All Fall Down (20 page)

If anyone had been sober enough to notice, the Melbourne Cup that day was won by Black Knight, ridden by Peter Cook, trained by George Hanlon, and owned by millionaire businessman Peter Holmes à Court. On retirement from racing, Black Knight, a dark bay, was employed as a police horse in Victoria.

The Line in the Sand

By 1984, the local petty criminal John Stopford was attempting to get his act together. He had worked for the likes of Roland Short and Geoff Crocker, and operated on the fringes of Brisbane’s vast vice scene, and had gotten hooked on heroin. Now he had a son to consider – young Jay.

‘I suppose the biggest impact on my whole life came when Jay was 18 months old,’ Stopford recalls. ‘He contracted meningitis. He was in isolation and we’d gone home to get a bit of rest and got a phone call about 11 p.m. The nurse said, “He’s not doing too well, we notice on here you’ve registered that you’re a Catholic … is he baptised?”

‘I said, “No”.

‘“Well,” she said, “you might want to arrange it.”’

It was a bad sign, and Stopford knew it. He and his wife Wendy, whom he’d met in one of Crocker’s escort agencies, raced to the hospital. ‘I don’t know what time it was, after being there a little while Wendy [said] … I can’t wait here any longer, I’ve got to go and get on,’ says Stopford. ‘That’s when I knew … that’s when it dawned on me that this is not going to be a lasting relationship. I got quite upset over that. I told her to go.’

Stopford was in a quandary. He was going to have to do this by himself. He asked the hospital chaplain if he’d baptise Jay. He refused, given Stopford had not annulled his first marriage. Stopford telephoned his loving mentor at the orphanage for crippled children, where he’d grown up, and asked for her help. ‘I had a priest there within half an hour,’ he says. ‘That’s when the most famous thing happened, take it whichever way you want.

‘I got a photo of Jay being baptised in her [his mentor’s] arms … they brought him [Jay] out of intensive care so he could be baptised. They wanted to take him straight back. Within 40 minutes of Jay being back in isolation, he was on the mend. By the end of the day, he was taken out of isolation.

‘So, yeah. That’s where I drew the line. I made a promise to Him, if he saved Jay, he could take me whenever he liked, but I would no longer use heroin.’

Making his pledge to God, when his son recovered from his near-fatal illness, was ‘easier said than done’.

‘The only thing I could do was return to my family doctor, be upfront with him … I ended up as a registered user and on methadone,’ he says. ‘The [escort] businesses had started to deteriorate. I’d lost control. I was in and out of hospital a bit. I did 26 weeks in traction.’

Unwittingly, Stopford’s health took him out of the parlour and escort scene. Even so, he spent enough time on the inside to be one of a small number of people who knew at least the basic machinery of Brisbane’s illegal gambling and sex trade. By proxy, that not only made him dangerous, but could potentially put him in danger as well.

Troublesome Boys

For more than two years rumours had percolated through the Queensland Police Force about the sexuality of Constable Dave Moore, the national television celebrity and public relations officer, who had gifted the department more positive publicity than any orchestrated campaign in its history.

Despite being married with children, gossip continued to grow that Moore was in fact a homosexual, and had been engaging with some unsavoury adult characters in supposedly procuring underage boys for sexual mischief. He had been variously linked with popular ABC radio personality Bill Hurrey, and also with former Ford Motor Company businessman and head of the local Prisoners Aid Society, Paul Breslin.

Indeed, word of Moore’s salacious reputation had made it to the offices of then Assistant Commissioner, Tony Murphy, and that of Deputy Commissioner Syd Atkinson. Atkinson had in fact counselled Moore as early as 1982 to keep away from bad influences. Atkinson later swore that after each incident involving Moore, he passed the information on to Police Commissioner Terry Lewis.

In September 1982, Senior Constable Mike Garrahy interviewed a juvenile who told him he had been approached by both Moore and Hurrey to make homosexual pornographic movies. Garrahy filed a confidential report to the then officer in charge of the Juvenile Aid Bureau, Detective Inspector Frank Rynne.

