Unholy Trinity

by Denis Ryan

  Just after we were married, Jean told me she had been sexually molested from the age of 9 until she was about 14 by her guardian and father figure. She had hated this man’s obscene attentions. The husband and wife were devoted Methodists at the time. Afterwards I learnt they had joined the Salvation Army, and that this child molester used to bang the drum in one of their bands.

  When Jean had converted to Catholicism seven years earlier, she did so out of love for me and the boys, but she had been betrayed before by people who were overtly religious, purportedly living in a God-fearing household while behaving in a less than spiritual fashion behind closed doors.

  She urged me on with the investigation. She was disgusted with the overall picture I painted of Day and his perverse attentions to children. I had no idea at the time just how deeply this investigation would affect her.

  Jean and I talked about the boys. Michael was in year eight at St Joseph’s College. Martin, Gavin and Anthony were at St Joseph’s Primary School in Red Cliffs, far enough away from the clutches of Day. Michael and Martin had both heard the rumours about Day, which by then were swirling around St Joseph’s.

  After I made a delicate but firm inquiry, Michael told Jean and me that he hadn’t had any trouble with Day. I wanted all the boys to continue with a Catholic education at St Joseph’s in Mildura. The shadow of Day hung over the school but I knew that, while good people like Howden were in control and Day’s crimes were coming to light, the boys were safe.

  At no time did my investigation of Day interfere with my faith, but the moral corruption of the Church and its complete disregard for the laws of the land in relation to the conduct of its priests was becoming obvious. But I stuck by my faith. Some people may think this odd and will wonder why I didn’t walk away from the Roman Catholic Church. My faith was unshakable. I will remain a Roman Catholic to the day I die. I wasn’t going to let bastards like Day, Mulkearns and O’Connor destroy my faith.

  I wasn’t going to let them bugger up my Christmas either.

  The Christmas break is a great down time around Australia. It’s not so for coppers. Every year I would try to take the main public holidays off, but would have to work the rest. I was on call all the time.

  Christmas at the Ryan household was a family affair. We’d go to mass at Red Cliffs in the morning. Jean would be in the kitchen cooking the turkey while the boys and I would be out the back playing cricket. The boys and I would set the table, which would heave with food, and then the feasting would begin.

  I was determined that this Christmas would be the same happy time it had always been for the Ryan family at Red Cliffs. Like any good copper, I thought I could compartmentalise my investigation into Day. Outwardly, I guess, I was successful. Certainly I tried to give Jean and the kids no clue. I’d been able to do it with gruesome murders. I’d pulled decomposing bodies out of houses and seen them fall apart in my hands. I’d photographed crime scenes where people had been blown apart with shotgun blasts. I thought I had seen the worst that humanity could throw up but I’d always finish my shift, go home and sleep well, sometimes with a few grogs under my belt to help erase the memory. Counselling for police in those days came in the form of drinking thirty beers in the pub, going home drunk, waking up with a hangover. Drinking to forget.

  But I couldn’t forget the situation in Mildura, nor did I try to erase the shock and disgust at the front of my mind.

  For the first time in my life, I started experiencing nightmares about Day, though I hadn’t seen him for months. There were two recurring dreams. The first had me looking at a little boy, 8 to 10 years of age, with his pants pulled down, forced over a bed. The kid was weeping while Day, dressed in his priestly garments, straddled him and sodomised him. In the other, I would see Day standing in his black shirt, dog collar and black pants while a young boy knelt in front of him, playing with his exposed penis. This boy was wailing in pain and torment, too. I’d wake with a start each time, in a cold, clammy sweat. The nightmare visions were vivid representations of reality. Day had done these things. I was the only police officer in Mildura who gave a damn. The others—Barritt, Irwin and McPartland—were protecting him so he could continue to rape children.

  To this day I continue to see the mongrel in my nightmares. I saw him in the flesh just once more at Red Cliffs Church. This church was a haven. In my six years attending mass at the church, I’d never seen him there.

