Speaker 1: The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Speaker 1: Detective see a side of life the average persons never
Speaker 1: exposed to. I spent thirty four years as a cop.
Speaker 1: For twenty five of those years I was catching killers.
Speaker 1: That's what I did for a living. I was a
Speaker 1: homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys, staid,
Speaker 1: I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.
Speaker 1: The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories
Speaker 1: from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
Speaker 1: and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some
Speaker 1: of the content and language might be confronting. That's because
Speaker 1: no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged.
Speaker 1: Join me now as I take you into this world.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to part two of my chat with award
Speaker 1: winning journalist Neil Mercer. Neil's been a crime reporter for
Speaker 1: a long time, and there's also the author of the
Speaker 1: book called The Kingping and the Crooked Cop, the story
Speaker 1: of Nettie Smith and Roger Rogerson, partners in crime. After
Speaker 1: part one, if we all feel a little bit dirty,
Speaker 1: we've delved into a murky world. There's a lot that
Speaker 1: happened in that time, isn't there now.
Speaker 2: There's a huge amount that went on around Roger and
Speaker 2: ned and the number of shootings, the number of robberies,
Speaker 2: the number of court cases. You know, it's between the
Speaker 2: two of them. There are people who were murdered, killed,
Speaker 2: or disappeared. It's an extraordinary part of not just policing history.
Speaker 2: I don't think it's. Part of the reason I really
Speaker 2: wanted to try and pin a lot of this stuff
Speaker 2: down is there's so much rumor and speculation and urban
Speaker 2: myth and I think this is part of Sydney's history.
Speaker 1: Well, it is Sydney's history. And there's a lurb for
Speaker 1: the book and I'll just read it out because it
Speaker 1: talks very much to what you just said. There are
Speaker 1: multiple crimes were committed against the backdrop of a change
Speaker 1: in Australia from the late seventies to the mid eighties,
Speaker 1: as Australia's social fabric stretched to adapt to a more
Speaker 1: global world and money and drugs poured into the country, police, judges,
Speaker 1: and even the media were up for sale, and Rogerson
Speaker 1: and Smith were the princes of this violent new world.
Speaker 1: It sums it up pretty well, doesn't it.
Speaker 2: Absolutely and Roger was and I've described him as such
Speaker 2: as a prince of the city and he was untouchable.
Speaker 2: And Ned, I mean, wow, you know, from that early
Speaker 2: conviction he moves into heroin dealing in the late seventies.
Speaker 2: He's in fact linked up with a very famous syndicate
Speaker 2: that got picked up in Bangkok with eight kilos of heroin.
Speaker 2: Ned was going to distribute some of that in Sydney.
Speaker 2: He claimed at one stage to be Australia's biggest heroin dealer.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure that might have just been Ned sort
Speaker 2: of embellishing the facts which he had, you know, he
Speaker 2: was prone to do. But nevertheless, he was a big
Speaker 2: figure in Sydney in the late seventies, mid seventies on
Speaker 2: into the early eighties.
Speaker 3: And I guess from a.
Speaker 2: Public perspective, these two guys really come to prominence, in
Speaker 2: my view, for the first time, to public prominence in
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty one, when by this stage Ned has been
Speaker 2: Roger's informer for five years or well, they've got a
Speaker 2: very close relationship for five years, and we have the
Speaker 2: shooting of Warren Land Franchi.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's take it through that, because that seemed to
Speaker 1: be the turning point, didn't it where people go and
Speaker 1: hold that something's something that's a bit smelly.
Speaker 3: That's right, and you know.
Speaker 2: June twenty seven, nineteen eighty one, it's a Saturday afternoon,
Speaker 2: just before three pm in Dangar Place, which is just
Speaker 2: down from Sydney University. It's parallel to Cleveland Street, I think,
Speaker 2: over the road from the Brittannia Hotel. Land Francie walks
Speaker 2: in to meet Rogerson, apparently to try and do some deal.
Speaker 2: Because Warren land Francie is a heroin dealer, he thinks
Speaker 2: he's there to bribe Rogerson. Rogerson says and has always
Speaker 2: always maintained that he was there to arrest land Francie.
Speaker 2: And once again, the place is surrounded by very heavily
Speaker 2: armed police, at least eighteen of them, so they are
Speaker 2: police officers in cars. There's a couple of cops in
Speaker 2: the pub having a schooner. We're about to have their second.
Speaker 1: That's unusual.
Speaker 2: Land Francie is shot dead. What we know for absolute
Speaker 2: certain Royal Land Francie is shot dead by Roger Rogerson
Speaker 2: just before three o'clock that Saturday afternoon. One shot goes.
Speaker 3: Through the heart.
Speaker 2: One is in the neck incredibly. Roger almost immediately does
Speaker 2: a newspaper interview with the Sunday Time pograph good on
Speaker 2: the reporter from the Sunday Telly. I mean, it's a
Speaker 2: big scoop, but it's sort of portrayed.
Speaker 3: In this way.
Speaker 2: You know, Roger was walking the mean streets alone. Was
Speaker 2: it a bit like high Noon? You know the Hollywood movie,
Speaker 2: the old Hollywood movie. Oh yeah, it was a bit
Speaker 2: like that, says Roger. You know, and there's this, I
Speaker 2: guess image of the sheriff cleaning up the means, cleaning
Speaker 2: up the mean streets. Yeah, he's on his own. Well,
Speaker 2: he wasn't quite on his own. He had eighteen other
Speaker 2: police around him and three others in the lane with him.
Speaker 2: That first day is probably the only day he gets
Speaker 2: away with it, because pretty much straight up in the following.
Speaker 3: Days, there's a suggestion that.
Speaker 2: Land Francie had ten thousand dollars on him to bribe Rogerson,
Speaker 2: that he didn't have a gun, so Rogerson didn't shoot
Speaker 2: him in self defense as he claimed. And it starts
Speaker 2: to balloon from there, and Warren's girlfriend Sally and huckstep
Speaker 2: goes on sixty minutes National TV makes some of these allegations,
Speaker 2: and I went round I was working in nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 2: It was the first crime story I ever really did.
Speaker 2: Went to see Keith Lanfranchi, the father, and Keith tells
Speaker 2: me that his son has been shot in cold blood.
Speaker 2: It's because he's ripped off one of Roger's heroin dealers
Speaker 2: a few weeks earlier, and that he's also been told
Speaker 2: that rather than the shots in the lane way that
Speaker 2: Saturday afternoon being fired in quick succession, as Roger had
Speaker 2: told the Sunday Telly, the shots were twelve to thirteen
Speaker 2: seconds apart, which opens up a whole range of possibility.
Speaker 1: Changes dynamics.
Speaker 2: It did, It did, and look the end result was
Speaker 2: I guess that there was an inquest, you know. It
Speaker 2: was unsatisfactory, to say the least, in that the land
Speaker 2: Franchie family wanted to air a lot of allegations because
Speaker 2: the person who drives Warren land Franchie to that fateful
Speaker 2: meeting that Saturday afternoon is Ned Smith. The land Franchie
Speaker 2: family and Sally Ane Hucksteps lawyers. They want to explore
Speaker 2: Roger's relationship with Ned, you know, and also Ned's relationship
Speaker 2: to Warren land Francie because Warren was selling some of
Speaker 2: Ned's heroine. None of that is allowed. And you know,
Speaker 2: Roger always maintained that Warren land Francie came in, he
Speaker 2: was always going to be arrested, hence the police all around,
Speaker 2: and that he pulled a gun and Roger got his
Speaker 2: gun out first and fired those two fatal.
Speaker 3: Shots or to the two shots that guild him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Look, the inquest itself, the family thought it was
Speaker 2: a farce and they had a point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there's other stuff and we won't go into
Speaker 1: all the detail about the firearm that he was supposedly
Speaker 1: carrying and all sorts of things, what he was wanted
Speaker 1: for at the time shooting the police officer. It's murky,
Speaker 1: and there's a smell about it, and it continues to
Speaker 1: this day, doesn't it.