In his report, Garrahy requested permission to view the files on the notorious paedophile from the late 1970s, Clarence Osborne, who gassed himself in his car in late 1979 after he came to the attention of police. Osborne, it transpired, kept meticulous records – including measurements and photographs – of his more than 2000 victims. One was a 14-month-old baby.

The Osborne files had been moved to JAB headquarters in the old Egg Board building on Makerston Street and secured in a strongroom. Garrahy believed the information he was gathering on paedophilia ‘may be related to the activities of Osborne’s known associates’. The young officer also asked permission ‘to carry out the necessary surveillance on Hurrey and Moore and any associates’. Garrahy had stumbled upon a case, by chance featuring a high-profile serving Queensland police officer, that may have had links to one of the most abhorrent and extensive examples of paedophilia in Australian history.

Rynne, on taking up his position at the JAB, perceived a ‘growing paedophile problem’ in Brisbane and wanted something done about it. When he first stumbled upon the shocking Osborne cold case he was alarmed. ‘My eyes were opened to the Osborne team … the thing that amazed me was that nothing had been done about it,’ he says of the earlier investigation. ‘I think it was apathy.’ Rynne says there was a sense at the time that ‘nobody believed it was happening, nobody could believe that’s the way people behaved’.

He instructed Detectives Brian Wiggan and Kerry Kelly to reassess the Osborne material. ‘While Garrahy had uncovered information concerning the involvement of a police officer, I received his report as being part of the overall context of paedophilia intelligence, which was being collated and investigated,’ Rynne later recalled. ‘Bearing that in mind, I did not want any impediments to the overall paedophilia investigations. I decided to continue our investigations into paedophilia and also to investigate the extent, if any, of Moore’s involvement through surveillance.’

Rynne’s officers unearthed a lot of information ‘because there were all sorts of idiots around the town at that stage, you know. So it was a fascinating time but unfortunately I got pulled out [of the JAB]. I asked why and I said, well if I’m not doing the job … [and his superiors said] no, you did an excellent job.’

Commissioner Lewis had, in the late 1970s, been drawn into the Osborne scandal through his friendship with criminologist and academic Dr Paul Wilson, who was writing a book on the controversial government court reporter. Osborne had approached Wilson with some of his writings and photographs, and they intermittently engaged in conversation over several months until Osborne, by chance, came to police attention with regards to his sexual activities in late 1979. After an initial police interview, Osborne had been released and later that night gassed himself in the garage of his Mount Gravatt home.

Wilson sought permission from Commissioner Lewis to peruse Osborne’s seized files for the purposes of researching his book, later published as
The Man They Called a Monster
.

On 5 November 1984, Constable Kerry Kelly took a statement from the youth who had given information to Garrahy in 1982 over the blue movies. Out of this, a Detective Sergeant M.R. McCoy of the JAB compiled yet another confidential report dated 9 November, this time including allegations from several youths about the behaviour of Moore and Hurrey.

McCoy’s report was delivered that same day to Commissioner Lewis by the then head of the JAB, Lewis’s old mate Detective Inspector Don Braithwaite. The report was subsequently forwarded to the Internal Investigations Section.

After years of procrastination, the matter suddenly caught fire. Hurrey was arrested and charged with ten counts of alleged sexual offences against boys. He was taken off the air from his popular ABC breakfast radio program, but not sacked. He was remanded to appear in the Brisbane Magistrates Court on 6 December.

To date, there had been no link in the public eye between Hurrey’s activities and Senior Constable Dave Moore. But Lewis was mistaken if he thought he could keep this matter behind closed doors; he was on the precipice of one of the most turbulent periods in his career. If his diary entries are anything to go by, a slumbering giant was awakening. On Monday 5 November he wrote: ‘… saw Hon. [Bill] Glasson re … arrest of Billy Hurrey and mention of S/C D. Moore.’ Lewis then went with ‘D/C Atkinson … saw Insp. Munn and S/C D. Moore re association with Bill Hurrell [sic].’

The next day Lewis ‘… phoned D/I Braithwaite re Hurrey investigation’.

