STURGESS QC IS WRONG IN SAYING TONY MURPHY WAS AN HONEST COP
It is impossible for the late Tony Murphy to have been an “honest cop” and the state’s finest detective, as former Queensland Director of Prosecutions Des Sturgess QC proposes.
Honest cops did not become close friends with the grossly corrupt Glen Hallahan, Jack Herbert and Terry Lewis.
An astute detective would have readily spotted the many clues which pointed to these men being corrupt.
Murphy retired from the Queensland Police Force in 1982 with the rank of Assistant Commissioner. Hallahan left the force under a massive cloud, Commissioner Lewis was jailed for 14 years for corruption and former detective Herbert confessed to organising corruption.
Yet Sturgess, a friend of both Murphy and Lewis, spent much of a recent four-hour interview I had with him quoting arguments from two books he has co-authored which portray Murphy as an honest cop who was the state’s finest detective.
Sturgess has a reputation as having been one of Queensland’s leading defence barristers for many years before being appointed the state’s first director of prosecutions and having conducted a major inquiry. Thus there are likely to be many who will accept his pronouncements as gospel.
I believe it is essential to present an alternative case.
Sturgess provides examples of individual allegations against Murphy and produces evidence to counter them.
But, as alluded to in the introduction, you can also judge a man by the company he keeps.
In 1982 it was alleged on ABC television that a group called the “Rat Pack”, comprising three detectives, two of whom held very senior positions in the Queensland Police, had organised corruption.
Corrupt police commissioner Terry Lewis and Murphy sued the ABC saying they were close personal friends and they had been identified as members of the “Rat Pack” since the 1960’s. Murphy’s writ named 43 people who would support him in his claim.
There were thousands of honest police officers to choose from. An honest man who was a fine detective would have ensured that everyone he named as likely to testify for him in court would be of impeccable character. Both Lewis and Murphy were in exalted positions and might have been expected to nominate pillars of society with unblemished reputations as willing to back them.
Instead, as the Fitzgerald Report on corruption pointed out: “There were at least nine against whom there was evidence of serious corruption in this inquiry…two others who confessed to corruption during this Inquiry, about four against whom allegations of perjury have been made, and five others against whom other serious allegations of misconduct have been made.”
As Lady Bracknell might have exclaimed: “To have named one doubtful character as a referee may be regarded as a misfortune but to have nearly half of all the nominees unveiled as criminals and possible rogues is damning.”
Would an honest man have this many doubtful “friends”? Would a great detective be unaware of their behaviour?
Incidentally, one of those 43, former detective Patrick Glancy, has provided a chapter in the books in defence of Murphy. The Fitzgerald Report notes that Glancy was linked with Murphy as early as August 4 1977 when a senior constable by the name of McKechnie recorded on an information sheet “relating to the suspected SP betting operations of a man called Bill McIntyre at 36 Barota Court, Coopers Plains and that police officers Tony Murphy and Pat Glancy were visitors there and drank regularly with him.” SP betting was illegal.
Jack Herbert told the Fitzgerald Inquiry he paid $300 a month in corrupt money to Glancy. Glancy denied in a statement to the inquiry any wrongdoing.
Would an honest cop have been adversely listed with a host of corrupt cops as being investigated in Operation Buckshot, a highly sensitive Australian Bureau of Criminal Intelligence probe into the importation and distribution of heroin in Australia, with the involvement of organised crime figures and the links between corrupt police and those figures and other criminals engaged in motor vehicle theft, gaming, prostitution, money laundering, and violent crime, including murder? Murphy was so listed in Operation Buckshot, details of which were revealed in the New South Wales Parliament on May 11 1994,
He was in the company of officers such as Roger Caleb Rogerson and Keith John Charles Kelly. The same exposé in Hansard notes: "Operation Asset was structured from the outset to establish one issue only: the existence of links between Keith John Charles Kelly and narcotics trafficking."
Author Phil Dickie records in The Road to Fitzgerald: “In 1985 Murphy told a Sydney defamation court that Kelly had been ‘a good friend’ for 25 years.”
Dickie says that in 1982 Kelly had been named in a joint police task force as an associate of former NSW police officer and drug trafficker Murray Stewart Riley, then serving time in jail for one of Australia’s biggest drug importations.
The Fitzgerald Report on Queensland corruption noted: “There was undisputed evidence before this Inquiry from a former SP bookmaker that Murphy was paid bribes.”
Author Tom Gilling examined transcripts of the Fitzgerald Inquiry and wrote: “Tony Murphy’s name came up in connection with three SP bookmakers who were also registered bookmakers. Because they were registered they couldn’t operate the SP business themselves and had to do it through a front man known as Fat Jack. According to Jack, it was Murphy who introduced him to the three bookmakers. At a meeting at the Lands Office Hotel, he and Murphy agreed to provide protection for illegal betting…There was a doctor named Keith Pearson who operated an SP business from a unit in Spring Hill. Jack told the inquiry about meeting him in a car with Tony Murphy to arrange protection…Dr Pearson gave evidence about how Jack and Tony Murphy used to take it in turns to collect money.”
Gilling quotes Herbert as saying: “Pearson hadn’t asked for an indemnity so nobody could accuse him of making a deal to give evidence against anyone. He testified that Tony Murphy and I both collected money from him.”
Sturgess refers to a copy of a speech made by Murphy to the Police Union in July 1971 at a time when there was widespread corruption in the force. New police commissioner Ray Whitrod was trying to cleanse the force. Murphy told his audience that the police minister and commissioner were claiming that mass resignations from the force were due to getting rid of the rubbish. But Murphy countered: “If there is any rubbish in the job, which I will not admit, I say that one of them is still with us.” Presumably he was alleging Whitrod was ‘rubbish’.
An honest cop would not have denied there was corruption in the force.
In December 1974 soon after corrupt bagman Jack Herbert had been arrested Sturgess recounts Murphy and Terry Lewis talking to him about Herbert “with whom they were friendly”. In fact, Sturgess says of Murphy: “To describe him as upset would greatly understate the situation.”
In 1975 Det Ch Supt Terence O’Connell was one of two officers from New Scotland Yard invited to “conduct an inquiry into police corruption and malpractice” in Queensland. A year later, back in London after completing the inquiry, O’Connell told Queensland Attorney-General and Minister for Justice Bill Lickiss he had “concerns about particular activities and officers, including the co-called Rat Pack”. With Lewis and Murphy at the helm of the police force from 1976 O’Connell’s report disappeared.
Many years later O’Connell told the Fitzgerald Inquiry that during his inquiries the name most frequently mentioned in connection with corruption was Murphy’s.
Herbert told the Fitzgerald Inquiry of an incident in 1966: “I told Tony Murphy there was a joke on in the office and would he like to be included. I had money there to give him straight away. I recall his exact words when I said ‘Do you want the money?’ He said to me ‘Watch your arm’.” To corrupt police ‘the joke’ was the system of payments extorted from criminals engaged in prostitution, illegal betting and other offences.
Sturgess says that he never had occasion to question the honesty of Murphy’s evidence in court cases and that to his knowledge Murphy was not a verballer – someone who invented confessions to gain convictions in courts.
I present the case of Roy Clifford Hart, a 40-year-old timber getter, who pleaded not guilty before Justice Roslyn Philp in Brisbane Supreme Court to “wilfully and unlawfully setting fire to a dwelling house” between January 10 and 21, 1962.
The case involved a holiday house belonging to solicitor Vincent Macrossan, a member of Queensland’s most prominent legal family. Two of Vincent’s brothers had become chief justice of the State and his 31-year-old son John was a barrister on his way to emulating their achievement.
Situated in a mix of rainforest and bushland 600 metres above sea level on Mount Glorious, the house was there on January 11 but by January 21 it was just a charred pile of embers. No one saw smoke. A rueful Macrossan recalled that a handyman had lit a bonfire in the garden on the 11th but that had seemed to be well under control when everyone left the house. And a housewife living nearby didn’t notice the house had gone until her husband mentioned it on the 20th.
So there were no witnesses to a fire and no evidence of arson.
The entire case relied on an alleged confession which Tony Murphy and fellow detective Glen Hallahan alleged had been made by Hart when they spoke to him about a different matter at his home two months later.
It was very much the sort of statement beloved of bent coppers in which the criminal is overcome with remorse, finds God, or cracks under the weight of skilful and persistent questioning: “All right Guv, I’ll tell you everything you want to know. I done it”.
