Former disgraced Queensland Police Commissioner Terry Lewis has died — along with him, the truth about top-tier officials and the high-stakes criminal regime they allegedly oversaw, writes Steve Bishop.
IT IS AN understatement to describe former Queensland Police Commissioner Terry Lewis, who died recently aged 95, as merely corrupt. He was alleged to be a member of a board of directors with an interest in the drugs trade, which had compromised Queensland Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen.
And so, if this was true, who held the reins of power in Queensland between 1976 – when Bjelke-Petersen promoted corrupt junior inspector Lewis to be assistant commissioner and then commissioner – and 1987, when Lewis was stood down as a result of the Fitzgerald Inquiry into corruption?
This was one of many questions I put to Lewis in January 2017. He never responded. Now he has died, it is unlikely we will ever know.
Tapes alleging Lewis was part of a criminal organisation were played to Federal Minister Wal Fife in September 1979.
Federal Narcotics Bureau head Harvey Bates sent a secret minute to Fife about a confession by major heroin importer John Milligan in which he identified a group of senior police officers and an ex-police officer in Brisbane as being “involved in illegal activities”.
The trio was Lewis, detective superintendent Tony Murphy and disgraced former detective Glen Hallahan who – said Milligan – comprised a “board of directors”.
Milligan told then-senior Narcotics Bureau agent John Shobbrook that they met regularly “to protect interests of an illicit kind” and had “compromised Joh Bjelke-Petersen...” In this era, the police special branch held files on many members of parliament, including Bjelke-Petersen.
A story told by Cabinet Minister Ron Camm to honest detective Basil Hicks supports the possibility that – having been compromised – Bjelke-Petersen was blackmailed.
Camm told Hicks:
“They’ve been following me, trying to get something on me, ah, trying to, ah, show that I had some affair with Vicky Kippin and they followed me to the airport when I gave her a lift to catch a plane home.”
Hicks said in a statement: “I could see that Mr Camm appeared to be very frightened.”
Former special branch officer Barry Krosch retained official duty sheets which show that one of the regular tasks was to spy on members of parliament.
I asked Krosch if there had been a dirt file on Bjelke-Petersen.
Krosh told me:
“I don’t know. I was in the branch in 1978 and he certainly had a special branch file.”
Former Queensland Treasurer Sir Thomas Hiley heard Don Lane MP, the corrupt former detective, saying of Lewis's appointment, "We got our man home”.
In October 1978 Bjelke-Petersen revealed there was, indeed, a dirt file on him, which he described as a “muck-raking gutter dossier”.
He told Sunday Sun police reporter Brian Bolton he had discovered he was the subject of a police dossier.
Bolton wrote (Sunday Sun 15 October 1978):
'The Premier told me the dossiers contained scandalous and blatantly dishonest accusations which, if ever made public could ruin the standing and private lives of decent law-abiding citizens.'
If Lewis did hold the whip in hand, it would explain why the drug squad received virtually no resources while Bjelke-Petersen and Lewis were in power.
There were 200 drug offences recorded in 1969/70, the year after Bjelke-Petersen became premier. By 1988 the figure was 9,450. Despite a massive increase in the number of heroin addicts, the size of the drug squad rose from about 20 to about 30.
Seized heroin would disappear from police custody. Those in possession of heroin found that when charged, only a token amount would be mentioned, the rest having been sold by police.
Similarly, no action was taken by the supposedly deeply religious Bjelke-Petersen to deal with the soaring number of brothels from which Lewis profited. Lewis even advised the Premier about who should be appointed as judges.
At a national level, he helped arrange the disbanding of the Federal Narcotics Bureau as it closed in on his fellow board member Hallahan who had bankrolled a Milligan heroin importation.
And he helped arrange with Murphy the perverting of a special hearing of the Williams Royal Commission, which was supposed to be investigating the Milligan allegations about the "board of directors". The Commission exonerated the trio without examining Lewis's bank statements which contained thousands of unearned dollars.
I included in my questions to Lewis a list of more than 40 unsolved and largely uninvestigated suspicious deaths related to criminal activities which took place during this era. I asked him to "consider the hundreds of families who were and are, affected by the corrupt regime which you superintended from 1976 to 1987" and reveal the truth.
The full list of facts and questions I put to this greedy, evil, shameless corrupter can be found here.
Steve Bishop is a journalist and author. You can read more from Steve at stevebishop.net.
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