The Gangland War

by John Silvester

  By the time the alarm was raised at 5am the roadhouse owner, Reg Buckley, thought he would not see his employee alive again. But, around dawn, the now sober teenager realised the gravity of what he’d done. He apologised to the attendant and let him out at Boggabri, shaken but unhurt, and turned himself in to police soon after. Meanwhile, a distraught Greg Wilson had turned up at the service station, looking for his son and dreading the worst.

  ‘Greg was a real gentleman,’ recalls Buckley. ‘He apologised and he handled himself better than anyone else about it,’ in contrast with some other citizens in Armidale who later pressured him to ‘call off’ the police investigation, he says.

  Buckley, relieved at the outcome, did not attend the subsequent court case and isn’t sure if young Wilson ever served time for the hijacking. Wilson later worked as a jackaroo and is now married with children and working in a government job in outback Queensland. But, back then, the incident capped off a bad couple of years for his parents. They sold out and moved over the border to Murgon to start a bed and breakfast business.

  In 1994 Zarah went to boarding school in Toowoomba, where she was enrolled under the full family name of Garde Wilson, with a hyphen thrown in. Perhaps that was the first sign that she was inventing herself a new persona who would become a successful lawyer.

  WHEN Fairholme College’s class of 1995 had its reunion a decade later Zarah Garde-Wilson wasn’t there but a ripple of thirdhand gossip about ‘the underworld’ went around. Few ‘old girls’ could recall much about her but they had heard about the dramatic events in Melbourne and that one of their own was somehow involved.

  In her two years at Fairholme College, the quiet girl from Armidale had made little impression. She was neither a star student nor raving beauty. In the 1995 yearbook, her name is misspelt twice, perhaps a sign of her fringe status.

  She arrived in year 11, when friendships had already formed and weren’t easily gatecrashed. She played ‘fair’ A-grade hockey alongside a future state player, Renae Van Schagen, who recalls her as ‘an independent person who got on with everyone — but I wouldn’t say she had a best friend’.

  One Fairholme girl, Angela Keogh, knew Zarah because they were both from Armidale and had shown horses together. Angela’s mother Robyn recalls her as ‘slim, well-proportioned, very controlled and a bit different. And very competitive — she rode to win,’ she adds, with a faint trace of disapproval.

  Zarah, though not ‘daggy’, was well-behaved and studious. There were rebels among the provincial private schoolgirls but Zarah wasn’t one of them, surprisingly. She was never the one caught smoking, sneaking out of bounds or even wearing her uniform too short. Robyn Keogh sometimes wished her own daughters were less ‘adventurous’ and more like the more studious Zarah.

  Things change, and so do people. A decade after leaving school, Angela Keogh was working in Melbourne but when her mother asked her if she had caught up with Zarah, she said she hadn’t. Angela knew they now moved in different circles.

  Zarah was in the fast lane with some of the biggest speed merchants around. One was Carl Williams, the man who was at the heart of the underworld war and who will be in jail for decades. The other was Tony Mokbel, the multi-millionaire drug baron and punter who skipped bail in March 2006 to avoid facing fresh charges, and was recaptured in Greece a little more than a year later in possession of an illegal wig.

  After Caine’s death, Garde-Wilson could pass for a starcrossed lover who had made a mistake but the Mokbel connection exposed by police surveillance shredded her reputation. Deliberately, some would say.

  When she appeared in court on the contempt charges in November 2005, a police investigator testified that she had indulged in an ‘on-again, off-again’ sexual relationship with Mokbel — who already had a wife, a mistress and a penchant for prostitutes, as well as a lot of racehorses he raced in other people’s names, and a lot of relatives and friends who seemed ready to ‘mind’ money and property for him. Police sources said Zarah had been seen in a Queensland casino with Mokbel, and used houses and cars that he and his associates owned.

  Besides suffering this humiliating publicity about what she describes as irrelevant and deliberately damaging material on her private life, she was refused witness protection and found guilty of contempt. Asked why she wouldn’t testify against two gunmen over her boyfriend’s murder, she wept in the witness box and said she didn’t want ‘my head blown off’. Apart from being convicted — in itself a serious matter for a lawyer — no penalty was imposed.

