Jacks and Jokers (61 page)

The leaked story was hugely embarrassing for the Premier and his government. The reason offered for the rejection was that Lewis had only relatively recently been awarded an Order of the British Empire in 1979.

A source said: ‘It is a gigantic bungle, a real blunder that should never have occurred and may mean that the entire Cabinet in future will have an input into recommendations.’

Hinze was straight on the phone to Lewis, ‘re article in C.M. re Comm Lewis rejected for Knighthood’. Lewis’s ally and Knight, Sir Edward Lyons, also phoned to talk about the Morley article.

Hinze called again later in the day, ‘re Police Union wanting him to remain as Police Minister’.

Lewis wasn’t having a bar of it. He went to an Australian Federal Police Christmas Party at an old favourite – the National Hotel – that afternoon.

On Sunday 5 December, Bjelke-Petersen rang Lewis at home in Garfield Drive. They discussed many things, including ‘Hon. [Bill] Glasson probably our next Minister’. Lewis added in his diary notation: ‘Snr staff at his office prob. responsible for honours leak to C.M.

‘Attended to newspaper cuttings.’

The Bikie Bandit Six

The closer Police Complaints Tribunal head Judge Bill Carter got to completing his report on the astonishing allegations that police had given two suspected bank robbers heroin while they were in custody at the Brisbane watchhouse, the more the agitation was building in police and government quarters that went unseen by the public.

During mid-November Commissioner Lewis recorded in his diary that the Police Union was protesting the use of ‘outsiders’, referring to the investigating team looking into the Bikie Bandit case for the tribunal. The issue harked back to the days of Ray Whitrod, and the police union fury over the former commissioner and his attempts to investigate police corruption and misdemeanours.

But this was worse. Frank Clare of the Crown Law Office was poking around a force miraculously impervious to outside scrutiny. It wouldn’t be tolerated.

On Wednesday 17 November Lewis had phoned Police Minister Hinze about the ‘outsider’ problem, and on Tuesday 23 November, he got a call from Hinze ‘re: Premier against outside investigators’. Later in the day Hinze phoned again over Deputy Commissioner Syd Atkinson ‘and Supt. Pointing to see Premier with him’.

Hinze, Lewis and his senior officers were preparing for the bombshell that would be the Carter report. And they resorted to familiar tactics – they got the Premier briefed and onside before the storm.

On 6 December, Bill Glasson was appointed as the new Police Minister. He was briefed by Commissioner Lewis. When asked to comment on his new portfolio, Glasson said his ambition was to wipe out corruption. ‘If I found anyone corrupt,’ he said, ‘I will have to take steps to rectify that.’

Curiously, on Thursday 9 December, Lewis’s diary records that he had a discussion with the Head of the Police Media Unit, Ian Hatcher, about ‘C.M. [
Courier-Mail
] story on bikie bandits and heroin’.

That story wasn’t in fact published until the next day. The front-page exclusive alleged there had been attempts to shut down Judge Carter’s investigation. On Saturday 11 December, the story again dominated the front page of the
Courier-Mail
.

All the conjecture over Judge Carter’s imminent report forced Carter to take an unusual step and talk to the press. He stressed the independence of the Police Complaints Tribunal and declared it would not be influenced by any outside interference. ‘I want to refute as positively as I can that any pressure is being brought to bear on the tribunal itself,’ he said. ‘There has never been any pressure whatsoever on this tribunal in relation to any case at all.’

He conceded that the tribunal had ‘expressly requested’ that a Crown Law officer be involved with the Police Internal Investigation Unit in looking at the matter.

Even the Commissioner, Terry Lewis, was drawn into the debate. He described as a ‘heap of rubbish’ any suggestions he’d been involved in shutting down the ‘Bikie Bandits’ investigation, and denied he had spoken to Bjelke-Petersen about it.

With the release of the report just 48 hours away, Lewis did not mention in his interview that he had in fact been to see Justice Carter on at least two occasions during the course of the investigation.

