All Fall Down (8 page)

Edwards says it took some tactical, behind-the-scenes manoeuvring to manage the Premier and some of his more quixotic decisions. ‘We would try to jump in ahead of him and raise issues in the pre-Cabinet decision discussions … it might be about building a new airport or something,’ Edwards recalls. ‘If there was something we knew was going to go off the track … Ron Camm and I were extremely close and he’d back me up before Joh would get … he wouldn’t even know what we were talking about at this stage still, and we would then get the Cabinet sort of all expressing views.

‘If it was something we were worried about that would bring disgrace to the government, you know, that was how we had to handle it. Looking back, it wasn’t the best way to run a government. But it was fairly successful.’

At one point, Premier Bjelke-Petersen literally went missing without explanation. He didn’t show up to Cabinet meetings for six weeks in succession.

Edwards asked: ‘Where’s the Premier?’

Nobody had an answer.

Troubled by this, Edwards vowed to meet Bjelke-Petersen face to face in his office and get an explanation for his absence. He rang the Premier’s office and asked for a meeting. He was pencilled in for 3 p.m. one day.

A convivial Premier was there to greet Edwards. ‘Look Joh, we’re all getting very anxious,’ Edwards informed him. ‘You haven’t been to Cabinet for six weeks, we don’t get an apology, and your office won’t tell us where you are.’

Bjelke-Petersen interrupted him and said: ‘Llew, I’m learning to fly a helicopter, and the only time they can fit me in for lessons is on a Monday morning.’

Edwards was incredulous. ‘I thought, you know, it showed two things at the time,’ remembers Edwards. ‘The trust that he had in us, we could say that, and I think he did, and secondly, he put these individual priorities above anything else. I think that summates the kind of man he was. That he would suddenly desire to do something, and would break every rule in the world, every regulation and not necessarily law … to achieve that, and that’s why I think he was, you know, with a background of leaving school at nine …

‘He had a very introverted approach to most things and couldn’t cope with the modern world and the demands of that world in many areas.’

The Sheriff of Mareeba

In the tiny town of Mareeba, 417 metres above sea level on the Atherton Tablelands in Far North Queensland, its place name Aboriginal for ‘meeting of the waters’, Lindsey ‘Ross’ Dickson was a no-nonsense policeman who was liked and respected. Here, where the Granite and Emerald creeks met with the Barron River, was a place of abundant sunshine, a place that winter didn’t visit, and the perfect location to grow everything from pineapples, coffee and bananas to lychees, cashews and mangoes. It was also the ideal landscape to grow marihuana.

Dickson, known as the Sheriff of Mareeba, had racked up some remarkable statistics in his two-and-a-half years as head of the local four-man CIB. His crime clean-up rate hovered around 84 per cent. By comparison, the Queensland average was a dismal 49 per cent.

Dickson had been sworn into the Queensland Police Force on 26 April 1966, and initially trained in the Legal Section before being seconded to Mobile Patrols and the CIB as an Education Department Liaison Officer. He was appointed a Detective Constable in April 1974, before being transferred to the Gladstone CIB. He then went to Yeppoon before being promoted to Detective Sergeant 2/c and placed as head of the Mareeba CIB on 19 October 1981.

Dickson would soon uncover evidence of organised crime and its involvement in the drug trade in the vast district under his command. He was shocked at what he found. ‘We didn’t look past the day-to-day thing sometimes,’ Dickson says. ‘I said to a few of the blokes, we’re all running around locking up bad guys, and we’re looking at bad guys only, but there’s this group of people who are supposed to be good guys who are running around watching us, in case we get in their way, and we’re not even seeing that.

‘It’s like people are so busy with the day-to-day operations and they get tied up with [trying to solve] petty things or smaller crimes and organised crime just goes along. Nobody can have a look at it because everyone’s got so much [other] crap to do.’

