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by Michael Duffy


  33 Winter, 1976 pp. 96–109 cited in Perkins, Working Girls, p. 134

  34 ‘Rents Doubled in Vice Area as Houses Close’, no byline, Sydney Morning Herald, p. 4, 31 May 1968

  35 Wright, Cards, Dice and Pennies, pp. 94–95

  36 Reeves, Real Freeman, pp. 22–23

  37 Shand, King of Thieves

  38 Royal Commission of Inquiry in respect of certain matters relating to allegations of organised crime in clubs (1973–74), (‘Moffitt Royal Commission’), transcript p. 925

  39 Clyde Paton, I Was a Prison Parson, Tempo Books, Dee Why West 1974

  40 Another example of how Brifman, like many others, was still toggling between the old imperial and the new decimal currency, five years after the latter had been introduced.

  41 Brifman transcript, Q43

  42 Brifman transcript, Q71

  43 ‘M.L.C. Denies Discussion on Killing Question’; Sydney Morning Herald, p. 8, 30 August 1968

  44 Alan Saffron, Gentle Satan, p. 47

  45 McNab, The Usual Suspect, p. 57

  46 For example, in Rae Frances’ Selling Sex, p. 259

  47 Keillor’s trial file, throughout

  48 ‘Prisoners Held in Borg Case Inquiry’, no byline, the Sydney Morning Herald, p. 9, 1 October 1968

  49 ‘Sydney Gambling Schools ‘Fold’ in Police Blitz; Sydney Morning Herald, p. 19, 9 July 1967

  50 Hall, Disorganized Crime, p. 41

  51 Hickie, The Prince and the Premier, p. 145

  52 Hall, Disorganized Crime, p. 42

  53 Hickie, The Prince and the Premier, p. 146

  54 Perkins in Shields, All Our Labours, p. 181

  55 Barbara Sullivan, The Politics of Sex: Prostitution and Pornography in Australia Since 1945, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1997, pp. 110–111. Sullivan gives a comprehensive overview of the Askin government’s attempts to quash prostitution.

  56 McCoy, Drug Traffic, p. 196

  57 ‘Arson – 7th House Burns in Vice War’, no byline, The Sun, 5 December 1968

  58 ‘MLA calls for Vice Inquiry’, no byline, Sun-Herald, p. 40, 2 June 1968

  59 Brifman transcript, Q176, 177

  60 Ibid., Q148, 150, 151

  61 McCoy, Drug Traffic, pp. 186–187

  62 Ibid., p. 198

  63 Lisa Oldmeadow, ‘Six Days to Live: American Servicemen in Australia on Rest and Recreation Leave During the Vietnam War’, thesis for the University of Sydney, 2003 p. 69

  64 Perkins, Working Girls, p. 137

  65 Hall, Disorganized Crime, p. 44

  66 Perkins, Working Girls, p. 131

  67 Richard Hall, Disorganized Crime, p. 44

  68 ‘$800 fine on US soldier on drug charge’, no byline, Sydney Morning Herald, p. 4, 12 December 1968

  1969 • THE VENUS OF THE REEF

  1 Condon, Three Crooked Kings, p. 180

  2 Brifman transcript, Q97

  3 ‘$5000 Call-Girl – Threats by Rich Clients’, no byline, Sunday Mirror, 15 June 1969

  4 Perkins, Working Girls, pp. 357–358

  5 ‘Ex-Sergeant Sobs Giving Evidence’, no byline, Sydney Morning Herald, p. 8, 22 August 1969; ‘Ex-sergeant’s dismissal appeal fails’; no byline, Sydney Morning Herald, p. 10, 30 August 1969

  6 Brifman transcript, Q72

  7 Ibid., Q75, 77

  8 Ibid., Q109

  9 Reeves, Freeman, pp. 42–43

  10 Bertram Wainer, It Isn’t Nice, Alpha Books, Sydney 1972, p. 104

  11 Ibid., p. 107

  12 Evan Whitton, Can of Worms II, Fairfax Library, Broadway 2007, p. 16

  13 Australian Crime Intelligence Centre memorandum on Abraham Gilbert Saffron; No. OC 76/1 of 17 May 1976

  14 ‘“Molotov cocktail” left in tavern’, Sydney Morning Herald, p. 5, June 23 1969

