1
00:00:02,320 --> 00:00:03,040
Speaker 1: Before we begin.

2
00:00:03,160 --> 00:00:08,240
Speaker 2: This podcast contains graphic descriptions of violence. This is a

3
00:00:08,240 --> 00:00:11,960
Speaker 2: production by The Australian and our subscribers Here episodes first

4
00:00:12,240 --> 00:00:15,560
Speaker 2: and get full access to photos, video, news stories and

5
00:00:15,640 --> 00:00:19,320
Speaker 2: features plus all Australia's best journalism twenty four to seven.

6
00:00:19,800 --> 00:00:22,720
Speaker 2: Join us at Gangstersghost dot com dot a U.

7
00:00:26,079 --> 00:00:30,320
Speaker 1: I think his life changed, He changed completely. Sometimes in

8
00:00:30,400 --> 00:00:36,680
Speaker 1: life greed and money and to be powerful came me

9
00:00:36,800 --> 00:00:40,479
Speaker 1: into his world. I think that he loved it. He

10
00:00:40,640 --> 00:00:44,400
Speaker 1: loved what he was doing. He loved the sense that

11
00:00:44,560 --> 00:00:49,080
Speaker 1: he was mixing at those people. So biggest SMIs stata

12
00:00:49,120 --> 00:00:52,120
Speaker 1: you have made in his life.

13
00:01:00,000 --> 00:01:06,640
Speaker 3: This is Margaret Reagan, the gangster's widow. In the fifty

14
00:01:06,720 --> 00:01:10,440
Speaker 3: years since Stuart John Reagan was murdered by three, possibly

15
00:01:10,600 --> 00:01:13,800
Speaker 3: four gunmen in the back streets of Marrickville in Sydney,

16
00:01:14,680 --> 00:01:20,199
Speaker 3: Mark has never spoken publicly about Johnny, about the gangster life,

17
00:01:21,080 --> 00:01:25,280
Speaker 3: about Reagan's association with some of the most dangerous criminals

18
00:01:25,319 --> 00:01:28,399
Speaker 3: of his era. She was with him for more than

19
00:01:28,440 --> 00:01:32,280
Speaker 3: ten years, through the most volatile period of his career,

20
00:01:32,959 --> 00:01:37,080
Speaker 3: to an hour or so before his death. She had

21
00:01:37,160 --> 00:01:41,600
Speaker 3: three children with him, and she has never in her

22
00:01:41,640 --> 00:01:48,360
Speaker 3: own words spoken out of school. Today, she still finds

23
00:01:48,400 --> 00:01:51,960
Speaker 3: it difficult to understand why he changed from a decent

24
00:01:52,080 --> 00:01:56,560
Speaker 3: young man to thug and petty crook to a violent mobster.

25
00:01:57,720 --> 00:02:02,720
Speaker 3: She still wrestles with it. She saw the monster coming

26
00:02:03,000 --> 00:02:07,200
Speaker 3: in the late nineteen sixties. It all started at home,

27
00:02:08,040 --> 00:02:13,280
Speaker 3: behind closed doors. And it's still incredibly painful for marg.

28
00:02:15,200 --> 00:02:18,359
Speaker 1: Yeah, a good person when it was good. But if

29
00:02:18,360 --> 00:02:21,240
Speaker 1: he was angry and things like that, which I've seen

30
00:02:21,360 --> 00:02:24,799
Speaker 1: several occasions, I can honestly say that I had not

31
00:02:25,000 --> 00:02:28,799
Speaker 1: experiencing one occasion that he beat me. To forgive me

32
00:02:28,880 --> 00:02:32,400
Speaker 1: when he hit me. Beating me beat me was that

33
00:02:32,480 --> 00:02:37,280
Speaker 1: early on, but that time ran about that time.

34
00:02:38,000 --> 00:02:40,640
Speaker 4: What happened when he struck you in that incident? What happened?

35
00:02:41,960 --> 00:02:44,960
Speaker 1: You're not listening to me. I want you to do this.

36
00:02:45,080 --> 00:02:47,400
Speaker 1: I can't remember what was about. I can't even remember.

37
00:02:47,840 --> 00:02:51,320
Speaker 1: And he struck me across the first Yeah, and I

38
00:02:51,400 --> 00:02:52,160
Speaker 1: ended up needing.

39
00:02:53,840 --> 00:02:54,600
Speaker 4: Anything broken.

40
00:02:55,200 --> 00:02:58,919
Speaker 1: No, and I'll have him at my bed betting mean

41
00:02:58,960 --> 00:03:02,800
Speaker 1: to fitness. And I also had a policeman come and say,

42
00:03:03,080 --> 00:03:05,440
Speaker 1: you told you now I know who did this to you.

43
00:03:05,480 --> 00:03:07,760
Speaker 1: I don't know what you're talking about. We had to

44
00:03:07,880 --> 00:03:12,240
Speaker 1: need to survive. That was my life. I was taught

45
00:03:12,520 --> 00:03:15,680
Speaker 1: you've got nothing to say and look at number plates

46
00:03:15,680 --> 00:03:19,200
Speaker 1: in the back of my revision. Just to go out

47
00:03:19,240 --> 00:03:22,760
Speaker 1: on an ordinary day out, that was my life.

48
00:03:23,120 --> 00:03:26,480
Speaker 4: But you didn't grow up in a criminal lawn. Did

49
00:03:26,520 --> 00:03:29,239
Speaker 4: you have to just adapt to that life?

50
00:03:29,840 --> 00:03:34,920
Speaker 1: Yes, and you know the reason why. I'll probably put

51
00:03:35,000 --> 00:03:37,640
Speaker 1: up with it for so long. You can't walk away

52
00:03:37,640 --> 00:03:42,080
Speaker 1: from people like this. I want you to say that

53
00:03:43,280 --> 00:03:47,160
Speaker 1: I know the real truth. I know what. I love him,

54
00:03:47,520 --> 00:03:51,560
Speaker 1: and he wasn't by someone like it. He wasn't he

55
00:03:51,640 --> 00:03:55,320
Speaker 1: became that person. Power and money does a lot of

56
00:03:55,400 --> 00:03:57,080
Speaker 1: things to tchange people's lives.

57
00:03:57,280 --> 00:04:00,120
Speaker 3: So in that Paddington house, how long did you stay there?

58
00:04:00,120 --> 00:04:04,440
Speaker 1: Not long? I've always stood my peace. I learned to

59
00:04:04,520 --> 00:04:09,960
Speaker 1: speak up. I knew my limits because I won't pass

60
00:04:10,000 --> 00:04:13,280
Speaker 1: the limits. He could have done anything, you know what

61
00:04:13,280 --> 00:04:16,800
Speaker 1: I mean. But I knew my limits and I thought,

62
00:04:17,000 --> 00:04:19,159
Speaker 1: I'm God, I got nothing to do it. He would

63
00:04:19,240 --> 00:04:23,040
Speaker 1: chase me, he would please, please please. I'm sorry I

64
00:04:23,080 --> 00:04:25,080
Speaker 1: didn't turn up. I'm sorry I didn't do this. I'm

65
00:04:25,080 --> 00:04:27,040
Speaker 1: sorry I didn't do it. And when this went on

66
00:04:27,080 --> 00:04:34,200
Speaker 1: for so I really didn't have a real time because.

67
00:04:39,080 --> 00:04:39,760
Speaker 4: You are bright.

68
00:04:42,040 --> 00:04:42,240
Speaker 5: Yeah.

69
00:05:18,120 --> 00:05:22,320
Speaker 3: I'm journalist Matthew Condon and This is the Gangster's Ghost,

70
00:05:23,040 --> 00:05:28,440
Speaker 3: a podcast from The Australian. This podcast started out as

71
00:05:28,440 --> 00:05:32,160
Speaker 3: a clinical look at one of Australia's most reviled gangsters,

72
00:05:34,240 --> 00:05:37,680
Speaker 3: but when the Reagan family came on board, the project

73
00:05:37,720 --> 00:05:43,600
Speaker 3: took on another dimension and begged the question how does

74
00:05:43,640 --> 00:05:47,839
Speaker 3: a family cope with the generational stain of a murderer

75
00:05:48,320 --> 00:05:53,039
Speaker 3: whose death was celebrated by criminals and police alike.

76
00:05:56,160 --> 00:06:11,280
Speaker 6: This is episode six heat.

77
00:06:15,960 --> 00:06:18,640
Speaker 7: A man known as Big Barry was found yesterday with

78
00:06:18,720 --> 00:06:21,680
Speaker 7: four bullet wounds in his head in jungle like undergrowth

79
00:06:21,680 --> 00:06:26,360
Speaker 7: in Paddington. Police said the man, Barry Leonard Flock, twenty eight,

80
00:06:26,880 --> 00:06:28,880
Speaker 7: had told a friend he had been marked down for

81
00:06:28,960 --> 00:06:32,760
Speaker 7: execution by the underworld a week ago. His body was

82
00:06:32,800 --> 00:06:36,719
Speaker 7: discovered yesterday just before noon by a woman she was

83
00:06:36,760 --> 00:06:40,560
Speaker 7: exercising her dog in an extensive area of undergrowth part

84
00:06:40,600 --> 00:06:44,279
Speaker 7: of the Scottish Hospital. Police believe Flock was lured or

85
00:06:44,360 --> 00:06:47,360
Speaker 7: forced to march at gunpoint by his killer or killers

86
00:06:47,760 --> 00:06:51,640
Speaker 7: into the thick undergrowth. Flock apparently put up his hands

87
00:06:51,920 --> 00:06:55,239
Speaker 7: as the bullet smashed into him.

88
00:06:55,839 --> 00:07:00,960
Speaker 3: It's Monday, January sixteenth, nineteen sixty seven, and Sydney has

89
00:07:01,040 --> 00:07:05,320
Speaker 3: woken to what appears to be another ruthless gangland killing.

90
00:07:06,160 --> 00:07:09,960
Speaker 3: The city is getting used to this sort of carnage.

91
00:07:10,160 --> 00:07:13,160
Speaker 3: One newspaper at the time asked why the city had

92
00:07:13,240 --> 00:07:19,200
Speaker 3: turned into Chicago with its open display of gangster carnage,

93
00:07:19,280 --> 00:07:24,040
Speaker 3: and how come Sydney's mobsters were suddenly qualified for honorary

94
00:07:24,160 --> 00:07:30,320
Speaker 3: citizenship of the Windy City in the United States. On

95
00:07:30,320 --> 00:07:34,760
Speaker 3: that Monday, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that Barry Flock

96
00:07:34,920 --> 00:07:39,920
Speaker 3: was a nurse cleaner and minor King's Cross identity who,

97
00:07:40,240 --> 00:07:43,520
Speaker 3: at one hundred and eighty eight centimeters tall and one

98
00:07:43,640 --> 00:07:47,600
Speaker 3: hundred and one kilograms in wait, worked as a bouncer

99
00:07:47,680 --> 00:07:52,960
Speaker 3: for various gambling dens and nightclubs. He had somehow been

100
00:07:53,040 --> 00:07:56,120
Speaker 3: lured into the undergrowth near the hospital and murdered.

101
00:07:56,840 --> 00:08:01,640
Speaker 7: The report went on, baller entered his head, including one

102
00:08:01,680 --> 00:08:04,000
Speaker 7: that first passed through his left hand near the right

103
00:08:04,040 --> 00:08:08,880
Speaker 7: index finger. Detectives described the murder as a typically callous

104
00:08:08,920 --> 00:08:09,880
Speaker 7: underworld execution.

105
00:08:18,080 --> 00:08:22,200
Speaker 3: Stuart John Reagan was quickly suspected of the killing. The

106
00:08:22,240 --> 00:08:26,400
Speaker 3: public record shows that this may have been his first murder.

107
00:08:27,600 --> 00:08:30,880
Speaker 3: It was just four months since his twenty first birthday

108
00:08:30,960 --> 00:08:35,959
Speaker 3: at Chequer's nightclub with mob boss Paddles Anderson. There were

109
00:08:36,040 --> 00:08:41,319
Speaker 3: several good reasons for police to think Reagan was the shooter. Firstly,

110
00:08:41,600 --> 00:08:44,880
Speaker 3: Flock was murdered just a couple of streets away from

111
00:08:44,960 --> 00:08:50,280
Speaker 3: Reagan's mother's place at fifty one Liverpool Street on a

112
00:08:50,320 --> 00:08:54,319
Speaker 3: still night. The colonel and auntie Thelma could have virtually

113
00:08:54,360 --> 00:08:58,760
Speaker 3: heard the shots from their modest terrace, two blocks southwest

114
00:08:58,880 --> 00:09:04,720
Speaker 3: of the murder scene. Secondly, newspaper reports said Reagan was

115
00:09:04,760 --> 00:09:09,280
Speaker 3: well acquainted with the dense scrub land near the old hospital.

116
00:09:10,840 --> 00:09:12,960
Speaker 3: This was from the Sun newspaper.

117
00:09:14,360 --> 00:09:16,760
Speaker 8: When John Reagan was a little boy, he had a

118
00:09:16,760 --> 00:09:20,440
Speaker 8: favorite hideout where the shrubs grew thick and the grass long,

119
00:09:21,120 --> 00:09:23,960
Speaker 8: a tiny jungle in the heart of Sydney. His private

120
00:09:23,960 --> 00:09:27,880
Speaker 8: world was a wasteland in the grounds of the Scottish Hospital.

121
00:09:30,120 --> 00:09:33,240
Speaker 3: Given Reagan spent his childhood in young New South Wales.

