Authors: Matthew Condon
During the famously ineffective National Hotel inquiry into police misconduct in 1963 and 1964, the notorious prostitute and brothel madam Shirley Margaret Brifman was called by Justice Gibbs to give evidence. The appearance of the vivacious Brifman set the hearings alight – she appeared in court dressed in a stunning white frock and wore a hat. Brifman immediately went about perjuring herself, denying she was a working girl, although she had been paying off two members of the so-called Rat Pack – Tony Murphy and Glen Hallahan – since the late 1950s.
Twenty-three years later, brothel madam and prostitute Katherine James, 31, dressed in white and wearing a blonde wig, caused a similar sensation when she took the stand. A special wooden screen had been erected in front of the witness box to shield her identity. She went to and from the box guarded by police. James, who had been granted indemnity from prosecution, gave evidence before Tony Fitzgerald’s commission of inquiry on Wednesday 2 September, 1987. She told the inquiry that brothel owners Hector Hapeta and Anne Marie Tilley told her they paid police about $10,000 a month for protection.
James alleged that the former detective sergeant, Harry Burgess, usually picked up the money, and had earned the nickname ‘Harry the Bagman’. She fingered other police, telling the commission she had personally seen former deputy commissioner Syd Atkinson and former CIB chief Tony Murphy at an illegal game above Pinocchio’s Restaurant in the city, run by Gerry Bellino, in the early 1970s. ‘Sippy’ Atkinson, she alleged, was in there three to four times a week drinking and chatting to Bellino.
Lawyers for Atkinson and Murphy responded immediately, issuing a statement: ‘The accusations are completely false. They are denied and evidence will be brought before the commission in due course to demonstrate the falsity of these allegations.’
She also claimed in evidence that she’d had a sexual relationship with Bellino when she worked as a dealer at the game upstairs from Pinocchio’s. (Bellino denied having ever met James.) Sensationally, James added that it was ‘policy’ at Hapeta and Tilley brothels to give free sex to police. She herself had had sex with at least six police officers. Police showed no interest in making arrests or looking for drugs in the massage parlours, she said.
‘They’d come and see girls stoned off their heads … there was no interest at all,’ James told the inquiry.
In addition, as both a prostitute and brothel manager, James gave an insight into the immensity of the trade through the late 1970s and into the 1980s. Hapeta and Tilley, she calculated, were earning about $75,000 each week. In one of their brothels she managed in New Farm, James said, there were at least 300 to 400 regular clients a week.
The next day, James returned to the witness box and revealed that she had been threatened prior to making the decision to give her testimony before the commission. She said former Licensing Branch detective Neville Ross had visited her after the inquiry was announced and told her not to talk to investigators. If she did, her male partner would be ‘jeopardised’.
In addition, she said she had also been warned by escort agency operator Geoff Crocker, who she alleged had confronted her at the hotel where she worked in the city a week before she was due to give evidence. ‘He sat looking at me for ten or 15 minutes,’ James said. ‘Then he came up and ordered a meal.’ He asked her how she was and she replied – ‘fine’.
Then he allegedly said: ‘Enjoy it while you can, babe.’
Crocker, who was a regular attendee at the inquiry hearings, later denied he had made any threats. He told investigators he’d been having a drink and a meal at the Melbourne Hotel when he noticed that Katherine James was working behind the servery counter. ‘I didn’t even know she was going to be a witness, for God’s sake, until that day she opened her mouth behind the screen and I knew who she was straightaway …’
James went on to titillate the public gallery and the slew of legal eagles alike with stories of wild, gangster-themed parties and Melbourne Cup Day celebrations at Pinky’s brothel in Kangaroo Point, attended by several police.
It had been an extraordinary week at the inquiry. In its editorial, the
Sunday Mail
wasted no time in condemning the state’s force. ‘According to both witnesses this week, the police were virtually running the brothels with the syndicates, keeping out new competition … if this is the case – the evidence so far suggests it is – then the situation was allowed to develop by the Queensland Government’s curious morality.’
