3AW Sly on Roger Rogerson

"Recklessly brave" Rogerson charged

27 May, 2014 - 9:58 AM

Disgraced former detective Roger Rogerson has been charged with the murder of Sydney student Jamie Gao, and with large-scale drug supply.

Detectives arrested Rogerson at his home in Sydney's southwest on Tuesday morning and escorted him, handcuffed, out of his Padstow Heights premises.

He is due to appear in Bankstown Local Court on Tuesday afternoon.

73-year-old Rogerson is the second former police officer to be charged over Gao's murder, after ex-Kings Cross detective Glen McNamara was charged on Monday.

Mr Rogerson's solicitor, Paul Kenny, said he was disgusted his client had been arrested in his home after arrangements had been made for the 73-year-old to hand himself in at midday.

"What has occurred in Mr Rogerson's house is a complete disgrace," he said.

He said he had been in talks for more than 24 hours with two investigating officers from the Robbery and Serious Crime squad.

It's an intrigiung and tragic crime story. Speaking with Neil Mitchell, former assistant commissioner of NSW police, Clive Small sheds some light on his relationship with the notorious ex-policeman. 

“In the 1970s he was very well respected, was a very capable detective and a very good witness in court proceedings. It started coming undone publicly in 1981 when he shot Lanfranchi and it was downhill from there.”

Listen: Former assistant commissioner of NSW police, Clive Small, tells Neil Mitchell his interactions with Rogerson go back a long way

Speaking with Ross and John, Sly of the Underworld tells Ross and John about the disgraced former detective.

WANTED: Rogerson link to killing

The state's most notorious crooked police officer, Roger Rogerson, was on the run on Monday night as detectives sought to question him over the alleged murder of a Sydney university student during a botched drug deal.

Twenty-four hours after he indicated he would return from Brisbane to Sydney to answer questions, police were on Monday night unsure if the 73-year-old was still in Queensland where he was on a speaking tour.

Detectives want to speak to the disgraced former officer in relation to the murder of 20-year-old Jamie Gao at Padstow, in Sydney's south-west, last Tuesday.

A former Kings Cross detective turned author, Glen McNamara, 55, on Monday faced Kogarah Local Court where he was charged with the promising business student's murder, and large-scale drug supply.

Only hours earlier a body wrapped in a blue tarpaulin was found by a fisherman, floating off the coast at Cronulla. It is believed to be that of the missing Hurstville man.

Police will allege that Mr Gao was killed after a multimillion-dollar drug deal went wrong inside a rented storage shed last Tuesday afternoon.

Rogerson's friend, colourful business identity ''Big'' Jim Byrnes, said he was worried his mate might do something silly.

"I beg him to come forward and give himself up," said Mr Byrnes from Los Angeles. But he had "an awful feeling" Rogerson would do anything to avoid arrest.

Mr Rogerson's wife, Anne Melocco, told Fairfax Media she knew nothing about her husband's reported links to the alleged murder. ''I know nothing about it. Nothing at all,'' she said.

Police will allege that Mr Gao and two unknown associates went to Padstow at 1.30pm last Tuesday with three kilograms of the drug ice, worth a potential $3 million on the street, to meet with Mr McNamara and a second man, believed to be Mr Rogerson.

Mr Gao, Mr McNamara and the man believed to be Mr Rogerson got into a car and drove a short distance of only a few hundred metres to a nearby storage facility.

Police will allege that three men walked into the storage shed but an hour later security footage shows only the two former police officers walking out. Mr Gao was reported missing to police the next day.

The head of the Robbery and Serious Crime Squad, Detective Superintendent Luke Moore, said detectives were still trying to determine what had transpired during that alleged drug deal for it to turn deadly. He said Mr Gao had gone to the meeting voluntarily.

Mr McNamara's arrest on Sunday evening came only hours after Superintendent Moore appealed for information about the disappearance of the University of Technology, Sydney student, saying the circumstances suggested foul play. Mr McNamara, who was pulled over during a traffic stop at Kyeemagh in Sydney's south, was questioned overnight before being charged with murder and drug offences. His Cronulla home has been searched by police and a blue Ford Falcon XR6 was seized from his premises.

