David Waterhouse reveals father Bill Waterhouse’s role in racing murder
A bombshell police statement has revealed Bill Waterhouse’s role in the biggest crime in Australian racing history — the murder of trainer George Brown.
Victoria
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Corrupt bookmaker Bill Waterhouse threatened to silence his own son after admitting he had sent two thugs who tortured, murdered and incinerated Sydney horse trainer George Brown in 1984.
The morning after making the chilling admission to his youngest son, David Waterhouse, the disgraced bookmaker warned him that if he revealed the truth he too would be in danger.
The allegations are made in an explosive statement to police by David Waterhouse obtained this week by the Saturday Herald Sun.
The statement reveals new details on the biggest crime in racing history, including allegations that the thugs who had killed Brown had “disappeared” after returning to their homeland of Tonga.
Bill Waterhouse said his Tongan contacts would have no compunction about using similar tactics to hide the truth about Brown’s murder.
David Waterhouse was aghast at the revelation and asked his father: “Aren’t you worried they could come back at you?”
Bill had replied: “I got the King to take them straight back to Tonga and they’ve disappeared. They’ll never be heard of again. The Tongans cook pigs and humans in the ground.”
Bill Waterhouse was a close friend of the then King of Tonga and was Tonga’s Honorary Consul-General in Australia from 1970 until the end of the century.
David Waterhouse kept silent about his father’s link to the murder for more than 20 years because he and his young family were later menaced by violent criminal Bertie Kidd, a longtime enforcer for Bill Waterhouse’s interstate race fixing racket.
David made a detailed statement only after homicide cold case detectives contacted him last year.
By then, he believed, the ageing armed robber and suspected killer no longer posed a danger.
The British-born Kidd is now in his 80s, lives in Tasmania and faces the possibility of deportation after spending much of his adult life in Australian prisons for serious offences.
David Waterhouse went to the police with Kidd’s threatening letters, some of which named his children and stated he was acting on behalf of Bill Waterhouse.
George Brown’s murder is the worst crime in Australian racing history.
Brown’s charred remains were found in the burnt-out shell of his car at Bulli Tops south of Sydney, in April 1984, two days after he refused to go through with a brazen “ring in” at a Brisbane race meeting.
Speculation linking Bill Waterhouse and his associates to the murder has loomed over the famous racing family for 37 years, but NSW police did little to investigate the case for years before finally announcing a $1m reward for information in 2019.
David Waterhouse spoke to cold case investigators after they approached him last year. He made a statement two days before Christmas, detailing his father’s admissions during a road trip in the winter of 1989.
The eight-page statement was witnessed and countersigned by Det. Sgt. Steven Morgan of the unsolved homicide team in June this year.
News Corp has a copy of the document, in which David Waterhouse tells police his father made the admissions as they drove from Sydney to Victoria on a Sunday evening in July or August, 1989, around the time of the domestic airline pilots’ dispute.
At the time, David was involved in a long-running civil action, and went to and from Sydney by road each week to attend hearings.
Bill Waterhouse, who qualified as a lawyer in the 1940s, accompanied his son two or three times to give moral support and legal advice. They would leave Sydney around 4pm on Sundays and stay overnight at Euroa before reaching Melbourne early the next day.
At the time David had loaned his father money to cover legal fees over charges relating to the Fine Cotton ring-in scandal, among other legal proceedings.
He was worried the money might not be repaid if their relationship deteriorated.
Bill Waterhouse and his network of associates, including rogue strappers, horse “nobblers” and enforcers, were famously responsible for fixing dozens of races and pulling numerous racetrack frauds.
On this particular trip to Melbourne, Bill Waterhouse had a late lunch before leaving, and had drunk a bottle of riesling.
As a result, David states, “Bill had been speaking very openly about skulduggery in the racing game, including the Big Philou doping scandal of 1969.”
This referred to the nobbling of the Melbourne Cup favourite by a strapper paid by Bill Waterhouse to “stop” the horse by administering a powerful purgative.
Waterhouse also boasted that he had got away with nobbling the great racehorse Tails in the same race.
David then asked his father the story behind the death of George Brown, reminding him of an altercation in which an associate seemed to be blaming Bill for the George Brown murder.
Bill Waterhouse had retorted: “Crap. It wasn’t my fault.”
He then heatedly explained that the associate had asked him “to send the Tongans” to get the down deposit that had been paid to Brown the week before.”
This was a reference to Brown being paid in advance to substitute a better-performed horse for the low-class filly Risley at Doomben two days before his death.
Brown had got cold feet and failed to do the ring-in, so the race fixers wanted their bribe money back.
David Waterhouse states his father told him the thugs had gone to Brown’s stables in Sweetmouth Ave, Rosebery, on the Monday after the Doomben fiasco and “scooped Brown up and demanded the refund of the money”.
“Brown asked to go and see (an associate), so the Tongans rang me (Bill Waterhouse) and I gave them (the associate’s) car phone number. They rang (the associate) and he said to bring Brown down to (provincial) races …
“They met in the car park of the racecourse. (The associate) demanded the money back and Brown said he would get it this afternoon.”
The thugs had taken Brown back to his stables and he telephoned around desperately, stalling for time and trying to borrow the money.
When he couldn’t produce the cash, the thugs drove him back to the now deserted provincial racecourse, looking for Bill’s associates, who had left.
“They tortured Brown to try and get the money,” David Waterhouse states his father told him. The thugs went too far and killed the trainer that night before returning to Sydney. His arms and legs were broken and his skull smashed.
Bill Waterhouse blamed a third party, who is named in the document, for using threatening language that had rashly encouraged the thugs to overstep the mark.
Next morning, at their Euroa motel, Bill Waterhouse knocked on David’s door early, between 6.30am and 6.45am.
“When I opened it, he said: ‘Don’t you ever discuss this with anyone. Don’t ever breathe a word about what I told you last night about the George Brown murder’.”
“My father Bill Waterhouse and I never spoke of the matter again.”
David Waterhouse said he began to distance himself from his father from that moment, but felt vulnerable because he was owed a huge amount of money he badly needed.
He stopped sharing the car trips with his father, taking the bus to Melbourne for the remainder of the court hearings. He eventually became estranged from the entire family.
“The reasons why I delayed coming to police until now with my allegations was because from about December 2005 I received multiple letters each year from convicted criminal Robert ‘Bertie’ Kidd.
The letters directly threatened my life and that of my wife and children. They even referred to my children by name.
“I was aware of Kidd’s reputation at the time and genuinely concerned for the welfare of my family ...
“About 2006 or 2007, I attended a meeting at the National Crime Authority at the invitation of Det. Insp. Hans Rupp, Tim O’Connor and others, where I was informed that Kidd had taken out a contract on my life. I was warned to be very careful.
“I am aware that Bert Kidd has now been released from prison around 2018 but I have seen a photograph of him and have personally seen that he now appears very frail and elderly. He would now be about 87 years old and I am no longer fearful for my family ...”
As longtime Honorary Consul-General to Tonga, Bill Waterhouse drove a gold-coloured luxury sedan with consular number plates — the vehicle he and David drove to Melbourne.
Bill Waterhouse had known King Taufa’ahau Tupou IV of Tonga since university in the 1940s, and allegedly engaged in several dubious dealings with the ruler of the island state, including a passport racket, wildlife smuggling and cannabis crops. The king died in 2006.
For the inside story of George Brown’s murder and the Fine Cotton ring-in scandals, see Andrew Rule’s new book, Chance, launched Sunday.
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