BOB CAMPBELL'S WAR
Chapter 1 Why Bob declared war
In 1968 Brisbane was literally growing up. High rise buildings now dominated the skyline. But it still had a large town mentality. Many white collar workers such as bank tellers and Customs officers wore the obligatory collar and tie with tailored shorts, knee-length socks and patent leather shoes. In the suburbs people raked their lawns and swept their drive and then made little bonfires in the gutter outside.
Robert Campbell, an ambitious 19-year-old, was going out with a girl whose father happened to be a policeman. What's more, he was a respected member of the force and he encouraged Campbell to join. Campbell's parents, strict Catholics, were not enthusiastic, probably due to the publicity about police commissioner Frank Bischof and the National Hotel Inquiry.
But Campbell had become bored working in a bank and the force seemed to offer a more interesting, challenging future with a good career structure. He was prepared to work hard and set his sights on climbing to the top of that structure. As a practising Catholic he prided himself on being honest and truthful. With these qualities, what better choice of career could there be?
He was to learn the answer painfully and at length over much of the next 13 years. In the Queensland police force for many years, honesty did not pay.
In August, shortly after his 20th birthday, Campbell, a quiet, thoughtful, solid, intelligent man signed up and went into training before being sworn in on December 10. Proud of his new uniform, he radiated efficiency as he started work in the traffic branch.
But just after Christmas he was transferred to Fortitude Valley Police Station. The Valley was Brisbane's seediest area, slashed by two exhaust and noise-filled highways only a block apart, and containing clip joints, brothels, gambling joints and all the other shady activities found in red light areas the world over. The Valley station, a
large, brick building on a busy corner on the edge of the Valley's centre, should have been a hive of activity.
Campbell was shocked. He was taken out on his first few shifts by a sergeant. They didn't do any work, really. Most of the time was spent round the back of pubs. He did as he was told, not knowing what else he could do, standing there as beer after beer was poured without any payment being demanded or offered. In return, the police ignored breaches of the Liquor Act. He was on probation and knew that if he stepped out of line he
would be out of the force. But he was not a seasoned drinker. A couple of beers were enough for him and he
couldn't keep up the pace. He had to be there. Not only was he sick at heart, he was sometimes physically sick as well as a result of the dutiful drinking.
During the day the sergeant would often park the car behind a pub and order: "Come on!" It was worse at
night. He would start a shift at 10pm and be assigned to a drunken sergeant. About 15 minutes later they went out for essentials such as milk and the next day's newspapers for the station. The pubs would be closing so the sergeant would go to one of the night clubs and pick up a dozen or so free stubbies and then it was off to a local park to meet some of the other police on duty for a drink. And that took them through until the end of the shift. Often, the sergeant would fall asleep after drinking the free grog. Campbell learned that a lot of sergeants had been transferred there because of their drinking problems.They talked a lot of Murphy, Lewis and Hallahan as the Rat Pack. Murphy was the man who was feared.
The sergeants gathered in the pubs and he heard them talking, assessing the recruits. Those who did not drink were called dogs. The only time he managed to get any work done was when he went out with a younger officer who had not yet been corrupted.
Campbell found that many of the detectives were just as bad as the criminals they were supposed to be catching. When something like an electrical shop was broken into, the criminal investigation branch car would usually arrive and back up to the shop where the detectives proceeded to load it with goods. Some uniformed blokes indulged in this pilfering as well, particularly if it was a break and enter at a club where booze was, as usual, the greatest prize. Campbell made it clear he would take nothing and that he would not tolerate anyone with him doing so.
The nightmare continued until April 1969 when Campbell was called up for his National Service.
In April 1971 when he returned, honest police commissioner Ray Whitrod was just moving in to clean up the force. Campbell was sent to the grazing centre of Roma for six months. Not only was he far removed from corruption but he also met the girl who was to become his wife.
The idyll ended abruptly when, of all the police stations in this vast state, he was despatched back to the Valley. The same laziness and drinking was noticeable but there did seem to be some work going on as well. Now that he had a bit of experience under his belt Campbell refused to go drinking. And those who went out with him on duty were left in no doubt there was to be no boozing or backsliding. He found he could get on with being a policeman and started carving a name for himself as an efficient, hard-working officer. Workers were actually encouraged instead of being persecuted. Life was looking up. By now happily married, he became the father of a son on November 19, 1972.
He had established such a good reputation by 1973 that he was invited to become one of the foundation
members of an innovation, mobile patrols, which was regarded as being an elite group. Then it was yet another spell in the Valley, this time on special beat patrol when that section was created. Having done so well in
innovative groups, he was chosen above all others to take part in a bold experiment. He was to be the State's first community police officer, an experiment to have an officer working and living in the middle of a huge new housing area at Jamboree Heights, in Brisbane's Western Suburbs. And on January 8 1975 he was promoted to senior constable.
