They were permitted to embrace in the knowledge that it was possibly for the last time.
A newspaper report several days later quoted Magda as saying: ‘I do not know when I will see him again. He told me he would appeal against his conviction.’
* * *
Magda made an application to the Attorney-General’s Department to remain in Sydney at government expense until after the appeal, on the basis that if a retrial was ordered by the Appeal Court, she would have to be available to give evidence again. After considering the cost of the alternatives, the government agreed to Magda and the children remaining in Sydney at public expense. As the time for the appeal approached, Magda told a journalist, ‘I have begun to feel the effect of months of strain and worry.’
On Friday, 19 May 1961, exactly six months to the day after he had been returned to Sydney under escort from Colombo and nearly two months since his trial, Stephen Bradley appealed his conviction to the Court of Criminal Appeal, comprising Chief Justice Dr HV Evatt, Mr Justice Herron and Mr Justice Collins. As was the custom in those days, Bill Knight QC again represented the Crown, this time juniored by Mr CD Cullen.5 Bradley, who remained at the prison during the appeal hearing, was again represented by Fred Vizzard QC, instructed again by Mr Pat Smith. Vizzard complained that Mr Justice Clancy had delivered an unbalanced summing up to the jury by giving too much weight to the Crown case and too little to the defence. Vizzard also submitted that the identification evidence had been tainted by the publication of Bradley’s photograph in the Sydney Daily Mirror on 11 October, well prior to the identification by Mrs Lord and that the judge had failed to properly put to the jury the defence case on this, and on many other issues. Vizzard concluded by submitting:
The more serious the charge, the more necessary it is that the defence should be carefully put, because I think it has been said that even the vilest criminals are entitled to have a clear, careful trial.
The Chief Justice observed during argument that perhaps an overwhelming factor in the case was that Bradley’s wife had gone on a trip to Surfers Paradise the day the boy was kidnapped, and he suggested that her trip was ‘a strange interlude at a time when tragedy was overtaking the boy with tremendous speed’. At one point during argument, Vizzard justifiably felt that the members of the Bench had already made up their minds against him, prompting him to say:
It appears to me that Your Honours are looking at the Crown case and assuming it must be valid.
To which Mr Justice Collins testily snapped:
I don’t see what reason you have for making such a statement.
The hearing had not been completed by the end of the first day, so it was adjourned until Monday 22 May for Bill Knight QC to make his submissions. On resumption of the hearing, Mr Knight submitted that legal authorities showed that the trial judge was not required to give a full exposition of the whole case for the Crown or for the defence, but could pick out salient features on both sides. He submitted that the Crown case was not merely strong and convincing, but overwhelming. It did not depend on one category of evidence, but rather could be divided into three compartments: confessional, circumstantial and identification. He argued that Justice Clancy had adopted ‘a mode in his summing up which was very much in Bradley’s favour’.
Following those submissions, the Court of Criminal Appeal handed down its decision in which all three judges rejected the appeal out of hand, declaring that the defence had been properly explained by Mr Justice Clancy and that there had been no miscarriage of justice. The Chief Justice complimented the work of the Crown Prosecutors and the police, and remarked:
The crime was so brutal and cruel as to be beyond human experience and belief … [Bradley] had every lie ready to deceive the unwary.
Mr Justice Herron commented:
Mr Justice Clancy is a man of experience and wisdom and I think it must be said he very fairly put the facts of the case to the jury … I doubt very much if I have ever met with a case in which a confession made in the accused’s own handwriting is more convincing for its truth … So strong was the Crown case that I feel it fair to say that a jury which failed to convict on this evidence would have failed in their duty as citizens.
Bazil and Freda did not attend the appeal hearing, but, on being informed of the result, were greatly relieved. The prospect of a retrial – however unlikely – had hung over them for the weeks since the verdict.
