Sydney Noir
Page 29
4 Bill Jenkings with Norm Lipson and Tony Barnao, As Crime Goes By, Ironbark Press, Randwick 1992, pp. 154–155
5 Alan Saffron, Gentle Satan: My Father, Abe Saffron, Michael Joseph, Camberwell 2008, pp. 88–89
6 Quoted in Larry Writer, Bumper: The Life & Times of Frank ‘Bumper’ Farrell, Hachette Australia, Sydney 2011, p. 240
7 One of the more famous depictions of this conundrum comes in the 1958 Noir classic film Touch of Evil, starring Orson Welles, Charlton Heston and Janet Leigh. Welles plays Police Captain Harry Quinlan who uses the same methods as did Kelly. Quinlan claims that he has never planted evidence on ‘no one’ – ‘nobody that wasn’t guilty’, that is. His disregard for the conventions extends to killing people who deserved it, and in the end Quinlan himself is killed by a fellow policeman. One wonders if Ray Kelly saw the film.
8 David Hickie, Chow Hayes – Gunman, Angus & Robertson, North Ryde 1990, p. 7
9 Ibid., pp. 261–262
10 Ibid., p. 283
11 George Freeman, George Freeman: An Autobiography, self-published, Miranda 1988, p. 144
12 Tony Reeves, The Real George Freeman, Michael Joseph, Camberwell 2011, p. 14
13 Ibid., p. 14
14 Tony Reeves, Mr Big: Lennie McPherson and His Life of Crime, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest 2005, pp. 105–106
15 ‘Inquest on Randwick Shooting’, Sydney Morning Herald, 5 December 1963, p. 8
16 Steve Bishop, The Most Dangerous Detective: The Outrageous Glen Patrick Hallahan, self-published, 2nd edition September 2015, kindle loc. 1879
17 NSW Coroner’s report into death of Robert Walker, Office of the NSW State Coroner
18 NSW Coroner’s report into death of Charles Bourke, Office of the NSW State Coroner, and Tony Reeves, Mr Big, pp. 86–87
19 Richard Neville, Hippie Hippie Shake, William Heinemann, Melbourne 1995, pp. 55–56
20 Alfred W. McCoy, Drug Traffic: Narcotics and Organised Crime in Australia, Harper & Row, Sydney 1980, p. 223
21 Bishop, The Most Dangerous Detective, loc. 1734
22 Ibid., loc. 1818
23 This Royal Commission was to haunt Shirley Brifman and her corrupt friends in the Brisbane police for another decade. According to one theory, the repercussions were a major factor contributing to her death. So it’s worth noting here that as whitewashes go, the result of the National Hotel Royal Commission into the National Hotel must rank as one of the most complete ever. It found:
• no police officer guilty of misconduct
• no call-girl service operated at the hotel
• no member of the police force encouraged, condoned or sanctioned prostitution
• Police Commissioner Bischoff did not drink at the hotel after hours, and
• Detective Sergeant Tony Murphy did not receive free liquor.
This ‘curiously incurious’ Royal Commission was presided over by Justice Harold Gibbs, from 1981–1987 Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia. No one has ever suggested, and we do not, that Sir Harold was corrupt; the most likely explanation, therefore, is that the Australian judiciary as a matter of course believed the police long after many other people had stopped doing so. See: ‘Brisbane Police are cleared of charges over National Hotel’; Sydney Morning Herald, p. 9 15/04/64; Terry Sweetman in The Courier Mail of 15/03/13.
24 Brifman transcript Q108: ‘Q’ is the number allocated to the question in the transcript of Brifman’s 1971 interviews with police tabled in the South Australian Parliament.
