WEBVTT - Episode 4: Real Wild Child 0:00:02.320 --> 0:00:06.439 Before we begin. This podcast contains graphic descriptions of violence. 0:00:07.840 --> 0:00:10.760 This is a production by The Australian and our subscribers 0:00:10.800 --> 0:00:14.480 Here episodes first and get full access to photos, video, 0:00:14.720 --> 0:00:18.800 news stories and features plus all Australia's best journalism twenty 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:22.400 four to seven. Join us at Gangstersghost dot com dot 0:00:22.400 --> 0:00:22.640 a U. 0:00:29.040 --> 0:00:32.159 I can call it Australia's Barbary Coast, and there are 0:00:32.200 --> 0:00:35.360 a few pirates there for sure. Others call it sidon 0:00:35.400 --> 0:00:38.479 the city and the summer that around too, if you 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:41.120 can believe what you read about it. The inhabitants make 0:00:41.159 --> 0:00:45.040 their living out of baker our dope, witch grant prostitutions, 0:00:45.040 --> 0:00:47.520 stripping them selling each other so larly. 0:00:51.080 --> 0:00:57.160 It's King's Cross, Sydney in the nineteen sixties. Stuart John Reagan, 0:00:57.560 --> 0:01:00.760 the good Catholic boy from young in Country, South Wales 0:01:01.280 --> 0:01:04.800 and fresh from several stints in a boy's correctional home, 0:01:05.520 --> 0:01:10.880 is about to step out into hedonistic sin city. He's 0:01:10.920 --> 0:01:14.600 still a teenager. One of the nicknames hand written on 0:01:14.680 --> 0:01:19.520 his criminal record is the Boy, though he already has 0:01:19.560 --> 0:01:23.400 a police rap sheet that should belong to someone twice 0:01:23.480 --> 0:01:28.920 his age, not a lame record of shoplifting or petty scams, 0:01:29.720 --> 0:01:35.679 but a Sultan robbery. At no point is he ever 0:01:35.760 --> 0:01:40.520 a lowly crime boss's dog's body, the Errand kid, or 0:01:40.680 --> 0:01:46.400 Smoko Fetcher. By eighteen, he's a brothel enforcer in charge 0:01:46.400 --> 0:01:51.040 of a handful of working girls. The jury is out 0:01:51.080 --> 0:01:54.320 on whether his own mother, Claire, known to all as 0:01:54.360 --> 0:01:57.520 the Colonel, set him up with a few working girls 0:01:57.520 --> 0:02:03.840 to get his career started. From the outset, Reagan cements 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:08.360 a reputation as a violent enforcer with a hair trigger temper, 0:02:09.280 --> 0:02:12.200 willing to eliminate anyone who gets in the way of 0:02:12.240 --> 0:02:16.120 his ambition to be the most powerful gangster, not just 0:02:16.200 --> 0:02:20.400 in Sydney but Australia. 0:02:20.800 --> 0:02:21.320 There is a. 0:02:21.240 --> 0:02:25.519 Famous police mugshot of Reagan that is still used today 0:02:25.919 --> 0:02:29.560 whenever his name pops up in the media. We have 0:02:29.720 --> 0:02:34.040 used it for this podcast. It has become iconic and 0:02:34.200 --> 0:02:41.360 shorthand for Australian gangster. Reagan is clean shaven. His thick, 0:02:41.440 --> 0:02:45.680 slightly oiled hair flicks up off his forehead like black 0:02:45.760 --> 0:02:51.919 cockatoo wings. His expression is sullen, his eyes in deep 0:02:52.040 --> 0:02:57.919 sockets that are shaded by his brows. Those eyes are 0:02:58.080 --> 0:03:05.440 seriously intense and offer menace. One glance at this photograph 0:03:05.480 --> 0:03:14.320 and you think several things mean, violent, angry, stubborn. His 0:03:14.480 --> 0:03:20.160 face carries a peculiar and chilling contradiction both movie star 0:03:20.280 --> 0:03:23.800 good looks and a sense that he could hurt or 0:03:23.960 --> 0:03:29.320 kill you at will. The picture was taken in June 0:03:29.520 --> 0:03:33.799 nineteen sixty two, when he was just sixteen years old. 0:03:36.960 --> 0:03:41.200 It's difficult to reconcile family photographs of Reagan as an 0:03:41.280 --> 0:03:46.200 innocuous little country schoolboy just a few years earlier, and 0:03:46.280 --> 0:03:53.000 this teenage embodiment of pure hatred. You can already see 0:03:53.440 --> 0:04:00.400 the grown up mobster he is to become. It's as 0:04:00.440 --> 0:04:05.000 if the gangster was fully formed inside that teenage body. 