by James Morton
The last scandal of the Nicholson era was the so-called Callaghan Conspiracy case. Despite The Argus’ banner headline ‘Detectives’ Den: Secret Meeting Place. Strange Discoveries’, it was a fairly commonplace story except for the money involved. On February 1925 liquor, along with some teas and a woman’s coat, stolen from the railways, was delivered by a Patsy Quilter to the Railway Hotel in Wellington Street, Collingwood. Almost the moment Quilter left four officers, Detective Inspector Neil Olholm and detectives Leo O’Sullivan, Donald John McPherson and Walter Rufus Fowler, swooped.
In charge of the hotel was Anne Callaghan, the licensee’s daughter. O’Sullivan told her that he ‘might be able to do something for her’ and when she turned him down her father, Terence, was arrested at his dairy in Easey Street, Collingwood, and taken back to the hotel. He was told that the detectives might overlook the matter if he paid them £10 000, a sum he negotiated down to £6500. The detectives stayed the night at the hotel and drank to their success, during which time O’Sullivan told Miss Callaghan that he was a wealthy man—a fine achievement when his annual salary would have been about £500. Next morning O’Sullivan went with Callaghan to the bank and received an initial payment of £1000 in £100 notes. Graciously, O’Sullivan then gave Callaghan sixpence for the tram fare home.
However, Callaghan made a complaint, and Superintendent Potter interviewed McPherson and Fowler. They admitted to being at the hotel with Olholm and O’Sullivan, who in addition to his other duties performed special inquiries for the railways department, but claimed that no one from the hotel had been charged because the goods had been found in the back lane and not actually on the premises. The detectives said they had waited at the scene because they had information that the thieves were returning to collect the goods. When they did not, the property was taken back to the railway lost-property office. Olholm and O’Sullivan backed them up.
Initially it was proposed that an internal inquiry be held. Instead, the four officers were charged with conspiracy to obtain money unlawfully. Although O’Sullivan was junior in rank, he was apparently the ringleader, a phenomenon that was to reappear in future corruption cases, for instance, that of Roger Rogerson. Before the hearing O’Sullivan, as befitted a man of means, was admitted to a private hospital with a nervous breakdown. He was apparently unable to recognise any of his friends or relatives and was not even sure who his wife was.
Sensibly, Fowler took more direct action and disappeared without trace. Some charitably thought he was wandering in the bush, suffering from loss of memory. Others thought he would surrender when his fellow detectives stood trial in April. He did not and a warrant was issued that month. For the next year-and-a-half there were stories that Fowler was visiting his aged and ill parents; that he was out of the state; that he was out of the country. In the event, Fowler did not surrender until early December 1926.
So then there were two. The jury found both Olholm and McPherson guilty, adding a strong recommendation for mercy due to their long service and previous good character. Judge Dethridge sentenced Olholm to twelve months’ imprisonment and McPherson to nine. Their appeals failed. The suddenly recovered O’Sullivan was brought for trial in July 1925 and sentenced to three years. It is highly unlikely that the Callaghan incident was the first time these men had acted together.
O’Sullivan’s comments about his wealth moved a member of parliament to suggest that officers should be forced to submit to an examination to satisfy the court that they had come by their assets lawfully. If they could not, he proposed that the Crown should confiscate their property. Forward-looking as this comment was, it was not until towards the end of the twentieth century that asset recovery legislation came into force. Disclosure by police of their financial affairs has remained a contentious issue in Victoria.
As is so often the case, until this time the four detectives had all been highly regarded, with excellent work records and numerous commendations. Lack of supervision was blamed for their conduct, and Superintendent Potter said during his evidence, ‘In practice, I interfere very little with the railway detectives. They have their own liberties and do not report property recovered to the detective office’.
Olholm died following an attack of pleurisy at the hotel he ran after his release. After he resurfaced, Fowler was more fortunate. Terence Callaghan had what in the trade is called a touch of the second (thoughts) and made an unsatisfactory witness. Since the incident his marriage had broken up, and he had lost 150 head of cattle and his money. He could not remember seeing Fowler before in his life. There was no evidence to show that the detective had received money from him. In December 1926 the magistrate refused to commit Fowler for trial, something that shows the merits of staying out of sight until the initial storms have blown away. Callaghan died the next year.