  At the time her barrister told the court she was suicidal and that the prospect of losing her certificate to practise law could destroy her. Two years on, she was trying to stare down notoriety and an uncertain future in the face of moves by lawyers’ professional bodies to have her practising certificate revoked.

  Talking with her, it’s tempting to look for the note of regret, an intention of a new start, but she won’t bite. She is controlled, but traces of bitterness and bravado colour off-the-record answers to questions about the path she has taken and the way she has been treated.

  Ask other lawyers about her and responses range from harsh criticism about ‘provocative clothes’ and ‘obvious conflicts’ to grudging sympathy. But two common threads run through the responses, at least from male barristers: that she is naïve and has lacked a mentor to guide her through the hazards of dealing with wealthy, violent and manipulative criminals.

  One of Melbourne’s wiliest criminal lawyers, who was taught his craft by the legendary Frank Galbally, says Garde-Wilson ‘has ability’ but is trapped because she won’t seek advice and has burned bridges with potential mentors. He is more generous than many of his peers. ‘I feel sorry for her. We are a conservative, judgmental profession, too quick to bag people. Her response is to stand back and shrug it off.

  ‘She doesn’t speak to people around the traps. We all learn at the expense of our clients but some of us forget that. But the fact is she hasn’t distanced herself from criminals sufficiently. And her mode of dress is a cry for acceptance. I think she’s got guts, but it is misplaced. She has capacity, works hard and fights for her clients.’

  But he warns that those who ‘cross the line’ and flout ethical rules don’t last. ‘If you lose the respect of the bench, the future is bleak.’ Because once the courts lose trust in a lawyer, clients soon catch on, too. The bigger the crook, the better the lawyer they need. ‘You’re not better than them but you have to remain objective, and a good crook understands that. Good crooks will drink with shady solicitors but they won’t use them when it matters,’ he says, sharing a conclusion he has drawn after 30 years dealing with criminals.

  Several senior counsel wrote references for Garde-Wilson’s court appearance in 2005. These stressed her youth and inexperience, praised her diligence and skill at preparing briefs. But within a year none of the referees was keen to talk about her. One says there is ‘room for criticism’. Another says ‘the kindest thing I can do is make no comment’, then makes several pithy comments. ‘Do not glorify her,’ he says.

  So much for the prosecution. Margaret Cunneen, NSW Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor, switches hats to run a defence of female lawyers in general, that she feels might apply to Garde-Wilson too: ‘Women have something against them that men don’t … all the other women. It’s doubly hard for women if they don’t toe the line completely. If they don’t they are slapped down.’

  ‘Slapped down’ is how Leigh Johnson feels about the way she has been treated in Sydney courts. Johnson’s chequered legal career and personal style foreshadowed Garde-Wilson’s by a couple of decades. Leggy, blonde and known in her prime for small skirts and big statements, she was often accused of getting ‘too close’ to notorious criminal clients, among them one of the Anita Cobby murderers.

  Johnson, once memorably described by colourful barrister Charles Waterstreet as suffering the ‘tall, blonde poppy syndrome’, leaps to the defence that Garde-Wilson feels she cannot publicly mak
e for herself: ‘Women are taught to fall in love. She did and she chose the wrong guy — but who doesn’t? Most people who get married, for a start.

  ‘The law is male dominated. Until recently women who succeeded in it dressed in nondescript, sexless clothes and emulated men. A real woman with a good pair of legs is seen as somehow suspect. Attractive women are attacked and judged — and other women are the worst oppressors. It’s been horrendous. People spread rumours all the time. I don’t want to repeat them because that will only encourage it. I have threatened to sue over the things people say.