122
00:09:33,520 --> 00:09:38,280
Speaker 3: Seen beside the point. What was factual was that Flock had,

123
00:09:38,720 --> 00:09:41,640
Speaker 3: in the weeks leading up to his death, gotten caught

124
00:09:41,720 --> 00:09:46,559
Speaker 3: up in a business deal gone wrong with Reagan. Flock

125
00:09:46,640 --> 00:09:50,200
Speaker 3: had been working at a health studio in Bondai on

126
00:09:50,280 --> 00:09:55,320
Speaker 3: the recommendation of Reagan. The owner, Missus X, as the

127
00:09:55,320 --> 00:10:00,960
Speaker 3: newspapers called her, had employed him with reservations. She did

128
00:10:00,960 --> 00:10:06,400
Speaker 3: it as a favor to Reagan. At one point, Missus

129
00:10:06,679 --> 00:10:09,920
Speaker 3: X had given Flock eight hundred dollars to look after.

130
00:10:11,760 --> 00:10:16,559
Speaker 3: Reagan would later say Flock spent the money. Flock would

131
00:10:16,559 --> 00:10:21,360
Speaker 3: tell Missus X he had given it to Reagan. Someone

132
00:10:21,640 --> 00:10:31,040
Speaker 3: was lying. Reagan denied Flock's assertions. Reagan's heavies started harassing him.

133
00:10:31,520 --> 00:10:34,520
Speaker 3: Flock lived with his wife and daughter in London Street,

134
00:10:34,640 --> 00:10:38,080
Speaker 3: Enmore in Sydney's in a West, and at one point

135
00:10:38,120 --> 00:10:42,040
Speaker 3: the family temporarily fled to the safety of a friend's

136
00:10:42,040 --> 00:10:47,280
Speaker 3: house after being threatened. But what was the big deal

137
00:10:47,840 --> 00:10:55,920
Speaker 3: over a paltry eight hundred dollars here's the sun again.

138
00:10:57,480 --> 00:11:01,520
Speaker 8: Naturally, Reagan was pulled in for questioning over Flock's death.

139
00:11:02,120 --> 00:11:04,760
Speaker 8: He told detectives that although he had arranged to meet

140
00:11:04,760 --> 00:11:09,040
Speaker 8: Flock at Victoria Barracks, he'd been with a bird and forgot.

141
00:11:09,960 --> 00:11:13,240
Speaker 8: When he did remember, he had telephone Flock and called

142
00:11:13,320 --> 00:11:16,920
Speaker 8: off the meeting. It was all very suspicious, and detectives

143
00:11:16,920 --> 00:11:19,080
Speaker 8: are now sure Reagan killed Big.

144
00:11:18,920 --> 00:11:25,280
Speaker 3: Barry Mark remembers Flock, thank you John of murdering Barry

145
00:11:25,320 --> 00:11:26,880
Speaker 3: flap Ye what do you think.

146
00:11:26,760 --> 00:11:27,800
Speaker 4: Of that you knew Arry?

147
00:11:27,800 --> 00:11:27,880
Speaker 5: What?

148
00:11:28,160 --> 00:11:32,359
Speaker 1: Yes? I did just now new Thocott.

149
00:11:31,360 --> 00:11:32,720
Speaker 4: And John's relationship with him.

150
00:11:33,440 --> 00:11:37,880
Speaker 1: Oh, I could see you, as I say, Nothing was

151
00:11:37,920 --> 00:11:41,080
Speaker 1: ever discussing me. Nothing I could not see to you,

152
00:11:41,160 --> 00:11:44,240
Speaker 1: and so honestly dont to you all I would as

153
00:11:44,320 --> 00:11:47,720
Speaker 1: I heard any conversations about what he was doing or whatever.

154
00:11:48,280 --> 00:11:51,680
Speaker 1: Obviously he's out there doing it, that wouldn't relate to me.

155
00:11:53,320 --> 00:11:56,680
Speaker 3: Reagan was not charged with the murder, but according to

156
00:11:56,720 --> 00:12:01,800
Speaker 3: Reagan's official consorting records, he was being watched very closely

157
00:12:02,120 --> 00:12:08,719
Speaker 3: by police. The heat was on. Police noted he'd been

158
00:12:08,760 --> 00:12:12,959
Speaker 3: seen driving around in a sky blue nineteen sixty six

159
00:12:13,160 --> 00:12:20,360
Speaker 3: Jaguar registration EDZ double four to three. Two months later,

160
00:12:20,679 --> 00:12:24,440
Speaker 3: police observed him getting about town in a gun metal

161
00:12:24,640 --> 00:12:31,480
Speaker 3: gray nineteen sixty three Jaguar registration e k F nine

162
00:12:31,679 --> 00:12:39,320
Speaker 3: seven six Business. It seemed was good for Reagan. In

163
00:12:39,360 --> 00:12:42,480
Speaker 3: the months after Flock's murder, Reagan was in and out

164
00:12:42,520 --> 00:12:47,600
Speaker 3: of court for various matters, including consorting and possession of

165
00:12:47,640 --> 00:12:53,520
Speaker 3: an unlicensed pistol, and always by his side was his

166
00:12:53,720 --> 00:13:01,080
Speaker 3: dutyful lawyer Michael Seymour. As marg told us, no one

167
00:13:01,200 --> 00:13:06,680
Speaker 3: was closer to John than Seymour. Seymour was one of

168
00:13:06,720 --> 00:13:11,120
Speaker 3: a handful of people who Reagan trusted, but who was he.

169
00:13:12,720 --> 00:13:17,160
Speaker 3: With the police heat intensifying on Reagan, he needed virtually

170
00:13:17,200 --> 00:13:21,600
Speaker 3: a lawyer on tap. He found one by proxy in

171
00:13:21,640 --> 00:13:27,000
Speaker 3: the mid nineteen sixties. Michael Thomas Seymour was a young

172
00:13:27,040 --> 00:13:30,439
Speaker 3: solicitor doing his articles for the Sydney law firm Lang

173
00:13:30,559 --> 00:13:36,080
Speaker 3: and Anderson. When that practice dissolved, Seymour inherited one of

174
00:13:36,120 --> 00:13:43,280
Speaker 3: their more colorful clients, Stuart John Reagan. They got on instantly.

175
00:13:44,040 --> 00:13:47,120
Speaker 3: As far as Seymour knew Reagan had tow truck and

176
00:13:47,360 --> 00:13:52,680
Speaker 3: panel beating businesses. He thought Reagan, despite having little education,

177
00:13:53,240 --> 00:14:00,800
Speaker 3: was intelligent, enterprising, and ambitious. Seymour remained Reagan's confidante and

178
00:14:00,920 --> 00:14:05,360
Speaker 3: legal counsel until his client's murder in nineteen seventy four.

179
00:14:07,800 --> 00:14:11,200
Speaker 3: Seymour was struck off in the early nineteen eighties and

180
00:14:11,320 --> 00:14:15,560
Speaker 3: worked in later years as a migration agent. We'll come

181
00:14:15,600 --> 00:14:20,200
Speaker 3: to that later. Whichever way you looked at it, Seymour

182
00:14:20,280 --> 00:14:24,000
Speaker 3: would be a treasure trove of information about Reagan and

183
00:14:24,080 --> 00:14:30,920
Speaker 3: his life and times. Given Reagan's numerous prosecutions, Seymour had

184
00:14:30,920 --> 00:14:36,240
Speaker 3: the inside rail on how Reagan's mind worked, especially under pressure.

185
00:14:38,120 --> 00:14:41,400
Speaker 3: More importantly, he might even have a good idea about

186
00:14:41,480 --> 00:14:46,880
Speaker 3: who murdered his gangster client, if only we could get

187
00:14:46,920 --> 00:14:51,280
Speaker 3: even a fraction of what he knew held inside that

188
00:14:51,480 --> 00:14:58,640
Speaker 3: legal safety deposit box known as lawyer client privilege. Kelly

189
00:14:58,680 --> 00:15:02,920
Speaker 3: and I wondered if Seymour was even still alive. If so,

190
00:15:03,640 --> 00:15:06,560
Speaker 3: he'd have to be in his late seventies or possibly

191
00:15:06,760 --> 00:15:13,280
Speaker 3: nudging his eighties. So Kelly set out to find him,

192
00:15:13,400 --> 00:15:18,640
Speaker 3: and a few months later she phoned in, Okay.

193
00:15:18,480 --> 00:15:20,960
Speaker 9: So I've got a bit of exciting news. I've just

194
00:15:21,320 --> 00:15:24,720
Speaker 9: got an email come up on my phone that says

195
00:15:24,760 --> 00:15:27,000
Speaker 9: Michael Seymour has sent me a message.

196
00:15:27,040 --> 00:15:29,360
Speaker 10: So I'm just going to go into it now.

197
00:15:29,800 --> 00:15:32,880
Speaker 9: And have a look at what that message is and

198
00:15:33,120 --> 00:15:37,560
Speaker 9: see if I have actually found Michael Seymour that was

199
00:15:37,840 --> 00:15:39,560
Speaker 9: John's solicitor.

200
00:15:40,360 --> 00:15:43,120
Speaker 10: How exciting if it is, Like, how cool would that be?

201
00:15:43,640 --> 00:15:47,160
Speaker 3: Kelly had sent an initial message to a Michael Seymour

202
00:15:47,640 --> 00:15:51,080
Speaker 3: explaining that she was Reagan's cousin and that she and

203
00:15:51,240 --> 00:15:55,720
Speaker 3: Mark wanted to reach out to him. Was he, in fact,

204
00:15:55,840 --> 00:16:00,360
Speaker 3: the Michael Seymour who was Reagan's solicitor in the namenineteen

205
00:16:00,480 --> 00:16:01,960
Speaker 3: sixties and seventies.

206
00:16:04,240 --> 00:16:09,960
Speaker 9: And he's just replied to me and said, wow, that

207
00:16:10,360 --> 00:16:12,600
Speaker 9: well that is a blaster in the past. Yes, I

208
00:16:12,760 --> 00:16:15,280
Speaker 9: was John Reagan's lawyer and would be interested in talking

209
00:16:15,280 --> 00:16:18,400
Speaker 9: to marg And then gave all these contact details let

210
00:16:18,400 --> 00:16:21,200
Speaker 9: me know where he's resided and said thanks for the message.

211
00:16:21,240 --> 00:16:23,080
Speaker 10: So how exciting.

212
00:16:23,440 --> 00:16:25,920
Speaker 9: I mean, great if my auntie mag gets to speak

213
00:16:26,280 --> 00:16:30,360
Speaker 9: to Michael. But I'd just love to speak to him.

214
00:16:30,440 --> 00:16:32,120
Speaker 9: Like for me, that's as close as I'm going to

215
00:16:32,160 --> 00:16:35,600
Speaker 9: get to speaking to John, Like he would.

216
00:16:35,360 --> 00:16:35,920
Speaker 8: Know so much.

217
00:16:35,960 --> 00:16:38,240
Speaker 9: Whether he wants to talk or not, I'm not sure,

218
00:16:38,320 --> 00:16:42,960
Speaker 9: but you know, just finding him was pretty is pretty cool.

219
00:16:43,120 --> 00:16:45,480
Speaker 9: So I found him.

220
00:16:45,360 --> 00:16:50,880
Speaker 3: By Seymour is mentioned numerous times in Reagan's secret tapes.

221
00:16:52,240 --> 00:16:57,120
Speaker 3: The gangster clearly held him in high regard, so much

222
00:16:57,200 --> 00:17:00,960
Speaker 3: so that Reagan didn't hesitate to wreck amend him to

223
00:17:01,200 --> 00:17:03,080
Speaker 3: friends in trouble with the law.

224
00:17:04,240 --> 00:17:07,040
Speaker 11: You know you've got a good defense for this down

225
00:17:07,119 --> 00:17:09,879
Speaker 11: make a statement of SayMore and say that's the reason

226
00:17:09,920 --> 00:17:12,919
Speaker 11: why you're fined. Get that Ora Worseley. But everything worsely

227
00:17:13,000 --> 00:17:16,120
Speaker 11: says then and say more statement And that's the India case.

228
00:17:17,040 --> 00:17:21,320
Speaker 11: You know that Dadger he down to discussed it all right,

229
00:17:21,760 --> 00:17:23,560
Speaker 11: if you can tie that day on, even if the

230
00:17:23,600 --> 00:17:26,040
Speaker 11: Copple just says it to you from him's way after

231
00:17:26,080 --> 00:17:28,159
Speaker 11: your mat if he just says it to you and

232
00:17:28,200 --> 00:17:31,119
Speaker 11: you make a statement about it, the same work and

233
00:17:31,160 --> 00:17:34,520
Speaker 11: down take steps. You gotta get a barrister. They are

234
00:17:34,560 --> 00:17:36,680
Speaker 11: going to give you a sea. Get it by called

235
00:17:36,720 --> 00:17:42,520
Speaker 11: dayson w kill oh barrister my days he killed?

236
00:17:42,560 --> 00:17:43,919
Speaker 1: And whatever?

237
00:17:44,040 --> 00:17:44,359
Speaker 12: Mate?

238
00:17:45,880 --> 00:17:51,280
Speaker 11: What's his lying? You keep saying More a solicitor man

239
00:17:52,000 --> 00:17:54,399
Speaker 11: because he's the best solicit in Australia. I'm not kidding me.

240
00:17:56,760 --> 00:18:01,080
Speaker 3: After many weeks of negotiation, see More agreed to meet me,

241
00:18:01,720 --> 00:18:06,399
Speaker 3: Kelly and marg for lunch at his favorite Chinese restaurant

242
00:18:06,640 --> 00:18:10,879
Speaker 3: in Castle Hill in outer northwestern Sydney. Kelly and I

243
00:18:11,000 --> 00:18:15,120
Speaker 3: discussed the lunch meeting and tried to work out a strategy.

