C
Contrarian
What I find intriguing is the way they're nice houses and then all fenced up with this zinc sheeting. It only makes the place more obvious. Then again, Roe street would have been busy even back then.
Happy2
Legend Member
- Points
- 15
I think you will find contrarioan that some of the "establishments" were even lower down the pecking order
Again I am only going by my 95yr old fathers memory And it may well be pre 58 too. Any way out of sight out of mind Perths Decent people would not have gone to that part of the city So that sort thing wouldn't be happening
And a old Uncle who used to work at Peters Icecream factory in the area pre war I believe Said it was still fairly quiet around Roe St but the best part was the Police lock up was also in the same street Roe ST
Again I am only going by my 95yr old fathers memory And it may well be pre 58 too. Any way out of sight out of mind Perths Decent people would not have gone to that part of the city So that sort thing wouldn't be happening
And a old Uncle who used to work at Peters Icecream factory in the area pre war I believe Said it was still fairly quiet around Roe St but the best part was the Police lock up was also in the same street Roe ST
C
Contrarian
A bit more culled from research attained online.
C
Contrarian
The thick plottens!
tuesday, july 13, 2010
Shirley Finn murder
Chapter 20SHIRLEY FINN:
Shot Dead by Order
of The Fifth EstateMENS REA, THE GUILTY MIND! It is one of the two key elements of criminal conduct which, when combined with the actus reus, the criminal act, becomes the arrestable, indictable, prosecutable and convictable event. Maybe! In regards to Fifth Estate type corruption, all the bull in arrestable, indictable, prosecutable and convictable amounts to a Monopoly get-out-of-jail (or don’t-even-go-to-jail) card. Indeed, recalling the dizzy days of Queensland before the big FitzGerald Royal Commission, the police there referred to their own conduct and business interests as “the Joke.” It was a big laugh. Forefinger to the nostril and a smirking question, “Are you in on the Joke?” A wink and a nudge was all that was required in reply. And the Joke was – and is – fully on the go over here in the Wild West.
Maybe I’m getting a little too technical here, but I would like to explore these basic elements of criminal conduct. The actus reus of common law burglary is the breaking and entering of the dwelling house of another at night, whereas the mens rea includes the requirement that the accused do such breaking and entering with the intent to commit a felony once inside.
In its actus reus/mens rea distinction the criminal law has mirrored a deep divide in morality. This is the divide between wrongdoing and culpability. Although it is disputed, morality is most often thought to contain certain prohibitions and requirements, such as “Do not kill” and “Help others in distress.” Morality generally permits us either to do or not to do most acts, but morality forbids certain actions and requires others. To do an act morality forbids, or to refrain from doing an act morality requires, is to breach one's moral obligations. This is moral wrongdoing. With the guilty act accompanied by the guilty mind, a crime is committed. Yet for some time those involved with the murder of Shirley Finn have stuck together in denying the mens rea of the their part in her killing. Yet, as the wheel turns, this is inexorably falling apart as further facts are gleaned, as follows.
Most observers of the numerous injustices tainting the social fabric of this State conclude that they are the direct consequence of police incompetence. I come from a harsher school which has come to recognise that the police are in fact extremely competent and have the equipment and training in most areas to render the law into particular effect. Where it emerges that a profound injustice has been perpetrated and has been exposed either by accident or by the good work of well-intentioned individuals, the organs of State have been slow to respond, if at all. Indeed, very few perpetrators of intentional injustice have been brought to book because their misdeeds are disguised as mere incompetence.
The list is ghastly. The deaf and dumb murderer, Darryl Beamish, was found to have been entirely innocent, notwithstanding the real murderer had confessed to the crime only to be ignored because the relevant officials persisted with a wrongful assessment. John Button was incarcerated even though the same serial killer, Eric Edgar Cooke, made a last minute confession as to Button’s innocence shortly before he was executed by hanging for his crimes. Officialdom again covered up the situation and general police incompetence was a preferable explanation. We then move through the Wardle cell-death fiasco which was never solved because almost 20 police officers refused to give coronial evidence on the grounds they might incriminate themselves. Whilst this was a direct breach of their oath of office upon which their incredible operational powers are based, none was asked to resign and they continued to exert their competent incompetence without fear of sanction. In this sequence of serial incompetency comes the infamous Mint Swindle case and the disgusting incarceration of Andrew Mallard, an entirely innocent individual.
Yet behind all these appalling cases there remains the one unsolved murder which defines Western Australian history. It marks a watershed between the years of generally guileless crime of backstreet grog and gambling, well-run red-light districts with orderly queues inherited from the soldierly discipline of a number of wars, and the present disaster of drugs, violent gangs, uninhibited rorting of the stock markets and mining industries and the consuming greed of bent cops, lawyers, accountants and politicians.
It is the murder of Shirley Finn, flamboyant brothel madam, companion to the powerful and influential. She was the victim of a particularly cold-blooded killing, the victim of a stone killer who has been protected for over 30 years by calculated incompetence and studied official indifference.
Hit the pause button!
There are as many theories about the killing of Mrs Finn as there are about creationism versus Charlie Darwin. Most journalists at the time and in subsequent years believe they have the inside run and to a quill, they nominate a police officer as the gun. The name a name. They name a senior politician known to have business interests on the darker side of the city. Less often they name a senior lawyer as the bagman and fixer.
Why should it matter, you ask?
