‘Dear Sir,’ Lewis read, ‘I have been directed to inform you that His Excellency The Governor, Colonel Sir Henry Abel Smith, K.C.V.O., D.S.O., intends to hold an Investiture at Government House, Brisbane, at 11a.m. on Friday 1st July 1960, at which he would be pleased to present you with the Insignia of the George Medal awarded to you by Her Majesty the Queen.’
On that sunny winter morning, Lewis, wearing a dark suit, white shirt, loud checked tie and felt hat, received his medal. He is pictured in the newspaper reports of the ceremony with his attractive wife, Hazel, she in a woollen dress and white gloves, proudly holding the medal pinned to Lewis’s chest and looking admiringly at him. Behind her in the same picture is a young and handsome Hallahan, his own George Medal affixed beside a dark handkerchief in his left breast suit pocket. The picture caption read: ‘Mrs Lewis admires her husband’s gallantry award while Detective Hallahan looks on.’
Also honoured that day were Constables Shearer (British Empire Medal) and Morris (Queen’s Commendation for Bravery) from Wynnum police station. Both were regaled in their standard issue police uniforms and white helmets.
All four men appeared on the cover of the June 1960 Queensland Police Union Journal. under fire! read the headline: ‘It is unfortunate that sufficient and proper publicity is not given in the Public Press to actual valour performed by zealous and courageous members of the Police Force . . . The coolness and courage displayed by Detectives Hallahan and Lewis and Constables Morris and Shearer in disarming a demented migrant after being fired on at point-blank range was deserving of the highest reward.’
The Dog with Two Tails
Just months after the drowning of his young son, Colin Bennett threw himself with an almost manic energy into the state election campaign of 1960. The work was a balm to the grief.
Bennett would arm wrestle former premier and Queensland Labor Party candidate Vince Gair for the seat of South Brisbane. While he had some political experience as leader of the Labor Party in the Brisbane City Council, he had failed to win the seat of Kurilpa at the 1952 state election and had not run for higher office since.
Late in the 1960 campaign, Police Commissioner Bischof launched a huge and costly public relations exercise, assuring Queenslanders that their police force was right on the job.
Given the election was just eight days away, and he had the Liberal–Country Party to thank for his top position, why not comfort voters with some friendly advice and assurances on how hard the police were working for their safety? Why not suggest how the Nicklin government cared about the wellbeing of every citizen of Queensland?
Alongside the police minister, Ken Morris, an immaculately groomed Bischof launched an anti-crime brochure entitled ‘attention! Here is a Police Message’. The pamphlet featured a front-page photograph of Police Commissioner Bischof in full uniform. It had a first print run of 100,000 copies.
‘Every householder in every community centre of the state will receive a call from a member of the Police Force carrying a booklet,’ Bischof told the press. The one hundred anti-crime tips in the document included, ‘If you must leave money for the milkman, put it in an inconspicuous place known only to you and your milkman. Change the “hideout” frequently.’
On Tuesday 24 May, the Labor Party’s federal deputy leader, Gough Whitlam, dropped in on the campaign to help his state colleagues. Premier Nicklin described Whitlam as a ‘would-be Labor bogy man in spats’.
Days before the election – set for Saturday 28 May – south-east Queensland was in the grip of a major rain event. Candidates traditionally conducted their impromptu street-corner meetings with prospective constituents throughout their electorates. In Brisbane, they did this huddled under umbrellas.
The poll would be Australia’s inaugural television election campaign. Channel Two broadcast a pre-election forum that was hosted by Sydney presenter George Baker and featured a smattering of party figures as talking heads. No candidates took to the airwaves.
During the campaign, Bennett caused a stir by utilising what the Courier-Mail described as ‘a modern, loud twin-speaker van’ and hailing ‘from a microphone on the footpath’.
Bennett’s unique speakers were cobbled together by a local shop owner, Labor Party supporter, and electronics fanatic – a ‘Mr Earwacker’ – and the flatbed truck was borrowed from another South Brisbane supporter.
