Jacks and Jokers

by Matthew Condon

  He then proceeded to the Greenbank Military Range, the Australian Defence Force’s 4500-hectare live training facility near Logan, 25 kilometres south-west of the Brisbane CBD. There he delighted in a ‘display of The American 180 Weapon System’. Then he enjoyed lunch with friends at the Queensland Cricketers’ Club over at the Gabba grounds in South Brisbane.

  As Lewis socialised, Basil Hicks and Detective Saunders drove out to the Brisbane Prison, signed the Prison Visitors Book, were issued passes and then met the prostitute Katherine James near one of the prison dormitories. Hicks and Saunders were finally at the epicentre of the attempt to destroy The Hound’s reputation and his police career.

  Hicks had known that Saunders was a good operator and could be trusted from their days working together in Whitrod’s Crime Intelligence Unit.

  ‘I considered that she was a mature policewoman,’ Hicks later said. ‘There were some young ones there at the depot. I knew that she’d been in the army before she came into the police … I knew that I was exposing her to very, very grave consequences.

  ‘One, because she was coming over to the gaol with me and she was going to witness something that – well, at that time I didn’t know what she was going to witness. And two, I was going to expose her to a lot of danger, because she was going over there to the gaol.’

  Hicks introduced Saunders to James. ‘At first she did not want to talk and after a short while Inspector Hicks left us alone,’ said Saunders. ‘I recall that Inspector Hicks had a tape recorder in his hand but I cannot say whether it was going or not. He did leave me with the tape recorder while I had a conversation with James.’

  Saunders told James about the allegation that she [James] had been told by police to say that there were photographs in existence of her and Hicks having sex. ‘I told her he was a happily married man and that this could wreck his family life and that she had better tell us now if it was not true. James told me that the photographs did not exist,’ said Saunders. ‘She told me that she had been approached by [Tony] Murphy … to say that they did exist.

  ‘James told me that Basil Hicks was too honest and was causing problems and had to be stopped because he arrested people who were being looked after. She told me that she had to do it or they would put more charges on her and this would affect her parole.’

  James admitted to Saunders that in the past photographs had been taken of her in a compromising position with a male. That person was not Basil Hicks.

  ‘Saunders had a conversation with her in which she [James] told Saunders that the whole thing was a set-up and that she’d never had anything to do with Hicks,’ says journalist Ken Blanch. ‘By the time they got back to the city one of the prison officers had phoned Tony Murphy and told them what they’d done at the gaol.’

  Saunders returned to the offices of the Regional Task Force, to which she had recently been seconded, and Hicks went back to Mobile Patrols. Hicks may have been satisfied that he had obtained vindi­cation from Katherine James, but their brief visit to Boggo Road would set in motion a sequence of events that would destroy both of their careers in a way so extreme and calculating, and in such abject disregard to human civility and the sanctity of law, that it made the Rat Pack’s previous forays into discrediting people’s reputations look harmless in comparison.

  The moment Saunders returned to her office she was confronted by her boss, Inspector Lobegeiger. ‘What the hell do you think you are doing, antagonising them, going out there with Hicks?’ he asked.

  Lobegeiger told her she was not to leave the area of the Task Force without his ‘express approval’.

  He said all hell had broken loose over the visit to Boggo Road to see James. ‘He then instructed me to inform him of the full details of the visit to the prison,’ Saunders later said. ‘I refused. I told him I was acting under the direct orders of a senior officer and if they wanted to know they could ask Inspector Hicks. I refused to discuss the matter with him any further.

  ‘He again demanded the names of the so-called “Committee of Eight”. At this point rational discourse ceased and we had a bitter argument over police corruption.’

  Word of the prison visit had indeed gotten back to headquarters. The next day Commissioner Lewis recorded in his diary: ‘Mr R[on] Borinetti, H.M.Prison, phoned re Insp B. Hicks and a P/Woman seeing Mrs [James] on 21st and inquiring as to who had visited her.’

  On the following Monday, Tony Murphy phoned Lewis to discuss the Hicks and Saunders matter.

  Around this time, Hicks bumped into Murphy in the street. ‘He [Murphy] was coming from the CIB building, I presume, downtown, I was going back up to the depot, and we were approaching each other,’ Hicks later recalled. ‘We could see each other from some distance away, and he had a big grin on his face, and I admit I was very angry at that time.

  ‘He came down the street and … we just about met, and he walked towards me and said something.’

  Hicks didn’t quite catch Murphy’s quip. It may have been about the prison visit, but he was so enraged with Murphy he didn’t respond and kept walking.

  ‘I went back up to the depot, and about … a quarter of an hour to half an hour later I got a phone call,’ said Hicks. ‘[They] didn’t say who they were … but the voice, I’d say that it was Murphy rang me up, and he asked me what was I doing taking the policewoman over to the gaol. Why did I take the policewoman over to the gaol?

  ‘I said, “I’m minding my own business.” And then he said – I can’t remember the exact words, but [he] asked about her [Saunders]. And he said, “I’ll deal with her later.” That was the end of the conversation.’

  And it was the end of Hicks and Saunders.

  One Shot to the Head

  On Sunday 15 October 1978, Senior Constable Desmond John Connor, stationed in Mareeba, a small town on the Atherton Tablelands in Far North Queensland, was enjoying a day off. Connor, 36, had a lot of things on his mind, most particularly the outfall from allegations that he and fellow officers on the Tablelands were involved in the illicit drug trade.

  Mareeba, just over 400 metres above sea level and situated where the Barron River meets Granite and Emerald creeks, was garnering a reputation as a drug capital to rival Griffith in New South Wales.

  The allegations against Connor and others stemmed from the arrest in April 1976 of Roland Lawrence Magro and Enea Cardelli. Later that year both were convicted of the cultivation and possession of large quantities of cannabis. Magro got five and a half years in prison; Cardelli copped four. Out of that successful prosecution came rumours that there was police involvement. Namely, that police at one time had taken pay-offs from Magro.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Camm:Yes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  An Incident at the Cleveland Sands

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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