Jacks and Jokers

by Matthew Condon

  ‘It also remains open to conjecture, that their untimely ends may have resulted from other nefarious activities, entirely unrelated to CLARKE [sic] and his activities.’

  A computer, nefarious activities, even the Wilsons themselves were perhaps responsible for their own murders. But not CIB chief Anthony Murphy.

  The Fake Raid

  On 8 June 1979, Sir Colin Woods was appointed the first Commissioner of the newly formed Australian Federal Police (AFP). It was expected the force would be operational by 19 October.

  At the time of this announcement, Justice Williams’ Royal Commission of Inquiry into Drugs had been running since 1977, and was well advanced when Terry Clark’s Mr Asia syndicate came onto the radar of authorities courtesy of the Brisbane arrests a year later. It was also sitting when allegations of the involvement of police and parliamentarians in the drug trade were aired on the floor of Queensland parliament.

  Parallel to this was Narcotics Bureau Agent John Shobbrook’s extraordinary Operation Jungle, and his tracking of John Edward Milligan, a one-time judge’s associate and business partner to former detective Glen Hallahan, supposedly farming in Obi Obi on the Sunshine Coast.

  By 1979, Justice Williams’ disdain for the Narcotics Bureau was gathering a head of steam. He saw the bureau officers as poorly trained and poorly organised. He railed against their work and their defence of their professionalism. With the formation of the AFP, and Williams’ public berating of the bureau, the writing was on the wall for the Narcs.

  Undercover operative Detective Jim Slade was working happily under the guidance of Tony Murphy at the Bureau of Crime Intelligence, when an extraordinary job came his way.

  Slade had been taught well by Murphy, and he loved his work. He was developing rapidly into one of the state’s top undercover agents, able to infiltrate anything from criminal gangs to drug-dealing networks. On this occasion, he was ordered to perform surveillance on a house on the Sunshine Coast. The word was that there were enormous quantities of drugs on the premises.

  ‘I don’t know why this came about,’ remembers Slade. ‘I don’t know where this letter came from, whether it was sent in from the public or whether it was a letter generated by Tony Murphy, or generated by Justice Williams.

  ‘Williams sent this letter, a copy of the letter, to Tony Murphy, even though Tony knew about it prior to the letter coming, and one to the Narcotics Bureau, and left it at that.

  ‘Justice Williams told Tony Murphy to do a big thing on it and that he would use that as part of [his exposé of the] inadequacies and inefficiencies of the Narcotics Bureau.’

  Slade did his job. He conducted surveillance for several weeks and eventually realised that the massive quantities of drugs and human traffic to and from the house, as the intelligence suggested in the letter, were simply not materialising.

  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.’

  Big Bucks

  Jack ‘The Bagman’ Herbert was always receptive to some cash in hand, and he struck a mother lode when he went into business with Tony Robinson, described often as Brisbane’s most notorious operator of illegal baccarat games.

  Tony and son Tony Jnr had entered the gaming machine industry and were looking for someone with enough connections to help them convince pubs and clubs to install in-line ticket machines – a sort of peasant’s poker machine, where for a coin the player could yield a piece of paper and the potential to redeem a prize. The prizes were free games on the machine, but it quickly became known that the free games could be exchanged for cash.

  Herbert himself saw a cash cow. ‘Robinson introduced me to Jack Rooklyn, who ran a company that hired out in-line machines to licensed clubs,’ said Herbert. ‘[He] wasn’t a man to fool with. He was the Australian distributor for the American Bally poker machine company, which had links with the Chicago Mafia.

  ‘Soon I started working for Rooklyn, travelling around Queensland putting in-line machines into clubs. The clubs had to get permission to operate them from the Justice Department. The clubs kept 50 per cent of the profits from each machine, and we took the rest.’

  The Robinsons’ in-line empire expanded and during his working relationship with both men Herbert soon learned they were paying Don Lane, member for Merthyr, a monthly kickback, as he had contacts in the Department of Justice.