Mr Rogerson's Padstow Heights home was also searched and a car, a silver Ford Falcon, was taken away. Police also searched a storage unit at Caringbah where a boat was taken away for forensic testing.

A third car, a silver Ford Falcon, was found at another location in Cronulla. It is this car detectives believe Mr Gao got into on Arab Road last Tuesday.

Mr Byrnes said that Mr Rogerson had introduced him to Mr McNamara about 18 months ago.

Mr Byrnes said he hired the pair to find evidence to clear his name following his 1983 jailing for possession of heroin.

"He and Roger were both on the case," said Mr Byrnes, who has paid Mr McNamara between $20,000 and $30,000 for his work as a private detective on the case.

NICK RALSTON, KATE MCCLYMONT

27 May, 2014 03:00 AM

State's most famous corrupt cop back in headlines at age 73

It was in June 1996 when new police commissioner Peter Ryan, fresh off the plane from London, was asked how he would deal with someone like a Roger Rogerson in the force.

The commissioner, with a quizzical look, asked: ''Who is Roger Rogerson?'' The press tittered.

Roger Caleb Rogerson was the state's most famous corrupt cop.

Rogerson himself once quipped that he should change his name by deed poll to ''Disgraced'' as that was what the media constantly called the twice jailed former detective.

As a police officer, Rogerson was present on two occasions when police shot and killed people, and on another two occasions he shot and killed people himself. One of those was the heroin dealer Warren Lanfranchi, whom Rogerson shot and killed in a laneway in Chippendale in June 1981. He claimed he was acting in self-defence but Lanfranchi was unarmed. Rogerson's infamy was heightened after the screening of Ian David's series Blue Murder.

When asked about the famous scene where Lanfranchi was shot, Rogerson said: ''I mean, he made it out to be this f---ing conspiracy between the 18 coppers who were there that day, when really it was just a Saturday afternoon's work as far as we were concerned.''

Rogerson was also charged with conspiring with two criminals to murder undercover drug squad officer Michael Drury in 1989 but was later acquitted.

Rogerson was drummed out of the police force in 1986. His notoriety was further exacerbated by a sensational investigation by the Independent Commission Against Corruption which revealed Rogerson was on first-name terms with the major organised crime figures of the day including Arthur ''Neddy'' Smith, now jailed for life, and missing hitman Christopher Dale Flannery. He spent three years in jail after his 1990 conviction for perverting the course of justice over a $110,000 payment deposited by him into a bank account under a false name. After he was released from his second stint in jail in 2006 for lying to the Police Integrity Commission, Rogerson earned a crust on the speaking circuit as well as doing lucrative ''mediation'' work on the side.

Fellow mediator, underworld figure Mick Gatto, who was also once acquitted of murder, described Rogerson as a ''good mate''.

''I like Roger, what you see is what you get with him. I didn't know him when he was a cop but a couple of friends of mine are quite close to him.''

One of those closest to him is his friend of 25 years, ''Big'' Jim Byrnes. Only last year the 73-year-old Rogerson limped into court, on a crutch, to give evidence on behalf of the colourful businessman, who was accused by a Darling Point widow of taking advantage of her when he contacted to fund her litigation. Robert Newlinds, SC, for the widow, asked if it was common for people to request he carry out criminal acts on their behalf.

''[It's] not unusual at all,'' replied Rogerson. ''I'd deny I did anything in the past. It's what people think I did in the past.'' Mr Newlinds asked: ''Your position is you don't do that sort of thing?'' ''No, I'm getting a bit old now,'' he said.

Speaking of the ''cat and mouse'' game involving the police and Rogerson, his biographer Duncan McNab noted: ''The supposed mouse is 73 with a dodgy hip.''