‘They were loud,’ daughter Mary Bennett says of the speakers. ‘You could hear them five or six streets away . . . People would either stand around or sit in their houses and listen to these speeches.’
In another first, Bennett introduced to Queensland politics the idea of doorknocking every house and business in the electorate. South Brisbane contained around 11,600 voters, and the Bennett team developed a time-saving strategy.
‘He had teams of supporters, including my mother, out there on Saturdays and Sundays,’ Mary recalls. ‘They’d pull up and target one street, then they’d go along the houses and tell voters that Colin Bennett was across the road, or next door, if they needed to talk to him. They all threw themselves into this big mission . . . Mum got involved with every ounce of her being.’
The effort was worth it.
At around 9 p.m. on the night of the election, Vince Gair, chuffing on a cigar, left his seat beside the radio in his Annerley home and gathered friends and family in the lounge area.
After twenty-eight years as the member for South Brisbane, he had been defeated.
‘Don’t be downhearted – I’m not,’ he told his supporters. ‘I am only geared to greater efforts. I’m not making excuses, nor am I whingeing. I accept the decision of the people as a true democrat.’
Two suburbs north, in Highgate Hill, the Bennett family celebrated. As had been the tradition with Bennett’s council election victories, kegs of beer were brought up from the Coronation Hotel, not far from the Killarney brothel.
The next day the Sunday Mail ran a front-page story: ‘Brisbane barrister Colin J. Bennett is just about the hero of the Australian Labor Party . . . How did he feel last night? Well, like a dog with two tails . . . The ALP had hoped for this result to break the back of the QLP but had not been sure it would happen.’
Bennett told the newspaper, ‘My win just goes to prove that you cannot win an election with slander. That sort of thing will just not be accepted by a fair-minded population.’
In the newspaper photograph of a jubilant Colin Bennett and his wife, Eileen, it is evident that the new member for South Brisbane had, in just five months, aged considerably since the loss of his son.
But even Premier Nicklin’s return to government couldn’t take away Bennett’s victory over Gair.
They celebrated long and hard in Paradise Street that night, and within months Bennett would be tearing into his favourite subjects – Police Commissioner Frank Bischof and corrupt police.
The Passion Pit
With the city’s brothels padlocked, sex literally came to the streets of the Brisbane CBD. And if you wanted some female company, you could find it at the National Hotel and the Grand Central Hotel.
The Grand Central – just down Queen Street from the Wintergarden Theatre, and next door to Bayards department store (specialty: dresses and materials) – already had a dubious pedigree before the likes of Shirley Brifman and her friends Lily Ryan and Val Weidinger – all expatriates of Killarney brothel – used its bars and lounges as their business offices.
Lewis, during his days in the Consorting Squad, says he made several arrests in the Grand Central.
‘Most of the prostitutes [you] used to get in Queen Street, the Australian Hotel, or the main one was the Grand Central,’ he recalls. ‘It used to have a bar in Queen Street and a lounge and an alleyway at the back. It was a favourite spot for prostitutes because we used to go and talk to them and pinch some of them.’
In Johnno, David Malouf recall
s the Grand Central of his youth in Brisbane. ‘It had a ladies’ lounge on the second floor . . . known as the Sex [or Passion] Pit, since it was the special preserve of Brisbane’s most flamboyant tarts. They occupied a table apiece, wore glossy patent-leather shoes, carried glossy patent-leather handbags, had their hair lacquered and piled up in sculptured jet-black, peroxide or chestnut curls, pencilled eyebrows, vivid scarlet mouths . . .’
The shift from Killarney brothel made no difference to Bischof’s collect boys. They continued to pick up their payments, regular as clockwork.
Brifman was even kicking back to a distant cousin, Detective Syd Currey: ‘He used to work from the Grand Central one-out,’ she later recalled in a police interview. ‘He knew what he was there for and you would go into Bayards and meet him there . . . You would wait and pay Currey.’
He also hit up Val and Lily.
