Rough justice on the inside

IT was a ripping tale of murder, bent cops and a male prostitute with a taste for human blood.

IT was a ripping tale of murder, bent cops and a male prostitute with a taste for human blood.

It made the case that corrupt police were involved in Melbourne's gangland killings, and it made Simon Overland's career as the honest cop who'd uncovered the link. It also announced the arrival of a talented young journalist from The Age, who'd toiled for months on the story.

The trouble is, Operation Briars was fundamentally flawed. It was overwhelmingly based on the testimony of a pathological liar, a repeat perjurer, a career criminal and murder; a supergrass whose ever-shifting evidence runs like a virus through Victoria's criminal justice system. He'd been generously rewarded for his testimony, yet little of it stacked up.

Two days before the first story rolled off the Fairfax press, the lead investigator was having serious doubts that charges would ever result. Three years on, those doubts have been proved well founded. And Chief Commissioner Overland's reputation hangs in the balance over his involvement in and promotion of the investigation.

Detective Senior Sergeant Ron Iddles, one of Victoria's most respected detectives, was the lead investigator of Briars, a joint Victoria Police and Office of Police Integrity taskforce to establish whether there were links between serving and current police and the 2003 murder of 28-year-old prostitute and self-styled vampire Shane Chartres-Abbott.

Iddles had been nominated by Overland in February 2007 to run the day-to-day investigation. Iddles agreed with one condition; it would not be a show trial. If charges were to be laid against a serving cop he'd be there in person to slap on the cuffs, but only if the evidence supported the case.

By September 12, 2007, Iddles was far from convinced. The case was based on accusations that two police had been involved in the murder of Chartres-Abbott, who was shot in the neck in an ambush outside his Reservoir home in Melbourne's north on June 4, 2003. One was a long-serving detective, Peter "Stash" Lalor; the other, David "Docket" Waters, was a former cop who had burned out in the job and associated with several notorious gangland figures. On September 12, Lalor and Waters had been summonsed to give evidence to the OPI, where they were questioned about the murder for the first time.

At a 1pm meeting on the same day, Iddles met taskforce head Rod Wilson and fellow investigator Steve Waddell, OPI deputy director Graham Ashton, assistant commissioner Luke Cornelius from the Ethical Standards Department, and then deputy commissioner Overland. Accounts of the conversation vary but two things are clear. Overland believed there was enough evidence to charge Lalor and Waters. Iddles didn't and refused to budge.

According to Waters, who has never spoken publicly before about his involvement in Briars, he would never have gone home from the OPI hearing had Overland had his way.

Waters told The Weekend Australian: "He [Overland] believed arrests were imminent. At 1pm he has gone down to have that discussion with Iddles, Waddell and Wilson. What he has gone down to tell them is to lock them up today. They had the media all organised, for Nick McKenzie, for Peter to be wheeled out in handcuffs."

Waters and Lalor believe they started as suspects in a murder investigation that morphed into a political witch-hunt.

Nick McKenzie had joined The Age from the ABC, where he had delved into bitter factional brawling within the police association, and pursued links between police corruption and Melbourne's gangland war. His first report on Briars on September 14, in which he named Lalor, a serving cop, as a suspect to murder was boldly splashed across the front of the paper. His second effort, a feature of more than 4000 words that ran the next day, contained a staggering level of detail.

Not one word appeared on behalf of Lalor or Waters, who both say they did not speak to McKenzie before the stories ran, although it is understood McKenzie made attempts to contact them. As good as the stories were, they did not contain important evidence: that Lalor and Waters gave lengthy, coercive interviews to the OPI in which they denied any knowledge of the Abbott-Chartres murder, and that the supergrass's own lawyer, Bernie Balmer, had already discredited one of his central claims, that Lalor had arranged to provide the killer with an alibi.

THE SUPERGRASS was a man known as Jack Price, one of Australia's most notorious criminals. The true identity of Price, or JP as he appears on court transcripts, is one of the state's most fiercely protected secrets. His name cannot be published, nor any information that can identify him. He has been killing people since the 70s and, depending on who is keeping score, is responsible for six deaths.

One of those is Chartres-Abbott. The morning of his unsolved murder, Chartres-Abbott was due in court to face rape charges over the assault of a woman found with part of her tongue gone and bite marks in her thigh. Adding gothic to gruesome, Chartres-Abbott told his victim he was a 200-year-old vampire.

The Chartres-Abbott case is remarkable for the deal struck by Price with police in exchange for his guilty plea.

Following testimony from Iddles during his plea hearing, Price was given no extra prison time in addition to the sentence he was already serving for two other murders. It was a case of kill two, get one free.