The judge emphasised to the jury: “If there were no confession in this case I would direct you to acquit and, indeed, the Crown Prosecutor would never have brought the case. So the whole thing depends upon whether his confession was made or whether it was not made.”
And again: “In other words, gentlemen, you should approach the confession with suspicion, particularly when the confession is the only evidence that a crime was committed – and is the only evidence, if a crime were committed, that the prisoner committed it.”
The jury didn’t take long to decide that Murphy and Hallahan had fabricated the confession and lied to the court and that Hart was not guilty.
Some of the most serious allegations against Murphy were made in 1979 by John Edward Milligan who was named as a major Sydney-based heroin importer at the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Drug Trafficking in New South Wales run by Justice Woodward.
The judge said Milligan had police and political protection in Queensland - which does not reflect well on Murphy, head of the state’s criminal intelligence section from 1976 and superintendent in charge of the state’s criminal investigations from October 31 1977. It would seem Milligan had the same sort of protection in New South Wales where, over the years, three major cases had been dropped when they came to court.
Milligan’s career came to a halt when he was arrested on September 10 1979 by John Shobbrook a Federal Narcotics Bureau officer who convinced Milligan to talk at length about his connections despite being frightened he would be murdered for revealing his boss was Rat Pack member Glen Hallahan.
Milligan alleged there was “a board of directors” organising crime in Queensland. He said: “The system as it has been explained to me: there is Terry – I don’t know whether you know the triumvirate but Terry Lewis is the commissioner, Tony Murphy is his right-hand man and Glen is supposed to be the – what can you call him? – the civil organiser; the sort of planner; the ways and means man; the sort of inspector-general.”
“Tony does the dirty work.”
Milligan told Shobbrook he had once rung Murphy using a general police phone number to complain that his car had been stolen. Murphy had chastised him for not using a direct line to his desk.
Can Milligan be believed?
Among allegations he made was that whenever he wanted to see Hallahan in Brisbane they would meet at a room at the Travelodge Hotel. When the Bureau raided Hallahan’s home they examined his car and found a key from the Travelodge. Hallahan later testified he had met Milligan at the Travelodge on business “on many occasions” but never about drugs.
Shobbrook’s case against the previously untouchable Milligan was so watertight that he was able to compile an official 23-page calendar of events linking Milligan to Hallahan, Milligan told a judge he would testify against Hallahan and he pleaded guilty to two charges of conspiracy to import heroin which resulted in an 18-year jail sentence – not the sort of sentence given to a petty criminal.
And months later Murphy confirmed in a statement he had indeed received a call from Milligan at his office, saying: “He phoned me at the crime intelligence section where I was at that time attached. He introduced himself in a mysterious type of manner and then told a story of a black man stealing his car.”
Yet Sturgess dismisses Milligan as a “prince of liars and his word worth nothing”.
Question: If Murphy’s story is correct, how and why did Milligan phone the general Queensland Police switchboard and get put through to the head of the state’s crime intelligence section about a simple matter of car theft?
The next contentional issue is the way in which the Federal Narcotics Bureau was examined and reported on by Queensland judge Ned Williams in his Royal Commission of Inquiry into Drugs.
The Bureau had proved to be a major threat to international drug smugglers. But it had become a target not only of corrupt officers in the Queensland and Commonwealth police forces but also senior police in the federal sphere who believed the Bureau’s functions should be incorporated in their force. Harvey Bates, head of the Bureau, described the Commonwealth force as ‘the enemy’.
On August 7 1979 Prime Minister Fraser wrote to Ned Williams asking him to incorporate in his deliberations the “organization, recruitment, staffing and control” of the Narcotics Bureau, adding: “It is necessary for the Government to give early consideration to these issues.”
From the very start of his inquiry in October 1977 Williams had refused to have anything to do with the Bureau. Ideally, his team of investigators should have included representatives of all organisations associated with the fight against the illegal drugs trade. But while he selected representatives from the Commonwealth police and state forces Williams refused to include even one agent from the Bureau.
But he did include one of Terry Lewis’s clique of inner circle confidants, detective Barrie O’Brien – who was later to be denounced by two judges for fabricating evidence.
Williams’ decision not to include Bureau officers was despite an internal government cabinet submission which noted: “There is little doubt that the Narcotics Bureau has developed into a highly-efficient enforcement agency. Probably the most significant measure available in this regard is the substantial increase in arrests, prosecutions and quantities of drugs seized over the last seven years.”
The Daily Mirror revealed in January 1979 it had received a tip that the commission had already decided to disband the Bureau as a result of severe criticism of it by senior Commonwealth police. The Mirror reported a Commonwealth police officer in Brisbane had told the Royal Commission in secret hearings that he considered the Bureau totally inept and that narcotics officers were not capable of presenting matters in court.
The bias of the Commission was so evident that one of the most senior public servants in the federal government, Tim Besley, who headed Minister Wal Fife’s department, told Fife in a briefing note of the background to a drugs raid at Tewantin in Queensland.
“I have to say I am disturbed at the apparent connection between the Royal Commission and the Queensland Police. It is a fact that during sittings in Brisbane, Queensland police witnesses gave false evidence in respect of Tewantin. It is also a fact that the judge’s report is silent on this.”
More light on this raid was shed by author Matthew Condon in his book “Jacks and Jokers”.
He quotes Detective Jim Slade as saying he had been ordered to conduct surveillance on a house on the Sunshine Coast as a result of a letter sent by Justice Williams to Tony Murphy and to the Narcotics Bureau. It was alleged there were enormous quantities of drugs in the house.
Slade said he didn’t know whether it was a letter from the public or whether it had been generated by Tony Murphy or by Williams.
Condon quotes Slade as saying: “Justice Williams told Tony Murphy to do a big thing on it and that he would use that as part of [his expose of the] inadequacies and inefficiencies of the Narcotics Bureau.”
But according to Slade the massive quantities of drugs failed to materialize.
And Condon goes on to write: “Slade claims that senior officers close to Tony Murphy got a raid going. ‘They took in the most incredible amount of drugs and busted these people,’ he said. ‘The whole thing was bullshit. Acting on that, Justice Williams recommended that the Narcotics Bureau be disbanded. That whole thing was worked out between Williams and Murphy.”
Sturgess identifies the house as being in Tewantin but says categorically: “The Queensland police raided the premises, took possession of the drugs they found there and made arrests. The efforts of the Narcotics Bureau, on the other hand, seem to have been somewhat ineffectual.”
He then spends several pages casting doubts on Slade’s character, saying that in one instance a retired judge had found Slade had made allegations which ‘are false in every respect’. Sturgess said the allegations amounted to “outrageous lies” which reflected not only on Murphy but on Justice Williams who was a “respected” judge.
Former Supreme Court James Thomas did not seem to have much respect for Williams when he wrote in his memoirs that Williams had been a disappointing president of the bar council, relied on the talents of others, was a smooth operator who had the capacity to wheel and deal, and gave sausage machine judgements.
“..he knew deep down that his grasp of the law was superficial...After he took silk he cajoled his solicitors to ensure that he always had backup from a talented junior,” wrote Thomas. “In 1977 he had the good fortune, or more likely good contacts, to be appointed commissioner for the Commonwealth Inquiry into Drugs.”
And Bureau chief Harvey Bates says he was kept waiting for three days when he travelled to Brisbane to give evidence to the Commission because Williams was at the races.
The fact remains that one of the country’s most senior public servants was concerned by the apparent connection between the Royal Commission and the Queensland Police and had evidence that Queensland police lied to the Commission about what happened at Tewantin. His comment that Williams’ report “is silent” on that evidence strongly suggests that the judge knew the evidence had been false yet had failed to do anything about the perjury which had occurred at his inquiry.
Commissions of Inquiry are notorious for taking an inordinate amount of time to gather and assess evidence and to publish the results of their deliberations. But 42 days after being asked to conduct an in-depth and complex report on just about every aspect of the Narcotics Bureau, it handed its report to the Governor-General.
Eight days after the arrest of Milligan and with Hallahan, Lewis and Murphy being the next targets, the report contained many recommendations but only one was in capital letters: “THIS COMMISSION STRONGLY RECOMMENDS THAT THE NARCOTICS BUREAU BE DISBANDED.”
Career public servant Besley told his minister: “It has given no reasons – it is not an argued judgement as would be the case if it were a decision of the high court – and I repeat, the report appears to rest upon non-expert or junior or very selected, and possibly even carefully selected persons.