  Jean, Michael, Gavin and Anthony were sitting with me in the pews. We saw Martin, who was one of the altar boys, pass by in his red smock as the procession made its way to the altar. The Red Cliffs priest, Father Anthony Del Bollo, was next, and behind him was Day in his full monsignor’s regalia, looking pompous and arrogant. As the congregation started to sit, I grabbed Jean’s attention.

  ‘Jean, you take the three boys to the side door and wait for me.’

  She nodded, and started to lead Michael, Gavin and Anthony to the closest exit. I strode up to Martin at the altar.

  ‘Martin, go and get changed into your normal clothes. I’ll wait for you here.’

  Martin moved off straight away.

  I stood at the altar, waiting. The murmurs in the church grew louder as every second passed. The gossip in Mildura had reached Red Cliffs. To the congregation, this was like watching a world title fight. It didn’t come to blows. But I was not going to be stood over by this bastard priest. I turned and glared at him. He returned my stare with a look of shock and anger.

  ‘You dirty bastard. You think I’m going to let you anywhere near my children?’

  Day didn’t say a word and returned his eyes to the congregation, attempting his most beneficent look, but I could tell he was rattled.

  Martin appeared in his civvies a minute or two later. I grabbed his hand and walked towards Jean and the other three boys, who remained steadfast at the door. We got into the car and drove straight to Sacred Heart at Mildura, where we attended mass, knowing there was no likelihood of seeing Day there.

  On the drive back to Red Cliffs, we saw Day driving his car, a late model Ford Fairlane, the other way along Eleventh Street. I don’t know if he saw me. If he did, he didn’t let on, but his hands were clenched tightly on the steering wheel and he had a look of impotent rage on his face.

  So that was the last time I saw Monsignor John Day, but I would be dealing with ugly memories of him, his rape of children, and his bloated sense of entitlement and authority for many more years.

  I remained very much alone in the police force during this period. I wondered if any copper would come forward with a promise to stand by me and give me a hand or some other form of moral support. Barritt, Irwin and McPartland were giving me a deluxe shafting. I needed the support of a genuine senior officer so I could continue with my investigation, or a senior investigator whom I could assist to be appointed. I decided to ring my old mate and mentor, Frank Holland, at that time a chief superintendent. Frank knew the score—he had helped me in past investigations when Barritt had stuck his bib in and nearly buggered things up.

  ‘Frank, I’ve got a problem,’ I told him. ‘It’s Barritt. I was conducting an inquiry into the local monsignor up here who is raping little kids. Barritt’s jumped on it. It’s come to a standstill and I’ve been ordered off the inquiry. Can you help me?’

  ‘Yes, I know all about it,’ Frank told me. ‘Don’t worry. Help is on its way.’

  The help that was coming would be more of a hindrance, but it opened my eyes to the form and function of the Catholic Mafia in the Victoria Police force and the murky relationship it had with the Roman Catholic Church.

  The help came in the form of John Quincy O’Connor, chief superintendent, chief investigator for the chief commissioner and the don of the Catholic Mafia.

  John ‘Baton Jack’ O’Connor was not a physically imposing man. He was about my height, but his chief super’s epaulets protruded under the force of his broad shoulders. He had a head of thick hair greying at the sides and the temples. He had perfect
ed the long, uncomfortable, silent stare, and anyone who had ever engaged in conversation with him would remember O’Connor fixing his gaze on them.

  Baton Jack got his nickname from his love of using a police issue baton as a tool of crisis management. A story often told in the police rumour mill was that, following a disagreement over a gambling debt, O’Connor beat an SP bookmaker’s runner, or bet collector, to death at the CIB office at the old St Kilda police station. He then dragged the body out to his car and drove out to Centre Road, Bentleigh, where he dumped the body in the wee hours of the morning. O’Connor allegedly burnt some rubber around the runner’s body to create the look of skid marks.

  The Homicide Squad was called in. Detective Inspector Jack Ford, a close mate of O’Connor’s, knew what to do. He wrote it up as a hit and run traffic incident, and naturally the crime remained unsolved. That was the rumour. I’ve spoken to a lot of police officers about this episode. Some believe it, others are less certain. O’Connor was capable of murder and Jack Ford was as corrupt as they come.

