OFFICIAL CORRUPTION COMMISSION AMENDMENT BILL

In addition, committee staff visited New York and met the authors of the Mollen
report, of the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Police Corruption and
the Anti-Corruption Procedures of the New York City Police Department, and had a
close look at the structures in place for regulation of the New York City Police
Department.

Having looked at all of those jurisdictions and all of the available models, the
committee proposed the model contained within its report - a police
anticorruption commission.

Much of the debate this evening has centred on the Wood royal commission and its
comments about the Independent Commission against Corruption in New South Wales.
Paragraph 5.20 on page 91 of the Interim Report of the Royal Commission into the
New South Wales Police Service states -

Careful consideration has been given to the option of establishing a
dedicated Police Corruption Unit or Division within the ICAC, as was
canvassed in a number of submissions. It is not favoured for several
reasons . . .

The submissions recommending a dedicated police corruption unit or division
within ICAC, rejected by the Wood royal commission, are instructive. Those
submissions were made by the Police Officers Association; the New South Wales
Council for Civil Liberties; the New South Wales Ombudsman; the New South Wales
Police Service; and the Police Board of New South Wales. The New South Wales
Police Service or its agencies were plugging for a unit within the Independent
Commission Against Corruption, but the Wood royal commission rejected that. On
pages 91 and 92 of its interim report, it explains why it came to the conclusion
that that model was inappropriate for New South Wales. The assessment of the
Wood royal commission is instructive when it talks about the appropriateness of
a specialised police investigative unit within ICAC and its determination
against that model. The first assessment of ICAC, in paragraph 3.118 on page 68
of the interim report states -

The ICAC has greater powers than those of this Royal Commission, for
example, telephone interception powers. However, when ICAC has tackled
police corruption the results have been limited. The Milloo investigation
-

This is the one involving Roger Rogerson and Neddy Smith -

- was its most significant investigation in this area, yet in retrospect
it seems to have been an opportunity lost, which resulted in limited
convictions and the enforced departure of few corrupt officers from the
Service. At the conclusion of that inquiry Mr Temby QC, then
Commissioner, publicly stated that maybe it was time to leave the Police
Service alone for a while to `prove its capacity to achieve its own
reforms which are likely to be the most lasting and beneficial'.

It may be that, as a result, there was a degree of relaxation, both by the
Police Service and the ICAC, in relation to corruption within the Service.
If so, that was an unfortunate outcome of Milloo.

If the relationship between Roger Rogerson and Neddy Smith and all of the
attendant corruption within the New South Wales Police Service that flowed from
that relationship had been vigorously investigated, the shocking revelations of
the Wood royal commission would have been brought out earlier. The Independent
Commission Against Corruption had those powers, but it chose not to pursue the
investigations vigorously. It said, "Leave the Police Service alone for a
while, to prove its capacity to achieve its own reforms." At paragraph 3.119 of
its interim report, the Wood royal commission states -

The ICAC has had the opportunity to be aggressively proactive in the light
of the material supplied by the NCA, NSWCC and the Ombudsman concerning
corruption. However, investigative techniques of the kind adopted by this
Commission appear not to have been favoured, and corruption has continued,
of a kind and to an extent which appears to be significant.

There is no doubting the powers of the New South Wales Independent Commission
Against Corruption. In the estimation of Commissioner Wood, ICAC had greater
powers than did his royal commission. However, it chose not to pursue the
corruption that was revealed in the Roger Rogerson-Neddy Smith investigation.

One must accept that the Wood royal commission was not favourably disposed to
the ICAC model. However, that was not because of the model.

The interim report of the Select Committee on the Western Australian Police
Service of October 1995 gives a quite different estimation of the same model
operating in a different jurisdiction - the Hong Kong Independent Commission
Against Corruption - and with a quite different commitment and outcomes.
Therefore, it is a question not of the model being inappropriate, but of the
willingness of the officers involved, and the Government which provides the
resources for that independent commission, to pursue allegations of corruption.
That is not merely within the Police Service, because both ICAC New South Wales
and ICAC Hong Kong have a responsibility to pursue corruption across the whole
of the public sector, but Wood found that most of the work of those two bodies,
if they chose to pursue it, would relate to police corruption. In ICAC Hong
Kong, there was a vigorous pursuit of police corruption; in ICAC New South
Wales, there was not. It was a question of choice. It was not a question of
power, of authority, or of the organisational model of the investigative
authority.

When the Wood royal commission addressed the question of whether there should be
a dedicated police corruption unit or division within ICAC, as was proposed
largely by the submissions of agencies or bodies associated with the New South
Wales Police Service, or a new purpose built agency, it rejected the proposal
for a dedicated unit or division within ICAC. Its reasons are pertinent to ICAC
New South Wales but are not pertinent to that model which has been applied in
New South Wales. Its reasons are that there is a public perception that ICAC
has failed to tackle police corruption or to use its coercive and other powers
with sufficient determination and initiative, necessitating the establishment of
the royal commission.

Neddy Gives Rogerson A Dressing Down

Sun Herald

Sunday March 24, 1996

By EVAN WHITTON

ARTHUR Stanley "Neddy" Smith, 51, accused of seven murders, is a big man with greying hair thin on top, very dark eyes, and a pallid complexion as smooth as a baby's.