In the slow and lazy days prior to the magnificent mining and resource boom, the State was laid back, enjoying the solitude protected so efficiently by the Rabbit Proof Fence, the Indian Ocean and the Tanami Desert. But when the wealth began to flow there was a reception committee waiting in the country’s most dangerous street, St Georges Terrace. The previously bent police now had ingress into the big-time and the various squads were appropriately named and like people and their pets, became to resemble that which they were charged to control. There was the long running and successful gold stealing squad whose most notorious comptroller general was Don Hancock, major crooked cop who rose to become Commander of the CIB. It may be timely to remember that at the time of Hancock’s death he was the only suspect in the murder of Billy Grierson near Hancock’s pub at Ora Banda. There was the famous robbers squad who became extremely efficient and could be relied upon to provide all manner of goods in short supply, smokes, watches, white goods — just put in your requisition. Consorting was always a good posting as was vice. In each, the privileged members got to hang around pubs and sheilas and crooks and all manner of competent business ensued. Not to mention rooting. Then there was the Liquor and Gaming boys. Work that one out for yourselves. Same pubs, crooks and sheilas. Could always guarantee meeting a mate in the course of the day or night and getting home legless was easy because you had your own driver.
So, according to the inside-track hacks, Mrs Finn was in keen competition with another madam, Dorrie Flatman who had the sound commonsense to have as her silent business partner a senior politician who at the relevant time was the Minister for Ways and Means. We are now inexorably moving upwards into the heady financial heights not attainable in the days of illegal casinos and ho-houses.
Enter, stage right, the vice boys enjoying the profits of pleasure, and the good services of a prominent lawyer of the kind without whom crime would get a bad name.
With social status untarnished by her profession, Mrs Finn enjoyed great parties at her bizarre but pricey home on Canning Highway. Her guests were a potpourri of the fast, the famous and the fixers. She once famously entertained Elton John at a gay-and-hearty at her home. In that entirely neutral venue she would entertain top cops, randy judges, inadequate lawyers, jockeys, sportsmen and, of course, politicians. Everyone was having a great time while the wives were indulging at posh riverside dining spots.
Then the feds threw a spanner in the works, a fly in the ointment etcetera. The Tax Man cometh. Mrs Finn was nailed. She was coming up short for her just and proper dues to society by way of her taxes. An amount of $100,000 was mentioned, a very large sum in those days.
Frantic, Mrs Finn sought assistance by the very direct and rather brutal method of passing the hat around her various upper crust clients, mentioning casually that they looked very photogenic indeed on the VHS that she had produced, merely as a precaution against unseemly people or conduct. Persuasive she was, and at an appointed time she went off to see her senior barrister and gave into his protective care the video and the stash of cash so that he could make her unwelcome assessment go away.
And at that crucial time, she was led to the South Perth golf course where she was killed by four shots to the head from a close range from a person she clearly knew and believed she had no reason to fear. This is the point in the story where the facts are first encountered. There was the fact of the golf course, the car, the body and the bullets. And from this juncture a well-considered incompetence descended upon the good city of Perth like a veil over a seductive bride, concealing and almost revealing. From this moment forward the case becomes a mythtery, a legend of falsity, half-truth, red herrings and above all, a cover-up from the highest echelons to preserve what is laughingly known as “the fabric of society.”
One of the more informative scenarios came from a very interesting character by the name of George Stewart, famous throughout the State for his boxing tent in the travelling shows and later as the sideshowman at the Royal Show and owner and operator of the Ferris Wheel and other amusements. George was not a crook but he moved in that milieu. However George was an extremely violent man who was undiagnosed as a dyslexic until well into his later years. Through his formative years George was treated as a fool and stupid and sent to the back of the room literally with a dunce’s hat. So George developed in several ways. He would fight against anyone and was fearless about the consequence of poking at a larger or adult opponent. But George also developed a phenomenal memory and was able to carry out complex tasks if he could find a way of learning about any technicality. And amongst other things, George was a personal friend of Shirley Finn. Further, he was fighting mad about her murder and wanted to find out what had happened. In the course of his ease of movement through the back alleys and byways of the city, George eventually produced a manuscript which he titled, “The Death of Pearly Sin.”
George’s story had many of the same elements as the run-of-the-mill journo pub talk. There was a high ranking politician who had a financial interest in an opposition brothel and who would fight hard to protect his anonymity. If it emerged that he faced possible exposure by the rival madam, Shirley Finn, he had influence and power to kick on. But George knew more. He knew directly from Shirley that she had put herself in a position to leverage donations from a number of reluctant but influential clients. She made it known to potential ‘donors’ in the process of passing around the hat, that she had an incriminating secret video tape of various functions at her establishment involving judges, lawyers, politicians and senior police. She told George that when she had collected a wad of cash – but not the whole amount – she put the video and cash into the hands of her solicitor, Ron Cannon.
Shortly thereafter she was executed, by all accounts by a police officer.
Then the evidence begins to go astray, by dint of ongoing and clever incompetence, if you will!
A junior constable apparently ripped out the relevant page of the visitors’ book at the police wet bar at headquarters because he didn’t want his girl friend to know he had been there with another sheila. Unhappily that page also contained the name of the senior politician which might have been direct evidence of a sinister connection.
In any event, George began to reduce his information into a pot-boiler, “The Death of Pearly Sin”. Then, at a crucial moment he was drinking with associates at the previously mentioned (Chapter 2) saloon bar in the Great Western Hotel, hangout of many a crook including detectives and lawyers. The self-same senior barrister, Ron Cannon, was there and in his inimitable way of controlling people, sent over a complimentary drink. If you accepted it, it was the same as agreeing to talk to him without any choice, and if you refused, that was a direct insult. He had his usual contingent of hangers-on or maybe bodyguards around him, and when George refused the drink, the atmosphere became rather frigid.
George went back to his Cannington property, a fairly large block because of his equipment and trucks. He rigged up alarm systems around the perimeter and waited for a violent assault which he expected because he had challenged the crooks. He was well prepared and had his .303 and bayonet as well as an array of other weaponry, pistols and in particular his mail-order special from the US, an anti riot shotgun. He wasn’t attacked, but it illustrates the environment at the time. He could not and would not expect any protection from the police. Indeed, they were the ones for whom he was waiting!