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:09.960 It just needed to be let loose, and it was 0:04:10.440 --> 0:04:13.080 when he left the Gosford Boys Home and returned to 0:04:13.160 --> 0:04:19.240 the loving embrace of his mother, The Colonel in Darlinghurst. 0:04:20.240 --> 0:04:24.960 A nineteen sixty four documentary called The Glittering Mile from 0:04:25.000 --> 0:04:28.839 the then Special Project's division of the National Nine Network 0:04:29.320 --> 0:04:34.400 and narrated by David Lowe, was so successful in capturing 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:37.320 the seediness of the Cross at the time that it 0:04:37.440 --> 0:04:47.680 made the headlines for being rude and lewde. 0:04:45.200 --> 0:04:47.200 And that's the way it is that King's cross. 0:04:48.200 --> 0:04:50.880 But this is the other face of the cross, not. 0:04:50.960 --> 0:04:54.039 So harmless, not so friendly, not so. 0:04:53.880 --> 0:04:54.720 Easy to forget. 0:04:55.360 --> 0:04:57.480 The night face that it alternately. 0:04:57.040 --> 0:05:02.520 Laughing and scowling, seeking comfort or for guest sensation or satisfaction. 0:05:03.400 --> 0:05:07.760 Only here the search for something, whatever it is, goes 0:05:07.839 --> 0:05:14.080 on all through the night. 0:05:15.000 --> 0:05:19.599 The key to Reagan, to his rage and violence, lies 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:24.359 somewhere in those formative years between Cherrytown and when he 0:05:24.440 --> 0:05:28.359 was released from Mount Penang with its boomerang on the 0:05:28.400 --> 0:05:32.080 front gate, when he was let off the leash in 0:05:32.240 --> 0:05:39.080 Big bad Sydney. What happened during that period not only 0:05:39.200 --> 0:05:44.000 shaped his short life, but also planted the seed of 0:05:44.120 --> 0:05:49.960 his death. He was always going to die horribly, as 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:53.560 his own mother predicted, he was never destined to make 0:05:53.600 --> 0:05:58.760 old bones. What he did with just over a decade 0:05:58.800 --> 0:06:02.719 of adult life, from when he departed Gosford until he 0:06:02.920 --> 0:06:07.200 ended up on the Morgue slab is still being discussed 0:06:07.960 --> 0:06:25.960 half a century later. This podcast started out as a 0:06:26.000 --> 0:06:31.599 clinical look at one of Australia's most reviled gangsters, but 0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:35.359 when the Reagan family came on board, the project took 0:06:35.400 --> 0:06:41.440 on another dimension and begged the question how does a 0:06:41.440 --> 0:06:45.839 family cope with the generational stain of a murderer whose 0:06:46.000 --> 0:06:55.760 death was celebrated by criminals and police alike. This is 0:06:55.920 --> 0:07:28.600 episode four, Real Wild Child, The Wild One by Johnny O'Keefe. 0:07:29.840 --> 0:07:34.520 It could have been written with Reagan in mind. As 0:07:34.520 --> 0:07:37.720 for Sidney's King's Cross, a short walk from the house 0:07:37.800 --> 0:07:42.320 the Colonel shared with her sister Thelma in Liverpool Street, Darlinghurst, 0:07:43.440 --> 0:07:47.600 it was the perfect petri dish for Reagan's hyperkinetic some 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:55.040 would argue psychopathic ambitions. The cross, on a ridge between 0:07:55.080 --> 0:07:58.560 the cities well to do inner eastern suburbs like Paddington, 0:07:59.040 --> 0:08:03.280 Edgecliffe and Double and Rose Bays and the gritty wharves 0:08:03.320 --> 0:08:06.360 on the eastern edge of the CBD, had long been 0:08:06.400 --> 0:08:09.880 a magnet for artists and poets, for the sort of 0:08:09.960 --> 0:08:15.440 dope smoking, carefree beatniks whose idealism had drifted across the 0:08:15.440 --> 0:08:18.960 Pacific from the United States and found a home in 0:08:19.040 --> 0:08:22.760 the pubs and bars and coffee shops and blocks of 0:08:22.800 --> 0:08:29.400 flats that line Darlinghurst and Bayswater Roads, Victoria and McLay Streets. 