‘Let me put it this way,’ remembers Justice Carter, ‘Lewis and Atkinson – the Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner – I was conscious of the fact that they were keeping an eye on us.

‘They both, and at this time in a heightened sense, were anxious to seek meetings with us. Lewis was a pretty smooth character. I think they were keen to find out what they could and what we might be thinking. I can remember being generally alive to that sort of risk.

‘There was one or two, probably two meetings with Lewis and Atkinson in the Executive Building where we [the tribunal] used to have out meetings. They said they were really appreciative of the work we were doing and wondered if there was any help they could give us.

‘We weren’t dills.’

Carter’s report was handed to Glasson on Tuesday 14 December. It was dynamite. Six police were named in the heroin investigation – four in relation to the allegations that the two ‘Bikie Bandits’ had been supplied heroin, and two with regard to perjured evidence given by them over the police interviews with Alfred Thompson and Steve Kossaris back in 1981.

One of the highest ranking police named was Detective Sergeant Ron Pickering, then head of the Special Crimes Squad.

Glasson handed on a copy of the report to the Attorney-General and Justice Minister, Sam Doumany. ‘It will be up to the Solicitor-General to decide whether or not there is a case to answer and if so, to take appropriate action,’ Police Minister Glasson said.

The Solicitor-General, D.V. Galligan, was then expected to hand his decision to Police Commissioner Lewis, who was then responsible for making the final decision as to whether to proceed with charges or not.

Come Monday 20 December, Glasson announced that five policemen and one policewoman would be charged over the Bikie Bandits investigation. They would appear in a Magistrates’ Court in January of the New Year.

Lewis was in for a busy day. He was behind his desk at 7.20 a.m., and after some minor paperwork he noted in his diary that Col Chant of the Police Complaints Tribunal and others called, ‘re: charging and possible suspension in “Bikie Bandit” case’. Later: ‘Hon. Glasson phoned re: report from Crown Law office.’

Then Lewis called Solicitor-General Galligan ‘who said summons proper and suspension not necessary’. He also had a ‘brief discussion’ with soon to be retired Assistant Commissioner Tony Murphy.

Later that day, Commissioner Lewis made it over to the Executive Building for the Premier’s official Christmas party, where he had a quiet word with Bjelke-Petersen and Bill Glasson who told him to ‘summons and do not suspend’. It had been a baptism of fire as Police Minister for the generally laconic Glasson.

Lewis eventually made his way back to the Police Club, the traditional refuge for officers when, under siege, they needed to gather for private discussions and debate, and to support each other. The ‘Bikie Bandit Six’ would have their legal funding taken care of by the union. He drank with Noel Dwyer and, of course, Tony Murphy.

The force had been in this position many, many times, since the days of Frank Bischof. And they had always come out on top. Heading into the New Year, there was no reason to think to the contrary.

Another Christmas Card

As was his habit on an almost annual basis, Gunther Bahnemann, living out on Harvey Creek Road in Bellenden Ker, 50 kilometres south of Cairns in Far North Queensland, wrote Lewis a letter in response to receiving one of the Commissioner’s Christmas cards.

The year before the card depicted two mounted police. This year it had a German Shepherd police dog.

‘Dear Terry, it is just after two o’clock in the morning, so please overlook the typing errors that may occur, one does get a bit dopey in the head around that hour,’ wrote Bahnemann.

Apart from the usual pleasantries, Bahnemann had an extraordinary story to tell. He explained to Lewis that his boat building and fibreglass business had recently hit the wall and he had been forced to apply for social security benefits – ‘it was that bad, Terry’ – only to be told by a young public servant that the dole was not in place to be a crutch for failed businesses and that he needed to sign a Statutory Declaration pledging not to reopen his business.

‘I promptly blew my stack and told her I would rob banks first before I signed such defeatist rubbish,’ wrote Gunther. ‘Leonie [his wife] promptly rang the Whip at Canberra and got onto Senator Flo Bjelke-Petersen. Flo had a twenty minute talk with Leonie and the ball started rolling.’