Speaker 2: It does, But the smell is it started in pretty much,
Speaker 2: as I said, within days, with all the allegations from
Speaker 2: Warren's dad, from Sally and Huckstep. But you know, the
Speaker 2: inquest found that Roger had shot him trying to effect
Speaker 2: an arrest. And as you say, people still talk about it,
Speaker 2: and look, it's unresolved in the public mind.
Speaker 1: And I think, yeah, you said there was aideen police there.
Speaker 1: I know the culture of policing. I know the pressures
Speaker 1: of operations. I know how it works and the little
Speaker 1: clicks if Yeah, if something untoward is done by Roger,
Speaker 1: he can keep it very close to himself on what
Speaker 1: he's intent is, because he just seemed to weave so
Speaker 1: much power.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's exactly right.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's no way that you know, you can
Speaker 2: keep eighteen police quiet for forty years if it's something
Speaker 2: untoward has happened and they've seen it. I mean, there
Speaker 2: were civilian witnesses nearby. There are people over in the
Speaker 2: pub who made statements. There are ambulance officers who arrived
Speaker 2: within minutes of the shooting because their base was only
Speaker 2: a kilometer away. It is the family has always said
Speaker 2: Warren was murdered. The coroner said, or the jury actually
Speaker 2: found that Warren was shot by Rogerson while he was
Speaker 2: trying to affect an arrest. And the failure of the
Speaker 2: inquest to me was not to call a lot of
Speaker 2: witnesses who were then alive, who could have at least
Speaker 2: been cross examined. He didn't want to know. He was,
Speaker 2: in the parlance of the day, the magistrate at the
Speaker 2: time was a policeman, not because he'd been in the cops,
Speaker 2: but because he supported the police force. He was very
Speaker 2: much on the side of detectives and he didn't like crooks.
Speaker 1: And that's how we would talk quite often about judicial officers.
Speaker 1: Now he's a police officer as in not the fact,
Speaker 1: as you said, he wasn't in the police, but they
Speaker 1: just proy police. That seemed to be all the shines
Speaker 1: started to come off Roger after.
Speaker 3: That, Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 2: I mean, he had that twenty four hours of being
Speaker 2: you know, Gary Cooper in high noon, but that's the
Speaker 2: first time he really comes to public prominence, and it's
Speaker 2: the first time Ned Smith really comes to public prominence.
Speaker 2: By that stage, they've known each other since nineteen seventy six,
Speaker 2: so they've been working on and off together in whatever
Speaker 2: form that may take. But yeah, it's from that point
Speaker 2: that they both become known. Because Ned is actually named
Speaker 2: in State Parliament as the person who drove him there.
Speaker 2: Roger's name is now bandied around. There's calls for a
Speaker 2: judicial inquiry. Roger becomes too hot for the cob They
Speaker 2: move him down to Darlinghurst and he's there for a
Speaker 2: couple of years and eventually then other matters happen. There's
Speaker 2: never a judicial inquiry into the land Franchi shooting. There
Speaker 2: was a Supreme Court hearing or a court hearing at
Speaker 2: least Keith land Franchi applied for a second inquest that
Speaker 2: was knocked back. The judge was scathing of the case
Speaker 2: and said there was nothing further to be done. The
Speaker 2: inquest had been held. It was fair and that was that.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's the system working, isn't it all the system?
Speaker 1: Whether it's working, that is how the system operates. So
Speaker 1: should say.
Speaker 2: That's right, and you know it worked in Roger's favor
Speaker 2: in that case.
Speaker 1: Okay, Now we're going to get head where the shooting
Speaker 1: of Mick Jury. Mick Jury was an undercover police officer
Speaker 1: had been working undercover on some drug trades.
Speaker 2: Yeah, mckdrury. This is by now Rogers at darling Hurst.
Speaker 2: He goes there in eighty two. He Mick Drewy, as
Speaker 2: you say, was involved in a drug deal down in Melbourne.
Speaker 2: But as an undercover officer, he's trying to arrest a
Speaker 2: guy called Alan Williams who's a big heroin dealer associated
Speaker 2: with painters and Dockers and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 2: Williams is arrested. Drury, Michael Drew, the undercover cop, is
Speaker 2: involved in the arrest of Alan Williams. The court procedures,
Speaker 2: the trial procedures start to flow. Williams is desperate to
Speaker 2: avoid a conviction. The only person who can identify him
Speaker 2: from that drug deal that night is Mick Drury. He
Speaker 2: tries to he wants to bribe Drury. How does he
Speaker 2: do that? He's Melbourne based. Well, he's got a good
Speaker 2: mate in Sydney by the name of Christopher Dale fl
Speaker 2: because they've been through the prison system in Melbourne together.
Speaker 2: He phones Flannery says, look, Mick Drury, just offer him
Speaker 2: a lot of money, or do you know anybody in
Speaker 2: there who can sort of in the cops, who can
Speaker 2: help me get Mick Drury off my back? And Flannery says, yes,
Speaker 2: he does.
Speaker 3: He says he.
Speaker 2: Knows a good cop by the name of Roger Rogerson.
Speaker 2: So this is all in train eighty two, eighty three,
Speaker 2: eighty four. Drury refuses point blank to accept a bribe. No, No,
Speaker 2: I've identified Alan Williams as the man with the heroine
Speaker 2: and I'm not going to change my evidence. They up
Speaker 2: the offer to thirty five grand or whatever it was.
Speaker 2: Drury remains steadfast. Then Alan Williams, the heroin dealer, starts
Speaker 2: to think, geez, I'm in real trouble here, and he
Speaker 2: comes up to Sydney. He meets with Rogerson and Chris Flannery,
Speaker 2: and eventually there's a number of meetings. There's a number
Speaker 2: of He comes up to Sydney. A bit long story short,
Speaker 2: they have dinner one night, he says Williams, Roger Rogerson
Speaker 2: and Chris Flannery, and Flannery and Rogerson knew each other,
Speaker 2: and they come to an arrangement to make sure Mick
Speaker 2: Drury doesn't make court. Alan Williams said he didn't know
Speaker 2: how that was actually going to play out, but he
Speaker 2: knew what that meant, and he was prepared to pay
Speaker 2: one hundred thousand dollars for Drury not to make court,
Speaker 2: to be murdered. And that's what almost happened. In nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty four. Mick Drury's at home with his little kids
Speaker 2: and his wife in his own house, in his kitchen
Speaker 2: when he is shot through kitchen window and shockingly wounded.
Speaker 2: He barely survives. I think is unconscious, near death for
Speaker 2: like ten days. He eventually comes around and makes what
Speaker 2: was then called Drew his dying deposition, and in that
Speaker 2: he says, I think this is related to the job
Speaker 2: down in Melbourne with Allen Williams. And I've got to
Speaker 2: say that Roger Rogerson offered me a bribe to drop
Speaker 2: off the case or to change my identification of Williams.
Speaker 2: I refused it, and I think that's why I've been shot.
Speaker 2: I'm shortcutting a lot of stuff here, Gary.
Speaker 1: But now just on that point, with the dying deposition,
Speaker 1: it's part of getting that that I believe I might
Speaker 1: shortly die. This is the confession from a potential dead man.
Speaker 2: He's hovering close to death.
Speaker 1: So when you're telling something, you're telling something we've purpose.
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, I don't think. I don't think anybody apart
Speaker 2: from Roger ever thought he made it up. Some people
Speaker 2: were in two minds early on. I think later on
Speaker 2: people have no doubt that mcdruy was telling the truth.
Speaker 2: And he was shot because of that case.
Speaker 3: And the.
Speaker 2: Roger is charged in nineteen eighty four. I think it
Speaker 2: is first with the attempted bribery, I mean, was this
Speaker 2: was a bit of a I'm afraid to say a
Speaker 2: bit of a dog's breakfast. The investigation into the shooting
Speaker 2: of Michael Drury. I mean, it's a shocking thing that's happened.
Speaker 1: It's serving police officers. Police officer attempted to be murdered
Speaker 1: because of he's carrying out his.