Reflecting public disquiet at the inability of police to find the killer in their ranks, the West Australiannewspaper would periodically run a series, avoiding the factual unpleasantness of naming names because of the risk of civil suit for libel. In late 1994 a journalist, Liz Tickner, commenced a Freedom of Information application which was taken over by investigative journalist Torrance Mendez in early 1995. In the process an interesting set of question was posed for the Information Commissioner, a former senior police officer, Ms B. Keighly-Gerardy. The search for documents relating to the murder of Mrs Finn included:
Whether the names of people who visited her establishments were known to police? If so, were any members of Parliament involved, who were they, and what did their statements and/or police inquiries reveal? How many people made claim to part or all of the $20, 000 reward? Who were they and what information did they offer? The statement to police by Mrs Finn’s lesbian lover, Rosie Black; The final report in relation to tracing the murder weapon; The conclusions [of the] final reports of CIB Supt B Brennan and Det Sgt B Read; ‘Arrangements’ between Mrs Finn and the police in relation to the operation of her brothel, escort agencies, nightclubs; Transcript of tape recorded interview between Mrs Finn’s father and civil rights campaigner Archie Marshall over her $100,000 tax bill; Documents (including eye witness reports) relating to the two people allegedly at the scene of the crime in a green car, and investigations into the information provided by John Mearns of Carnarvon; Statement by [brothel] madam Linda Watson alleging police involvement; Internal investigation reports into police officer Bernie Johnson; Correspondence between police and the Australian Taxation Office and/or police investigations in relation to her $100,000 tax bill. Ten years later in June 1995 another Information Commissioner, Ms Darryl Wookey, was called upon to adjudicate an FOI application by journalist Juliet Wills who was writing a book on the infamous murder of Mrs Finn. Ms Wills wanted transcript pages which had been deleted from the 1975 Royal Commission into Prostitution. The material was held in the Department of the Premier and Cabinet which had refused the application and the Information Commissioner was hearing the appeal.
Juliet put up a good fight and submitted to the Commissioner, “Without an assurance that the material does not provide evidence of corruption in the prostitution industry in 1975 or that it does not provide material which may be relevant to my investigation into the Finn murder, I am not prepared to withdraw my request for access to the material. As much of my interviews with people in relation to the Finn murder are thirty years down the track, published material from that era is relevant. Furthermore [a named] Civil Libertarian [presumably the same Archie Marshall referred to in the West Australian FOI request] believes the witness perjured herself with false testimony about him in relation to allegations made by her against him.
“As you stated, the transcripts were made available to those with a vested interest at the time. [Marshall] had a vested interest and requested all the material but was unaware until I perused the material, he had not been provided with all the transcripts that he had requested. He was not advised that some of the material would not be made available to him and [another person] (deceased).
“Restrictive defamation laws have resulted in me being advised that parts of my book about the murder of Shirley Finn cannot be published at this point. However, the family requires the information for a coronial inquest they are pursuing. They are relying largely on the new information I have obtained. These laws mean that I am greatly restricted by what I can release into the public arena, laws which will prevent me releasing irrelevant personal material from the information you provide me. I seek to get an overall picture from the material held within the pages of the transcript and perhaps an understanding of why this material was withheld.
“Australia is currently rated at the bottom of press freedoms in the developed world by Reporters Without Borders, the organisation which monitors press freedoms. Restricting access to investigative material encourages shallow journalism and adds to our rating as a poor democracy.
“Lack of justice is always in the public interest and when a family has been unable to achieve it as John Button and Darryl Beamish have shown even decades down the track, then it is in the public interest for it to be aired. Shirley Finn’s family has not had justice, there is unfinished business and until their mother’s killer is found the matter remains unresolved for them. It is in the public interest that government agencies are seen to work towards justice and not withhold material that may be relevant to an investigation sought by an aggrieved family.”
In relation to both FOI applications the pivotal question arose as to satisfying the so-called ‘public interest.’ You will not be unduly astonished to find that it was not in the alleged ‘public interest’ for either application to succeed. It is worthwhile to let the explanation explain itself, because it defines how crime and corruption succeed in the face of the preservation of good governance, or to be more precise,The Fifth Estate!
Ms Wookey found that the term ‘public interest’ was not defined in the FOI Act, nor was it a term that was easily defined. “However, it is not merely something that may be of interest to the public; rather, it is something which is of serious concern or benefit to the public. In DPP v Smith (1991] 1 VR 63, at 65, the Victorian Supreme Court said:
The public interest is a term embracing matters, among others, of standards of human conduct and of the functioning of government and government instrumentalities tacitly accepted and acknowledged to be for the good order of society and for the well being of its members. There are several and different features and facets of interest which form the public interest. On the other hand, in the daily affairs of the community events occur which attract public attention. Such events of interest to the public may or may not be ones which are for the benefit of the public; it follows that such form of interest per se is not a facet of the public interest.So, it is revealed. Information may be in the ‘public interest’ but not the public benefit. Now, how is it decided who is to benefit and who not? The documents in both applications were refused, it was said, because they related to personal matters of third parties. Upon this basis, nobody gets anything that relates to anything other than to themselves, and as the guilty themselves would rarely apply for documentation which might lead to their conviction and incarceration, justice is buried in a double grave with the truth.
My own preferred method is that of a police enquiry. You put up a list on the corkboard of “Persons of Interest” and see the true beneficiaries of the ‘secret documents archive’. But before disclosing my POI list, there is a last somewhat daunting side to Juliet Wills’ application. The Royal Commission into Prostitution transcripts and evidence come under the control of the Department of Premier and Cabinetand are not to be made available until after 75 years time has passed. Assuredly all the crooked police and politicians will be long gone, away and scot free.