25 Matthew Condon, Three Crooked Kings, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia 2013, kindle ed. pp. 73, 114
26 Bishop, The Most Dangerous Detective, loc. 1903
27 Richard Hall, Disorganized Crime, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia 1986, p. 36
28 For example, ‘Patti’, a streetwalker in the Haymarket; cited by Roberta Perkins in John Shields, (ed.), All Our Labours: Oral Histories of Working Life in Twentieth Century Sydney, UNSW Press, Sydney 1992, p. 184
29 Hickie, Chow Hayes, p. 106
30 Roberta Perkins, Working Girls: Prostitutes, Their Life and Social Control, Australian Institute of Criminology, Canberra 1991, p. 133
31 Quoted by Perkins in Shields, All Our Labours, p. 179
32 Ibid., p. 179
33 Perkins, Working Girls, p. 133
34 Perkins in Shields, All Our Labours, p. 179
35 Writer, Bumper, p. 249
36 Rennie Ellis and Wesley Stacey, Kings Cross Sydney, Thomas Nelson (Australia) Ltd, Melbourne and Sydney 1971, p. 29
37 Perkins, Working Girls, p. 235
38 Brifman transcript Q224. ‘Leonie’, one of Raelene Frances’ sources, also cites $40 a week as the standard weekly bribe to police in the mid-60s. Raelene Frances, Selling Sex, UNSW Press, Sydney, 2007, p. 258
39 Ellis and Stacey, Kings Cross Sydney, p. 53
40 Frances, Selling Sex, pp. 256–257
41 Writer, Bumper, p. 247
42 Brifman transcript, Q40–47
43 Frances, Selling Sex, p. 254
44 Brifman transcript Q44
45 Duncan McNab, The Usual Suspect: The Life of Abe Saffron, Macmillan, Sydney 2005, p. 98
46 Brifman Q41. Brifman recounted this in 1971, but even then she was still making the transition between old pounds and new dollars.
47 Reeves, Freeman, p. 104
48 Sydney Morning Herald, 11 August 1958
49 Brifman transcript, Q106
50 Ibid., Q62
51 Ibid., Q40
52 Ibid., Q49
53 Hall, Disorganized Crime, p. 67
54 Quoted by Perkins in Shields, All Our Labours, p. 178
55 Brifman transcript, Q33, Q81
56 McCoy, Drug Traffic, p. 185; Hickie, The Prince and The Premier, pp. 205–208;
Writer, Bumper, p. 310
‘Ex-Vice Squad Chief hands in Resignation’, The Age, p. 2, 13 May 1965 ‘Detectives to Interview Woman in Hospital’, Sydney Morning Herald, p. 9, 13 May 1965
‘Ex-Vice Squad Head on Remand’, The Age, p. 8, 4 May 1966
‘Seen with Woman’, Sydney Morning Herald, p. 5, 2 June 1966
57 http://www.mindframe-media.info/for-media/reporting-suicide/facts-and-stats
58 Speaking of trainee nurses in Sydney Hospital in the late 1960s and 1970s, Sister Mary Smith (a pseudonym) told historian Dorothy Raxworthy: ‘It wasn’t unusual to hear that someone was in intensive care from having taken an overdose, from the sleeping pills that were readily available to us (on the drug trolley in the nurses’ accommodation)’ – from ‘The Changing Face of Nursing’, in Shields, All Our Labours, p. 155
59 www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/healthreport/talking-about-suicide/6590994
60 Ellis and Stacey, Kings Cross Sydney, p. 36
61 Geoffrey Reading, High Climbers: Askin and Others, John Ferguson, Sydney 1989. Reading wrote explicitly to defend Askin against what he called the anti-Askin virus.