244
00:18:19,480 --> 00:18:22,160
Speaker 3: So Simour says, and it's interesting because the second time

245
00:18:22,160 --> 00:18:23,960
Speaker 3: he's mentioned this. But he says at the end of

246
00:18:24,000 --> 00:18:26,720
Speaker 3: the email, let's see what the podcast can flush out.

247
00:18:27,320 --> 00:18:31,000
Speaker 3: He says, it's a dangerous exercise. He's used that exact

248
00:18:31,000 --> 00:18:33,919
Speaker 3: phrase twice in the last month. Then he says, but

249
00:18:33,960 --> 00:18:36,560
Speaker 3: at my age of eighty years, nothing bothers me anymore.

250
00:18:36,600 --> 00:18:41,520
Speaker 3: So I think we've hit a sweet spot with him, thankfully. Yeah,

251
00:18:41,520 --> 00:18:42,639
Speaker 3: it's going to be incredible.

252
00:18:43,440 --> 00:18:45,119
Speaker 13: I love the one above it where he says, I

253
00:18:45,119 --> 00:18:46,800
Speaker 13: don't know if any of the police involved in the

254
00:18:46,840 --> 00:18:49,520
Speaker 13: matters are still on this planet or not, but if alive,

255
00:18:49,600 --> 00:18:51,840
Speaker 13: would be in their eighties and on the home run,

256
00:18:52,200 --> 00:18:55,280
Speaker 13: carrying the ailment of aging along with possible type two

257
00:18:55,320 --> 00:18:58,840
Speaker 13: diabetes and a guilty conscience, praying their sins of the

258
00:18:58,840 --> 00:18:59,480
Speaker 13: past will.

259
00:18:59,359 --> 00:19:03,080
Speaker 10: Never catch up them, at least on this earth. It's interesting,

260
00:19:03,160 --> 00:19:03,359
Speaker 10: is it?

261
00:19:03,400 --> 00:19:06,040
Speaker 9: Because but this is exactly what my father said to

262
00:19:06,080 --> 00:19:09,040
Speaker 9: me at the very beginning when I first said I

263
00:19:09,119 --> 00:19:11,800
Speaker 9: was going to contact you, and Dad's like, oh, just

264
00:19:11,800 --> 00:19:15,160
Speaker 9: be really careful, like and I said, tongue in cheek, Oh, Dad,

265
00:19:15,200 --> 00:19:16,000
Speaker 9: anybody around it?

266
00:19:16,040 --> 00:19:18,719
Speaker 10: We chasing us on scooters Like I reckon. I can

267
00:19:18,760 --> 00:19:19,520
Speaker 10: outrun a scooter.

268
00:19:20,040 --> 00:19:23,960
Speaker 14: It's interesting that Michael has probably said to me in texts,

269
00:19:23,960 --> 00:19:27,720
Speaker 14: probably four or five times, it's dangerous. I'm not seeing

270
00:19:27,760 --> 00:19:30,879
Speaker 14: the danger probably from the same level as he is.

271
00:19:31,359 --> 00:19:34,960
Speaker 14: I'm probably thinking he's paranoid, but his car was shot up.

272
00:19:35,080 --> 00:19:35,880
Speaker 10: He lived in there.

273
00:19:35,960 --> 00:19:38,760
Speaker 9: He got run through the mill like he stood up

274
00:19:38,800 --> 00:19:42,720
Speaker 9: to them, and the constant dialogue of fear is relevant.

275
00:19:42,760 --> 00:19:47,040
Speaker 9: Don't you reckon like these people wielded an unyielding knife

276
00:19:47,160 --> 00:19:47,960
Speaker 9: like it's just.

277
00:19:50,200 --> 00:19:53,480
Speaker 3: The Chinese restaurant was the type you find right across

278
00:19:53,520 --> 00:19:59,840
Speaker 3: suburban Australia. The round tables, white tablecloths, the lazy Susan,

279
00:20:00,119 --> 00:20:03,560
Speaker 3: the center packed to the rafters and busy with chatter

280
00:20:04,040 --> 00:20:08,479
Speaker 3: and the clinking of plates and cutlery. Seymour was there

281
00:20:08,600 --> 00:20:14,359
Speaker 3: before we arrived. He was the opposite of what I expected.

282
00:20:15,640 --> 00:20:19,640
Speaker 3: I had somehow frozen him in time and thought we'd

283
00:20:19,640 --> 00:20:22,000
Speaker 3: be met by a youngish man in a good suit,

284
00:20:22,680 --> 00:20:27,560
Speaker 3: a loyally type, perhaps, with dark hair and horn rimmed glasses.

285
00:20:29,000 --> 00:20:31,960
Speaker 3: Instead we were met by an old man in a

286
00:20:32,000 --> 00:20:38,080
Speaker 3: short sleeved shirt, shorts and long socks, with disheveled gray hair.

287
00:20:39,359 --> 00:20:42,880
Speaker 3: He looked like any pensioner out for some spring rolls

288
00:20:43,240 --> 00:20:48,040
Speaker 3: and a bowl of sweet and sour pork. One thing

289
00:20:48,119 --> 00:20:53,760
Speaker 3: I wasn't disappointed with he talked a big game. His

290
00:20:53,880 --> 00:20:58,159
Speaker 3: language was slightly formal and jam packed with legal ease.

291
00:20:59,119 --> 00:21:02,919
Speaker 3: Though he hadn't just in New South Wales for forty years.

292
00:21:05,320 --> 00:21:08,840
Speaker 3: He was a little bit haughty. He had with him

293
00:21:08,880 --> 00:21:15,680
Speaker 3: a shopping bag containing some documents. The restaurant was incredibly noisy,

294
00:21:17,320 --> 00:21:22,280
Speaker 3: but for a while Seymour delved back into the past.

295
00:21:22,640 --> 00:21:25,600
Speaker 3: I asked him how he first came to legally represent

296
00:21:25,720 --> 00:21:31,240
Speaker 3: Reagan a warning. When we talked, we were surrounded by

297
00:21:31,480 --> 00:21:35,080
Speaker 3: dozens of other eager dynas John first became a pie.

298
00:21:35,200 --> 00:21:38,439
Speaker 15: I think I read briefly in here that the company

299
00:21:38,480 --> 00:21:45,040
Speaker 15: you were working for dissolved and Reagan was on their books.

300
00:21:43,560 --> 00:21:54,440
Speaker 16: But I was like the law clerk who Langy did

301
00:21:54,480 --> 00:21:58,240
Speaker 16: commercial work. Anderson came into the last year that I

302
00:21:58,359 --> 00:22:06,440
Speaker 16: was there. Anderson work with Phil Roach got good experience

303
00:22:06,480 --> 00:22:09,400
Speaker 16: in Pimmelwell, so.

304
00:22:09,440 --> 00:22:11,040
Speaker 4: This is nineteen sixty five.

305
00:22:12,359 --> 00:22:14,040
Speaker 5: Four. How old were you then?

306
00:22:14,320 --> 00:22:20,879
Speaker 16: I was a minute to practice February sixty five?

307
00:22:23,440 --> 00:22:28,440
Speaker 5: How old were you more than forty two? So your

308
00:22:28,480 --> 00:22:34,400
Speaker 5: early twenties. So I was a young feller.

309
00:22:36,160 --> 00:22:41,200
Speaker 16: Now Anderson was leaving the firm to go to the bar.

310
00:22:43,119 --> 00:22:47,040
Speaker 16: Anderson was a bit slippery in my view when he

311
00:22:47,160 --> 00:22:50,399
Speaker 16: talked to you. It's bent over and Phil correct harshires

312
00:22:50,400 --> 00:22:54,280
Speaker 16: free quiet Reagan wanted to follow me.

313
00:22:55,320 --> 00:22:57,320
Speaker 3: But how did you become acquainted legally?

314
00:22:57,320 --> 00:23:00,680
Speaker 4: Initially? Was it through the law Phil.

315
00:23:00,480 --> 00:23:04,960
Speaker 16: The FIV firm was pg le FEV and I agreed

316
00:23:05,000 --> 00:23:11,639
Speaker 16: to act for John on the right case in which

317
00:23:12,720 --> 00:23:16,760
Speaker 16: Tony Boleno and dars Anderson appeared. It was a trial

318
00:23:16,800 --> 00:23:22,000
Speaker 16: the dowling Hurst and not not killed him.

319
00:23:22,359 --> 00:23:24,520
Speaker 5: Uh after that?

320
00:23:25,240 --> 00:23:25,480
Speaker 13: Yeah?

321
00:23:26,160 --> 00:23:29,159
Speaker 16: When about that time John was charged with being a

322
00:23:29,200 --> 00:23:30,800
Speaker 16: possession of und licensed pistol?

323
00:23:31,280 --> 00:23:35,840
Speaker 15: Did you appear for John from the unlicensed pistol charge?

324
00:23:36,840 --> 00:23:39,320
Speaker 5: He was arrested take the Downinghurst.

325
00:23:40,520 --> 00:23:44,200
Speaker 16: I went up there he was arrested and I said, no,

326
00:23:44,320 --> 00:23:49,639
Speaker 16: he's upstairs being interviewed. I wait downstairs? Whe hours? Do

327
00:23:49,720 --> 00:23:52,239
Speaker 16: I know who I was? And so you know I am,

328
00:23:52,280 --> 00:23:58,520
Speaker 16: for quite sake, my client's upstairs. So then after they

329
00:23:58,640 --> 00:24:04,120
Speaker 16: leave John wasn't but upstairs they had taken him somewhere else.

330
00:24:04,720 --> 00:24:07,280
Speaker 16: I think there was an unsigned regular interview with the

331
00:24:07,400 --> 00:24:13,440
Speaker 16: verbal yeah whatever. So we were able to show that

332
00:24:13,520 --> 00:24:19,440
Speaker 16: the police officer's diaries and their notebooks didn't correspond in

333
00:24:19,880 --> 00:24:23,080
Speaker 16: like two the four detectives who picked him up from

334
00:24:23,160 --> 00:24:24,000
Speaker 16: two interviewed him.

335
00:24:24,160 --> 00:24:25,440
Speaker 5: Who had the running of the case.

336
00:24:27,640 --> 00:24:30,399
Speaker 16: That was before one of the few motor strikes that

337
00:24:31,359 --> 00:24:36,840
Speaker 16: understood reasonable doubt. One document in Evers shot doing a fortune,

338
00:24:37,040 --> 00:24:38,320
Speaker 16: so he was acquitted on that.

339
00:24:39,080 --> 00:24:43,160
Speaker 3: Seymour clearly recalled that Reagan would often wear bulletproof vests.

340
00:24:44,280 --> 00:24:47,840
Speaker 3: He remembered the assassination attempt on Reagan by Stuart and

341
00:24:47,920 --> 00:24:53,200
Speaker 3: Finch outside Barrick Motors in Paddington in late nineteen sixty five.

342
00:24:56,760 --> 00:25:00,880
Speaker 5: There were no love lies between Finch John.

343
00:25:02,320 --> 00:25:07,440
Speaker 16: Because at Barrack Motors one day in broad daylight, since

344
00:25:07,440 --> 00:25:13,440
Speaker 16: she called a revolver on John badly shared him. I

345
00:25:13,760 --> 00:25:16,040
Speaker 16: just missed the bullet record showed off.

346
00:25:17,640 --> 00:25:17,800
Speaker 12: Uh.

347
00:25:18,440 --> 00:25:25,240
Speaker 5: Finch took off. John took off another rocky drying put

348
00:25:25,280 --> 00:25:25,960
Speaker 5: in finding.

349
00:25:27,520 --> 00:25:32,320
Speaker 16: Later Finch was chart with the Cptain murder ncamuson be

350
00:25:32,400 --> 00:25:36,920
Speaker 16: the ACRA. I said I can't, I said, yeah, Sharp

351
00:25:36,920 --> 00:25:38,600
Speaker 16: and client to kill Tyne.

352
00:25:40,760 --> 00:25:40,960
Speaker 5: Yeah.

353
00:25:41,560 --> 00:25:44,359
Speaker 3: We wanted to know what Reagan was like when, as

354
00:25:44,359 --> 00:25:50,480
Speaker 3: Mark observed, his personality changed when the monster stepped out

355
00:25:50,520 --> 00:25:54,199
Speaker 3: of the shadows, when he was in and out of

356
00:25:54,240 --> 00:25:58,920
Speaker 3: police stations like well, a dish on a lazy Susan

357
00:25:59,320 --> 00:26:01,640
Speaker 3: in a suburb in Chinese restaurant.

358
00:26:03,880 --> 00:26:05,840
Speaker 5: And how was how did he strike you?

359
00:26:06,600 --> 00:26:08,040
Speaker 4: In those early years as.

360
00:26:07,880 --> 00:26:11,600
Speaker 5: A like he was a likable fellow.

361
00:26:12,720 --> 00:26:12,840
Speaker 12: Uh.

362
00:26:14,119 --> 00:26:15,840
Speaker 5: He regali intelligence.

363
00:26:17,440 --> 00:26:21,760
Speaker 16: Ever on his guard, seeful of being loaded up by

364
00:26:21,800 --> 00:26:25,280
Speaker 16: the police. He didn't keep the best of company in

365
00:26:25,320 --> 00:26:30,920
Speaker 16: the underworld. But in reputations, what.

366
00:26:30,960 --> 00:26:31,760
Speaker 4: Was his reputation?

367
00:26:32,480 --> 00:26:35,840
Speaker 5: Firstim to be feared physical violence?

368
00:26:38,240 --> 00:26:42,720
Speaker 16: Yeah, I suppose, but he was only convicted of one

369
00:26:42,800 --> 00:26:46,160
Speaker 16: fun of song, which was interesting case.