Shortly after Juliet Wills was shown the wrong side of the archive door, on 23 June 2005, ABC News reported that “Western Australian police have re-opened an investigation into the murder of a Perth brothel madam killed 30 years ago.
“Shirley Finn was found dead in 1975 with two bullet wounds to her head.
“She had lived a high-profile life as a brothel madam and the identity of her killer became an urban legend, with many rumours police were involved.
“Acting Assistant Commissioner Jeff Byleveld says police will pursue every avenue to find Mrs Finn’s killer, including investigating police.
“He says police are confident they can find the killer. ‘Our methodologies and that are far advanced as every agency has advanced in technology we’re exactly the same and our ability to investigate I’d say is much improved from 1975,’ he said. [If you can understand his convoluted theorising]
“ ‘As police we’re not afraid to open our investigations.
“ ‘I think Mrs Finn’s lifestyle and occupation certainly attributed to those rumours and innuendo’s and I’m not sure that they can take us anywhere but we will have an open and frank review of this.’ ”
Sure, open and frank!
Over the years the news media have kept a running commentary on the Fin murder intrigued by the inadequate and incomplete story that had been revealed by the investigators. Predictably, on the first anniversary of the killing both the Daily News and the West Australian ran memorial pieces to remind the genuinely interested public about the continuing mystery. It was no ordinary murder and the focus of interest was towards police and politics. In the West Gordon Dann recorded the central question at that time, the lack of apparent motive. He reported that after a year of intensive investigation the massive police file contained no clue as to the murderer’s identity nor the reason for the killing. He quoted the head of the inquiry team, Detective Sergeant Bill Read: “We have lots of bits and pieces but we do not know which direction to follow. Every likely motive for the murder has been investigated, including passion, theft, sex, blackmail and financial problems.” He further quoted Read, “She was not your ordinary, next-door neighbor type. She had access to a great number of people through the doors of her brothel and through her social activities. A great variety of people have reason to use brothels and the person or people responsible for her death could come from any part of the community.”
This suspicion that the killers were from the upper echelons of society was greatly refined in January 1982 from a surprising source, two former police officers Kerry Tangney and Laurie Butler. They told theWest Australian they were convinced that there was a police link in Mrs Finn’s death. They revealed that the location at the South Perth Golf Club where Mrs Finn’s body was found in her car, was the precise spot where detectives would habitually meet informers. “Does it not strike one as being something of a coincidence for Shirley Finn to have been shot in the head at a spot which was a recognised meeting place for detectives and their informants?” Mr Tangney told the newspaper that “the cool killer was so confident of not being detected that he calmly searched about for the spent cartridges to cover all leads to the murder. But he left one behind.” It had rolled under the front passenger seat according to first search reports. “It was kept at Police Headquarters,” Mr Tangney said, “but I believe it has since disappeared.”
tuesday, july 13, 2010
Shirley Finn murder
Chapter 20SHIRLEY FINN:
Shot Dead by Order
of The Fifth EstateMENS REA, THE GUILTY MIND! It is one of the two key elements of criminal conduct which, when combined with the actus reus, the criminal act, becomes the arrestable, indictable, prosecutable and convictable event. Maybe! In regards to Fifth Estate type corruption, all the bull in arrestable, indictable, prosecutable and convictable amounts to a Monopoly get-out-of-jail (or don’t-even-go-to-jail) card. Indeed, recalling the dizzy days of Queensland before the big FitzGerald Royal Commission, the police there referred to their own conduct and business interests as “the Joke.” It was a big laugh. Forefinger to the nostril and a smirking question, “Are you in on the Joke?” A wink and a nudge was all that was required in reply. And the Joke was – and is – fully on the go over here in the Wild West.
Maybe I’m getting a little too technical here, but I would like to explore these basic elements of criminal conduct. The actus reus of common law burglary is the breaking and entering of the dwelling house of another at night, whereas the mens rea includes the requirement that the accused do such breaking and entering with the intent to commit a felony once inside.
In its actus reus/mens rea distinction the criminal law has mirrored a deep divide in morality. This is the divide between wrongdoing and culpability. Although it is disputed, morality is most often thought to contain certain prohibitions and requirements, such as “Do not kill” and “Help others in distress.” Morality generally permits us either to do or not to do most acts, but morality forbids certain actions and requires others. To do an act morality forbids, or to refrain from doing an act morality requires, is to breach one's moral obligations. This is moral wrongdoing. With the guilty act accompanied by the guilty mind, a crime is committed. Yet for some time those involved with the murder of Shirley Finn have stuck together in denying the mens rea of the their part in her killing. Yet, as the wheel turns, this is inexorably falling apart as further facts are gleaned, as follows.
Most observers of the numerous injustices tainting the social fabric of this State conclude that they are the direct consequence of police incompetence. I come from a harsher school which has come to recognise that the police are in fact extremely competent and have the equipment and training in most areas to render the law into particular effect. Where it emerges that a profound injustice has been perpetrated and has been exposed either by accident or by the good work of well-intentioned individuals, the organs of State have been slow to respond, if at all. Indeed, very few perpetrators of intentional injustice have been brought to book because their misdeeds are disguised as mere incompetence.
