58: NOT EASY BEING GREEN
KEEPING the Coast green is a way of life for Lois Levy. As president and spokeswoman for the Gold Coast and Hinterland Environment Council (Gecko), Lois Levy has commanded a great deal of power.
With her guidance, the green movement was successful in scuttling the proposed cable car facility in the Gold Coast Hinterland and the cruise ship terminal.
She also campaigned against the Tugun Bypass, shark nets and the extension of walking trails through some of our national parks.
57: A ROUGH JOURNEY
1988
IN 1988 the Gold Coast Giants joined the NSW Rugby League along with the Newcastle Knights and the Brisbane Broncos in the competition.
The Giants counted former Manly premiership player ‘Rambo’ Ronnie Gibbs as its star signing.
By Round 10, the new team had not won a game.
But that changed when the no-name Giants upset the star-studded Brisbane Broncos outfit 25-22 at Seagulls Stadium, sparking outrageous celebrations.
In 1990 the name was changed to the Seagulls and in 1995 the name was changed to Gladiators.
56: CHOPPER TRAGEDY
March 1991
FOR one Gold Coast family it was a tragedy beyond measure. In March 1991 a Sea World helicopter crashed on South Stradbroke Island while on a joy-flight. The crash claimed the lives of Marlene Luton, son Malcolm, daughters Corrina and Donna and son-in-law Kim Barnes, all of Musgrave Hill, Southport, as well as family friend Jean-Christophe Couvreaux, 22, of France. A Bureau of Air Safety report said the accident was Australia’s worst helicopter crash, but Sea World was cleared of any blame. It found that pilot Glenn Wells suffered from a heart condition, myocarditis, that could have caused loss of consciousness or sudden death.
55: MAGIC TRANSFORMATION
1986-present
IN 1979 Darling Downs horse breeder Carl Waugh had an epiphany. Waugh came up with a plan to host a yearling sale in January and then stage a race 12 months later involving horses sold in that sale. The following year he held the Golden Nugget sales at the Bundall sales centre, a concept that led to the Magic Millions. The first Magic Millions sale was conducted at the Bundall sales complex on Sunday, February 2, 1986. The sales really took off in 1997 when Harvey Norman founder Gerry Harvey convinced good mate John Singleton they should buy the event. Saturday, January 9, the Millions will become Australia’s richest race meeting with a $10 million race day.
54: FAIRLIE’S KIDNAP HOAX
1991
DESPERATE for fame, Gold Coast club singer Fairlie Arrow made headlines when she faked her own abduction in 1991.
Seemingly happily married with a two-year-old son, motorists found a bound and blindfolded Arrow dumped by the side of the road near Somerset College at Mudgeeraba.
Arrow claimed she had been released after a 48-hour ordeal during which she had been bound, gagged and tied to a four-poster bed.
“I think I’ve seen that film,” said a police spokesman at the time, clearly sceptical about Arrow’s story.
It took less than a week for Arrow to admit that she and an accomplice had faked the abduction.
She was fined $5000 and ordered to pay $18,500 in costs, and posed for Penthouse to raise money for the bills.
53: TOPLESS CANDIDATE
January 11, 2011
COUNCIL politics, dull one day, boring the next.
But back in 2000 a sudden spark lit up the council election, a spark by the name of Sheryl Richards.
Sheryl was a 20-year-old stunner who burst onto the political scene when she nominated for a run at the mayor’s position.
Sheryl, who exhibited a preference for topless sunbathing, was a breath of fresh air for a staid political process, and we couldn’t get enough of Sheryl.
Sheryl in a bikini. Sheryl in hot pants on a swing. Sheryl pictured naked on her website. All of this and more added much life and controversy to the election campaign.
52: A HARSH REALITY SHOW
January 11, 2011
IF it was a soap opera script, television networks would be fighting over it.
A pretty Gold Coast student beautician is caught in Indonesia with 4.2kg of marijuana hidden in a bodyboard bag.
Despite protesting her innocence she is sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment in notorious Kerokokan Jail, while outside family and friends fall out, with vicious squabbles played out through the media — and we have been following her story ever since.
In October 2004, Indonesian police arrested Schapelle Corby after they found the marijuana while searching her bags at Bali’s airport.
Corby was released from jail in February 2014 and must live in Bali, under guidance of parole officers, until August 2017. Rumours are currently circulating Corby is pregnant.
