Authors: Matthew Condon
Former premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen commented on Lane’s death, painting his former transport minister as a victim: ‘… a minister takes his family out for dinner over the many years he was a minister and he goes to jail for it and, boy oh boy, talk about a one-sided, lopsided sort of system of justice,’ Bjelke-Petersen said. He added, ‘It had a very big effect on Don. He took that very, very hard.’
Lane’s death may have spooked Lewis. While he claims that they never shared a close friendship, the late minister had certainly been a beneficial contact within Cabinet.
Then on Friday 28 April, Lewis heard the news he had not wanted to hear. He had lost his legal battle for his $1.4 million superannuation payout. Supreme Court Justice Brian Ambrose ruled that Lewis was not entitled to any of the money being held in trust, and ordered that he pay the Crown’s costs.
‘Hazel phoned. Rick Whitton advised her that all of my superannuation was forfeited. Nothing whatsoever allocated to Hazel,’ he wrote. He felt acutely for his wife, and again questioned the existence or not of ‘a loving and caring God’.
A week after that shock, Lewis, having had time to settle down and think, began to revise yet again the history that had delivered him into prison, and poverty. He wrote long screeds in his diary about the political ambitions of former deputy premier Bill Gunn being the catalyst for this entire ‘macabre tragedy’. Lewis now believed that it was Gunn who had wanted him ‘destroyed’. His broadening conspiracy also had Gunn, using his power as acting premier when Sir Joh was out of the country, to specifically appoint Fitzgerald to head a committee of inquiry. In addition, Lewis suspiciously queried the friendship between Gunn and his own former deputy, Ron Redmond.
Lewis held the greatest contempt for the ‘prostitutes of the legal profession’. He wrote that they would do anything for money, ignored the traditional legal custom of impartiality and then manipulated the commission by encouraging the giving of evidence of hearsay, rumour, gossip, innuendo and blatant perjury. The media was also thrown into the mix, which he believed had been manipulated against him. It was an extraordinary conspiracy that Lewis had outlined.
To cap it all off, just days later he was again visited by Murphy who told him that he and his wife were off to Europe but were flying ‘stand-by’ because it was cheaper.
On Tuesday 27 June, Lewis received the news that a former officer he’d worked with in the 1950s, Syd Currie, had died. Currie used to prowl the city hotels looking for prostitutes. One he often came across was his own cousin, Shirley Margaret Brifman.
Then on Saturday 15 July, Lewis learned that his appeal lawyer, the flamboyant Shane Herbert, had died in intensive care at the Wesley Hospital from complications following a car crash. Lewis wrote of the news: ‘Death of Shane Herbert, QC, apparent victim of drug overuse. He has no more worries or depression and world will soon forget him.’
It was also state election day, and while the renewed Coalition fought hard for an eight-seat swing, Labor under Wayne Goss triumphed with a majority of one seat.
Then on Sunday 13 August, Lewis got a message that the irascible Gunther Bahnemann, the ‘crazed gunman’ of Lota who, in the late 1950s, had been apprehended by Lewis and Glen Hallahan and charged with attempted murder, had passed away. Bahnemann had always protested his innocence, and claimed he had been verballed by police. But out of that incident, both Lewis and Hallahan were awarded the police force’s highest honour for bravery, the George Medal.
Now the old soldier, who had fought for Rommel in World War II, was gone. The
Courier-Mail
reported: ‘Few turned up to bid a hero farewell. Just 25 family members clustered in a tiny Cairns crematorium to say goodbye to a man who leaves behind a life story that reads like a movie script.’
The accumulation of deaths had an impact on Lewis. He wrote in his diary that he had begun to feel old. He complained that there was not enough work to keep him occupied. To compound his woes, Hazel was unwell, and he was helpless to relieve her worry and tension.
Age was also catching up with Tony Murphy. He was due for an operation on his eye. Still, Murphy indicated to Lewis he was hoping to be granted a meeting with Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, to discuss Lewis’s imprisonment. A few months earlier, the former premier told the press that Lewis was ‘only found to be corrupt’, and that many people had committed worse crimes and been given far lesser sentences.