  15 McNab, The Usual Suspect, p 71

  16 Kwitny, Crimes, p. 64

  17 Stannard, ‘The Three-fingered Banker’

  18 Oldmeadow, ‘Six Days to Live’, p. 56

  19 Michael Fitzjames interview with author, 19 June 2015

  20 Ellis and Stacey, Kings Cross Sydney, p. 36

  21 Ibid.

  22 Quoted in Oldmeadow, ‘Six days to Live’, p. 48

  23 ‘R and R Centre’, Sydney Morning Herald, p. 4, 3 July 1969

  24 Brifman, transcript, Q97

  25 Ibid., Q351

  26 Ibid., Q352

  27 Bishop, The Most Dangerous Detective, loc. 2667

  28 Brifman transcript, Q352

  29 Reeves, Mr Big, p. 170

  30 Ibid., p. 170

  31 Freeman, George Freeman, p. 137

  32 Brifman transcript, Q109

  33 Ibid., Q77

  34 Ibid., Q327, 328

  35 ‘Sydney’s Richest Call-Girl’, no byline, Sunday Mirror, 8 August June 1969, pp. 1–2, Brifman gave her own account of the party in Q84

  36 Brifman transcript, Q84

  37 ‘Threats by Rich Clients’, no byline, Sunday Mirror, 15 June 1969

  38 ‘$200 Paid for Strip’, no byline, Sunday Mirror, 13 July 1969

  39 Brifman transcript, Q36

  40 ‘Rich Lovers Dumped – Gorgeous Playgirl Vanishes’, no byline, Sunday Mirror, 29 June 1969

  41 Brifman transcript, Q333

  42 Whisky staff member interview with author, August 2015

  43 Ibid.

  44 Bernard Delaney, Narc!: Inside the Australian Bureau of Narcotics, Angus & Robertson, Sydney 1979, p. 15

  45 ‘Two in US Forces gaoled on drug counts’, no byline, Sydney Morning Herald, 18 December 1969, p. 4

  46 Michael Fitzjames interview with author, 19 June 2015

  47 ‘Marianne to have a complete rest’, no byline, Sydney Morning Herald, 18 July 1969, p. 6

  48 On 8 July 1969

  49 Brifman transcript, Q97

  50 Ibid., Q234

  51 Ibid., Q236

  52 Ibid., Q111

  53 Ibid., Q285

  54 Darcy Dugan with Michael Tatlow, Bloodhouse, HarperCollins, Sydney 2012 55 Sydney Morning Herald , 18 May 1972

  56 Dugan, Bloodhouse, pp. 311–336

  57 Frances, Selling Sex, p. 261

  58 Ibid., p. 260

  59 Perkins, Working Girls, p. 182

  60 Moffitt Royal Commission transcript p. 1002

  61 Reeves, Mr Big, pp. 113–114

  62 Grabosky, Sydney in Ferment, pp. 30, 33

  63 Ibid., p. 143

  64 Police Department Annual Report 1966, p. 24

  65 Police Department Annual Report 1969, p. 8

  66 Hickie, The Prince and the Premier, p. 134

  67 ‘Oz Guide to the Sydney Underworld’ in Oz 1965

  68 Delaney, Narc!, p. 3

  69 Hall, Disorganized Crime, p. 43

  70 In Ian Fleming’s 1966 short story ‘The Living Daylights’, Bond takes Tuinal before shooting a KGB sniper. From Wikipedia

  71 Letter to the Editor from Dick Pollitt, Mosman, Sydney Morning Herald, p. 15, 20 September 2016

  72 Hickie, The Prince and the Premier, p. 123

  73 In targeting women, the manufacturers of phenacetin were replicating the demographics of an earlier drug epidemic; the widespread abuse of opium-based ‘patent’ medicines, available over-the-counter, in the second half of the 19th century. ‘Both the anecdotal and statistical evidence indicates that most American, British, and Australian addicts were middle-class women’; Alfred McCoy, The Politics of Heroin, Lawrence Hill Books, Chicago 2003, p. 8.