Chief Commissioner Nicholson was admitted to hospital in May 1925 and never resumed his duties, resigning three months later. He died in March 1928. On Nicholson’s retirement the First World War hero Sir Thomas Blamey, a decorated soldier who had distinguished himself at Gallipoli and in France, was appointed chief commissioner. His appointment on 1 September 1925, at the age of forty-one, was generally well received by property owners and police alike, but not everyone was convinced. ‘An exceedingly able little man, though by no means a pleasing personality’, the commander of the Australian Imperial Force, General Birdwood, said perceptively.
Blamey’s appointment also averted the possibility of an inquiry into the now persistent allegations of corruption in the force, particularly the licensing branch. Now that Blamey, with his fine war record, had been appointed, the ‘right man’ was in the post and things would soon be cleaned up. This ‘new broom’ approach to freshen up a corrupt force, along with a cleansing name change for a branch under suspicion, have proved to be commonly used tactics.
Indeed Blamey had many suitable qualities. As a military man, he looked on the force as a similar operation and was innovative in such matters as training, people management and organisation. He also obtained an increase in wages for the men. However, he began and ended his police career in scandal. Unfortunately, Blamey held the view that liquor was an adult version of mother’s milk and should be available to all with as little let or hindrance as possible. He could be found in smart hotels drinking after hours on a regular basis, something that provided, for the right people, a cast-iron guarantee against police raids.
Worse, on 21 October 1925, within weeks of his appointment, someone who carried the commissioner’s police badge, ‘80’, was found in a brothel in Bell Street, Fitzroy, run by former actress Mabel Tracey. (The plaque on the door claimed that she was a teacher of elocution.) When it was raided by three constables from the licensing branch, the holder of the badge had an explanation, ‘It’s all right, boys. I’m a plainclothes constable. Here is my badge.’ All the constables agreed that it was not Blamey who held the badge, although the badge was definitely his. Now anonymous letters were sent to the government:
Do you know that the Commissioner of Police was found in a sly-grog shop at Fitzroy last month naked and in bed with a naked woman and that the police who found him there are in terror as to what he will do to them? How is the cursed drink to be put down if the head of the police is an adulterer and a drunkard? Good men are needed at the top, pure and honest (Romans xiiii XI–XIV).
Blamey maintained the badge must have been removed from his key ring the day before the raid and that he found it three days later in his locker at his club. However, his next in command, Superintendent Daniel Lineham, said quite specifically that he had seen the badge on Blamey’s desk only seven hours before the raid. A public inquiry was refused and instead Lineham was accused of disloyalty. Now Blamey produced a witness, an old army friend, who said he had been with Blamey and his family from 9 p.m. until just before midnight on the night of the raid.
A reasonably likely explanation is that Blamey lied to protect a married friend who had met him after dinner at the club and as
ked if he had any grog in his locker. Blamey had handed over his key ring with his badge on it, telling the man to drop it back later. He was rather admired for his refusal to betray his friend, but it was hardly a good example to the lower ranks. Indeed it is a classic example of how corruption spreads downwards in a police force.
Nor was Blamey necessarily a good judge of character. While he restored morale among his officers, his judgement was lacking and, importantly, he dismissed a series of allegations of corruption and brutality—thirty in 1933 alone—against officers. He was deceived into thinking that the swindler James Coates might have reformed and he allowed him to run his horses at Victorian tracks. Worse, against the recommendation of his special adviser Tom Dunn, he appointed John O’Connell Brophy to be a criminal investigation branch (CIB) superintendent. Brophy was highly regarded by the underworld and celebrated in the couplet, ‘Ashes to ashes and dust to dust; if Brophy don’t get you then Piggott [his colleague] must’.