62 Paul Loughnan, A History of the Askin Government 1965–1975, University of New England, Armidale 2016 (ebook); see Chapter 6: ‘The Corruption Myth’
63 Anne-Maree Whitaker, Pictorial History Kings Cross, Kingsclear Books, Sydney 2012 p. 70
64 McCoy, Drug Traffic, p. 195
65 NSW Police Department Annual Report 1967, p. 4
66 Loughnan, p. 151
67 McCoy, p. 216
68 Sean Brawley, Beating the Odds: Thirty Years of the Totalizator Agency Board of NSW, Focus Publishing, Double Bay 1995
69 Reading, High Climbers, p. 56
70 Frances, Selling Sex, p. 267; Writer, Bumper, p. 248; Perkins in Shields, All Our Labours, p. 174
71 ‘MPs see Photos of Showgirl’, Sydney Morning Herald, 23 August 1966, p. 6 72 Brian Hogben was also responsible, in June 1969, for publishing exposes in the Sunday Mirror about Shirley Brifman’s upmarket brothel in Elizabeth Bay. Jenkings, As Crime Goes By, p. 82
73 The incident is recorded in Tony Reeves, Mr Sin, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest 2007
, pp. 1–5. Larry Writer mentions it in his Bumper, p. 286. In Mr Sin (p. 78) Reeves describes a Saffron/Farrell nexus going back to the early 1960s, when Farrell led a raid on the Taboo nightclub in Darlinghurst Road, a rival to Saffron’s own businesses. Such cooperation between Saffron and Farrell is hard to square with Farrell’s 1957 presentation of false evidence against Saffron in the latter’s ‘scandalous conduct’ episode, yet Sydney Noir is full of such reversals of alliances – for example, between Ray Kelly and Fred Krahe. Many commentators (for example, Larry Writer) regard Farrell as ‘honest’, that is, ‘not very corrupt’. Reeves doesn’t agree.
74 Reeves, Mr Sin, p. 4
75 Saffron, p. 68
76 Ibid., p. 67
77 Ibid., p. 62
78 Freeman, George Freeman, p. 69
79 Ibid., p.70
80 ‘Confessions of a Crooked Cop’, The Bulletin, 14 April 1978
81 Ibid.
82 McCoy, Drug Traffic, pp. 261–263
83 George Johnston, A Cartload of Clay, Collins, London 1971, pp. 51–52
84 http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/2071.0main+features952012-2013
85 Lew Wright, Cards, Dice and Pennies, Horwitz Publications, Sydney 1967, p. 44
86 Interview with Elizabeth Burton by the authors 20/06/2015
1967 • WHEN SHIRLEY MET FREDDIE
1 Bishop, The Most Dangerous Detective, loc. 3039
2 This and subsequent quotes, as well as the general account, come from a Record of Interview between Detective Senior Constable Sainsbury and ‘Sharon Lee’ at the Daceyville Police Station on 23 March 1967; in the NSW Coronial Court file 68/305
3 ‘It is Regan’s old hideout when he was a kid. He used to steal things and plant them in there.’ Ross Christie according to ‘Sharon Lee’ in NSW Coronial Court file 68/305
4 Statement by Margaret Mary Ann Wearing, p. 3; NSW Coroner’s Court file 68/305
5 ‘Prisoners held in Borg Case inquiry’, Sydney Morning Herald, p. 9, 1 October 1968
6 Freeman, George Freeman, pp. 140–141
7 Sydney Morning Herald, 29 June and 21 September 1960
8 Ibid., 17 December 1960
9 Ibid., Obituary, 13 December 1981
10 Hall, Disorganized Crime, p. 56
11 Jenkings, As Crime Goes By, pp. 155–156
12 Ibid., p. 157
13 Freeman, George Freeman, pp. 139–141
14 Brifman transcript, Q98
15 Ibid., Q120
16 McNab, The Usual Suspect, p. 118
17 Brifman transcript, Q120
18 Ibid., Q128
19 ‘Prostitution at Kings Cross More Blatant’, Sydney Morning Herald, 3 April 1967, p. 9