Speaker 2: Duties, carrying out his duties in his own home. The
Speaker 2: investigation because it's Rogerson. I mean, people don't want to
Speaker 2: believe that Roger could possibly be in in the attempted
Speaker 2: murder of one of his own. The Commissioner of the
Speaker 2: day is expressing dismay. So you've got two investigations running.
Speaker 2: One was the investigation into the attempted bribery and one
Speaker 2: was the investigation into the attempted murder of Drury. But
Speaker 2: are they running parallel but not knowing what the other
Speaker 2: one was doing. Look, Eventually Roger is charged with the
Speaker 2: attempted bribery of Drury.
Speaker 3: He gets off that.
Speaker 2: A few years later, Roger's charged with the attempted murder
Speaker 2: of Michael Drury. Because in those intervening years, Alan Williams,
Speaker 2: the heroin dealer who's at the beginning of it all,
Speaker 2: rolls over and says yeah, I was part of a
Speaker 2: plot to murder Mick Drury, and I met with Roger
Speaker 2: Rogerson and Chris Flannery, and I offered one hundred thousand
Speaker 2: dollars to have it done. I didn't know how exactly
Speaker 2: or when exactly it was going to happen. But he
Speaker 2: pleads guilty to the attempted murder. He gets jailed. He
Speaker 2: gives evidence against Roger, but you know, he's an ex
Speaker 2: painter and Docker he's a bloke dealing in heroin, and
Speaker 2: Roger's got this fantastic character.
Speaker 3: And because.
Speaker 2: The attempted bribery case had been run earlier and failed,
Speaker 2: Roger was found not guilty. Some of that evidence in
Speaker 2: that case. Because of the rules of the court, some
Speaker 2: of that evidence in the first case could not be
Speaker 2: used in the attempted murder case. So the prosecution was
Speaker 2: in a way hamstrung. And also Williams he's a good
Speaker 2: crook and he's up against Roger Rogerson.
Speaker 1: How the cards might fall for Roger to Christopher Flannery disappears.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's right. He disappears May nineteen eighty five, never
Speaker 2: to be seen. So there's no way in the world
Speaker 2: Chris Flannery can give evidence against anybody.
Speaker 3: He's long gone.
Speaker 2: Where he's gone, nobody knows. There is a long list
Speaker 2: of suspects and Roger was one. But yeah, the suspects,
Speaker 2: people who might have wanted to kill Chris Flannery. Was
Speaker 2: a bit like a Melbourne cup Field, I think. But
Speaker 2: at the end of the day, this long and involved saga,
Speaker 2: the attempted the shooting of Michael Drury, which is really
Speaker 2: one of my colleagues described it as a stain that
Speaker 2: will stay with the New South Wales Police for a
Speaker 2: long long time. And I think he's right. It's unresolved
Speaker 2: because Roger gets off at all because.
Speaker 1: He's this, you know, and there was suggestions, inferences or whatever. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think even that Mick got people went hard at him.
Speaker 1: Why are you saying this? And yeah, like pull your heading.
Speaker 2: Oh they tried various people and I think it was
Speaker 2: Roger and with a bit help from NED, did their
Speaker 2: very very best to blacken the character of Mick Drury.
Speaker 2: And it was all it was all.
Speaker 3: Crap, you know.
Speaker 2: They made stuff up about oh he's having affairs, he's
Speaker 2: doing all this, Oh he's corrupt, you know, it was
Speaker 2: all garbage. It was pretty straightforward.
Speaker 3: But yeah, he.
Speaker 2: Roger doesn't survive this in a way, even though he's
Speaker 2: found not guilty, because as all this is unfolding in
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty four, as he's charged with the first one,
Speaker 2: the attempted bribery of Drury, he is suspended without pay.
Speaker 2: So effectively his last day in the New South Wales
Speaker 2: Cops is November roundabout there in nineteen eighty four. He
Speaker 2: suspended without pay. He goes on to beat the bribery
Speaker 2: charge and the attempted murder charge and you.
Speaker 1: Know, well reference a conversation we had off Mike the
Speaker 1: time how divisive it was within the police because police
Speaker 1: didn't want to believe that one of their own would
Speaker 1: have organized to murdered Drury and a good friend of mine,
Speaker 1: I won't mention his name, but the well respected detective
Speaker 1: was supporting Roger or thinking that yeah, he's from what
Speaker 1: I've seen of him, he's fine. But then they find
Speaker 1: out that Roger when he's suspended, that there was an
Speaker 1: account that he had with one hundred and ten thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: and the police that were loyal to Roger or just
Speaker 1: loyal to the fact that he was a police officer,
Speaker 1: were whipping around a fighting fund for Roger, and then
Speaker 1: they find out that he's got this account exactly.
Speaker 3: I remember that, and I like yourself.
Speaker 2: I knew a detective at that time who I spoke
Speaker 2: to him, and he said, I gave fifty or one
Speaker 2: hundred bucks to Roger's fighting fun because I thought he
Speaker 2: was innocent or you know, I wasn't convinced that he'd
Speaker 2: done the wrong thing. And then they find out that
Speaker 2: Roger as two bank accounts with a total of about
Speaker 2: one hundred and ten thousand dollars in them. To say
Speaker 2: they're a bit pissed off the police that have been
Speaker 2: putting in this money is an understatement. He lost a
Speaker 2: lot of support, partly over Michael Drury and partly over
Speaker 2: that because there's all this cash in they're in bank
Speaker 2: accounts in false names. Roger says, oh, part of that
Speaker 2: one hundred and ten grand belongs to a business friend
Speaker 2: of mine who's a bit of a gambler, which is
Speaker 2: sort of handy because then you can't trace Spacehorse. And
Speaker 2: also part of it comes from the proceeds of the
Speaker 2: sale of a Bentley that I've been restoring. Wow, you
Speaker 2: know nothing about Roger or ned is straightforward. I wish
Speaker 2: it was it. I must say sometimes I felt writing
Speaker 2: this book, I felt quite overwhelmed by the twists and turns,
Speaker 2: and sometimes you could sort of find yourself in a
Speaker 2: hall of mirrors, going geez, hang on. I thought I
Speaker 2: understood what this was going on, and now I find
Speaker 2: out this what the bloody hell is going on?
Speaker 3: Here?
Speaker 1: Where does the where there's the truth?
Speaker 3: Lie? Yeah?
Speaker 1: At what stage did that blow up? When I say
Speaker 1: blow up? I remember the interview, the Ray Martin interview
Speaker 1: on I think it was a Current Affair, was it
Speaker 1: or sixty minutes Current Affair? When Roger's come on that,
Speaker 1: I feel like I need to defend myself.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, because that was fascinating, Roger is suspended without
Speaker 2: paying eighty four he is going to be Finally in
Speaker 2: nine eighty six they decide to boot him out of
Speaker 2: the force. Those proceedings are about to happen. Roger goes
Speaker 2: on the offensive the front foot. He says, I want
Speaker 2: to go on Ray Martin. Oh sorry, I want to
Speaker 2: go on a Current Affair, which at the time was
Speaker 2: being hosted by Ray Martin.
Speaker 3: And he goes on TV.
Speaker 2: It's pre recorded for legal reasons, but you know, I
Speaker 2: don't think he thought through what he was going to say,
Speaker 2: because a he names Lenny McPherson as a police informer
Speaker 2: and Need Smith as a police informer, which well, is
Speaker 2: a good way of getting somebody killed for a start,
Speaker 2: but is not what a police officer should be doing
Speaker 2: on national television. But you know, he also says stuff
Speaker 2: that is just unbelievable. Ray Martin says, have you ever
Speaker 2: seen any corruption in the New South Wales Police Force?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: No, ever had any dealings with a corrupt police officer. No, no,
Speaker 2: I've never met a corrupt police officer in my life.
Speaker 2: And if he was looking for public support or to
Speaker 2: win over public sympathy, I think it completely backfired because
Speaker 2: people were going, oh, come on, you know, there's got
Speaker 2: to be one, You've got a bit one or two.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: Do you think what took him there was desperation or
Speaker 1: his own ego or hubris or what was it that was.
Speaker 3: A good play A good question.