Magda Bradley likewise did not attend the appeal hearing. When a journalist approached her at the People’s Palace to tell her that the appeal had been dismissed, she opened the door a few inches to hear the news, and when told the result she appeared stunned, saying, ‘Oh, no. Are you sure? It couldn’t be true. I don’t know what I’ll do now.’ She told the journalist that the strain of the trial and appeal had been ‘almost unbearable’. Conjecture in the papers continued to tarnish Magda with the brush of complicity in, or prior knowledge of, the kidnapping. It was clear that while she remained in Australia she would be subjected to unrelenting public antipathy that would make it impossible to lead a normal life.
* * *
Magda made one final visit to Stephen at Long Bay shortly after his failed appeal. He told her he had already made application for legal aid funding to support his last avenue of appeal – to the High Court of Australia. He maintained his belief that he would ultimately be vindicated, but acknowledged that it would take some time for this appeal to be heard. When Magda told him that she intended returning soon to London with the children, he readily agreed that in the circumstances it was all for the best. They parted on cordial terms, but it was clear to both of them that their former intimacy had been irretrievably shattered.
* * *
In early June 1961, about a fortnight after the appeal, Stephen Bradley was transferred from Long Bay Gaol to Goulburn maximum-security gaol. In November 1961, the New South Wales Government refused an application by Bradley for legal aid to appeal to the High Court of Australia on the grounds that the appeal had no reasonable prospects of success, and Bradley did not pursue the appeal further.
* * *
While the jury’s verdict, the sentence and the appeal ended the judicial process for Stephen Bradley, it was not the end of Magda Bradley’s ordeals with the law. Just seven days after the verdict, she was served with a number of commitment warrants in relation to the twelve parking offences she had committed prior to her departure from Australia. She was compelled to hand over the sum of £47.10.0 from her meagre funds or face the prospect of being gaoled for three months.
After the trial, Magda was repeatedly besieged by reporters and subjected to numerous suggestions that she must have been involved in her husband’s plans, or at least had prior knowledge of them. In the public eye, she was almost as hated as her husband, and sometimes more so, because, as a woman, she was expected to have had more sympathy for Graeme’s ordeal and the agony his parents had undergone. As a result, as soon as the appeal was over Magda was desperate to return to the relative safety and comfort of London. However, her departure was delayed by actions that threatened her custody of the two older children, Paul and Helen. Nobody seemed keen to seek custody of poor Ross, now six, who once again had been boarding at St. Gabriel’s School for deaf children. Paul, now fourteen, had decided for himself that he did not want to return to England, but rather wished to live with his father in Leura. Magda did not challenge Paul’s choice, as he was now of an age when he could make an informed decision for himself. Of more concern to her was her custody of Helen, now nearly eight years old.
As soon as Magda and the children had landed in Australia in mid-March 1961, Dr Frank Laszlo had gone back to his lawyers in Melbourne. Following Bradley’s unsuccessful appeal, in June 1961 he commenced an action in the Equity Division of the Supreme Court of New South Wales seeking custody of his granddaughter, Helen.
The first hearing was a very brief one on 30 June before Justice Jacobs, in which Magda was represented by the Public Solicitor. Magda, H
elen and Ross were due to travel back to England at government expense, leaving two days later on 2 July on the Sitmar Line ship TV Castel Felice bound for Southampton. Barrister Mr Derek Cassidy, who appeared for Dr Laszlo, was granted an adjournment of the custody hearing for four weeks until 28 July, which legally prevented Helen from leaving Australia until the next court appearance. Whether it was because she was worn down by the repeated criticisms in the papers, or because she was emotionally exhausted from the whole ordeal and desperate to get back to London, Magda reluctantly agreed to temporarily relinquish custody of Helen to Dr Laszlo and his wife, Ilse, until the hearing on 28 July, thereby conceding to them a huge tactical advantage. This freed Magda and Ross to leave on the Castel Felice as planned on 2 July.
