A supergrass gave up secrets of Sydney’s underworld. Now he wants more than $1m from the crime commission

“That secrecy exists is generally accepted; that it is not excessive has simply been assumed. Secrecy is a necessary evil. In Australia today, it is more evil than necessary.”

It’s a crime story with all the ingredients: lawyers, guns, money and, of course, drugs.

At the centre of it all are two protagonists.

On the one side is a supergrass, known only as SG. On the other is the powerful and secretive NSW Crime Commission, set up to fight organised crime, in particular the drug trade.

Once upon a time, the two were, shall we say, a happy couple. It was a marriage made in law enforcement heaven or underworld hell, depending on which side of the coin you looked at.

The supergrass, at great risk to his life, provided accurate and first-class information on the activities of Sydney’s criminal milieu between 2004 and 2014.

It’s believed his tip-offs led to the commission seizing weapons, hundreds of kilos of drugs and millions of dollars in cash.

But, like many relationships, it turned sour. In a bitter divorce battle, the supergrass and the crime commission are at each other’s throats in the NSW Supreme Court.

It’s all about money. SG is suing the crime commission for breach of contract, claiming they haven’t paid him the cash they promised for all his information.

It’s believed he’s asking for well in excess of $1 million.

Worse, he also says that the commission revealed his identity to some of the very crooks on whom he was informing, endangering his life.

The Herald has been told that, after one such alleged breach, he came within seconds of being murdered on a beach but was saved when a woman walking her dog came between him and the would-be assassin.

For its part, the commission denies all this – it says it never had a contract with SG, and it owes him nothing, not a brass razoo.

It’s said that justice delayed is justice denied. If so, SG versus the NSW Crime Commission looks like a textbook case because it started in the Supreme Court in 2015. A decade down the track, it’s still going, with no end in sight.

Such is the length of the case that three of the barristers who have represented SG over the years have moved on to higher things. Penny Wass, SC, and Robert Newlinds, SC, are now District Court judges. Guy Parker, SC, is a judge on the Supreme Court.

The combined legal costs for both sides are unknown but may well be heading towards the amount that SG is claiming.

For all that, you won’t have read much about this case, if anything, because it is shrouded in secrecy. Many details are the subject of suppression orders.

For instance, I am not allowed to identify “any individual” mentioned in the proceedings other than lawyers.

Given we don’t know which individuals have been mentioned – because it’s all secret – this presents something of a conundrum.

Nevertheless, in the past 10 years, as the case has made its way through the Supreme Court in fits and starts, Justice Stephen Rothman, who is hearing the matter, has issued a number of publicly available judgments.

From those, the Herald has pieced together much of the saga.

It all started in 2003 when a senior crime commission officer approached SG.

It raises serious questions about the conduct and accountability of the NSW Crime Commission, which has fought tooth and nail to stop SG from having his day in court.

At the very start, it sought to have the case thrown out as an abuse of process. It failed.

It tried to stop SG’s well-known solicitor, John Laxon, from representing him. It tried to stop him from instructing certain barristers.

And when a Supreme Court ruling about its secrecy provisions went against the crime commission, it went to the government of the day and had the secrecy legislation amended in its favour.

Several questions arise. Is the commission afraid of what SG – or other witnesses – might say about its past conduct, or indeed the existence of a contract?

Is it worried SG might have unfavourable information about senior officers?

Is it concerned that if SG’s identity was revealed to the underworld, as he alleges, that it may reveal incompetence, or worse, and further damage the commission’s reputation?

The NSW Crime Commission headquarters in Sydney’s CBD.Credit: Peter Rae/ Arsena Villanueva

The colourful figure with a chequered past

From what we can glean from judgments so far, it started in 2003 when a senior crime commission officer approached SG to have a bit of a chat.

Would he be willing to assist the commission as a human source – in other words, to be an informer?

It turns out, after giving it some thought, he was.

It’s around this time, according to SG, he was offered a “contract”.

One thing which is not in dispute is that SG – a colourful figure with, shall we say, a chequered history – worked for the commission.