And Bureau chief Harvey Bates sent a secret minute to Minister Fife telling him the Queensland Police Force and Commonwealth police had “figured significantly” in “direct attacks” on the Bureau. “You have now had an opportunity of hearing tapes of some of the extensive debriefing of Milligan undertaken by Bureau officers. In summary, Milligan has alleged that a group in Brisbane comprising senior police officers and an ex-police officer who are involved in illegal activities have extensive contacts in most areas of law enforcement through which they can manipulate or control investigative activities.”
So here are very senior public servants saying it was possible the report relied on “carefully selected persons” and there was Milligan’s allegation that Lewis and Murphy had contacts who could manipulate investigations.
Despite these misgivings the Williams Royal Commission would now be asked to investigate the allegations against Murphy, Lewis and Hallahan.
Sturgess writes: “Williams thereupon began a careful, judicial examination.”
He did nothing of the sort.
I demonstrate conclusively in my book The Most Dangerous Detective that Williams and counsel assisting Cedric Hampson focused more on discrediting the evidence of both Milligan and the Bureau’s John Shobbrook than they did on seeking to uncover the truth.
With Murphy and Lewis as two of the three alleged criminals to be investigated, the commission sent Lewis’s friend O’Brien to interview Milligan and provide a transcript. O’Brien, later to be branded by a judge as a fabricator of evidence, produced a transcript which refuted much of Milligan’s freely-given testimony to Shobbrook.
In Milligan’s first appearance before the Commission Hampson reminded him that what he had told O’Brien and another Commission investigator was completely at odds with what he had told Shobbrook. He suggested that Shobbrook had given Milligan information about Murphy, Lewis and Hallahan which Milligan had merely regurgitated for the tape recording. And he tried to suggest to Milligan that he was only a small-time crook rather than a Mr Big.
Eight times Milligan told Hampson that the Shobbrook tapes were correct and that the O’Brien interview was not.
“I did not invent things or fabricate things," he swore on oath to Hampson about his testimony to Shobbrook.
Hampson: “O’Brien finally said this after all the talking about Hallahan 'You are saying that you fabricated almost everything that you said to Shobbrook in relation to Hallahan's involvement in your drug dealings' and you said 'No, I am saying that some of it was fabrication by me and the rest of it was supplied by Shobbrook and I said it'.”
Milligan: "I said that but it was not correct."
Hampson: "Is it a case of it being supplied by Shobbrook and you agreeing to it?"
Milligan "No. This is where I am saying that what I said to Phillips and O’Brien is in fact incorrect.”
Then came the suggestion that Milligan was a virtual nonentity and, therefore, would not have had any knowledge of organised crime involving Murphy, Lewis and Hallahan.
This was despite Hampson and Williams having been told in a memo of August 2, 1979 by Mark Le Grand, the liaison officer with the New South Wales drug commission, that Commissioner Woodward had found Milligan was “a major figure in the importation of heroin into Australia”.
An entire chapter of Woodward’s report had been devoted to 'The Milligan Group’ and Woodward had stated: "I do not accept that Milligan played only a minor role in this activity; merely carrying out the instructions of others. Rather, I regard him as the instigator and principal of much of this activity.”
Hampson to Milligan: "You did not ever say to him 'Look, Mr Shobbrook, you've got this all wrong I am only a pretty little guy really?' You wanted to impress him really so you did not correct his mistake or his wrong assumptions so you went along with him?"
Milligan: "No, I said 'No I am not Mr Big' but I said, you know, 'I'll tell you about Hallahan, he is'"
Part of Milligan's taped testimony had been that if he or Hallahan was ever caught, Hallahan would tell police that the money he had earned had come from the sale of land. No registration of such a sale had been found.
Shobbrook waited in great anticipation for Milligan to be cross-examined on why he had transferred so much money to Hallahan.
Instead, Hampson asked: "With your land transactions, was he reliable?"
When Murphy attended the Inquiry early in February 1980 he was allowed to read a statement in his defence.
There was no cross-examination on questions posed by the tapes; no questions on the mysterious phone call from Milligan or Murphy's relationship with Hallahan,
It was the same with Lewis. Hampson failed to ask him a question.
Appallingly, there was absolutely no cross-examination on questions posed by the Milligan tapes! No cross-examination about his relationship with Hallahan. There were no questions about his finances nor any attempt to examine them, despite the Commission having the power to do so.
An examination of his income would have proved interesting, especially as he was raking in so much corrupt money that he had started making diary entries of massive winnings on horse races, exhibiting a strange sense of humour by deciding that his first winner would be Ima Cheeta.
For an unknown reason the Commission did not call Milligan again until March 20, the day after he had been sentenced to 18 years’ imprisonment – hardly the sort of sentence given to the sort of small-time criminal suggested by Hampson.
Milligan had provided the judge with a five-page statement in his own handwriting providing detailed evidence of Hallahan’s role in heroin importing.
But on the 20th his evidence to the Commission contradicted just about all of the admissions and evidence he had given before, even facts such as the phone call to Murphy which Murphy had admitted receiving.
Hampson: "You are recorded on the tape as having reported to Murphy that a black man stole your car and that Murphy chastised you because you had rung him at the wrong number. You were supposed to ring him on a special telephone number?"
Milligan: "I don't know about that."
And despite the Commission having been given a copy of Milligan’s five-page statement giving chapter and verse on Hallahan’s involvement in heroin importation Hampson asked him: "Do you know anything to Hallahan's discredit in relation to drugs?"
Milligan: "Not really, not directly in relation to drugs."
Despite his earlier admissions, he denied saying anything to the detriment of Murphy or Lewis.
On April 3 1980 Lewis wrote in his diary: "Saw Asst Comm Duffy re having Det Sgt O’Brien on Williams Report Committee."
The Commission report a fortnight later said of Hallahan. "The Commission merely records that evidence presently available to it falls far short of establishing as even a reasonable possibility that Hallahan has ever been involved in wrongdoing in connection with illegal drugs." The italics are the author’s.
The report sought to downplay Milligan’s role as a major heroin importer by saying: “In fact, he was never more than a petty criminal and a small-scale drug trader; he was rather inept even at these levels of activity. The Commission had no doubts that he would say whatever suited his purposes and that he would say it convincingly.”
Despite its duty to investigate allegations against Queensland police commissioner Lewis and CIB chief Murphy, the Commission saw no irony or conflict of interest in acknowledging: "The Commission records that it has liaised closely with the Queensland Police Force from the time that it was set up."
Compare this synopsis of evidence given to the Williams Commission with what Sturgess has to say about Milligan and the Commission:
Sturgess: “What emerged was that Milligan had no information to back up his allegations; that they were false and made following prompts from his interrogators in order to give the impression he was co-operating with the Narcotics Bureau and demonstrating true remorse so as to lighten his sentence.”
Sturgess quotes Williams: “The Commission finds that the allegations against senior police were intended to refer to Commissioner Lewis and Supt Murphy and the Commission finds that the allegations made against these two men are baseless and untrue.”
I provided Hampson with 11 pages of questions asking why he had acted in the way he did when he had an obligation to fairly assist the court to arrive at the truth, and to impartially seek to have the whole of the relevant evidence placed intelligibly before the court.
He said he had a very hazy memory that “they” had thought Milligan’s story was an invention.
With the disbanding of the Narcotics Bureau the Hallahan, Murphy, Lewis investigation was taken over by the Federal Police and dropped.
I asked Harvey Bates in 2015 if it was possible the Bureau had been disbanded because it was closing in on Hallahan, Murphy and Lewis. He said: “That is a reasonable conclusion to come to.”
The next bone of contention is what became known as the Anoa importation.
Sturgess claims that in mid-1978 Murphy played “a very important part” in providing information which led to a combined NSW, Queensland and Federal police team being launched, resulting in the tracking and boarding the yacht ANOA carrying 4.69 tons of Buddha sticks with a street value of $50,000.
He says this was the result of Murphy having established a contact in the Solomon Islands during a trip there the previous year. The trip had resulted in heroin importer John Milligan alleging in a statement: “Tony Murphy had gone to Solomon Islands to check out the Solomon Islands – to see how feasible it was to use these places as halfway houses smuggling these drugs into Australia.”
This excerpt from Milligan’s statement had been used by author Matt Condon in one of his books about corrupt police commissioner Terry Lewis, resulting in Sturgess calling it a smear against Murphy which was disgraceful.
Sturgess says the allegation “seems based solely on Milligan’s statement in one of the discredited tapes”.
Were they discredited? Milligan swore on oath to the Williams Commission: “...the tapes were made…where I am giving…facts. For example, the mention of the Solomon Islands and things like that.”