370
00:26:46,880 --> 00:26:50,480
Speaker 5: How the pencil self defense. The beginning of that was that.

371
00:26:52,040 --> 00:26:55,040
Speaker 16: Reagan was I think of bouncing in a nightclub with

372
00:26:55,160 --> 00:27:00,000
Speaker 16: King's Christian and the closing time came, people asked to leave.

373
00:27:00,880 --> 00:27:03,080
Speaker 16: There was a bunch of Google slabs who refused to go.

374
00:27:04,600 --> 00:27:07,920
Speaker 16: They went, and I think Regan obviously made some remarks

375
00:27:07,920 --> 00:27:11,600
Speaker 16: about them. And then the place is closing down and

376
00:27:11,760 --> 00:27:16,399
Speaker 16: back come about up. A dozen Yugoslavs were the belting.

377
00:27:18,560 --> 00:27:20,480
Speaker 16: He tells, well, he's on the stage up there with

378
00:27:20,560 --> 00:27:27,320
Speaker 16: a chair. Kevino was bay And then whilst that if

379
00:27:27,320 --> 00:27:30,399
Speaker 16: you all was occurring, someone finds the police and the

380
00:27:30,400 --> 00:27:31,160
Speaker 16: police arrived.

381
00:27:31,680 --> 00:27:35,120
Speaker 5: That's it. So Reagan thought, I'll get.

382
00:27:34,920 --> 00:27:39,000
Speaker 16: One of these guys one day. So a few years

383
00:27:39,080 --> 00:27:42,760
Speaker 16: later he was in a restaurant and he tells me

384
00:27:42,800 --> 00:27:45,880
Speaker 16: that he saw one of those blogs that assaulted him

385
00:27:46,600 --> 00:27:52,439
Speaker 16: and threatened him. So his defense was, I walked up

386
00:27:52,480 --> 00:27:55,159
Speaker 16: to the tables to excuse me. I think you were

387
00:27:55,200 --> 00:28:01,680
Speaker 16: the person who threatened assaulted me some time go. Where

388
00:28:01,760 --> 00:28:05,440
Speaker 16: upon the Yugoslas get stuffed and sap John John retaliate

389
00:28:06,720 --> 00:28:10,000
Speaker 16: the Crown's case was up. Came John, grab a lot

390
00:28:10,040 --> 00:28:11,680
Speaker 16: of scup of the neck and said you are so

391
00:28:11,840 --> 00:28:15,960
Speaker 16: and who tried to belt me with six other Ligoslavs whacked.

392
00:28:18,160 --> 00:28:19,920
Speaker 5: There was a difference in the evidence.

393
00:28:20,320 --> 00:28:24,000
Speaker 16: By the time I didn't got up the trial, John

394
00:28:24,800 --> 00:28:26,959
Speaker 16: was a bit bigger, he flying up a bit.

395
00:28:27,920 --> 00:28:28,879
Speaker 5: He looked pretty tough.

396
00:28:29,040 --> 00:28:34,120
Speaker 16: Basically before a jury over against yugoslav The jury convicted him.

397
00:28:34,720 --> 00:28:35,840
Speaker 5: He got tour bucks.

398
00:28:36,680 --> 00:28:38,480
Speaker 17: Hyeah and.

399
00:28:41,920 --> 00:28:46,760
Speaker 3: Seymour had other amusing but relatively innocuous anecdotes about Reagan.

400
00:28:48,160 --> 00:28:52,520
Speaker 3: He was more preoccupied with his own legal difficulties. In

401
00:28:52,600 --> 00:28:56,360
Speaker 3: the wake of Reagan's death, which saw him struck off.

402
00:28:57,760 --> 00:29:02,240
Speaker 3: The Sydney Morning Herald reported the following. On Thursday April fifteenth,

403
00:29:02,800 --> 00:29:04,000
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty.

404
00:29:03,680 --> 00:29:10,160
Speaker 18: Two, a solicitor alleged to have been involved in check forgery,

405
00:29:10,480 --> 00:29:13,920
Speaker 18: bail offenses and land fraud was struck from the role

406
00:29:13,960 --> 00:29:18,880
Speaker 18: of solicitors yesterday for professional misconduct. The Court of Appeal

407
00:29:19,120 --> 00:29:23,320
Speaker 18: made the order against Michael Thomas Seymour. Seymour did not

408
00:29:23,440 --> 00:29:26,720
Speaker 18: defend the action, and the joint application by the Law

409
00:29:26,760 --> 00:29:30,680
Speaker 18: Society and the Prothonotory of the Supreme Court to have

410
00:29:30,760 --> 00:29:34,840
Speaker 18: him struck off was heard exparte. The President of the

411
00:29:34,880 --> 00:29:39,040
Speaker 18: Court of Appeal, Justice Moffatt, said evidence against Seymour on

412
00:29:39,160 --> 00:29:41,880
Speaker 18: any one of four matters in the summons would have

413
00:29:41,920 --> 00:29:44,480
Speaker 18: been sufficient to warrant his being struck off.

414
00:29:45,200 --> 00:29:48,600
Speaker 3: One of these matters reached way back to nineteen seventy

415
00:29:48,680 --> 00:29:57,000
Speaker 3: three seventy four and his client Johnny Reagan. The Paper wrote.

416
00:29:55,880 --> 00:29:58,920
Speaker 18: In the fourth matter, it was alleged that Seymour was

417
00:29:58,960 --> 00:30:03,200
Speaker 18: an active particip and knowingly participated in a scheme set

418
00:30:03,280 --> 00:30:06,800
Speaker 18: up by John Stuart Reagan, then a well known criminal

419
00:30:07,040 --> 00:30:10,040
Speaker 18: for whom Seymour acted and with whom it was alleged

420
00:30:10,160 --> 00:30:12,440
Speaker 18: he was associated in another company.

421
00:30:13,320 --> 00:30:18,360
Speaker 3: In the end, the three presiding Justices unanimously ordered that

422
00:30:18,440 --> 00:30:23,240
Speaker 3: Seymour be struck off over our lunch. I was keen

423
00:30:23,320 --> 00:30:28,360
Speaker 3: to quiz Seymour on Reagan's famous so called land scams,

424
00:30:29,200 --> 00:30:32,480
Speaker 3: the subject of the fourth matter. In his hearing before

425
00:30:32,520 --> 00:30:36,960
Speaker 3: the Court of Appeal forty years earlier. The scam involved

426
00:30:37,000 --> 00:30:40,840
Speaker 3: buying up cheap blocks of land in country areas and

427
00:30:40,960 --> 00:30:46,280
Speaker 3: falsely advertising them as fully sewered and electrified parcels with

428
00:30:46,440 --> 00:30:52,000
Speaker 3: astonishing views and access to great facilities. Will examine Reagan's

429
00:30:52,000 --> 00:30:55,200
Speaker 3: scam in detail in an upcoming episode of the podcast.

430
00:30:56,080 --> 00:30:59,920
Speaker 3: But as far as Michael Seymour was concerned, it was legit.

431
00:31:00,040 --> 00:31:01,560
Speaker 3: It admit real estate business.

432
00:31:03,160 --> 00:31:03,720
Speaker 5: Luckily, I.

433
00:31:05,440 --> 00:31:08,760
Speaker 16: Invested wisely in real estate and to build luck and

434
00:31:08,800 --> 00:31:09,480
Speaker 16: the gay mugs.

435
00:31:10,480 --> 00:31:13,680
Speaker 5: But the pressure on all these things that builds up

436
00:31:13,720 --> 00:31:16,160
Speaker 5: in terms of your own legal votes.

437
00:31:16,920 --> 00:31:21,600
Speaker 3: But the land, the land hers themselves, that was a scam, right.

438
00:31:23,600 --> 00:31:31,160
Speaker 16: No, no, no, they were legitimate transactions. He got titled

439
00:31:31,760 --> 00:31:32,840
Speaker 16: and he conveyed titland.

440
00:31:34,120 --> 00:31:35,040
Speaker 5: Now detective too.

441
00:31:35,080 --> 00:31:38,160
Speaker 16: He just running my notes again this morning, Sill he

442
00:31:38,240 --> 00:31:42,120
Speaker 16: come to seemly, uh said, I want to interview about

443
00:31:42,280 --> 00:31:43,840
Speaker 16: Brigand's land transactions.

444
00:31:44,480 --> 00:31:47,640
Speaker 5: And so I've had to talk you such a use

445
00:31:47,720 --> 00:31:52,440
Speaker 5: lad of professional privilege. Oh we'll just fraud here. Yeah,

446
00:31:53,800 --> 00:31:54,160
Speaker 5: I see.

447
00:31:54,160 --> 00:31:55,800
Speaker 16: If you charge you with a fraud, I can tell

448
00:31:55,840 --> 00:31:59,600
Speaker 16: you now you'll fail and I'll be shoving you for

449
00:32:01,040 --> 00:32:06,480
Speaker 16: malicious prosecution. He then said oh, but I discovered here

450
00:32:06,480 --> 00:32:09,200
Speaker 16: that he said, I have no a bit about the law.

451
00:32:09,240 --> 00:32:13,040
Speaker 16: I'm starting law of just about finish the bab He

452
00:32:13,040 --> 00:32:16,520
Speaker 16: said he's sold some blocks of land before he had title.

453
00:32:17,880 --> 00:32:19,920
Speaker 16: I said, well, you don't understand what the law is.

454
00:32:21,720 --> 00:32:26,360
Speaker 16: He'd taken the contract to buy before he'd settled on

455
00:32:26,400 --> 00:32:28,640
Speaker 16: the purchase. He has a legal right to convey that

456
00:32:28,720 --> 00:32:29,640
Speaker 16: right to someone else.

457
00:32:31,960 --> 00:32:34,320
Speaker 15: I've interviewed a couple of people in Queensland who were

458
00:32:34,360 --> 00:32:42,680
Speaker 15: involved in this sales adventure up around Harvey Bay and

459
00:32:42,720 --> 00:32:44,720
Speaker 15: around regions like that, and I've spoken to one of

460
00:32:44,720 --> 00:32:51,080
Speaker 15: the head salesman essentially contracted out by John to sell

461
00:32:51,920 --> 00:32:56,120
Speaker 15: blocks of land that they'd acquired of council. And there

462
00:32:56,160 --> 00:33:02,160
Speaker 15: were advertisements placed in Sydney newspapers in relation to this

463
00:33:02,200 --> 00:33:05,920
Speaker 15: is a phenomenal purchase, the use of the beach major

464
00:33:05,920 --> 00:33:07,520
Speaker 15: shopping center going up next year.

465
00:33:08,360 --> 00:33:11,120
Speaker 4: All of it false. As he admitted to.

466
00:33:11,080 --> 00:33:13,720
Speaker 5: Me, if you enter into a.

467
00:33:15,680 --> 00:33:20,000
Speaker 16: Contract of sale to buy a property, he could either

468
00:33:20,160 --> 00:33:25,840
Speaker 16: as sign your interest in that or sell to a

469
00:33:25,880 --> 00:33:30,160
Speaker 16: third party pending completion of the title that you're in

470
00:33:30,200 --> 00:33:33,040
Speaker 16: the process of acquiring. There's done a lot when people

471
00:33:33,480 --> 00:33:35,920
Speaker 16: are moving home and they were to buy and sell

472
00:33:35,920 --> 00:33:47,120
Speaker 16: at the same time, and.

473
00:33:46,920 --> 00:33:47,400
Speaker 4: That was that.

474
00:33:48,520 --> 00:33:52,640
Speaker 3: Besides, he had another matter he wanted to discuss. This

475
00:33:52,800 --> 00:33:58,440
Speaker 3: is what stunned the table in that Chinese restaurant that day.

476
00:33:58,440 --> 00:34:03,600
Speaker 3: Seymour claimed that a on Reagan's death, his client owed

477
00:34:03,720 --> 00:34:10,040
Speaker 3: him about seven thousand dollars in outstanding legal bills. Given

478
00:34:10,080 --> 00:34:13,799
Speaker 3: the amount of research and effort he'd acquitted prior to

479
00:34:13,880 --> 00:34:18,719
Speaker 3: our lunch meeting, and as recompense for his future involvement

480
00:34:18,800 --> 00:34:22,799
Speaker 3: in The Gangster's Ghost, he thought it only fair that

481
00:34:22,880 --> 00:34:28,719
Speaker 3: he be paid ten thousand dollars that at the very

482
00:34:28,800 --> 00:34:33,719
Speaker 3: least would square Reagan's ledger, even though the debt had

483
00:34:33,760 --> 00:34:40,719
Speaker 3: allegedly been outstanding for half a century. We set our

484
00:34:40,760 --> 00:34:44,480
Speaker 3: farewells to Michael Seymour and left the restaurant and then

485
00:34:44,600 --> 00:34:48,880
Speaker 3: Castle Hill on the plane back home North. I thought

486
00:34:50,239 --> 00:34:54,120
Speaker 3: this should not be surprising, because we have ventured into

487
00:34:54,120 --> 00:34:57,520
Speaker 3: the world of Stuart John Reagan. No matter how many

488
00:34:57,600 --> 00:35:03,800
Speaker 3: years have passed, was still outstanding monetary debts, moral debts,

489
00:35:04,640 --> 00:35:10,839
Speaker 3: debts to historical accuracy, debts to the truth. Kell and

490
00:35:10,880 --> 00:35:16,879
Speaker 3: I discussed the extraordinary meeting with mister Seymour. I mean,

491
00:35:16,960 --> 00:35:19,280
Speaker 3: from my point of view, and probably both of ours,

492
00:35:19,719 --> 00:35:22,120
Speaker 3: because we've been researching this for so long. The name

493
00:35:22,200 --> 00:35:27,200
Speaker 3: Michael Seymour became almost mythical in that we knew he

494
00:35:27,239 --> 00:35:30,160
Speaker 3: was very close to John right up to his death,

495
00:35:30,880 --> 00:35:34,560
Speaker 3: had legally represented him for about nine years from about

496
00:35:34,640 --> 00:35:38,680
Speaker 3: nineteen sixty five sixty six. So we were highly excited

497
00:35:38,719 --> 00:35:40,920
Speaker 3: to meet a man who we thought would have all

498
00:35:40,960 --> 00:35:43,960
Speaker 3: this incredible knowledge in his head right, and.