  74 McCoy, Drug Traffic, p. 43

  75 http://www.news.com.au/national/cancer-council-nsw-bex-powder-killed-more-than-pain/story-fncynjr2-1227041736061

  76 Brifman transcript, Q160

  1970 • RAKING IT IN

  1 Wood Royal Commission vol. 1, p. 67

  2 Ibid., p. 47

  3 Ibid., p. 51

  4 Ibid., p 53

  5 Delaney, Narc!, p. 137

  6 The police found out what had happened, traced the car and retrieved ‘their’ money. Writer, Bumper, p.
279.

  7 Delaney, Narc!, p. 12

  8 Ibid., p. 14

  9 The last person to speak to Fergusson, just before he shot himself in CIB headquarters, was Detective Sergeant Frank Charlton, who continually crops up in this narrative. To our minds this is less an indication of suspicious circumstances than another demonstration of how the Noir world was a very small one.

  10 NSW Coroner’s Court file: Inquest into the death of Donald Fergusson

  11 For example: ‘We have also been told by a senior officer of the Commonwealth Police Force that Leonard Arthur McPherson told him during a personal interview that Nielsen had been murdered and that “the person responsible for it was the same person who killed Superintendent Don Fergusson”. The Commonwealth policeman confirmed to me that this was a direct reference to former Detective-Sergeant Fred Krahe …’ Tony Reeves quoted in Hickie, The Prince and the Premier, p. 283; see also Evan Whitton at http://justinianarchive.com/1002-article

  12 Hickie, The Prince and the Premier, p. 293

  13 Reeves, George Freeman, p. 18

  14 ‘CIB Chief Killed Himself’, no byline, Sydney Morning Herald, 9 April 1970

  15 Hickie, The Prince and the Premier, p. 293

  16 Whitton, Can of Worms II, p. 16

  17 Wainer, It Isn’t Nice, p. 113

  18 The account of the episode comes from ‘White Slave Racket – Sydney Girls Sold’, no byline, Sunday Mirror, pp. 1–2, 1 March 1970

  19 Brifman transcript, Q70

  20 Ibid., Q 264, 180

  21 Condon, Three Crooked Kings, p. 226

  22 Canberra Times, 10 March 1970

  23 James Morton and Susanna Lobez, Dangerous To Know, Melbourne University Press, Carlton 2009

  24 Bishop, The Most Dangerous Detective, loc. 2755

  25 The date of March comes from the charges against Sonny Brifman: ‘Man, Wife, “Alleged Corruption of Police”’, no byline, Canberra Times, p. 9, 18 March 1972; see also Condon, Three Crooked Kings, p. 226

  26 Bishop, The Most Dangerous Detective, loc. 2755 forward

  27 Brifman transcript, Q111

  28 Ibid., Q152

  29 Ibid., Q180

  30 Ibid., Q154

  31 Ibid., Q111

  32 The Venus Room: Reeves, Mr Sin, p. 76. The teenage runaway: Roberta Perkins, Working Girls, p. 325. Teenage boys: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-12/bobby-veen-one-of-australias-longest-serving-prisoner/7115350

  33 Brifman transcript, Q111

  34 Ibid., Q98

  35 Ibid., Q84

  36 Ibid., Q113

  37 Mary Anne Brifman quoted in Bishop, The Most Dangerous Detective, loc. 2780

  38 Condon, Three Crooked Kings, p. 226

  39 Delaney, Narc!, p. v

  40 Ibid., pp. 54–71

  41 Ibid., pp. 30–31

  42 Ibid., pp. 21–29

  43 McCoy, Drug Traffic, p. 203

  44 ‘Raid on Club – 64 fined’, no byline, Sydney Morning Herald, p. 10, 19 May 1970

  45 McCoy, Drug Traffic, p. 203

  46 Ibid., p. 203

  47 Hickie, The Prince and The Premier, p. 42

  48 Author’s interview with family member of Harry Paizis, 2016

  49 McNab, The Usual Suspect, p. 101

  50 Ibid., p. 115

  51 Ibid., p. 115

  52 ‘Court Told Dead Man a Criminal’, no byline, Sydney Morning Herald, p. 8, 24 June 1970