0:08:31.560 --> 0:08:35.600 It was no stranger to violence this place. In the 0:08:35.640 --> 0:08:40.640 late nineteen twenties and early nineteen thirties, the infamous Razor Gangs, 0:08:42.120 --> 0:08:46.680 led by mobsters Kate Lee and Tilly Devine, slashed away 0:08:46.720 --> 0:08:50.560 at each other in the back streets and lanes. Their 0:08:50.679 --> 0:08:54.599 violent lives have been the basis for a virtual cottage 0:08:54.640 --> 0:08:59.880 industry of books, films and television shows like Channel Nines 0:09:00.280 --> 0:09:01.520 Underbelly franchise. 0:09:03.000 --> 0:09:06.040 Judge says, Kate Lee must be the worst woman in Sydney. 0:09:06.400 --> 0:09:07.959 No mention of Tilly Divine. 0:09:08.080 --> 0:09:09.840 What do you want to be the worst woman in Sydney? 0:09:09.880 --> 0:09:10.360 Do you? 0:09:10.520 --> 0:09:15.280 I want to be recognized for what I am? 0:09:15.400 --> 0:09:20.360 That era spawned another criminal monster. His name was chow Hays, 0:09:20.960 --> 0:09:25.439 an utterly ruthless thief, gunman and murderer, and he has 0:09:25.520 --> 0:09:31.120 been credited as Australia's first true gangster. He came into 0:09:31.120 --> 0:09:33.520 his own during the brutal Razor Wars in Sydney in 0:09:33.559 --> 0:09:36.719 the nineteen twenties. He was jailed for murder in the 0:09:36.800 --> 0:09:42.520 nineteen fifties and was fighting and stealing into old age. 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:46.400 Look at his police mugshot from the nineteen twenties and 0:09:46.520 --> 0:09:51.079 Reagan's from the nineteen sixties, and you'd swear they were 0:09:51.200 --> 0:09:56.120 father and son and they had something else in common. 0:09:57.400 --> 0:10:02.680 This is from journalist Adam Shan's television series is Suburban Gangsters. 0:10:04.440 --> 0:10:08.120 Those gangs were the breeding ground for the criminals. And 0:10:08.160 --> 0:10:11.240 in fact what happened to Hayes was he found himself 0:10:11.679 --> 0:10:17.520 at age fourteen, after half a husand convictions for shoplifting, 0:10:17.920 --> 0:10:21.400 being sent to Gosford Boy's Home, where he met at 0:10:21.440 --> 0:10:26.080 age fourteen and a half murderers. It was the university 0:10:26.080 --> 0:10:28.640 for criminals, and he learned everything by the time he 0:10:28.720 --> 0:10:30.920 was seventeen about being a criminal. 0:10:31.559 --> 0:10:34.320 By the time young Reagan was finding his way in 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:38.800 the underworld in the early nineteen sixties, the Cross, that 0:10:38.960 --> 0:10:44.800 densely populated suburban patch of artists and freethinkers and troubled 0:10:44.880 --> 0:10:52.080 scribes was giving way to something else. Vice drugs and 0:10:52.160 --> 0:10:57.600 illegal gambling and prostitution found a receptive host in King's Cross, 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:03.800 and then the virus, along with its enforces, simply took over. 0:11:06.760 --> 0:11:10.160 It's a no man's land worth something for everyone he 0:11:10.240 --> 0:11:13.120 There's no boundaries to its name and no limits to 0:11:13.160 --> 0:11:15.800 its way of light. In fact, the Cross is not 0:11:15.880 --> 0:11:19.040 a place but a state of might. 0:11:20.000 --> 0:11:24.040 Darlinghurst Road that ventricle from William Street to the El 0:11:24.080 --> 0:11:29.000 Alaman fountain and its many narrow offshoots was the beating 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:32.280 heart of the Cross, and with its flashing neons and 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:37.120 dark enclaves, was a landscape made for a gangster like 0:11:37.200 --> 0:11:44.840 Stuart John Reagan. Reagan embodied its state of mind, no boundaries, 0:11:45.320 --> 0:11:49.760 no limits to its way of life. If Reagan hadn't, 0:11:49.800 --> 0:11:54.080 by chance, been born into that time and place, it 0:11:54.120 --> 0:11:59.720 would have created him anyhow. With its rich night life, 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:05.280 hatering for everything from cabaret to cocaine, supper clubs to prostitution, 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:11.640 it attracted suburban punters and overseas visitors, and the men 0:12:11.679 --> 0:12:14.680 and women who would prey on them and their cash. 0:12:16.679 --> 0:12:19.440 From its hut, you can go about half a mile 0:12:19.520 --> 0:12:21.720 in any direction before you run out of the lights 0:12:21.760 --> 0:12:25.640 into the darkness of the outside world. A half mile 0:12:25.760 --> 0:12:30.760 there and back, a glittering mile of dreams, delusions, hopes 0:12:30.960 --> 0:12:31.720 and headaches. 