James also revealed why she had decided to blow the whistle – she wanted to highlight the exploitation of prostitutes. ‘I really think it’s time something was done not only about the managers but also the police involved,’ she declared.
Katherine James had been a star witness. There were more to follow.
You Will Dingo, Joh
Down at the southern end of George Street – a ten-minute walk from the District Courts Section of the Law Courts Building – the Bjelke-Petersen government was feeling the heat of the inquiry revelations in Parliament House.
The Opposition Justice Spokesman and member for Logan, Wayne Goss, zeroed in on the Premier during Questions On Notice on 10 September. Without referring to any specific allegations aired before Fitzgerald, Goss asked that in view of the cost of the inquiry – reportedly $2 million – was the Premier ‘prepared to give evidence … in relation to any policy discussions in which he had been involved, including a reported direction from him in 1978 that the Licensing squad have exclusive jurisdiction over massage parlours?’.
Goss also wanted to know if former police ministers who held their portfolios during the period of the inquiry’s terms of reference would also give evidence about such matters.
The Premier agreed that members of the legal profession were ‘making an awful lot of money out of this inquiry … The cost might be $3 million or $4 million at least,’ he said. ‘They are going to have a good time, including the honourable members and the members of his own profession. I guess that is the system.’
Goss pressed Sir Joh: ‘Are you giving evidence?’
‘Why don’t the members of the Opposition go there?’ the Premier retorted. ‘They would know a lot about massage parlours. They are all experts in that area.’
It was a facile response, but Bjelke-Petersen went on to champion the Queensland Police Force, despite the recent revelations of protection money paid to them and sex romps in Brisbane brothels. ‘In defence of the police force – it plays a very important part in the government of this state and in the activities of the community,’ Sir Joh said. ‘It consists of very respectable and good men. I support the work that the police carry out in very difficult circumstances.’
Goss did not let go. He urged the Premier to answer his question, then took another tack. ‘… is it fair to the public,’ Goss asked, ‘and in particular to the police force, that, whereas the police are compelled to undergo a difficult and embarrassing inquiry and to account for their actions over the last ten years, the Premier and ministers for police during the same period … have declined to answer for their acts or omissions in directing the police force?’
The Premier immediately obfuscated: ‘Everyone knows that the honourable member is trying to make capital out of nothing.’
‘You will dingo, Joh,’ barked the Deputy Opposition Leader Tom Burns. ‘You won’t go. You won’t go before the inquiry,’ Burns taunted.
‘I will have the honourable member in court,’ the Premier responded, ‘and he can say all that he likes then.’
But beneath the patient exterior, the Premier was deeply concerned at the revelations coming out of Courtroom 29. In his memoir,
Don't You Worry About That!
, Bjelke-Petersen admitted he was shocked when stories of widespread bribery and other corruption in the force began to emerge following the Fitzgerald Inquiry. He was forced to speculate on potentially how long it had been occurring and after acknowledging his own stint as police minister at one time, reflected on how the knowledge of any police corruption over the years had simply not come to the attention of any ministers over the years, ‘those wide-awake, highly responsible men’ who would surely have seized on any evidence if they had opportunity.
As he wrote in his memoir: ‘People have said to me, “How is it you didn’t know about it?” My answer has been that I did not live in the Police Department.
‘The police were never my sole responsibility.’
Parker Pressure
Following the evidence of former Licensing Branch officer Harry Burgess to the commission in relation to his own corruption and that of senior officers Graeme Parker and Noel Dwyer, Parker had fallen ill with a form of viral pneumonia and gone on leave. Many of his colleagues were deeply concerned for his health.
What nobody knew outside the Parker family, however, was that the Assistant Commissioner had gathered with his family on Father’s Day – 6 September – and told his seven children of his history of corruption. ‘I told them the complete story and what options were open to me,’ he later said.
