The Gangland War (42 page)

On Sunday, 30 September, Ashby met Mullett in a shopping centre and handed him an application to rejoin the Police Association five years after he had quit — a clear sign he wanted the powerful union's deep pockets to assist with his looming legal liabilities.

It would appear that Ashby had begun to lower the lifeboat, but there would be room for only one on board.

Having stabbed some of his senior colleagues in the back out of misguided loyalty to his mentor and then being betrayed
himself, Linnell finally fell on his sword. He resigned and admitted he had misled the OPI.

He had no choice but to admit that he had told Ashby details of Operation Briars. But there has been no suggestion that he did so to sabotage the operation or warn the targets.

According to a former colleague, Linnell ‘lived the job. He took everything personally and tended to panic under pressure. It could be seven in the morning when he would start swearing about the latest drama and I would say, “Hey, are we going to be paid this week? Just calm down.”'

He said the 39-year-old Linnell had aged markedly in the previous two years. ‘Despite what was on those tapes, he is a good bloke. He just got sucked into the politics. What has happened to him is a real tragedy.'

For the OPI the sensational public hearings did not produce hard evidence that the chain of Linnell to Ashby to Mullett to Rix led to the Briars tip-off.

In fact they haven't proved that Lalor was tipped off at all. The alternative theory pushed by Mullett in the hearings was that Lalor went quiet because he thought he was under investigation for the Kit Walker material.

In evidence Mullett was adamant. ‘I may not be an angel, your honour, but I pride myself as being a police officer who hates crooks … For me to pass on that type of (murder) information, I'm sorry, I would never, ever do it.'

But while the OPI failed to prove its original claim, it did expose a culture where mateship and misplaced loyalty displaced sworn duty. And its use of public hearings has helped deflect the criticism that the body was a toothless tiger.

The next time a police officer is called to a secret hearing to give evidence before the OPI he or she will know that any attempt
to lie is potentially career-ending and could be publicly humiliating.

Just ask Noel Ashby.

THE double execution of Terence Hodson and his wife Christine in their own home was shocking, but it was also sinister because it was more than an example of criminal brutality spiraling out of control. It had a deeper significance — it linked allegedly corrupt cops with the underworld war.

The murders caused many, including the Liberal Opposition in Victoria, to call for a royal commission into the police. The Labor Government responded with a raft of reforms, including a revamped Ombudsman's office, coercive powers for the Chief Commissioner and new asset seizure laws.

But as the crisis deepened and it was revealed that possible police involvement in the murders was being investigated, former Queensland Royal Commissioner Tony Fitzgerald was called in to inquire why confidential police documents about Hodson's role as a drug informer had been leaked to violent gangsters.

Terry Hodson was a drug dealer turned drug squad informer who provided information on friends and competitors to a detective at the drug squad.

Hodson was charged in December 2003, with two detectives from the major drug investigation division, over an alleged conspiracy to steal drugs worth $1.3 million from a house in East Oakleigh in September.

On the surface, the attempt by Hodson and Senior Detective Dave Miechel, 33, to complete the massive drug rip-off was spectacularly inept.

The house had been under surveillance for months when the two arrived to burgle the property. Both knew there was about to
be a police raid and the drugs inside would soon become a court exhibit before being destroyed. They reasoned that if they moved now — just before the raid — the crooks would never squeal and the raiding party would never know.

But greed had smothered common sense. The video camera caught them smashing the overhead light on the porch so they could break into the house in darkness.

A neighbour heard the noise and called police. It was astonishingly bad luck for the crooked detective and his informer that two police dog units were in the area.

Miechel tried to bluff, telling one dog operator he was ‘in the job'. He then threw a punch — another bad move.

The dog didn't like his handler being manhandled and attacked, taking a massive chunk out of Miechel's thigh. For good measure the dog handler hit him an equally massive blow with his metal torch. Miechel, as the saying goes, lost interest.

Earlier he had sprayed himself with dog repellent because he had been told there were guard dogs on the property. It is not known if he received a refund.

Hodson was found nearby hiding in the dark. Both men were empty handed but a search found $1.3 million in cash and drugs that had been thrown over the back fence.

They were both charged, along with Miechel's immediate boss, Detective Sergeant Paul Dale.

Police later raided the house as part of the biggest ecstasy bust in Victoria's history.

In 2006 Justice Betty King sentenced Senior Detective Miechel to fifteen years with a non-parole term of twelve, saying ‘You have sworn an oath to uphold the law and the community has acted upon that oath you swore and placed its trust in you. You have abused that trust.' Hodson had been a drug squad informer since August 2001,
but after his arrest in 2003 he agreed to inform for the police anti-corruption taskforce, codenamed Ceja.

Christine Hodson had no convictions and had not been charged with any offences. She was an innocent victim of Melbourne's underworld war.

Her tragedy was that many in the criminal world knew her husband was an informer. Their suspicions were confirmed when the leaked police documents began to circulate in the Melbourne underworld in early May 2004.

A month earlier, lawyers for Hodson indicated in the Supreme Court that he would plead guilty. It became obvious he was prepared to give evidence against the two police charged with him. Police sources say he had originally agreed to be an informer to try to protect family members also facing drug charges.

He acted as the inside man for police on at least six drug squad operations — specialising in helping police expose cocaine and ecstasy networks.

Charismatic and likeable, Hodson knew most major crime figures in Melbourne. A carpenter by trade, he had built secret cupboards and storage areas for some of Melbourne's biggest drug dealers, according to police.

According to an old friend, the Hodsons arrived in Perth in 1974 from Britain. They had married in July 1967, in the city of Wolverhampton. Hodson used his carpentry skills to land a job as a maintenance officer looking after rental properties. He was said to have had a deal with an insurance assessor to rip off the company by submitting over-inflated bills for damaged kitchens.