  ‘I know of male lawyers who have had relationships with female clients in prison, and it never causes a ripple. But if a female lawyer smiles at a client then she’s bonking the whole jail … It’s almost a tribal mentality in the legal profession: ‘how dare that tribe touch our white women’ sort of thing. The whole Zarah thing is salacious. The fact is she was in fear of her life if she gave evidence. She looked around and everyone’s being killed so she did not want to. Everything else is her own business.’

  Proving the point that other women can be the toughest critics, a well-known practitioner who has seen Garde-Wilson at work has little sympathy. ‘She is so not a naïve, poor taken-advantage-of newcomer. It is hard to practise criminal law as a female but you have to be sensible. Would I travel interstate and stay with someone like (Mokbel) while under surveillance? You are inviting a nightmare into your life. It is partly arrogance, like some of the crooks. They splash it in your face and have a catch-me-if-you can attitude. You can’t drive around in flashy cars without having jobs and not expect some backlash from the authorities.’ And any lawyer who takes the same attitude can expect trouble, too.

  ‘A magistrate tried to talk some sense into her but … she’s a very difficult person to get to know, shy and aloof — unless you are a crim, apparently.’ She then quotes a well-known criminal lawyer, Alex Lewenberg, who advises young lawyers: ‘Your duty to your client ends at the court steps.’ Another way of saying: don’t get too close because criminals are often narcissistic men with adolescent impulses who get crushes on their female lawyers.

  ‘I liken it to being twelve years old on the tram,’ laughs the lawyer. ‘Blokes in custody develop crushes on you. It goes with the dependency on you while they’re inside. It can be passionate but it sure ain’t love. Maybe Zarah is attracted to that. And the TV cameras chasing you down the street can be fun the first time but why would you want it after that?’

  An ABC reporter, Josie Taylor, had a ringside seat during court hearings on the gangland war and takes a gentler view. Originally from rural NSW, Taylor is of similar age and background to Garde-Wilson and built a natural and genuine rapport with her. During the contempt of court hearing in 2005, she persuaded her to do an exclusive television studio interview.

  It was a big test for both. Taylor, then still relatively inexperienced, prepared thoroughly and asked a series of insightful questions, and Garde-Wilson did her best to answer them. Afterwards, Taylor was wondering how the lawyer would react to the robust professional encounter. Oddly enough, she recalls, Garde-Wilson’s only real concern was whether the studio lighting had flattered Taylor more than her. Appearances do matter, but in ways other than make-up, clothes and lighting. There are many tough judges in the law, not all of them in robes and wigs, and it’s not necessarily the clients you have but the company you keep that influence the judgment they make.

  At the time of writing, Garde-Wilson is still fighting what could be a losing battle for her right to practise law. She is under attack by a conservative profession and an outraged police force that agree that she crossed the line — not only of prudence, but of the law itself.

  In June 2007, the Supreme Court dismissed her application for a judicial review of the Legal Service Board’s original decision to withdraw her licence to practise. But she was still able to practise pending the outcome of proceedings before the Victorian Civil Administrative Tribunal. Three months earlier, in March, she had been committed to stand trial for giving false evidence to the Australian Crime Commission (in 2004) and for possessing an unregistered Mauser .25 calibre pistol ‘lent’ to her boyfriend Lewis Caine by a crooked gun dealer. The dealer, who became a police informer after being caught with a cache of illegal weapons bought from a South Australian pornography king for the ill-fated Mario Condello, took part in a police operation to trap Garde-Wilson, who had asked him to take away the handgun Caine had left behind when he was killed.

  Most insiders would say she has only herself to blame for her troubles but, for the general public, the jury is still out on the solicitor who plays with snakes. The defence sees a vulnerable, shy and lonely girl marooned behind a brittle facade, too proud to ask for help; the prosecution damns her as a calculating, streetwise chancer with a perverse streak, riding for a fall.

  The truth, rarely clear in legal matters, is probably somewhere in between. But it’s clear she has toned down her act to suit new circumstances in which the high-flying gangsters in her professional and personal life are either dead, in jail or broke. Maybe there’s a message in there for Zarah Garde-Wilson. ‘Every time I see her picture in the paper lately,’ notes one observer drily, ‘she’s wearing more clothes.’

