Deadline: Publisher pulps former Special Opperations Group cop’s memoir

When police who served in the Special Operations Group in the 1990s read that a former member claimed he was sent to the Port Arthur massacre, they were not happy — and with good reason.

Chris Glasl (left) in his time with Special operations group.

Andrew Rule and Mark Buttler with the latest crime buzz.

Not the son of god, just a naughty boy

The fertiliser has hit the fan over loose fact-checking and editing of a book by a former Special Operations Group cop who spent four years in the elite squad before his unravelling mental state led back to normal uniform duties and, inevitably, his resignation.

His name is Chris Glasl and his not-so-elite memoir, entitled Special Operations Group, has former squad mates frothing at the bung.

The main drama is an issue of fact that neither a ghost writer nor publishers’ editors picked up for an understandable reason: they tend to trust even rank amateurs to know their own life story and to get basic places, names and dates roughly correct.

These publishers might not make that rookie error again. On Monday they decided to pulp the book because of a clearly misleading chapter.

Deadline privately warned the publisher last week that the book was rough and raw and contained at least one palpable and “pulpable” flaw — the illegal mentioning by name of a protected witness.

But that is just an extra reason for the fertiliser explosion in a words factory apparently supervised by innocent and ignorant Sydney-based interns without benefit of adequate editorial or legal supervision.

Publishers pulped the book of ex SOG cop Chris Glasl. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

When the now middle-aged police (and ex-police) who served in the SOG in the 1990s saw that Glasl implied in print he was one of the team sent from Melbourne to the Port Arthur massacre in 1996, they were not happy, Jan.

And their wives aren’t happy, either. One concerned partner, Sophie, fired off a letter to the Herald Sun at the weekend which puts their case strongly:

“My husband is a current serving member of Victoria Police and was one of a team of ten SOG members that went to the Port Arthur Massacre.

“Chris Glasl was not at Port Arthur, any assertion that he was there is a complete lie.

“In the book ‘Sons of God’ by Heath O’Loughlin, there is a photo take (sic) by the SOG Inspector of the team that when (sic) to Tasmania, Glasl is not in it!

“It is disappointing that the publisher has not fact checked, and this book attempts to profit from a mass shooting using fake valour.”

We couldn’t agree more. Except to say that the unstable author’s half-baked porkie was, with five seconds hindsight, so obviously fated to fail you’d have to ask whether he was in a fit state to write anything longer or stronger than a shopping list.

Any former coppers busting to kick a fallen man should bear in mind that they could end up in the same queue to be treated or compensated for post-traumatic stress.

It is a sad fact of police work that it produces so many broken people. One reason for that, say victims, is the bullying that happens when certain alpha males smell blood. Watch this space.

The other Les Theodore

Sharing a name can be tricky when it comes to death notices.

So, to be clear, the Les Theodore laid to rest in Melbourne last week was not the colourful horse-training identity who shares that name.

This departed was the thoroughly respectable Francis Leslie Theodore, known as Les, husband of Jeanette and father of Dennis, Peter and Lindy.

The giveaway was the photograph of a cute little red car decorating his death notice in the Herald Sun.

You can bet that the other Les Theodore’s death notice would have a picture of a horse or a racing motif, maybe a lucky horseshoe. And that there would be a string of notices from a wide range of citizens who met him at the track and elsewhere.

Racing Les Theodore has always been pretty sharp about knowing when to hold them and when to fold them. This is the canny Riverina trainer who sold the champion Better Loosen Up to owners who took him to the Hayes stable, and Campaign King to Bart Cummings.

The Les Theodore laid to rest last week was not the colourful horse-training identity. Picture: David Smith

Both horses won a lot of money for their new connections but Theodore made sure he won two ways — pulling off betting plunges on them as young horses then selling them at a premium.

He has always been regarded as streetwise and well-connected at all levels of racing. If the late Brian Francis “Skull” Murphy, the controversial former policeman who left us a few months ago, needed someone to ride shotgun on private investigations or debt collecting, Les would turn out.

He looked the part in an impeccable private-eye outfit: suit and tie and long, cashmere overcoat.

It is, of course, very easy to mix up exactly who’s who in the death notices.