Gunther explained that a week later the Senator was in Innisfail and rang his wife, ‘inviting her for further discussion’.

‘We found Flo very efficient and as she mentioned everyone seems to hear about her pumpkin scones – and no one ever hears about her arguments she carries into parliament,’ Bahnemann added.

‘Anyway, we got back into business and at the moment employ four workers.’

The previous year Bahnemann had an audience with Assistant Commissioner Tony Murphy. And this year he and his wife had a one-on-one with Senator Bjelke-Petersen, wife of the Premier, himself close to the Commissioner of Police, Terry Lewis. For someone with a conviction for attempted murder against his name, and living in remote Bellenden Ker, Bahnemann mixed with some powerful people.

‘I do not want to pat you on the back, Terry, however I think you are just about the most efficient Commissioner Queensland [has] had so far and you are very much liked by the police around here amongst which I have many a good friend.’

Bahnemann repeated that Lewis never seemed to age as the years had rolled by, and attributed it to ‘excellent grooming’.

‘I shall come to Brisbane in March or April,’ he signed off. ‘Please allow me a half an hour for old times sake talking to you. All the best for now.’

Murphy Resigns

As the end of 1982 loomed, Assistant Commissioner Tony Murphy decided to call it a day and resign from the force.

As a part of the mythical Rat Pack, he had outlasted Glen Patrick Hallahan by ten years. His departure would leave Commissioner Terry Lewis the last man standing from that golden era of policing when Uncle Frank Bischof mentored his boys and they roamed the city like three kings. Murphy’s last day on the job would be Tuesday 21 December 1982.

Even for a hard man like Murphy, it had been a rough 12 months, kicking off with the allegations of police corruption by former officers Campbell and Fancourt on the ABC’s
Nationwide
program.

In addition, Murphy’s involvement with the murder of the drug couriers Douglas and Isabel Wilson saw him admonished by a royal commissioner. (Lewis says Murphy would have had no chance of further promotion with him as Commissioner following the Wilson murders.)

Murphy was just 55 years old.

His wife, Maureen Murphy, recalls: ‘He said that he wanted to get away from it all. There must have been a bit of scandal then in the police force. I thought Tony had got to that stage that he just wanted to get away from everything. He was tired of everything.’

Murphy planned to move to a little place he had over on North Stradbroke Island. His idea was to grow Geraldton wax –
Chamelaucium uncinatum
– a flowering plant popular for its hardiness and longevity after cutting. The flowers were ordinarily white and mauve.

‘He loved it there,’ Maureen recalls. ‘The family loved it over there. He wanted to get away from everything.’

Lewis recalls that the resignation could have been linked to some bad press against Murphy through 1982. ‘The reason he gave was that he’d got some sort of adverse publicity … whether it was over the murders of those two people … over something … I think he did a report of some sort about saying that, seeing there was this publicity, it would preclude him from becoming a deputy commissioner, so he gave it away,’ says Lewis. ‘Why give away being Assistant Commissioner, which was pretty good? I think he would have wanted to stay on and become the boss.

‘To go from there, down to an island somewhere growing flowers … it was a very strange finale if you like. Being a detective was his life.’

Murphy’s good friend, top legal eagle Des Sturgess, says Murphy had grown weary of taking the public hits. ‘He retired because he was sick and tired of the abuse he was getting,’ Sturgess recalls. ‘Comes a stage when you have difficulty standing much more. He’d been in the firing line for too long.

‘He went to Point Lookout; he thought he might be able to make a dollar growing Geraldton wax. He reckoned it was a good place to grow Geraldton wax and sell it. It was all bullocky work he did.’

Lewis says Murphy was a superlative detective and had a brilliant police mind. ‘I can’t criticise him as a working policeman, but what he did outside of … his social activities if you like … I don’t know,’ says Lewis. ‘The only social activities I ever had with him would have been over a drink in various pubs, which we might have met from time to time. He never came to my home for dinner; I never went to his home for dinner. So we weren’t … we were friends but not on a family social sort of thing.’