Fraser - Court in the Middle

COURT
IN THE
MIDDLE

andrew fraser

COURT
IN THE
MIDDLE

Published in 2010 by Hardie Grant Books

Hardie Grant Books (Australia)
85 High Street
Prahran, Victoria 3181
www.hardiegrant.com.au

Hardie Grant Books (UK)
Second Floor, North Suite
Dudley House
Southhampton Street
London WC2E 7HF
www.hardiegrant.co.uk

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers and copyright holders.

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Copyright Andrew Fraser 2007

Cataloguing-in-Publication data is available from the National Library of Australia.

ISBN 9 781 740 669 993

Edited by Sally Moss
Cover design by Design by Committee
Cover photograph by Lindy Allen
Printed and bound in Australia

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

Chapter 1
Day In

Chapter 2
The Making of a Lawyer

Chapter 3
Bigger and Better Things

Chapter 4
The Drug Squad the Enemy Within

Chapter 5
Keep Your Friends Close and Your Enemies Closer

Chapter 6
The Walsh Street Murders

Chapter 7
In the Slammer

Chapter 8
Law and Disorder

Chapter 9
Day Out

For Lachlan and Olivia

The years at the spring
And days at the morn;
Mornings at seven;
The hillsides dew-pearled;
The larks on the wing;
The snails on the thorn;
Gods in his heaven
Alls right with the world!

PIPPAS PASSES, ROBERT BROWNING

From the sublime to the ridiculous is
but one small step.

ATTRIBUTED TO NAPOLEON BONAPARTE
ON HIS RETURN FROM HIS DISASTROUS
RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN IN 1812

Silence! All stand!

His Honour Judge Leo Hart crashes open the door from the judges anteroom and, with head down, strides to his seat on the bench. Still not looking up, he opens the court and begins his sentencing of me and my co-accused.

At this point, one wonders how a lawyer like me, who for many years had a thriving practice both in Australia and overseas, has managed to plumb such depths as to end up standing in the dock of the County Court of the State of Victoria, Australia, to be sentenced for my part in being knowingly concerned with the importation of a commercial quantity of cocaine. I suppose the answer is simple and can be summed up in one word: addiction.

It is the very nature of addiction that drives you to indiscriminate behaviour, poor choices and, frankly, total disregard for the future consequences of your present actions. You merely barge onwards in the overriding desire to purchase and consume drugs. In my case, the drug was cocaine.

His Honour commences with a brief recitation of the facts: One Werner Roberts, a New Zealand national, together with his wife, Andrea Mohr, and a friend of theirs, Carl Urbanec, had conspired to import, and then actually imported, into Australia from Benin in East Africa eight ornamental plaques concealing a quantity of white powder. The white powder weighed 5.55 kilograms and contained 3.7 kilograms of pure cocaine valued at something between A$1.35 and A$2.7 million.

It strikes me as odd that supposed experts within the police force can only give such a wildly varying estimate. From what I have been told over the years, cocaine sold wholesale which is what Roberts intended was worth somewhere in the vicinity of $100,000 a kilo, making the total amount of imported white powder worth $555,000. I suppose it doesnt really matter now, but one must make these observations. No one has ever been able to adequately explain to me how courts continue to accept as fact the stratospheric figures placed by the police on virtually any drug deal.

Roberts was the importer and Mohr and Urbanec were his supporters. As for my role, Roberts, Mohr and Urbanec as a group were my major cocaine suppliers and the Judge conceded that I only became involved in this escapade due to my addiction.

The Crown further alleged in its agreed statement of facts, and the Court found, that I was incidental to the importation, that the importation was already set in stone when Roberts had his conversation with me at my office and that it would have taken place whether I had been involved or not.

Apart from the obvious activity of me travelling backwards and forwards to Robertss house to purchase cocaine on more occasions than youve had hot dinners, the only evidence alleged against me was the content of a conversation held in my office the night before Roberts departed for Benin.

You may well ask yourself: What is a solicitors office doing being bugged by the Drug Squad? I will deal with that question later; suffice to say that it is a matter of corrupt police endeavouring to cover their own backsides. The fact that their own corrupt activities came to a screaming holt not long after I was jailed just goes to show that there is some justice in this world after all.

On the eve of Robertss departure to Benin, he came to my office with some cocaine and we consumed the white powder along with some red wine. He told me what he had planned and that he intended to use an unwitting mule, Carol Brand, to actually bring in the plaques. Stupidly I said nothing about that plan and was foolish enough to give advice about going through customs. Roberts certainly didnt need this advice as, on his own admission, he had been a professional international drug dealer and smuggler for many years. The interesting part about all of this is that, according to what I was told, Roberts was actually working for Urbanec. And it was Mohr and Roberts who were the lieutenants to Urbanec. Urbanecs lawyers were clever enough to get him well and truly down the scale of things as far as his sentencing was concerned.

At this point I should say that this book is not meant to be a whinge about how hard done by I was. The reality of the matter is that I made a big mistake and I paid what could only be described as an overly hefty price for that mistake. That does not mean that I am happy with the treatment I received treatment that involved corruption among police in the Victoria Police Drug Squad (which, by the way, has now been disbanded due to that corruption) and their conspiracy against me. And, yes, I am very unhappy with the learned (and I use that word advisedly) trial judge who gave me a sentence that was breathtaking in its size. This whole sad episode is behind me but I think people should know the truth about what happened in the case.

After my arrest, the four police who were involved in the team that investigated me Detective Senior Sergeant Wayne Strawhorn, Detective Sergeant Malcolm Rosenes and Senior Detectives Paton and Firth were all investigated for corruption, with the result that Strawhorn, Paton and Rosenes were all charged, convicted and sentenced to lengthy terms of imprisonment for their corrupt activities. It is an interesting observation that the sentences they received for their endemic corruption were far shorter than the sentence I received. Is the old adage true that coppers get less, when and if they are convicted? The answer seems to me to be an unequivocal yes. Firth was not charged but was suspended and left the police force under what could only be described as a substantial cloud, with question marks left hanging over the propriety of his behaviour and over his honesty.

What an interesting situation, then, with me already on bail charged with certain offences and these officers being the charging officers while they themselves are charged with corrupt activity but (at that stage) not yet convicted. It later came to light that both Rosenes and Paton, at the time of their arrest and before my sentencing, had both admitted their culpability and had made deals with the Ethical Standards section to give evidence if necessary.