Why wouldn’t Condon include such an allegation in his book?
Especially when Murphy’s claim about having played “a very important part” in the Anoa drug bust and that he “was the one who cracked the case” is completely untrue. He seems to have first made it in an article in The Sun in February 1988.
Wal Fife, at that time the federal minister responsible for the Narcotics Bureau, says: “The Bureau received intelligence advice from its liaison officer in Bangkok that Murray Stewart Riley had been in Thailand to purchase a large shipment of drugs…When Riley returned to Australia he was placed under observation...” He says an old Japanese ship carrying the drugs from Thailand developed engine trouble and unloaded them on to a wreck on Pocklington Reef, roughly halfway in the 1300 kilometres between Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. “Informed of this, Riley flew to Honiara in the Solomon Islands and arranged with partners to pool their resources to purchase a boat to retrieve the drugs.” The boat, the Anoa, was kept under observation.
In late May 1978 Fife happened to be on an official visit to ports in north Queensland and was in Cairns when Bureau head Harvey Bates told him the Anoa was tied up in Cairns harbour on its way to Pocklington Reef. Bates suggested they should take a boat to the Customs post on Green Island as part of the official visit.
“On the wharf at Cairns we walked right past Anoa and saw the crew making ready for departure,” Fife recalled
He continued: Once Anoa was under way the Federal Bureau of Narcotics organised surveillance as it travelled along the Queensland coast. When the vessel left the Australian coast arrangements were made for an Orion [aircraft] to undertake a short covert reconnaissance of the vessel to obtain a “signature” of its engine that would allow this type of aircraft to undertake a full-scale surveillance when we were notified that she had loaded the drugs.
“After the surveillance operation had commenced the Sydney office of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics received a visit from officers of the Police Crime Intelligence unit asking whether we had information on the shipment of a large quantity of drugs. We confirmed that we had an operation planned and they indicated that they also had an informant who might be able to assist and they would make contact to obtain further information. Subsequently, the police again made contact and advised that the informant had said that the drugs were to be landed at Port Kembla. For security reasons we did not divulge that the suspect vessel was already under aerial surveillance. It was agreed, however, that this should be a joint operation and plans were made to send a combined police/narcotics team to Port Kembla.
“It was at this point that Harvey Bates became concerned that Bureau resources were being diverted from what could be the genuine drop-off point.”
Chinook helicopters took Bureau cars from Melbourne to the NSW coast and cars were placed at strategic places on the Pacific Highway in New South Wales.
It was just as well because Anoa was spotted by the Bureau’s surveillance pulling into the Camden Haven River – nearly 500 kilometres short of Port Kembla.
Thanks to Harvey Bates’ precautions, Bureau officers were able to drive from their waiting spot on the Pacific Highway to Laurieton, a small town with less than a dozen moorings on the Camden Haven River, and watch the drugs being loaded on to a large furniture van. The van was followed to a house and the smugglers were arrested.
The fact that the furniture van had been booked in advance and a house had been secured nearby suggests the information from the police about Port Kembla being the destination had been a ruse.
Murphy’s story about being a very important part of a combined NSW, Queensland and Federal police team is further undermined by the Stewart Royal Commission report which confirms (p351) the officers present in Laurieton for the unloading were from the Bureau and not the police.
Further evidence of Murphy’s lie is provided in Phil Dickie’s “The Road to Fitzgerald” in which Dickie says he contacted Justice Woodward regarding Murphy’s claim to be told by the judge: “That’s all nonsense.”
It is worth considering one more of Sturgess’s examples. He says: “A further, wrongful assault on Murphy’s reputation occurs when Condon recounts the story of the murders of Douglas and Isabel Wilson in Victoria in April 1979.”
On June 12 1978 Douglas and Isabel Wilson, senior members of a heroin smuggling and distribution network run by Terrence John Clark, were interviewed for more than three hours by Brisbane detectives who secretly recorded the conversation. The Wilsons gave detailed descriptions of the gang and its activities. Douglas Wilson said a member of the gang called Harry had been murdered by Clark and that if Clark thought he had given him up he would organise for him to be shot ‘without any compunction’.
The handless, toothless body of “Harry” (Harry Lewis) was discovered 10 months later on March 15 1979.
Murphy told the Stewart Royal Commission that when the remains of Harry Lewis were discovered he formed the opinion “there should be some reasonable public exposure of the disclosure made by the Wilsons but in a form appropriate to disguise the origin of the information. Such release was made to Mr Brian Bolton, a Brisbane journalist, in a conference with him held on March 23 1979…”
But there wasn’t much disguised in Bolton’s story two days later in the Sunday Sun which not only referred to the murder of Harry Lewis but also revealed: “Police said yesterday they had secret tape recorded evidence which linked the murder to a massive international drug running syndicate.”
It said a transcription of the tapes had been placed in a bulky CIB dossier.
Next day the story was repeated in the Sydney Daily Telegraph which said: “The information in the article was said to have been based on material supplied to journalist Brian Bolton by Supt A Murphy of the Qld police at an interview in Brisbane on March 23 1979.”
On March 28 1979 Clark told two syndicate members “that he thought it was time that the Wilsons ‘went’ and that he was working on ways to get rid of both of them, saying ‘this time they will never be found’.” Clark said he had got the tapes from Brisbane.
On April 13 1979, the Wilsons travelled to Melbourne where they were murdered.
Sturgess says: “What is especially outrageous is that Condon tells his readers the Royal Commissioner, Mr Justice Stewart…’was scathing of Murphy and his actions’, and ‘admonished’ him over his involvement with the Wilson murders. Where he obtained these descriptions of Stewart’s attitude towards Murphy I have no idea…I can only conclude Condon made them up.”
The Royal Commission reported: “(Murphy) defended his action in releasing the information by saying he felt it was time to air the matter publicly to place Clark’s authority in the syndicate in jeopardy…”
“This commission has accepted the proposition that Douglas and Isabel Wilson were murdered because of information given confidentially to Queensland police.”
“It is the opinion of the commission that Clark would conclude that the Daily Telegraph article of March 26 1979, in spite of its garbled contents, described disclosures by the Wilsons to Queensland police, which disclosures were tape recorded…Clark, in fact, suspected the Wilsons over a period of many months but did not positively believe they had informed.
“The import of either of the March 1979 newspaper articles to Clark’s suspicious mind could hardly be over-estimated...and… would seem to support very clearly any speculation that there were tapes and that those tapes recorded details of the Clark syndicate operations, including the murder of Harry Lewis by the syndicate leader. It would require little deduction to realise that the tapes were made…while the Wilsons were making their disclosures.”
Scathing? Stewart reported on pages 826 and 827: “The Commission considers it was most unwise for Superintendent Murphy of the Queensland Police Force to supply the material for Brian Bolton’s newspaper article. The Commission believes that this article contained sufficient material to confirm to a suspicious and vengeful Clark that the Wilsons had definitely informed on him.”
Elsewhere the report says: “The commission does, however, accept that he was acting honestly in the matter of the disclosure and rejects as ill-founded the suggestion that there was something sinister in the decision to make disclosures to journalist Bolton.”
Even fellow Rat Packer Terry Lewis said in an interview with Condon that Murphy’s interview with Bolton “resulted in their murders, no doubt at all.”
This article does not canvas other issues detrimental to Murphy such as the extensive Shirley Brifman statements, evidence given at the National Hotel Inquiry, the heroic stand taken by Robert Campbell which culminated in the 1982 ABC revelations about the Rat Pack, and Jack Herbert’s extensive evidence at the Fitzgerald Inquiry which included him revealing that in the late 60s Murphy and he were the two controllers of the corrupt system.
Campbell’s battle against corruption cost him his marriage and his career and he was hounded all the way to Tasmania*.
But though he lost that battle he may well have won the war against Murphy.
Murphy could have continued serving for many years, rising almost certainly to deputy commissioner. But on October 1, 1982, he tendered his resignation. He referred to discussions with Lewis about what had led to the defamation actions.
The letter to Lewis discussed the effect of "the slander emanating from that program" on Murphy's prospects of promotion and said they had agreed that Murphy would not seek further promotion. "I now find myself somewhat disconcerted by this chain of events and have consequently decided to opt for early retirement on December 21, 1982. Please be assured of my continued loyalty and personal friendship."
Sturgess asks why, if Murphy was corrupt, bank records contain no evidence of unexplained revenue.
The answer may lie with an answer corrupt bagman Jack Herbert gave to corruption Commissioner Fitzgerald: “Tony Murphy was a very careful man. Sir.”