  53 Sydney Morning Herald, 10 June 1970

  54 Police Department Annual Report 1969, p. 17

  55 Loughnan, Askin, p. 245

  56 Police Department Annual Report 1970, p. 18

  57 Ibid.

  58 Loughnan, Askin, pp. 245–253

  59 Shand, King of Thieves, p. 117

  60 Reeves, Mr Big, p. 118

  61 Ibid., p. 142 but not specific about date

  62 Ibid., p. 152; Moffitt transcript pp. 995–6

  63 Hall, Disorganized Crime, p. 44

  64 Ellis and Stacey, Kings Cross Sydney, p. 66

  65 Dale Richards interview with author 15 April 2015

  66 Michael Fitzjames interview with author 19 June 2015

  67 Burton interview with authors 20 June 2015

  68 Police Annual Report 1970, p. 10

  69 Arantz, Collusion, p. 64

  70 Brifman transcript, Q349

  71 Mary Anne Brifman quoted in Bishop, The Most Dangerous Detective, loc. 3004

  72 Ibid., loc. 2767

  73 James Cunningham, ‘ ’Loo “Queen” dies’, Sydney Morning Herald, p. 18, 25 November 1970

  74 Jenkings, As Crime Goes By, p. 135

  75 Ellis and Stacey, Kings Cross Sydney, p. 36

  76 Our thanks to Louis Nowra’s fine book, Kings Cross: A Biography, UNSW Press, Kensington 2013, pp. 485–6 for alerting us to this tragic incident

  77 Ellis and Stacey, Kings Cross Sydney, p. 56

  78 The account of the murder, investigation and trial comes from Regina vs. Gary Neil Porth, Central Criminal Court of NSW, May 1971

  79 A day later, another record of interview with Smith would be attested by Detective Sergeant ‘Crest’, who had, according to Shirley Brifman, been receiving $100 a week from her until six months earlier.

  80 Frances, Selling Sex, p. 2

  81 ‘Soldier Gaoled for Killing Prostitute’, no byline, Sydney Morning Herald, p. 11, 15 May 1971

  1971 • READING PADDY’S BOOK

  1 McCoy, Drug Traffic, p. 234

  2 Australian Dictionary of Biography, website: Askin, Sir Robert William

  3 Evan Whitton, Can of Worms II, p. 292

  4 Brifman transcript, Q352

  5 Freeman, George Freeman, p. 142

  6 Brifman transcript, Q86

  7 Ibid., Q86

  8 Ibid., Q362

  9 Transcript of trial of Reg Varley 1973, pp. 1385–6, 1404–8, sentencing comments

  10 Bob Bottom, Without Fear or Favour, Sun Books, South Melbourne 1984, p. 27

  11 ‘Crims Grab Clubs’, Sunday Telegraph, 25 July 1971

  12 McCoy, Drug Traffic, pp. 215–216

  13 ‘Crims Grab Clubs’, Sunday Telegraph, 25 July 1971

  14 Moffitt transcript, p. 777

  15 ‘The Tivoli is Alive and Well: Sydney’s Booming Club Scene’ by Kevin Kemp, National Times, 22 May 1972

  16 Moffitt Report, p. 77

  17 Arantz, Collusion, p. 25

  18 Moffitt Report, p. 5

  19 Police Department Annual Report 1970, pp. 9, 24

  20 Brifman transcript, Q86

  21 Ibid., Q84

  22 Jenkings, As Crime Goes By, pp. 155–156

  23 Bishop, The Most Dangerous Detective, loc. 149

  24 Condon, Three Crooked Kings, pp. 252, 254

  25 Bishop, The Most Dangerous Detective loc. 3157; Condon, Three Crooked Kings, p. 253

  26 Brifman transcript, Q334

  27 Condon, Three Crooked Kings, p. 256

  28 Morton and Lobez, Gangland Sydney, Ch. 8

  29 Duncan McNab, Waterfront: Graft, Corruption and Violence – Australia’s Crime Frontier from 1788 to Now, Hachette Australia, Sydney 2015, Ch. 29

