by Chris Smith
I’d cooked dinner one night and he didn’t turn up on time. I didn’t think he was coming over so I went to bed. Then he arrived at 10pm. He was obviously drunk. When I asked him to leave he refused to go. He talked his way into staying. It became full-on from that day.
The article continued:
Although she was unaware of it at the time, Paula was about to enter every woman’s nightmare—a nightmare that, despite John’s continued breach of charge conditions against him—continues. John is a stalker … She said John began pressuring her for sex at all hours of the night and would go into rages if she rejected his advances.
He would keep me up until 5am arguing with me. He wouldn’t leave my house until I caved in. After about three months he started getting physically abusive. He spat on me. He pushed me around. My work began to suffer and people started asking why I looked so tired and run-down. But he had this limitless energy. He would be arguing until 5am and get up at 7am and go off to work.
Condon wrote of the episode involving the discovery of a cut house key:
One of the most chilling aspects to the relationship was revealed near the end. Paula noticed that her spare house key was missing. It reappeared two days later. Paula had learned that John had cut his own key and had been letting himself into her house at will.
It was driving me insane,’ she said. ‘He would follow me everywhere. He would climb onto the roof of a restaurant and watch me having dinner in another restaurant across the road. He began turning up everywhere I went. I thought initially it was just a coincidence. I’ve only realised now that he was probably following me daily from about a week after we met. I tried to break up with him but it was impossible.
‘I noticed he had a private investigator’s handbook in his flat, but I didn’t put it all together at the time. On the first night that I finally tried to end it properly he ripped my dress. I tried to call the police, but he wouldn’t let me. He pushed me down on the bed and put his hand across my mouth.
There was a brief rundown of his arrest for assaulting Libby and the bizarre attempts to get her back:
Paula moved to her parent’s home. She was inundated with flowers, letters and phone calls from John, trying to get her back. He left letters on her office desk before she arrived at work. Four days after being charged he breached his bail conditions by approaching Paula. He was subsequently charged under the State Government’s stalking legislation that resulted from the death of Andrea Patrick in Harbord on August 19, 1993. She was killed by her former partner, who later committed suicide. The offence carries a penalty of two years’ imprisonment and/or a $5,000 fine.
He quoted Libby:
John approached me, in breach of the stalking charge, at least 30 times since he was charged. The law means nothing. It gets to the point where I’m embarrassed to call the police. I go to bed at night and hear noises and it’s him at my bedroom window. He tampered with evidence relating to my parent’s telephone line so he could say in court that it was me who had been harassing him. I now have a one-year restraining order against him which stems from the initial assault charge, and it means nothing to him. If I go to see my friend, he’s watching me in the backyard. Wherever I go he turns up. I’m constantly on edge. I’m always looking over my shoulder. He has breached his conditions so many times. It’s very hard to actually catch him in the act. He has to be dealt with and made aware you cannot do this sort of thing.
The article even touched upon Simone Crowe’s experience: ‘Paula’s problems were exacerbated when she discovered recently that John had stalked a previous girlfriend for more than eight years.’
Condon had done his best to draw in to the case all the relevant authorities, to put the job of protecting Libby into as many laps as possible. He wrote: ‘In desperation, Paula has now contacted her local member, Federal MP for Warringah, Tony Abbott. Mr Abbott has contacted the relevant police and says he will ensure Paula’s case is not taken lightly.’
Abbott himself was quoted as saying: ‘It’s horrific. As far as the person being harassed is concerned, their whole life is blighted by this. But how much can the police do in these circumstances? It is one of life’s ghastly imponderables.’
Condon also probed for comment from the State Government Attorney-General’s office:
The legislation can’t stop everything. She should not be afraid to report every incident where he breaches his conditions. It’s an enforcement question, that’s the job of the police. If he has not paid attention to an order imposed on him by a court, a judge or magistrate would have to sort out the appropriate penalty.
Condon’s feature article concluded thus:
Last Saturday night Paula was out at a restaurant dining with a friend. During the evening a rock was thrown, cracking the restaurant window. She has no doubt it was John. Paula said, ‘I just wonder if it’s ever going to end … I just wish I’d never met him that night … I wish I’d never laid eyes on him.’
When the story was published that Sunday, Libby couldn’t wait for the paperboy to come to her street. She purchased the early edition from the local 24-hour convenience shop at 5am and, although it seemed like someone had taken out most of what she’d told Condon, it didn’t really matter. The key incidents were there.
It was as though she was reading someone else’s nightmare, not her own. And while she felt chilled at what the outcome of the piece might be, she again felt empowered by a great sense of revenge. It didn’t undo the untruths told and the prolonged pain of his stalking, but she knew it would straighten a few misconceptions among those she knew.
The publicity from the article would certainly make the police a tad more receptive—which she knew had to happen if Hopkins was ever going to be forced to answer for his deeds. That was the scenario she dreamed of, but at least for now, she was confident enough to contemplate such a result.