  Terry Lewis was aware of Lane’s relationship with Rooklyn. ‘I know Lane knew him,’ he says. ‘Lane told me he had visited Rooklyn in Sydney and had gone out on his yacht. Apparently Rooklyn had a beautiful mansion overlooking the harbour.

  ‘Lane said if I ever wanted to go out on Rooklyn’s yacht and sail around the harbour I should let him know. I didn’t.’

  Around this time Herbert began to see Lewis again socially, and told him both Lane and a senior public servant with the Licensing Commission were receiving money protecting the in-lines. Herbert, in turn, arranged for Robinson Snr. to meet Lewis who, according to the Bagman, was also put on the payroll. Herbert alleged Lewis received $2000 per month from Rooklyn and Robinson.

  (Earlier in the year, Lewis’s police diary noted that Robinson came to see him at his office to ‘introduce’ Rooklyn on 20 March 1978. ‘Mr Rooklyn inquired re starting a “Health Studio” on the Gold Coast, informed him if prostitution involved prosecution would be certain.’ Then in late November 1978, the diary stated again: ‘Jack Rooklyn called inquiring if massage parlours are being legalised; I assured him they are not.’ There was debate in New South Wales at the time over liberalising prostitution laws, resulting in the Prostitution Act 1979 under the government of Neville Wran.)

  While Lewis would later deny knowing Rooklyn, he now says: ‘Jack Herbert would have said, “Would you come down and have a sandwich?” I’m sure I saw him at the Crest. Rooklyn, Herbert and me. He [Rooklyn] said he wanted to put poker machines in the Police Club. I said no way in the world. Rooklyn was not a big deal as far as I was concerned.’

  Lewis says he had known Tony Robinson since the war days. ‘Tony Robinson, I don’t know if he’s a crook,’ Lewis adds. ‘I think he was just a … he had no criminal record – he had one conviction, possession without a licence, concealment of a firearm during the war.

  ‘He had a men’s clothing shop in Albert Street … opposite was the Metro [Theatre] and next to it was a jeweller’s shop … But anyhow, Tony Robinson was known to most of us because he had a flash car and in those days after the war hardly anybody had a flash car and they could park in the city indefinitely. And then when I got on the Consorting Squad I met him because he had a little nightclub down in the Petrie Bight … La Boheme, or something, anyhow we knew him then.

  ‘He was a smartie, but he was certainly not a bloody criminal. A ladies man of course and bloody dressed like a million dollars and he must have got in with Rooklyn somewhere along the line and Herbert along the line and away it went from there.’

  Lewis said he had no idea who Rooklyn was. ‘I don’t know if he was ever bloody convicted the bastard,’ Lewis adds. ‘I mean, I did meet him once and he was an unlovable looking bastard … there’s no doubt in the world he was very friendly with Don Lane, and he was very friendly with Jack Herbert as time showed.

  ‘But he was a famous bloody, well, race bloke that had heaps of money apparently … I might be wrong, but I doubt if he had a criminal record. They had an inquiry in Sydney by somebody that showed he was, that’s right, he was an associate of some of the Mafia or whatever you like from America. Used to come out and they were friends …’

  What was a bigger deal to Lewis was that just four days after the Crest luncheon, it was ann
ounced that he had been awarded the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.

  That night – Saturday 16 June – Commissioner Terry Lewis, OBE, and Hazel sat in the special VIP area at Lang Park and enjoyed a rugby league Test between Australia and Great Britain along with 23,049 other punters.

  The Kangaroos belted the Poms 35 to nil.

  Global Girls

  Geoff Crocker was having his ups and downs with his fledgling massage parlour empire in 1979, as were Tilley and Hapeta.

  One of the primary reasons was the work of a new Licensing Branch officer, Ron Lewis. Lewis surveyed the landscape and came up with a new way to attack the vice lords. He would go after the owners of the buildings who leased out premises to the likes of Crocker, Holloway, Hapeta and Tilley.