499
00:35:43,960 --> 00:35:45,960
Speaker 10: I thought he'd be keeper of the gate, like you know.

500
00:35:46,040 --> 00:35:51,000
Speaker 19: He told Arnie Margie had documents, and then he tells

501
00:35:51,080 --> 00:35:51,960
Speaker 19: us he's got nothing.

502
00:35:52,880 --> 00:35:56,320
Speaker 3: Yeah, So then Mark and I showed up and absolutely

503
00:35:56,360 --> 00:36:00,920
Speaker 3: not what I expected. And he did produce some Manila

504
00:36:01,000 --> 00:36:05,319
Speaker 3: folders of some scattered documents. A lot of them were

505
00:36:05,320 --> 00:36:08,960
Speaker 3: to do with him defending himself having been struck off

506
00:36:09,880 --> 00:36:13,040
Speaker 3: in about nineteen eighty two and then losing a defamation

507
00:36:13,160 --> 00:36:15,720
Speaker 3: action against the ABC in the early to mid eighties.

508
00:36:16,640 --> 00:36:19,120
Speaker 3: So a lot of the documents were how he had

509
00:36:19,200 --> 00:36:23,000
Speaker 3: been hardly done by and decisions were incorrect and it

510
00:36:23,040 --> 00:36:24,640
Speaker 3: had essentially ruined his life.

511
00:36:24,880 --> 00:36:26,719
Speaker 19: But he couldn't even get our names right, Like he

512
00:36:26,800 --> 00:36:29,120
Speaker 19: was giving me Marg's documents. Here you go, Marg, And

513
00:36:29,200 --> 00:36:31,400
Speaker 19: she wasn't even there and I'm like, no, no, I'm Kelly.

514
00:36:31,719 --> 00:36:32,560
Speaker 10: Marg's the old girl.

515
00:36:32,640 --> 00:36:33,759
Speaker 20: Like I think.

516
00:36:34,000 --> 00:36:37,600
Speaker 3: When we got down to wanting to actually talk about

517
00:36:37,600 --> 00:36:39,239
Speaker 3: why we were there, and that was to get the

518
00:36:39,280 --> 00:36:43,040
Speaker 3: inside rail on Johnny Reagan, everything seemed to be a

519
00:36:43,080 --> 00:36:43,880
Speaker 3: little bit blurry.

520
00:36:44,120 --> 00:36:47,480
Speaker 10: Well it was just weird. Like you spot on, his

521
00:36:47,520 --> 00:36:51,880
Speaker 10: recollection of himself was on point. But what strun me was,

522
00:36:52,160 --> 00:36:54,319
Speaker 10: you know, John and I were close and yeah, you know,

523
00:36:54,360 --> 00:36:56,600
Speaker 10: we had a working relationship, but we were close, and

524
00:36:57,000 --> 00:36:59,920
Speaker 10: you know, he had no father, so you know, I

525
00:37:00,120 --> 00:37:02,880
Speaker 10: tried to guide him and get him into legitimate businesses

526
00:37:02,920 --> 00:37:05,600
Speaker 10: and everything. But all he did was call him Reagan.

527
00:37:05,719 --> 00:37:08,239
Speaker 10: The whole time. He called him Reagan Reagan, and there

528
00:37:08,280 --> 00:37:12,440
Speaker 10: was no he was blaming. There was. It was like

529
00:37:12,520 --> 00:37:14,880
Speaker 10: he was talking about someone he'd met for five minutes.

530
00:37:15,360 --> 00:37:18,880
Speaker 3: Yeah, whether he was intentionally just being on his guard

531
00:37:19,320 --> 00:37:21,879
Speaker 3: with us. It was our first meeting with him, Yeah,

532
00:37:22,000 --> 00:37:24,680
Speaker 3: but not Mark. You know, Marg said that they'd had

533
00:37:24,719 --> 00:37:28,719
Speaker 3: a real terrific relationship from when he was Reagan's solicitor

534
00:37:29,280 --> 00:37:34,759
Speaker 3: up until Reagan's death. When Seymour simply and totally disappeared

535
00:37:34,760 --> 00:37:37,360
Speaker 3: from the scene, Off the Reagan scene, he didn't go

536
00:37:37,400 --> 00:37:38,480
Speaker 3: to the funeral.

537
00:37:38,840 --> 00:37:40,880
Speaker 10: Didn't go the inquest, didn't talk.

538
00:37:40,680 --> 00:37:45,120
Speaker 3: To marg until only a few months ago. I mean,

539
00:37:45,320 --> 00:37:49,120
Speaker 3: you know, listeners to this podcast have heard people we've

540
00:37:49,120 --> 00:37:52,240
Speaker 3: interviewed who were involved in the selling of those properties.

541
00:37:52,280 --> 00:37:56,040
Speaker 3: So it was exactly what it was. But Seymour is

542
00:37:56,080 --> 00:37:59,839
Speaker 3: standing his ground on that. But also what came out

543
00:37:59,880 --> 00:38:02,840
Speaker 3: of the meeting and has persisted now for some weeks

544
00:38:03,040 --> 00:38:13,440
Speaker 3: is incredibly Michael Seymour is asking for restitution of Johnny

545
00:38:13,440 --> 00:38:18,719
Speaker 3: Reagan's unpaid legal bills dating from the late nineteen sixties.

546
00:38:19,600 --> 00:38:22,160
Speaker 10: Yes, E would produced the invoice.

547
00:38:21,920 --> 00:38:25,800
Speaker 3: The invoice and has imposed upon us what he considers

548
00:38:25,880 --> 00:38:30,200
Speaker 3: not an unreasonable demand, and that is ten thousand dollars

549
00:38:30,680 --> 00:38:36,560
Speaker 3: to settle the Reagan account. Yes, and then photocopying in binders,

550
00:38:37,280 --> 00:38:41,440
Speaker 3: and with that money in his account, he'll then assist us.

551
00:38:42,600 --> 00:38:43,799
Speaker 10: Yes, bless Yes.

552
00:38:48,480 --> 00:38:50,880
Speaker 3: In the wake of the Flock murder in early nineteen

553
00:38:50,920 --> 00:38:55,799
Speaker 3: sixty seven, Reagan had a phenomenally busy year engaging with

554
00:38:55,960 --> 00:39:01,440
Speaker 3: police and the courts. He was a marked man, shadowed

555
00:39:01,480 --> 00:39:06,520
Speaker 3: relentlessly by detectives. Month after month. He faced a string

556
00:39:06,600 --> 00:39:11,719
Speaker 3: of charges which included possession of an unlicensed pistol, consorting

557
00:39:12,440 --> 00:39:19,279
Speaker 3: obtaining property by forged instrument, false pretenses, stealing, driving in

558
00:39:19,320 --> 00:39:26,520
Speaker 3: a dangerous manner, negligent driving, assault and robbery, uninsured vehicle conspiracy,

559
00:39:27,360 --> 00:39:33,680
Speaker 3: intimidating a witness, assault, and conspiracy to pervert and defeat

560
00:39:34,040 --> 00:39:41,880
Speaker 3: the course of justice. Then a milestone occurred in Reagan's life.

561
00:39:42,120 --> 00:39:46,680
Speaker 3: On December sixth, nineteen sixty seven, his partner marg gave

562
00:39:46,760 --> 00:39:52,160
Speaker 3: birth to their first child, John Patrick Reagan. He would

563
00:39:52,160 --> 00:39:59,520
Speaker 3: become known within the family as JP. At this precise time, however,

564
00:40:00,120 --> 00:40:03,719
Speaker 3: new father Johnny was in and out of jail for

565
00:40:03,800 --> 00:40:08,840
Speaker 3: the first time in his career. You'll remember back in

566
00:40:08,880 --> 00:40:12,880
Speaker 3: episode one when he introduced you to Reagan's secretly recorded

567
00:40:12,920 --> 00:40:17,320
Speaker 3: telephone conversations and how the tapes were hidden for years

568
00:40:17,600 --> 00:40:22,560
Speaker 3: in a suitcase. Well, not only did that suitcase contain

569
00:40:22,680 --> 00:40:29,600
Speaker 3: the clandestine recordings, it also held several documents. One of

570
00:40:29,640 --> 00:40:33,160
Speaker 3: those was a handwritten letter Reagan sent to his mother

571
00:40:33,600 --> 00:40:38,640
Speaker 3: from jail. It was dated September seven, nineteen sixty eight.

572
00:40:39,719 --> 00:40:44,560
Speaker 3: Little JP was just nine months old. The letter provides

573
00:40:44,600 --> 00:40:49,239
Speaker 3: an incredible insight into not just his interests and preoccupations,

574
00:40:49,880 --> 00:40:54,759
Speaker 3: but his manic state of mind. Here's some extracts from

575
00:40:54,760 --> 00:40:56,040
Speaker 3: that two page letter.

576
00:40:57,600 --> 00:41:01,880
Speaker 21: Dear Mum, sorry no male. Recently, could Arnie and yourself

577
00:41:01,920 --> 00:41:05,120
Speaker 21: please send me out two books for my birthday, A

578
00:41:05,520 --> 00:41:11,080
Speaker 21: self Hypnosis by Joan Bradden and b Raji Yoga. These

579
00:41:11,120 --> 00:41:14,320
Speaker 21: books could be attained from Dimmick's Bookstore, George Street City

580
00:41:14,840 --> 00:41:18,480
Speaker 21: or Graham's Bookstore. I suggest you ring these bookstores and

581
00:41:18,520 --> 00:41:20,960
Speaker 21: give the authors et cetera, and they will inquire et

582
00:41:21,040 --> 00:41:23,400
Speaker 21: cetera and set aside for you, et cetera.

583
00:41:24,200 --> 00:41:27,640
Speaker 3: Reagan then immediately pivots to business matters.

584
00:41:28,719 --> 00:41:31,880
Speaker 21: Tell solicitor Tom to give your diamonds to you. Also

585
00:41:31,960 --> 00:41:36,320
Speaker 21: ask solicitor how much for woodwood QC. So far please, m'am,

586
00:41:36,480 --> 00:41:39,640
Speaker 21: this is important. Also, get solicitor to come out and

587
00:41:39,680 --> 00:41:42,279
Speaker 21: see me about four hundred pounds off a friend of mine.

588
00:41:42,840 --> 00:41:45,879
Speaker 21: This is important, and he hasn't visited me yet. If

589
00:41:45,920 --> 00:41:48,160
Speaker 21: he doesn't come soon, I will lose the four hundred

590
00:41:48,200 --> 00:41:50,719
Speaker 21: pounds priority.

591
00:41:51,400 --> 00:41:55,920
Speaker 3: Another sudden shift of focus, this time from urgent business

592
00:41:55,960 --> 00:42:01,279
Speaker 3: to personal issues involving some mysterious woman not is to

593
00:42:01,360 --> 00:42:03,640
Speaker 3: facto Margaret.

594
00:42:04,480 --> 00:42:06,480
Speaker 21: I hope you don't think for a minute I'll marry

595
00:42:06,560 --> 00:42:09,800
Speaker 21: Joe or anyone else. I don't intend to get married

596
00:42:09,840 --> 00:42:12,080
Speaker 21: till I am at least twenty six or twenty seven

597
00:42:12,239 --> 00:42:15,760
Speaker 21: and a lot more experienced. Please Mum, when you write,

598
00:42:15,800 --> 00:42:19,120
Speaker 21: don't keep writing your opinions. I know them more. I

599
00:42:19,160 --> 00:42:21,360
Speaker 21: will do what I want to do. You, Mum, have

600
00:42:21,440 --> 00:42:25,120
Speaker 21: to be the diplomat neutral. You're involved in the middle,

601
00:42:25,239 --> 00:42:26,760
Speaker 21: so bear with it for my sake.

602
00:42:27,520 --> 00:42:31,840
Speaker 3: But it's back to business this time. That inner tiger

603
00:42:32,200 --> 00:42:33,840
Speaker 3: asserts itself.

604
00:42:33,719 --> 00:42:36,920
Speaker 21: Would appreciate some correspondence from my hotel brokers as soon

605
00:42:36,960 --> 00:42:40,240
Speaker 21: as possible. That was a good investment. How much return

606
00:42:40,320 --> 00:42:42,480
Speaker 21: till I get from the above twenty old ones it

607
00:42:42,520 --> 00:42:45,120
Speaker 21: should be they have to see more and save the

608
00:42:45,160 --> 00:42:48,200
Speaker 21: rest for rainy day. Don't let that money go to waste.

609
00:42:48,560 --> 00:42:52,680
Speaker 21: Order one more book, please, mum, Yoga Uniting East and West.

610
00:42:53,040 --> 00:42:55,160
Speaker 21: If you can also acquire a book of any nature

611
00:42:55,160 --> 00:42:57,320
Speaker 21: on psychokinesis, I would be glad.