Speaker 2: I'm not really sure, but I guess he probably thought
Speaker 2: he had nothing to lose. He was going to be
Speaker 2: booted out of the cops anyway without superannuation. Well, I
Speaker 2: don't think I'm not sure how much super existed in
Speaker 2: those days, but without any benefits that he might have accrued.
Speaker 2: I think he thought he had nothing to lose. I
Speaker 2: think he felt that he could still pull off a
Speaker 2: performance that would win him some sympathy. As you say,
Speaker 2: it's ego. A couple of people said to him, are
Speaker 2: you sure you want to do this? He said, yep, yep,
Speaker 2: no problem. Well it was a problem because obviously he
Speaker 2: names Lenny and Ned Smith as informers. That's then used
Speaker 2: against him as further ammunition to kick him out.
Speaker 1: Breaching police pravate coal.
Speaker 2: Breaching police protocol, bringing the New South Wales Police into disrepute,
Speaker 2: and that's what they boot him out on those disciplinary matters.
Speaker 2: He's not kicked out because of any criminal conviction. It's
Speaker 2: an extraordinary thing that he did. But he used the
Speaker 2: media often. I mean I did that interview with him
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty two. You know he's going on the
Speaker 2: front foot.
Speaker 3: He does lots.
Speaker 2: He does the interview after shooting land Franchi, I mean,
Speaker 2: which is incredible, and he goes on Ray Martin on
Speaker 2: National TV when he's really under a lot of fire.
Speaker 1: It's almost like you because the next part I want
Speaker 1: to talk about. It's almost like you can't make this
Speaker 1: stuff up, Like if you pin this, if this was
Speaker 1: in the fiction section, I'll be going now you've gone
Speaker 1: too far, Gone too far. This doesn't happen. But didn't
Speaker 1: neddie get run over or an attempt on his life?
Speaker 1: After Roger's appearance, Roger appears on a current affair. Don't
Speaker 1: hold me to the exact day, but he appears one
Speaker 1: night and I'm pretty certain he names Ned as an informer.
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 2: The next day or the day after, Ned is walking
Speaker 2: down a footpath in Alexandria near the Iron Duke Hotel,
Speaker 2: which he used to have a beer you're at. Somebody
Speaker 2: tries to murder him by running him over with a
Speaker 2: car on the footpath. Car comes up on the footpath,
Speaker 2: bang into Ned. Ned goes down, car tries to reverse
Speaker 2: over him, misses luckily for Ned. He struggles into the
Speaker 2: Iron Duke and just sort of you know, then goes
Speaker 2: to hospital, discharges himself. He's got broken arms, legs, he's
Speaker 2: not in a good shape. But he then decides he
Speaker 2: wants to go on a current affair, which he does
Speaker 2: a night or so later, again with Ray Martin. Ray
Speaker 2: Ray was over the moon. This is, as you say,
Speaker 2: you almost couldn't make this stuff up because Ned, because
Speaker 2: he's badly injured, I think, was chop it in on
Speaker 2: the Channel nine chopper which lands, you know, and the
Speaker 2: old Channel nine headquarters and that's all filmed and goes
Speaker 2: to where and Ned denies that he's, you know, a
Speaker 2: police inform He just says, oh, I make my money
Speaker 2: out of a bit of s p, a bit of stealing,
Speaker 2: a bit of this, and that you know, generally downplays
Speaker 2: his criminal career. But yeah, they on national television. You know,
Speaker 2: as you say, you couldn't make it.
Speaker 1: Up, you can't. And then referencing another media interview back
Speaker 1: from the sixty Minutes, Sally Anne Huckstep She's murdered.
Speaker 2: She's murdered in nineteen eighty six, very early nineteen eighty six.
Speaker 2: She's found in Centennial Park in Sydney in a pond.
Speaker 2: She's found early one morning, well certainly one morning, by
Speaker 2: I think a jogger or somebody walking their dog. They
Speaker 2: see a body floating. Police are called. She's known very
Speaker 2: well to a lot of police because she's been around
Speaker 2: for a long time. They identify her as Sally Anne Huckstep.
Speaker 2: She first the very first day or two, the pathologist
Speaker 2: who examines, he says, I might not be murder. She
Speaker 2: might have had a heroin shot and drowned in the lake.
Speaker 2: That's pretty quickly dispensed with when a second opinion is
Speaker 2: called for and she strangled. You know, there's no two
Speaker 2: ways about it. She's but she's been murdered.
Speaker 1: That's not just reminding people that this is sally Anne
Speaker 1: Huckstep who was warrant Lane Francie's girlfriend who went on
Speaker 1: sixty Minutes to say that he was murdered.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 2: And Sally Anne went on sixty minutes in nineteen eighty one,
Speaker 2: a week or eight days after her boyfriend was shot dead.
Speaker 2: In a way, she blows the whistle on Ron Roger
Speaker 2: in a big way. I mean it's National TV, it's
Speaker 2: prime time. He obviously hates her. Ned Smith hates her
Speaker 2: as well. So that's eighty one, she's murdered in eighty six.
Speaker 2: You know she's a complex person as well. You know
Speaker 2: she's a whistleblower. She was incredibly courageous to do that interview,
Speaker 2: I think. But in late eighty five and early eighty six,
Speaker 2: she's running around with two federal police, and she's doing
Speaker 2: it very publicly in King's Cross out at the Long Bay.
Speaker 2: She's seen with these two federal cops, and word is
Speaker 2: getting around that she's informing Whether that's I mean, I
Speaker 2: think the coroner suggested that that was a reason that
Speaker 2: she was murdered, that people saw her doing this were
Speaker 2: uncertain of what she was doing. But you know, Roger's
Speaker 2: been accused of her murder. Ned Smith is eventually actually
Speaker 2: charged with her murder, but that comes quite a number
Speaker 2: of years later, in.
Speaker 3: Fact, quite over a decade later.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, So just trying to I'm trying to keep
Speaker 1: up with them more. We've got Roger, he he's out
Speaker 1: of the police. Now Ned's they've had their doing them
Speaker 1: throwing with Ray Martin. Yep, Need's been run over. Then
Speaker 1: Ned gets himself into the trouble. There was a murder.
Speaker 1: It was a tow truck driver, a road rage incident.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 2: So eighty four is Roger's last day in the cops.
Speaker 2: Eighty six he's officially kicked out. He's still hanging around
Speaker 2: with Ned. Eighty seven comes around, and sometime towards the
Speaker 2: end of eighty seven, I think it is.
Speaker 3: Don't hold into the.
Speaker 2: Dates here, because there are a lot of dates. There
Speaker 2: are a lot of incidents. But he's having a drink
Speaker 2: with Roger at I think the Covent Garden Hotel in Chinatown.
Speaker 2: Ned's there with the mate of his. It's a big session.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of beer and other drinks had, you know,
Speaker 2: mids middy's. At some stage in the evening, around seven
Speaker 2: or eight, Ned and his mate decided it's a great
Speaker 2: idea to drive to Kujie to bat on drinking. They
Speaker 2: leave Roger behind.
Speaker 1: Something tells me they're not the type to worry about
Speaker 1: drink driving.
Speaker 2: No, I think it was a miracle given the amount
Speaker 2: of alcohol consumed. It was a miracle actually managed to
Speaker 2: get Goodjie far. They got that far. A judge later
Speaker 2: actually commented on that they're in Cuojie Bay Road, Sydney's
Speaker 2: eastern suburbs, and they all of a sudden stop near
Speaker 2: a fish and chip shop. Nobody knows why, whether they're hungry.
Speaker 2: A tow truck with two blokes and it pulls up
Speaker 2: behind Ned and is made of blocking the traffic. The
Speaker 2: tow truck driver flashes his lights. Bad mistake. Ned's mate
Speaker 2: gets out of the car, comes around, tries to belt
Speaker 2: the tow truck driver. The passenger of the tow truck
Speaker 2: gets out, he starts to have a blue All of
Speaker 2: a sudden, you've got Ned Smith's mate and the two
Speaker 2: blokes in the tow truck having a barney outside a
Speaker 2: fish and chip shop, but also being seen by diners
Speaker 2: in a restaurant and people on the footpath. In that fight,
Speaker 2: the passenger in the tow truck driver blow called Ronnie Flavel,
Speaker 2: is stabbed to death. He dies pretty much on the footpath.