0:12:35.720 --> 0:12:40.280 A glittering mile of dreams. And no other gangster in 0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:45.800 Sydney at the time had bigger dreams than Reagan. The 0:12:45.800 --> 0:12:49.679 famous brothel Madame Shirley Brifman, who arrived in Sydney from 0:12:49.760 --> 0:12:54.119 Brisbane in the early nineteen sixties and built a hugely 0:12:54.240 --> 0:12:59.520 lucrative Empire had several run ins with Reagan. The run 0:12:59.559 --> 0:13:04.079 ins is a bit mild. On one occasion, he actually 0:13:04.120 --> 0:13:08.240 tried to murder her. We'll hear more about Shirley in 0:13:08.400 --> 0:13:15.000 future episodes of this podcast, but Briffman said in a 0:13:15.000 --> 0:13:18.720 police interview that Reagan was not happy just trying to 0:13:18.800 --> 0:13:22.880 control wece in Sydney. He wanted to run it right 0:13:22.920 --> 0:13:27.480 across the country. He had a brain for business, both 0:13:27.559 --> 0:13:32.319 legitimate and illegal. He would go on to orchestrate one 0:13:32.320 --> 0:13:37.720 of the most successful scams in Australian history, but not yet. 0:13:39.080 --> 0:13:42.800 As a teen thug, he traded in violence and fear. 0:13:43.840 --> 0:13:48.120 Stories of his psychotic behavior, however they may have changed 0:13:48.480 --> 0:13:52.600 or been exaggerated over time, are still legion. 0:13:54.880 --> 0:13:57.880 I remember a story about Reagan being in King's Cross 0:13:57.920 --> 0:14:00.800 with a friend and he'd come across what he'd had 0:14:00.840 --> 0:14:04.040 a disagreement with, bashed himtok pulp and as the guy 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:07.760 lay on the ground mortally wounded, Reagan turned to his 0:14:07.760 --> 0:14:10.120 friend who was smoking a cigarette, made him give him 0:14:10.120 --> 0:14:12.960 the cigarette, and he stubbed that lit cigarette in the 0:14:13.000 --> 0:14:15.920 person's eye. That's how vicious Reagan was. 0:14:17.360 --> 0:14:22.200 That's veteran Sidney crime reporter Norm Lipsyn. In journalist and 0:14:22.280 --> 0:14:28.600 author Adam Shann's television documentary series Suburban Gangsters. 0:14:28.840 --> 0:14:32.200 John Reagan built up a stable of prostitutes. He made 0:14:32.280 --> 0:14:34.880 quite a lot of money out of that arm, and 0:14:35.480 --> 0:14:39.560 he controlled them through fear and violence. If he found 0:14:39.600 --> 0:14:41.960 out that there was a customer who was misbehaving or 0:14:42.000 --> 0:14:45.000 wasn't paying, they'd be beaten within an inch of their lives. 0:14:46.080 --> 0:14:48.600 And this is the late New South Wales detective Roger 0:14:48.680 --> 0:14:52.520 Rogerson who would die in jail as a convicted murderer, 0:14:52.920 --> 0:14:55.800 also appearing on the Shan documentary. 0:14:56.920 --> 0:14:58.080 He was a pretty solid luck. 0:14:58.160 --> 0:15:02.000 He was pretty hard and you could not believe how 0:15:02.040 --> 0:15:05.760 strong as basket was. If he grabbed you, he had you, 0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:06.680 you couldn't get away. 0:15:08.480 --> 0:15:11.360 I spoke at length to both Norm Lipson and Roger 0:15:11.440 --> 0:15:16.440 Rogerson before the latter was arrested, charged and ultimately convicted 0:15:16.560 --> 0:15:22.360 of murder several years ago about Reagan. As a young 0:15:22.400 --> 0:15:25.960 reporter in Sydney, I looked up to Norm. It was 0:15:25.960 --> 0:15:28.520 the sort of older crime journalist who had a million 0:15:28.680 --> 0:15:34.160 contacts and always seemed to get the best scoops. It's 0:15:34.200 --> 0:15:36.920 a measure of the power of the Reagan name. Still 0:15:37.520 --> 0:15:41.480 that Norm expressed some concerns about offering his thoughts on 0:15:41.560 --> 0:15:45.040 the dead gangster for this podcast and whether there might 0:15:45.080 --> 0:15:48.080 be repercussions from the Reagan family. 