KATE MCCLYMONT, MICHAELA WHITBOURN

27 May, 2014 03:00 AM

Roger Rogerson on the run after body found by fisherman

NICK RALSTON AND KATE MCCLYMONT

27 May, 2014 03:00 AM

NSW's most notorious crooked police officer, Roger Rogerson, was on the run on Monday night as detectives sought to question him over the alleged murder of a Sydney university student during a botched drug deal.

Twenty-four hours after Mr Rogerson indicated he would return from Brisbane to Sydney to answer questions, police were on Monday night unsure if the 73-year-old was still in Queensland, where he was on a speaking tour. Detectives want to speak to Mr Rogerson in relation to the murder of 20-year-old Jamie Gao, at Padstow, in Sydney's south-west last Tuesday.

A former Kings Cross detective turned author, Glen McNamara, 55, on Monday faced Kogarah Local Court where he was charged with the business student's murder, and large-scale drug supply.

Only hours earlier a body, wrapped in a blue tarpaulin, was found floating off the coast at Cronulla by a fisherman. It is believed to be that of the missing Hurstville man.

Police will allege Mr Gao was killed after an arranged multimillion-dollar drug deal went wrong inside a rented storage shed last Tuesday afternoon.

Mr Rogerson's friend business identity ''Big'' Jim Byrnes said: "I beg him to come forward and give himself up." But he had "an awful feeling" Mr Rogerson would do anything to avoid arrest.

Mr Rogerson's wife, Anne Melocco, said she knew nothing about her husband's reported links to the alleged murder of Mr Gao.

Police will allege that Mr Gao, and two unknown associates, went to Padstow at 1.30pm last Tuesday with three kilograms of the drug ice, worth a potential $3 million on the street, to meet with Mr McNamara and a second man, believed to be Mr Rogerson. Mr Gao, Mr McNamara and the man believed to be Mr Rogerson got into a car and drove a few hundred metres to a nearby storage facility.

Police will allege three men walked into the storage shed but an hour later security footage shows only the two ex-police officers walking out. Mr Gao was reported missing to police the next day.

The head of the robbery and serious crime squad, Detective-Superintendent Luke Moore, said detectives were still trying to determine what had happened during that alleged drug deal.

He said Mr Gao had gone to the meeting voluntarily.

Mr McNamara's arrest on Sunday evening came only hours after Superintendent Moore appealed for information about the disappearance of the student, saying the circumstances suggested foul play.

Mr McNamara was pulled over during a traffic stop at Kyeemagh in Sydney's south and was questioned overnight before being charged with murder and drug offences. His Cronulla home has been searched by police and a Ford Falcon XR6 seized.

Mr Rogerson's Padstow Heights home was also searched and a car, a silver Ford Falcon, was taken away.

A third car, a silver Ford Falcon, was found at another location in Cronulla. It is this car detectives believe Mr Gao got into on Arab Road last Tuesday.

Mr Byrnes said Mr Rogerson had introduced him to Mr McNamara about 18 months ago. He described their relationship as "Roger Rogerson's friend of 25 years, colourful business identity … great contracts and Glen would've been the legman".

Mr Byrnes said he hired the pair to find evidence to clear his name over his 1983 jailing for possession of heroin.

Ex-cop on kill charge

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Ex-Cop charged with student's murder

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Ex Cops at center of deathprobe as body surfaces

The Daily Telegraph, 27th May, 2014

WRAPPED in a tarp and floating in the sea off Cronulla, the body of murder victim Jamie Gao was found by a fisherman early yesterday. Several hours later, former police officer Glen McNamara faced court charged with his killing. 

As of last night, disgraced detective Roger Rogerson was still wanted for questioning over the death. Police will allege CCTV captured the pair walking into a storage unit with Mr Gao and leaving minutes later carrying a body in a bag. FORMER detectives Roger Rogerson and Glen McNamara walked into a storage facility with young Asian student Jamie Gao — minutes later only two of them walked out carrying a body, police will allege Damning CCTV footage allegedly captured the two former officers carrying between them what appears to be the body of Mr Gao, wrapped in a blue tarpaulin. 

