How the sleazy ‘Slug Gate’ saga really went down and why the stench still lingers

Slug Gate didn’t really begin the day the slug was “found”. This unresolved saga seems to involve orchestrated industry sabotage. So who is behind it?

The ongoing scandal that swiftly became known as “Slug Gate” has been one of the most talked-about stories of 2021 in Victoria, along with the Wonnangatta camper murder mystery.

But whereas the Wonnangatta case (after a slow start) has been the focus of sustained police work, Slug Gate is the opposite.

It seems that the only proper investigation has been performed free by two retired detectives outraged by the treatment of the family business destroyed by the actions — and inaction — of the Dandenong and Knox councils, the Victorian Health Department and Victoria Police.

The Day of the Slug was February 18, 2019 when a new City of Dandenong health inspector, Elizabeth Garlick, arrived at the I Cook Foods plant in Zenith Rd, Dandenong.

There is nothing wrong with health inspectors doing their job properly. Thorough inspections cut the risk of food contamination that can cause illness or death. We all benefit.

But that day nearly three years ago, something about the new inspector struck the I Cook Foods office manager: she was wearing a coverall smock with large apron pockets in front.

The I Cook plant in Dandenong. Picture: David Caird

The office manager noticed a bunch of tissues sticking from one pocket. It seemed oddly untidy, even unhygienic, for a health inspector.

Garlick was handed a gown and hair net — mandatory in food production premises. Security cameras filmed her leaving buttons partly undone as if to make it easier to reach the smock pocket underneath.

She toured the plant, escorted by Michael Cook, brother and business partner of the managing owner, Ian Cook.

The camera filmed Garlick bending down in a far corner of the factory with her back turned and hands out of sight. She crouched for 17 seconds. When she stood, she announced she had “found” a slug.

Garlick produced a camera and photographed a slug next to a piece of wet (or slimy) tissue that had also appeared in the short time since the floor was washed down with powerful chlorine disinfectant, as happened daily.

Unfortunately for Garlick and the City of Dandenong, Michael Cook also snapped a picture of the scene, evidence which eventually showed that Garlick’s photographs were apparently later “Photoshopped” to eliminate the tissue.

The mysterious difference between the two virtually identical photographs showing the slug.

The mysterious difference between the two virtually identical photographs was underlined later when another Dandenong health inspector, Kim Rogerson, turned whistleblower and alleged a conspiracy against I Cook Foods, an act of apparent commercial sabotage.

That sounds far-fetched, but 6000 pages of evidence gathered by two former detectives, Paul Brady and Rod Porter, suggests a conspiracy.

They believe at least two separate police investigations of criminal behaviour may have been derailed through political interference.

The massive brief will be the centrepiece of a $50m civil damages case the food company is preparing against the health department and City of Dandenong — unless, of course, the case is settled to avoid more damaging publicity about the alleged cover-up that stretches from Dandenong and Knox to Spring St via certain police officers and senior health officials.

Rogerson, known to the Cooks as a “hard but fair” inspector, has admitted she took stress leave to avoid being drawn into evidence tampering she says was meant to drive I Cook Foods out of business — which it did, due to a strangely rushed decision by the health department despite laboratory testing that cleared the company of any food safety breach.

That decision condemned more than three tonnes of perfectly good food worth $700,000 to be sent to the tip after an extraordinary media conference in which health department head Brett Sutton trashed the Cooks’ brand.

Health Department boss Brett Sutton trashed the Cooks’ brand. Picture: David Crosling

Sutton claimed — despite evidence from his own department laboratory tests — that I Cook Foods was the source of a serious listeria outbreak which could kill “thousands” of people. He gratuitously used the business name, totally unnecessary given none of its products is sold directly to the public.

Once the I Cook Foods name was smashed by someone as senior as Sutton, the business was doomed. Nothing could unscramble the omelette. The best the Cook family and their supporters could do after that was expose the true story behind the destruction.

Context matters. Slug Gate did not really begin the day the slug was “found”. And it did not start when an elderly woman, Jean Painter, died in hospital in early 2019 after taking ill at a Knox aged care home that used some meals prepared by I Cook Foods.

The short-lived (and swiftly disproved) allegation that Jean Painter died of listeria contracted from contaminated food appears to be an excuse seized by Dandenong council to harm I Cook Foods. She in fact died of a longstanding heart condition unrelated to the common listeria symptoms of diarrhoea and headache — a temporary illness soon proven to have no link with I Cook Foods.

But why would anyone conspire to destroy I Cook Foods? The main reason, as the Cooks’ lawyers will argue if or when it goes to court, is that it was to benefit I Cook Foods’ main commercial competitor, Community Chef, a lame duck enterprise cooked up by several councils, the state government and the federal government in 2010 in response to the global financial crisis.

