by Adrian Tame
As he pushes past The Enforcer on his way back into the house he hands him the empty gun. ‘Get rid of this!’ He’s gone, through the front door and down a few houses to number 45, another in the row of cottages he owns. The Enforcer stops to hide the Browning before following. But Dennis is already on his way back. Only this time, to The Enforcer’s mounting panic, he’s carrying a fully automatic SLR .308. As Dennis jams a twenty-round box magazine into the weapon and heads back out into the yard, The Enforcer’s head suddenly clears. Jesus, he means it, he’s really going to do it.
Out in the yard Dennis has lost it completely. Foam and spittle collect at the corner of his mouth as he screams at the chopper: ‘You cunts are fucking gone, I’ll blow you out of the sky!’ The .308 is at his shoulder and although the chopper is drowning the sound of its retort, The Enforcer knows it’s blazing away. He leaps for the gun and tries to wrestle it from Dennis, but he breaks free, spins around and points it upward again, firing off another burst, this time from the hip. The two men grapple again and go crashing to the ground, Dennis still holding the SLR. This is the only chance The Enforcer will get: his face a few inches from the raw madness of Dennis’s range, he screams at him above the roar of the chopper. ‘If you shoot the fuckers out the sky, the fucking chopper’s going to come down right on top of us!’
Dennis stops struggling and looks momentarily pole-axed. Then a grin breaks across his face. ‘You’re fucking right. The cunts’d do that.’
Kathy provides her own vivid description of Dennis’s life in Richmond at this time.
One day I went round around nine in the morning and he’s rocking on his feet. He hadn’t had any sleep for days, right? There’s a little girl about two, right, and he told me to put a pea on her head. It was an imaginary pea. And he’s weaving with the gun. And the mother of the child hid herself in the bedroom and didn’t give a fuck what he did to her kid, right? And he’s pointing this gun at the kid’s head, a little girl. I said: ‘Agh, put it away and stop acting like a fucking idiot,’ and moved the child. Because I didn’t want him to kill her. I don’t know if he would have, I can’t read his mind. But Leanne, the mother . . .if that had been my child I would have picked her up and gone into the room, or got out somehow. That’s how much I loved my children, and that’s how much Leanne loved her heroin. She would have let him do it. Later on she was found dead in St Kilda. Dennis was on with her, right while he was still with Sissy, his wife. Well, he goes to bring Leanne into 86 Chestnut Street, thinking that Sissy’s not home. And Sissy is. Sissy stabs her. Nearly kills her. Now Dennis had towels and stuff on her and races her to the hospital. She was only about twenty, twenty-one, I suppose. Nice-looking girl. And they saved her life, the doctors. I’d say two weeks bloody later, she’s down trying to score again, and she had this massive scar. But I don’t think Sissy did any time over this because nobody gives anyone up.I
Now let me tell you one other thing. There was a lot of girls came there in the ‘80s. They’d just go and get in his bed, and this pair of sisters went and got in his bed, junkies. He said to me: ‘Get ’em out of me bed.’ He was outside and they were waiting for him to go in, right? So it was like taking a raffle ticket. And I said to the two girls: ‘It’s not your turn tonight, get out of bed.’ To sleep with him they knew they’d get as much heroin as they wanted. But the minute they’d start to say, ‘We’ll get curtains for this window,’ and that, he’d give ’em the arse.
Welcome to Dennis’s world. A world where police helicopters and small children are used for target practice, where unlimited money, women, guns, booze and drugs are as easily attainable as a carton of milk, where torture and meat cleavers are a source of entertainment, where bent policemen can be paid off when things get a little hot. A world where barristers, priests, sportsmen and rock stars wander in and out. Anything goes. Absolutely anything. Just name it and it’s yours. Even someone else’s life.
But it wasn’t always like that. Kathy remembers the first murder as the worst one. They say lying to your marital partner after the first infidelity is the hardest. The next time it gets a little easier, and by the fifth or sixth time, the words just trip off your tongue—there’s nothing to it. That’s how it was for Dennis with murder. No sweat, once he just got used to it.