‘Hello, Libby. This is Matt here. How are you?’ came the voice at the other end of the telephone that afternoon. Matt’s call was one of at least twenty that day, the others being from friends and family who had cottoned on to the link between the published story and Libby’s. Caller after caller had congratulated her on upstaging her predator and putting the pressure back on those who’d let her down. But this call was different. Matt felt for Libby and had been working on empowering her further. He was about to step things up a notch—move her towards the endgame she envisaged.
‘I’ve got a friend, Libby, another journalist, who I’ve been talking to about your case this week. And he’s very interested in helping. But you’ll need to meet with him, talk about what he’s got in mind and make a decision.’
‘Why would that be such a big deal, Matt? I got through the story with you easily. It came out great. The Hopkins family has obviously read it, and Phillip will be watched like a hawk from here on surely. And if I need the cops, they’ve got politicians everywhere waiting to catch them out if they appear slack. What are you talking about?’
‘A Current Affair wants to film Phillip in the dark, catch him out, with your help. And it could put him away, Libby. It could lead to the end. This is powerful media.’
There was a long pause. Libby cleared her throat, stunned, frightened at the prospect of television involvement.
‘I’m not sure. How will it work?’
‘Can I just suggest you meet him? He’s a very close friend and knows his stuff. But he also takes good care of those who find themselves in trouble. Meet him and then decide, okay?’
‘Okay. I will. I’ve come this far. What’s his number?’
12
PRIME TIME
This is where I, the author of this book, come into Libby’s story. I was a senior producer with A Current Affair, a bit of an old hand, having spent most of my professional life reporting. She was supremely apprehensive about going further, but her confidence in Matt had persuaded her to take another step. She agreed to meet me and reporter Jane Hansen at a restaurant in East Sydney. It was not a location likely
to attract her stalker’s attention. It was more a typical posh spot for two journalists to ply their trade.
Libby was curious to find out what more could be done, knowing that she needed to make a decision while the story was hot. I made my credentials clear from the start and thought it appropriate to mention the fact that I’d won journalistic awards for past coverage of current affairs and news. I had been following Libby’s case, spending many hours with my friend Matt discussing the story and what my program might be able to prove. Matt’s description of Libby’s plight was a real eye-opener. Her story was custom-made for a reality-style surveillance operation, in which our hidden cameras could be used to track Hopkins’ suspicious movements.
This was my specialty. Two years earlier I recorded a police officer extorting cash from a petty thief in Kempsey. The money had allegedly been to pay off a magistrate, but it was an elaborate con job perpetrated by a senior NSW detective to line his own pockets. Our team had placed a small lipstick camera in the stalk of a house plant in the lounge room of the petty thief, which would record the cash changing hands. An audio recording of the meeting, albeit illegally obtained via a small FM microphone in the rear of the pillows on the thief’s lounge, enabled us to monitor whether the bribe was paid and received—and whether it was worth pouncing. Once confirmation was broadcast from the house, we ‘walked in’ on the detective in the front yard of the house, confronting him over his extraction of dirty money. There was more than enough proof against the detective, who was later sentenced to six months in prison.
This project would be an adaptation of the same assignment and might even deliver Libby her own conviction. There were clearly more variables to consider in this case, but I was confident something equally dramatic and effective could be achieved. Libby took us through the ins and outs of her case against Hopkins and talked about the dead ends she’d encountered with the private investigator and the police. I preferred to take a shotgun approach to following Hopkins, whom I didn’t underestimate for a second. Our plan was to use infra-red surveillance on the exterior of the Masters’ home, bring in Libby’s private investigator—who’d already done extensive work on Hopkins—and take a cooperative approach with police once we’d recorded enough evidence of the stalker’s presence to jam them into a corner. If the story had legs and was likely to be aired, the police simply couldn’t ignore it.
‘We’ll go all out with this bastard, Libby,’ I told her. ‘With our program involved, you’ll find that the police will take a completely different approach to your situation. I reckon it’s a fair bet that the local detectives will be instructed from above to get onto the case and solve it. They won’t want to be embarrassed by this, Libby. We can’t promise that part of it, but we are very confident.’
‘But can footage of an unidentified, balaclava-ed stalker, place Phillip at the scene?’
‘The visual evidence gets the cops involved in a far more wholehearted way. They will smother this joint before he arrives again. You just watch. I’m prepared to stay at your house overnight for a week to record the evidence. We won’t leave you in the lurch—we’ll get him. And I feel lucky about it too, which helps.’
I always felt it healthy to be a little cocky in front of ‘story talent’. I needed to exude an air of motivation and hope. Libby knew a hard sell when she saw it though. No matter how enthusiastic I was to score the big story, I sensed that she was ever doubtful. But she had little choice. How else was she going to end this? Nothing else had sent him away.
Jane was far more sympathetic, as only a woman could be. They bonded instantly, and gradually Libby came round to the idea of going ahead with our plans.
‘What about my face—can you disguise it? Can you use a different name?’
I knew that this would be a crucial point in swaying her. But I also knew that to garner the kind of personal sympathy for the story required in a lengthy piece of television, we needed her face on the box. I needed her to tell her own story, face to camera. I was prepared to change her name if need be, but only to appease her doubts. It would make little difference if her face was beamed to a national television audience.