Posted 8/2/19
*Campbell’s story is told elsewhere on this site.
Honest cops did not become close friends with the grossly corrupt Glen Hallahan, Jack Herbert and Terry Lewis.
An astute detective would have readily spotted the many clues which pointed to these men being corrupt.
Murphy retired from the Queensland Police Force in 1982 with the rank of Assistant Commissioner. Hallahan left the force under a massive cloud, Commissioner Lewis was jailed for 14 years for corruption and former detective Herbert confessed to organising corruption.
Yet Sturgess, a friend of both Murphy and Lewis, spent much of a recent four-hour interview I had with him quoting arguments from two books he has co-authored which portray Murphy as an honest cop who was the state’s finest detective.
Sturgess has a reputation as having been one of Queensland’s leading defence barristers for many years before being appointed the state’s first director of prosecutions and having conducted a major inquiry. Thus there are likely to be many who will accept his pronouncements as gospel.
I believe it is essential to present an alternative case.
Sturgess provides examples of individual allegations against Murphy and produces evidence to counter them.
But, as alluded to in the introduction, you can also judge a man by the company he keeps.
In 1982 it was alleged on ABC television that a group called the “Rat Pack”, comprising three detectives, two of whom held very senior positions in the Queensland Police, had organised corruption.
Corrupt police commissioner Terry Lewis and Murphy sued the ABC saying they were close personal friends and they had been identified as members of the “Rat Pack” since the 1960’s. Murphy’s writ named 43 people who would support him in his claim.
There were thousands of honest police officers to choose from. An honest man who was a fine detective would have ensured that everyone he named as likely to testify for him in court would be of impeccable character. Both Lewis and Murphy were in exalted positions and might have been expected to nominate pillars of society with unblemished reputations as willing to back them.
Instead, as the Fitzgerald Report on corruption pointed out: “There were at least nine against whom there was evidence of serious corruption in this inquiry…two others who confessed to corruption during this Inquiry, about four against whom allegations of perjury have been made, and five others against whom other serious allegations of misconduct have been made.”
As Lady Bracknell might have exclaimed: “To have named one doubtful character as a referee may be regarded as a misfortune but to have nearly half of all the nominees unveiled as criminals and possible rogues is damning.”
Would an honest man have this many doubtful “friends”? Would a great detective be unaware of their behaviour?
Incidentally, one of those 43, former detective Patrick Glancy, has provided a chapter in the books in defence of Murphy. The Fitzgerald Report notes that Glancy was linked with Murphy as early as August 4 1977 when a senior constable by the name of McKechnie recorded on an information sheet “relating to the suspected SP betting operations of a man called Bill McIntyre at 36 Barota Court, Coopers Plains and that police officers Tony Murphy and Pat Glancy were visitors there and drank regularly with him.” SP betting was illegal.
Jack Herbert told the Fitzgerald Inquiry he paid $300 a month in corrupt money to Glancy. Glancy denied in a statement to the inquiry any wrongdoing.
Would an honest cop have been adversely listed with a host of corrupt cops as being investigated in Operation Buckshot, a highly sensitive Australian Bureau of Criminal Intelligence probe into the importation and distribution of heroin in Australia, with the involvement of organised crime figures and the links between corrupt police and those figures and other criminals engaged in motor vehicle theft, gaming, prostitution, money laundering, and violent crime, including murder? Murphy was so listed in Operation Buckshot, details of which were revealed in the New South Wales Parliament on May 11 1994,
He was in the company of officers such as Roger Caleb Rogerson and Keith John Charles Kelly. The same exposé in Hansard notes: "Operation Asset was structured from the outset to establish one issue only: the existence of links between Keith John Charles Kelly and narcotics trafficking."
Author Phil Dickie records in The Road to Fitzgerald: “In 1985 Murphy told a Sydney defamation court that Kelly had been ‘a good friend’ for 25 years.”
Dickie says that in 1982 Kelly had been named in a joint police task force as an associate of former NSW police officer and drug trafficker Murray Stewart Riley, then serving time in jail for one of Australia’s biggest drug importations.
The Fitzgerald Report on Queensland corruption noted: “There was undisputed evidence before this Inquiry from a former SP bookmaker that Murphy was paid bribes.”
Author Tom Gilling examined transcripts of the Fitzgerald Inquiry and wrote: “Tony Murphy’s name came up in connection with three SP bookmakers who were also registered bookmakers. Because they were registered they couldn’t operate the SP business themselves and had to do it through a front man known as Fat Jack. According to Jack, it was Murphy who introduced him to the three bookmakers. At a meeting at the Lands Office Hotel, he and Murphy agreed to provide protection for illegal betting…There was a doctor named Keith Pearson who operated an SP business from a unit in Spring Hill. Jack told the inquiry about meeting him in a car with Tony Murphy to arrange protection…Dr Pearson gave evidence about how Jack and Tony Murphy used to take it in turns to collect money.”
Gilling quotes Herbert as saying: “Pearson hadn’t asked for an indemnity so nobody could accuse him of making a deal to give evidence against anyone. He testified that Tony Murphy and I both collected money from him.”
Sturgess refers to a copy of a speech made by Murphy to the Police Union in July 1971 at a time when there was widespread corruption in the force. New police commissioner Ray Whitrod was trying to cleanse the force. Murphy told his audience that the police minister and commissioner were claiming that mass resignations from the force were due to getting rid of the rubbish. But Murphy countered: “If there is any rubbish in the job, which I will not admit, I say that one of them is still with us.” Presumably he was alleging Whitrod was ‘rubbish’.
An honest cop would not have denied there was corruption in the force.
In December 1974 soon after corrupt bagman Jack Herbert had been arrested Sturgess recounts Murphy and Terry Lewis talking to him about Herbert “with whom they were friendly”. In fact, Sturgess says of Murphy: “To describe him as upset would greatly understate the situation.”
In 1975 Det Ch Supt Terence O’Connell was one of two officers from New Scotland Yard invited to “conduct an inquiry into police corruption and malpractice” in Queensland. A year later, back in London after completing the inquiry, O’Connell told Queensland Attorney-General and Minister for Justice Bill Lickiss he had “concerns about particular activities and officers, including the co-called Rat Pack”. With Lewis and Murphy at the helm of the police force from 1976 O’Connell’s report disappeared.
Many years later O’Connell told the Fitzgerald Inquiry that during his inquiries the name most frequently mentioned in connection with corruption was Murphy’s.
Herbert told the Fitzgerald Inquiry of an incident in 1966: “I told Tony Murphy there was a joke on in the office and would he like to be included. I had money there to give him straight away. I recall his exact words when I said ‘Do you want the money?’ He said to me ‘Watch your arm’.” To corrupt police ‘the joke’ was the system of payments extorted from criminals engaged in prostitution, illegal betting and other offences.
Sturgess says that he never had occasion to question the honesty of Murphy’s evidence in court cases and that to his knowledge Murphy was not a verballer – someone who invented confessions to gain convictions in courts.
I present the case of Roy Clifford Hart, a 40-year-old timber getter, who pleaded not guilty before Justice Roslyn Philp in Brisbane Supreme Court to “wilfully and unlawfully setting fire to a dwelling house” between January 10 and 21, 1962.
The case involved a holiday house belonging to solicitor Vincent Macrossan, a member of Queensland’s most prominent legal family. Two of Vincent’s brothers had become chief justice of the State and his 31-year-old son John was a barrister on his way to emulating their achievement.
Situated in a mix of rainforest and bushland 600 metres above sea level on Mount Glorious, the house was there on January 11 but by January 21 it was just a charred pile of embers. No one saw smoke. A rueful Macrossan recalled that a handyman had lit a bonfire in the garden on the 11th but that had seemed to be well under control when everyone left the house. And a housewife living nearby didn’t notice the house had gone until her husband mentioned it on the 20th.
So there were no witnesses to a fire and no evidence of arson.
The entire case relied on an alleged confession which Tony Murphy and fellow detective Glen Hallahan alleged had been made by Hart when they spoke to him about a different matter at his home two months later.
It was very much the sort of statement beloved of bent coppers in which the criminal is overcome with remorse, finds God, or cracks under the weight of skilful and persistent questioning: “All right Guv, I’ll tell you everything you want to know. I done it”.
The judge emphasised to the jury: “If there were no confession in this case I would direct you to acquit and, indeed, the Crown Prosecutor would never have brought the case. So the whole thing depends upon whether his confession was made or whether it was not made.”
