Authors: Matthew Condon
Two Crusaders Lost, and a Rogue Too
In mid-2002, the former state member for South Brisbane, the lawyer Colin Bennett, was largely confined to his unit in Beaumont Towers on Dornoch Terrace at West End, in inner-Brisbane. For the previous 18 months Bennett, the firebrand anti-corruption crusader, whose agitation against men like Commissioner Frank Bischof in the 1960s ultimately resulted in the National Hotel inquiry and pre-empted the Fitzgerald Inquiry by almost a quarter of a century, had been cared for full-time by his daughter, Mary.
He sat in his chair facing the window and the view across the Brisbane River to the playing fields and sandstone buildings of the University of Queensland campus at St Lucia. He said decades of the rosary when the urge came upon him. On occasion, Mary would take her father for a walk through the streets that he had represented so passionately in parliament, or they might go out for a meal in a restaurant. At 83 his mind was still sharp.
Bennett often had occasion to pause and remember his extraordinary lifetime: a lawyer; a city councillor; a politician; a father who had lost a son in a tragic drowning accident at a local pool in 1959; a parliamentary bruiser and a brilliant debater; staunch Catholic with a social conscience that would see him representing those rejected by mainstream society. One of his most famous clients was, of course, brothel madam and prostitute Shirley Margaret Brifman, who had blown the whistle on corrupt police in 1971 and paid for the privilege with her life. At the time, Brifman had kept Bennett so busy he had his own dedicated ‘Brifman briefcase’.
He had friends in the force as well as enemies. When police contacts learned of plans to get Bennett, they informed him. ‘[At one point] they were plotting to get him and make it look like an accident,’ his daughter Mary recalls. ‘They’d say, “Col, look, don’t walk down George Street at this time on this night.”
‘He had an absolute commitment to justice and equity. He mixed with the elite of Queensland society but was always in support of the poor.’
In his last weeks, Mary says Bennett became reflective. He remembered the time, during the hearings of the Fitzgerald Inquiry, when he was regularly visited in the flat by Liberal MP and fellow lawyer Angus Innes. As the inquiry progressed, and background information was needed on various police and their activities during the 1950s and 60s, Innes would tap Bennett’s extensive knowledge and his files. Invariably, Innes would leave Dornoch Terrace with a small Globite school case full of files from Bennett’s voluminous records, and they would then be handed over to inquiry investigators for perusal.
Then Colin Bennett was gone.
Down at Parliament House in George Street, he was remembered as a man of courage. ‘Col Bennett waged a long and fearless campaign against corrupt police commissioner Frank Bischof and two of his hand-picked detectives, Glen Hallahan and Tony Murphy, whom Col named in parliament,’ said then Premier Peter Beattie in his motion of condolence in the House. ‘Queensland was a corrupt place in those days. It was a place that really was a shame on the history of this state. It did require some people of courage to take on that corruption.
‘It was a corruption that pervaded all sections of government and particularly the police service. It was very difficult for an honest man to break through. Col Bennett did.’
One year later, another famous corruption fighter passed away in his home town of Adelaide. Ray Whitrod, 88, the former ASIO agent, Commonwealth police commissioner, and Queensland commissioner of police from 1970 until his controversial resignation in late 1976, was an honest man who, unlike Col Bennett, did not break through.
When Whitrod resigned as commissioner, he fled south to Canberra and took up a post in academia, before ultimately returning to Adelaide. He only ever came back to Queensland twice – to give evidence before the Fitzgerald Inquiry and to deliver an academic paper.
Premier Peter Beattie said of Whitrod: ‘Ray Whitrod should always be remembered as a brave, honest man who for six years fought to reform a corrupt police force.’
The
Courier-Mail
wrote in its editorial: ‘Mr Whitrod’s story should have been an uplifting one for the state. Instead, Queensland had to wait another 12 years for Tony Fitzgerald, QC, to expose the rot that had invaded many of its institutions.
‘Mr Whitrod’s memory would be best served if the government, judiciary, bureaucracy and, yes, the media of the day continued to recognise that a return to corruption is not only possible, but inevitable without proper vigilance.’