The Boss of iCook, Ian Cook. Picture: Alex Coppel

After an initial flurry of interest in Community Chef, most of the hospitals and aged care homes on the I Cook Foods client list either stuck with the established business or returned after being disappointed by Community Chef’s prices, performance and produce.

Community Chef allegedly lost so much money it became an expensive embarrassment to the three tiers of government funding — notably to City of Dandenong (among others) but also to the 2010 state health minister Daniel Andrews and to the then-federal infrastructure minister Anthony Albanese, who sank millions into Community Chef.

Community Chef could drown in debt and close — or it could try to qualify as an “essential service” to protect it from competition indefinitely.

But the only way to qualify as “essential” to catch the gravy train of public funding was to kill its competitor.

That, says Ian Cook, was the motive for council string pullers to recruit Elizabeth Garlick to find an apparent breach of health regulations.

It is not some wild allegation by an angry man heartbroken at seeing his 35-year-old family business crushed, and 45 jobs die with it.

It is backed up by more than a year of investigation done for nothing by former detectives Brady and Porter, who became interested after a tip from a disgusted police source.

Community Chef allegedly lost so much money it became an embarrassment to three tiers of government, and to 2010 state health minister Daniel Andrew. Picture: Sarah Matray

After many months of pulling detailed material into a professional legal brief, Brady is outraged about what has happened to the Cook family. He has pursued every angle — including probing examples, he says, of other businesses effectively closed down or fined heavily after certain inspectors found “evidence” of the type easily planted.

The former detective Paul Brady says councils have a big financial motive for prosecuting food businesses. He says that under Victorian law, councils pocket the massive fines levied on businesses prosecuted for alleged breaches of food handling rules.

“In other words, the Food Act is a direct source of revenue,” Brady told the Herald Sun early this year.

“It’s a cash cow for council, so their inspectors get the coach’s address from their bosses — and some of these useful idiots want to impress because if they bring in fines they get promotion and pay rises.”

Why would hard-bitten ex-cops volunteer to work on a case like this? Because, Brady says, “if this can happen to someone like Ian Cook it can happen to anyone.”

There are many aspects to the case but some stand out.

A slug expert, Dr Michael Nash, has pointed out that the slug photographed at the factory was not a local variety — meaning it must have been carried in from elsewhere.

Ian Cook (centre) with retired detective Sergeant Paul Brady and retired detective Inspector Rod Porter (right). Picture: Alex Coppel

If not carried by a person (like Elizabeth Garlick) the slug must have hitched a ride on a vehicle.

That is possible, but there are some intriguing sidelights to the Day of the Slug and here’s one: when a similar slug was tested at the site, it refused to slide off a plastic lid onto the clean floor because slugs (like snails) hate strong cleaning chemicals like the chlorine mixture used daily at the food factory.

Besides, slugs are nocturnal and move around on cool, damp nights — not in the middle of a hot day as it was on February 18, 2019.

The Cook family are not the only people who have suffered. Among the 45 employees who lost their jobs after Brett Sutton’s “naming and shaming” were several disabled people who worked on full wages under a philanthropic program.

One of them, a profoundly deaf woman, was unable to get another job, so her elderly parents lost their house because she was paying it off for them.

HOW HIGH DOES SLUG GATE GO?

As 2022 begins, that is still the fifty million dollar question hanging over the state government, Victoria Police, City of Dandenong — and also City of Knox — as the “investigation” of the sleazy saga crawls along at snail’s pace.

It’s hard to know who wants to cover up Slug Gate most. But some senior police, who may well be called or named in a future court action, give the impression of trying to nobble any effective investigation of who stood to gain from wrecking I Cook Foods.

What appears to be orchestrated industrial sabotage has turned into what looks a lot like an orchestrated cover-up.

One that affects people all the way up to the health department chief Brett Sutton — who’s yet to explain his part in a seeming attempt to put I Cook Foods out of business with a bogus health scare.

There are signs, however, that Sutton is prepared to throw health department colleagues under the karma bus.

The extra-slimy part of Slug Gate is the cover up on top of cover up. It seems to the Cook family that those who killed their business are compounding the offence by trying to hide their tracks.

Ian Cook is shocked by what he and his business have endured at the hands of people and institutions he had trusted all his life. Picture: David Caird

The story goes back to two weeks before the Day of the Slug when Jean Painter died at Knox Private Hospital after taking ill at a nearby aged care home. Dandenong council and the health department seized on her death as an excuse to use their draconian powers to close down commercial kitchens in which food poisoning or contamination occurs.

The truth, soon uncovered, was that Jean Painter had in fact died of a longstanding heart condition unrelated to her relatively minor listeria symptoms.

It could have ended there — except that Brett Sutton, apparently briefed by department officers — called the media conference that wrecked I Cook Foods.

Despite the fact the department’s own laboratory testing had cleared the company of any breach of food safety rules, Sutton made inflammatory and false claims that torched the Cooks’ brand.