Iddles said Price's statement against Lalor was "vital to secure a conviction". Price has sworn that before killing Chartres-Abbott on June 4, 2003, he arranged his alibi with Lalor. Price claims that at lunch at the Canada Hotel in inner-Melbourne Carlton, they arranged for Price to go to the Prahran police station on the day of the murders, where Lalor would execute an outstanding warrant on unrelated driving offences.

At that same lunch, Price says, Lalor agreed to provide him with Chartres-Abbott's home address. Price also swears that Waters was at the lunch and took part in the conversation.

At the OPI hearing, no sooner had lawyer Balmer settled into his seat than Price's alibi allegations were exposed as absurd.

Balmer told the Briars investigators it wasn't Price's idea to go to the Prahran police station that afternoon, it was his. By coincidence, Lalor was the sergeant on duty. He had just started his afternoon shift when Price walked through the door. Lalor executed the warrant, but not because of any cunning plan with Price.

"It was a ridgy-didge execution of a warrant that we would do on a regular basis when you practise in the criminal law area," Balmer told The Weekend Australian. In the coercive hearing, no other evidence was put to Lalor that supported Price's alibi claims.

"That should have been enough," Lalor said this week. "It should have fallen over the next day." Only it didn't. Instead, Briars has run for more than three years, costing taxpayers an estimated $20 million. At a 2008 police seminar, Cornelius reported how Briars was the biggest investigation in the history of Victoria police and how, at its height, 55 phones were being bugged by investigators, with 12 phones monitored around the clock.

BRIARS and Operation Diana, an OPI taskforce spawned to investigate the leaks out of the murder investigation and expose those trying to undermine it, have not led to a single successful conviction.

Police Association boss Paul Mullett was charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice for allegedly passing on information that warned Lalor he was being investigated for murder. The strength of the evidence was ridiculed at the committal stage when the magistrate described it as containing more chaff than wheat. Mullett and then assistant commissioner Noel Ashby faced perjury charges for misleading the OPI. Those charges were thrown because the OPI failed to properly swear in former Federal Court justice Murray Wilcox QC to hear evidence in the hearings. Former police media director Stephen Linnell pleaded guilty to perjury. His conviction was quashed on appeal this week.

As for Lalor and Waters, they have never been charged. Nor has any evidence they gave to OPI investigators in separate coercive hearings been challenged.

Lalor, who was battling lymphoma at the time Briars was launched, is now training for a new career as a building surveyor. His cancer is in remission. He quit the force last September after more than 30 years on the job. Waters had been out of the force for seven years when Briars became public. He runs an earth-moving business. They remain great mates. Lalor is godfather to Waters's daughter. They are furious at what Briars has done to their lives.

"I don't have a problem with being investigated," says Lalor. "If someone has said I have done something, I don't have a problem with it being investigated so long as it was investigated properly.

"But this was used for political reasons, as a payback for me and, as it has turned out, to try to discredit Paul Mullett.

"The fact of the matter is, this investigation is still ongoing. They have wasted vast amounts of money and vast amounts of time pursuing something that should have been knocked on the head a long time ago. Once Jack Price's first lie was exposed, they should have had grave concerns about the veracity of his account and approached it with a more open mind. When you read Overland's [2007] affidavit, it was almost a done deal that we did everything we had been accused of.

"If you look at where Simon was at that point of time in terms of his career, he was an assistant commissioner and there is no doubt he had his eyes on the top job. He was a very ambitious man. He also had a very credible rival in Noel Ashby. He wanted to find the smoking gun: the link between gangland murders and Victoria Police. Up until that time he had been largely unsuccessful. Then along comes Jack Price, who has provided them with a story and they have just jumped on it."

Overland's November 2007 affidavit to the OPI also reveals he saw an opportunity in Briars: the chance for Victoria Police to show they were capable of exposing corruption in the ranks without the embarrassment of a royal commission: "On 31 January I spoke to [then chief commissioner] Christine Nixon for the first time with Luke and said: 'Look, this is what I think we've got now and we now need to work out what we're going to do about it because this is the smoking gun that the media had been looking for and royal commissions and all the rest of it.' "

Waters says he harbours no ill-feeling towards Iddles. He says he is grateful for Iddles's involvement because he can now be confident that all the evidence has been exhaustively investigated and left him with no case to answer. But he is furious that much of Briars was allowed to rest on Price's word.

"If the public became aware who the person central to this whole was, and knew his 35-year history of lying and manipulating the courts and the police, they would be demanding an inquiry," Waters says.

"If someone comes to you and says a former policeman is involved in a murder, investigate, collect the evidence and, if there are charges to be laid, lay them. But don't turn it into what becomes a politically motivated football that is kicked around between the Police Association, the state government, the OPI and the opposition."