The list is ghastly. The deaf and dumb murderer, Darryl Beamish, was found to have been entirely innocent, notwithstanding the real murderer had confessed to the crime only to be ignored because the relevant officials persisted with a wrongful assessment. John Button was incarcerated even though the same serial killer, Eric Edgar Cooke, made a last minute confession as to Button’s innocence shortly before he was executed by hanging for his crimes. Officialdom again covered up the situation and general police incompetence was a preferable explanation. We then move through the Wardle cell-death fiasco which was never solved because almost 20 police officers refused to give coronial evidence on the grounds they might incriminate themselves. Whilst this was a direct breach of their oath of office upon which their incredible operational powers are based, none was asked to resign and they continued to exert their competent incompetence without fear of sanction. In this sequence of serial incompetency comes the infamous Mint Swindle case and the disgusting incarceration of Andrew Mallard, an entirely innocent individual.
Yet behind all these appalling cases there remains the one unsolved murder which defines Western Australian history. It marks a watershed between the years of generally guileless crime of backstreet grog and gambling, well-run red-light districts with orderly queues inherited from the soldierly discipline of a number of wars, and the present disaster of drugs, violent gangs, uninhibited rorting of the stock markets and mining industries and the consuming greed of bent cops, lawyers, accountants and politicians.
It is the murder of Shirley Finn, flamboyant brothel madam, companion to the powerful and influential. She was the victim of a particularly cold-blooded killing, the victim of a stone killer who has been protected for over 30 years by calculated incompetence and studied official indifference.
Hit the pause button!
There are as many theories about the killing of Mrs Finn as there are about creationism versus Charlie Darwin. Most journalists at the time and in subsequent years believe they have the inside run and to a quill, they nominate a police officer as the gun. The name a name. They name a senior politician known to have business interests on the darker side of the city. Less often they name a senior lawyer as the bagman and fixer.
Why should it matter, you ask?
In the slow and lazy days prior to the magnificent mining and resource boom, the State was laid back, enjoying the solitude protected so efficiently by the Rabbit Proof Fence, the Indian Ocean and the Tanami Desert. But when the wealth began to flow there was a reception committee waiting in the country’s most dangerous street, St Georges Terrace. The previously bent police now had ingress into the big-time and the various squads were appropriately named and like people and their pets, became to resemble that which they were charged to control. There was the long running and successful gold stealing squad whose most notorious comptroller general was Don Hancock, major crooked cop who rose to become Commander of the CIB. It may be timely to remember that at the time of Hancock’s death he was the only suspect in the murder of Billy Grierson near Hancock’s pub at Ora Banda. There was the famous robbers squad who became extremely efficient and could be relied upon to provide all manner of goods in short supply, smokes, watches, white goods — just put in your requisition. Consorting was always a good posting as was vice. In each, the privileged members got to hang around pubs and sheilas and crooks and all manner of competent business ensued. Not to mention rooting. Then there was the Liquor and Gaming boys. Work that one out for yourselves. Same pubs, crooks and sheilas. Could always guarantee meeting a mate in the course of the day or night and getting home legless was easy because you had your own driver.
So, according to the inside-track hacks, Mrs Finn was in keen competition with another madam, Dorrie Flatman who had the sound commonsense to have as her silent business partner a senior politician who at the relevant time was the Minister for Ways and Means. We are now inexorably moving upwards into the heady financial heights not attainable in the days of illegal casinos and ho-houses.
Enter, stage right, the vice boys enjoying the profits of pleasure, and the good services of a prominent lawyer of the kind without whom crime would get a bad name.
With social status untarnished by her profession, Mrs Finn enjoyed great parties at her bizarre but pricey home on Canning Highway. Her guests were a potpourri of the fast, the famous and the fixers. She once famously entertained Elton John at a gay-and-hearty at her home. In that entirely neutral venue she would entertain top cops, randy judges, inadequate lawyers, jockeys, sportsmen and, of course, politicians. Everyone was having a great time while the wives were indulging at posh riverside dining spots.
Then the feds threw a spanner in the works, a fly in the ointment etcetera. The Tax Man cometh. Mrs Finn was nailed. She was coming up short for her just and proper dues to society by way of her taxes. An amount of $100,000 was mentioned, a very large sum in those days.
Frantic, Mrs Finn sought assistance by the very direct and rather brutal method of passing the hat around her various upper crust clients, mentioning casually that they looked very photogenic indeed on the VHS that she had produced, merely as a precaution against unseemly people or conduct. Persuasive she was, and at an appointed time she went off to see her senior barrister and gave into his protective care the video and the stash of cash so that he could make her unwelcome assessment go away.
And at that crucial time, she was led to the South Perth golf course where she was killed by four shots to the head from a close range from a person she clearly knew and believed she had no reason to fear. This is the point in the story where the facts are first encountered. There was the fact of the golf course, the car, the body and the bullets. And from this juncture a well-considered incompetence descended upon the good city of Perth like a veil over a seductive bride, concealing and almost revealing. From this moment forward the case becomes a mythtery, a legend of falsity, half-truth, red herrings and above all, a cover-up from the highest echelons to preserve what is laughingly known as “the fabric of society.”
One of the more informative scenarios came from a very interesting character by the name of George Stewart, famous throughout the State for his boxing tent in the travelling shows and later as the sideshowman at the Royal Show and owner and operator of the Ferris Wheel and other amusements. George was not a crook but he moved in that milieu. However George was an extremely violent man who was undiagnosed as a dyslexic until well into his later years. Through his formative years George was treated as a fool and stupid and sent to the back of the room literally with a dunce’s hat. So George developed in several ways. He would fight against anyone and was fearless about the consequence of poking at a larger or adult opponent. But George also developed a phenomenal memory and was able to carry out complex tasks if he could find a way of learning about any technicality. And amongst other things, George was a personal friend of Shirley Finn. Further, he was fighting mad about her murder and wanted to find out what had happened. In the course of his ease of movement through the back alleys and byways of the city, George eventually produced a manuscript which he titled, “The Death of Pearly Sin.”