612
00:42:58,800 --> 00:43:03,400
Speaker 3: In a single letter, he is wheeling and dealing, demanding

613
00:43:03,440 --> 00:43:07,279
Speaker 3: books on yoga and psychokinesis or the ability to move

614
00:43:07,320 --> 00:43:12,480
Speaker 3: objects with the power of thought and confiding intimate relationship

615
00:43:12,520 --> 00:43:16,160
Speaker 3: information about a woman who was not his long term

616
00:43:16,200 --> 00:43:20,960
Speaker 3: partner and the mother of his first child. Who was

617
00:43:21,239 --> 00:43:25,480
Speaker 3: Joe and why would Reagan be confessing this to his mother,

618
00:43:26,360 --> 00:43:29,680
Speaker 3: given his infant child, and Margaret were waiting for him

619
00:43:29,719 --> 00:43:33,440
Speaker 3: to get out of jail. As we already know, there

620
00:43:33,480 --> 00:43:38,120
Speaker 3: was nothing even remotely normal about the colonel, and a

621
00:43:38,160 --> 00:43:44,839
Speaker 3: situation soon arose that would defy belief even by her standards.

622
00:43:45,640 --> 00:43:51,800
Speaker 3: The colonel took possession of little JP. Yes you heard

623
00:43:51,840 --> 00:43:57,000
Speaker 3: that right. Reagan gave his firstborn son to his own mother.

624
00:43:57,640 --> 00:44:01,040
Speaker 3: It was the colonel who raised JP. He and a

625
00:44:01,160 --> 00:44:05,080
Speaker 3: distraught marg was helpless to fight back.

626
00:44:07,440 --> 00:44:12,480
Speaker 1: There JP. He loved j P. He was good to JOP.

627
00:44:13,360 --> 00:44:16,239
Speaker 1: He would always put him on his shoulders. And this

628
00:44:16,280 --> 00:44:20,000
Speaker 1: is when I was told it might not taking your

629
00:44:20,160 --> 00:44:25,719
Speaker 1: son from my mother's house. Obviously, relationship went on and

630
00:44:25,760 --> 00:44:28,280
Speaker 1: on and on because I had two other children like him.

631
00:44:28,560 --> 00:44:32,560
Speaker 1: But in that time when that happened, Michael Seman was

632
00:44:32,960 --> 00:44:37,239
Speaker 1: John Solister for many many years. I went to him

633
00:44:37,280 --> 00:44:41,360
Speaker 1: and said, she will not be met that JP.

634
00:44:41,520 --> 00:44:42,200
Speaker 4: When this happened.

635
00:44:43,200 --> 00:44:49,840
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, like a todd lare no older two, so

636
00:44:49,880 --> 00:44:54,560
Speaker 1: I can't remember. Really, No, they really had one.

637
00:44:54,440 --> 00:44:59,600
Speaker 4: Child and that child went to Claire.

638
00:45:01,120 --> 00:45:08,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, she loved JP. Clear I could see, just wanted

639
00:45:08,280 --> 00:45:12,600
Speaker 1: to have this child, to have that this is a strong reason, son.

640
00:45:12,800 --> 00:45:16,319
Speaker 1: It will stay in my house, It'll be brought up

641
00:45:16,360 --> 00:45:19,320
Speaker 1: by me and whatever. That's what happened to me.

642
00:45:19,680 --> 00:45:22,719
Speaker 3: So Johnny told you this, our child is going to

643
00:45:22,760 --> 00:45:23,920
Speaker 3: my mother's.

644
00:45:24,360 --> 00:45:27,560
Speaker 1: Don't go into any solicitors or anything, because it won't

645
00:45:27,560 --> 00:45:29,240
Speaker 1: be happeny. That's true.

646
00:45:31,480 --> 00:45:36,319
Speaker 3: I had difficulty comprehending what marg was telling me that

647
00:45:36,480 --> 00:45:39,280
Speaker 3: the colonel literally stole her baby.

648
00:45:39,280 --> 00:45:39,560
Speaker 4: Boy.

649
00:45:41,640 --> 00:45:44,040
Speaker 3: I mean, you're a young mother as your first child,

650
00:45:44,520 --> 00:45:45,640
Speaker 3: and now the child.

651
00:45:45,520 --> 00:45:47,240
Speaker 4: Is going to clare Reagon.

652
00:45:47,760 --> 00:45:51,840
Speaker 1: So I was like a visitor my son.

653
00:45:52,800 --> 00:45:56,000
Speaker 4: Did you talk to Michael Seymour about the situation?

654
00:45:58,280 --> 00:46:03,000
Speaker 1: You spoke, Yeah, he's got very angry, very angry about him.

655
00:46:03,840 --> 00:46:07,319
Speaker 4: Why do you think the mother wanted that baby?

656
00:46:07,440 --> 00:46:11,239
Speaker 1: Because this is John Stuart Ruthing's son. Even though there

657
00:46:11,239 --> 00:46:14,200
Speaker 1: was probably more sons out there somewhere, this is John

658
00:46:14,280 --> 00:46:16,359
Speaker 1: Ruthen's son. Everybody knew that.

659
00:46:16,440 --> 00:46:18,319
Speaker 5: I was supposedly is a woman.

660
00:46:19,600 --> 00:46:24,239
Speaker 1: I don't know why. So it was really hard for me. Yep,

661
00:46:25,400 --> 00:46:28,040
Speaker 1: the person can take control to that extent.

662
00:46:29,680 --> 00:46:34,440
Speaker 3: The loss of her child still perplexes Marg. She was

663
00:46:34,520 --> 00:46:38,279
Speaker 3: left in the unenviable position of having to get permission

664
00:46:38,400 --> 00:46:41,160
Speaker 3: from the colonel to see little JP.

665
00:46:43,160 --> 00:46:44,919
Speaker 4: So how often would you go and visit your son?

666
00:46:46,320 --> 00:46:52,160
Speaker 1: Quite often visit my son, good presence, birthdays, whatever. I

667
00:46:52,200 --> 00:46:55,600
Speaker 1: know for a fact that when she did pass, a

668
00:46:55,600 --> 00:46:58,440
Speaker 1: lot of the things that I had given to him

669
00:46:58,480 --> 00:47:02,120
Speaker 1: over the years, even though we had that connection, was

670
00:47:02,280 --> 00:47:07,600
Speaker 1: just popped. Anything that his mother would want it would

671
00:47:07,640 --> 00:47:10,919
Speaker 1: be there. Different to her to me, because we've god

672
00:47:11,120 --> 00:47:15,040
Speaker 1: remember from here. She had the control of him from

673
00:47:15,040 --> 00:47:17,239
Speaker 1: when he was a child. That's why I look at

674
00:47:17,239 --> 00:47:20,319
Speaker 1: it all to be wrong. It's a CONTROLSI. This is

675
00:47:20,320 --> 00:47:25,080
Speaker 1: a grown man that hung around with crims and whatever,

676
00:47:25,520 --> 00:47:28,200
Speaker 1: but was still controlled both his word.

677
00:47:29,800 --> 00:47:33,719
Speaker 3: To add to Marg's confusion, she says Reagan told her

678
00:47:33,840 --> 00:47:39,000
Speaker 3: nothing about his business dealings. She sensed he was involved

679
00:47:39,000 --> 00:47:43,240
Speaker 3: in criminal activity, no question, but she had no idea

680
00:47:43,320 --> 00:47:47,040
Speaker 3: about how deeply he was involved in the Sydney underworld

681
00:47:48,440 --> 00:47:52,120
Speaker 3: until he started taking her out to dinner to the

682
00:47:52,120 --> 00:47:56,759
Speaker 3: homes of some of his special new friends. Up to

683
00:47:56,800 --> 00:48:03,959
Speaker 3: that moment, she had been kept oblivious of this dark world.

684
00:48:04,320 --> 00:48:07,160
Speaker 1: He hadn't anice question it it. It sounds like it's

685
00:48:07,160 --> 00:48:09,640
Speaker 1: something that you would I Okay, needs to clean all

686
00:48:09,680 --> 00:48:12,120
Speaker 1: better leaves. It don't work out way.

687
00:48:12,520 --> 00:48:15,360
Speaker 4: But he knew at some point. Was there any specific

688
00:48:15,400 --> 00:48:19,600
Speaker 4: thing that happened that it when? I guess now I understand.

689
00:48:19,200 --> 00:48:23,560
Speaker 1: Or I just felt it, just new it. No, he

690
00:48:23,600 --> 00:48:27,200
Speaker 1: would not involve me in any of that. He would

691
00:48:27,320 --> 00:48:30,239
Speaker 1: not tell me what he was doing. I know that

692
00:48:30,320 --> 00:48:35,560
Speaker 1: he makes sweets, damn Psmith. And then my first, how

693
00:48:35,600 --> 00:48:37,960
Speaker 1: did you know that? Because I met them?

694
00:48:38,000 --> 00:48:40,400
Speaker 4: I'm under what circumstances? Do he took me to their

695
00:48:40,480 --> 00:48:43,480
Speaker 4: houses like for dinner or meetings?

696
00:48:43,560 --> 00:48:43,880
Speaker 11: Or do you not?

697
00:48:44,719 --> 00:48:45,000
Speaker 5: Really?

698
00:48:45,520 --> 00:48:46,960
Speaker 4: So tell me about lending me first?

699
00:48:48,680 --> 00:48:50,719
Speaker 1: Well, that's I leading him at first? And was they

700
00:48:50,800 --> 00:48:54,120
Speaker 1: trade of old Chase? And his house was a Ford

701
00:48:54,200 --> 00:48:56,239
Speaker 1: terrace and things like that, which is correct. I can't

702
00:48:56,239 --> 00:48:57,239
Speaker 1: even remember where it was.

703
00:48:58,080 --> 00:48:59,960
Speaker 4: Did you know who he was before he went there?

704
00:49:00,880 --> 00:49:00,920
Speaker 7: No?

705
00:49:01,000 --> 00:49:03,879
Speaker 1: I didn't know what his connection was, but later on

706
00:49:03,960 --> 00:49:07,160
Speaker 1: I did, certainly him Saint Smith. I went to San

707
00:49:07,239 --> 00:49:09,880
Speaker 1: Smith's house. He taught me to all those places.

708
00:49:10,120 --> 00:49:15,759
Speaker 3: So socializing with these George Freeman, who do you think

709
00:49:15,840 --> 00:49:19,279
Speaker 3: John was more close to of all of those men?

710
00:49:19,719 --> 00:49:21,319
Speaker 4: Battle mans?

711
00:49:22,080 --> 00:49:24,800
Speaker 1: He kept popping up. He was an older man and

712
00:49:25,040 --> 00:49:29,640
Speaker 1: he he was lurged by this man into this world.

713
00:49:30,080 --> 00:49:31,560
Speaker 4: Do you think he wanted to be him.

714
00:49:31,800 --> 00:49:35,759
Speaker 1: Yes, he wanted to have the power that this man had.

715
00:49:36,280 --> 00:49:39,560
Speaker 4: Definitely, what do you think it is about Johnny and power?

716
00:49:39,800 --> 00:49:42,400
Speaker 4: I mean, do you think that might even come somehow

717
00:49:42,440 --> 00:49:44,759
Speaker 4: from Claire? Yeah, I think so.

718
00:49:45,440 --> 00:49:50,080
Speaker 1: Power. There's a different thing between power and greed and selfishness,

719
00:49:50,120 --> 00:49:53,920
Speaker 1: And it's a terrible thing that, you know, to hurt someone,

720
00:49:54,440 --> 00:49:59,360
Speaker 1: to hurt anybody, to acquire that he's just not quite

721
00:49:59,680 --> 00:50:03,799
Speaker 1: normal all life is about. I didn't know I was

722
00:50:03,880 --> 00:50:07,400
Speaker 1: going out with a so called monsa in which they

723
00:50:07,480 --> 00:50:10,960
Speaker 1: had said several times until later on, and most of

724
00:50:10,960 --> 00:50:15,040
Speaker 1: it was kept the secret, like of course, what's I

725
00:50:15,080 --> 00:50:17,759
Speaker 1: went to let my first in thousands Smith's house and

726
00:50:17,800 --> 00:50:20,120
Speaker 1: things like that. I was quite aware who they were.

727
00:50:20,560 --> 00:50:21,439
Speaker 4: I was at that age.

728
00:50:21,640 --> 00:50:25,200
Speaker 1: I knew who they were. But to me, there was

729
00:50:25,280 --> 00:50:28,200
Speaker 1: no occasions that I could, honestly if they did anything happen.

730
00:50:28,320 --> 00:50:28,600
Speaker 7: They're not.

731
00:50:29,280 --> 00:50:31,759
Speaker 4: Do you remember what they talked about?

732
00:50:32,000 --> 00:50:34,160
Speaker 1: You don't talk about, you don't never talk about in

733
00:50:34,200 --> 00:50:37,000
Speaker 1: front of your female the woman gets in our room.

734
00:50:37,520 --> 00:50:39,440
Speaker 1: I don't mind what they do with their wise, but

735
00:50:39,480 --> 00:50:41,680
Speaker 1: I know what he did with me. Yeah, it wasn't

736
00:50:41,719 --> 00:50:42,120
Speaker 1: that way.

737
00:50:43,600 --> 00:50:47,439
Speaker 3: To understand Reagan's criminal miliere, you have to know about

738
00:50:47,480 --> 00:50:51,640
Speaker 3: the other side of the grubby underworld game. The corrupt

739
00:50:51,760 --> 00:50:55,400
Speaker 3: Sydney police of the day, there were a couple that

740
00:50:55,480 --> 00:50:59,520
Speaker 3: stood head and shoulders above the rest. Although he retired

741
00:50:59,560 --> 00:51:04,480
Speaker 3: in nineteen sixty, Ray Gunner Kelly set the gold standard

742
00:51:04,719 --> 00:51:08,440
Speaker 3: for a murderous and crooked cop. He killed in the

743
00:51:08,440 --> 00:51:14,680
Speaker 3: line of judy, arranged bank robberies and extorted abortionists. It

744
00:51:14,760 --> 00:51:18,160
Speaker 3: was said he was the master to a young apprentice

745
00:51:18,440 --> 00:51:23,360
Speaker 3: by the name of Roger Rogerson. Frederick Claude Cray or

746
00:51:23,440 --> 00:51:27,320
Speaker 3: Freddie Cray joined the New South Wales Police in nineteen

747
00:51:27,440 --> 00:51:32,040
Speaker 3: forty and, like Kelly, was early in his career a

748
00:51:32,080 --> 00:51:38,160
Speaker 3: respected detective. But by the nineteen sixties Cray, seemingly taking

749
00:51:38,239 --> 00:51:44,080
Speaker 3: Kelly's mantle, had devolved into a violent, drunk and criminal.