0:15:48.880 --> 0:15:51.320 Well, I know what I'm coming after me. I've still 0:15:51.360 --> 0:15:54.200 got a lot of hard friends. But that's not the point, 0:15:54.280 --> 0:15:54.520 you know. 0:15:55.440 --> 0:16:01.280 In a career filled with underworld characters, he clearly remembers Reagan. 0:16:02.200 --> 0:16:05.400 I grew up in the Southeastern suburbs and Reagan used 0:16:05.400 --> 0:16:09.240 to knock around the Bondai Junction. I knew people who 0:16:09.280 --> 0:16:12.400 knew him, and they used to tell me stories about him, 0:16:12.600 --> 0:16:16.280 horrendous stories. And I was in their company and met 0:16:16.400 --> 0:16:19.400 him a couple of times. He got the nickname the Magician, 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:22.240 and it wasn't because of his wizardry. It was because 0:16:22.240 --> 0:16:24.920 he made people disappear. He used to beat people up 0:16:24.920 --> 0:16:27.080 for nothing. A friend of mine who knew him, tell 0:16:27.120 --> 0:16:31.560 me a story about how he was upset with somebody, 0:16:32.200 --> 0:16:34.760 a guy once, and he was so upset that he 0:16:34.840 --> 0:16:38.960 went and bashed this guy, put a dog collar and 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:42.960 a chain around his neck and made him walk to 0:16:43.080 --> 0:16:45.360 a pub on all fours and sat him in the 0:16:45.400 --> 0:16:48.320 pub with this dog collar and chain like a dog. 0:16:48.600 --> 0:16:51.800 To humiliating things like that this is a fellow who 0:16:52.200 --> 0:16:54.000 used to torture and kill animals. 0:16:54.280 --> 0:16:56.360 I tell you a funny thing. When he was a kid, 0:16:56.720 --> 0:17:00.160 he was an only child in young in country New 0:17:00.200 --> 0:17:04.159 South Wales. We've spoken to people who witnessed this. His 0:17:04.320 --> 0:17:08.359 mother chained him to a post in the backyard and 0:17:08.359 --> 0:17:09.840 she would flog him with a stock whip. 0:17:10.400 --> 0:17:12.320 Oh no, wonder he turned out the way he did. 0:17:12.640 --> 0:17:15.960 But he embraced violence. He embraced it. He loved it. 0:17:16.760 --> 0:17:19.720 As I say, he embraced violence and random violence. It 0:17:19.720 --> 0:17:21.600 didn't matter. He just loved hurting people. 0:17:22.840 --> 0:17:26.880 Norm agreed that Reagan had big plans for his future. 0:17:27.760 --> 0:17:30.440 I've looked at the record of interview that Briffman did 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:33.240 in seventy one when she blew the whistle, and she 0:17:33.359 --> 0:17:36.520 said that Reagan wanted to be not just the boss 0:17:36.600 --> 0:17:39.000 of New South Wales but all of Australia. He seemed 0:17:39.000 --> 0:17:40.120 to be very ambitious. 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:42.200 I think he just wanted to be revered and feared 0:17:42.760 --> 0:17:47.480 by all, and that's probably what led to his eventual demise. 0:17:48.119 --> 0:17:51.000 This guy just wanted to take over everything, to be 0:17:51.040 --> 0:17:57.679 feared by everybody and bowed to and revered, And a 0:17:57.720 --> 0:18:00.679 lot of people suffered before he. 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:05.520 As for Rogerson, he had no doubt that Reagan was 0:18:05.560 --> 0:18:11.400 an absolute psychopath. Perhaps it took one to know one. 0:18:11.680 --> 0:18:16.320 Rogerson argued that there were three uncontrollable criminal maniacs on 0:18:16.440 --> 0:18:19.840 the loose during the heyday of his policing career in 0:18:19.880 --> 0:18:26.440 the nineteen sixties and seventies. The first was Brisbane born 0:18:26.600 --> 0:18:31.000 Raymond Ducky O'Connor, shot dead in a Sydney nightclub in 0:18:31.119 --> 0:18:36.240 nineteen sixty seven, supposedly by the mob boss Lenny Mister 0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:42.639 Big McPherson standover man. Ducky had a formidable reputation for 0:18:42.800 --> 0:18:51.679 being a loose cannon. Police described him as mad and crazy. 