20 ‘A Raw Deal, say Strip Dancers’, Sun Herald, 12 July 1967, p. 9
21 Hickie, The Prince and the Premier, p. 97. For an interview with Lew Wright: https://soundcloud.com/nfsaaustralia/lew-wright-biographer-of-jack-davey-interviewed-by-binny-lum-c-1961?in=nfsaaustralia/sets/binny-lum-interview
22 Hall, Disorganized Crime, p. 172
23 Hickie, The Prince and the Premier, p. 159
24 Ibid., p. 158; Hickie, Chow Hayes, p. 199
25 ‘Oz Guide to the Sydney Underworld’ in Oz 1965
26 Reeves, Freeman, pp. 31, 88
27 Hickie, The Prince and the Premier, p. 215
28 Ibid., p. 121
29 Ibid., p. 23
30 Ibid., p. 97
31 Ibid., p. 97
32 Wright, Cards, Dice and Pennies, Horwitz Publications, Sydney 1967, p. 77; Hickie, The Prince and the Premier, p. 97
33 Hickie, The Prince and the Premier, p. 36
34 Wright, Cards, Dice and Pennies, p. 153
35 Hickie, Chow Hayes, p. 147
36 McCoy, Drug Traffic, p. 185
37 Reeves, Mr Sin, p. 71
38 Peter Rees, Killing Juanita, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest 2005, p. 5
39 Inquest into the death of Raymond Patrick O’Connor, NSW Coroner’s Court file 67/759
40 Alan Saffron, Gentle Satan, p. 89
41 Rees, Killing Juanita, p. 7
42 Hickie, The Prince and the Premier, p. 53
43 Writer, Bumper, p. 241
44 McNab, The Usual Suspect, p. 71
45 Reeves, Freeman, p. 36
46 Jenkings, As Crime Goes By, pp. 155–157
47 Psychiatrist’s evidence to coronial inquiry; NSW Coroner’s Court File 68/324
48 Brifman transcript, Q108
49 ‘Sydney’s Richest Call Girl’, Sunday Mirror, p. 1, 8 June 1969
50 Jack McNeill’s evidence in the Robert Walker inquest
51 Adam Shand, King of Thieves, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest 2010, p. 39
52 Our account follows Hickie, The Prince and the Premier, pp. 216–221
53 Warren’s master plan is recorded in McCoy, Drug Traffic, p. 194
54 Eldridge observed the proprieties: he allowed his wife $60 a week, but his mistress only $40 a week. Hickie, The Prince and the Premier, p. 219
55 Hickie, The Prince and the Premier, p. 219
56 Various evidence at the inquest into John Warren’s death
57 This nickname of ‘The Barbary Coast’ has stuck: Bill Jenkings records it in his 1992 autobiography (p. 159) and Larry Writer used it as a chapter title for his biography of Bumper Farrell.
58 ‘Kings Cross Barbary Coast says Alderman’, Sydney Morning Herald, p. 1, 16 May 1967
59 ‘21 Baccarat Schools Bid for Players’, Sydney Morning Herald, p. 1, 28 June 1967
60 ‘Baccarat clubs campaign for respectability’, Sydney Morning Herald, p. 7, 29 June 1967
61 Daily Mirror, 28 June 1967
62 ‘Sydney Gambling Schools “Fold” in Police Blitz’, Sydney Morning Herald, p. 2, 9 July 1967
63 Ibid.
64 Hickie, The Prince and the Premier, p. 6
65 Daily Mirror, 28 June 1967
66 NSW Annual Police Reports cited by Perkins, Working Girls, p. 138
67 McCoy, Drug Traffic, p. 195
68 Edward Joffe, Hancock’s Last Stand: The Series That Never Was, Book Guild Publishing Ltd, London 1998, p. 106
69 Perkins, Working Girls, p. 237
70 Ibid.
71 Ibid.
72 Robin Dalton, Aunts Up the Cross, Viking, Ringwood 1998, p. 41
73 Perkins, Working Girls, p. 179
74 Ibid., p. 281; also quoted by Frances, Selling Sex, p. 267
75 Perkins, Working Girls, pp. 174 (Maggie), p. 284
76 Ibid., p. 283
77 ‘Oz Guide to the Sydney Underworld’ in Oz 1965. One of the idiosyncracies of this legendary magazine is its lack of page numbers, issue numbers, or other identifying marks.