‘We need you. We need your face and your story. We need the empathy to make it stick with the audience. If we get that, we create pressure on authorities. Without it, there’s no killer punch.’
‘I don’t know whether I could do that. I could lose my job, I could damage everything.’
‘Damage everything? He’s done that already, Libby.’ I knew this was crunch time. Without a real person for the audience to relate to, a genuine victim, the story would lose a great deal in the telling, not to mention credibility. I leaned forward. This next minute was crucial—I was determined to return to the office with a green light on a potentially powerful story. But at the same time, I was genuinely moved by Libby’s plight and wanted to free her from this tyranny. She didn’t have a life. ‘As for your job, by the sound of it, you’re on the brink of losing it anyway,’ I said. ‘Your boss would welcome a woman with guts and courage putting her life back on track and not allowing herself to be dictated to by a lunatic. Imagine the support you’d have if things go well. If not, you’ll have understanding beyond anything you have now. You can’t lose.’
‘What about Phillip? If he knows you’re here and he doesn’t front, you give up and I’m left to fend off a maniac racked by feelings of revenge. That’s not my idea of winning, Chris.’
‘The vision, the public exposure and the police attention are the greatest personal insurance policy you could ever have. If anything happens to you, anything, they have one suspect and a mile of pressure to build a case. I have never exposed a victim to greater danger. I have never had someone we’ve interviewed before targeted by those they accuse. I’ve done this for over a decade.’
Libby paused, trapped by our solutions to her dilemma. She was concerned that any story would adversely impact on the upcoming case of assault against Hopkins. We both reluctantly assured her that we would not run any story prior to the hearing of his case.
It was an empty promise, because not even our legal advisors would warn us off running a story before an assault case in a lower court without a jury. I wasn’t prepared to jeopardise the story by having to explain the legal realities.
I’d rolled out all the compelling arguments I could think of. It was time to back off, to let all of it sink in. I could see Libby’s need to be saved, to be protected, and felt we’d done enough to get her over the line. She was clearly nervous, but couldn’t argue with what we had put to her. She sat back in her chair and the tension of the debate suddenly eased. We suddenly looked at each other differently. I was standing in her shoes, saw her torment. I was fired up about the prospect of catching her predator, but I could sense that she wanted to make the most of that sentiment too. She could see how determined we were to nail Hopkins. She smiled, realising that there was really no decision to make. It was time to load up and fire back. A Current Affair was the perfect vehicle for that.
‘Let’s get him—once and for all. I’m exhausted, Chris. I can’t take this any more.’
‘Excellent,’ I replied in a state of subdued relief, ‘time to stalk the stalker.’
We were set to go into overdrive. Jane told her the team would be back the following morning with engineers and all the techno-geeks the story required. As we said goodbye I gently took Libby by the shoulders.
‘Thank you. If he wants to harass you again, we’ll be here and we’ll nail him for you. I can’t think of any greater pleasure.’
I asked a couple of logistical questions about windows and eaves and whether the sensor lights had been installed at her home and checked by a professional. These were obvious tools for nighttime surveillance and had to be functioning properly. Libby told me that they were purchased and assembled by her father and that they didn’t always trigger as expected. I told her that a lighting fellow would be calling first thing the next morning too. We needed the sensors to trigg
er at the very last moment, not tipping Hopkins off.
We put Libby into a cab and began what turned out to be on of the most exciting investigations we’d undertaken.
I headed back to my car, mobile phone in one hand, notepad in the other. I was already talking to unit managers, crews and producers before I’d got the engine started. I felt that Libby was recharged by our enthusiasm, that we had given her hope.
The very next morning, I arrived with a team of cameramen, sound recordists and engineers to begin the technical set up of Libby’s home for the first surveillance operation to be carried out that night. We also called the corporate division of Telstra. I had a close senior contact there and twisted some arms to get an authorised technician out to verify what the constable had found—that the Masters’ phone line had been tampered with. It didn’t take long for the technician to come to the same conclusion: the cables had been split, an old junction box attached and crimps used to attach an extension. Calls could be made from underneath Libby’s floorboards, under her very feet, without her having an inkling of what was going on.
She was now equipped with knock-out evidence of Hopkins’ dirty work. The tampering could not be proven to be his doing, but for the purposes of a national current affairs story, the case against Libby’s oppressor had begun. The circumstantial evidence, along with Libby’s allegations and whatever was caught on camera was certainly enough to prosecute on television.
‘We don’t say a single thing about this just yet,’ I warned. ‘I’ll ensure that both your installer and this Telstra technician lodge full reports and make affidavits on this. You sit down and write what you’ve seen too. I’ll take some snaps and we’ll sit tight for now.’
Libby was miffed at the secrecy. She wondered why this evidence wasn’t good enough in itself to be taken to the police and acted upon. But we had the bigger picture in mind. ‘Libby, possibly proving that he tampered with your phones and did actually breach his AVO—and I think you’ll still have trouble making the link—is going to get you zilch,’ I explained quietly, so no one else in the room could hear. ‘We have to compile a whole brief of evidence to get the police interested and have a case good enough to air. Leave this in my hands and stop worrying. We’re on our way.’