The Italian involvement in the drug trade was obvious. They’d been engaged in vice in the region since the 1930s. ‘I remember a fellow saying to me once – everyone will tell you the Mafia doesn’t exist … he was a policeman … but every now and again something happens and you start wondering again if it really does exist. We all knew it did. [But] it was a deniable thing in the 1970s and 80s. The Mafia? Don’t be stupid.’

Dickson took to naming his North Queensland beat The Badlands. By 1983, he was impelled to inform his superiors about what was happening in his district. He began writing long and detailed ‘Confidential’ reports to his superiors. ‘The drug problem in this area is enormous as is the area covered by Detectives in this District,’ Dickson reported. ‘Drugs such as cannabis, heroin, LSD and cocaine are readily available in this area in any quantity desired and no doubt the Police Department is well aware of the drug industry operating in this area and the fact that it is much larger than probably any other area in Queensland.’

The Mareeba CIB alone, he claimed in his report, had information involving 41 separate people or groups actively involved in drug dealing. During a single quarter in 1982, drugs arrests increased by 500 per cent. Dickson pleaded for some undercover operatives to support his team. ‘It is absolutely essential that undercover drug officers work in this area if there is to be any headway made against large-scale drug operators,’ Dickson wrote. ‘If Detectives from this office are able to make numerous drug arrests and gather information easily on the activities of drug offenders … the results following undercover drug investigations should be very productive.’

Dickson’s report wasn’t only not acted on, he received no acknowledgement that it had even been read by the police hierarchy. Undaunted, he tried again, citing a similar report he had submitted in late 1982 – a year after he had started work in Mareeba – seeking more staff. He had pointed out that criminals were escaping prosecution because there was not enough manpower to properly process numerous drug cases.

Dickson was getting angry. ‘No additional staff were supplied,’ he noted of his earlier plea. ‘No one gave any decision on the request. No reply was even forthcoming from the department and the report was apparently ignored in the hope that police would continue to work on and the period of increased workload would pass in the following months.’

The Sheriff of Mareeba was exasperated. In a single week the Mareeba CIB had proffered 220 charges against offenders. The situation was out of control.

Dickson couldn’t comprehend the blatant indifference to the drug trade coming out of police headquarters in Brisbane. ‘There was no money and no support for investigating drugs,’ he says. ‘We woke up that it was to limit us in what we were doing. We were having some absolutely major successes, massive plantations, you know? It was like we didn’t exist. If it happened in Brisbane, there’d be a week of news.

‘We’d ring up and say to the boss in Brisbane, we’ve got $8 million worth of plants, we need a botanist here, what are we going to do with them? They said, “Fucking burn them”.’

Dickson’s superiors, also, were tiring of his repeated requests and complaints. The detective faced endless paperwork. It was one way they could keep him in line. He started receiving orders to get his clerical house in order. A memo from District Officer P.L. O’Shea to Dickson was marked ‘For urgent attention’. ‘You are instructed to attend to the within matters without any further delay,’ it said, referring to cases set to go before the local magistrates court. ‘You are required to furnish a report to this office when the within matters have been attended to. Your attention is drawn to the requirements of G.I.4.237 in the Queensland Police Manual in relation to the compilation of Court Briefs.’

Dickson responded: ‘This section is severely hampered especially in the past two months by investigations in outlying areas and the staff are finding themselves increasingly bogged down with the additional serious investigations that do require immediate attention.’

Dickson was fed up. His protesting reports became longer and more detailed. In one, he saw fit to criticise a superior District Officer. Dickson was treading on some very dangerous ground. His most agitated memo to date, initially about the necessity for overtime for his men, was addressed to Superintendent Alan Walker.

During the 1982-83 period the workload of this office increased by 44.28 per cent with no increase in staff and without any outside assistance despite numerous verbal requests to the Police Department and directly to the Drug Squad as well as several written requests which in my opinion were ignored.

At the present time we have 182 separate drug investigations being conducted in relation to different persons or groups of persons and quite frankly at the present time and for the past months nothing has been done in relation to drug matters and will not be done in the coming months because of the extremely heavy workload, subsequently hundreds of drug offenders come and go as they please and even serious drug investigations are not being investigated and large scale criminal organisations growing cannabis flourish in this area because there is no time to combat the problem, no equipment to organise ourselves with and no manpower or outside assistance to work with.