At its height the Richmond era resembled a bizarre form of medieval fiefdom, with the family holding absolute sway over the narrow back streets branching out from the railway line. Eventually Dennis’s behaviour, and to a lesser extent that of the rest of the family, became so flagrant that the police were forced to mount a concentrated attack over the shootings, murders, bombings and open drug dealing. It was conducted, somewhat cruelly, under the name Operation Cyclops, after Kathy’s one eye—possibly also an indication of the force’s view of her dominating role.
Cyclops began in July 1984, and almost immediately roof-top surveillance was maintained over the area, sixteen hours a day. A hiccup in September saw the operation suspended for a week for reasons of internal policy, but it was up and running again by the middle of the month.
At its peak of activity raids on the various properties and The Cherry Tree Hotel, from where Dennis was openly dealing heroin, were coming as frequently as four times a week. The family responded by moving operations from one house to another and eventually dealing only late at night, in their efforts to avoid capture.
Over the seven months of the operation more than twenty raids were carried out and nine family members and close associates were charged with more than forty counts involving heroin and more than thirty involving firearms. Drugs with a street value of over $1 million were seized, together with more than twenty fire-arms of various descriptions. An additional twenty people not directly connected with the family were also charged with a series of offences.
* * *
It all began when Dennis was released from Pentridge early in July 1982, after serving a sentence for a breach of parole. Kathy was living in the rented house at 106 Stephenson Street and operated The Gaslight massage parlour next door at 108. By now her standing in the underworld was relatively assured. ‘I knew the A to Z of crims, Dennis only knew the B to Y,’ she says.
She had paid a deposit of just $20 on the parlour premises, partly because a high profile criminal had blown it up with a half stick of gelignite, and the front section was in ruins.
I borrowed the rest of the money from a loan place. I ran it and I used to be mistress of discipline. One detective told me recently: ‘I can remember the time Jamie got arrested and we had him up at the Northcote jack shop. A customer came in to your parlour early in the morning and you gave him the best flogging for eighty bucks, then you came to the station and you were as calm as anything to Jamie.’
I didn’t have to dress up in leather or anything like that— they didn’t care about that. I could make them walk around with the dog’s collars on. I had a bloke dress up in my high heels, he was a little bloke, brushed mo’, wanted to be a French maid. I made him clean with the toothbrush, right? My girlfriend couldn’t stop cracking up. She’d be sitting at the table watching. A stinking hot day. He said: ‘Could I have a drink?’ I said: ‘Who told you to speak? Get on with your work.’ I gave him a thimble in the end. She had to run out she was laughing that much. That was $80 a half-hour.
There was one man there was sick, sick. This girl came out of the room and her face was like this, white as your shirt, and she said to me: ‘He wants me to cut his balls out.’ She said: ‘I don’t mind doing it but I don’t want to do the ten years for manslaughter.’ He was a very sick man. You know what he used to do? The very worst things you could think of, the better he paid you. So I used to tie his thing to the door with a shoe lace, and I’d slam the door and go and have a cigarette. Then I’d go in and say: ‘Are you all right?’ and slam the door again. Well he’d want needles put up the eye of his thing and that, and then he got sicker and sicker and wanted young girls. Blokes used to come in with their own pegs to put on their nipple
s and that.
And then another day there was a mother out the front, and the father, they were Turks. Now she’s got the money in a hanky. So she sends her son in, pays at the door, and I give him to the girl, right, and the mother’s out there crying. Must be their custom. Losing his virginity.
I went into the parlour one day and there was baby food on the kitchen table. I said: ‘Who’s brought a baby in?’ The girl went: ‘Sssshhh,’ and I go in there, and here’s a bloke with a bib on, and a nappy, and she’s feeding him baby food. This is about ten o’clock in the morning.
Perversions apart, Kathy was also receiving a crash course in drug abuse.
It was at 106 Stephenson Street that I saw Dennis with a belt around his arm for the first time. I said: ‘That doesn’t want to be heroin, Dennis.’ That was when he told me about speed.