And again: “In other words, gentlemen, you should approach the confession with suspicion, particularly when the confession is the only evidence that a crime was committed – and is the only evidence, if a crime were committed, that the prisoner committed it.”
The jury didn’t take long to decide that Murphy and Hallahan had fabricated the confession and lied to the court and that Hart was not guilty.
Some of the most serious allegations against Murphy were made in 1979 by John Edward Milligan who was named as a major Sydney-based heroin importer at the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Drug Trafficking in New South Wales run by Justice Woodward.
The judge said Milligan had police and political protection in Queensland - which does not reflect well on Murphy, head of the state’s criminal intelligence section from 1976 and superintendent in charge of the state’s criminal investigations from October 31 1977. It would seem Milligan had the same sort of protection in New South Wales where, over the years, three major cases had been dropped when they came to court.
Milligan’s career came to a halt when he was arrested on September 10 1979 by John Shobbrook a Federal Narcotics Bureau officer who convinced Milligan to talk at length about his connections despite being frightened he would be murdered for revealing his boss was Rat Pack member Glen Hallahan.
Milligan alleged there was “a board of directors” organising crime in Queensland. He said: “The system as it has been explained to me: there is Terry – I don’t know whether you know the triumvirate but Terry Lewis is the commissioner, Tony Murphy is his right-hand man and Glen is supposed to be the – what can you call him? – the civil organiser; the sort of planner; the ways and means man; the sort of inspector-general.”
“Tony does the dirty work.”
Milligan told Shobbrook he had once rung Murphy using a general police phone number to complain that his car had been stolen. Murphy had chastised him for not using a direct line to his desk.
Can Milligan be believed?
Among allegations he made was that whenever he wanted to see Hallahan in Brisbane they would meet at a room at the Travelodge Hotel. When the Bureau raided Hallahan’s home they examined his car and found a key from the Travelodge. Hallahan later testified he had met Milligan at the Travelodge on business “on many occasions” but never about drugs.
Shobbrook’s case against the previously untouchable Milligan was so watertight that he was able to compile an official 23-page calendar of events linking Milligan to Hallahan, Milligan told a judge he would testify against Hallahan and he pleaded guilty to two charges of conspiracy to import heroin which resulted in an 18-year jail sentence – not the sort of sentence given to a petty criminal.
And months later Murphy confirmed in a statement he had indeed received a call from Milligan at his office, saying: “He phoned me at the crime intelligence section where I was at that time attached. He introduced himself in a mysterious type of manner and then told a story of a black man stealing his car.”
Yet Sturgess dismisses Milligan as a “prince of liars and his word worth nothing”.
Question: If Murphy’s story is correct, how and why did Milligan phone the general Queensland Police switchboard and get put through to the head of the state’s crime intelligence section about a simple matter of car theft?
The next contentional issue is the way in which the Federal Narcotics Bureau was examined and reported on by Queensland judge Ned Williams in his Royal Commission of Inquiry into Drugs.
The Bureau had proved to be a major threat to international drug smugglers. But it had become a target not only of corrupt officers in the Queensland and Commonwealth police forces but also senior police in the federal sphere who believed the Bureau’s functions should be incorporated in their force. Harvey Bates, head of the Bureau, described the Commonwealth force as ‘the enemy’.
On August 7 1979 Prime Minister Fraser wrote to Ned Williams asking him to incorporate in his deliberations the “organization, recruitment, staffing and control” of the Narcotics Bureau, adding: “It is necessary for the Government to give early consideration to these issues.”
From the very start of his inquiry in October 1977 Williams had refused to have anything to do with the Bureau. Ideally, his team of investigators should have included representatives of all organisations associated with the fight against the illegal drugs trade. But while he selected representatives from the Commonwealth police and state forces Williams refused to include even one agent from the Bureau.
But he did include one of Terry Lewis’s clique of inner circle confidants, detective Barrie O’Brien – who was later to be denounced by two judges for fabricating evidence.
Williams’ decision not to include Bureau officers was despite an internal government cabinet submission which noted: “There is little doubt that the Narcotics Bureau has developed into a highly-efficient enforcement agency. Probably the most significant measure available in this regard is the substantial increase in arrests, prosecutions and quantities of drugs seized over the last seven years.”
The Daily Mirror revealed in January 1979 it had received a tip that the commission had already decided to disband the Bureau as a result of severe criticism of it by senior Commonwealth police. The Mirror reported a Commonwealth police officer in Brisbane had told the Royal Commission in secret hearings that he considered the Bureau totally inept and that narcotics officers were not capable of presenting matters in court.
The bias of the Commission was so evident that one of the most senior public servants in the federal government, Tim Besley, who headed Minister Wal Fife’s department, told Fife in a briefing note of the background to a drugs raid at Tewantin in Queensland.
“I have to say I am disturbed at the apparent connection between the Royal Commission and the Queensland Police. It is a fact that during sittings in Brisbane, Queensland police witnesses gave false evidence in respect of Tewantin. It is also a fact that the judge’s report is silent on this.”
More light on this raid was shed by author Matthew Condon in his book “Jacks and Jokers”.
He quotes Detective Jim Slade as saying he had been ordered to conduct surveillance on a house on the Sunshine Coast as a result of a letter sent by Justice Williams to Tony Murphy and to the Narcotics Bureau. It was alleged there were enormous quantities of drugs in the house.
Slade said he didn’t know whether it was a letter from the public or whether it had been generated by Tony Murphy or by Williams.
Condon quotes Slade as saying: “Justice Williams told Tony Murphy to do a big thing on it and that he would use that as part of [his expose of the] inadequacies and inefficiencies of the Narcotics Bureau.”
But according to Slade the massive quantities of drugs failed to materialize.
And Condon goes on to write: “Slade claims that senior officers close to Tony Murphy got a raid going. ‘They took in the most incredible amount of drugs and busted these people,’ he said. ‘The whole thing was bullshit. Acting on that, Justice Williams recommended that the Narcotics Bureau be disbanded. That whole thing was worked out between Williams and Murphy.”
Sturgess identifies the house as being in Tewantin but says categorically: “The Queensland police raided the premises, took possession of the drugs they found there and made arrests. The efforts of the Narcotics Bureau, on the other hand, seem to have been somewhat ineffectual.”
He then spends several pages casting doubts on Slade’s character, saying that in one instance a retired judge had found Slade had made allegations which ‘are false in every respect’. Sturgess said the allegations amounted to “outrageous lies” which reflected not only on Murphy but on Justice Williams who was a “respected” judge.
Former Supreme Court James Thomas did not seem to have much respect for Williams when he wrote in his memoirs that Williams had been a disappointing president of the bar council, relied on the talents of others, was a smooth operator who had the capacity to wheel and deal, and gave sausage machine judgements.
“..he knew deep down that his grasp of the law was superficial...After he took silk he cajoled his solicitors to ensure that he always had backup from a talented junior,” wrote Thomas. “In 1977 he had the good fortune, or more likely good contacts, to be appointed commissioner for the Commonwealth Inquiry into Drugs.”
And Bureau chief Harvey Bates says he was kept waiting for three days when he travelled to Brisbane to give evidence to the Commission because Williams was at the races.
The fact remains that one of the country’s most senior public servants was concerned by the apparent connection between the Royal Commission and the Queensland Police and had evidence that Queensland police lied to the Commission about what happened at Tewantin. His comment that Williams’ report “is silent” on that evidence strongly suggests that the judge knew the evidence had been false yet had failed to do anything about the perjury which had occurred at his inquiry.
Commissions of Inquiry are notorious for taking an inordinate amount of time to gather and assess evidence and to publish the results of their deliberations. But 42 days after being asked to conduct an in-depth and complex report on just about every aspect of the Narcotics Bureau, it handed its report to the Governor-General.
Eight days after the arrest of Milligan and with Hallahan, Lewis and Murphy being the next targets, the report contained many recommendations but only one was in capital letters: “THIS COMMISSION STRONGLY RECOMMENDS THAT THE NARCOTICS BUREAU BE DISBANDED.”
Career public servant Besley told his minister: “It has given no reasons – it is not an argued judgement as would be the case if it were a decision of the high court – and I repeat, the report appears to rest upon non-expert or junior or very selected, and possibly even carefully selected persons.
And Bureau chief Harvey Bates sent a secret minute to Minister Fife telling him the Queensland Police Force and Commonwealth police had “figured significantly” in “direct attacks” on the Bureau. “You have now had an opportunity of hearing tapes of some of the extensive debriefing of Milligan undertaken by Bureau officers. In summary, Milligan has alleged that a group in Brisbane comprising senior police officers and an ex-police officer who are involved in illegal activities have extensive contacts in most areas of law enforcement through which they can manipulate or control investigative activities.”