It was yet another Whitrod initiative. But Whitrod never had a chance. The union had attacked him right from the start. The scheme was sabotaged by the union which ensured that assistance was never given when Campbell asked for it. Even when he was in some danger when trying to deal with a brawl or a potential rough-house, his radioed calls for assistance were ignored. He could not do any enforcing at all and after a year he had to
abandon the position. The only bright spot in this depression was the arrival of a daughter on June 7 1976.
Going back to the Valley was bad enough. But worse was to follow.
At the end of 1976 Whitrod was forced out. Lewis was given the job of Commissioner. One superior turned
immediately from being a so-called Whitrod man to being a lazy, drinking slob who now prided himself on victimising those officers who wanted to work.
Drinking became open again. Prostitution became rife. Free liquor was either delivered to the station or picked up. A police car was assigned permanently on the booze run, picking up beer from pubs and clubs - the gopher patrol, it was known as. Life at the station became one big party for those who did not care.
It was all a joke. He realised many of the police were not there to protect the public at all. They were there to
look after themselves. If they went shopping, they asked for a police discount. They expected something that the general public did not receive. If they went into a pub they wanted free beer. If they couldn't get a free meal, or at least a half-price meal, they would not go there again. Campbell hated this. He went the other way. He hated the places that even wanted to give these discounts because they made him feel so cheap. If it wasn't good enough for the general public why should he be special? Whitrod had fought against this sort of thing but now it was every man for himself again.
Campbell noticed that police cars, especially from the CIB, were parked for hours outside unlicensed clubs and massage parlours which were obviously protected. When the drivers of the police cars eventually emerged they were in a state of almost total collapse.
One night there was a fight outside one of the illegal night clubs, not between drunken members of the public but between drunken, corrupt detectives who were too full of grog. Their cars were parked blatantly up on the footpath. Campbell was called in to break it up. It was not the last time Campbell found himself sorting out drunken, brawling detectives outside an illegal club or brothel.
Another night, Campbell took a drink-driver back to the Valley station. He went to take the driver into one room after another for an interview and found sergeants boozing in each one of them. The abuse started. "Run for it mate," the driver was told. "We'll look after you." The driver was only slightly over the limit and was amazed. The
sergeants were well and truly smashed. This, too, was something that would happen repeatedly.
Other times Campbell would take someone who had been arrested to an upstairs office and the stairwell would echo with voices running him down as a no-good bastard. He would walk into a senior officer's room to tell him he was about to arrest someone. "Oh, forget it, go home," would come the drunken reply. And, of course, it was no good complaining to anyone. "Get lost," was a mild rebuke on those occasions. The term 'dog' was often used and would be repeated ever more frequently as the years passed.
Three detectives who Campbell fought against were all later named at the Fitzgerald Inquiry.
Campbell realised there was little he could do about the way which police spent hours inside the illegal clubs and massage parlours.
But one night he decided he could at least needle them. A police car was parked in its usual location on the footpath outside a massage parlour. Campbell called headquarters on his radio and asked them to run a Main
Roads Department check on the car which he said he suspected had been stolen and which was parked outside a brothel. He gave the registration number and waited for the penny to drop. The operator, on realising the ghastly truth, did not want to broadcast the obvious. He asked Campbell to ring Operations Centre.
Campbell drove back to the station and rang Ops.
"That's a CI Branch car, mate," he was told.
"Oh, I thought it was a bit funny where it was parked. It's been there for hours," he said.
"No, no, mate, it's one of ours," came the reply, unmistakeably inferring the matter should be dropped immediately. The first of the unwritten police commandments was: Thou shall not dob on your mates!
From then on Campbell played his little game virtually every night. "This car has been parked outside the massage parlour for more than four hours and could belong to someone involved in the drug trade," he would announce over his radio. A little later the reply would come: "Er, please ring in." It made him even more unpopular but gave him a certain degree of satisfaction.
But there was a price to pay. One night, while he was on duty, someone went to his home and assaulted his wife. It was not something he could prove was related to his police activities. And he did not like talking about it to anyone. But he had his suspicions. He was fairly certain the assailant was an officer who went on to become an assistant commissioner.
But the stirring had an adverse effect. Despite having the best arrest record at the Valley, and one of the best in the entire force, he was increasingly taken off the streets and given jobs such as supervising the speedway or soccer - anything to keep him away from the protected prostitution and gambling which were now flourishing: anything to curb his record, which tended to reveal how lazy most of the other officers were.