  ‘What I did introduce was – and again you’ve got to get back to your political masters, they wanted us to “control” [the scene] to a certain degree … so we came up with a control measure,’ recalls Ron Lewis.

  ‘We were prosecuting the prostitutes and managers, but quite often the owners of the business weren’t touched. If you rented a premises knowing they were used for prostitution, it was considered an offence.’

  Ron Lewis soon discovered that the problem with this approach was that if you said to the owner of a building, ‘Do you know it’s being used for prostitution?’, they could defend themselves by denying any knowledge. He started approaching the owners of the brothel buildings and asked them directly: ‘Do you know your property is being leased as a brothel?’

  ‘I’d inform them that several prosecutions had taken place on their particular premises, showed them the Act, and told them they were liable for prosecution.

  ‘Six months later I’d come back, produce the convictions that had occurred in the last six months [relating to their property] and charge them.’

  The impact was enormous.

  Out of the city’s 36 or so brothels running at the time, 24 of them shut down after Ron Lewis’s blitz.

  ‘They went underground,’ Ron Lewis says, ‘and formed these escort services.’

  That was precisely the direction in which Geoff Crocker headed after being evicted from one of the properties housing one of his brothels, and he’d had enough. ‘After all the landlords evicted me and closed them all down I then rented a flat [at 453] Montague Road [West End],’ said Crocker. ‘One of the girls who was managing one of the parlours for me was pregnant, right, and the parlours had been closed down and she had saved no money and she said to me, “Geoff, can you help me out with a flat?” ’

  He thought of the possibility of running escorts out of the flat in the three-storey brick block not far from Hill End Terrace and the sharp sweep of the Brisbane River. Crocker installed a couple of phones and Global Girls Escorts was born.

  Business grew rapidly. From two girls working, it built to five or six. Crocker drove the girls to their jobs. ‘The police used to come in and visit and in them days … we were [under] the impression we couldn’t be busted for escort, like the receptionist couldn’t be,’ said Crocker.

  ‘I mean, the working girl? She solicited someone in a motel room. I got sort of pretty busy there and people were starting to complain in the other units about the cars coming and going at three or four o’clock in the morning so we moved out of there into a private residence.’

  Next up was 27 Sankey Street, Highgate Hill, a large Queenslander on the corner of Dudley Street and opposite a children’s playground. Across the park was Paradise Street and the home of the former corruption fighter and fearless parliamentarian, the member for South Brisbane, Colin Bennett. In another era, Bennett had relentlessly pursued the corrupt former police commissioner Frank Bischof and his so-called Rat Pack of bagmen and acolytes – Terry Lewis, Tony Murphy and Glen Hallahan.

  It was to the house in Paradise Street that Bennett and his large Catholic family had retreated on 27 December 1959, when little Colin junior had drowned in the Davies Park public swimming pool.

  In Sankey Street, Crocker installed up to eight phones, such was the demand for his Global Girls.

  Crocker had an aversion to drugs. If any of his girls used, they were sacked on the spot. Besides, he had made a promise to his mother that he wouldn’t get involved in that side of the business.

  At Sankey Street, Crocker came in contact with an enthusiastic young constable, Sam Di Carlo. Di Carlo had only joined the force in 1975 but had gone to work under Alec Jeppesen at the Licensing Branch and had shown an aptitude for undercover work. Jeppesen encouraged him, describing his charge as ‘honest, loyal and dedicated’.

  On one of Di Carlo’s visits to the premises he got Crocker out in the kitchen on his own. ‘Geoff, things are going to get really hot in this business now, we’ve found holes in the law that we can plug up and you’re going to be busted and probably put in gaol,’ Di Carlo allegedly told him.

  ‘Oh well, that’s how it goes, you know,’ Crocker responded. ‘You know, there is not much I can do about that, Sam.’

  He said he expected Di Carlo to offer him a bribe. The constable didn’t. Instead Di Carlo told Crocker his boss said to ask him could ‘you guys’ look after the branch with information on drugs and SP bookmakers in exchange for some leniency from Licensing?