In his statement provided to police, Price says he, Lalor and Waters all discussed a plan to kill Chartres-Abbott at a lunch at the Canada Hotel. Lalor and Waters both deny ever meeting Price together, much less sitting down to lunch. Waters says: "He never ate lunch. He would just drink."

After he left the force at the end of 2000, Waters drank regularly at the Canada. For a time, he also drank regularly with Price. But the two men fell out over the gangland figure Mick Gatto. Waters knew Gatto and also had a rapport with Nik "The Russian" Radev.

Waters explained that his association with Radev began during his days on the force, at the request of the taskforce investigating the 1998 murder of sergeant Gary Silk. Radev was in jail and, for a time, suspected of the murder. Waters was instructed to visit him and elicit information. Once the investigation moved on to other suspects and Radev was released from jail, Radev and Waters stayed in contact.

A key piece of Price's evidence in Briars came from a conversation Waters and a drunken Radev had one night at the Canada shortly before Radev was killed as part of the gangland wars. Waters recalls how Radev was raving about a Hollywood-style plot to kill "The Spag", Gatto. Carl Williams was said to be willing to pay $250,000 for the contract. The assassination would involve a drive-by shooting, from the back of a motorbike, while Gatto was sitting outside his Carlton cafe.

As part of his sworn statement, Price told Briars investigators of a furious argument he and Waters had at the Canada. The fight, Price claimed, was about Waters mouthing off about his involvement in his Chartres-Abbott murder. Waters agrees the pair had a fight. But he says it was because Price believed his warning to Gatto had cost him any chance of getting close enough to Gatto to accept the contract.

"He was filthy on me because he said I cost him $250,000," Waters says. Waters also believes it was this altercation that led Price, several years later, to set him up.

For Briars investigators, it was essential to get to the bottom of who was telling the truth. They diligently interviewed staff at the hotel and other people present during the argument. Not one of them backed Price's version of events. Price then changed his story, saying there were two arguments, not one. No, other witnesses said, there was just one argument. Similarly, detectives have never found another witness to the alleged meeting between Lalor, Waters and Price.

"For them to be able to put myself and Price and Lalor together, if it ever happened, should be the easiest process in the world," Waters says. "Track the phones. Track the Mastercards. Track the bank accounts, where we withdrew money. The lunch was in a public place. They must have interviewed more than 100 people. And out of that, is there one person who has corroborated what Price has said? If there was, I wouldn't be sitting here."

Iddles has made clear his view that the case against Waters and Lalor should be closed. In February last year, Iddles told Police Association lawyer Tony Hargreaves that the Briars brief had come back from the Office of Public Prosecutions, and that DPP Jeremy Rapke QC had signed off on the opinion that there was not enough evidence to lay charges.

Waters and Lalor were duly informed. For a brief moment they thought their ordeal was over. Yet within hours of the development becoming public, Cornelius issued a press release insisting the investigation was continuing. Lalor and Waters remained persons of interest. Just as it was in September 2007, senior figures in police command appeared more optimistic about Briars than the detectives investigating the case.

In November last year, police offered a $1m reward for information leading to the capture of Mark Adrian Perry, a drug importer and the former boyfriend of Chartres-Abbott's rape victim. In announcing the reward, Waddell said: "We believe Perry holds the key to this investigation." As Waters sees it: "They are offering $1m for anyone who will agree with Jack Price."

The evidence against Lalor, at least what has been put to him, also appears flimsy. Lalor told the OPI he knew nothing of the Chartres-Abbott murder, even though it had taken place in his own precinct. He also denied Price offered to pay him $1500 for the prostitute's home address.

"I had no qualms about the investigation but I think it is being driven now for political reasons. They should have wound this up a long time ago when they started exposing the lies that Jack Price had come out with. The fact he is protected now is really questionable . . . And they claim he got nothing out of it, which is just nonsense. There is no doubt it was a payback for Dave Waters and I was just collateral damage."

Lalor and Waters are not alone in believing that Briars should be officially declared a bust. Price's lawyer Balmer says he is "gobsmacked" that a decision has not been made.

"If they are going to prosecute them, tell them they are going to prosecute them and do it," Balmer says. "If they are not going to prosecute them, tell them they are not. It has just gone on and on and on. In terms of human chess, it is a shocking game that is being played."

Even though Waters was well out of the force by the time Briars was established, he was an obvious target for anyone wanting to establish a nexus between police and the gangland wars.

As a young constable, he was charged, and acquitted of causing grievous bodily harm in a Lygon Street brawl.

After he left the force, he was charged and acquitted of drugs trafficking during his days as a detective at St Kilda CIB. Mullett this week said: "There was always an odour around Docket."