He began his own building business and was successful enough to buy a luxury home.

The friend said the couple became obsessed with possessions. ‘She (Christine) would vacuum three times a day.'

Hodson was a bookmaker's son but he had struggled at school and was barely literate. When he made money in Perth, he hired
a private tutor to help him with reading and writing. He didn't need any help with arithmetic, especially counting money.

He built a small business empire in Perth and became involved in a partnership dealing with prestige cars. The story goes that he believed his partner was ripping him off so he hired some oxy-acetylene blowtorch gear and found a safebreaker to get into his partner's safe. But a neighbour came by to feed the cat and the safebreaker left suddenly, leaving the gear behind.

Police were able to trace the fact that Hodson had hired the gear and he was convicted, only to later escape amidst unproven claims he paid someone to turn a blind eye.

He later moved to Melbourne. The old friend recalls: ‘I lost track of him until I got a call from his wife asking for $50,000 for bail. I said no.'

Hodson loved the idea of being a gangster, he says. ‘He wanted to be a flamboyant type; I guess he didn't make it. Every time there was a murder of a crook in Melbourne I thought it would be Terry. In the end it was.'

The Hodsons' bodies were found by their son in the lounge room of their home in East Kew on Sunday 16 May 2004.

Hodson almost certainly knew the gunman. Like most drug dealers he was security conscious and no-one entered his home without an invitation.

He also had two large and loud german shepherd dogs to deter intruders.

One theory is that Hodson knew the killer, let him in to the heavily fortified house, and was ambushed in the lounge room; his wife was then killed because she could identify the gunman, probably a business associate or ‘friend' of her husband.

It is believed Hodson was smoking a roll-your-own cigarette when his guest produced a handgun and ordered the couple to kneel on the floor, where their hands were bound behind their backs before they were shot in the back of the head.

The couple was killed some time after Saturday evening. Their guard dogs were locked in the garage, either by the killer or by the couple when they welcomed their guest.

One neighbour said: ‘I didn't hear the german shepherds, so I wondered what had happened. I heard what sounded like a shot about 6.15pm, but didn't pay any attention.'

Hodson had been offered protection but had declined it. Being in protection would have meant he couldn't keep seeing his grandchildren. Although he knew his life was in danger, he had decided to carry on as normal.

Ethical standards police had installed a state of the art security system and the Hodsons used it diligently. They had seven tapes each labelled with a day of the week and each day the correct tape was inserted. When investigators checked, only one tape was missing. The one labelled Saturday — the day of the murder.

If a covert camera had also been installed perhaps the killer could have been identified but such a security precaution was considered too expensive.

Investigators wanted to know why the police information report, written in May 2002, had mysteriously begun to circulate two years later.

It contained many allegations. Amongst them was the claim Hodson had been offered $50,000 by Lewis Moran to kill Carl Williams.

By the time the information became public Moran was already dead, but it could be interpreted as placing Hodson on one side of the fence in the underworld war.

On 14 May 2004, a story in the
Herald Sun
repeated some of the information from the leaked report, including the contract offer.

The following day Hodson and his wife were murdered. Some might draw conclusions about cause and effect.

Was it death by newspaper? The leaking of the confidential police document was a massive breach of security — but homicide squad detectives had to investigate not only
whether
the leak caused the murders but if that was the intention behind the leak.

Certain members of the underworld had seen the police report before the newspaper story was published. George Williams confirmed he had seen the document in the previous few weeks.

In fact, many members of the underworld didn't need to see Hodson's name as a police informer on an official document. They had suspected it for years.

Lewis Moran believed Hodson was an informer but found him entertaining company. He just made sure Terry was not close by when business was discussed.

Both Miechel and Dale were interviewed by homicide squad detectives and provided alibis.

But with Hodson dead, charges against Dale were dropped because of lack of evidence. Dale has always denied any connection with either the drug rip-off or the double murder. He resigned and took over a country service station, moving from pumping people for information to pumping petrol. And from giving suspects the hamburger with the lot to providing the same service for hungry truck-drivers.

For investigators, the Hodson double murder became even more important because of the suggestion of bent police involvement.

So much so that it was the one case with the potential to get multiple killer Carl Williams a decent discount on his sentence providing he talked about what he knew — and then was prepared to give evidence.

In the months before Williams agreed to plead guilty he suggested he had such information. In fact, he told police he had a man inside the drug squad who provided him with secret information.
Perhaps that is why, when Williams was arrested for drug trafficking, the investigators were suburban detectives and not from the specialist drug squad.

Williams also suggested a policeman had told him Hodson had to go and that Carl should think about possible options. Williams, it is alleged, later came back to say he would deal with it but the policeman said the matter was in hand. A short time later the Hodsons were murdered.

But the value of Williams' statement was destroyed when he chose to give self-serving evidence at his plea hearing. He deliberately destroyed his credibility as a potential witness in any future trials, earning a further two years for his efforts.

But while the court dismissed Williams, somebody must have been listening. Certainly, shortly after Carl made his statement, police launched a fresh taskforce, code named Petra, to investigate the Hodson double murder.

Deputy Commissioner Simon Overland said ‘This is a priority investigation. And we are making progress.'

So who pulled the trigger that night in Kew?

Many of Melboune's hit men developed huge profiles during the underworld war. But there is one with links to the Mokbel-Williams camp who refused to move from the shadows.

Ruthless and deadly, the man known as The Duke has been mentioned as the possible hit man for the murder of Brian Kane, who was gunned down in the Quarry Hotel in Brunswick in November 1982. He has previously been charged with murder but acquitted.