  ‘Yes, no problem,’ said Crocker. ‘I hate druggies anyhow so if I can give you a dealer, or even a user, I will.’

  He said he offered up to Di Carlo a druggie at a nearby hotel then ‘strung him on’ for months. ‘He came back to being a fair copper,’ said Crocker of Di Carlo, ‘and not the heavy dude he originally started off to be.’

  After Licensing Branch head Alec Jeppesen was transferred, Rigney took his place. He was followed by Noel Dwyer, Ron Lewis’s superior.

  ‘Noel Dwyer was a fine family man. That’s the way I saw the man,’ recalls Ron Lewis. ‘Alec Jeppesen was a totally and completely honest man. There was never any suggestion I shouldn’t do something [about going after the owners].

  ‘When I went to Dwyer and I tried to get the owners, he didn’t think it would do any good but he didn’t dissuade me in any way, shape or form.’

  Ron Lewis was a tradesman before he joined the police force. He applied the same principles to his Licensing Branch cases – be honest, fair, transparent and work hard. ‘One day I was in the office and there was a woman there,’ he recalls.

  ‘I was told she worked for a massage parlour. She said, “We always knew where we stood with you, Mr Lewis.” I treated them like ladies. I wouldn’t take a thing from them. Not even a glass of water. It became a bit of a joke. Sometimes my troops thought I was a bit of an old lady.’

  Even so, his dedicated work in the branch didn’t necessarily do the diligent officer any favours. Ron Lewis was encouraged to take a job in administration. It was a good position and a sensible step, although he never knew if this encouragement was for the good of his career, or because someone didn’t want him to continue working in Licensing.

  As for the energetic Italian, Di Carlo, he had admired Jeppesen and felt that Jeppesen had been badly treated. He made no secret of his feelings that Jeppesen had been destroyed by Tony Murphy and Syd Atkinson on the orders of Commissioner Terry Lewis. He aired his theory in the canteen, the Police Union office, and to whichever officers he happened to be with at any given time, irrespective of rank. Jeppesen had been done over.

  His self-admitted big mouth would soon land him in the office of the Commissioner of Police. Like Robert Walker, Bob Campbell, Kingsley Fancourt and so many honest officers before him, Di Carlo’s commitment to an honest day’s work would see him suffer the same time-worn fate – he would be driven from the force in spectacular circumstances.

  Goodbye to the Big Fella

  In the last week of August 1979 former commissioner Frank Bischof, 74, seeing out his days in his humble home at The Gap, was admitted to the Mater Hospital in South Brisbane h
aving been seriously ill for several weeks.

  He died at 8 p.m. on Tuesday 28 August. At 10 p.m. Commissioner Lewis got a phone call at home from one of his inspectors to inform him of Bischof’s passing.

  The newspapers the next day lauded the Big Fella as a ‘good tough cop’. ‘Francis Erich Bischof died yesterday and with him died an era of the Queensland Police Force that will be talked of for many years to come,’ one said. ‘He was outspoken – some thought too much so – and his name was always before the public.’

  Bischof was praised for standing up to be counted when it mattered, and for his tireless dedication to the welfare of the state’s children. His creation of the Juvenile Aid Bureau – ‘virtually a world first and copied by many countries’ – was singled out as his lasting mem­orial. It was noted that the JAB had been the nursery for the current Commissioner of Police.

  There was no mention of the closing of the brothels in the late 1950s, his disastrous affair with Mary Margaret Fels, the National Hotel inquiry or his shoplifting charge.

  The day after Bischof’s death, his protégé Commissioner Lewis addressed members of the 63rd Advanced Training Course at the Police Academy. He no doubt imparted knowledge that the Big Fella had passed on to him.

  On Friday 31 August, Lewis and senior officers attended Bischof’s funeral service at St John’s Cathedral, a few minutes’ walk up Clark Lane from the Roberts brothers’ National Hotel in the city, where Bischof spent so much of his time in the 1960s and into the 1970s.