His brother-in-law then telephoned counsel assisting the inquiry, Gary Crooke, to discuss indemnity for Parker. ‘After Burgess gave evidence, I came to realise that the matters had the opportunity of going further,’ Parker said. ‘I felt that I was involved. I felt that I was the target of the media. I had to consider my conscience. I had to consider the effect what I was going to say would have on my family.’ Parker knew there was a very real chance he might go to gaol for his crimes.
Commissioner Lewis’s personal assistant, Greg Early, recalls the period in his unpublished memoir. In his diary on Sunday 13 September, Early received a phone call at 7.45 a.m. from Police Union boss Senior Sergeant Col Chant ‘regarding AC Parker’. Early wrote in his diary: ‘Said Dr English had rung him and was very concerned. Said a lot of pressure was being put on Parker/his family to have him interviewed. An “Insp Powell” is involved … Mr Crooke and others have put Powell in charge of Parker’s safety and also a lot of pressure being put on him to retire and go and give Queen’s evidence. If he does it will implicate other senior police and members of the National Party … I said I had no knowledge but would try and find out simply that no harm was likely to be done to anyone.’
Early went out to Parker’s residence at Newmarket and found nobody home except one of Parker’s children, who directed him to a shop in Alderley. He eventually tracked down Parker’s wife who ‘volunteered that Graeme had spoken to Mr [Gary] Crooke [of the Commission of Inquiry] for four hours (may have been eight) the prev. week and she was concerned that he was not in a fit state to do this’. Early alleges Parker’s wife said her husband had double pneumonia and had gone close to a mental breakdown.
Lewis’s personal assistant then ‘Rang Col Chant and told him that things were in order and that no help needed. Did not tell him of contact with Mr Crooke.’ As was to be expected, Early made a decision to fully inform Commissioner Lewis about the situation. He went to Garfield Drive to speak with his boss. He writes: ‘My recollection is that I told … Sir Terence … about Parker having spoken to Gary Crooke and that Mrs Parker was going to see Crooke.’
In response, Lewis allegedly told Early, ‘The Minister will probably suspend me now.’
A naive Greg Early replied, ‘What would he want to do that for?’
Early wrote in his memoir: ‘I put in a report or a statutory declaration as to what he said particularly and at one stage, according to what Lewis told me at the Ferny Grove dump one day where we met up by accident, I was on the witness list to give evidence for the prosecution. At this “meeting” he referred to me having been taken off the witness list and that he was going to insist on me being put back on – not sure if for prosecution or defence.’
The pressure on both Parker and Lewis was building by the hour and the situation wasn’t helped by the appearance of Seregeant Colin William Maxwell Dillon before the inquiry the following week. Dillon, a Torres Strait islander, had joined the force in 1965. It was a career path he longed for.
Just before Christmas 1982, ‘Dirty Harry’ Burgess pulled Dillon aside as he was leaving the office and asked him if he’d like to make some easy money. All he had to do was turn a blind eye to certain activities in relation to brothels and prostitution.
Burgess retracted the offer a week later.
Then, closer to Christmas, Dillon went in to work and found in his locker a bottle of Chivas Regal Royal Salute whisky, packaged in a velvet drawstring pouch.
‘Did you get your Christmas present?’ Burgess later asked.
At the inquiry, Dillon produced the unopened bottle and it was tendered as an exhibit. On Thursday 17 September, he made an impassioned plea to his fellow officers: ‘I would like [other police] now, at this point in time in our policing history, to stand up, boldly step forward and speak out what they know of any crime or corruption within this state that is presently, and that has for a great number of years, eroded our great police force like a cancerous growth.
‘Do your part in helping to remove this cancer so that we can get on the road to restoring the good public image that we once had, and that we can restore the faith in the public we serve, and I ask, I implore, all members of the public, the decent members of the public, please do not write us off,’ said Dillon through tears. ‘We are there.’
Dillon received a round of applause from the public gallery.