George’s story had many of the same elements as the run-of-the-mill journo pub talk. There was a high ranking politician who had a financial interest in an opposition brothel and who would fight hard to protect his anonymity. If it emerged that he faced possible exposure by the rival madam, Shirley Finn, he had influence and power to kick on. But George knew more. He knew directly from Shirley that she had put herself in a position to leverage donations from a number of reluctant but influential clients. She made it known to potential ‘donors’ in the process of passing around the hat, that she had an incriminating secret video tape of various functions at her establishment involving judges, lawyers, politicians and senior police. She told George that when she had collected a wad of cash – but not the whole amount – she put the video and cash into the hands of her solicitor, Ron Cannon.
Shortly thereafter she was executed, by all accounts by a police officer.
Then the evidence begins to go astray, by dint of ongoing and clever incompetence, if you will!
A junior constable apparently ripped out the relevant page of the visitors’ book at the police wet bar at headquarters because he didn’t want his girl friend to know he had been there with another sheila. Unhappily that page also contained the name of the senior politician which might have been direct evidence of a sinister connection.
In any event, George began to reduce his information into a pot-boiler, “The Death of Pearly Sin”. Then, at a crucial moment he was drinking with associates at the previously mentioned (Chapter 2) saloon bar in the Great Western Hotel, hangout of many a crook including detectives and lawyers. The self-same senior barrister, Ron Cannon, was there and in his inimitable way of controlling people, sent over a complimentary drink. If you accepted it, it was the same as agreeing to talk to him without any choice, and if you refused, that was a direct insult. He had his usual contingent of hangers-on or maybe bodyguards around him, and when George refused the drink, the atmosphere became rather frigid.
George went back to his Cannington property, a fairly large block because of his equipment and trucks. He rigged up alarm systems around the perimeter and waited for a violent assault which he expected because he had challenged the crooks. He was well prepared and had his .303 and bayonet as well as an array of other weaponry, pistols and in particular his mail-order special from the US, an anti riot shotgun. He wasn’t attacked, but it illustrates the environment at the time. He could not and would not expect any protection from the police. Indeed, they were the ones for whom he was waiting!
Reflecting public disquiet at the inability of police to find the killer in their ranks, the West Australiannewspaper would periodically run a series, avoiding the factual unpleasantness of naming names because of the risk of civil suit for libel. In late 1994 a journalist, Liz Tickner, commenced a Freedom of Information application which was taken over by investigative journalist Torrance Mendez in early 1995. In the process an interesting set of question was posed for the Information Commissioner, a former senior police officer, Ms B. Keighly-Gerardy. The search for documents relating to the murder of Mrs Finn included:
Whether the names of people who visited her establishments were known to police? If so, were any members of Parliament involved, who were they, and what did their statements and/or police inquiries reveal? How many people made claim to part or all of the $20, 000 reward? Who were they and what information did they offer? The statement to police by Mrs Finn’s lesbian lover, Rosie Black; The final report in relation to tracing the murder weapon; The conclusions [of the] final reports of CIB Supt B Brennan and Det Sgt B Read; ‘Arrangements’ between Mrs Finn and the police in relation to the operation of her brothel, escort agencies, nightclubs; Transcript of tape recorded interview between Mrs Finn’s father and civil rights campaigner Archie Marshall over her $100,000 tax bill; Documents (including eye witness reports) relating to the two people allegedly at the scene of the crime in a green car, and investigations into the information provided by John Mearns of Carnarvon; Statement by [brothel] madam Linda Watson alleging police involvement; Internal investigation reports into police officer Bernie Johnson; Correspondence between police and the Australian Taxation Office and/or police investigations in relation to her $100,000 tax bill. Ten years later in June 1995 another Information Commissioner, Ms Darryl Wookey, was called upon to adjudicate an FOI application by journalist Juliet Wills who was writing a book on the infamous murder of Mrs Finn. Ms Wills wanted transcript pages which had been deleted from the 1975 Royal Commission into Prostitution. The material was held in the Department of the Premier and Cabinet which had refused the application and the Information Commissioner was hearing the appeal.
Juliet put up a good fight and submitted to the Commissioner, “Without an assurance that the material does not provide evidence of corruption in the prostitution industry in 1975 or that it does not provide material which may be relevant to my investigation into the Finn murder, I am not prepared to withdraw my request for access to the material. As much of my interviews with people in relation to the Finn murder are thirty years down the track, published material from that era is relevant. Furthermore [a named] Civil Libertarian [presumably the same Archie Marshall referred to in the West Australian FOI request] believes the witness perjured herself with false testimony about him in relation to allegations made by her against him.
“As you stated, the transcripts were made available to those with a vested interest at the time. [Marshall] had a vested interest and requested all the material but was unaware until I perused the material, he had not been provided with all the transcripts that he had requested. He was not advised that some of the material would not be made available to him and [another person] (deceased).
“Restrictive defamation laws have resulted in me being advised that parts of my book about the murder of Shirley Finn cannot be published at this point. However, the family requires the information for a coronial inquest they are pursuing. They are relying largely on the new information I have obtained. These laws mean that I am greatly restricted by what I can release into the public arena, laws which will prevent me releasing irrelevant personal material from the information you provide me. I seek to get an overall picture from the material held within the pages of the transcript and perhaps an understanding of why this material was withheld.
“Australia is currently rated at the bottom of press freedoms in the developed world by Reporters Without Borders, the organisation which monitors press freedoms. Restricting access to investigative material encourages shallow journalism and adds to our rating as a poor democracy.
“Lack of justice is always in the public interest and when a family has been unable to achieve it as John Button and Darryl Beamish have shown even decades down the track, then it is in the public interest for it to be aired. Shirley Finn’s family has not had justice, there is unfinished business and until their mother’s killer is found the matter remains unresolved for them. It is in the public interest that government agencies are seen to work towards justice and not withhold material that may be relevant to an investigation sought by an aggrieved family.”