The whole sequence of events from Mr Gao’s meeting about an hour earlier when he allegedly got into a car with the two men on a Padstow street was filmed on CCTV at various businesses in the south-western Sydney suburb. 

Police will allege Mr Gao was killed in an alleged $3 million ice — methamphetamine — deal gone wrong. 

The two experienced former police officers are alleged to have used their own cars. It is claimed that Mr Gao’s body was put in McNamara’s white station wagon, which was followed by Rogerson in his silver Ford Falcon. 

McNamara, 55, was yesterday charged with murdering Mr Gao, 20, even though his body had not then been found. 

Almost at the same time as the arrest, fishermen found a body, believed to be that of Mr Gao, wrapped in a blue tarp with ropes and chains off Cronulla beach, the same suburb where McNamara lives with his wife and family. 

As McNamara appeared in Kogarah Local Court charged with murder and supplying 3kg of methamphetamine and was refused bail, two detectives with the Serious Crime and Robbery Squad flew to Brisbane to find Rogerson, 73, and arrest him on the same drug and murder charges. 

Rogerson, who was due to fly back to Sydney today, is believed to be staying with friends in Brisbane or on the Gold Coast, where he flew late last week for a speaking engagement. Rogerson’s solicitor Paul Kenny last night said he had made contact with police to arrange for his client to be questioned by them within 48 hours. 

A post-mortem on Mr Gao, a young Sydney University of Technology student, is expected to be conducted today. 

“He was in over his head. He thought he would make a quick buck,” a law enforcement source said yesterday. 

Detectives with the Serious Crime and Robbery Squad formed Strike Force Album and have been working around the clock since early Wednesday morning, following the report of Mr Gao’s disappearance on Tuesday afternoon.

Police will allege Mr Gao met with two young Asian men on Arab St, Padstow. 

The two Asian men have not been identified. 

Detective Superintendent Luke Moore said police believe Mr Gao was murdered near the Padstow meeting spot. 

“The purpose of the meeting we now strongly believe, and we will be putting to the court, was for a drug transaction (for) a substantial quantity of prohibited drug,” he said. 

Police have seized CCTV footage from Mick’s Meat on Arab St which shows Mr Gao getting out of his white Nissan Silvia sedan and getting into a white Ford  Falcon around 1.40pm, Tuesday. It shows him carrying a bag which police allege contained the ice. 

A silver Ford Falcon allegedly belonging to Rogerson, who was known during his lengthy police career as “The Dodger”, can be seen in a car park in the foreground. 

McNamara, a former Kings Cross detective who quit the force in 1990, was arrested at around 6.30pm on Sunday after his vehicle was stopped in Kyeemagh. 

At his home in Cronulla, police seized a blue Ford Falcon XR6 and a number of other “items of interest to investigators”, police said. 

McNamara’s white Ford Falcon station wagon was also seized as well as a boat allegedly belonging to him, which was being kept in a storage unit in Caringbah. 

Officers searched Rogerson’s home at Padstow Heights and took away a silver Ford Falcon station wagon. 

McNamara did not apply for bail during a short appearance before magistrate Christine Haskett in Kogarah Local Court yesterday. He was charged with murdering Jamie Gao between 1.40pm and 2.30pm in Padstow on May 20 and supplying 3kg of methamphetamine at the same time on the same date. He was not required to plea.  

Ms Haskett granted a request by McNamara’s lawyer that he be put in protective custody. McNamara smiled at a small group of supporters believed to be his family. Additional reporting by Ashlee Mullany and Ben McLellan.

Roger Rogerson: I'm 'a bit old' for all this

Disgraced former detective Roger "the Dodger" Rogerson told a court recently he was "a bit old" to be getting involved in anything nefarious. "If I was interested in doing it, I probably couldn't. I would probably get caught," the 73-year-old told the Supreme Court in February last year, after hobbling into the courtroom on a crutch. "I'll deny that I did anything [criminal] in the past. It's what people think I did," the former NSW detective sergeant insisted. 