  O’Connor was given the plum job of arresting the author Frank Hardy for criminal defamation in Hardy’s book, Power Without Glory. The book had detailed the life of the illegal bookmaker and political puppetmaster, John Wren, and his close association with Archbishop Mannix. A bigoted Catholic like O’Connor would have enjoyed every minute of that arrest. The Catholic Church was his morning, noon and night.

  O’Connor was a detective sergeant in Victoria’s Special Branch, a clandestine group that saw reds under almost every bed. It was pro-Catholic and pro-Vatican, so there wasn’t a Protestant in the place. Special Branch liaised closely with ASIO, sharing files and information. It also played an integral part in Australia’s McCarthyite fight against the perceived threat of communism in Victoria. Following the Vatican’s denunciation of communism in Pope Pius XI’s encyclical in 1937, and the establishment of Special Branch in the period immediately after World War II, the branch became a virtual arm of the Catholic Church under the supervision of the archbishop of Melbourne, Daniel Mannix.

  I’d met O’Connor back in the 1950s, when I was a detective in Melbourne. I’d been to his home in the eastern suburbs with Fred Russell. After O’Connor greeted us at the front door, Russell asked me to wait out on the street by the car. With me out of the way, the two men continued their conversation for twenty minutes. It was not until a year later that Russell asked me if I wanted to join the Catholic Mafia. But back then I wasn’t in the fold. Perhaps I was being groomed to join up and that’s why I was given the opportunity of a brief introduction to O’Connor.

  I met O’Connor again in 1966, when I was in Mildura and he was district detective inspector (DDI). The DDI’s position was considered a stepping stone to other more senior positions in the force. Once he’d had a quick look at the arrest book and our diaries, he grabbed me.

  ‘Righto, Dinny,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell Barritt that you’re going to take me for a look around the district.’

  I’d been warned about O’Connor. He had a huge appetite for the grog, and so it turned out. We spent the day in and around Mildura, drinking in pubs, and ended up blind drunk. All in a day’s work.

  ‘Bloody Masons have ruined the force,’ he told me at one of our watering holes. ‘When I make chief commissioner, that’ll all change.’

  A Catholic had never made it to the top in Victoria but O’Connor had the ambition and a talent for political intrigue that might just have taken him all the way.

  The next time I saw O’Connor, he was standing in the lounge room of my home. It was the evening of 15 January 1972 and I’d just knocked off work. I’d seen the car in the driveway and wondered what was going on.

  ‘G’day Dinny,’ O’Connor said.

  He was standing with Jean on one side and Detective Chief Inspector Harvey Child on the other. Child was a big bloke, well over 185 centimetres tall and heavily built. He’d spent time in the old Consorters, where he had developed a reputation for being a bit heavy-handed with the crims he kept tabs on. Perhaps he’d spent a bit too much time around these crims, because he looked like a thug. Harvey was also the brother of Ray Child, my old boss at Mordialloc. Ray didn’t much care for his brother and had told me so.

  ‘I don’t trust Harvey and you shouldn’t either if you ever come across him,’ Ray had warned me.

  Harvey was a rabid Freemason. He hated Catholics in the force and didn’t think they belonged there. Anyone who was a Mason, however, got a rails run with Harvey.

  Here was the help—a fervent Mason and a diabolically fanatical Catholic. I wondered why two senior policemen diametrically opposed philosophically and spiritually had been given carriage in this investigation. It turned out that Child was just along for the ride, a Mason to make up the numbers—window dressing, so that no one would question O’Connor having prejudiced the investigation by looking after his beloved Roman Catholic Church.

  For serious matters, this was sometimes the way it was handled in the Victoria Police force. There’d be an officer from each team, Catholic or Freemason. And if the matter came before a court, the police would know if the judge was a Catholic or a Freemason, and the officers would offer evidence according to where the judge cut his lunch. Like meets like.

  Child nodded in greeting. They’d been having a chat with Jean, nice and amiable.

  ‘Can I have a word with you out the back?’ O’Connor said. It was more of a command than a request.

  I followed him out into the backyard. He kept walking until he found himself under an old peach tree.

  ‘This is a nice old mess, Dinny.’