0:18:53.520 --> 0:18:59.560 The second was another Brisbane criminal, John Andrew Stewart. Stuart, 0:19:00.359 --> 0:19:05.600 a graduate of yet another notorious boy's home, Westbrook outside 0:19:05.640 --> 0:19:09.719 to Woomba, west of Brisbane, was also considered by fellow 0:19:09.760 --> 0:19:15.080 criminals and detectives alike, a complete psychopath who could and 0:19:15.200 --> 0:19:22.199 did kill at will. Incredibly, Stuart's own short and violent 0:19:22.359 --> 0:19:28.320 life became significantly entangled with Reagan's, and you'll hear more 0:19:28.359 --> 0:19:34.359 about that soon. The third on Rogerson's lunatic list was, 0:19:34.840 --> 0:19:39.919 of course Reagan. The type of criminals so unhinged, that 0:19:39.960 --> 0:19:43.560 they became dangerous not just to the public and police, 0:19:44.480 --> 0:19:46.359 but the underworld itself. 0:19:49.840 --> 0:19:53.160 Lenny McPherson said me, watch Matt, he said Roger, he said, 0:19:53.359 --> 0:19:58.400 you can control a bad man, but you can't control 0:19:58.480 --> 0:20:00.640 a madn forgotten. 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:03.080 That's a great quotion in it. 0:20:03.160 --> 0:20:07.200 That came from Annie McPherson, and I've created a few times, 0:20:07.240 --> 0:20:09.320 you know, because that's exactly what he said. And it's 0:20:09.320 --> 0:20:13.800 fucking right, because these blokes are just as dangerous to 0:20:14.040 --> 0:20:17.920 the criminalal use who is that terminology? They are more 0:20:17.960 --> 0:20:21.560 sometimes dangerous to them than to the public. 0:20:23.320 --> 0:20:25.960 And what a middle year it was when Reagan was 0:20:26.000 --> 0:20:29.200 trying to make his way to the top. If Australia 0:20:29.400 --> 0:20:33.560 ever had a Gilded Age of gangsters, then this was it. 0:20:34.920 --> 0:20:38.639 Michael Duffy is a publisher, broadcaster and the author of 0:20:38.680 --> 0:20:42.639 several crime novels, as well as two classic works of 0:20:42.840 --> 0:20:46.399 historical non fiction that lay bare the Reagan era in 0:20:46.440 --> 0:20:51.159 Sydney World War Noir and Sydney Noir The Golden Years, 0:20:51.800 --> 0:20:56.679 both of which he co authored with Nick Horden. Michael 0:20:56.720 --> 0:20:59.640 explained that there were a number of reasons why Reagan 0:20:59.800 --> 0:21:03.760 flourished as a mobster, in the nineteen sixties and into 0:21:03.800 --> 0:21:05.720 the nineteen seventies. 0:21:08.000 --> 0:21:10.639 Was that policing was much harder. 0:21:10.680 --> 0:21:12.760 Back then, it was much harder to lock people up 0:21:13.359 --> 0:21:16.760 legally anyway, because police didn't have the resources they have now. 0:21:17.200 --> 0:21:22.399 If you think about things like modern forensics, DNA, CCTV, 0:21:22.680 --> 0:21:26.040 phone tapping, none of this was available. I mean there 0:21:26.040 --> 0:21:30.879 were technological there were scientific limitations, and so really the 0:21:30.880 --> 0:21:35.560 most powerful weapon in a CoP's armory when he was 0:21:35.680 --> 0:21:38.640 usually he was trying to solve a crime was an informer. 0:21:39.119 --> 0:21:42.080 Because the crooks would blab about what they'd done. The 0:21:42.119 --> 0:21:45.480 informer would come and tell the detective, and the detective 0:21:45.680 --> 0:21:48.280 would know because he knew he had a reliable informer, 0:21:48.400 --> 0:21:50.640 he'd know who did the crime, but he couldn't really 0:21:50.680 --> 0:21:51.120 prove it. 0:21:51.280 --> 0:21:53.920 Really, even if you're an honest cop. Honest maybe in 0:21:54.000 --> 0:21:57.960 inverted commerce, in order to get convictions, they had the 0:21:58.040 --> 0:22:01.560 load and they had the verbal, and they loaded evidence 0:22:01.920 --> 0:22:04.439 onto the criminal they knew had done the crime, or 0:22:04.480 --> 0:22:09.520 they verbal them they basically signed made them. You know, well, they. 0:22:09.640 --> 0:22:12.960 Drew up their own false confessions for these crooks because 0:22:13.000 --> 0:22:14.399 it was the only way of locking them up. 0:22:16.320 --> 0:22:19.720 The police verbal was the bane of being a criminal. 