Speaker 2: Ned and his mate bolt. They're arrested very soon after. Initially,
Speaker 2: Ned gets bail because it's such a confused crime scene, Melle,
Speaker 2: and it's nighttime and people have been drinking. He gets bail,
Speaker 2: so he's out and saying I've never stabbed anybody in
Speaker 2: my life. So you've got all the cases both with
Speaker 2: both Roger and Ned not running parallel but running over
Speaker 2: each other a lot of the time. So they're in
Speaker 2: and out of court. I don't know either of them.
Speaker 2: I mean, with Rogerson in particular, I mean, whatever you
Speaker 2: say about him, he had a certain resilience to be
Speaker 2: accused of all this stuff time and time and time again,
Speaker 2: and he's still standing.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So Ned Smith's in trouble for murder and he's a
Speaker 2: waiting trial.
Speaker 1: So and where are we got Roger at this stage?
Speaker 1: So he's out of the police Any idea what Roger
Speaker 1: was doing? I know I saw him at one time
Speaker 1: saying he's installing security bars.
Speaker 2: He was installing security It was a bit of a handyman,
Speaker 2: you know, he could do a bit of welding all
Speaker 2: that sort of stuff. He was probably better than a handyman.
Speaker 2: He was installing security grills. He was doing some work
Speaker 2: I think for the New South Wales Department of Housing,
Speaker 2: you know, minors sort of stuff. He was also at
Speaker 2: one stage involved with a company that made safes. He's
Speaker 2: doing a range of things, but he's generally, he says,
Speaker 2: pretty down on his luck. He's got nothing from the
Speaker 2: police force, you know. And yeah, I mean he's doing
Speaker 2: the best he can as they say, okay.
Speaker 1: We've got him doing that. He then got dragged into
Speaker 1: ICAC inquiry or the Royal Commission.
Speaker 2: There's a few things unfolding as usual with nothing simple
Speaker 2: with Roger. Because we've mentioned one hundred and ten thousand
Speaker 2: dollars in the bank accounts. He's charged with that for
Speaker 2: conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. There's one hundred
Speaker 2: and ten grand in the bank false names, which I
Speaker 2: have to point out was not actually an offense. You
Speaker 2: could do it, but Roger doing it obviously attracted a
Speaker 2: fair bit of attention. He's charged with conspiring to permit
Speaker 2: the course of justice. He's convicted because his excuses as
Speaker 2: to where the money came from are not believed, and
Speaker 2: there's a critical witness who gives evidence against him and
Speaker 2: says what Roger says is a lie. He didn't get
Speaker 2: that money from me.
Speaker 3: So he goes.
Speaker 2: He sentenced to jail, He appeals, he wins his appeal
Speaker 2: in the Court of Criminal Appeal, bounces out of jail.
Speaker 2: He's served about twelve months and says, I always knew
Speaker 2: that justice would win through. I'm a firm believer in
Speaker 2: the system of justice. It's a triumph.
Speaker 1: And he's I remember that standing on the steps of her,
Speaker 1: and I.
Speaker 2: Think he's wearing an armed hold up squad tie even
Speaker 2: though he hasn't been there for a long time. For Roger,
Speaker 2: that party gets spoiled when the crown says, well we're
Speaker 2: going to appeal this all the way to the High Court.
Speaker 2: The High Court overturns his acquittal as it were, and says, Roger,
Speaker 2: you're going back to jail, back inside. So he's back inside.
Speaker 2: That's ninety two to ninety five. He serves three years.
Speaker 2: In the meantime, let's jump back to Ned. He's up
Speaker 2: for the murder charge of the tow truck driver Ronnie Flavel.
Speaker 2: He's out on bail. The following year, I think it
Speaker 2: is he decides that it might be a good idea
Speaker 2: to rob Botany Council armed robbery, armed hold up squad,
Speaker 2: not Roger, different armed hold up squad or different different
Speaker 2: detectives are waiting for him. He's caught red handed outside
Speaker 2: Botany Council with guns, you know, balaclav as, the whole
Speaker 2: box and dice.
Speaker 3: He's gone.
Speaker 2: He's absolutely gone, and so his freedom ends that day.
Speaker 2: Judges taking a fairly dim view of somebody already on
Speaker 2: bail for murder, committing an armed robbery, and he never
Speaker 2: gets he never gets out.
Speaker 1: Not a good look, but he managed to bring himself unstuck.
Speaker 1: We're talking Ned here. When he was in prison because
Speaker 1: he had a big mouth and was talking to his
Speaker 1: cellmate about a number of crimes. And I think it
Speaker 1: was that John Waycock, I think was heading up a
Speaker 1: strike force related to that with seven murders. And he
Speaker 1: was in fact charge with multiple murders, wasn't he on
Speaker 1: the back of admissions he'd made to a fellow prisoner.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. So he's in jail for the murder of Ronnie Flavell.
Speaker 2: So he's in jail for life. Well, and life doesn't
Speaker 2: mean in those days life. It means probably about twelve
Speaker 2: fifteen years. But while he's in jail, he's trying to
Speaker 2: get out and he goes to various authorities with allegations
Speaker 2: of police corruption. That comes to pretty much nothing, although
Speaker 2: there is a public inquiry and there's a lot of publicity.
Speaker 2: But for Ned, by the mid nineties, he's still languishing
Speaker 2: in prison and he's not on protection, but he's in
Speaker 2: a particular part of the jail which houses prison informers.
Speaker 2: An informer comes in to his unit. It's called a unit.
Speaker 2: There are two cells and there's a very small common
Speaker 2: area that both prisoners can use. Ned gets chatting to
Speaker 2: this prisoner and he knows that the other bloke's an
Speaker 2: informer as well, because that's why he's in this particular
Speaker 2: unit of the prison.
Speaker 1: I'm familiar with the area.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's not like oh so. Ned proves to
Speaker 2: be his own worst enemy big time, not being able
Speaker 2: to help himself. He starts to talk to this prisoner
Speaker 2: in the book, I've called him Terry, obviously not his
Speaker 2: real name. Terry has been in a bit of st
Speaker 2: life all his life, most of his adult life, and
Speaker 2: he tells me this in an interview. He said, he said, geez,
Speaker 2: he just kept.
Speaker 3: On going on and on and on.
Speaker 2: I felt like saying, shut the f up. But then Terry,
Speaker 2: obviously having been around the system, goes, well, maybe I
Speaker 2: can turn this to my advantage. He contacts his case officer,
Speaker 2: New South Wales detective and the cops go, oh, this
Speaker 2: could be good, could be worthwhile. They plant a listening
Speaker 2: device in a computer that's being used in the cell,
Speaker 2: and that then records Ned confessing to the murder of
Speaker 2: Sally and Huckstep, a small time crook that knew Ned
Speaker 2: very well, called Harvey Jones. He confesses to another murder
Speaker 2: of a drug dealer, Luton Shu, who was found buried
Speaker 2: south of Sydney. He confesses in all to a significant
Speaker 2: number of murders. This is all tape recorder, so it's
Speaker 2: not like a prison informer going, oh, he told me this.
Speaker 2: He told me that they've got a gone tape. Ned's
Speaker 2: been round about nineteen ninety six. Ned is charged with
Speaker 2: seven of the murders to which he's confessed. They don't
Speaker 2: charge him with all of the ones, because sometimes there's
Speaker 2: not enough robborative evidence, but seven's not a bad start.
Speaker 2: He's convicted of the murder of Harvey Jones, who was
Speaker 2: sort of He was a tall, lanky bloke that used
Speaker 2: to hang around with Ned. He was a sort of
Speaker 2: a wannabe gangster. You know his last scene I think
Speaker 2: with Ned at the Star Hotel. Ned confesses to this
Speaker 2: cell mate. He says, oh, this is Harvey Jones. You
Speaker 2: know he was becoming a pest. I blew his heart
Speaker 2: out with a big three five seven revolver and he
Speaker 2: describes also in this tape according where he's got rid
Speaker 2: of him near.