As Justice Stephen Rothman said: “In about late 2004, SG agreed to assist the commission by continuing to mix in the criminal underworld and by fostering relationships of trust, so as to garner information that would then be provided to the commission for consideration.

“SG was a source for about 10 years until approximately 2014.”

He was paid $500 a week – expenses for his car, phone and beer – to mingle with some of Sydney’s best-known and most dangerous criminals.

It appears he was more of an undercover operative than a run-of-the-mill informant and criminals would no doubt label him a dog.

The commission obviously saw him, given his length of service, as a unique and valuable asset. Whatever you think of him, it was a dangerous life.

The crime commission is an immensely powerful law enforcement agency. It holds secret hearings and can compel witnesses to answer questions and produce documents. If they refuse, they can be jailed.

It has the power to seize and confiscate assets such as real estate, luxury cars, cash and jewellery.

At this point, I should reveal that I first met SG a few times in the 1980s. I didn’t see him after that for many years until, one day, I spotted him in an inner west pub.

He was halfway out the door when I called his name and we spoke briefly, but he didn’t want to linger or chat, which I thought at the time was a little odd. He seemed a bit edgy.

Now I know why.

He was working undercover for the crime commission.

I only raise my knowledge of him in the context of him being paid $500 a week. For SG, that would have been a pittance, which, to this old reporter’s way of thinking, gives some weight to his claim that he was promised a lot more than that.

I don’t think he was risking his life for the fun of it. Exactly how much money he was promised is not clear, but law enforcement officials familiar with these things told the Herald it might have been a percentage of the cash seized as a result of his tip-offs.

For instance, if the crime commission discovered $4 million in the home of a drug trafficker fingered by SG, he might get 2.5 per cent – a tidy $100,000.

This is where the dispute arises – when SG and the commission formed their partnership in 2004 there may well have been promises made, but there was nothing on paper – there was no prenup.

SG didn’t make written records. Rothman accepted that this was for “obvious reasons” – it was far too dangerous for him to have those sort of records lying about.

Leaking like a sieve

It appears that around this time, the commission itself was not considered all that secure. One former law enforcement officer is on record as saying it “leaked like a sieve”.

It was certainly not entirely trusted by its law enforcement partners, the NSW and the Australian Federal Police.

A case in point is the decision by the crime commission in 2005 to allow the sale of six to seven kilograms of cocaine in what was supposed to be a controlled operation.

As I wrote when I broke that story in 2006, it was far from controlled – the cocaine made its way onto the streets of Sydney. The AFP pulled out of the operation, believing it to be illegal.

The case went all the way up to the High Court, where in 2008 it was revealed that the commission had allowed between 70,000 and 100,000 units of cocaine to be sold on the streets of Sydney.

The crime commission argued before six judges of the High Court that this was not a problem – cocaine, it suggested, would “not necessarily” seriously endanger the lives of end users.

It was an argument which, not surprisingly, was rejected by the High Court.

It pointed out the bleeding obvious – that the importation, supply and possession of cocaine was prohibited by law for the very fact that it was likely to endanger health and safety.

At the time, I quoted a drug and alcohol expert who said that in 2003 alone cocaine had been a factor in 15 deaths.

The commission’s cavalier approach didn’t seem to bother NSW politicians one bit.

If anyone knows about the commission’s “cowboy” tactics and involvement in other criminal activity, it’s SG.

Not only what its officers did, but also what its officers did not do with information provided by him about some of Sydney’s biggest drug traffickers.

Were judges misled about the level of criminality of some of those appearing before them for sentence?

It is believed SG’s tip-offs led to the NSW Crime Commission seizing hundreds of kilograms of drugs.Credit: Kate Geraghty/Arsena Villanueva

We don’t know – but I’d reckon SG might have a bit to say about it.

So was there a contract?

In his judgments, Justice Stephen Rothman identified the commission officer who first spoke to SG in 2003 only by the initials JG.

According to Rothman’s judgments, JG plays a significant role in this story – it appears he is prepared to corroborate SG’s version of events, but may now be prevented by the secrecy laws from doing so.