Dickson wasn’t sure the Police Department hierarchy fully understood the adversity he and his men faced on a day-to-day basis. He said he and his men worked in ‘hostile conditions’.

We have an enormous area consisting of mostly gravel roads and very dirty and uncomfortable conditions in the Gulf of Carpentaria due to dense jungle in coastal areas … we have in the past found sharpened bamboo stakes and trip wires near drug areas we are investigating which could cause serious injury however no equipment is supplied.

Dickson asked for an investigation into the working conditions of the Mareeba CIB. He argued his men were frequently put in danger ‘because of the attitude of the Police Department’. He said he often clashed with his district officer over these issues. ‘The Police Department is to blame for this situation arising by placing a man in charge of such a volatile district who was incompetent and well known to be incompetent,’ said Dickson. ‘I take full responsibility for this report if it upsets anyone but quite frankly I have had enough of Police Politics …’

Dickson was subsequently instructed that he and his staff could only work business hours Monday to Friday. In response, he posted a sign on the door of the Mareeba CIB: ‘If you’re going to get raped, mugged or murdered, please do it between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday to Friday.’

Dickson couldn’t work out the puzzle before him – why did he and his men feel like they didn’t exist? Why was their work ignored? Why were they ordered repeatedly to pull their heads in?

‘I talked to police I trusted,’ Dickson remembers. ‘I said, they think we know something, and we don’t know what it is. But they think we know. One day one of us is going to have to put his hand up for all this and there’ll be a fucking big stink.

‘I talked to my wife about it, you know, [I told her] I know it’s going to be me. It’s going to happen to me. I was the most vocal.’

Dickson could have been guaranteed his antics would upset people. Indeed, his apparent recalcitrance would make it all the way to the desk of Commissioner Lewis, 1746 kilometres south, in Brisbane.

An Audience with Miss Bell

One night on the Gold Coast, officers Pat Glancy and Greg Deveney were on patrol when they pulled up outside a unit at Palm Beach. Once inside, Glancy introduced his partner to a prostitute called Miss Fox. There was another woman there – a Miss Bell.

According to Deveney, Glancy went into a room with Miss Fox. Miss Bell then grabbed Deveney’s hand and led him into another room. ‘At that stage that girl, as far as I was aware, wasn’t a working girl. She was a bloody housekeeper and that’s all,’ says Deveney.

‘Greg,’ she told him inside the room, ‘are you aware of the fact that I’m now working?’

‘What?’ he replied.

‘I’m now working [as a prostitute].’

‘How long have you been working?’ he asked.

Miss Bell said it had only been a matter of weeks. ‘I’m sorry, Greg,’ she said. ‘I’ve been made . . . forced . . . to do this to you.’

When Deveney walked out of the room he encountered Glancy and Miss Fox. He claims both were laughing at him. ‘Don’t worry about it, Greg,’ Miss Fox supposedly said. ‘It only hurts the first time. It gets better the more you do it.’

Glancy suggested they get going. Deveney was devastated. While he described his actions of going with Miss Bell as ‘stupid’, he believed he was set up by Glancy. ‘When we were driving back to Surfers Paradise, he [Glancy] said, “At least now I’ve got something on you.” And I said, “What do you mean?”

‘He said, “You’ve had sex with a prostitute tonight.” I said, “Listen, you’ve got nothing on me, Pat.” I said if anybody asked me about it I’d admit it.’

They drove the rest of the way to Surfers Paradise in silence. As they got closer to the station, Glancy supposedly said: ‘I think I’ve made a big mistake in having you with me today.’

The next morning Deveney headed to the office early and requested to see his superior. He didn’t want to work with Glancy anymore. In fact, Glancy had beaten his young partner to the punch. He’d come into the office even earlier and asked to be taken out of the Consorting Squad altogether.