‘Well I think they’ve been very tough on Terry Lewis, there’s no doubt about it,’ Bjelke-Petersen said. ‘I guess the judge has his reasons for it but you can go and knock somebody on the head, you can stab them in the stomach and you’ll only get a fraction of the penalty that they’ve given Lewis, 14 years, and then taking his superannuation from him.’
Lewis’s old mate, criminologist Paul Wilson, also came into bat for him. ‘I’ve talked to him by telephone on several occasions and despite what has happened to him he still expresses what I believe to be a genuine desire to serve the community in some meaningful capacity,’ Wilson said.
The press began to speculate that Lewis was behind some sort of media campaign to see him released early from prison. One columnist in the
Courier-Mail
condemned him. ‘Lewis turned himself into a rich man, not by hard work or particularly smart investments – but by being on the take while holding one of the highest positions of trust in the state,’ the column said. ‘He rewarded himself with a jetsetter’s lifestyle. There’s no evidence he put one cent of his take – which came from grubby gambling and protection for underworld scum – into anything more noble than his own pretentious desires.’
Police and Corrective Services Minister Paul Braddy attacked the apparent campaign to accelerate steps towards Lewis’s release from prison. ‘He has not served sufficient time to be eligible for consideration for such favourable treatment as a transfer to a community corrections hostel in Brisbane,’ Braddy said emphatically.
Indeed, Lewis was directed in no uncertain terms by the Minister and corrections chief that, as he recorded in his diary: ‘You are not to go public with the media. Not to speak to [journalists]. You will be in breach of regulations if you do and action will be taken against you. You can still speak to your family or friends who telephone you.’
Meanwhile, in early December, the Court of Disputed Returns threw out the election result in the seat of Mundingburra – it had been won by Labor’s Ken Davies. It revealed that 22 overseas military personnel had been denied the opportunity to vote, and called for a by-election. The days inched along, and Lewis dreamed of being in a gun duel with Jack Herbert.
Hope
In early 1996, Terry Lewis, prisoner of Palen Creek, began sharpening his old political lobbying skills as the state by-election for the seat of Mundingburra approached. His diaries revealed that, with the help of Tony Murphy, he was attempting to reach out to former premier Bjelke-Petersen, and Nationals like Russell Cooper and the member for Toowong, Denver Beanland. Late the previous year, Murphy told Lewis he had made contact with Bjelke-Petersen and had left a message for Cooper. To date, he had yet to hear from the MP.
What did he hope to achieve? Could he sense a return to power of the Nationals? And if so, could his allegiance to the Nationals give his cause some future leverage and maybe even accelerate his release from prison?
While this political agitation increased, his dissatisfaction with the media, the Fitzgerald Inquiry and the legal fraternity never abated. He wrote that the relentless newspaper articles and editorials which contained ‘straight out lies and assertions’ were causing him great tension.
Lewis surmised that Fitzgerald and ‘his money-hungry group’ would never want to see him free of prison. He wrote that those involved knew of the manipulation, perjury, conspiracies and greed that surrounded the Fitzgerald Inquiry and flowed on to the office of the Special Prosecutor, then to his trial. He speculated that they would not want their nefarious activities disclosed to public attention or possible scrutiny.
Still, he continued to lobby, and took a phone call from Tony Murphy who informed Lewis he had yet to secure a signed statement from the premier about his predicament.
Lewis managed to get Joh on the phone for a personal discussion: ‘… said he is getting old and slowing down; very cold in Tasmania, recent snow; like me he detests Gunn and Ahern; if change of Government wants to attack the putrid way that Fitzgerald handled the Inquiry; Neil Turner has right attitude to Fitzgerald and CJC, give regards to Hazel’.
Lewis had always been a consummate tactician, and he was clearly sensing that his circumstances might change considerably if the National Party was victorious in the upcoming by-election. He noted in his diary that a friend saw former National Party education minister Val Bird, who said Terry had a lot of sympathy and if Nationals regained power something might be done in terms of Lewis’s incarceration.
