Corporate tycoon Ron Brierley’s ‘207,000 child porn images’

Ron Brierley quits last ASX role after arrest for allegedly amassing a vast collection of child abuse pornography.

Ron Brierley did not comment during a brief appearance outside his Point Piper home, in Sydney’s east, on Wednesday. Picture: Damian Shaw

Multi-millionaire corporate tycoon Ron Brierley allegedly amassed a vast collection of child abuse pornography over two decades before an anonymous tip-off to authorities led to his arrest as he prepared to board a plane at Sydney international airport.

Received in August, the phone call sparked a five-month inquiry into the personal and cyber-related habits of a man once lauded for his contributions to business management and the community.

In the 1980s, Sir Ron was one of the most feared corporate raiders, playing critical roles in campaigns for control or dominance at well-known companies. These included Woolworths, Coles, AGL, David Jones, the collapsed Adelaide Steamship of the 1980s and Air New Zealand, as well as a string of smaller companies across a wide range of sectors such as property development, lotteries, hotels, IT, mining, dairy and farming.

On Thursday he quit his last role with an ASX-listed company, resigning from the board of investment company Sandon Capital.

Sir Ron Brierley with Dianne Thorpe, and Julia Schaeffer at a race meeting at Sydney’s Randwick racecourse.

Sir Ron officially announced his retirement in June, stepping down from his latest corporate vehicle, Mercantile Investment Company, and the congratulations and testimonials came flooding in.

About 6.30am on Tuesday, the 82-year-old activated a Passenger Analysis Clearance and Evacuation system alert linked to his name as he prepared to fly out of Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport.

He was escorted into a private room by Australian Border Force officers, then NSW detectives arrived.

A search of his carry-on luggage yielded a laptop and two USB sticks, both allegedly full of abuse material.

Police will allege that they found 207,000 still images and more than 500 videos constituting a range of abuse on the devices.

Ron Brierley's investiture as a Knight Bachelor by the then Governor-General, Sir Paul Reeves. Picture: Supplied

A law-enforcement official familiar with the matter described the content as “very sexualised, not violent” and involving “young children”.

The official said Sir Ron’s only significant comment during the arrest process was that he found the material “interesting”.

At the time of his arrest, he was due to board a flight to Fiji.

He did not provide a formal statement when he was taken to Mascot police station, where he was charged on Tuesday night with six counts of possessing child abuse material and granted conditional bail to appear at Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court on February 10.

He did not comment during a brief appearance outside his Point Piper home, in Sydney’s east, on Wednesday morning.

For five months, officers with the Eastern Suburbs Police Area Command undertook “extensive” inquiries to try to firm up the veracity of the original Crime Stoppers allegation.

The details provided were scant but compelling enough to merit a commitment of resources and an ongoing investigation.

Brierley was granted conditional bail to appear in Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court in February. Picture: Damian Shaw

Officials were reluctant to specify the nature of these inquiries, but said one task was to determine if the material was being manufactured. Another was to investigate potential links with co-offenders. Detectives worked in consultation with specialist officers from the NSW Police Force Child Abuse and Sex Crimes Squad.

Asked why the specialist squad did not take carriage of the case to begin with, a seasoned officer said: “These are dime-a-dozen nowadays. You can obtain a lot of that material on the dark web. There’s no real block — that’s how easy it is.”

An official said the arrest of Sir Ron was “standalone” and not linked to any wider syndicate. Having said that, investigators have indicated they will now face the task of trawling through the metadata attached to each picture and video in order to identify its source, when it was made, and whether further inquiries could be worked up into more arrests here or abroad.

The arrest of Sir Ron was not taken without some trepidation: detaining him at the airport and searching his luggage stood to ruin the investigation if nothing of value was located.

It is understood that officers intended to persist with their investigation into Sir Ron using covert methodology had he not signalled his intent to leave the country. Asked whether officers had amassed any significant evidence against him up until that point, the official said: “They certainly had enough to take a PACE alert out. You have to be confident that there’s a reason to stop them — (but) this forced their hand.”

Additional reporting: Emily Ritchie, Eli Greenblat