So here are very senior public servants saying it was possible the report relied on “carefully selected persons” and there was Milligan’s allegation that Lewis and Murphy had contacts who could manipulate investigations.
Despite these misgivings the Williams Royal Commission would now be asked to investigate the allegations against Murphy, Lewis and Hallahan.
Sturgess writes: “Williams thereupon began a careful, judicial examination.”
He did nothing of the sort.
I demonstrate conclusively in my book The Most Dangerous Detective that Williams and counsel assisting Cedric Hampson focused more on discrediting the evidence of both Milligan and the Bureau’s John Shobbrook than they did on seeking to uncover the truth.
With Murphy and Lewis as two of the three alleged criminals to be investigated, the commission sent Lewis’s friend O’Brien to interview Milligan and provide a transcript. O’Brien, later to be branded by a judge as a fabricator of evidence, produced a transcript which refuted much of Milligan’s freely-given testimony to Shobbrook.
In Milligan’s first appearance before the Commission Hampson reminded him that what he had told O’Brien and another Commission investigator was completely at odds with what he had told Shobbrook. He suggested that Shobbrook had given Milligan information about Murphy, Lewis and Hallahan which Milligan had merely regurgitated for the tape recording. And he tried to suggest to Milligan that he was only a small-time crook rather than a Mr Big.
Eight times Milligan told Hampson that the Shobbrook tapes were correct and that the O’Brien interview was not.
“I did not invent things or fabricate things," he swore on oath to Hampson about his testimony to Shobbrook.
Hampson: “O’Brien finally said this after all the talking about Hallahan 'You are saying that you fabricated almost everything that you said to Shobbrook in relation to Hallahan's involvement in your drug dealings' and you said 'No, I am saying that some of it was fabrication by me and the rest of it was supplied by Shobbrook and I said it'.”
Milligan: "I said that but it was not correct."
Hampson: "Is it a case of it being supplied by Shobbrook and you agreeing to it?"
Milligan "No. This is where I am saying that what I said to Phillips and O’Brien is in fact incorrect.”
Then came the suggestion that Milligan was a virtual nonentity and, therefore, would not have had any knowledge of organised crime involving Murphy, Lewis and Hallahan.
This was despite Hampson and Williams having been told in a memo of August 2, 1979 by Mark Le Grand, the liaison officer with the New South Wales drug commission, that Commissioner Woodward had found Milligan was “a major figure in the importation of heroin into Australia”.
An entire chapter of Woodward’s report had been devoted to 'The Milligan Group’ and Woodward had stated: "I do not accept that Milligan played only a minor role in this activity; merely carrying out the instructions of others. Rather, I regard him as the instigator and principal of much of this activity.”
Hampson to Milligan: "You did not ever say to him 'Look, Mr Shobbrook, you've got this all wrong I am only a pretty little guy really?' You wanted to impress him really so you did not correct his mistake or his wrong assumptions so you went along with him?"
Milligan: "No, I said 'No I am not Mr Big' but I said, you know, 'I'll tell you about Hallahan, he is'"
Part of Milligan's taped testimony had been that if he or Hallahan was ever caught, Hallahan would tell police that the money he had earned had come from the sale of land. No registration of such a sale had been found.
Shobbrook waited in great anticipation for Milligan to be cross-examined on why he had transferred so much money to Hallahan.
Instead, Hampson asked: "With your land transactions, was he reliable?"
When Murphy attended the Inquiry early in February 1980 he was allowed to read a statement in his defence.
There was no cross-examination on questions posed by the tapes; no questions on the mysterious phone call from Milligan or Murphy's relationship with Hallahan,
It was the same with Lewis. Hampson failed to ask him a question.
Appallingly, there was absolutely no cross-examination on questions posed by the Milligan tapes! No cross-examination about his relationship with Hallahan. There were no questions about his finances nor any attempt to examine them, despite the Commission having the power to do so.
An examination of his income would have proved interesting, especially as he was raking in so much corrupt money that he had started making diary entries of massive winnings on horse races, exhibiting a strange sense of humour by deciding that his first winner would be Ima Cheeta.
For an unknown reason the Commission did not call Milligan again until March 20, the day after he had been sentenced to 18 years’ imprisonment – hardly the sort of sentence given to the sort of small-time criminal suggested by Hampson.
Milligan had provided the judge with a five-page statement in his own handwriting providing detailed evidence of Hallahan’s role in heroin importing.
But on the 20th his evidence to the Commission contradicted just about all of the admissions and evidence he had given before, even facts such as the phone call to Murphy which Murphy had admitted receiving.
Hampson: "You are recorded on the tape as having reported to Murphy that a black man stole your car and that Murphy chastised you because you had rung him at the wrong number. You were supposed to ring him on a special telephone number?"
Milligan: "I don't know about that."
And despite the Commission having been given a copy of Milligan’s five-page statement giving chapter and verse on Hallahan’s involvement in heroin importation Hampson asked him: "Do you know anything to Hallahan's discredit in relation to drugs?"
Milligan: "Not really, not directly in relation to drugs."
Despite his earlier admissions, he denied saying anything to the detriment of Murphy or Lewis.
On April 3 1980 Lewis wrote in his diary: "Saw Asst Comm Duffy re having Det Sgt O’Brien on Williams Report Committee."
The Commission report a fortnight later said of Hallahan. "The Commission merely records that evidence presently available to it falls far short of establishing as even a reasonable possibility that Hallahan has ever been involved in wrongdoing in connection with illegal drugs." The italics are the author’s.
The report sought to downplay Milligan’s role as a major heroin importer by saying: “In fact, he was never more than a petty criminal and a small-scale drug trader; he was rather inept even at these levels of activity. The Commission had no doubts that he would say whatever suited his purposes and that he would say it convincingly.”
Despite its duty to investigate allegations against Queensland police commissioner Lewis and CIB chief Murphy, the Commission saw no irony or conflict of interest in acknowledging: "The Commission records that it has liaised closely with the Queensland Police Force from the time that it was set up."
Compare this synopsis of evidence given to the Williams Commission with what Sturgess has to say about Milligan and the Commission:
Sturgess: “What emerged was that Milligan had no information to back up his allegations; that they were false and made following prompts from his interrogators in order to give the impression he was co-operating with the Narcotics Bureau and demonstrating true remorse so as to lighten his sentence.”
Sturgess quotes Williams: “The Commission finds that the allegations against senior police were intended to refer to Commissioner Lewis and Supt Murphy and the Commission finds that the allegations made against these two men are baseless and untrue.”
I provided Hampson with 11 pages of questions asking why he had acted in the way he did when he had an obligation to fairly assist the court to arrive at the truth, and to impartially seek to have the whole of the relevant evidence placed intelligibly before the court.
He said he had a very hazy memory that “they” had thought Milligan’s story was an invention.
With the disbanding of the Narcotics Bureau the Hallahan, Murphy, Lewis investigation was taken over by the Federal Police and dropped.
I asked Harvey Bates in 2015 if it was possible the Bureau had been disbanded because it was closing in on Hallahan, Murphy and Lewis. He said: “That is a reasonable conclusion to come to.”
The next bone of contention is what became known as the Anoa importation.
Sturgess claims that in mid-1978 Murphy played “a very important part” in providing information which led to a combined NSW, Queensland and Federal police team being launched, resulting in the tracking and boarding the yacht ANOA carrying 4.69 tons of Buddha sticks with a street value of $50,000.
He says this was the result of Murphy having established a contact in the Solomon Islands during a trip there the previous year. The trip had resulted in heroin importer John Milligan alleging in a statement: “Tony Murphy had gone to Solomon Islands to check out the Solomon Islands – to see how feasible it was to use these places as halfway houses smuggling these drugs into Australia.”
This excerpt from Milligan’s statement had been used by author Matt Condon in one of his books about corrupt police commissioner Terry Lewis, resulting in Sturgess calling it a smear against Murphy which was disgraceful.
Sturgess says the allegation “seems based solely on Milligan’s statement in one of the discredited tapes”.
Were they discredited? Milligan swore on oath to the Williams Commission: “...the tapes were made…where I am giving…facts. For example, the mention of the Solomon Islands and things like that.”
Why wouldn’t Condon include such an allegation in his book?