51: PERILS OF PAULINE
1990s
PAULINE Hanson’s rise through politics was like a bushfire in the 1990s. Attracting equal measure of love and hate, the flame-haired political novice from Ipswich upset both sides of the political divide.
All the while her family, based largely on the Gold Coast, watched on proudly.
But in 2003 it seemed the establishment had finally caught out Hanson when she was charged and convicted of electoral fraud.
But Hanson’s Gold Coast family weren’t taking the conviction lying down.
Ms Hanson’s son Adam released a song, Innocence, with the proceeds going towards him mum’s fighting fund.
Ms Hanson and One Nation co-founder David Ettridge served 11 weeks of a three-year jail sentence but an appeal court — consisting of Chief Justice Paul De Jersey, Queensland Court of Appeal president -quashed the convictions.
50: BLONDE WITH BARE-FACED CHEEK
1970s
A VERY colourful character who was always in the news for the wrong reasons was the cute little blonde, Margaret Dupre.
Margaret had emigrated from England and was rumoured to have been the youngest female, at the time, to have given birth in the UK.
Margaret arrived here in the 1970s, she had two children and they were always with her.
She never wore anything else but a string bikini and would ride her bike with the furry seat, kids perched at the back.
No helmets in those days and the tribe rarely wore hats. The children were also clad in bikinis.
Young Margaret had a great figure and would turn heads where ever she went.
The trouble was that she was refused permission to enter many events because of her attire and was always being thrown off buses and trains for the wrong dress code.
49: RUSSIAN RIDDLE
November 17, 1999
IT was a case that even had Queensland’s top judges scratching their heads.
Life had been tough for illegal immigrant Eryk Sokolowski, 33, but after fleeing the clutches of the Russian mafia he ended up on the Gold Coast where he scored a job with businessman Ian Daw.
But there Sokolowski’s plans began to unfold.
At night on November 17, 1999, he stole millions of dollars worth of paintings and jewellery from Daw before taking his luxury $500,000 cruiser, North Point, sailing out through the Seaway and heading for Vanuatu.
Sokolowski’s plan was to get to Vanuatu and hand over the stolen boat and its contents to the Russian mafia.
But, according to a police statement, he could not restart the boat and spent four days adrift before taking a dinghy to the mainland.
Sokolowski was jailed for two-and-a-half years and Ian Daw left to kick himself and wonder what happened to his yacht and artefacts.
48: KGB ‘MOVIE PLOT’
July, 2000
THE killing of former KGB Colonel Gennadi Bernovski in July, 2000 could have come straight from a James Bond movie.
On the night of the slaying, an Adelaide woman was in her car talking on her mobile phone when she saw two men, wearing black wetsuits, near the scene. Both had their faces covered.
Police believe the frogmen killers may have used the canal system around the Bernovski home, in Sir Bruce Small Blvd, to escape.
Police took out a warrant against his one-time business partner Oleg Kouzmine in 2001.
But the accused gunman is ‘untouchable’ since his return to Russia, which does not have an extradition treaty with Australia.
47: HIGH-FLYING CONMAN
2007
A GOLD Coast boy charms his way to the top of British society, picking up model Samantha Fox as a girlfriend, before his ‘slimming’ tea is exposed as a sham and he is jailed.
This is the life of Peter Foster.
The convicted conman freely admits to having been jailed in 16 prisons in six countries.
Foster escaped from Fiji in 2007 after being arrested and held in custody by the military, which took over the small island nation in a coup in late 2006.
He then was arrested in Vanuatu and served time before returning to Australia — and serving time.
In 2014, Foster was arrested near Byron Bay and was sentenced to serve a minimum of 18 months for a contempt of court charge.
46: ROUGHIE NEVER FAR FROM INTRIGUE AND CONTROVERSY
1980s
IF there is one yarn that sums up Brian Ray, Roughie to his mates, it is the party he threw to celebrate beating charges of conspiracy to defraud the Commonwealth in 1987.
Roughie probably felt he had good reason to celebrate.
The ‘80s had been tough for the son of a western Sydney cabbie.
He was dragged in front of the Costigan Royal Commission into the Painters and Dockers Union and interrogated over bottom-of-the-harbour tax schemes.
He was also accused of being complicit in the murder of good mate and bank manager Percival Coote, who a later coronial inquest found committed suicide.