On Friday 12 January 1996, Lewis, as had been his habit as commissioner of police, phoned Bjelke-Petersen on the former premier’s 85th birthday. Sir Joh told Lewis that he thought the Coalition should win in Mundingburra. He also told Lewis that politics put Lewis in prison and he was now a ‘political prisoner’. Around this time, too, Murphy phoned in to let Lewis know he ‘spoke to Sir Joh on phone for 20 minutes last week’.
At this point, as Lewis calculated, he had spent 1630 days and nights in prison. He wondered about his mental health.
Incredibly, the Coalition’s Frank Tanti took the Townsville seat of Mundingburra in the by-election, resulting in a hung parliament. Independent Liz Cunningham gave her support to the National/Liberal Coalition, and Rob Borbidge became Premier of Queensland.
Just over a week later, Lewis phoned Bjelke-Petersen again and they spoke about: ‘… new Government members; particularly Borbidge, Cooper, Turner and Beanland; Fitzgerald, Crooke and their mongrel group; Gunn, Ahern, Dickie and other left-leaning journalists; need for loyalty.’
Introspection
Terry Lewis’s decision to record his dreams in his prison diary was somewhat foreign to him. He had always been a man whose worth was measured by his actions and achievements. His work ethic was his expression to his family that he loved them. Having started out in the workforce aged 12, his view was always outward, and at times his almost manic busyness buffered him from any need for introspection.
The dream entries, and his time in prison, marginally changed that. In early 1996, Lewis offered the diary perhaps his most brutal self-assessment: ‘I have carried a lot of things in my head over my lifetime – as have most other people – and until now never considered committing them to paper. They are thoughts that not everyone would agree with and might be considered by some to be a self-serving way of gaining sympathy. I can assure everybody that I past [sic] that stage a long time ago.’
Lewis wrote that he had always been ‘conscious’ of his humble upbringing in Ipswich. He said he was acutely aware of his lack of formal education, and had tried to make up for that handicap by undertaking university studies later in life. He conceded that he had always been shy and lacking in self-confidence but had tried to cover these afflictions ‘by dint of hard work and trying to do my job to the best of my ability’.
He also noted that he was always ‘very lonely’ whenever he was away from home, be it for days or weeks, but did not reveal this to anyone because it could have been interpreted as a sign of weakness.
Lewis wrote that by recording his inner feelings he might be able to ‘help future adults’ avoid wasting time in search of success, and to enjoy their youth when they had the chance. He said he had had severe disappointments in life since 1987, the year of the inquiry. He admitted he was disappointed in ‘the weakness of character’ displayed by those he thought he could trust. He didn’t think that human beings could stoop as low as a few of those ‘despicable creatures’.
Having committed this to his diary, Lewis then took lunch – ‘fish cake, macaroni and a banana’.
Halfway House
Any assistance Lewis might have imagined from a returned Coalition government didn’t materialise in February and March of 1996, though he did speak again by telephone with Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, who told Lewis he had been ‘speaking to messrs Borbidge, Beanland …’
On Tuesday 9 April 1996, Lewis was on the move again – this time to the St Vincent de Paul Community Corrections Centre in South Brisbane. Community Corrections Director Greg Chambers reminded the media that Lewis had to serve half of his sentence – or seven years – before he was eligible for parole. ‘This transferral is not special treatment,’ he said, ‘it is a step in the continuum to eventual release. Mr Lewis will remain at South Brisbane for 12 months, then he can apply for release to work, which will enable him to earn money in the community for 12 months while paying board to stay at the halfway house, then he will be considered for home detention before he is eligible for parole in 1998.’
Lewis says he met some decent people in the halfway house. ‘There’s the home and it’s for homeless people if you like, they could come in there, they’d get breakfast, lunch and dinner on the ground floor,’ he remembers. ‘On the next couple of floors they’ve got beds for men to sleep overnight and then on the top floor there’s this area that’s contracted by the prison’s department and run by St Vincent de Paul …