‘Ten pounds was the limit,’ Brifman said. ‘He was the small asker. That’s not bad, anyway – twice a week – three girls, ten pound each girl. The big boys were the big askers . . . Bauer was connected with the brothels. The payments would have been going from the collect boys to Bauer to Bischof.
‘Norm Bauer. He’d turn to me in a half-stupor – that Sundown murder. He used to rave on and on about it.’
Brifman added that ‘if Murphy wanted anything he just got it . . . Actually, there was always an excuse for Murphy: “I have to paint the house. The car is going to cost so much.” There was always a reason. The children. They were tutored – the whole lot.
‘Murphy was always there. He was at the hotel, everywhere. On duty when he should have been somewhere else, he was with me. He would carry on his duty at the office and make me sit on the desk.’
Tony Murphy’s family emphatically denies this ever happened. His wife, Maureen, says, ‘She was an informant of his. I know it’s hard to understand but they have to do this . . . I knew Tony had used her. She used to ring the house occasionally.’
Another acquaintance of Brifman from her early days working in Brisbane was David Young. Then in his late twenties, Young was a barman in the Passion Pit and he got to know a wide variety of Brisbane’s prostitutes, though he had left the Grand Central to work at the National Hotel before Bischof ordered the closing of the brothels. It was during this time that he was accused of illegally selling beer to police on a Sunday.
Lewis wasn’t having such fun. After the Leigh Hamilton incident with Hallahan, he was seconded to the Company Squad. Forget beer and girls – he was up to his neck in forged cheques and false pretences.
He was partnered with Detective Jack Cain and his old friend Abe Duncan.
‘I found it interesting . . .’ he remembers. ‘Someone might pinch a cheque book and start cashing them up and down the state.
‘I went and introduced myself to accountants in the major banks, and asked them to let us know if they came across a run of bad cheques. In that way we could follow the trail.’
As for the Big Fella – Police Commissioner Bischof – he was enjoying regular lunches and dinners at the National Hotel with his good friend and proprietor Rolly Roberts and Rolly’s brother Max.
Greg Early, a young constable at the time, says Bischof was one of a long line of ‘signing commissioners’. He’d sign documents when he had to, and that was about it: ‘He didn’t take any active part in the running of the police force; that was done out of Legal Services. Police qualifying exams, questions in parliament, ministerial files, communications – it was all done from Legal Services, which was very powerful.
‘Those types of commissioners didn’t do much. They’d go out to lunch.’
Bischof loved the power and pomp of the job. He was always accompanied by two police officers as big as himself, and he went around town in his flash commissioner’s car – a two-tone, automatic Ford Customline. And that car was always driven by his loyal driver, ‘Slim’ Somerville.
‘He was the only fellow who drove it,’ recalls Lewis. ‘He was a lovely bloke. Never drank. Never smoked. Never did anything except be a loyal driver and [the car] was looked after like a baby.’
Early was sometimes called upon to chauffeur Bischof when Slim went on holidays. To drive the commissioner’s automatic was a dream: ‘We only had manual cars at that stage and I always thought I was like a rat with a gold tooth.’
That car, too, was often seen heading out to the racetrack.
Police Commissioner Bischof, as it turned out, was a compulsive gambler. It was nothing for him to lay bets of up to 2,000 pounds at a single race meet. Often, he’d back three horses in a single race with hundreds of pounds on each nag.
Bischof laid all his bets as credit bets. Bookmakers ascribed the bets made by Bischof to a ‘Mr B’. If Bischof’s horse won, the bet was later filled out in full as that of ‘Bischof’. If he lost, another surname was penned after the ‘B’. His losses were usually attributed to ‘Mr Baystone’. The ruse was well known to the city’s SP and paddock bookmakers.
Mr Baystone, without question, was Brisbane’s worst punter.
Meanwhile, near the end of 1960, Detective Tony Murphy was set to go on four months’ long service leave. He had some relatives to visit in north Queensland, and a brick patio to build at the Murphy family home in Coopers Plains.