Blamey’s career ended with another fudged cover-up. On Saturday 23 May 1936 Brophy was in St Vincent’s Hospital suffering a gunshot wound. He had accidentally shot himself in the right arm while handling a pistol. Unfortunately, those who visited him in hospital could see that he had also been shot in the face and the chest. ‘Injuries even for the most persistent pistol cleaner it would have been difficult to receive,’ said LEB Stretton, counsel at the subsequent inquiry.
It was time for a revision of the facts. Now the heroic officer had been shot while chasing car bandits near the zoo. The press did not give up, and on 5 June County Court Judge Hugh Macindoe was appointed as royal commissioner to investigate the shooting of Brophy and the subsequent press statements made by Blamey. What was quite clear was that Brophy had been with a chauffeur and two women that night, one of whom was a Madeleine Orr. All sorts of lame explanations—such as meeting with an informer in the dead of night—were offered as to how he came to be chasing dangerous bandits with innocent spectators at risk.
Forty-four witnesses were called, including both Blamey and Brophy, and much of the time was spent trying to refute ‘scandalous’ allegations that Brophy had been shot by an ‘enraged’ husband—that is, Mr Orr. Later there were allegations that Brophy was half naked and practising cunnilingus on his companion when the gunman approached. Another version, admittedly third-hand at best, comes from former superintendent HR (Bill) Donnelly, one-time chief of Melbourne’s homicide squad, who knew he was going to be quoted by Kevin Morgan in his book Gun Alley when he told the writer that he had information from a ‘senior source in whom I have the utmost confidence’, and that it was Blamey himself on the back seat and Brophy was sacrificed to protect him.
On 2 July Macindoe submitted his report, which many saw as a whitewash. Unfortunately for Blamey, he said:
Being jealous of the reputation of the force, which he commands, he thought that reputation might be endangered if the whole truth was discovered. I was tremendously impressed with Blamey as I saw him in the witness box. I tried my best to steer him to the true story but he was immovable. I couldn’t save him from himself.
I cannot accept his evidence that he believed it was an accident…[he] gave replies which were not in accordance with the truth, with the sole purpose of secreting from the press the fact that women were in the company of Superintendent Brophy.
Blamey was finished. On 9 July he was required to submit his resignation. At first he tried to bluster his way out, although he was told that if he resigned he could have a pension of £260 per annum—but not otherwise. He resigned. The official police history also whitewashes him, ‘his only crime being a desire to preserve the reputation of his Force’.
Blamey returned to the army, where he served with great credit in the Second World War, becoming Australia’s first field marshall, although General Douglas MacArthur, the Allies’ supreme commander in the Pacific, described him as ‘sensual, slothful’ and a ‘doubtful character’.
When it came to it, the Brophy incident had not been the only cause of Blamey’s fall. The government had also made the grave mistake of appointing him chief constable for life. The retention of a £1000 philanthropic gift, a running feud with the press and a crusade against newspapermen, active opposition to any form of inquiry into a death during a dockers’ strike when police opened fire on the strikers, shootings and the use of batons in 1932 to stop a peaceful march by the unemployed in Flinders Street, and several ineffective police inquiries and open flouting of licensing laws had all counted against him. Apart from the fact that he routinely dismissed any complaints against his force, in 1930, 1933 and again in 1936 there had been allegations that officers were using the ‘third degree’ to get confessions.
In the wake of the Blamey fiasco the government took drastic action. On 14 July it cabled the Scotland Yard commissioner that it immediately required ‘the services of an outstanding Senior Official of Scotland Yard’ to report on the organisation of the Victorian police. The first person approached was Sir Trevor Bigham, but he declined within the month and instead the government invited Chief Inspector Alexander Duncan, who had joined the Met in 1910. He was seconded at a fee of £500 and allowances to ‘give his views’ on the detective and plainclothes branches. His interim findings on the CIB criticised a lack of training and supervision, with a resulting poor work ethic. He was also critical of interrogation methods that favoured the ‘hit first and ask questions later’ school of thought.
Despite cries from the opposition benches that outsiders were not needed, Duncan was offered the position of chief commissioner in February 1937 and he was appointed at first for a five-year period. His tenure was, by previous standards at least, a conspicuous success.