This perception problem, as Rogerson would have it, is acute. His high-profile fall from grace has inspired books and television shows, including the 1995 ABC telemovie Blue Murder, based in part on Sydney Morning Herald editor-in-chief Darren Goodsir's book Line of Fire. Rogerson was a decorated senior police officer when he shot dead drug dealer Warren Lanfranchi in Chippendale in 1981. The coroner found he was "endeavouring to effect an arrest" but the shooting marked a turning point in Rogerson's career. He was dismissed from the police force in 1986. He was found corrupt by the Independent Commission Against Corruption in 1994 but did not face criminal charges as a result of the findings. 

The inquiry, codenamed Milloo, probed the relationship between police and criminals from the mid-70s onwards. The then ICAC commissioner, Ian Temby, QC, found the relationship between Rogerson and Arthur "Neddy" Smith, the convicted murderer, rapist and underworld kingpin, was corrupt and "well known to very many police" and "many criminals". "The notorious relationship between Smith and Rogerson went unsupervised over many years," Mr Temby wrote in his February 1994 report. "Rogerson's dealings with Smith brought discredit on the Police Service, and must be described as scandalous." Evidence tendered during public hearings, which were held between November 1992 and October 1993, included secretly taped phone calls between the men showing an "extraordinary frequency of contact and a degree of easy familiarity which cannot be consistent with proper practice". Rogerson, who spent five years in the armed hold-up squad, was accused of conspiring with two criminals to murder undercover drug squad officer Michael Drury in 1989 but was acquitted. He was also acquitted of attempting to bribe Detective Sergeant Drury in 1985. He spent three years in jail in the 1990s for perverting the course of justice over a $110,000 payment deposited by him into a bank account under a false name. The former detective served another 12 months behind bars after he and his wife, Anne Melocco, were convicted in 2005 of lying to the Police Integrity Commission in 1999. Rogerson has also been accused of supplying drugs and assault but has never been convicted of these offences.

In 2003, Rogerson parlayed his notoriety into an entertainment career, taking to the speaking circuit with former AFL stars Warwick Capper and Mark "Jacko" Jackson in a show entitled The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

After he was released from his latest stint in jail in 2006, Rogerson appeared in a show called The Wild Colonial Psychos with Jackson and the late Melbourne career criminal Mark "Chopper" Read.

In 2009, Sydney broadcaster Alan Jones launched Rogerson's first book, Roger Rogerson: The Dark Side, at the Iron Duke Hotel in Alexandria, which was once owned by Neddy Smith. Rogerson told the Supreme Court last year - in a case brought by Sydney woman Virginia Diroy Nemeth against "Big Jim" Byrnes - that it was "not unusual at all" for people to ask him to do illegal things. Asked about her husband's reported links to the disappearance and alleged murder of Sydney university student Jamie Gao, Ms Melocco told Fairfax Media on Monday: "I know nothing about it. Nothing at all." Rogerson, who is in Queensland, is wanted for questioning over the Gao case. Police suspect Mr Gao, 20, got ''in over his head'' and was kidnapped and killed after arranging a ''secretive'' meeting with an unknown party. Glen McNamara, a former NSW detective and an associate of Rogerson, was charged with the murder of Mr Gao on Monday. Mr McNamara wrote the 2010 "true crime" story Dirty Work, which was launched by former NSW police officer Tim Priest. The launch was also attended by Mr Jones. Mr Temby wrote in his 1994 ICAC report that Rogerson was described by former Assistant Police Commissioner Ross Nixon as "the life of the party" and by former Chief Inspector of Police John Burke as a "very charismatic person". "Both these men were critical of the man Rogerson later turned out to be," Mr Temby said.

MICHAELA WHITBOURN

26 May, 2014 11:42 AM

Rogerson Wanted

A former NSW detective has been charged with the murder of a missing Sydney university student and police also want to speak to disgraced detective Roger Rogerson over the disappearance.

Glen McNamara, 55, who was stationed at Kings Cross during the late '80s, was charged with the murder of Jamie Gao early on Monday.

Police are now searching for Mr Rogerson, an associate of Mr McNarama, to question him in relation to Mr Gao, 20. 

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