From time to time his head rotates; he has had Parkinson's Disease since 1980; it is a slow death, not a killer.

Smith usually wears an open neck shirt and a cardigan at his committal hearing, but last Thursday he appeared in a beautiful grey suit and a spectacular tie.

This may have been connected with the fact that Roger Caleb Rogerson, 55, looking rather nondescript in a windbreaker and no tie, had suddenly appeared the previous afternoon to give evidence for the prosecution. There was a notable lack of eye contact between the two old acquaintances.

Rogerson pronounced his second name as Kay-leb and gave his occupation, after some thought, as factory worker.

He said those in charge of the Armed Holdup (AHU) Squad in his time (1974-1982) were Matt Carmody, Noel Morey and a Mr Morrison. He was dismissed from the police force-for reasons of a vendetta by senior police, he said-in April 1986.

He agreed with prosecutor Christopher Maxwell, QC, that he had a criminal conviction in 1990 for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

Charges against Smith include the murders of Harvey Francis Jones, 29, brothel-keeper, on or about Friday, July 15, 1983; Sallie-Anne Huckstepp, 32, at Centennial Park on the night of Thursday/Friday, February 6/7, 1986; and Barry "Sugar" Croft, 49, heroin dealer, at Chippendale on Thursday, August 6, 1987.

Rogerson told Maxwell it was "ridiculous" to suggest that in 1983 Harvey Jones "was attempting to get $60,000 to pay you (Rogerson) and associates to get him off a charge".

He had an alibi for Huckstepp's murder, and said he did not tell Smith it would be "best to get rid of Croft".

His evidence-in-chief took 18 minutes; his cross-examination by Winston Terracini, based on Smith's instructions, has thus far occupied five hours.

Smith was Rogerson's informant from 1976. The black-bearded Terracini, looking perhaps like a smallish but perfectly formed version of the late Dr WG Grace, suggested that their relationship was rather more than that, but Rogerson insisted that Smith "gave me information; I didn't give him information".

Rogerson denied giving Smith "information about other crimes", taking "money off Smith", or knowing that he "was heavily involved in criminal activities". Asked what Smith did for a living, he said: "He was a pensioner."

Terracini took Rogerson through some transcripts of telephone taps. On one 1983 tape he and Smith discuss ways of getting back $90,000 impounded by police some years before.

Smith's position was that the money belonged to his wife, Deborah. A solicitor code-named Mr White at these proceedings was representing Mrs Smith at the time.

Rogerson asks: "Have you spoken to (White)?"

"I've got his number," Smith replies; "he's out walking his girl up and down."

Terracini said Martina James, a friend of Rogerson's friend Morrie Nowytarger, alleged that she saw Rogerson at Lang Road (Centennial Park) on the night that Sallie-Anne Huckstepp was murdered.

Rogerson said: "I don't know how she could have seen me"; he was at the Merrylands Bowling Club with Sergeant Mal Spence and others at the time. He said he had been questioned about the murder a fortnight later because "there was an association between her and myself and Warren Lanfranchi."

Terracini: "Did you sign a record of interview?"

Rogerson: "No. I told them to piss off."

He said he and other members of the AHU Squad, John Bourke and Brian Harding, were involved in the arrests of Smith and Bobby Chapman in connection with an armed holdup of the Goodman Fielder Bakery in 1976.

Chapman got 13< years; none of the charges against Smith succeeded.

Terracini asked: "Did you and Bourke take $10,000 off Smith at Sydenham railway station?"

"No," Rogerson said. He could not remember whether he told Bourke, who was in charge of the case, that he gave evidence on behalf of Smith on one of his charges.

Rogerson denied that a former homicide officer, Angus McDonald, was a close friend in 1983, and corrected Terracini when he said McDonald was the husband of the "former" Governor of Queensland.

"Current Governor," he said.

His evidence was halted when Smith became indisposed and was taken to hospital.

Rogerson is an appellant in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal tomorrow and Tuesday; he will appear again before Magistrate Pat O'Shane on Wednesday.

A criminal code-named Mr Green has sworn he saw Smith standing over the body of Harvey Jones with revolvers at Botany Bay.

Another criminal, code-named Mr Brown, is still to give evidence of his conversations with Smith. Maxwell called Sergeant Stephen Reginald Foster, a former member of Operation Snowy, to give evidence touching on Green and Brown.

Foster, a tanned, stocky detective in a blue suit and nicely polished black brogues, said he examined the Iron Duke Hotel in Botany Road on May 29 last year and took part in an interview with Brown at Maitland police station on June 27.

He agreed with Terracini that "it came from Brown that Smith apparently alleged that he (Smith) killed Jones at the Iron Duke ... and his body was dumped off a boat".

He agreed he had been interested to ask an Alan Dillon about the death of Jones, and that he saw Dillon in the presence of Aarne Tees, "a former officer, now a barrister".

Tees had said: "Alan is concerned. He wants to know if he's a suspect. He is not prepared to make a statement."

Foster said he did not discuss with Brown any of a number of people he mostly referred to only by surname: Philip Western, Lanfranchi, Harding, Davidson or Rogerson. Nor did he "discuss any murders linking Harding, Davidson and Rogerson", nor "the murder of Christopher Dale Flannery".