Waters admits that his style of policing, a style shaped from the adrenaline-charged days following the Walsh Street killing of two police officers when he was raiding "10 houses in a morning" as part of the Major Crimes Squad, is now obsolete. But he denies he was bent.

"When I was grabbing people and doing raids I wasn't offering them a f . . king cup of tea and a biscuit but I have never stolen anything, I have never dealt drugs and I have never, ever murdered anyone."

Lalor by contrast, had an unblemished record. His most serious misjudgment was to circulating emails under the pseudonym Kit Walker attacking then Police Association president Janet Mitchell, and defending Mullett, her factional rival. Another poor decision - certainly for his career - was to maintain his friendship with Waters.

He now admits the Kit Walker campaign was ill-advised, but he remains fiercely loyal to Waters.

What neither men knew is how perfectly they fit into the story that McKenzie was furiously working on, and Overland would be eager to run.

FOR The Age newspaper and McKenzie, the extraordinary scoops in mid-September 2007 they published about Operation Briars were a journalistic coup.

Veteran detectives and reporters were astonished. Some described it as the most detailed coverage of a highly sensitive, and ongoing, undercover operation they had ever read.

There was rampant speculation that some of the details could only have come from people involved in Briars at the highest levels.

Throughout 2007, McKenzie was leaked other information. There were leaks of documents and information damaging to Mullett, arising from a Nixon-sponsored bullying investigation into his conduct.

The 2006 probe arose from a complaint by senior sergeant Janet Mitchell, who said Mullett's treatment of her forced her to quit the association.

The leaks pitted Mullett's old-school style of policing and industrial relations and his tough-guy image against the new guard of Victoria Police and the OPI in a public relations war.

The bullying investigation, and all allegations against Mullett, were dropped in March this year.

As a result of The Age's mid-September scoops on Operation Briars the taskforce chief, Wilson, believed it had been ruined.

In an affidavit dated November 2, 2007, Wilson said: "The impact of the leak and publication of the article significantly compromised our investigation."

When an OPI investigator interviewing Wilson suggested the name of OPI deputy director Graham Ashton as a possible source of the leak, Wilson replied: "Oh, not fingering anyone in particular, but you know, people within OPI were leaking to the, you know, leaking out parts of the story."

The OPI has since issued a categorical denial that it was behind the leaking.

Assistant Commissioner Cornelius said in an affidavit in late 2007: "The detail in the article surprised and annoyed us."

In his affidavit, Overland speaks of the culture of leaking information in Victoria Police. "My experience of these things over the years is that you are just better off to be out there and to at least be giving the media a story because they are then less likely to try and back-door you.

"We quite deliberately right throughout this have just kept feeding them, trying to find different angles, trying to give them stories, trying to have them run stories that we were comfortable to have them running.

"Rather than, sort of, be digging through the back door and finding stuff that we didn't, we have tried to cultivate relationships with some of the key journalists.

"McKenzie is one of them. That strategy has worked to a degree."

In an interview with ABC radio's Jon Faine earlier this year, McKenzie said he had maintained his independence throughout his dealings with Briars.

"I had my information quite separately," McKenzie said. "I came quite properly to the police force and said well, I want to publish this as soon as possible. It was a story in the public interest.

"I was told, please don't publish, can The Age hold off? I didn't trade off with anybody. I had my information. I didn't want to do something that would jeopardise an operation, so I waited. I can say to the journalists, I wish that the Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police was a source in mind. It would make my job a hell of a lot easier."

Wherever McKenzie got his information on Briars, he got the outcome he wanted; a terrific scoop.

As for Overland, he got to tell the story he wanted; that under his watch, Victoria Police was purging itself of corrupt officers linked to the gangland wars. Yet it has come at a severe cost.

As reported extensively by The Australian Briars was compromised by a chain of leaks, which was started, inadvertantly, by Overland himself on August 14, 2007. By passing on secret intelligence from Briars' telephone taps to his media manager Linnell, Overland triggered the chain of events that led to the collapse of Briars.

Overland disclosed to Linnell intelligence from a tap on Lalor's phone that Mullett and Lalor were planning to leak to radio station 3AW's Rumour File a proposal for Overland to accept a taxpayer-funded trip to a management course near Paris. Linnell, fearing that this meant his good friend Ashby's phones were being tapped, warned Ashby, who in turn warned Mullett, as they had been gossiping about the trip in earlier calls. Mullett then told his police union colleague Brian Rix to warn Lalor, the target of Briars, that his phone might be "off".

Overland now faces allegations that he breached the federal Telecommunications (Interceptions and Access) Act, amid calls for a judicial inquiry into the entire Briars fiasco.