0:22:21.000 --> 0:22:25.000 Reagan went on about the verbal in his secretly recorded 0:22:25.040 --> 0:22:27.680 phone calls with other criminals. 0:22:28.760 --> 0:22:32.080 Interesting, you're laying in the third flight, where can they picture? 0:22:32.720 --> 0:22:32.880 Yeah? 0:22:33.040 --> 0:22:35.760 Right, Actually, are you a riad of us? Had they 0:22:36.080 --> 0:22:38.080 led you? 0:22:39.640 --> 0:22:40.680 Duffy went on. 0:22:41.960 --> 0:22:45.280 So if even honest cops for doing this thing called 0:22:45.320 --> 0:22:48.760 noble cause corruption, you can imagine the opportunities that then 0:22:48.840 --> 0:22:52.000 opened for dishonest cops to come along and yeah, just 0:22:52.040 --> 0:22:55.160 start doing whatever they like and basically start letting off 0:22:55.200 --> 0:22:57.160 the crooks they wanted to let off, and loading up 0:22:57.680 --> 0:23:00.159 the competition of those crooks the other crooks, and that 0:23:00.240 --> 0:23:04.520 led to these alliances between crooks and cops, such as 0:23:05.000 --> 0:23:08.160 the famous one between Lenny McPherson and Ray Kelly, who 0:23:08.240 --> 0:23:11.480 was the primary leading cop in the early sixties, which 0:23:11.520 --> 0:23:14.480 did so much to contribute to corruption. So these things 0:23:14.480 --> 0:23:15.800 are really important. 0:23:16.520 --> 0:23:21.240 According to Duffy. Reagan also landed in Sydney's Inner East 0:23:21.600 --> 0:23:26.679 at a time of social change. From the mid nineteen fifties, 0:23:26.920 --> 0:23:30.480 suburban clubs in New South Wales were allowed to feature 0:23:30.520 --> 0:23:37.199 poker machines, effectively transforming them into mini casinos. The money 0:23:37.600 --> 0:23:42.560 flooded in. With that cash injection, the clubs flew in 0:23:42.760 --> 0:23:48.679 famous and famously expensive entertainers from around the world. You 0:23:48.720 --> 0:23:53.560 could see great singers or lavish musicals in your local clubs. 0:23:54.800 --> 0:23:57.680 King's Cross lost its appeal. 0:23:57.880 --> 0:24:01.080 And so the Cross basically repurposed itself, and throughout the 0:24:01.119 --> 0:24:05.800 sixties and seventies it gradually turned from a bohemian entertainment precinct, 0:24:05.920 --> 0:24:09.200 you know, into a sleezy place selling sex and later 0:24:09.280 --> 0:24:12.359 on drugs, and that sort of led to the rise 0:24:12.400 --> 0:24:16.240 of the Cross as a focal point for crime, especially towards. 0:24:15.920 --> 0:24:17.480 The end of the sixties into the seventies. 0:24:18.240 --> 0:24:21.480 As for the criminal top dogs who prowled this new 0:24:22.160 --> 0:24:26.959 sleezy King's Cross as Reagan arrived on the scene, Michael 0:24:27.040 --> 0:24:31.680 Duffy says one particular mob boss cast a huge shadow 0:24:31.880 --> 0:24:36.560 over this era, and yet very few people have heard. 0:24:36.359 --> 0:24:39.480 Of him, Paddles Anderson. 0:24:39.480 --> 0:24:41.600 He had very big feet, or some people say I 0:24:41.600 --> 0:24:43.560 had big hands, but I think it was big feet. 0:24:43.960 --> 0:24:47.240 So Paddles was a somewhat shadowy figure. 0:24:47.440 --> 0:24:49.480 But from what we've been able to work out, he 0:24:49.600 --> 0:24:52.399 was by far the most influential person, probably to the 0:24:52.440 --> 0:24:55.320 sixties and into the seventies. And it's a mark of 0:24:55.359 --> 0:25:01.960 his skill that he remains so little know. Abe Saffron 0:25:02.040 --> 0:25:04.960 is a more interesting figure because I mean he was 0:25:05.000 --> 0:25:09.240 almost like a real estate figure slash would be entertainment 0:25:09.400 --> 0:25:12.520 entrepreneur who just happened, who just had to get engaged 0:25:12.520 --> 0:25:14.480 in a bit of crime, because you had to if 0:25:14.480 --> 0:25:15.680 you're in that line of business. 