Remember when: Gold Coast brothel owner revealed police payments to the Fitzgerald Inquiry

A FORMER Gold Coast brothel owner paid police $500 a month so he could be charged under an alias for prostitution offences, the Fitzgerald Inquiry heard.

Gold Coast Bulletin, Thursday April 28, 1988

Gold Coast Bulletin, Thursday April 28, 1988

A FORMER Gold Coast brothel owner paid police $500 a month so he could be charged under an alias for prostitution offences, the Fitzgerald Inquiry heard.

Frank Frederick Palmer, also known as Michael Anderson and William Stanley, of Bermuda Street, Broadbeach Waters, said he ran four brothels on the Coast from December 1982 to August 1986.

Palmer also revealed that:

* His brothels gross more than $3.5 million in 31 months, half of which he kept.

* He was told by former Gold Coast police chief Mark Jackson he could “go ahead and open up” a brothel but would be breaking the law and would be charged.

* Payments were allegedly made to former Coast CIB chief inspector John Meskell to allow brothels to “operate peacefully”.

* He was sent a tax bill of $1.3 million, $713,000 of which was still owing after he closed his brothels.

*He was savage; y beaten and nearly died the night he was to “do a deal” on the purchase of opposition broth premises called The Geisha Bath House at Mermaid Beach.

His other brothels and escort agencies included Tropical Escorts, Misty Blue, Fantasy Escorts, Tender Touch and The Studio.

They were located in Bundall and Surfers Paradise.

Mr Meskell was later charged but in 1992 was acquitted on three charges of corruption.

He told media at the time he was “very pleased” to have been acquitted.

He said he had been “completely devastated” by what had happened.

At the same 1992 hearing, Jackson was sentenced to eight years behind bars.