Speaker 3: The airport.
Speaker 2: At that stage. Harvey Jones. His body has never been found,
Speaker 2: but fortuitously not for Ned, but luckily for the investigating police.
Speaker 2: About six months after Ned makes that confession to his
Speaker 2: prisoner mate. The remains of Harvey Jones are discovered pretty
Speaker 2: much exactly where Ned said he buried him.
Speaker 3: That'll do it, and that will do it.
Speaker 2: And also the bullet fragments saw whatever they were. The
Speaker 2: ballistics evidence supports the fact that a three five seven
Speaker 2: revolver was used. Could have been a thirty eight, but
Speaker 2: it's consistent also with a three five seven. So what
Speaker 2: Ned has said in jail and been recorded matches up
Speaker 2: with what is found.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because he was only convicted of the Harvey
Speaker 1: Jones one. He's found not guilty sally an hugstep, but
Speaker 1: the fact that for ture of the corroborative evidence was
Speaker 1: discovered on that that probably sealed the deal on him
Speaker 1: being convicted of that. It leads you to say he
Speaker 1: wasn't talking all fantasy that what he was talking about
Speaker 1: the other one so.
Speaker 2: Well that he claimed he was just making it all.
Speaker 1: Up, you know, big coincidence with Harvey.
Speaker 2: Big coincidence with Harvey. And also there was a witness
Speaker 2: who helped bury Harvey's body who eventually came forward and said, yeah,
Speaker 2: I was there and I helped bury the body. So
Speaker 2: between the secret jail recordings, the location of Harvey's body
Speaker 2: when Ed said he'd put it out of the Informer,
Speaker 2: He's gone for all money on that one. Look, he
Speaker 2: tried to claim he was making all this stuff, this
Speaker 2: stuff up, that he was big noting. The trouble is
Speaker 2: that a lot of it. You know, he knew these people.
Speaker 2: He'd written about it in some of his books.
Speaker 3: He'd written about knowing a lot of these people.
Speaker 1: Now, it might take you into a psychology of hard
Speaker 1: working police. I say, but I was working on a
Speaker 1: strike force at police headquarters, and that strikeforce investigating those
Speaker 1: seven murders was working in another incident room beside me.
Speaker 1: I had two people on my investigation that was a
Speaker 1: serial killer, and they had about a dozen people in
Speaker 1: their strikeforce room. And I'd always complained, it can't be
Speaker 1: that hard. You've read a book like come and help
Speaker 1: me work on my investigation. But yeah, just reminded me
Speaker 1: of a time I'm stuck on my own on one
Speaker 1: side and they are on the other side investigating that
Speaker 1: that he'd written about it.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, he'd partly written about Harvey Jones, how he
Speaker 2: was a pest a plane on the backside.
Speaker 3: Of course, all this is produced.
Speaker 2: In court against him, and it's his own words, although
Speaker 2: I've read the transcript of that one. At one stage
Speaker 2: he said, I didn't write that. I didn't write that
Speaker 2: in those are not my words. Somebody else wrote those.
Speaker 1: Which is there any part of your book you want
Speaker 1: to take out?
Speaker 3: No, not so far.
Speaker 2: So look he's yeah, of course, he says, Oh, this
Speaker 2: is corrupt New South Wales police getting back at him
Speaker 2: for making allegations. And that defense is run, and you
Speaker 2: know it's run very strongly by by his barrister, Winston Terracini,
Speaker 2: who you know it makes a very very good.
Speaker 3: Case for it. But you know, Winston's never backward in
Speaker 3: case he is.
Speaker 2: Not backward, and he is he is. You know some
Speaker 2: of the stuff he said, I've quoted it in the book.
Speaker 2: It's it's terrific. I mean, ned could not say he
Speaker 2: did not get a good defense in any of the cases.
Speaker 2: But look, at the end of the day, he's convicted
Speaker 2: of Harvey Jones and he is sentenced to life, meaning life,
Speaker 2: he's never getting out. He beats the charge of murdering
Speaker 2: Sally an Huckstep, although personally I think he's good for it,
Speaker 2: and they don't proceed with the others.
Speaker 1: The others, but he's in jail for life. He was
Speaker 1: suffering parkets and disease. Yeah, ladder part of his life.
Speaker 1: And what year did he pass away in He passed
Speaker 1: away a couple of years ago, seventy six at the time.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Look, he probably lived a lot longer than most
Speaker 2: people thought because he did have Parkinson's. It obviously got
Speaker 2: progressively worse. When I met him that time at lunch
Speaker 2: at Prunier's restaurant, I didn't discern any Parkinson's. He did
Speaker 2: have it, but it wasn't it wasn't noticeable or I
Speaker 2: can't remember it. But yeah, he got a lot worse
Speaker 2: than in the end, he was pretty much unable to
Speaker 2: look after himself in jail.
Speaker 1: Okay, Roger Tales of Roger. He ended with a grand
Speaker 1: finish with the Jamie gow murder, but in the lead
Speaker 1: up to that he got put back inside for another
Speaker 1: was it line to the line to the Police Integrity Commission?
Speaker 2: Yeah, he gets caught for perjury. He's called to an
Speaker 2: inquiry and Roger's doing some building work, you know, minor
Speaker 2: building work, as we've discussed, and he's got a mate
Speaker 2: at Liverpool Council who's helping him get some work. The
Speaker 2: bloke at Liverpool Council is known as mister ten percent
Speaker 2: because when he gave out the contract, you'd.
Speaker 1: Get there anyone clean, well, good.
Speaker 2: Old Sydney councils. I mean, you know, there's a long
Speaker 2: I wouldn't say proud tradition. But anyway, the contract is
Speaker 2: Roger's getting some work. I think he might have got
Speaker 2: about fifty grands worth. And he's called to this inquiry
Speaker 2: and he's asked, oh was this bloke. Did you ever
Speaker 2: describe this bloke as mister ten percent?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: No, no, no no, did you ever pay him ten percent?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: No, no, it's all rubbish. Of course they've got Roger's
Speaker 2: house bugged. They then playing the tape recordings and Roger's
Speaker 2: there might have been even on Christmas Day, and he's going,
Speaker 2: oh so, and so he's known as mister ten percent.
Speaker 2: I've got to put ten percent aside.
Speaker 3: He's lied.
Speaker 2: He's gone for perjury and I think that was the
Speaker 2: late nineties, but he doesn't actually go to jail until
Speaker 2: about two thousand and five. It's a long drawn out process.
Speaker 1: And I could imagine Roger going into that he'd be thinking.
Speaker 1: He'd almost enjoy it, like it'd almost give him a
Speaker 1: little bit. Yeah, I can play this. This is what
Speaker 1: an inquiry. I'll just talk my way out of that.
Speaker 2: You read the transcript, and it sounds like that at
Speaker 2: one stage he's been asked about something or other and
Speaker 2: he says, I can't remember, you know, my memory is
Speaker 2: not what it used to be. And the barrister who's
Speaker 2: cross examined him and he says, oh, maybe you can
Speaker 2: have a bit of a think, and Roger says, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'll give it a oil and grease change and get
Speaker 2: it ready for the next time, you know, And it's
Speaker 2: this sort of humorous throwaway line.
Speaker 1: I don't like him, the shame that the crimes he's
Speaker 1: committed and the shame he's brought on police, but there's
Speaker 1: something about him. It's just yeah, there's he just keeps
Speaker 1: kept turning up, didn't he?
Speaker 2: He kept turning up. And look, I've got to be
Speaker 2: in the book, I say in the prologue. I've said
Speaker 2: I met him a lot over many years. He was
Speaker 2: good company. I liked him. I mean it was if
Speaker 2: you were around Roger for a while, it was almost
Speaker 2: impossible not to like him. It's not to say I
Speaker 2: wasn't aware of who he was good company. I suppose
Speaker 2: you could describe it as terrific company.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: I always had a good story or had the latest,
Speaker 2: not not gossip. But he continued, even when he gets
Speaker 2: out of the cops, he continues to mix with all
Speaker 2: these crooks, so he still knows everybody and in the city.