Helen flew to Melbourne with her grandparents on the evening after the interim custody hearing. They all used the false name ‘Lenner’ on the plane’s passenger list in a failed attempt to avoid newspaper photographers. Journalists reported that at Sydney airport Helen boarded the plane clutching a doll and a pink handbag. She and her grandparents shielded their faces from the press photographers, while Dr Laszlo refused to make any comment, reminding the media throng that the matter was still before the courts. In Melbourne they sheltered behind closed doors from a fresh group of photographers, while an Ansett-ANA official collected their luggage and brought it to them, whereupon they disappeared into a waiting taxi.
On the day before Magda was due to embark on the Castel Felice, she told a journalist: ‘I’m not even sure that I’ll catch the boat. I’m too heart-broken about the children to talk. I have no plans for the future. I don’t know what I’m going to do.’
The following afternoon, Magda and Ross boarded the Castel Felice at Wharf 7 at Woolloomooloo. She declined to tell journalists whether she would continue the legal battle for the custody of Helen. To a journalist from the Telegraph she said she had not visited Bradley since he was transferred to Goulburn Gaol, but she had received several letters from him. She said that she had secured a job in London as a writer of television documentaries and that she would also help with the publication of a book she had written about her life.6
Once ensconced in her cabin on the ship, she gave an interview to a journalist from the Sydney Morning Herald. He reported:
Seated on a bunk smoking a cigarette, Mrs Bradley said she was leaving Australia because both she and her husband felt she would have a better chance to start life again in England. ‘I am broken-hearted at having to leave,’ she said. ‘I don’t know when I will be coming back. I’m going to London where I have a job arranged for me – writing commercial music for television. That’s my profession. Stephen, whom I last saw a few weeks ago, wants me to go.’ Magda Bradley said she believed that something would happen to prove her husband’s innocence.7
Another journalist reported quite differently:
When at last she opened her cabin door to reporters she said ‘I sincerely believe in my husband’s innocence.’ She said she would stay in London for about a year and work. Then she would return to Australia and wait for her husband – ‘no matter how long it takes’.8
The ship sailed at 5.30pm on 2 July. Having left Australia behind, Magda lost her determination to fight for Helen to join her. On 4 August 1961, Justice Jacobs made a consent order officially granting custody of Helen to Frank Laszlo and his wife until the child turned sixteen.
When Magda arrived with her younger son in London, she was heartbroken, emotionally devastated and completely impoverished.
After leaving Australia, Magda never saw Stephen again. In 1965, she divorced him. While there continued to be occasional conjecture in the newspapers that she must have had some involvement in the kidnapping, she was never charged and she always denied any knowledge of her husband’s vile plan.
* * *
The initial period of Stephen Bradley’s incarceration in the prison system was fraught with hostility and the constant threat of violence from other prisoners. News reports soon after his conviction mentioned that warders had heard through the prison grapevine that Bradley was a marked man, and that several ‘lifers’ and a number of men serving long sentences had vowed to get him at the first opportunity. As a result, the prison authorities kept Bradley in strict protective custody and allowed him little contact with other prisoners. In November 1961, the Sun newspaper reported:
Friends of prisoners say letters from the gaol suggest that Bradley has completely changed from the self-assured, slightly arrogant man, as he was when he first arrived at Goulburn. They say he has become withdrawn, and his pallid features reflect the wall of silence erected around him by other prisoners. Warders speak to him only when necessary – at the five daily musters when his number (46) is called, and he must salute and answer ‘sir’. Bradley is reported to be working in the prison tailor shop, ‘doing it hard’.
Eventually, however, Bradley’s congenial and engaging personality resulted in him becoming quite popular with both warders and fellow prisoners, although he had a reputation for telling tall stories when the truth would have readily sufficed. In Goulburn Gaol he was able to continue his work in the medical field by working as a prison hospital orderly.
Stephen Bradley’s life sentence turned out to be much shorter than anyone had expected. On 6 October 1968, eight years after his arrest, he was enjoying a game of tennis with other prisoners at Goulburn Gaol when he suddenly dropped to the ground motionless. He was immediately taken to the prison hospital; where life was pronounced extinct. He was forty-two years old. A post-mortem examination disclosed that he had died of a heart attack. He continued to the end of his life to maintain his innocence of the kidnapping and murder of Graeme Thorne, and he never disclosed any further details of how the boy had come to die. Nor did he ever express any regrets or sorrow for Graeme’s death or the hardships that the Thorne family had endured.