The tax office came down hard on him after he flicked former tourism minister John Brown a $1 million beachfront unit as a thankyou for helping score a $10 million profit on the sale of land to Japanese woodchip magnate Nohrin Narui (although that was actually in 1990).
Then he joined up with Mike Gore to bankroll the disastrous Joh-for-PM campaign, and was charged with conspiring to defraud the Commonwealth of $16 million.
Among the celebration party guests in 1987 were Kerry Packer, Premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen and advertising heavyweight and childhood friend, John Singleton.
His Ray Group was behind the $750 million Salt complex at Kingscliff on the Tweed Coast and also developed the 360ha Koala Beach estate.
Brian and Kathy Ray died in a plane crash on Mount Hotham in July 2005, leaving three children — Tom, Savannah and Jack — and an estimated fortune of $130 million.
45: THE ROSE NOT THE SWEETEST PICK FOR PARLIAMENT
2005
FORMER State Member for Currumbin and Tourism Minister Merri Rose came a cropper in 2005 when she was convicted of blackmailing Premier Peter Beattie.
It had been a fall from grace for the ‘minister for fun’.
First she was dumped by her electoral; then she served three months behind bars for her blackmail attempt.
The court heard Rose threatened to publicise damaging evidence that would cause someone to ‘suffer and lose everything’, unless Mr Beattie arranged a $150,000 a year executive position with Tourism Queensland.
When she resigned as a minister in 2004, many in the Beattie government breathed a sigh of relief.
44: A PUNT ON JUSTICE
1970s
IN 1974, Inspector Arthur Victor Pitts had recently taken over as the officer-in-charge of the Queensland Police Licensing Branch, and had begun a crackdown on illegal SP bookmakers, arresting 17 in just weeks.
In 1975 Pitts and his team arrested two more.
However, at their trial in the Southport Magistrates Court young policeman Frank William Davey broke prosecution ranks and claimed much of the case against the men was concocted.
He claimed the police had conspired to present false evidence and had forged arrest warrants.
The evidence implicated not only Pitts but the officer prosecuting the case, Alec Jeppesen.
The magistrate found the police evidence was ‘tainted with illegality’ and threw out the case.
Police appealed to the Full Court, but the appeal was dismissed.
43: THE MANNIX MURDER
July, 1984
IT was a murder trial that led to an inquiry into police practices.
In July, 1984 Tweed sex shop owner Kevin Mannix was gruesomely murdered and left outside his flat, bound, gagged and with his throat cut.
Seeking a speedy resolution, police attention turned to Mannix’s son Barry and soon it was announced Barry had confessed to his father’s killing and signed a confession.
But police technical officer Roylene Wolski told a court bloodstains found at the murder scene were inconsistent with the confession.
On November 7, 1984, another person was being questioned by police about a stolen car.
Burdened with guilt, he confessed to being a party to the murder of Kevin Mannix.
In doing so, he implicated three accomplices — but not Barry Mannix, who was eventually released.
A Police Complaints Tribunal ruled no charge against police would succeed.
42: ROYAL PR DISASTER
October, 1988
IT was October 1988 and the Duke and Duchess of York were stranded on the Brisbane River after a Gold Coast-based hovercraft broke down.
The embarrassing incident happened just moments after the royals passed another Marina Mirage-based hovercraft that had become beached in the river.
The stranded Christopher Skase-owned hovercraft, and the Gold Coast’s Marina Mirage signage on the side of both vessels, were beamed round the world.
It is hard to believe but for two years in the late ‘80s, two Skase hovercraft transported thousands of Gold Coasters between Main Beach and Brisbane.
41: LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION
1984
IT may not have been the best movie to come from the Gold Coast, but it has left a lasting legacy.
The Coolangatta Gold, created more than 20 years ago for the movie of the same name, is widely regarded as the birth of modern professional ironman racing.
Set on the Gold Coast, the 1984 film was the story of two brothers, one a promising athlete and the other the underdog, and how they clashed in a head-to-head contest when they entered a tough run, swim, board and surf ski marathon.
Surf lifesaving legend Grant Kenny starred as himself in the movie, which was filmed in conjunction with the running of the inaugural race in front of a large crowd at Surfers Paradise and many of the sequences in the film were actual scenes from the race.
The ‘real’ race was won by Guy Leech, then an unheralded 19-year-old from Manly in Sydney, who went on to win the event again the following year.