Using heroin was something Kathy never wanted to see Dennis do. Selling it was another matter. The first time she realised how a bag of pure heroin could be ‘stepped on’ (diluted) was the first time she understood its financial potential. When Dennis started to realise that potential he was on the way to the incredible sums of money it later generated for him.
He was just out of gaol and we were in this hotel in Newmarket. I drove him. And he met a bloke. He handed Dennis a plastic bag and it was on the nod. Six grand it was, about an ounce. You can triple that. It was uncut. I was devastated. I said ‘You’re not going to take that, are you?’ That was the first time.
When I saw him putting on this little belt . . . every junkie then wore them. They were a little slim belt with two little buckles, and they hooked on their jeans and the idea was you put it round and you made a tourniquet. The girls in the parlour did, or any junkie. It was the go, but I didn’t know this. Later he had his dressing gown sash all the time. But that was for speed.
Police have estimated Dennis’s income from heroin during the mid-1980s at anything between $30,000 and $70,000 a week. Kathy’s estimate is much higher. On a good day up to a hundred addicts scored from Dennis, most of them spending between $50 and $100. Apart from that, he was selling to other dealers. This meant much larger amounts and much larger sums of money. It is not difficult to understand how the term ‘drug lord’ originated.
Kathy’s attitude to the morality of heroin dealing changed drastically during this period. One of her most painful memories involves the addiction of Victor Gouroff, a prominent armed robber who became close to the family—with fatal results.
One day Victor came to the parlour door in Stephenson Street. And he used to be a grouse armed robber, before he became a heroin dealer. I think he did the Board of Works robbery in East Brunswick, I think it was. He was known as one of the real hard men. Well, I’d seen Victor a proud man, right? Well, he come to the parlour door and he was crying for heroin. And he took off his great big overcoat, and I think he got a cap of smack for it. I went home and I cried all night to see a man go so low. And I said to Jamie: ‘What sort of world is it coming to when men like him have got to cry for it?’ Jamie said: ‘I don’t give a fuck, I’ve got the coat.’ ‘Cos Jamie was young, and Victor had had his day.
None of the real crims ever touched the shit. My Peter was only on speed, but I don’t think he ever injected it. And poor old Lex has only ever been on the smoke [marijuana]. Trevor was a heroin addict. I didn’t know, I’m always the last to know. But he did eight months at Odyssey [House, the drug rehabilitation centre], for that.
Rescue attempts after friends or customers had overdosed were another regular occurrence. Kathy thinks Dermis may have been responsible for the deaths from overdose of up to six addicts as a result of one incident alone. There had been a mix-up between Dennis and one of his soldiers, both believing the other had cut (diluted) a bag of heroin. In fact neither had, and when the pure heroin hit the streets the results were instant and, for a number of users, fatal.
Now this bloke, John, he nearly died on the floor. I rang Dennis, and if Dennis didn’t want to save them, he’d say: ‘I’m having a shit.’ I worked on that man for three hours, ‘cos my conscience wouldn’t let him die. I worked and worked on him, I injected alcohol into his neck, I injected speed into his neck, which I’d seen Dennis do. At least he’s alive. When I like somebody I go all out. But then he stole all the Christmas presents. I worked for five years to get people off heroin. I used to drive them to the Austin Hospital. I put them up, they robbed me, they shot up Vegemite under me bed, they did everything to me. And in the end I said: ‘Well, fuck this.’ And I’ve got the worst tolerance for addicts, I don’t feel sorry for any of ’em any more.
Banking the takings was another occupational hazard.
You know how that Victor Gouroff was supposed to be afraid of Dennis? Him and Johnny ________? I’ve got a photo of the Jaguar that Dennis bought for Johnny. Well, this time I’m going up to the bank with Dennis’s money to put it in the night safe. And something told me not to go under the railway tunnel. So I went the long way round. And, fuck me dead, I looked down the street to the tunnel, and there’s the two of them waiting to rob me. And I kept that in me mind, and they were Dennis’s friends. But when Dennis started with the heroin business, they were robbing him right, left and centre.