Incredibly, on Thursday 8 November – the day
before
McCoy was to lodge his confidential report on Hurrey and Moore – Lewis pre-recorded a segment for an upcoming
Super Saturday Show
, featuring Dave Moore. ‘Taped birthday greeting, 4 years, for Agro.’

The next day, when McCoy’s report was allegedly forwarded to the Commissioner of Police, Lewis made no mention of the matter in his diaries. Instead, he recorded on that day that he had farewelled the police force’s basketballers who were heading to the national titles in Darwin, had luncheon at the exclusive Brisbane Club, then headed over to the Queensland Cultural Centre ‘building handover’ in the presence of Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen. As was Lewis’s habit, later that day he popped over to the offices of Sir Edward Lyons in Queen Street for a drink and a chat about Cabinet, and murders on the Gold Coast, among other things.

A rumour of the dimension of the one that circulated around Dave Moore was impossible to contain in a city the size of Brisbane, and on Wednesday 14 November, Ron McLean, the Labor member for Bulimba, directed a sequence of questions to Police Minister Bill Glasson. ‘I ask the Minister for Lands, Forestry and Police: Is he aware of widespread reports that a police officer who is responsible for police campaigns among children has been involved with persons charged with offences against boys, and that pornographic photos of that officer swapping uniforms with a male SEQEB employee posing in handcuffs in a compromising position have been circulated?’

McLean claimed that reports of the officer and his activities had been drawn to the attention of his supervisors – he wanted to know what action would be taken to ensure the officer would not pose any threat to young boys.

Glasson, taken by surprise and befuddled, shot back: ‘The honourable member referred to a police officer who was charged. With what?’

‘He was not charged,’ McLean repeated.

‘I ask the honourable member to put the question on notice. I will certainly not deal with the future of a police officer until I know the background to the question,’ Glasson asserted.

The Opposition smelled blood and the following day the pummelling continued. Leader of the Opposition and keen lawn bowler, Nev Warburton, wanted some clarification: ‘How long have senior police known about the constable’s activities? Is it as long as three years? At the earliest, was it brought to the attention of police following a raid in 1982 by the Consorting Squad on a home unit owned by Mr Paul Breslin in Mary [sic] Street, Brisbane?’

Glasson floundered. He had clearly not been briefed to the same depth as the ALP. He conceded that ‘… it is some considerable time since suspicion arose in relation to the activities of the officer’.

Warburton wasn’t done: ‘Why was no action taken when this matter was brought to the attention of the Commissioner and other senior police? Why was the officer not transferred from his duties in the public relations section, which necessarily brought him into contact with thousands of Queensland children? I suggest that the Minister ought to be in a position to answer that question today.’

Glasson’s response was curious. It revealed both his frustration over being caught out over the sudden scandal, and the imperative that he at least appear to support his Commissioner and the police force in general. Glasson had not just been poorly briefed, but clearly information had been withheld from him.

‘This morning I spoke to both the Commissioner and the Deputy Commissioner,’ Glasson stumbled on. ‘Investigations have been taking place ever since the allegations against and rumours about the police officer first began. If it is necessary, I will make an in-depth report of the actions taken by the Commissioner and his deputy in endeavouring to have someone come forward with evidence.’

Then, on 20 November, Opposition Police Spokesman Wayne Goss went for the jugular, detailing new evidence about the drama. He relayed instances of the unnamed police officer engaging boys in pornographic photo shoots and of schoolboys being picked up from Indooroopilly Shoppingtown in exchange for money.

Goss also went into detail about the case of Paul John Breslin, and the charges against him over the alleged assault of Richard (Ricky) Garrison at a unit in Coronation Towers, Dunmore Terrace, Auchenflower, at the beginning of 1984. ‘The Commissioner now complains that this matter should not be the subject of discussion while an investigation is underway,’ Goss railed. ‘As far as I am concerned, that is humbug. The Commissioner conducted an investigation previously, and it was ineffectual. The matter was buried; no action was taken. The constable was not even removed from the position of trust that he occupied in the Public Relations Branch. It was only – and I repeat “only” – when this matter was revealed to the public last week that the government and the Commissioner of Police moved.