Detective Glen Hallahan struggled with his health through most of 1960. He had undergone a kidney operation in late 1959 and spent much of the next year getting back on his feet, taking several weeks of intermittent sick leave.
Down at the National Hotel, Hungarian immigrant John Geza Komlosy had begun work as a night porter. On his first evening on the job, he witnessed so much prostitution and drinking beyond legal hours that he brought up the matter with Max Roberts. Komlosy was told not to worry about it, the hotel was being sold and they were cashing up.
On another night, two detectives brushed past the porter, saying, ‘It’s okay, we’re friends of Max.’ It was Murphy and Hallahan.
Komlosy regularly saw the pair at the National after that, with Murphy often staying until after midnight. The porter also began to work out the regular prostitutes who frequented the hotel, either soliciting trade or using the premises for their business.
In some instances, Komlosy saw prostitutes sitting on men’s laps in the bars and lounges and openly engaging in sexual intercourse. There was even a rumour that some of the rooms at the National were being used as pornographic photography studios. Komlosy got to recognise Val, Lala, Mary, Christine, and, of course, the pretty and petite Marge (Shirley Brifman).
He often witnessed Police Commissioner Bischof drinking at the hotel and attending parties in Max’s private flat on the first floor. Komlosy was even asked to serve drinks to occupants of a squad car parked outside the hotel, while other police officers drank the night away inside.
Komlosy also noted the hotel’s curious and unusual use of its room register sheets.
In March 1960, for example, fourteen rooms were booked out for a full week without the names and details of the occupants being entered into the sheets. This mystery continued throughout the year, culminating in October, when nineteen nights and numerous rooms were secured for fifty-eight unnamed guests. The National was as busy as ever – the bars packed, the rooms booked – but most of the people who stayed there didn’t have names.
And for whatever reason, Room 35 was one of the most popular on the booking sheets. It was often secured more than once on a single night.
Komlosy, the father of three children, was confused. He had come to Australia from Hungary for a better life, and was now the night porter for what appeared to be nothing more than a fancy brothel.
He quickly adapted, selling liquor after hours to make a few extra quid, and keeping the names and personal details of prostitutes that frequented the hotel in the back of his porter’s notebook. If a guest needed a lady, Komlosy was th
e man to see.
In a few short years, he and the National Hotel would be front-page news.
Attack Dog
Colin Bennett, the new member for South Brisbane, might have been in parliament for less than five months, but he was wasting no time in establishing himself as the Opposition’s go-to attack dog and a whistleblower in the making.
He settled quickly into state political life, and while he might not have had the sartorial elegance of government ministers like Treasurer Thomas Hiley – who wore three-piece suits, a carnation in his buttonhole and brandished a walking cane – he had an intelligence and a focus that needled at the Liberal–Country government.
Bennett also found an early ally in cane farmer Edward (Ted) Walsh, the member for Bundaberg. Walsh liked a good steak and a Bundy rum, but he also relished a verbal brawl in the parliamentary chamber.
In early October 1960, and working almost as a tag team in parliament, Walsh and Bennett took on Police Commissioner Bischof, the CIB and the police minister, Ken Morris.
Walsh called for a commission of inquiry into police corruption, and accused officers, especially the CIB boys, of ‘parading around like Hollywood stars’. He could quite reasonably have had the dapper Glen Hallahan in mind, let alone the splendidly dressed Bischof.
Then Bennett entered the fray. He accused members of the CIB of presenting false evidence in court ‘without raising an eyebrow, giving a blush or turning a hair’. This, again, would have fitted Hallahan to a tee. There was a running joke among some members of the force in the 1960s concerning a picture framing business in the city, near to CIB headquarters. Officers passing the framers would point to it and say, ‘That’s Glen Hallahan’s office.’
Bennett, himself a legal powerhouse, went on to say that the behaviour of CIB officers in court could virtually convince anyone present that part of their training was to offer evidence in keeping with the prosecution’s indictment rather than the true facts at hand.
Three Crooked Kings Page 11