750
00:51:43,719 --> 00:51:44,560
Speaker 4: With a badge.

751
00:51:45,200 --> 00:51:48,279
Speaker 3: As head of the Breaking Squad, he was getting kickbacks

752
00:51:48,280 --> 00:51:52,080
Speaker 3: across the criminal spectrum and was heavily involved with the

753
00:51:52,120 --> 00:51:58,880
Speaker 3: city's sex workers, particularly Vice Queen Shirley Briffman, who operated

754
00:51:58,880 --> 00:52:03,359
Speaker 3: brothels out of Point and King's Cross. Briffman had come

755
00:52:03,400 --> 00:52:07,359
Speaker 3: down from Queensland in the early nineteen sixties after she

756
00:52:07,440 --> 00:52:12,000
Speaker 3: became notorious during the National Hotel role Commission in nineteen

757
00:52:12,080 --> 00:52:16,839
Speaker 3: sixty three. The inquiry was probing police corruption and prostitution

758
00:52:17,400 --> 00:52:22,120
Speaker 3: out of the National Hotel in Brisbane. Briffman was closely

759
00:52:22,160 --> 00:52:26,239
Speaker 3: associated with the corrupt trio of Brisbane officers known as

760
00:52:26,600 --> 00:52:30,520
Speaker 3: the rat Pack, Terence Murray Lewis, who would go on

761
00:52:30,640 --> 00:52:34,920
Speaker 3: to be Commissioner before he was jailed for corruption, Tony

762
00:52:35,000 --> 00:52:41,520
Speaker 3: Murphy and Glendon Patrick Hallahan. In Sydney. Briffman built an empire.

763
00:52:41,960 --> 00:52:47,120
Speaker 3: The operation, facilitated by graft paid regularly to crooked New

764
00:52:47,160 --> 00:52:52,040
Speaker 3: South Wales and Queensland police until she blew the whistle

765
00:52:52,200 --> 00:52:57,560
Speaker 3: on all of them, including Cray and Hallahan. In doing so,

766
00:52:58,200 --> 00:53:02,680
Speaker 3: Brifman signed her own death warrant and it put Stuart

767
00:53:02,800 --> 00:53:07,760
Speaker 3: John Reagan onto her tale. When Britman's loose lips blew

768
00:53:07,840 --> 00:53:12,040
Speaker 3: up the underworld, Reagan was sent in to shut her mouth.

769
00:53:12,920 --> 00:53:17,240
Speaker 3: Cray was rotten through and through. Years ago before his death,

770
00:53:17,840 --> 00:53:21,960
Speaker 3: I spoke to former detective and convicted murderer Roger Rogerson

771
00:53:22,480 --> 00:53:26,600
Speaker 3: about his association with Cray in the nineteen sixties and

772
00:53:26,719 --> 00:53:28,560
Speaker 3: into the early nineteen seventies.

773
00:53:29,520 --> 00:53:33,560
Speaker 12: Well Fred, It was a tragedy about Fred. Fred was

774
00:53:33,640 --> 00:53:36,520
Speaker 12: one of the smartest bunks you'd ever met in your life.

775
00:53:36,560 --> 00:53:40,400
Speaker 12: He was a cadet when the war was on, the

776
00:53:40,400 --> 00:53:43,560
Speaker 12: Second World War, and he was a bloody a very

777
00:53:43,680 --> 00:53:48,160
Speaker 12: very clever bloke, a great organizer and you know, did

778
00:53:48,200 --> 00:53:50,840
Speaker 12: some bloody great investigations here in Sydney, a lot of

779
00:53:50,920 --> 00:53:54,960
Speaker 12: the thallium cases. And yet you know later on in

780
00:53:55,000 --> 00:53:57,520
Speaker 12: life now he and Neil more in my work day

781
00:53:57,680 --> 00:54:01,319
Speaker 12: they both worked together on the safe Arson squat. Fred

782
00:54:01,400 --> 00:54:03,240
Speaker 12: was a little bit saying and Il a bit older.

783
00:54:04,000 --> 00:54:07,040
Speaker 12: But Fred was. He become an alcoholic in here, you know,

784
00:54:07,160 --> 00:54:09,000
Speaker 12: he drank a bottle Scotch and his opposite day, you know,

785
00:54:09,360 --> 00:54:11,759
Speaker 12: God that he was just cranky as all shit. You know,

786
00:54:11,840 --> 00:54:15,239
Speaker 12: you could never you could never hold a conversation with him.

787
00:54:15,280 --> 00:54:19,680
Speaker 12: He was just lost it, you know. And I don't know,

788
00:54:19,800 --> 00:54:23,120
Speaker 12: I mean, there's no excuse for it. But as I said,

789
00:54:23,160 --> 00:54:25,640
Speaker 12: I the Brisbane thing that was all to do with prostitution,

790
00:54:25,800 --> 00:54:26,160
Speaker 12: wasn't it.

791
00:54:26,920 --> 00:54:30,040
Speaker 3: Someone who also didn't think much of Cray was the

792
00:54:30,080 --> 00:54:34,600
Speaker 3: former ratpacker Queensland Police Commissioner, a Knight of the Realm,

793
00:54:35,200 --> 00:54:41,160
Speaker 3: Terry Lewis. Lewis had been Commissioner from nineteen seventy six

794
00:54:41,239 --> 00:54:44,600
Speaker 3: to nineteen eighty seven until he was brought down by

795
00:54:44,600 --> 00:54:49,680
Speaker 3: the Fitzgerald Royal Commission into Police and political corruption in Queensland.

796
00:54:50,160 --> 00:54:53,800
Speaker 3: He was ultimately convicted of several counts of official corruption

797
00:54:54,400 --> 00:54:59,680
Speaker 3: and jailed. It was by any count a spectacular fall

798
00:54:59,719 --> 00:55:04,600
Speaker 3: from In two thy ten I met Lewis and he

799
00:55:04,680 --> 00:55:09,200
Speaker 3: expressed his desire to have me write his memoir. So

800
00:55:09,360 --> 00:55:12,880
Speaker 3: every fortnight for three years I went to his place

801
00:55:12,960 --> 00:55:17,640
Speaker 3: in Brisbane's Inner North and interviewed him as research for

802
00:55:17,760 --> 00:55:22,360
Speaker 3: my Three Crooked Kings trilogy of books about his life

803
00:55:22,400 --> 00:55:26,319
Speaker 3: and times and the history of police corruption in Queensland

804
00:55:26,800 --> 00:55:30,560
Speaker 3: from the end of the Second World War until Lewis's downfall.

805
00:55:31,480 --> 00:55:36,040
Speaker 3: Lewis passed away in twenty twenty three. In our talks,

806
00:55:36,400 --> 00:55:39,640
Speaker 3: Lewis had a lot of time for Gunner Kelly, whom

807
00:55:39,680 --> 00:55:43,680
Speaker 3: he met several times as a young detective in Brisbane,

808
00:55:43,840 --> 00:55:47,640
Speaker 3: but not Fred Froggy Cray. The recording is a little

809
00:55:47,680 --> 00:55:51,600
Speaker 3: scratchy given the equipment I used back in the day,

810
00:55:51,920 --> 00:55:55,560
Speaker 3: but Lewis's memories are sharp as attack. We were talking

811
00:55:55,600 --> 00:55:59,239
Speaker 3: about the importance of police having a good, solid criminal

812
00:55:59,280 --> 00:56:03,480
Speaker 3: informant in the nineteen fifties and sixties, and how crooks

813
00:56:03,560 --> 00:56:08,200
Speaker 3: like George Freeman and Lenny McPherson could be invaluable to

814
00:56:08,320 --> 00:56:09,799
Speaker 3: a top flight detective.

815
00:56:12,000 --> 00:56:14,480
Speaker 17: I think that was renowned in Sydney, if you might

816
00:56:14,520 --> 00:56:17,880
Speaker 17: remember the days he was a bloody good detective to

817
00:56:18,120 --> 00:56:22,000
Speaker 17: ray Kelly, Ray Kelly and cray and all those fellows.

818
00:56:22,160 --> 00:56:25,919
Speaker 17: Was renowned that they had Freeman and others would kept

819
00:56:25,960 --> 00:56:30,160
Speaker 17: their information as long as they fed you with somebody

820
00:56:30,200 --> 00:56:30,920
Speaker 17: there on the line.

821
00:56:31,320 --> 00:56:34,600
Speaker 3: Although Kelly and Crayon are now notorious, aren't they.

822
00:56:35,000 --> 00:56:38,160
Speaker 17: I didn't like cray not at all, but I like Kelly.

823
00:56:38,280 --> 00:56:42,120
Speaker 17: Kelly was he was a tough man and he joined

824
00:56:42,120 --> 00:56:44,839
Speaker 17: the police, so they got twenty six years of age

825
00:56:44,880 --> 00:56:47,799
Speaker 17: or something. Been a country or a really tough man.

826
00:56:48,160 --> 00:56:51,040
Speaker 17: And I can still remember part of it. He was

827
00:56:51,080 --> 00:56:53,920
Speaker 17: in uniform by himself, I think Surry Hillson somewhere one

828
00:56:54,000 --> 00:56:57,160
Speaker 17: night and he came across four crim steel in the

829
00:56:57,200 --> 00:56:59,360
Speaker 17: car or something, and they all attacked him. So he

830
00:56:59,400 --> 00:57:05,160
Speaker 17: shot one, wounded the other three, and naturally that probably

831
00:57:05,200 --> 00:57:07,400
Speaker 17: got him into the c ib on. But then the

832
00:57:07,400 --> 00:57:09,520
Speaker 17: funny mote of it later on he said he really

833
00:57:09,640 --> 00:57:12,560
Speaker 17: liked ray Kelly. Said ray Kelly only shot people who

834
00:57:12,680 --> 00:57:18,760
Speaker 17: deserved to be shot coming from a jail, I said.

835
00:57:20,400 --> 00:57:23,240
Speaker 3: As part of the investigation and research for my books,

836
00:57:23,920 --> 00:57:27,520
Speaker 3: I became obsessed with the life and ultimate death of

837
00:57:27,640 --> 00:57:31,440
Speaker 3: Shirley Briffman. Shirley had paid corrupt police for her entire

838
00:57:31,600 --> 00:57:35,520
Speaker 3: career as a sex worker and later a brotheloner. She

839
00:57:35,640 --> 00:57:38,960
Speaker 3: counted many of them as lovers. One of those lovers

840
00:57:39,120 --> 00:57:42,680
Speaker 3: was Fred Cray. In the late nineteen sixties, it was

841
00:57:42,720 --> 00:57:47,200
Speaker 3: proposed to Shirley that she trained her teenage daughter, mary

842
00:57:47,240 --> 00:57:52,160
Speaker 3: Anne Brifman to go into the sex trade. Shirley refused.

843
00:57:52,640 --> 00:57:56,520
Speaker 3: As a result, she was literally tortured by Fred Cray.

844
00:57:57,320 --> 00:58:01,600
Speaker 3: I was lucky enough to have lengthy conversations with Mary Anne.

845
00:58:01,880 --> 00:58:08,240
Speaker 3: She was gracious, frank and honest. She remembered detectives using

846
00:58:08,280 --> 00:58:12,360
Speaker 3: the Briffman household in Sydney as a storehouse for stolen

847
00:58:12,480 --> 00:58:16,000
Speaker 3: goods and Cray turning on her mother.

848
00:58:16,840 --> 00:58:18,640
Speaker 1: Yes, Oh, he was very violent.

849
00:58:19,800 --> 00:58:22,720
Speaker 22: You know the guy that followed him, Roger Rogerson or

850
00:58:22,760 --> 00:58:27,720
Speaker 22: whatever you know, for naughty detectives. He was boring it

851
00:58:27,840 --> 00:58:32,320
Speaker 22: to shoot people. These people did this very colorfully, you know,

852
00:58:32,480 --> 00:58:36,320
Speaker 22: there was a lot of They tortured them and tormented

853
00:58:36,360 --> 00:58:40,640
Speaker 22: them and mentally tortured them before. They may have killed

854
00:58:40,640 --> 00:58:43,360
Speaker 22: them because he was involved in quite a lot of

855
00:58:43,400 --> 00:58:48,480
Speaker 22: torture and it already hurt my mother physically as well.

856
00:58:48,600 --> 00:58:53,960
Speaker 22: So the thing is, nobody asked us about what happened.

857
00:58:54,560 --> 00:58:59,040
Speaker 3: Surely had made another major mistake. She'd been talking to

858
00:58:59,080 --> 00:59:04,040
Speaker 3: the press. Suddenly stories were appearing about Shirley Brifman, Sydney's

859
00:59:04,080 --> 00:59:07,880
Speaker 3: glamorous vice queen. The last thing the police on her

860
00:59:07,920 --> 00:59:12,680
Speaker 3: payroll wanted was media attention. She was also toying with

861
00:59:12,840 --> 00:59:16,600
Speaker 3: writing a memoir, The Housewife's Best Friend.

862
00:59:16,720 --> 00:59:17,640
Speaker 4: She was going to call it.