In relation to both FOI applications the pivotal question arose as to satisfying the so-called ‘public interest.’ You will not be unduly astonished to find that it was not in the alleged ‘public interest’ for either application to succeed. It is worthwhile to let the explanation explain itself, because it defines how crime and corruption succeed in the face of the preservation of good governance, or to be more precise,The Fifth Estate!
Ms Wookey found that the term ‘public interest’ was not defined in the FOI Act, nor was it a term that was easily defined. “However, it is not merely something that may be of interest to the public; rather, it is something which is of serious concern or benefit to the public. In DPP v Smith (1991] 1 VR 63, at 65, the Victorian Supreme Court said:
The public interest is a term embracing matters, among others, of standards of human conduct and of the functioning of government and government instrumentalities tacitly accepted and acknowledged to be for the good order of society and for the well being of its members. There are several and different features and facets of interest which form the public interest. On the other hand, in the daily affairs of the community events occur which attract public attention. Such events of interest to the public may or may not be ones which are for the benefit of the public; it follows that such form of interest per se is not a facet of the public interest.So, it is revealed. Information may be in the ‘public interest’ but not the public benefit. Now, how is it decided who is to benefit and who not? The documents in both applications were refused, it was said, because they related to personal matters of third parties. Upon this basis, nobody gets anything that relates to anything other than to themselves, and as the guilty themselves would rarely apply for documentation which might lead to their conviction and incarceration, justice is buried in a double grave with the truth.
My own preferred method is that of a police enquiry. You put up a list on the corkboard of “Persons of Interest” and see the true beneficiaries of the ‘secret documents archive’. But before disclosing my POI list, there is a last somewhat daunting side to Juliet Wills’ application. The Royal Commission into Prostitution transcripts and evidence come under the control of the Department of Premier and Cabinetand are not to be made available until after 75 years time has passed. Assuredly all the crooked police and politicians will be long gone, away and scot free.
Shortly after Juliet Wills was shown the wrong side of the archive door, on 23 June 2005, ABC News reported that “Western Australian police have re-opened an investigation into the murder of a Perth brothel madam killed 30 years ago.
“Shirley Finn was found dead in 1975 with two bullet wounds to her head.
“She had lived a high-profile life as a brothel madam and the identity of her killer became an urban legend, with many rumours police were involved.
“Acting Assistant Commissioner Jeff Byleveld says police will pursue every avenue to find Mrs Finn’s killer, including investigating police.
“He says police are confident they can find the killer. ‘Our methodologies and that are far advanced as every agency has advanced in technology we’re exactly the same and our ability to investigate I’d say is much improved from 1975,’ he said. [If you can understand his convoluted theorising]
“ ‘As police we’re not afraid to open our investigations.
“ ‘I think Mrs Finn’s lifestyle and occupation certainly attributed to those rumours and innuendo’s and I’m not sure that they can take us anywhere but we will have an open and frank review of this.’ ”
Sure, open and frank!
Over the years the news media have kept a running commentary on the Fin murder intrigued by the inadequate and incomplete story that had been revealed by the investigators. Predictably, on the first anniversary of the killing both the Daily News and the West Australian ran memorial pieces to remind the genuinely interested public about the continuing mystery. It was no ordinary murder and the focus of interest was towards police and politics. In the West Gordon Dann recorded the central question at that time, the lack of apparent motive. He reported that after a year of intensive investigation the massive police file contained no clue as to the murderer’s identity nor the reason for the killing. He quoted the head of the inquiry team, Detective Sergeant Bill Read: “We have lots of bits and pieces but we do not know which direction to follow. Every likely motive for the murder has been investigated, including passion, theft, sex, blackmail and financial problems.” He further quoted Read, “She was not your ordinary, next-door neighbor type. She had access to a great number of people through the doors of her brothel and through her social activities. A great variety of people have reason to use brothels and the person or people responsible for her death could come from any part of the community.”
This suspicion that the killers were from the upper echelons of society was greatly refined in January 1982 from a surprising source, two former police officers Kerry Tangney and Laurie Butler. They told theWest Australian they were convinced that there was a police link in Mrs Finn’s death. They revealed that the location at the South Perth Golf Club where Mrs Finn’s body was found in her car, was the precise spot where detectives would habitually meet informers. “Does it not strike one as being something of a coincidence for Shirley Finn to have been shot in the head at a spot which was a recognised meeting place for detectives and their informants?” Mr Tangney told the newspaper that “the cool killer was so confident of not being detected that he calmly searched about for the spent cartridges to cover all leads to the murder. But he left one behind.” It had rolled under the front passenger seat according to first search reports. “It was kept at Police Headquarters,” Mr Tangney said, “but I believe it has since disappeared.”
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My addition to an earlier post. I've learnt how to attach pics since! These photographs are in the National Archives. The photographs are copyrighted 1989 though I vaguely recall speaking to the photographer (and she had permission of the all the subjects to take the photos) and her saying that it was more the early 80s.
I think they were working at Aphrodites. Very interesting pics, decor, clothing and mood however.
I think they were working at Aphrodites. Very interesting pics, decor, clothing and mood however.
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I wonder:
Who they are and if they're still in the trade
What they're doing today and...
if they're reading this, if they'd care to contribute.
Who they are and if they're still in the trade
What they're doing today and...
if they're reading this, if they'd care to contribute.