78 ‘New Hope for Drug Addicts’, Sydney Morning Herald, p. 11, 25 March 1967 79 Hickie, The Prince and the Premier, p. 50
80 Writer, Bumper, p. 337
81 Report of the Stewart Royal Commision of Inquiry into Alleged Telephone Interceptions, Canberra 1986, pp. 81–83; note that some names are misspelled in the report, so Norman Allan becomes ‘Allen’ and Donald Fergusson becomes ‘Ferguson’.
82 Final report of the Royal Commission into the NSW Police Service, vol. 1, Sydney 1997, p. 48
83 Hickie, The Prince and the Premier, pp. 65–66
84 Reeves, Freeman , p. 61
85 Accounts of Houghton are few and far between. One is an article published in The Bulletin of 29 May 1984 by Bruce Stannard, entitled ‘The Three-Fingered Banker Begins to Shed His Mystery’. American journalist Jonathan Kwitny provided another in The Crimes of Patriots, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, 1987, pp. 55–68; the description of Houghton as a ‘virtuoso bullshitter’ is from Kwitny, p. 57
86 Kwitny, The Crimes of Patriots, pp. 59–60
87 ‘Kings Cross Barbary Coast says Alderman’, Sydney Morning Herald, p. 1, 16 May 1967
88 http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/forty-years-after-billy-phillips-became-godfather-of-brisbanes-drugs-scene-his-sons-were-still-serving
-up-drugs-in-vulture-st-smack-den
89 Brifman transcript, Q366
90 This account of Billy Phillip’s relationship with Hallahan comes from Matthew Condon’s Three Crooked Kings, pp. 182–184
91 Hickie, Chow Hayes, p. 321
92 ‘Vice Queen Hides’, no byline, The Sun, 1 June 1968
93 Hickie, Chow Hayes, p. 322
94 Nickname provided by Chow Hayes, Hickie, Chow Hayes, p. 319
95 Brifman transcript, Q72, Q73
96 ‘Drugs killed Borg’s Wife’, no byline, Sydney Morning Herald, p. 6, 1 June 1968
97 The account of Anne Borg’s last year comes from NSW Coroner’s Court File 68/324
98 Brifman transcript, Q108
1968 • THE END OF THE LANES
1 ‘There’s Always a Clue’ by RH Stephenson, Australian Police Journal, June 1996
2 Hickie, The Prince and the Premier, p. 221
3 Philip Arantz, A Collusion of Powers, self-published, Dunedoo 1993, pp. 26–27
4 Writer, Bumper, p. 250
5 Perkins, Working Girls, p. 134
6 Ibid., p. 134
7 Loughnan, Askin, p. 195
8 Ibid., pp. 217–218
9 Ibid., p. 238
10 Hall, Disorganized Crime, p. 69
11 McNab, The Usual Suspect, p. 98
12 Brifman transcript, Q37–38
13 Ibid., Q33
14 Ibid., Q32 NB: ‘You don’t give Shirley’s address’; Phelan’s instruction was standard business practice; Brifman and her police partner wanted to keep strict control over knowledge of, and access to, her new enterprise.
15 Brifman transcript, Q45 16 Ibid., Q66
17 Ibid., Q45
18 Ibid., Q38
19 Ibid., Q67
20 Ibid., Q72
21 The following account comes from Hickie, Chow Hayes, p. 325 ff
22 Hickie, Chow Hayes, p. 321
23 Reeves, Mr Sin, p. 137; http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/07/21/1058639728843.html
24 Hickie, Chow Hayes, p. 323
25 Joffe, Hancock’s Last Stand, pp. 74–76
26 Ibid., p. 70
27 Michael Fitzjames interview with author Nick Hordern, 19 June 2015
28 Quoted in Larry Writer, Bumper, p. 308
29 NSW Coroner’s Court File 68/324
30 ‘Vice Queen Hides’, no byline, The Sun, 1 June 1968
31 ‘Sydney Woman Marked to Die’, no byline, Sunday Mirror, p. 2, 2 June 1968
32 ‘Rents Doubled in Vice Area as Houses Close’, no byline, Sydney Morning Herald, p. 4, 31 May 1968