  30 ‘Opioid overdose mortality rate among people aged 15–44 years in Australia 1965– 1997, deaths per million population’. From a 2005 paper by Dr John Jiggens of the Queensland University of Technology. http://eprints.qut.edu.au/3442/1/3442.pdf

  31 McCoy, Drug Traffic, p. 268

  32 Ibid., p. 260, Hall, Disorganized Crime, p. 44 and Frances, Selling Sex, p. 260 all give 1966 as the beginning of R&R in Sydney

  33 Published in the Annual of the Australian American Association, August 1976 – cited by Oldmeadow, ‘Six Days to Live’, p. 2; Ellis and Stacey, Kings Cross Sydney, p. 29 have ‘225,000 up to June 1971’. If both figures are correct, this would have the rate of R&R arrivals increasing by 30 per cent in the last six months of 1971 – a time when in fact the program was winding down.

  34 ‘about 300,000: by dictionaryofsydney.org and the ABC http://www.abc.net.au/archive
s/80days/stories/2012/01/19/3411498.htm; ‘more than 300,000’ Tony Reeves in Mr Sin, p. 99

  35 Hall, Disorganized Crime, p. 44

  36 Sydney Morning Herald, 7 December 1971

  1972 • AN END AND A BEGINNING

  1 Reading, High Climbers, pp. 23–24

  2 Ibid., p. 10

  3 Transcript of trial of Reg Varley in 1973, pp. 1404–5, sentencing comments

  4 Reading, High Climbers, p. 64

  5 Kwitny, The Crimes of Patriots, p. 64

  6 Hickie, The Prince and the Premier, p. 284

  7 Jenkings, As Crime Goes By, p. 156

  8 Bishop, The Most Dangerous Detective, p. 33

  9 Ibid., p. 169

  10 Condon, Three Crooked Kings, pp. 278–284

  11 ‘Daughter’s desperate mission to solve one of Brisbane underworld’s darkest mysteries’, by Matthew Condon, Courier Mail, 13 April 2015

  12 ‘Girl, 13, was in brothel’; Canberra Times, p. 9, 27 September 1972

  13 Bishop, The Most Dangerous Detective, p. 187

  14 Police Department Annual Report 1971, p. 5

  15 Police Department Annual Report 1972 (signed April 1973), p. 5

  16 Phil Dickie, The Road to Fitzgerald and Beyond, Queensland University Press, St Lucia 1988, p. 27

  17 Whitton, Can of Worms II, p. 17

  18 Sydney Morning Herald, 18 May 1972

  19 Jenkings, As Crime Goes By, p. 157

  20 Freeman, George Freeman, p. 141

  21 Hickie, The Prince and the Premier, pp. 283–284

  22 Richard Dixon, interview with author, March 2015 23 Moffitt Report, p. 135

  24 Moffitt Transcript, p. 1218; Moffitt Report, p. 102 25 Moffitt Report, p. 86; Moffitt Transcript, p. 55–56 26 Moffitt Transcript, p. 69

  27 Karl Bonnette interview with author, April 2010

  28 NSW Police Department Annual Report 1972, p. 7 29 McCoy, Drug Traffic, p. 314

  30 Moffitt Report, p. 24

  31 Ibid., p. 79

  32 Reading, High Climbers, p. 118

  33 Moffitt Report, p. 25

  34 Ibid., p. 38

  35 Brifman, transcript, Q73

  36 Perkins, Working Girls, p. 302

  37 Brifman transcript, Q129

  38 Ibid., Q260

  39 Ibid., Q224

  AN OPEN QUESTION: WAS ROBERT ASKIN CORRUPT?

  1 David Hickie, National Times, 13 September 1981, ‘Askin: Friend to Organised Crime’, pp. 1, 8

  2 Ibid.

  3 Hickie, The Prince and the Premier, p. 59

  4 Ibid., p. 65

  5 Ibid, p. 60

  6 Loughnan, Askin, pp. 320–322

 

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