0:25:15.800 --> 0:25:20.960 But yeah, there's a fascinating photo I have of Reagan 0:25:22.440 --> 0:25:27.520 cutting a cake at Checkers for his twenty first birthday, 0:25:27.520 --> 0:25:31.359 which would have been September nineteen sixty six, and sitting 0:25:31.600 --> 0:25:34.440 opposite him at the table is Frederick Paddles Anderson. 0:25:35.000 --> 0:25:36.880 That's a good photo to have, But it's. 0:25:36.680 --> 0:25:40.480 Interesting how a twenty one year old just turned twenty 0:25:40.520 --> 0:25:45.200 one could have this huge crime figure at his little 0:25:45.200 --> 0:25:46.520 birthday party at Checkers. 0:25:48.119 --> 0:25:50.680 It is extraordinary. It suggests that who is very well regarded, 0:25:51.480 --> 0:25:51.959 doesn't it. 0:25:53.720 --> 0:25:56.960 Yeah, you know, there's discussions in the family about Uncle 0:25:57.080 --> 0:25:59.800 Paddles and they just seem to have been a relationship 0:25:59.840 --> 0:26:02.199 there that I can't get to the origins of. 0:26:02.320 --> 0:26:05.480 But no, and we've been it's been very difficult to 0:26:05.560 --> 0:26:08.159 find out anything at all about Anderson. I mean, he 0:26:08.200 --> 0:26:10.879 spent some time in Melbourne, he came back. He was powerful. 0:26:11.200 --> 0:26:14.560 But it's extraordinary how secretive he was. If you talk 0:26:14.600 --> 0:26:17.399 to older crooks Carbonat and people like that, a lot 0:26:17.440 --> 0:26:20.280 of them talk about Anderson has been this very influential figure. 0:26:20.560 --> 0:26:23.800 Would that suggest that he's one of the Master's apprentices 0:26:23.840 --> 0:26:26.880 in that Anderson has in a way taking him under 0:26:26.880 --> 0:26:29.560 his wing in a sense. Or is it that's stretching 0:26:29.600 --> 0:26:30.040 too far. 0:26:31.080 --> 0:26:34.600 I think that sounds likely because there had to be 0:26:34.640 --> 0:26:38.280 an implicit agreement amongst all these powerful crooks that they 0:26:38.320 --> 0:26:42.560 each had their particular area, and if Rogan was, you know, 0:26:42.600 --> 0:26:45.679 it was making ways and everything, there's no way they 0:26:45.720 --> 0:26:49.920 would have let him do that without trying to draw 0:26:49.960 --> 0:26:52.160 him in, as it were. I'm not aware of any 0:26:52.280 --> 0:26:54.360 you know, any crooks that are operating at a high 0:26:54.480 --> 0:26:57.200 level that were completely independent. I think at some point 0:26:57.200 --> 0:27:00.000 they all had to form a sort of working agreement. 0:27:05.080 --> 0:27:07.680 By the time Stuart John Reagan was released from Mount 0:27:07.680 --> 0:27:12.680 Penang around nineteen sixty three, the Swinging sixties were well underway. 0:27:14.280 --> 0:27:16.720 It was during this time that he secured what may 0:27:16.800 --> 0:27:20.600 have been the one legitimate job in his short life, 0:27:21.119 --> 0:27:24.159 as a bouncer at the fabled Whisky You Go Go 0:27:24.440 --> 0:27:28.560 nightclub in William Street near King's Cross's Magic Mile of 0:27:28.640 --> 0:27:34.679 strip clubs and prostitution dens. The Whisky was managed by 0:27:34.720 --> 0:27:39.760 a man called Ivor Balmaine, the father of Revel Balmain, 0:27:40.280 --> 0:27:44.640 a sex worker who famously vanished and was presumed murdered 0:27:44.680 --> 0:27:49.679 in Sydney in the nineteen nineties. Back in the nineteen sixties, 0:27:50.080 --> 0:27:55.320 Balmain trumpeted the whisky as a beacon of respectability amidst 0:27:55.320 --> 0:28:01.119 the sodoms and gomorahs of the Cross. The club was 0:28:01.200 --> 0:28:05.160 popular with American soldiers on R and R from Vietnam, 0:28:05.960 --> 0:28:10.399 and Balmaine had some very firm ideas about the sort 0:28:10.440 --> 0:28:15.360 of women he expected to see in his club. This 0:28:15.440 --> 0:28:20.760 is from an ABC four Corners report in nineteen sixty eight. 0:28:21.760 --> 0:28:24.280 We like the family type of girl, a night type 0:28:24.280 --> 0:28:27.200 of girl. You know, I don't particularly like these type 0:28:27.200 --> 0:28:31.320 of girls that people say hang around the Cross. That's 0:28:31.359 --> 0:28:34.600 a much used term, of course, But a girl that 0:28:34.680 --> 0:28:38.640