  In court, that might be true. But the system has not quite beaten the maverick instincts out of the girl from Armidale. In late 2007 she astonished the editors of the GQ glossy men’s magazine by offering herself for a provocative picture spread at no charge. Her outfit included a Jersey dress valued at $4355, Mary-Jane shoes valued at $1125 and Voodoo fishnet stockings that were priceless. Happily, the lighting was excellent.

  Postscript

  While her own fate was still in the balance, Garde-Wilson was still practising at the time of writing. On November 23, 2007, she appeared in Melbourne Magistrates Court for two brothers charged by the Purana Taskforce for trafficking methamphetamines, possessing $67,000 cash — and an illegal handgun. Carl and George Williams are locked up, Tony Mokbel is facing charges and most of her other clients are behind bars or dead. But the drugs, guns and money go on.

  26

  ENDPLAY

  ‘You are a killer,

  and a cowardly one who

  employed others to do

  the actual killing.’

  CARL Williams spent years successfully avoiding an assassin’s bullet only to commit legal suicide while giving evidence in the days leading to his final sentencing in the Supreme Court.

  Stubborn to the end, the baby-faced killer turned his back on a sweet legal deal by ignoring his lawyer’s advice to shut up and at least pretend to be sorry for launching a bloody vendetta that cost more than a dozen lives.

  Williams was found guilty by a jury of the murder of Michael Marshall in October 2003. When he finally realised that the prosecution case was overwhelming, he pleaded guilty to the murders of Jason Moran (June 2003), Mark Mallia (August 2003) and Lewis Moran (March 2004). He also pleaded guilty to the 2004 conspiracy to murder Mario Condello.

  In agreeing to plead guilty, Williams cut a deal that literally meant he got away with murder — many times.

  He also killed or was connected to those who killed Mark Moran (June 2000), ‘Mad Richard’ Mladenich (May 2000), Willie Thompson (July 2003), Nik Radev (April 2003) and Victor Peirce (May 2002). He was directly responsible for the death of Pasquale Barbaro, who was shot dead by one of Williams’ hit men while murdering Jason Moran.

  Williams is also suspected of ordering the murder of Graham Kinniburgh, who was shot dead outside his Kew home in December 2003, and has been linked to several more gangland killings.

  Paranoid, frightened and self-deluded, he survived and prospered by surrounding himself with a gang of soldiers whose loyalty he won with a combination of drugs, money, power and women.

  But once he was in jail, his trusted subordinates began to waver. One by one they broke the code of silence and became prosecution witnesses. Key members of the Williams camp crossed the fl
oor leaving the man who called himself ‘The Premier’ without the numbers to survive.

  So why then did the prosecution accept a plea and do a deal with the multiple killer? Why didn’t they convict him again and again for the murders he committed?

  Because it would have taken up to ten years and cost millions of dollars.

  It would also have given Williams the public platform and the media attention he craved. By locking him away they condemned him — as he declared himself — to a life of ‘Groundhog Days’. As it turns out — 12,783 of them.

  Williams first made noises that he might be prepared to do a deal as early as November 2006. He implied he had information that could help crack the murders of police informer Terence Hodson and his wife Christine, shot dead in their Kew home in May 2004.

  Detectives believed rogue police were responsible for the double murder so if Williams could provide information he would have been able to demand a big discount on his sentence.

  But he was teasing. Williams did end up making a statement that seemed to implicate a former detective, but later he deliberately destroyed his own credibility so he could never be called as a prosecution witness.

  During the long pre-trial process before Williams was due to face the court for murdering Jason Moran and Pasquale Barbaro, his lawyers asked Justice King: If he pleaded guilty, would the sentence be ‘crushing’?

  While no promises were made, they were told Williams could expect to see some light at the end of the tunnel.

  Justice King is no bleeding heart. She is a common sense judge who made her ruling on the basis of hard legal precedent. The former hard-hitting prosecutor and senior member of the National Crime Authority was well aware of the case law surrounding guilty pleas.