At a later court hearing evidence was heard that Dennis had bought heroin from a person called Alan Williams, allegedly a drug dealer. The pair had met in Pentridge where Dennis was serving his sentence for the Sandringham rape. Williams has become a significant figure in Australian criminal history because of his association with people like hit man Christopher Dale Flannery (known as ‘Mr Rentokil’ for his involvement in an estimated fourteen murders), Sydney crime boss Neddy Smith and disgraced New South Wales police officer Roger Rogerson. The ABC’s excellent two-part TV series Blue Murder, first aired in September 1995 in all States except New South Wales, where it was principally set, deals with the story of these men and their relationship with undercover policeman Michael Drury. Dennis’s close connections with Williams, and later his more distant dealings with Rogerson, made him a bit player in the saga.
Playing a much more important role in Rogerson’s eventual downfall was a woman who, for legal reasons, will be referred to here as ‘Miss X’ (She is currently in a witness protection scheme). She claimed to be a girlfriend and close associate of Dennis, but Kathy emphatically denies this, saying the pair never met—’She saw him once through the peephole of a door and said he was a good sort, but they never even spoke.’
Miss X was a useful source of information to police, providing the evidence that produced the only conviction recorded against Rogerson. The same ‘Miss X’ testified that she saw Dennis commit a murder in the street in broad daylight . . . and in the company of a detective.
The Williams-Rogerson-Flannery affair began with an aborted drug bust in a Sydney hotel car park in March 1982. Michael Drury, working undercover, was set to pay Williams $110,000 for a package of heroin. But at the last moment Williams’s instincts told him the deal was a set-up, and he took off in his car, though not before being recognised by Drury. Arrested later and charged with trafficking heroin, Williams was quick to realise that all chances of a conviction rested on Drury’s identification of him in the car park. Williams had an almost pathological fear of returning to prison, and was prepared to go to any lengths to keep Drury from testifying against him. Initially he tried bribery, allegedly using Rogerson as go-between. (Williams later admitted attempting to bribe Drury, but Rogerson was acquitted on the same charge.)
Drury rejected all advances in this direction so murder became the inevitable option. At a meeting between Flannery and Williams, at which Rogerson was also allegedly present, Flannery agreed to murder him, reputedly for $100,000. A later court hearing was told that Rogerson received $50,000 of this fee. Unusually for him, Flannery botched the attempt. In June 1984 he shot Drury through the window of his Chatswood home in Sydney, critically wounding him.
Drury recovered, however, and alleged that Rogerson had offer
ed him a bribe, sparking an internal inquiry which resulted in charges being laid against Rogerson of not only attempting to bribe Drury but conspiring to have him killed. Rogerson was acquitted but later convicted on a third count, involving none other than Dennis Allen and Miss X.
The story in this case alleged Dennis sent Miss X to Sydney Airport on 14 May 1985 with more than $100,000 in cash. As Kathy points out, there is one very good reason why this is unlikely— her son Jamie died of a drug overdose on that date and the whole family, including Dennis, were far too traumatised to be considering long-distance drug deals with rogue police officers.
According to Miss X, when she was thirty-one she was deeply into drug and firearms dealing with Dennis. She was also supporting a heroin habit costing her between $100 and $200 a day. The sequence of events in 1985 surrounding her trip to Sydney, makes interesting reading:
9 May: Flannery leaves home at 8.15 a.m. with a false passport, a wig and binoculars, to keep an appointment with his boss, Sydney crime czar George Freeman. He is never seen again.
14 May: (Miss X’s version) Dennis instructed her to meet Rogerson at Sydney Airport, giving her a black travel bag containing $100,000, and two airline tickets, to and from Sydney, under different names. She arrives in Sydney at 11.30 a.m. and finds Rogerson in the terminal close to the women’s toilets. ‘He sort of said: “G’day”, threw the bag at me, and ripped the other one [containing the $100,000] off me and ran away,’ she later tells a court in Sydney. The bag Rogerson threw at her contained clothing, books and ‘plastic sandwich bags’ of heroin weighing around a kilo. She flies back to Melbourne, where the heroin is collected from her, and the next evening an envelope containing $7,000 is placed in her letter box.
