weeks after he started. ‘One, of some consequence, was the one in December … and there was a swearing in, an induction ceremony … [they] were a bit daunting because everybody at that regional superintendent’s conference had been senior to me. So I was at the top of the table actually with a couple of the assistant commissioners and all the others were down the other side of it.’
Lewis told the top police officers he would do his best and hopefully they would see that and cooperate with him. ‘When I finished the conference that week and thanked them they all stood up and clapped,’ Lewis says. ‘So I thought that was very decent of them.’
On Christmas Eve in 1976 Lewis sat down in his office with Arthur Pitts, Whitrod’s fearless corruption-buster and one of the stars of the Southport Betting Case trial, and discussed Pitts’ future. Lewis advised him point blank that there was ‘little likelihood of promotion’. Pitts was assigned the ultimate humiliation – he was put in charge of Stores.
On Tuesday 18 January 1977, Lewis caught up again with Scotland Yard’s Commander Terence (Terry) O’Connell. In late 1975, O’Connell and Detective Superintendent Bruce Fothergill had been flown to Brisbane to conduct an inquiry into Queensland police corruption following the public and political clamour that stemmed from Jack Herbert’s Southport Betting Case. Their report had been submitted to the Premier, but it had never been tabled in parliament, and word was that it had been shredded. Even so, O’Connell had been asked back to Brisbane to give evidence at the Lucas Inquiry.
O’Connell had been briefed in London on 15 November – coincidentally the day of Lewis’s appointment as Assistant Commissioner – by visiting Justice Minister Bill Lickiss. The men met in Queensland House on The Strand to run through O’Connell’s investigation the previous year and the evidence he planned to give on administrative matters only.
O’Connell, despite receiving volumes of information from police and prostitutes on corruption in the Queensland Police Force during research for his initial report in 1975–76, and the repeated assertions that figures like Tony Murphy loomed as being seriously corrupt, would compile a further report to assist Justice Lucas. He did not want to be branded ‘a whingeing Pom’ on his return visit.
While he was in Brisbane, O’Connell dined at Lewis’s home in Garfield Drive.
On 20 January, according to Lewis’s Commissioner’s diary, O’Connell met with Police Minister Newbery and Lewis and they discussed how there would be ‘no further inquiries needed’.
They did, however, talk about O’Connell’s observations on corruption in the force. ‘One particular person that I was concerned with from the information that I had been given was a man called Murphy,’ O’Connell later said. ‘From what I was told and his name was mentioned more than anyone else by police officers who I saw [during their interviews with O’Connell in late 1975], he was obviously one they feared, a dominant man and highly intelligent.
‘They spoke of him in awe … and you got this sense of fear … you got this sense they were frightened of him.’
Lewis says he later learned that when O’Connell interviewed Basil Hicks and Jim Voigt, of Whitrod’s prized Crime Intelligence Unit, for his report, much was mentioned about Tony Murphy. ‘O’Connell didn’t want to know about Murphy,’ Lewis recalls. ‘He said he didn’t want to know anything about him. It seems that somewhere along the line people don’t want to get involved in knowing about Murphy.’
On 24 January, O’Connell called Commissioner Lewis and assured him he had shredded the hundreds of statements he had taken during the initial stages of his investigation in 1975. O’Connell may have felt the need to reassure the new Commissioner in light of their expansive hospitality towards him during his visit to the Queensland
Lewis told the top police officers he would do his best and hopefully they would see that and cooperate with him. ‘When I finished the conference that week and thanked them they all stood up and clapped,’ Lewis says. ‘So I thought that was very decent of them.’
On Christmas Eve in 1976 Lewis sat down in his office with Arthur Pitts, Whitrod’s fearless corruption-buster and one of the stars of the Southport Betting Case trial, and discussed Pitts’ future. Lewis advised him point blank that there was ‘little likelihood of promotion’. Pitts was assigned the ultimate humiliation – he was put in charge of Stores.
On Tuesday 18 January 1977, Lewis caught up again with Scotland Yard’s Commander Terence (Terry) O’Connell. In late 1975, O’Connell and Detective Superintendent Bruce Fothergill had been flown to Brisbane to conduct an inquiry into Queensland police corruption following the public and political clamour that stemmed from Jack Herbert’s Southport Betting Case. Their report had been submitted to the Premier, but it had never been tabled in parliament, and word was that it had been shredded. Even so, O’Connell had been asked back to Brisbane to give evidence at the Lucas Inquiry.
O’Connell had been briefed in London on 15 November – coincidentally the day of Lewis’s appointment as Assistant Commissioner – by visiting Justice Minister Bill Lickiss. The men met in Queensland House on The Strand to run through O’Connell’s investigation the previous year and the evidence he planned to give on administrative matters only.
O’Connell, despite receiving volumes of information from police and prostitutes on corruption in the Queensland Police Force during research for his initial report in 1975–76, and the repeated assertions that figures like Tony Murphy loomed as being seriously corrupt, would compile a further report to assist Justice Lucas. He did not want to be branded ‘a whingeing Pom’ on his return visit.
While he was in Brisbane, O’Connell dined at Lewis’s home in Garfield Drive.
On 20 January, according to Lewis’s Commissioner’s diary, O’Connell met with Police Minister Newbery and Lewis and they discussed how there would be ‘no further inquiries needed’.
They did, however, talk about O’Connell’s observations on corruption in the force. ‘One particular person that I was concerned with from the information that I had been given was a man called Murphy,’ O’Connell later said. ‘From what I was told and his name was mentioned more than anyone else by police officers who I saw [during their interviews with O’Connell in late 1975], he was obviously one they feared, a dominant man and highly intelligent.
‘They spoke of him in awe … and you got this sense of fear … you got this sense they were frightened of him.’
Lewis says he later learned that when O’Connell interviewed Basil Hicks and Jim Voigt, of Whitrod’s prized Crime Intelligence Unit, for his report, much was mentioned about Tony Murphy. ‘O’Connell didn’t want to know about Murphy,’ Lewis recalls. ‘He said he didn’t want to know anything about him. It seems that somewhere along the line people don’t want to get involved in knowing about Murphy.’
On 24 January, O’Connell called Commissioner Lewis and assured him he had shredded the hundreds of statements he had taken during the initial stages of his investigation in 1975. O’Connell may have felt the need to reassure the new Commissioner in light of their expansive hospitality towards him during his visit to the Queensland
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