Sutton not only claimed — contrary to his department experts — that I Cook Foods was the source of a lethal listeria outbreak. He also gratuitously named the business, which was totally unnecessary even had his claims been true, as no I Cook Foods products are sold directly to the public.

Ian Cook is shocked by what he and his business have endured at the hands of people and institutions he had trusted all his life.

The ordeal of an honest health inspector, Ray Christy, bolsters Cook’s point. Christy was working for the City of Knox in February 2019, when the health department seconded him to investigate the details of Jean Painter’s death at Knox Private Hospital some days earlier.

Christy’s report was that the ill woman had been restricted to a “soft diet” prepared wholly in the hospital’s own kitchen. He made it clear she had not eaten any pre-packaged sandwiches from I Cook Foods.

Ian Cook was preparing to give an interview at Knox Police Station when Senior Constable Robert Baker called to say it was off.

Christy was disturbed that his report was ignored by health department officers who briefed Brett Sutton before the devastating media conference.

When Cook spoke to Christy in March 2019, Christy said: “You need to get my report”. But when Cook applied to Knox for the report under FOI, all 34 pages were redacted.

When Cook contacted the Knox City FOI redaction officer, the officer admitted he had been directed to carry out the redaction by his “CEO and manager”.

The officer said the report had been totally blacked out on grounds it was “irrelevant” but said his opinion was that it should be released uncensored “in the public interest.”

The bottom line, says Cook, is that the City of Knox effectively suppressed evidence in a case in which his company faced 96 charges that could have landed him in jail. Such suppression is a serious offence, which is why a detective Senior Constable Robert Baker was doing his job properly by taking a statement from Ray Christy and arranging to take one from Cook.

The detective’s no-nonsense approach impressed Cook, who had been frustrated by months of strangely slow and ineffective police work on the slug-planting scandal.

On June 29 this year, Baker called Cook to invite him to Knox police station the following Saturday, July 4, to make a full statement about Knox City’s hiding of evidence and possible links to the health department.

But just three days later, Baker called Cook to say the interview was off. When the flabbergasted Cook asked why, the detective said his “boss told him that the boss above him” directed that the complaint be “merged with” the slug investigation still supposedly under way with Casey police — where it had ended up after Dandenong police had flicked it to Moorabbin because of a “conflict of interest”.

The Slug Gate saga has turned into a game of pass the parcel, with the case being handballed back and forth up to five times between police officers at three different stations.

Despite the fact that police originally claimed the slug rort could not be investigated by Dandenong police because of a “conflict of interest,” it has now done full circle and is being shuffled between Dandenong and Casey after ineffective inquiries at Moorabbin.

Ian Cook has retained legendary criminal barrister Robert Richter, QC. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

After two separate Parliamentary inquiries, it is still unclear why police “investigation” of apparent criminal behaviour has led nowhere.

The latest of a growing list of officers seemingly unhappy to be tossed the hot potato is an acting inspector at Casey, Dean Grande. When Ian Cook called him at home in late October to demand answers on why there had been no effective investigation of the slug scandal, the exasperated Grande retorted that he wasn’t Cook’s “24-7 police person” and hung up.

To be fair to Grande, the mess isn’t of his making. He is the meat in a sandwich that might end up choking someone above him.

Finally, last week Victoria Police confirmed it has closed the case on allegations of sabotage and evidence-tampering.

No charges will be laid over the closure of I Cook Foods, sparking fury from the company’s boss.

Ian Cook attacked the decision.

“When will this government and their police force stop lying to the Victorian people? Crimes happened,” he said.

COOK TURNS TO LEGENDARY BARRISTER

Ian Cook has sought high-level legal advisers. Apart from the skilled commercial barrister Dr Michelle Sharpe, he has retained legendary criminal barrister Robert Richter QC, among whose grateful clients is Robert Hill, one of the armed robbery detectives charged with the murder of robber Graeme Jensen at Narre Warren in October, 1988.

Richter’s skilful defence saw Hill cleared of murdering Jensen. It was Richter who would later famously act for underworld figure Mick Gatto when he was acquitted of murdering hit man Andrew “Benji” Veniamin in a Carlton restaurant.

Hill has recently been moved back to the crime department after several years in charge of the southern metropolitan police district, and is a regular police commentator on the cold case squad’s success in uncovering the remains of Wonnangatta campers Russell Hill and Carol Clay.

But Slug Gate is a different kettle of fish.

One reason for the snail’s pace in the slug “investigation”, perhaps, are hidden relationships between some players. It is staggering that no one was interviewed in the first inquiry, not even Elizabeth Garlick, despite an overwhelming circumstantial inference that the slug was planted.

Among questions to be answered in 2022 is this: Is the secretive relationship between a senior police officer and a certain councillor interfering with due process?

Gladys Berejiklian found out the hard way about the price of mixing politics and pleasure. Something smells in Dandy and odds are it isn’t I Cook’s food.