This reminds Deadline of the embarrassment to many in the boxing fraternity when reports of the death of the great TV Ringside fighter Kahu Mahunga clearly became exaggerated.

So exaggerated that an entire fight crowd held a minute’s silence in his memory at “Fort Knox” fight night in Melbourne’s outer east. This came as some surprise to the real Mahunga, then very much alive and working as a school cleaner in Darwin.

It turned out that for years another Kiwi with a passable likeness to Mahunga had assumed his identity, so successfully that the imposter’s wife and family had no idea that Dad was a fraud until after he died.

Charter flight

Recent troubles with the police do not appear to have cramped the style of colourful bodybuilding guru Shane Charter.

The man heavily involved in the Essendon supplements scandal seems to be living the good life, despite last year’s Echo task force raid on his Fitzroy clinic and the subsequent laying of a heap of charges.

While stay-at-homes were moaning about Melbourne’s winter chill, the bodybuilder did something about it and jetted out to Dubai to bask in the northern sun.

And despite his ongoing trouble with law enforcement at home, Charter seems to admire the style of cops in the United Arab Emirates.

He posted a photo on Instagram of one of their vehicles with the message: “Amazing — cops drive G-wagons.”

Shane Charter seems to admire the style of cops in the United Arab Emirates.

Dubai is, of course, a place where many colourful expats have set up in recent times, though Charter was there only for a holiday.

The trip means he obviously won his fight against Victoria Police for the right to travel overseas.

The force had opposed the return of his passport, arguing he was a flight risk and might not return, citing text messages from his phone which they said were evidence he wanted a Dutch passport and dual citizenship.

Charter denied they were evidence of any intent to flee. Judging by his recent movements, must have won the argument.

Face the press

There are ticket scalpers, who are predatory rorters, and then there are ticket scammers, who are downright thieves. It seems James Bambino is all of the above, which didn’t stop him escaping with what seems a light sentence in Heidelberg Court last Thursday.

Bambino was pinged for ripping off about 70 gullible AFL fans who paid $26,000 for what turned out to be imaginary tickets to the 2022 grand final.

His lawyer Geoffrey Steward told Magistrate Jennifer Tregent he could barely remember a case in that court that had “attracted so much attention.”

That might be a slight exaggeration.

A handful of journos, including our own Ashley Argoon, were in court and cameras were waiting outside to relay the outcome of the case to an interested public.

James Bambino conned 70 people out of $26k but still managed to walk out of court with his “his head held high”, according to his barrister.

After Bambino was handed 250 hours unpaid community work without conviction, we learned something quite unexpected: there’d been a quiet offer by the police prosecutor to help hide the Bambino face from a waiting media pack. Who, we might add, were only there because police laid the charges in the first place.

A face mask, we heard, could be procured and offered to the guilty man.

But lawyer Steward politely declined on behalf of his client.

“He’ll leave with his head held high,” he declared to Her Honour.

It had the whiff of another case just a few months earlier, where a quiet deal appeared to have been made between Supreme Court security staff and a witness in a high-profile murder trial.

In big trials, camera crews tend to stand out the front of court to capture images of those crucial to the case, so that the public can match a face with the name and evidence that person gave that day.

Over a number of days, this man was quizzed by a crown prosecutor and defence barrister.

And at the end of each day, he would hide in a room where he was met by a court security guard, who would escort him away from waiting media down secret exits that needed special security clearance.

One day, the witness was even offered an umbrella to shield his face from view. We wonder who it is that decides who gets the protective shield, and who doesn’t, and why.

Territory time

Reporters wanting help from the Northern Territory police media section have a very precise time frame to work within.

They sent out a reminder last week that the lines are open from 7am and close at 4.21pm.

You can get it burglin’

Cloned number plates were once associated with high-level criminals committing high-level crimes.

Now, bogus copies are so common they are used by all sorts of Mickey Mouse offenders.

Last week, a driver had them on his car when he stole petrol from an eastern suburbs servo. He was just getting warmed up, according to police, who say that next day he allegedly burgled a Doncaster restaurant and grabbed five kegs of boutique beer.

Investigators from Manningham CIU on Thursday raided a property in Epping and arrested a 45-year-old man and seized a white Holden Omega station wagon.

The unopened beer kegs have been recovered and a man charged with burglary, theft and driving while suspended.