In a Gold Coast hospital, less than a year after Whitrod’s passing, grafter and former Licensing Branch officer Jack Reginald Herbert died of a brain tumour. He was 79.
Herbert and his wife Peggy had left Brisbane for a quiet retirement on the Gold Coast, and were occasionally spotted at Jupiters Casino at Broadbeach. They lived in a small unit and Jack got around with the help of a motorised scooter. He read works of non-fiction and drank tea.
‘I just enjoy life,’ he said before his death. ‘Peggy is good company and, yeah, I should go fishing.’ He regretted that he got his wife so heavily involved in his corrupt activities. ‘It weighed heavily on my shoulders that I involved her,’ he said. ‘But I’ve got to admit … Tony Murphy once said, we had a bit of a party amongst Tony and myself and a few of the boys that were involved … I think I’ve got [a picture of] him there giving Peggy a cuddle. And he said, “Peggy Herbert is as good as any policeman we know.”
‘They used to ring her for information and she knew who, how, why, what and all and she handled the money. I’m a bit of a persuasive sort of fellow and I persuaded her to take the bloody phone calls. And she knew all the fellows … you know, she knew Terry, she knew [Frank] Bischof was involved, Don Lane used to come over and see us. I mean it was very hard to pick how safe you felt.’
When Herbert developed cancer, the meticulous Bagman organised his own funeral. ‘I’ve written everything down for Peggy, what to do,’ he said. ’I’ve contacted the funeral directors, believe it or not. I’m not being morbid but I’m just … I’m getting some satisfaction out of arranging everything.
‘And I’ve looked with Peggy at what’s in the bank and she … because she’s never done anything like this. I’ve always done everything and I’ve got a few pages here, exactly setting it all out – one, two, three, four – on what to do.’
Few mourned The Bagman, although his death also earned an editorial in the
Courier-Mail
. ‘No Queenslander who values the role of honesty in the governance of Queensland should feel overly sad about the passing of Jack Reginald Herbert,’ it said. ‘He was a thief and an extortionist whose prodigious skills at extracting graft and turning his fellow officers into crooks did enormous harm to the community standing of Queensland police.
‘But it is also true that Queensland would be an altogether different place had Herbert not cut a deal with the Fitzgerald commission of inquiry … while he made a major contribution to the history of the state, no one should fall for Herbert’s attempts at portraying himself as some sort of mischievous rogue.’
Former Police Union president Ron Edington said that prior to Herbert’s death former commissioner Terry Lewis had asked him to act as an intermediary and organise with Herbert to get a signed statement from The Bagman accepting all blame for police corruption.
‘About two months before Jack died, Lewis rang me and asked if I would see Jack and ask him to get [Herbert’s wife] Peggy to write a statement attributing all the blame for the corruption to Jack and Peg, and clearing Lewis and his wife, Hazel,’ Edington told the
Courier-Mail
.
‘I didn’t mind doing what he asked. I checked it out first with a senior barrister. I put it to Jack and he was angry at the request. He said, “I’ve had to pay a penalty [loss of friends, property, money and reputation] and Lewis should pay his too.”
‘He was outraged that Lewis should suggest that Peggy cop the blame to clear his name.’
Lewis denied the Edington allegations. ‘Ron makes up stories,’ Lewis said. ‘I haven’t spoken to Herbert or any member of his family for 17 years. What would be the use?’
Despite this, it was clear Lewis reserved a special enmity for Herbert. He says: ‘I was the sacrificial lamb, that’s the part I found … I could understand, if you like, for want of a better way of putting it, Herbert’s objective. You know, get himself, his wife, his two kids off, and it doesn’t matter who else I sacrifice … the onus was just self-gain.’
Sue
Four months after Jack Herbert’s death, more than ten years after he was imprisoned by a jury of his peers, Lewis attempted to sue the former legal team who had handled his appeal in 1991. He blamed the failed appeal on his barrister Shane Herbert.