There was a way of making life more bearable and meaningful. He asked for permission to further his education by taking a degree. Hopefully, things would change at some stage in the future and his degree would help his career. Told he could, he started a part-time BA course in psychology at Queensland University. It meant, like all other police studying for a degree, that if his duties allowed it, he could spend up to eight hours of his working week attending lectures.
Click for chapter 2
Robert Campbell, an ambitious 19-year-old, was going out with a girl whose father happened to be a policeman. What's more, he was a respected member of the force and he encouraged Campbell to join. Campbell's parents, strict Catholics, were not enthusiastic, probably due to the publicity about police commissioner Frank Bischof and the National Hotel Inquiry.
But Campbell had become bored working in a bank and the force seemed to offer a more interesting, challenging future with a good career structure. He was prepared to work hard and set his sights on climbing to the top of that structure. As a practising Catholic he prided himself on being honest and truthful. With these qualities, what better choice of career could there be?
He was to learn the answer painfully and at length over much of the next 13 years. In the Queensland police force for many years, honesty did not pay.
In August, shortly after his 20th birthday, Campbell, a quiet, thoughtful, solid, intelligent man signed up and went into training before being sworn in on December 10. Proud of his new uniform, he radiated efficiency as he started work in the traffic branch.
But just after Christmas he was transferred to Fortitude Valley Police Station. The Valley was Brisbane's seediest area, slashed by two exhaust and noise-filled highways only a block apart, and containing clip joints, brothels, gambling joints and all the other shady activities found in red light areas the world over. The Valley station, a
large, brick building on a busy corner on the edge of the Valley's centre, should have been a hive of activity.
Campbell was shocked. He was taken out on his first few shifts by a sergeant. They didn't do any work, really. Most of the time was spent round the back of pubs. He did as he was told, not knowing what else he could do, standing there as beer after beer was poured without any payment being demanded or offered. In return, the police ignored breaches of the Liquor Act. He was on probation and knew that if he stepped out of line he
would be out of the force. But he was not a seasoned drinker. A couple of beers were enough for him and he
couldn't keep up the pace. He had to be there. Not only was he sick at heart, he was sometimes physically sick as well as a result of the dutiful drinking.
During the day the sergeant would often park the car behind a pub and order: "Come on!" It was worse at
night. He would start a shift at 10pm and be assigned to a drunken sergeant. About 15 minutes later they went out for essentials such as milk and the next day's newspapers for the station. The pubs would be closing so the sergeant would go to one of the night clubs and pick up a dozen or so free stubbies and then it was off to a local park to meet some of the other police on duty for a drink. And that took them through until the end of the shift. Often, the sergeant would fall asleep after drinking the free grog. Campbell learned that a lot of sergeants had been transferred there because of their drinking problems.They talked a lot of Murphy, Lewis and Hallahan as the Rat Pack. Murphy was the man who was feared.
The sergeants gathered in the pubs and he heard them talking, assessing the recruits. Those who did not drink were called dogs. The only time he managed to get any work done was when he went out with a younger officer who had not yet been corrupted.
Campbell found that many of the detectives were just as bad as the criminals they were supposed to be catching. When something like an electrical shop was broken into, the criminal investigation branch car would usually arrive and back up to the shop where the detectives proceeded to load it with goods. Some uniformed blokes indulged in this pilfering as well, particularly if it was a break and enter at a club where booze was, as usual, the greatest prize. Campbell made it clear he would take nothing and that he would not tolerate anyone with him doing so.
The nightmare continued until April 1969 when Campbell was called up for his National Service.
In April 1971 when he returned, honest police commissioner Ray Whitrod was just moving in to clean up the force. Campbell was sent to the grazing centre of Roma for six months. Not only was he far removed from corruption but he also met the girl who was to become his wife.
The idyll ended abruptly when, of all the police stations in this vast state, he was despatched back to the Valley. The same laziness and drinking was noticeable but there did seem to be some work going on as well. Now that he had a bit of experience under his belt Campbell refused to go drinking. And those who went out with him on duty were left in no doubt there was to be no boozing or backsliding. He found he could get on with being a policeman and started carving a name for himself as an efficient, hard-working officer. Workers were actually encouraged instead of being persecuted. Life was looking up. By now happily married, he became the father of a son on November 19, 1972.
He had established such a good reputation by 1973 that he was invited to become one of the foundation
members of an innovation, mobile patrols, which was regarded as being an elite group. Then it was yet another spell in the Valley, this time on special beat patrol when that section was created. Having done so well in
innovative groups, he was chosen above all others to take part in a bold experiment. He was to be the State's first community police officer, an experiment to have an officer working and living in the middle of a huge new housing area at Jamboree Heights, in Brisbane's Western Suburbs. And on January 8 1975 he was promoted to senior constable.