Especially when Murphy’s claim about having played “a very important part” in the Anoa drug bust and that he “was the one who cracked the case” is completely untrue. He seems to have first made it in an article in The Sun in February 1988.
Wal Fife, at that time the federal minister responsible for the Narcotics Bureau, says: “The Bureau received intelligence advice from its liaison officer in Bangkok that Murray Stewart Riley had been in Thailand to purchase a large shipment of drugs…When Riley returned to Australia he was placed under observation...” He says an old Japanese ship carrying the drugs from Thailand developed engine trouble and unloaded them on to a wreck on Pocklington Reef, roughly halfway in the 1300 kilometres between Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. “Informed of this, Riley flew to Honiara in the Solomon Islands and arranged with partners to pool their resources to purchase a boat to retrieve the drugs.” The boat, the Anoa, was kept under observation.
In late May 1978 Fife happened to be on an official visit to ports in north Queensland and was in Cairns when Bureau head Harvey Bates told him the Anoa was tied up in Cairns harbour on its way to Pocklington Reef. Bates suggested they should take a boat to the Customs post on Green Island as part of the official visit.
“On the wharf at Cairns we walked right past Anoa and saw the crew making ready for departure,” Fife recalled
He continued: Once Anoa was under way the Federal Bureau of Narcotics organised surveillance as it travelled along the Queensland coast. When the vessel left the Australian coast arrangements were made for an Orion [aircraft] to undertake a short covert reconnaissance of the vessel to obtain a “signature” of its engine that would allow this type of aircraft to undertake a full-scale surveillance when we were notified that she had loaded the drugs.
“After the surveillance operation had commenced the Sydney office of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics received a visit from officers of the Police Crime Intelligence unit asking whether we had information on the shipment of a large quantity of drugs. We confirmed that we had an operation planned and they indicated that they also had an informant who might be able to assist and they would make contact to obtain further information. Subsequently, the police again made contact and advised that the informant had said that the drugs were to be landed at Port Kembla. For security reasons we did not divulge that the suspect vessel was already under aerial surveillance. It was agreed, however, that this should be a joint operation and plans were made to send a combined police/narcotics team to Port Kembla.
“It was at this point that Harvey Bates became concerned that Bureau resources were being diverted from what could be the genuine drop-off point.”
Chinook helicopters took Bureau cars from Melbourne to the NSW coast and cars were placed at strategic places on the Pacific Highway in New South Wales.
It was just as well because Anoa was spotted by the Bureau’s surveillance pulling into the Camden Haven River – nearly 500 kilometres short of Port Kembla.
Thanks to Harvey Bates’ precautions, Bureau officers were able to drive from their waiting spot on the Pacific Highway to Laurieton, a small town with less than a dozen moorings on the Camden Haven River, and watch the drugs being loaded on to a large furniture van. The van was followed to a house and the smugglers were arrested.
The fact that the furniture van had been booked in advance and a house had been secured nearby suggests the information from the police about Port Kembla being the destination had been a ruse.
Murphy’s story about being a very important part of a combined NSW, Queensland and Federal police team is further undermined by the Stewart Royal Commission report which confirms (p351) the officers present in Laurieton for the unloading were from the Bureau and not the police.
Further evidence of Murphy’s lie is provided in Phil Dickie’s “The Road to Fitzgerald” in which Dickie says he contacted Justice Woodward regarding Murphy’s claim to be told by the judge: “That’s all nonsense.”
It is worth considering one more of Sturgess’s examples. He says: “A further, wrongful assault on Murphy’s reputation occurs when Condon recounts the story of the murders of Douglas and Isabel Wilson in Victoria in April 1979.”
On June 12 1978 Douglas and Isabel Wilson, senior members of a heroin smuggling and distribution network run by Terrence John Clark, were interviewed for more than three hours by Brisbane detectives who secretly recorded the conversation. The Wilsons gave detailed descriptions of the gang and its activities. Douglas Wilson said a member of the gang called Harry had been murdered by Clark and that if Clark thought he had given him up he would organise for him to be shot ‘without any compunction’.
The handless, toothless body of “Harry” (Harry Lewis) was discovered 10 months later on March 15 1979.
Murphy told the Stewart Royal Commission that when the remains of Harry Lewis were discovered he formed the opinion “there should be some reasonable public exposure of the disclosure made by the Wilsons but in a form appropriate to disguise the origin of the information. Such release was made to Mr Brian Bolton, a Brisbane journalist, in a conference with him held on March 23 1979…”
But there wasn’t much disguised in Bolton’s story two days later in the Sunday Sun which not only referred to the murder of Harry Lewis but also revealed: “Police said yesterday they had secret tape recorded evidence which linked the murder to a massive international drug running syndicate.”
It said a transcription of the tapes had been placed in a bulky CIB dossier.
Next day the story was repeated in the Sydney Daily Telegraph which said: “The information in the article was said to have been based on material supplied to journalist Brian Bolton by Supt A Murphy of the Qld police at an interview in Brisbane on March 23 1979.”
On March 28 1979 Clark told two syndicate members “that he thought it was time that the Wilsons ‘went’ and that he was working on ways to get rid of both of them, saying ‘this time they will never be found’.” Clark said he had got the tapes from Brisbane.
On April 13 1979, the Wilsons travelled to Melbourne where they were murdered.
Sturgess says: “What is especially outrageous is that Condon tells his readers the Royal Commissioner, Mr Justice Stewart…’was scathing of Murphy and his actions’, and ‘admonished’ him over his involvement with the Wilson murders. Where he obtained these descriptions of Stewart’s attitude towards Murphy I have no idea…I can only conclude Condon made them up.”
The Royal Commission reported: “(Murphy) defended his action in releasing the information by saying he felt it was time to air the matter publicly to place Clark’s authority in the syndicate in jeopardy…”
“This commission has accepted the proposition that Douglas and Isabel Wilson were murdered because of information given confidentially to Queensland police.”
“It is the opinion of the commission that Clark would conclude that the Daily Telegraph article of March 26 1979, in spite of its garbled contents, described disclosures by the Wilsons to Queensland police, which disclosures were tape recorded…Clark, in fact, suspected the Wilsons over a period of many months but did not positively believe they had informed.
“The import of either of the March 1979 newspaper articles to Clark’s suspicious mind could hardly be over-estimated...and… would seem to support very clearly any speculation that there were tapes and that those tapes recorded details of the Clark syndicate operations, including the murder of Harry Lewis by the syndicate leader. It would require little deduction to realise that the tapes were made…while the Wilsons were making their disclosures.”
Scathing? Stewart reported on pages 826 and 827: “The Commission considers it was most unwise for Superintendent Murphy of the Queensland Police Force to supply the material for Brian Bolton’s newspaper article. The Commission believes that this article contained sufficient material to confirm to a suspicious and vengeful Clark that the Wilsons had definitely informed on him.”
Elsewhere the report says: “The commission does, however, accept that he was acting honestly in the matter of the disclosure and rejects as ill-founded the suggestion that there was something sinister in the decision to make disclosures to journalist Bolton.”
Even fellow Rat Packer Terry Lewis said in an interview with Condon that Murphy’s interview with Bolton “resulted in their murders, no doubt at all.”
This article does not canvas other issues detrimental to Murphy such as the extensive Shirley Brifman statements, evidence given at the National Hotel Inquiry, the heroic stand taken by Robert Campbell which culminated in the 1982 ABC revelations about the Rat Pack, and Jack Herbert’s extensive evidence at the Fitzgerald Inquiry which included him revealing that in the late 60s Murphy and he were the two controllers of the corrupt system.
Campbell’s battle against corruption cost him his marriage and his career and he was hounded all the way to Tasmania*.
But though he lost that battle he may well have won the war against Murphy.
Murphy could have continued serving for many years, rising almost certainly to deputy commissioner. But on October 1, 1982, he tendered his resignation. He referred to discussions with Lewis about what had led to the defamation actions.
The letter to Lewis discussed the effect of "the slander emanating from that program" on Murphy's prospects of promotion and said they had agreed that Murphy would not seek further promotion. "I now find myself somewhat disconcerted by this chain of events and have consequently decided to opt for early retirement on December 21, 1982. Please be assured of my continued loyalty and personal friendship."
Sturgess asks why, if Murphy was corrupt, bank records contain no evidence of unexplained revenue.
The answer may lie with an answer corrupt bagman Jack Herbert gave to corruption Commissioner Fitzgerald: “Tony Murphy was a very careful man. Sir.”
Posted 8/2/19
*Campbell’s story is told elsewhere on this site.