* * *
Police made recommendations for the government reward to be shared between: Douglas Palmer, Cecil and Dorothea Denmeade, Dorothy Lord, Hector and Eric Coughlin, David and Philip Wall and Theo Joseph (Christies Motors). It appears that no recognition was given to the information provided by the Telfords or Mr Browne. Detective Sergeant Ray Kelly’s astounding intuition was never given public recognition.
* * *
Shortly after the trial, Bazil and Freda wrote to the Commissioner of Police expressing their appreciation for the efforts of the police during the investigation and their gratitude for the care they had been shown:
With the closing of the case against the accused, Bradley, our thoughts go back over the past nine months to those who worked relentlessly and with neither normal rest or thought of reward, to bring our son back to us and when this was known to be impossible to pursue untiringly until justice was done …
We feel we must at this time mention two of your officers in particular, Detective Sergeant Dave Paul and Detective Constable Lloyd Noonan. As you are aware, either one or the other of these officers was in constant attendance at our flat at Bondi during the first six weeks from 7th July, 1960. Normally Mr Noonan would remain for six days continuously and then be relieved by Mr Paul on the seventh day. During our long and terrible ordeal, no small part was played by the aforementioned officers, and we have to mention Mr Noonan especially, in counselling us on our many hopes and wishes whilst doing all to sustain our morale. It was also mainly because of these officers that our daughter Belinda was kept from realising what was occurring at the time.9
If Bazil and Freda Thorne thought that the verdict would give them some closure and equanimity, they were sorely disappointed. While they were gratified at the verdict, and felt that justice had been convincingly done, the yawning chasm of grief for the loss of their beautiful son opened wider and deeper. Whereas they had previously been distracted by eagerly awaiting the next step – the arrest, the extradition, the Inquest, and then the trial – now they had nothing to divert them from the gaping hole in their lives and the agony of years ahead
without their son. It was only their other child, Belinda, who still needed her parents’ love and attention, who brought them back from the brink of utter despair. Everything in their lives that had previously given them joy was now tinged with sorrow. Even their memories of events that had occurred before Graeme’s death were overshadowed by an overlay of grief. For Belinda, the spirit of her deceased brother hung heavily over their home. As a child, she was unable to overcome feelings that she was not entitled to any happiness in her life when her parents were suffering so much, and even a sense of guilt for being alive when her beloved elder brother had been ‘lost’. Graeme’s murder cast an unrelenting pall over the lives of his parents and sister forever.
Soon after the trial, Bazil and Freda Thorne moved from their home at Bondi and eventually settled in Beresford Road, Rose Bay. As could be expected, they never got over the death of their son. Bazil passed away in 1978 aged 56 – his family insisting that he had died of a broken heart. Freda lived a long life, passing away in 2012 at the age of 86. Cheryl, still institutionalised, died in her fifties. Belinda, thankfully, has established an immediate family of her own.
* * *
One of the great ironies of this case is that by depriving Bazil and Freda Thorne of their son, Stephen Bradley ended up depriving his own daughter, Helen, of her father and the only mother she had ever known. All three of Stephen and Magda’s children faced the complex task of dealing with the loss of the family life they had known and the public opprobrium of their parents. Bradley’s crime cast a pall of unjustified shame by association over the lives of his child and stepchildren. Despite having no responsibility for his actions – legally or morally – his daughter and stepsons continued to grapple with a sense of familial dishonour, rather than seeing themselves as secondary victims, as they truly were.
In an interview with journalist Tom Prior in 1986, twenty-five years after the trial, Helen Bradley told him ‘I can’t remember my father clearly at all. I suppose I should. I was old enough to remember him, and Magda. My grandparents were very protective and discouraged questions about the past. It was their private sorrow. We didn’t talk about the past at all, but it was always there and caused a lot of unhappiness.’10
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