40: BY JUPITER
November, 1985
MORE than three years of arguments and development came to an end in November, 1985 when Conrad Jupiters Casino opened for the first time at Broadbeach — the first casino in Queensland. An early punter ready to play the slots was then South Coast MP Russ Hinze, the famous “Minister for everything’’ who had backed the project since its inception.
Mr Hinze was one of the first people through the door at the casino’s opening on Thursday, November 23, 1985 and placed 20c into a poker machine.
Echo Entertainment has since released its plans for a six-star hotel at the site.
39: FINE COTTON
1984
AUSTRALIA’S most infamous and outrageous horse race fix was, as you’d expect, hatched on the Gold Coast.
The Fine Cotton affair rocked racing in 1984, although it was more of a circus than a well executed sting.
Coast-based punter John Gillespie came up with the idea of substituting poorly performed Fine Cotton with a far better horse.
But just days before the switch, their first-choice horse, and a dead ringer, for Fine Cotton was injured.
In a rush they bought Bold Personality which, after a quick dye job and some white paint, looked near enough to Fine Cotton.
‘Fine Cotton’ — backed from 33-to 7-2 favourite — won by a nose but the dye and paint dripped off during the race and punters were screaming ‘ring-in!”.
The horse was stripped of its first place within 30 minutes.
Gillespie and trainer Hayden Haitana were jailed over the scam which was reportedly financed by Sydney underworld identity Mick Sayers, who was shot dead in his driveway eight months later.
The Fine Cotton sting also implicated leading bookmakers Bill and Robbie Waterhouse who were warned off racetracks indefinitely, but the national ban was lifted in 1988.
38: HOLIDAY KILL
November, 1998
IN November, 1998 the Coast was stunned after pretty teenager Janaya Clarke was killed in a stabbing frenzy in a Chevron Island unit.
Claude Gabriel was charged with her murder but was ruled criminally insane and unfit to stand trial for murder due to a drug and alcohol-induced psychosis and committed to a Brisbane mental institution.
Within months, Gabriel was given a five-day-a-week release and lived in a luxury Kangaroo Point apartment.
He was granted approval by his psychiatrist to attend a TAFE college, then he fled to Victoria while on leave, living with his parents before disappearing on a round-the-world holiday.
Police chased Gabriel to Italy and then to New Zealand between November 15, 2001, and February 21, 2002, before he was finally returned to custody.
Parents John and Alessandra Gabriel were fined $300 each for helping their son flee the country.
37: SURF RUSE
February 25, 1961
BUS driver Henrikus Plomp seemed every bit the grief-stricken husband when on a Friday night in 1961 he emerged from the Main Beach surf claiming his wife had been taken by a rip.
Dutch-born Plomp had taken wife Fay and their oldest son to the beach for a swim, but while in waist deep water he claimed the couple were belted by a wave and swept from their feet. Despite making a brave attempt to save his wife, a second wave dragged her away.
Police later found Mrs Plomp’s body at Narrowneck.
However, it didn’t take long for them to suspect foul play.
Plomp proved to be his own worst enemy, telling workmates that the best way to kill your wife was in the surf.
It emerged that just three weeks before Fay’s death, Plomp had asked another woman to marry him, and tried to arrange the wedding on the same day as his wife’s funeral.
Police charged him, and despite pleas that the crown’s case was hugely circumstantial, Plomp was convicted.
He was deported to Holland, still protesting his innocence.
36: BOUNCE DOWN
April, 2009
IN April 2009, AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou realised a dream for so many AFL fans with these words: “On behalf of the AFL Commission, I am pleased to announce the AFL Commission has resolved by resolution to award the Gold Coast Football Club a licence to become the 17th club in the competition.’’
It had been tough for rules fans with no local club to follow in the AFL.
35: SURF’S FIRST LADY
1920s
THE surf has always been at the heart of the Gold Coast, and female surf lifesavers have not been far behind.
But it hasn’t always been like that.
For more than 85 years women were not allowed to patrol the beaches, let alone compete, as it was considered `unladylike’.
That was not enough to stop Tweed Heads and Coolangatta SLSC ladies’ committee member Edie Rowe heading out with the boys when the chance arose in 1923.
Two six-man squads were set to do their bronze medallion at Greenmount beach when one of the men pulled out because he was sick, opening the door for Mrs Rowe.
The then 16-year-old passed the gruelling test that four of the men failed to complete, effectively becoming Australia’s first qualified female lifesaver.
However, it took Mrs Rowe 68 years to receive her bronze medallion.
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