Speaker 1: I wondered quite often his name had get dropped when
Speaker 1: I was on investigations or whatever. And I'm not sure
Speaker 1: if it was people just trading off his rep or
Speaker 1: whether he was really involved in things. It's yeah, it
Speaker 1: was a bit of a mystery.
Speaker 2: Oh look, I think people have often used his name,
Speaker 2: and it's happened to me. A couple of people have
Speaker 2: come up and said, oh, yeah, Roger did this, Roger
Speaker 2: did that, And I said, oh, when was that and
Speaker 2: they said, oh, I was, say the late nineties, and
Speaker 2: they're saying he's in the police force, and I'm going,
Speaker 2: maybe he wasn't in the police force then, and they go, oh, oh,
Speaker 2: maybe it wasn't him. I think Roger's name got bandied
Speaker 2: around a lot because it was convenient, you know.
Speaker 1: Well, either way, it made people think and ah, they connected,
Speaker 1: they know Roger. I'll get Roger to come and speak
Speaker 1: to you, or something like that. So his name could
Speaker 1: be used in that way. But he certainly didn't share
Speaker 1: any remorse or embarrassment. He was doing his stage show
Speaker 1: with Chopper Read and yeah, you hear snippets of the
Speaker 1: stage show. You would have seen it. But there was
Speaker 1: no remorse for the people that were killed.
Speaker 2: Oh, there was no remorse for anybody. He turned it
Speaker 2: to his advantage, and he was sometimes macabre in some
Speaker 2: of the things he said. And I remember something about
Speaker 2: the Philip Western shooting. And for many years Roger actually
Speaker 2: claimed he was one of the police that had shot
Speaker 2: Philip Weston, the arm drobber who was killed up at Avoca.
Speaker 2: And in his stage shows he would say something like,
Speaker 2: you know, we had Philip Weston surrounded, I had my shotgun.
Speaker 2: He Western stuck his head out of a bathroom window.
Speaker 2: We all let fly with the remington blew his head off.
Speaker 2: His dear old mum, Alice Blossom Western could only identify
Speaker 2: him by his ingrown toenails because there was nothing left
Speaker 2: of his head. And you know, you'd sort of go, oh,
Speaker 2: you know, and I know a lot of his colleagues
Speaker 2: were going, what's he doing? For a start, you know,
Speaker 2: Roger didn't s Philip Western. He was there, but he
Speaker 2: didn't actually shoot him, even though he told me he did,
Speaker 2: And at that stage many years ago, Gary I believed him.
Speaker 2: I mean, I didn't know why he would confess to
Speaker 2: that if he hadn't done it. But I think he
Speaker 2: just thought it added.
Speaker 3: To his notoriety trade off it. But those sort of stories.
Speaker 1: But not show any remorse. All the times I've seen
Speaker 1: police involved in shooting incidents, especially if they're pulled the
Speaker 1: trigger and someone's being killed, they're not celebrating that the
Speaker 1: impacts deeply on them and that they carry it for
Speaker 1: the rest of their lives. And yeah, yeah, that's right
Speaker 1: a normal person.
Speaker 2: I don't think he had any remorse about any of
Speaker 2: the crimes or shootings. Sorry ever, I think the only
Speaker 2: remorse he ever showed was in relationship to his family,
Speaker 2: to his daughters, his wife. I think he was genuinely
Speaker 2: remorseful about that. But about the shooting of land Francie
Speaker 2: butchy Burn, Philip Western, you know, any case he was
Speaker 2: deeply involved in, I don't think there was any remorse there.
Speaker 2: At all, and he felt he certainly felt for a
Speaker 2: long time their bitterness that he'd been betrayed by the
Speaker 2: you know, the new broom in the New South Wales
Speaker 2: Police Force, because I think I think he said something,
Speaker 2: you know, like you know, I was just doing what
Speaker 2: we'd always done and all of a sudden they shifted
Speaker 2: the guy post.
Speaker 1: So I can understand him having that you created me.
Speaker 1: Now you now you're you're shaming me for doing what
Speaker 1: you wanted me to do. Yeah, but like I can
Speaker 1: tell you, Roger across that it was just a lie.
Speaker 1: He was on another planet.
Speaker 3: That was.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like they would put tough people together to
Speaker 1: do tough jobs. And I respect that and respect the
Speaker 1: jobs that these guys would do. Roger just took it
Speaker 1: to a completely different level. And I think and I
Speaker 1: got a sort of i'd not say satisfaction because someone
Speaker 1: was murdered, Jamie Gower, even if he was tied up
Speaker 1: in drugs, he didn't deserve what happened to him. But
Speaker 1: seeing Roger come unstuck in such a I call it
Speaker 1: almost comical way where he's walking captured on CCTV, walking
Speaker 1: with his hip and the waddle and all that like,
Speaker 1: he just to me, it just showed someone to me,
Speaker 1: it was embarrassing for a detective to get caught in
Speaker 1: so many ways. He got caught on that particular murder.
Speaker 1: Do you want to just tell us briefly about that.
Speaker 1: We've had Russell Oxford on the show, and Russell gave
Speaker 1: us a very good insight into that investigation, but just
Speaker 1: a brief overview of that.
Speaker 2: Well, Russell Oxford certainly knows a lot more about it
Speaker 2: than I do.
Speaker 3: But I mean, you.
Speaker 2: Know, the year before he's charged with the shooting of
Speaker 2: Jamie Goar twenty fourteen, just a few months before, Roger
Speaker 2: had appeared in a civil matter and he was sort
Speaker 2: of sitting there going, this is in court, and he's
Speaker 2: sitting there going, oh, you know, I've I wouldn't be
Speaker 2: committing crimes at my age, you know, he said, I'm
Speaker 2: sort of past that if I did, I'd probably be caught.
Speaker 3: Lo and behold.
Speaker 2: Twenty fourteen, Jamie Gower gets shot and as Russell's explained,
Speaker 2: storage unit and there's all this CCTV of Roger with
Speaker 2: his very distinctive gait.
Speaker 3: I mean, he had.
Speaker 2: A bad hip, he had a bad shoulder. I think
Speaker 2: he had arthritis and he had gout.
Speaker 3: It was like a wattle.
Speaker 2: It was a wattle, yeah, and you know you sort
Speaker 2: of shake your head. I remember when it first hit
Speaker 2: the headlines, The Daily Telegraph had a great scoop Rogerson
Speaker 2: wanted for murder and I'm just going what you know?
Speaker 2: And I rang an old colleague of his and I said,
Speaker 2: I you've seen Roger lately, like in the previous month
Speaker 2: or two.
Speaker 3: And he said.
Speaker 2: Something like yeah, I saw him a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 2: I said, as he still got all his marbles And
Speaker 2: there was a pause and he said sharp as attack.
Speaker 2: And I went wow, because by then it was emerging
Speaker 2: that he'd been caught on which was gathered up, hoovered
Speaker 2: up by Russell Oxford and his team, amongst many other things,
Speaker 2: into an overwhelming case which I just can't figure out,
Speaker 2: perhaps like yourself, as to why or how he thought
Speaker 2: he was going to get away with that, I mean,
Speaker 2: and also why at seventy three.
Speaker 1: A time to retire for all of us, isn't it?
Speaker 3: Well there is.
Speaker 1: Seventy three and tied up in the drug trade and murder.
Speaker 2: So yeah, it's an extraordinary end to what could have
Speaker 2: been a glittering career. If he'd stayed well more on
Speaker 2: the straight and narrow and not as you say, not
Speaker 2: just cross the line, but across the planet.
Speaker 1: I think he was tried to appeal the sentence, didn't
Speaker 1: he there was?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: They well he and it was his good mate. We
Speaker 1: should give a shout out to him, the idiot Glenn McNamara.
Speaker 3: The yeah.
Speaker 2: How he and Roger met him for the first time
Speaker 2: in around twenty eleven. They are a very odd couple.