863
00:59:18,640 --> 00:59:21,960
Speaker 3: And if this wasn't enough, she'd hosted a party at

864
00:59:21,960 --> 00:59:25,880
Speaker 3: her apartment in the Reef Complex in Elizabeth Bay and

865
00:59:25,920 --> 00:59:32,600
Speaker 3: invited several corrupt police, including Fred Cray. Somehow the story

866
00:59:32,640 --> 00:59:36,920
Speaker 3: of the party made it into the newspapers. It was

867
00:59:36,960 --> 00:59:41,400
Speaker 3: getting dangerous. One day, Mary Anne Riffman returned to the

868
00:59:41,440 --> 00:59:45,960
Speaker 3: family's Thornleigh home after school and saw a man trying

869
00:59:45,960 --> 00:59:51,240
Speaker 3: to strangle her mother to death. She's convinced it was

870
00:59:51,360 --> 00:59:52,160
Speaker 3: Johnny Reagan.

871
00:59:53,040 --> 00:59:57,160
Speaker 23: My mother was home and when you walked in the

872
00:59:57,240 --> 01:00:00,800
Speaker 23: door of the hallway in that lounge room to that house,

873
01:00:00,920 --> 01:00:04,280
Speaker 23: it had two sliding doors that would joined together, you know,

874
01:00:04,360 --> 01:00:08,600
Speaker 23: to sline up, and it was really odd. I'd never

875
01:00:08,640 --> 01:00:12,160
Speaker 23: seen that the two doors were closed, you know, something

876
01:00:12,240 --> 01:00:15,880
Speaker 23: that the housekeeper would never have had done. And we'd

877
01:00:15,920 --> 01:00:19,200
Speaker 23: never seen the lounge room closed off from that little

878
01:00:19,240 --> 01:00:20,080
Speaker 23: bit of the hallway.

879
01:00:20,400 --> 01:00:21,880
Speaker 1: But anyway, so what do you do?

880
01:00:21,960 --> 01:00:22,520
Speaker 12: Straight away?

881
01:00:22,560 --> 01:00:22,640
Speaker 1: Me?

882
01:00:22,760 --> 01:00:26,360
Speaker 23: When I come in, I opened the door, just opened

883
01:00:26,400 --> 01:00:30,720
Speaker 23: the two doors. And then my mother standing between the

884
01:00:30,760 --> 01:00:33,520
Speaker 23: lounge and the dining room where we did the ironing,

885
01:00:33,800 --> 01:00:37,080
Speaker 23: where the television you know you could best see it.

886
01:00:37,480 --> 01:00:40,480
Speaker 1: And there's this guy that's got.

887
01:00:40,200 --> 01:00:44,600
Speaker 23: The wire coat hanger undone, well it was already undone,

888
01:00:44,800 --> 01:00:49,560
Speaker 23: and he was he was trying to strangle her, right,

889
01:00:50,400 --> 01:00:53,320
Speaker 23: he was in the middle of strangling her with iron

890
01:00:53,400 --> 01:00:57,600
Speaker 23: undone coat hanger. And you think it'd be a rope

891
01:00:57,680 --> 01:01:00,280
Speaker 23: or something, wouldn't you, But no, the code hanger or

892
01:01:00,320 --> 01:01:03,600
Speaker 23: maybe he got in closed the door. He must have

893
01:01:03,720 --> 01:01:07,240
Speaker 23: come in on a pretense that she let him in, yes,

894
01:01:08,000 --> 01:01:11,280
Speaker 23: because you just don't come in and close two.

895
01:01:11,120 --> 01:01:12,600
Speaker 12: Doors like that.

896
01:01:12,880 --> 01:01:16,040
Speaker 23: No one else was home by then, and then of

897
01:01:16,080 --> 01:01:20,080
Speaker 23: course when I just walked in, he's thinking he's waiting

898
01:01:20,080 --> 01:01:22,840
Speaker 23: to hear the car or the kids come or something else.

899
01:01:23,320 --> 01:01:27,280
Speaker 23: So I get in that and then this guy gets

900
01:01:27,280 --> 01:01:30,720
Speaker 23: such a shock he doesn't He takes bang out through

901
01:01:30,720 --> 01:01:33,600
Speaker 23: the dining room, through that kitchen to the back door

902
01:01:33,640 --> 01:01:36,920
Speaker 23: and gone. Not that I looked where he went, you know,

903
01:01:37,320 --> 01:01:40,440
Speaker 23: but he fleed out the back door that seemed to

904
01:01:40,480 --> 01:01:43,200
Speaker 23: be open to my knowledge, because he didn't nearly filling

905
01:01:43,280 --> 01:01:47,520
Speaker 23: with the door. And there's my mother and you know,

906
01:01:47,600 --> 01:01:49,760
Speaker 23: all the things that we all had to take in

907
01:01:49,840 --> 01:01:53,720
Speaker 23: our stride. But it was very fortunate that I came home.

908
01:01:53,840 --> 01:01:55,000
Speaker 10: I never asked her.

909
01:01:54,960 --> 01:01:55,520
Speaker 12: Who did that?

910
01:01:56,400 --> 01:02:00,280
Speaker 23: You know, sometimes you just there's some question and you

911
01:02:00,360 --> 01:02:06,240
Speaker 23: didn't ask. But there's just so many things that are

912
01:02:06,280 --> 01:02:11,160
Speaker 23: just so I think that was worry, maybe a threat

913
01:02:11,280 --> 01:02:14,520
Speaker 23: because of all the wealthy people that were involved, do

914
01:02:14,560 --> 01:02:17,680
Speaker 23: you know what I mean? But that's very powerful to

915
01:02:17,680 --> 01:02:20,240
Speaker 23: come down like that. That could be if that looked

916
01:02:20,280 --> 01:02:22,160
Speaker 23: more than a scare, that guy was doing it.

917
01:02:24,040 --> 01:02:27,640
Speaker 3: Shortly after this, Shirley Briffman was charged with an offense

918
01:02:27,680 --> 01:02:30,960
Speaker 3: for the first time ever, and her corrupt copper mates

919
01:02:31,000 --> 01:02:34,360
Speaker 3: in both Sydney and Brisbane refused to help her out.

920
01:02:34,720 --> 01:02:38,400
Speaker 3: It was the last straw she decided to blow the

921
01:02:38,440 --> 01:02:43,800
Speaker 3: whistle on the lot of them. On National TV. In

922
01:02:43,840 --> 01:02:49,160
Speaker 3: the fallout from her expose, a brifman fled north, convinced

923
01:02:49,160 --> 01:02:53,040
Speaker 3: by ratpacker Tony Murphy that she'd be safer in Brisbane

924
01:02:53,080 --> 01:02:56,240
Speaker 3: than in Sydney, with the likes of Cray and Reagan

925
01:02:56,720 --> 01:03:00,480
Speaker 3: out for her blood. In Brisbane, living in a series

926
01:03:00,520 --> 01:03:05,360
Speaker 3: of supposed safe houses, she gave several formal police interviews

927
01:03:05,840 --> 01:03:07,920
Speaker 3: and not only tipped in a lot of her former

928
01:03:08,000 --> 01:03:11,920
Speaker 3: copper mates, but had a lot to say about Johnny Reagan.

929
01:03:12,840 --> 01:03:16,480
Speaker 3: She said Reagan wasn't satisfied with being the big boss

930
01:03:16,520 --> 01:03:21,880
Speaker 3: of Sydney. He had ambitions to become the biggest gangster

931
01:03:22,360 --> 01:03:27,080
Speaker 3: in Australia. Just prior to fleeing to Brisbane, she'd hidden

932
01:03:27,120 --> 01:03:30,240
Speaker 3: out in King's Cross again in a supposed safe house.

933
01:03:31,040 --> 01:03:35,360
Speaker 3: That's when the magician came calling. She later told police

934
01:03:35,680 --> 01:03:36,320
Speaker 3: what happened.

935
01:03:37,840 --> 01:03:41,840
Speaker 24: For a start, I was protected. Now I am not protected.

936
01:03:42,400 --> 01:03:45,360
Speaker 24: I paid all these years for protection. I was in

937
01:03:45,400 --> 01:03:48,040
Speaker 24: fear for my life. Do you remember the night you

938
01:03:48,080 --> 01:03:51,040
Speaker 24: two called to see me. Johnny Reagan came there at

939
01:03:51,080 --> 01:03:55,560
Speaker 24: four o'clock. He was one out. Reagan said, don't talk.

940
01:03:56,000 --> 01:03:57,320
Speaker 24: If you talk, you are dead.

941
01:03:58,400 --> 01:04:02,280
Speaker 3: Shirley made it to Brisbane with her family. As it happened,

942
01:04:02,800 --> 01:04:08,480
Speaker 3: Reagan wasn't far behind. He decided to open, for want

943
01:04:08,480 --> 01:04:11,880
Speaker 3: of a better phrase, a branch office of the Reagan

944
01:04:11,920 --> 01:04:16,760
Speaker 3: Empire north of the border. He was off to Queensland.

945
01:04:17,560 --> 01:04:20,480
Speaker 3: Reagan would have been fully aware of the criminal scene

946
01:04:20,560 --> 01:04:25,040
Speaker 3: and its main players in the Deep North, but he

947
01:04:25,200 --> 01:04:29,040
Speaker 3: was the big Sydney gangster, and according to sources, he

948
01:04:29,160 --> 01:04:34,120
Speaker 3: was ready to introduce Chicago style mobster tactics to Australia's

949
01:04:34,160 --> 01:04:39,840
Speaker 3: East Coast. As usual, he reaped havoc and he just

950
01:04:39,960 --> 01:04:43,560
Speaker 3: may have gotten away with not one murder but fifteen

951
01:04:44,240 --> 01:04:47,200
Speaker 3: when the Whiskey a Go go nightclub in Brisbane's Fortitude

952
01:04:47,280 --> 01:04:53,240
Speaker 3: Valley was firebombed in March nineteen seventy three. That inferno

953
01:04:53,440 --> 01:04:57,880
Speaker 3: still smolders today, and while he didn't strike the match,

954
01:04:58,720 --> 01:05:02,800
Speaker 3: the magician just may have been a driving force behind

955
01:05:02,840 --> 01:05:08,160
Speaker 3: one of the worst mass murders in Australian history. He

956
01:05:08,200 --> 01:05:11,760
Speaker 3: hooked up with drug dealers, He did business with a

957
01:05:11,800 --> 01:05:16,840
Speaker 3: local group called the Clockwork Orange Gang. He invested in property,

958
01:05:17,360 --> 01:05:21,680
Speaker 3: and he freely displayed brutish behavior, living up to his

959
01:05:21,800 --> 01:05:26,480
Speaker 3: now well known reputation as a killer, scaring some of

960
01:05:26,520 --> 01:05:35,520
Speaker 3: the locals half to death. In the next episode of

961
01:05:35,520 --> 01:05:40,000
Speaker 3: The Gangster's Ghost, matt I was scared.

962
01:05:40,320 --> 01:05:41,040
Speaker 5: I'm no hero.

963
01:05:41,240 --> 01:05:44,440
Speaker 20: I've never been tough. This was something I hadn't come

964
01:05:44,480 --> 01:05:45,920
Speaker 20: into contact with before.

965
01:05:46,200 --> 01:05:47,280
Speaker 5: Genuinely scary.

966
01:05:47,720 --> 01:05:50,080
Speaker 20: He uttered a threat along the lines of if you

967
01:05:50,120 --> 01:05:51,680
Speaker 20: don't do this, I'm going to shoot.

968
01:05:51,440 --> 01:05:52,520
Speaker 5: You in the kneecaps.

969
01:05:52,560 --> 01:05:55,600
Speaker 20: Now I remember vividly it was in the kneecaps. Having

970
01:05:55,680 --> 01:05:59,200
Speaker 20: seen the other guy with the gun, I thought, these

971
01:05:59,200 --> 01:06:02,360
Speaker 20: guys aren't kid. You put all that together and that's

972
01:06:02,360 --> 01:06:05,120
Speaker 20: a pretty convincing argument that you should not be there.

973
01:06:20,520 --> 01:06:23,360
Speaker 2: The Gangster's Ghost is a production of The Australian. It's

974
01:06:23,400 --> 01:06:26,880
Speaker 2: written and presented by senior writer Matthew Condon and produced

975
01:06:26,920 --> 01:06:31,080
Speaker 2: and edited by multimedia editor Leat samaglu Our, Executive producer

976
01:06:31,160 --> 01:06:35,680
Speaker 2: is Me, Editorial director Claire Harvey. Special thanks to Lara Kamenos,

977
01:06:35,760 --> 01:06:40,640
Speaker 2: Erica Rutlidge, Kristin Amiot, Jasper Leek, Stephanie Coombs, Sean Callanan Laughlin,

978
01:06:40,680 --> 01:06:45,160
Speaker 2: Clear Ryan Osland, Amanda Willim Williams, Christine Keller, Tarn Blackhurst,

979
01:06:45,280 --> 01:06:50,000
Speaker 2: Magdalena Zajak, Gisel Boetti, Genevieve Brammel, Lauren Bruce, sus Rolf

980
01:06:50,160 --> 01:06:53,440
Speaker 2: and Jokina Carlson. We can only do journalism like this

981
01:06:53,640 --> 01:06:56,760
Speaker 2: with the support of US subscribers, who hear episodes first

982
01:06:57,040 --> 01:07:01,120
Speaker 2: and get full access to photos, video, news stories and features,

983
01:07:01,360 --> 01:07:04,880
Speaker 2: plus all Australia's best journalism twenty four to seven. Join

984
01:07:05,000 --> 01:07:49,560
Speaker 2: us at Gangstersghost dot com dot au