It was yet another Whitrod initiative. But Whitrod never had a chance. The union had attacked him right from the start. The scheme was sabotaged by the union which ensured that assistance was never given when Campbell asked for it. Even when he was in some danger when trying to deal with a brawl or a potential rough-house, his radioed calls for assistance were ignored. He could not do any enforcing at all and after a year he had to
abandon the position. The only bright spot in this depression was the arrival of a daughter on June 7 1976.
Going back to the Valley was bad enough. But worse was to follow.
At the end of 1976 Whitrod was forced out. Lewis was given the job of Commissioner. One superior turned
immediately from being a so-called Whitrod man to being a lazy, drinking slob who now prided himself on victimising those officers who wanted to work.
Drinking became open again. Prostitution became rife. Free liquor was either delivered to the station or picked up. A police car was assigned permanently on the booze run, picking up beer from pubs and clubs - the gopher patrol, it was known as. Life at the station became one big party for those who did not care.
It was all a joke. He realised many of the police were not there to protect the public at all. They were there to
look after themselves. If they went shopping, they asked for a police discount. They expected something that the general public did not receive. If they went into a pub they wanted free beer. If they couldn't get a free meal, or at least a half-price meal, they would not go there again. Campbell hated this. He went the other way. He hated the places that even wanted to give these discounts because they made him feel so cheap. If it wasn't good enough for the general public why should he be special? Whitrod had fought against this sort of thing but now it was every man for himself again.
Campbell noticed that police cars, especially from the CIB, were parked for hours outside unlicensed clubs and massage parlours which were obviously protected. When the drivers of the police cars eventually emerged they were in a state of almost total collapse.
One night there was a fight outside one of the illegal night clubs, not between drunken members of the public but between drunken, corrupt detectives who were too full of grog. Their cars were parked blatantly up on the footpath. Campbell was called in to break it up. It was not the last time Campbell found himself sorting out drunken, brawling detectives outside an illegal club or brothel.
Another night, Campbell took a drink-driver back to the Valley station. He went to take the driver into one room after another for an interview and found sergeants boozing in each one of them. The abuse started. "Run for it mate," the driver was told. "We'll look after you." The driver was only slightly over the limit and was amazed. The
sergeants were well and truly smashed. This, too, was something that would happen repeatedly.
Other times Campbell would take someone who had been arrested to an upstairs office and the stairwell would echo with voices running him down as a no-good bastard. He would walk into a senior officer's room to tell him he was about to arrest someone. "Oh, forget it, go home," would come the drunken reply. And, of course, it was no good complaining to anyone. "Get lost," was a mild rebuke on those occasions. The term 'dog' was often used and would be repeated ever more frequently as the years passed.
Three detectives who Campbell fought against were all later named at the Fitzgerald Inquiry.
Campbell realised there was little he could do about the way which police spent hours inside the illegal clubs and massage parlours.
But one night he decided he could at least needle them. A police car was parked in its usual location on the footpath outside a massage parlour. Campbell called headquarters on his radio and asked them to run a Main
Roads Department check on the car which he said he suspected had been stolen and which was parked outside a brothel. He gave the registration number and waited for the penny to drop. The operator, on realising the ghastly truth, did not want to broadcast the obvious. He asked Campbell to ring Operations Centre.
Campbell drove back to the station and rang Ops.
"That's a CI Branch car, mate," he was told.
"Oh, I thought it was a bit funny where it was parked. It's been there for hours," he said.
"No, no, mate, it's one of ours," came the reply, unmistakeably inferring the matter should be dropped immediately. The first of the unwritten police commandments was: Thou shall not dob on your mates!
From then on Campbell played his little game virtually every night. "This car has been parked outside the massage parlour for more than four hours and could belong to someone involved in the drug trade," he would announce over his radio. A little later the reply would come: "Er, please ring in." It made him even more unpopular but gave him a certain degree of satisfaction.
But there was a price to pay. One night, while he was on duty, someone went to his home and assaulted his wife. It was not something he could prove was related to his police activities. And he did not like talking about it to anyone. But he had his suspicions. He was fairly certain the assailant was an officer who went on to become an assistant commissioner.
But the stirring had an adverse effect. Despite having the best arrest record at the Valley, and one of the best in the entire force, he was increasingly taken off the streets and given jobs such as supervising the speedway or soccer - anything to keep him away from the protected prostitution and gambling which were now flourishing: anything to curb his record, which tended to reveal how lazy most of the other officers were.
There was a way of making life more bearable and meaningful. He asked for permission to further his education by taking a degree. Hopefully, things would change at some stage in the future and his degree would help his career. Told he could, he started a part-time BA course in psychology at Queensland University. It meant, like all other police studying for a degree, that if his duties allowed it, he could spend up to eight hours of his working week attending lectures.
Click for chapter 2