C
Contrarian
The history of female prostitution in Australia
By Raelene Frances,
From W.I.S.E. Women's Issues and Social Empowerment, 1994
Synopsis
When local councillors and other prominent citizens planned appropriate ways to celebrate the 1993 Kalgoorlie Centenary, a group of Hay Street sex workers suggested a brothel museum as a fitting tribute to the longstanding contribution of the prostitution industry to the town's economic and social life. While the city aldermen were not quite ready for such an idea, its conception raises a number of issues about the history of prostitution in Australia. Most obviously, the sex workers were drawing attention to the hypocrisy of the official disapproval of their industry alongside the open toleration, even encouragement, of the Hay Street brothels as a facility for local men and as a tourist attraction for the town. Equally important is the idea of prostitution as a subject for historical investigation and representation. What kinds of objects and texts could be included in such a museum?
Introduction
The changing physical environment of prostitution is an obvious starting point. One scene might depict the interior of an 1890s hessian tent (through which enterprising policemen could poke spyholes in their quest for conclusive evidence of commercial sex), equipped with a wooden box on top of which washbowls contain water costing almost as much as a 'short-time' with the tent's occupant. Next to the basin, a handful of metal tokens struck with the silhouette of a young woman on one side and a name and address on the other. The only other furniture is an iron bedstead, above which is pinned a medical certificate signed by the local doctor proclaiming the prostitute (a young French woman) free of venereal diseases. Draped across the end of the bed, a collection of lacy underwear, silk stockings, high-buttoned boots and brightly coloured clothing. Moving forward in time, the next scene might contain an interior of a weatherboard and iron house, 1920s. Cleanly but basically furnished, it has a basin with cold running water in the corner. Through the door a bathroom, with chip heater, is visible. On the dressing table lies an Italian newspaper left behind by the last client. The final scene shows a street view of the same room in the 1970s, framed by a car window. The top half of the door opens independently of the bottom (in the manner of a horse stabledoor) to reveal a scantily clad woman sitting inside, lit by coloured lights. In the background the watchful eye of an older woman, expensively dressed and bejewelled, surveys the prostitute and the onlooker.
Such a display, while potentially very evocative and illuminating about the changing working conditions and even to some extent the working relationships of goldfields sex workers, nevertheless could not elucidate the more complex issues associated with the changing nature of prostitution over time. It would require considerable amounts of text to explain the complex range of factors which shaped, and still shape, the sex industry: changing economic options for women; changing sexual practices and values within the prostitute and non-prostitute community; technological changes; developments in medical treatment; shifts in the general economic climate; wars; racial ideologies; and, probably most importantly, changing state interventions in the form of legislation and its administration by the police, courts, prisons and other government agencies. This chapter will explore this complex history and the way in which it has been dealt with by Australian historians. It will look exclusively at female prostitution, since male prostitution is virtually absent from the historical record and entirely absent from the historiography.
By Raelene Frances,
From W.I.S.E. Women's Issues and Social Empowerment, 1994
Synopsis
When local councillors and other prominent citizens planned appropriate ways to celebrate the 1993 Kalgoorlie Centenary, a group of Hay Street sex workers suggested a brothel museum as a fitting tribute to the longstanding contribution of the prostitution industry to the town's economic and social life. While the city aldermen were not quite ready for such an idea, its conception raises a number of issues about the history of prostitution in Australia. Most obviously, the sex workers were drawing attention to the hypocrisy of the official disapproval of their industry alongside the open toleration, even encouragement, of the Hay Street brothels as a facility for local men and as a tourist attraction for the town. Equally important is the idea of prostitution as a subject for historical investigation and representation. What kinds of objects and texts could be included in such a museum?
Introduction
The changing physical environment of prostitution is an obvious starting point. One scene might depict the interior of an 1890s hessian tent (through which enterprising policemen could poke spyholes in their quest for conclusive evidence of commercial sex), equipped with a wooden box on top of which washbowls contain water costing almost as much as a 'short-time' with the tent's occupant. Next to the basin, a handful of metal tokens struck with the silhouette of a young woman on one side and a name and address on the other. The only other furniture is an iron bedstead, above which is pinned a medical certificate signed by the local doctor proclaiming the prostitute (a young French woman) free of venereal diseases. Draped across the end of the bed, a collection of lacy underwear, silk stockings, high-buttoned boots and brightly coloured clothing. Moving forward in time, the next scene might contain an interior of a weatherboard and iron house, 1920s. Cleanly but basically furnished, it has a basin with cold running water in the corner. Through the door a bathroom, with chip heater, is visible. On the dressing table lies an Italian newspaper left behind by the last client. The final scene shows a street view of the same room in the 1970s, framed by a car window. The top half of the door opens independently of the bottom (in the manner of a horse stabledoor) to reveal a scantily clad woman sitting inside, lit by coloured lights. In the background the watchful eye of an older woman, expensively dressed and bejewelled, surveys the prostitute and the onlooker.
Such a display, while potentially very evocative and illuminating about the changing working conditions and even to some extent the working relationships of goldfields sex workers, nevertheless could not elucidate the more complex issues associated with the changing nature of prostitution over time. It would require considerable amounts of text to explain the complex range of factors which shaped, and still shape, the sex industry: changing economic options for women; changing sexual practices and values within the prostitute and non-prostitute community; technological changes; developments in medical treatment; shifts in the general economic climate; wars; racial ideologies; and, probably most importantly, changing state interventions in the form of legislation and its administration by the police, courts, prisons and other government agencies. This chapter will explore this complex history and the way in which it has been dealt with by Australian historians. It will look exclusively at female prostitution, since male prostitution is virtually absent from the historical record and entirely absent from the historiography.
Ammy Jones
Gold Member
- Points
- 0
Did you meet any Alien
joe12155
Legend Member
- Points
- 67
Anyone remembers Chantel who used to work at Lisa's. She told me she lied to her daughter that she works as a nurse and to convince the daughter she bought herself some nurse's uniform. Wonder what happened to her? Very nice lady and obliging.