Speaker 2: Why Roger was hooking up with a guy who was
Speaker 2: a a pedestrian police officer, I think.
Speaker 1: Is because when yeah, I think that's a good way
Speaker 1: of saying that. Glenn McNamara, former New South Wales cop
Speaker 1: and I think detective people who'd asked me about him
Speaker 1: and I said, I've never heard of him. I can't
Speaker 1: think of anything that he's done and not good, bad,
Speaker 1: or indifferent. He was just a nothing in the cops.
Speaker 2: He made up part of his story. He wrote a
Speaker 2: book round about twenty ten and he tells this story
Speaker 2: about how was a detective he was with another detective
Speaker 2: was on the tale of Warren land Franchi. Just days
Speaker 2: before land Francie was shot by Roger. He recounts this
Speaker 2: in his book, says, oh, we couldn't find him, which
Speaker 2: was bad luck for Warren because a few days later
Speaker 2: he shot dead. He's not a detective. He's in uniform
Speaker 2: at Sutherland at the very time. He says, he's working
Speaker 2: as a detective and chasing land French. It never happened.
Speaker 1: Sounds like a water mythy type came, yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean it is. And another one of.
Speaker 2: His big cases was the biking Father's Day massacre. I
Speaker 2: asked somebody who was there, and they said, well, if
Speaker 2: he was there, he was directing traffic. So he's he's
Speaker 2: either a fantastist or just a good old fashioned I'm
Speaker 2: not sure if I'm allowed to say bullshit artist. So
Speaker 2: he was making stuff up, and yeah, look, it's a mystery.
Speaker 2: The only thing I can think is that Roger thought
Speaker 2: he could be useful because he could manipulate him and
Speaker 2: use him. That's the only thing I can think.
Speaker 1: That's and I'm looking completely from the outside, but that's
Speaker 1: what I was thinking, just some numb school that he
Speaker 1: would be in awe of Roger and just Roger could
Speaker 1: get him doing whatever he wanted to do. Now, Roger
Speaker 1: he passed away this year and there was a lot
Speaker 1: of attension about that, and it just sort of reflects
Speaker 1: on the impact he's had in the psyche of their
Speaker 1: city in Sydney. Do you, Neil, think this type of
Speaker 1: thing could ever flourish again or occur again, or do
Speaker 1: you think there's too many checks and balances for the
Speaker 1: world to go off balance like it did with this
Speaker 1: at least pair.
Speaker 2: You certainly hope that it wouldn't happen again. And I
Speaker 2: can't see it happening again. I mean, there's now a
Speaker 2: lot more supervision within detectives, within squads. You've got the
Speaker 2: Police Integrity Commission, you've got the Independent Commission against Corruption,
Speaker 2: You've got those sort of bodies. No, I just can't
Speaker 2: see it. He was the product partly of his era
Speaker 2: when that was he'd grown up with that. He went
Speaker 2: into the fours at seventeen. That's the way things had
Speaker 2: always been done, and he didn't sort of realize that
Speaker 2: the times they were changing musical.
Speaker 1: Chairs and the music stop and you were still standing.
Speaker 2: Still standing. Yeah, No, I can't see it happening again.
Speaker 2: And no, I mean there's sometimes a bit of nostalgia,
Speaker 2: you know. Somebody said once. Oh, you know, we need
Speaker 2: more good We need more cops like Roger Rogerson to
Speaker 2: give people a good kick up the ass, like the
Speaker 2: good old days and the good old days, well they
Speaker 2: were good old days in some ways, but they're pretty
Speaker 2: bad as well. When you look at Roger.
Speaker 1: I think it's like, all, yeah, you look back in
Speaker 1: the twenties and the thirties or policing in the depression.
Speaker 1: You're hard people. They need hard cops. It changes of
Speaker 1: the evolves. You need smart people, you need strong people
Speaker 1: as well. But because I know people that were in
Speaker 1: that same vintage as what Roger went through in the cops,
Speaker 1: and there were some hard, hard men and women, but
Speaker 1: with a different way of approaching policing. This is what
Speaker 1: they were shame when they came in, But the world
Speaker 1: had changed. I think we've Roger. What the noise me
Speaker 1: about him is. I love hard policing. I like the
Speaker 1: people that have got the reputation of doing the right things.
Speaker 1: Some great police officers that you know, I know that
Speaker 1: have gone through and Roger sort of tainted it for
Speaker 1: a lot of people. Roger tainted it for a lot
Speaker 1: of people that well, we've got to be careful of
Speaker 1: that because look what we created. We've created Roger. I
Speaker 1: think we still need strong characters in the police, but
Speaker 1: with a moral compass.
Speaker 2: That clearly that's right, And I agree entirely with you
Speaker 2: that people who worked with Roger were tainted and often
Speaker 2: unfairly and some of them were hard men because they
Speaker 2: were pretty much were all men back then. But it
Speaker 2: was a pretty bloody hard job, and most of them,
Speaker 2: in my opinion, maintained some sort of compass. There might
Speaker 2: have been a few things, but they weren't running around
Speaker 2: doing what Roger was doing. They certainly weren't boasting about it.
Speaker 2: They weren't seeking the limelight. And you know, sure we
Speaker 2: do need hard cops. We need detectives who you know,
Speaker 2: I wouldn't use the word intimidating, certainly not to the public,
Speaker 2: but you need hard detectives, you know, to who criminals
Speaker 2: look at and go, oh, I really don't want to
Speaker 2: run into that bloke or that woman because I know
Speaker 2: I'm going to be in trouble.
Speaker 1: At one hundred percent. And that's sort of tapping into
Speaker 1: what I was saying. What Roger's created is that it's
Speaker 1: very easy to slap that down because it's not when
Speaker 1: I was a young detective, I was inspired by people
Speaker 1: that had a reputation and I was thinking, look at
Speaker 1: how they do their work. Roger where I don't like
Speaker 1: him for a thousand reasons, But what pisces me off
Speaker 1: is that the hard detectives are being shamed by people
Speaker 1: like that. Policing is a robust sports. Sometimes it's a
Speaker 1: contact sport, ye, and you've got to be prepared to
Speaker 1: get in there, and if you can do it and
Speaker 1: hold that moral compass, that's the way to go. But
Speaker 1: Roger's a classic example of not. But I agree with
Speaker 1: you are just probably finish off because we've talked about
Speaker 1: a bygone era. There are too many checks and balances
Speaker 1: in place now in policing. I can't see it ever
Speaker 1: happening again. I think even the media are not so
Speaker 1: in bed with the police in most circumstances and the
Speaker 1: courts that you need autonomy between all those areas, the courts,
Speaker 1: media and the police. So I can't see it happening.
Speaker 1: If it does, it's going to be fascinating if they
Speaker 1: can outplate play these two.
Speaker 2: I don't think it will ever be as gritty or
Speaker 2: bad or colorful as that era of the sort of
Speaker 2: the seventies and early eighties and those two guys, Rogerson
Speaker 2: and need you know wow, so much happened around them,
Speaker 2: so many shootings, people who cross their paths, disappearing. I mean,
Speaker 2: hopefully we're not going to see that again.
Speaker 3: Ever.
Speaker 1: Well, I'll give a shout out to your book too, Neil,
Speaker 1: because yeah, as I said, I understood that world, but
Speaker 1: that's a deep dive into it. So the Kingping and
Speaker 1: the crooked cop, it's a good breed and I see
Speaker 1: it now as part of folk law and history at
Speaker 1: that time. Thanks for coming on, I catch killers.
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me cheers.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of you have probably seen that
Speaker 1: TV series Blue Murder about Roger Rogerson and Neddie Smith
Speaker 1: and things that went on in Sydney's underworld in the
Speaker 1: seventies and eighties. Well, today I've spoken to Neil Mercer
Speaker 1: and he's given us a full proper insight into that world.
Speaker 1: And let me tear it was murky, and I learned
Speaker 1: things I thought I knew about what went on with
Speaker 1: Roger Rogerson and Neddie Smith. But I've got to say
Speaker 1: the extent of their brazenness and criminality is just sex
Speaker 1: year old there, and dabe it never happens again.