.

Tilley, James and some of the girls then went to a nightclub for some drinks. James recalled: ‘I wanted to know how she was going to open again the next day and continue because if all these raids were planned they would surely plan them the next day and she [Tilley] said, no, that everything had been taken care of … it was costing them roughly 20 per cent of their earnings to pay police. [Hector] classed that as one of his overheads.’

Burgess was a regular visitor to Tilley. ‘Harry used to call around to see Anne [Marie] nearly most Wednesday nights … and Anne made it quite clear it was going to be Harry; that the money was being paid to Harry and Harry was the one relaying everything back,’ said James.

Hapeta called Burgess ‘Harry the Bagman’.

So Katherine James was back in business. And it wasn’t long after her return to the scene that, while working at New Horizons brothel at 45 Balaclava Street, the Gabba, she first met an energetic young Licensing Branch officer with a Pommy accent by the name of Nigel Donald Powell.

Powell first breached James for using premises for the purposes of prostitution in June 1981. He said that in the presence of men she was ‘lethal’ – a classic seductress.

‘She was quite short; she had a small frame but a big presence,’ Powell recalls. ‘She prided herself in the fact that no matter what was going on in her life, she could always get a job as a hairdresser. She always dressed well. She was tidy.’

Over time James grew to trust Powell. She confided information that Powell didn’t see the significance of at the time.

Besides, he was told by his Licensing Branch mate and partner, Nev Ross, not to pay too much attention to her allegations about the parlour scene in Brisbane and corrupt police. ‘He said that it was dangerous, almost stupid to listen to what she had to say,’ Powell recalls. ‘I didn’t really put any of this together.’

What Powell didn’t know was that Ross himself was corrupt and a part of The Joke. ‘I didn’t suspect him for a moment,’ says Powell. ‘Nev was my mate. I went to see all his relatives out west at St George on my holidays. He confided in me with personal issues.

‘Nev was everybody’s friend. He would just tell funny stories. We had a great time. I learned later that in every crew there was somebody they [The Joke] had.’

Monster Book

It wasn’t until 1981 that University of Queensland academic and criminologist Paul Wilson published his book on the paedophile Clarence Osborne, more than 18 months after the former Hansard reporter had gassed himself in his car in the garage of his humble home in Mount Gravatt.
The Man They Called a Monster
was released by Cassell Australia.

In its introduction, Wilson explained that he felt compelled to write the story in an accurate and fair way, claiming, ‘It may not be a happy story, but it is one that must be told.’ He added that he had received assistance from various quarters, including several of Osborne’s victims.

‘Despite the difficulties of writing a book about men who love boys, I received help and co-operation from a number of unexpected sources,’ explained Wilson. ‘Many of the men who, as youths, had had a relationship with Osborne, recounted their experiences with a frankness and honesty that I found invaluable. While they may have initially come to see me to find out whether the police or I had a record of their association with Clarence Osborne, they soon confided in me and gave me their trust. They can be sure that this trust has been, and will continue to be, respected.’

Wilson also acknowledged thanks for the permission he was granted to interview officers seconded to the Osborne case. ‘Some officers went well beyond the call of duty and commented on earlier drafts of the manuscript,’ added Wilson. ‘To save them embarrassment I will not mention them by name.’

The respected academic took full responsibility for what he must have known would be controversial to say the least. ‘In writing about one of our society’s most taboo topics I alone must bear the brunt of any criticisms that arise from this book,’ wrote Wilson. ‘I am, however, satisfied that every effort which was humanly possible has been made to present the reader with an accurate account of what occurred between Clarence Osborne and his youthful partners.’

The book not only presented Osborne’s extraordinary story, it also examined issues of consent and power in sexual relationships and whether society itself paid enough attention to the physical and emotional needs of children.

In his memoir,
A Life of Crime
, Wilson noted that the publication of the book caused a ‘small storm’. The edition sold out but was never reprinted.

One newspaper article called Wilson ‘an indefatigable sociologist with an eye for the commercially successful publication’. It said Wilson, in his book, was trying to make the reader think of Osborne not as a ‘monster’ but a man in the great tradition of Greek Love.

It went on: ‘Wilson seems to be trying too hard with a thesis that might find some narrow academic attraction, but will be regarded with repugnance by the overwhelming majority.

‘Had Osborne not killed himself, I wonder whether he would have been received by the inmates of Boggo Road with the same kind of concerned academic detachment that Wilson shows?’

Others said Wilson should never have written the book in the first place.

Into the Valley

Jack ‘The Bagman’ Herbert’s influence on the Queensland Police Force under Lewis went far deeper than helping out an old mate with some tidbits of information about unlawful gaming and prostitution. In fact, Lewis consulted Herbert when it came to transfers and promotions, particularly within the Licensing Branch.

The new head of the branch, following Jeppesen’s demise and the temporary appointment of another inspector in charge who did not take Herbert’s bait about ‘getting something going’, was Noel Dwyer, a Catholic and a family man. Herbert approached Dwyer prior to Dwyer’s elevation to inspector and asked him if he’d be interested in taking over Licensing.

Dwyer said he would, but asked Herbert why he, a former policeman, was so heavily engaged in state police appointments. Dwyer was told by Herbert to go soft on illegal games in Fortitude Valley.

Prior to Dwyer’s appointment, Lewis showed Herbert a list of possible candidates. When Herbert chose Dwyer, Lewis supposedly responded: ‘Are you sure this time?’

A few months after Dwyer took up his new post, Jack Herbert had a meal with Geraldo Bellino and Vic Conte in the Swinging Gate Restaurant. Herbert had never met Conte. Bellino, living in Cairns at the time, had flown down especially for the meeting.

Conte offered Herbert $4000 a month to protect the illegal game at 142 Wickham. He and Bellino knew Herbert was ‘sweet with Noel Dwyer’.

‘I agreed on the spot,’ Herbert said. ‘Afterwards I told Dwyer and the Commissioner. Fifteen hundred was for the Commissioner, $500 was for me, and the rest was to be split between Dwyer and the fellows in the Licensing Branch.’

Almost two years into the job, Dwyer furnished Commissioner Lewis with an up-to-date report into illegal gaming and prostitution in Brisbane. He said several premises had ‘come under suspicion’. They included: upstairs at 142 Wickham Street, Fortitude Valley (with a massage parlour, Bubbles Bath House, on the ground floor); 677 Ann Street (above the Valley Rocks Restaurant), Fortitude Valley; 701 Ann Street, Fortitude Valley; 648 Ann Street (above Kisses Nite Club), Fortitude Valley; 301 Wickham Street, Fortitude Valley; Corner of Gipps and Ann streets (under Malcolm Sue’s Kung Fu School), Fortitude Valley; and the Buffalo Memorial Club, Constance Street, Fortitude Valley.

Dwyer reported that at 142 Wickham, and on the first floor, were premises conducted by ‘Vittorio Conte of 116 Sackville Street, Greenslopes’. Conte was also named as the manager of the World By Night club at 546 Queen Street.

Dwyer wrote: ‘These premises are used mainly by persons of Italian origin … as a meeting place for social gatherings. It is known that they do play cards on these premises regularly. Members of the Licensing Branch have witnessed this on several occasions.’