This brings us back to the commission’s efforts to keep SG – and his potentially embarrassing or damaging testimony about the operations of the crime commission – out of court.

When he lodged his claim for breach of contract in July 2015, SG alleged the “contract” was made on behalf of the commission by one of its senior officers.

In 2016, the commission tried to have the claim summarily dismissed. It told Rothman the claim was an abuse of process because it was in breach of the commission’s secrecy provisions.

It alleged a former officer of the commission had provided confidential information to SG and thus his court action depended upon an illegality – he was in possession of secret information he was not supposed to have.

It was a breach of the secrecy provisions in section 80 of its act.

But in November 2016, Rothman ruled against the commission – SG’s claim could go ahead.

He said the NSW Crime Commission was established as a corporation and where it acted in its corporate capacity, as distinct from its investigative capacity, the secrecy provisions of section 80 did not apply.

By way of example, he said if the commission were to enter into a leasing agreement with a landlord and a dispute arose, it would not be illegal for the landlord to seek or produce documents relating to the terms of the contract for the lease.

Referring to SG, he said the commission was “not able to hide behind the secrecy provisions” and prevent SG from obtaining documents which might relate to any contract.

In other words, SG had a case to argue.

He said the evidence of an officer of the commission – identified only as JG – could arguably corroborate SG’s claim that a contract was entered into.

The crime commission was not happy.

In 2017, it appealed to the NSW Court of Appeal – and lost.

The commission was not finished. Further argument – and another judgment – ensued, but because of suppression orders it can’t be reported. In late 2022, in the dying days of the Liberal state government, new legislation – including the amendment of the Crime Commission Act 2012 – was passed by NSW parliament.

It changed the section 80 secrecy provisions relating to the commission’s corporate activities.

On one view, the changes negated the 2016 ruling by Rothman. It appears the judge was unimpressed by this development.

In a judgment delivered in July 2023, he said section 80 had been amended to “take account” of his earlier ruling. He said the changes created a “significant difficulty”.

First there was a “fundamental unfairness” that SG could not see relevant material and so “does not have the ability to test any claim made by the commission.”

The unfairness, he said, had been “deliberately created by the legislature”.

I’d put it another way.

To mix a few metaphors, it looks to me like the crime commission has pulled a card from the bottom of the pack, and not just moved the goalposts but locked SG and his legal team in the change rooms.

The NSW Crime Commission disagrees.

I sent a series of questions to the commission asking about the changes to the secrecy legislation in 2022 and whether it was a specific attempt to stop a witness from giving evidence in favour of SG.

I received an automated response saying the media officer would be out of the office until January 2026.

Somehow, in the context of the snail-like pace of the case, this seemed apt.

SG says he gave up information on Sydney’s criminal milieu between 2004 and 2014 before fleeing overseas. Credit: Wolter Peeters/Arsena Villanueva

To be fair, the commission subsequently responded by saying it regarded itself as a “model litigant” and that the legislative amendments “do not stop any witness giving evidence”.

“The amendments were designed to address vulnerabilities in the legislation that had the potential to compromise the personal safety of commission witnesses and sources, as well as reveal sensitive law enforcement methodology.”

For his own safety, SG is now, as Rothman puts it, “in exile” – overseas, whereabouts unknown.

I asked his solicitor, John Laxon, for a comment on the long-running saga. He said: “Everyone accepts the need for secrecy provisions to protect the crime commission from the crooks.

“What we do not accept is using those same secrecy provisions to protect the crime commission when they act like crooks.

“We just want a fair fight for a man who did the commission’s bidding and put his life in danger for them. Without question, their actions put his life at risk.”

It’s believed the case will be listed for yet another hearing this year.

The quote at the top of this story comes from a 1972 book called Secrecy, which railed against the ingrained habit of the political system to keep its citizens in the dark and the debilitating effect on the open, democratic process.

It was written by a young whippersnapper – Jim Spigelman – who went on to do rather well for himself. From 1998 to 2011, James Spigelman was the Chief Justice of the NSW Supreme Court.

Just quietly, between you, me and the gatepost, I reckon young Jim knew a thing or two.

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