The truth behind Mark ‘Scarface’ Smith’s nickname

His career brought him into contact with colourful characters and hardened crims such as Neddy Smith and Michael Hurley, but what really happened to earn detective Mark Smith the nickname Scarface? LISTEN TO THE PODCAST

When Mark “Scarface’’ Smith joined the NSW Police Force his first posting was to the streets of Darlinghurst, patrolling Kings Cross in the wild old days of the early ’80s.

By the time he retired he was a Detective Inspector overseeing the new wild streets of Sydney’s Bankstown.

LISTEN TO MARK SMITH ON THE MICHAEL HUTCHENCE INVESTIGATION. WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT

“Working in Darlinghurst as a young man not long out of school was an eye opener,” Smith recalls.

Mark Smith in uniform at Rose Bay. Picture: Supplied

“The girls were walking the streets, and there was a vice squad locking them up. There was the Forbes club (an illegal gaming casino). It was full of colour and characters.”

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To a young guy it was a lot of fun. Then, after a brief stint in the air wing, he moved to Maroubra where he worked in plain clothes in the area he grew up in.

“I knew a lot of people in the area having grown up and gone to school there. Not all of them were what you would say straight 180s, but luckily I was never around when they were locked up or in the dock,’’ he said.

In 1987 he started work in the now long gone “Consorting Squad”.

It was an all encompassing squad with a roaming type of brief.

“We looked after escapees, went to race meetings to keep an eye on pickpockets as well as see what crooks were meeting up, investigate race doping and also extortion — safe crackers which were pretty prevalent then, knocking over banks and businesses.’’

One extortion bid was a demand for money from Ansett Airlines where the demand was written in blood. “A bit over the top,’’ Smith thought.

Former detective Mark Smith worked for the police for more than three decades. Picture: Darren Leigh Roberts

The best thing about the Consorters was that one in every three weeks was night shift.

“That meant going around to the bars in Chinatown, Double Bay and nightclubs in the Cross like Rogues and the Cauldron,’’ Mr Smith said.

It was here that they would come into contact with some of Sydney’s most colourful, dangerous and interesting characters.

Mr Smith’s work brought him into contact with the likes of Neddy Smith. File picture

Michael Hurley appearing at Central Local Court in Sydney. File picture

“Michael Hurley, the great Sydney crim into everything, and guys like Neddy Smith — the scariest bloke you could probably meet. Then there was Abo Henry, Bob the Basher and a heap of others. You walk into a nightclub and if they were together they would scurry a few feet back to try and say there were not together or consorting. They were flashing money around and always seemed to have plenty of it.’’

From there he was transferred to Rose Bay with a low crime rate, but certainly an interesting mix of society.

It was here he ended up investigating his most famous case, the death of Michael Hutchence. But over the years of drinking with Scar, and talking to him about his cases it’s never Hutchence he brings up, but the death of an innocent truck driver, Bob Knight, killed by crossfire between two rival street gangs as he drove through Milperra in 2009.

Truck driver Bob Knight died after being hit by a stray bullet from a shoot-out in Milperra.

“He was so unlucky, for that bullet to travel the path it did at the exact moment he was driving is incredible. I keep thinking, if he stopped to pump up his tyres, tripped walking to pay for petrol. Just a split second and the bullet would have passed,’’ he said, shaking his head.

Despite all the characters Mr Smith encountered during his career one of them wasn’t responsible for his dramatic nickname.

“Scarface’’ came from a fellow officer after he had been involved in a car accident.

“Unfortunately I didn’t get the nickname after unarming some guy with a knife … I literally had stitches to parts of my face and some wag called me Scarface and it stuck,’’ he said.

Detective Inspector Mark Smith retired in 2012.

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Originally published as The truth behind Mark ‘Scarface’ Smith’s nickname