Duncan’s personal commitment to dealing with corrupt behaviour shows in his treatment of the notorious Fred ‘Bluey’ Adam, then detective first constable, later charged with conspiracy after the 1969 abortion inquiry. In 1945, when he and a detective sergeant charged a known thief with unlawful possession, a complaint was received that they were vying with each other for the best bargain in purchasing the offender’s car for their own use.
When questioned, both men freely admitted their actions. Neither they, nor others who were involved in the matter, could see anything wrong with their conduct. Duncan transferred both officers back to uniform duties. As it turned out, it might have been better for the force if the brutal Adam had been retired.
Tasmania also had corruption problems in the 1950s and Duncan was sent to advise on the problems of the police force there. This arose out of a board of inquiry into the bashing of a seaman by Hobart officers at a wharf and then back at a police station. Though suspected of an armed hold-up at the Prince of Wales theatre, the man was later found not to have been involved. The inquiry, conducted by Melbourne barrister DH Little, found against Senior Detective Kaye, who was dismissed, and Chief Superintendent Mackey, who was demoted to inspector. Little found that Mackey had either participated in the bashing at the wharf or was aware of it but had done nothing to stop it.
When Duncan interviewed officers he found that there was no formal training for the detective division and proposed the immediate introduction of a detective training course. The police were relying far too heavily on a confession to bring about a conviction and, once one was obtained, very often little else was done to find corroborating evidence. Duncan found that there had been a lack of proper supervision and the public had lost confidence in the police. This, he believed, would be restored by ‘playing the game’. It also appeared that there was doubt as to whether the police had the power to take fingerprints from suspects in custody.
Notwithstanding Duncan’s commitment to developing and maintaining ethical standards of police conduct, corruption did, of course, occur. When interviewed many years later, Victorian chief commissioner from 1963 to 1969 Rupert Arnold, himself a former member of the gaming branch, denied that there had been widespread corruption in the branch during the 1940s. He did, however, admit ‘big m
oney was changing hands’ and that more than one policeman was taking a payoff of £300 a week to turn a blind eye to the city’s gambling schools.
4
CHIEF COMMISSIONER WILLIAM JOHN MACKAY: POLICE REFORMER, CROOKED BULLY OR BOTH?
The man who should take much of the credit for the positives in the New South Wales Police from the 1930s onwards must, unfortunately, also take much of the blame for its disasters of the latter part of the twentieth century. His name, now half-forgotten outside the annals of the police, is William John MacKay, commissioner from 1935 until his death in 1948. Scots-born MacKay has been variously described as ‘The best commissioner I ever worked under … a policeman’s man’, ‘One of the biggest bloody crooks we ever had in the New South Wales police force’ and a number of other things in between.
In his unpublished thesis ‘William John MacKay and the South Wales Police Force 1910–1948: A Study of Police Power’,* historian Richard Evans compares MacKay’s career with the much shorter, ill-fated tenure of Peter Ryan, who was appointed in the wake of the 1995 Wood Royal Commission. Both, suggests Evans, were initially welcomed as reformers and modernisers and both later came under attack from politicians, the police union and the media, who conducted long and hostile campaigns against them. Both were autocratic and ambitious and both had a vain streak. Both wanted fundamental changes in the force. Both had their loyal supporters and their bitter enemies. The difference, Evans believes, is that MacKay would never have resigned in the circumstances in which Ryan left the force.
A long-held business precept is never to promote a subordinate who is more intelligent than you are. The police policy of promotion only towards the end of one’s career is a good example of this kind of thinking. Until the end of the twentieth century seniority, not ability, was the keyword, and as a result the more able and assertive officers left the force. A wait of over twenty years to reach commissioned rank was the norm, and the biggest hurdle was the jump from senior constable to sergeant. It was also essential to have what the police in the United States call a ‘rabbi’, who advised and protected a young constable in the early stages of his career. MacKay was fortunate to have one in the form of James Mitchell, ‘a policeman of the best type’, who is credited with transforming the New South Wales police from a colonial to a modern force during his time as inspector-general from 1915 and then, when the title was changed in 1926, as commissioner until 1930.