Lewis’s statement of claim, filed with Brisbane’s Supreme Court, alleged that Shane Herbert had failed to adopt a key defence in the appeal that would have resulted in Lewis’s convictions being quashed. He suggested that Herbert had abandoned a defence pertaining to certain evidence alleged to have been incorrectly admitted in his trial before Judge Tony Healy. He had done this without the knowledge or permission of Lewis.
Lewis was suing for $470,000 – $450,000 as the value for the loss of a right to a fair trial, and $20,000 that was paid to Herbert.
The flamboyant Shane Herbert died from complications following a car crash. It was suspected Herbert was addicted to cocaine and heroin at the time he conducted Lewis’s appeal. A blood test taken after the car crash contained traces of anti-depressants, tranquillisers, morphine and other drugs.
The
Courier-Mail
reported: ‘Four months before his death, police had raided his inner Brisbane home and found 140g of marihuana, 0.02g of heroin, 30ml of methadone and 45 syringes, some of which had been used.’ Herbert’s wife pleaded guilty to possessing the drugs, although his family denied he was involved in drugs.
The
Courier-Mail
further noted that Lewis’s court action named lawyers Ian Bruce Hillhouse and David Alan Burrough, as well as the estate of Lewis’s former solicitor and at times confidant, Rick Glynn Whitton, who died in early 2004.
Both Hillhouse and Burrough rejected the claims. ‘The firm denies the allegations as alleged by Mr Terence Lewis and is disappointed that such allegations are made 13 years after Mr Lewis’s conviction and after the death of his appellate counsel, Mr Shane Herbert, QC, and solicitor Mr Rick Whitton,’ they said in a statement. ‘The firm intends to strenuously defend the claim and is confident the claim will be dismissed.’
The
Courier-Mail
reported: ‘In their defence filed in the court, they allege Lewis’s time to launch such a legal claim has expired, that the $450,000 Lewis paid them was inclusive of counsel’s fees for the committal and that the defence omitted by Herbert would not have been successful, based on a recent legal precedent.’
In October 2004, the barrister Russell Hanson, QC, acting for Lewis’s former legal team, told the Supreme Court that Lewis’s attempt to sue his lawyers was a bid to ‘rewrite history’ and cast doubt over the numerous guilty verdicts Lewis suffered following his trial in 1991. He applied for the case to be struck off on the grounds of ‘abuse of process’.
The world had moved on since Lewis’s heyday and it was as if he had barely noticed.
Death of a Colossus
On the morning of Monday 18 April 2005, the ailing former Queensland premier, Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, was taken from the family home, Bethany, on the outskirts of Kingaroy, 210 kilometres north-west of Brisbane, to a private hospital in town, to die.
Two months earlier, the old man, 94, had survived a bout of pneumonia but was now deteriorating rapidly. He was rushed to the South Burnett Private Community Hospital in Markwell Street by ambulance. His wife, Lady Flo, told the press: ‘I’m there beside him, supporting him and telling him Jesus loves him and God loves him. And, you know, when his time comes he’s ready to go. He’s never had any doubts at all. It’s comforting for him – and I hope I go there myself later on.’
For some years, the former premier had lived with progressive supranuclear palsy, a neurological condition that affects speech, balance, swallowing and walking. Bjelke-Petersen’s doctor said the palsy was paralysing Sir Joh’s lungs. By the time he arrived at the hospital he was unable to eat or drink.
Dr Isabella Jonsson reportedly said Sir Joh was not putting up a huge fight this time round. ‘I think he’s probably ready to go, honestly – I mean there is a time in all our lives when things come to an end,’ she said. ‘It’s not quality life for him anymore …’
Lady Flo added that when the time came, her husband’s funeral would definitely be held in the Kingaroy Town Hall, just around the corner from the hospital. ‘If people want to come to the funeral,’ she said, ‘they’ll have to come to Kingaroy.’
As for his burial, Sir Joh himself had expressed the wish that he be interred at Bethany, near bushland where he enjoyed feeding wild birds. (The local council granted approval for the request.)
He died on Saturday 23 April. The next day, the
Sunday Mail
offered an editorial on the former premier’s passing. ‘It seems inconceivable that Queensland is today without Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen,’ it said. ‘Joh, as most would remember him, played such a long and important role in our history that he was Queensland to many people.’