  I didn’t say anything, just waited for him to continue.

  ‘What I intend to do is have Barritt moved on, and you will be made detective sergeant here,’ he said.

  The alarm bells started ringing straight away. There was no way I had the seniority for that position. Yes, O’Connor could have made it happen, but anyone with seniority who wanted the job could appeal. O’Connor’s offer didn’t ring true.

  ‘I’ve done my sergeant’s exam but I’d have to go back to Russell Street in uniform to be made a sergeant,’ I said. ‘Plus I’ve got my family settled here. My two oldest boys have asthma. They’ve improved up here, but until I get a medical clearance from their doctors, we have to stay. This position was given to me specifically for that reason by Superintendent Clugston. The doc says it might take a couple of years. I’d like to go back to Melbourne but I can’t do it until the boys get the OK from the doc.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that, Dinny,’ O’Connor replied with a grin. ‘You won’t be forced back to Melbourne until you want to go. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. I can make it all happen for you.’

  Now the bells at Notre Dame were tolling in my ears.

  ‘With due respect, sir,’ I replied. ‘It is not my intention to take Jim’s position. I was asking for some assistance regarding the investigation into the crimes of Monsignor Day. Jim Barritt is too close to Day.’

  ‘Dinny, we can smooth all this over,’ he replied, still smiling.

  ‘This goes back to my first day up here nine years ago. The first thing Jim did was take me up to the presbytery to meet Day. It was then that I realised I had met Day before. I was in the divisional van with Tommy Jenkins and Clarrie Bell in St Kilda back in 1956. We stopped Day with two prostitutes in Day’s car. He was pissed to the eyeballs with his strides around his ankles. I didn’t let on when I met Day, but I told Jim after we left. He blew up, told me I was wrong and next thing I know Day has called me up to the presbytery where he shit-cans me and issues orders like he runs the town. It was a serious breach of trust by Jim, sir.’

  ‘Dinny, Dinny . . .’

  ‘Jim tried to tell me I had the wrong priest. He tried to tell me there was another Father Day in Apollo Bay. Day tried that one on, too. Jim completely lost me then. Sir, there is something sinister about their association.’

  ‘Dinny, Barritt’s gone. You’ll be m
y man up here,’ O’Connor said. ‘But you have to play ball with me on this one.’

  ‘I don’t want Jim’s job, sir. I want Day thoroughly investigated. He’s an absolute disgrace to the priesthood and he should be unfrocked.’

  The smile on O’Connor’s face dropped.

  ‘All right then,’ he said, and walked back inside.

  I remained under the peach tree for a moment. Jesus, did that just happen? O’Connor had just offered me a bribe. And I’d knocked it back. That meant I had a new enemy. And he was the biggest, baddest bastard in the force.

  Before I regained my composure, O’Connor and Child came out again and walked passed me.

  ‘I’ll see you in the morning,’ O’Connor said, his mood now sullen and bellicose.

  The next day O’Connor blew into the office. I’d been waiting for his arrival with my heart in my mouth. I didn’t know what to say to him. In the end, I didn’t get a chance to say anything. He came over to my desk and told me he would be dealing with some business with the uniform boys and wouldn’t get back to me about the Day investigation for another week.

  He was off before I had a chance to say, ‘Yes, sir.’

  This left me in limbo yet again, with no support or anyone to turn to. At this time, the only advice I’d received on the conduct of the investigation was from Bishop Mulkearns. He knew more about it than I did.

  A week later O’Connor came back up from Melbourne and breezed into the CIB office. He spent a lot of time in Barritt’s office but I didn’t know if Barritt was there or not; the door would always close behind O’Connor. His Mason partner, Harvey Child, was more or less invisible.

  I sat at my desk, waiting for O’Connor to walk past so I could grab him and find out what was going on. He always made himself scarce, but one afternoon I saw him slip past and yelled out after him.

  ‘Mr O’Connor, I would like to be part of the inquiry into Monsignor Day. As you know, sir, this was reported to me by the senior master at St Joseph’s College as an official complaint from the principal of the school, Sister Pancratius. I’ve taken many statements. I can get a hundred more, sir.’