Australia: Crooked police face lawsuit

An innocent man charged over a murder in which corrupt police were implicated is suing the NSW Police and Director of Public Prosecutions in a potential multi-million-dollar damages case. John Harlum, 62, was given permission yesterday by Justice David Kirby to bring his wrongful arrest and malicious prosecution case over the shotgun killing of a well-known criminal, Roy Lawrence Thurgar, in 1991. Mr Harlum, a mechanic, spent 15 months in jail before he was acquitted at trial. He had no criminal record, and did not know either Thurgar or another man who was jointly accused of the murder, Garry Nye.

Nye, a small-time criminal, was also acquitted. Three years ago Nye was awarded $1.3 million in damages over the matter, which was later reduced in a confidential settlement. "The terror of a person of good character being arrested and wrongly accused of murder … is almost unimaginable," Justice Kirby said yesterday.

A barrister, Winston Terracini, SC, said there was "evidence suggested during the trial that there was a conspiracy between various police officers and police witnesses to fabricate evidence" against Mr Nye and Mr Harlum. Mr Harlum's legal advisers said they expected a verdict in his favour would amount to "in excess of several million dollars".

Report here

Background:

The 1991 shooting of the underworld figure Roy Thurgar came back to haunt a Sydney courtroom yesterday when a man acquitted of his murder launched a compensation claim, saying he had been the victim of a malicious prosecution. Garry Nye is also claiming he was wrongfully arrested and falsely imprisoned for 16 months - the time he spent in jail before a jury threw out the murder charge. In the Supreme Court yesterday, Mr Nye's barrister, Brian Donovan, QC, said the whole case against his client had been based around a police informer, Danny Shakespeare, who had many aliases and a record for fraud and dishonesty. Mr Donovan told Justice Barry O'Keefe there was "not one single jot of corroboration" for Shakespeare's story, which had changed several times. Police should have known at the time he was completely unreliable.

Mr Nye is suing the state of NSW, the Director of Public Prosecutions and four NSW police officers who were involved in the case, Wayne Popplewell, Wayne Gordon, Peter Hawley and David Barnett. The court heard that only Mr Gordon is still in the police. Ian Temby, QC, is appearing for the defendants.

In his statement of claim, Mr Nye says that in addition to Shakespeare's unreliability, officers Popplewell and Gordon had opposed the granting of bail "and put before the court information, material and/or evidence which was untrue." Outlining the case, which is set down for four weeks, Mr Donovan said Thurgar had been shot at point-blank range as he sat in his car in Avoca Street, Randwick, just after 7pm on May 20, 1991. He died in hospital the next day.

Mr Donovan said that initially police had focused their attention on a man named Bert Kidd. Mr Gordon, then a detective-sergeant, had been in charge of the case and Mr Popplewell had been his deputy. However, things changed on May 28, when Shakespeare had been arrested at Port Kembla on 41 warrants relating to dishonesty and fraud. Almost immediately, Shakespeare had told the police he had information about the Thurgar murder and had subsequently implicated Mr Nye and John Harlum, a car dealer.

Mr Donovan said: "As I anticipate, as at today, everyone would accept that was a lie." Indeed, until just before their arrest "these two men didn't even know each other". Broadly, Shakespeare had told police he and Thurgar had stolen some hashish belonging to Mr Nye and Mr Harlum, and as a result, Thurgar had been shot.

Both men were arrested on July 24, 1991, but Shakespeare's numerous statements and interviews had contained many inconsistencies and contradictions that should have been obvious to police. In addition, if police had checked, they would have found that Shakespeare was a person who swallowed razor blades while in prison, bashed his head against a wall and who gave every appearance of being irrational and unreliable.



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