Drug couriers’ confessions ‘had been hard to believe’

Press, 16 November 1981, Page 15

Drug couriers’ confessions ‘had been hard to believe’

NZPA Sydney Confessions by two New Zealand drug couriers, Douglas and Isobel Wilson, had been hard to believe, a former Sydney police inspector has told the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Clark drug syndicate. Detective Inspector Harry Tupman, the former head of the Sydney homicide squad, said this was one reason he had not ordered protection for the Wilsons after they had expressed fear for their lives. The Wilsons were later killed.

Mr Cedric Hampson, Q.C.. senior counsel assisting the commission, said Douglas Wilson had told the police that Clark, who headed what became popularly known as the “Mr Asia” syndicate, had told him he had killed a man called Lewis and that he (Wilson) was in fear of his life.

Mr Hampson asked Mr Tupman whether some people might say action should have been taken to protect the Wilsons. “With hindsight I would have to agree with that,” Mr Tupman said. The bodies of the Wilsons were subsequently found in a shallow grave at Rye, in Victoria, in 1979. Last year the Melbourne Coroner issued orders for the arrest of Clark for their murder.

Clark, under the name of Alexander Sinclair, is serving a sentence in Britain for the murder of Christopher Martin Johnstone.. Mr Justice Steward, conducting the inquiry, put the following to. Mr Tupman.— • That the Wilsbns had given information to the police ,in Brisbane in June, 1978, and said that Clark had shot a man and buried him near Port Macquarie, and these allegations were recorded on tapes. Wilson had said the reason Clark used for killing the man was that he suspected him of informing.

• That a man had been found dead in circumstances similar to those described by Wilson.

® That the police interviewed Wilson on March 27. in which he repeated part of what he had said about the murder of the man near Port Macquarie.

® That there had been publicity in Brisbane newspapers which would clearly indicate to Clark that somebody had informed, and that on March 26, 1979, there had been a report in the Sydney “Daily Telegraph” headed, “Tapes tell of drug execution squads.”

6 That Wilson told the pplice twice that he was

frightened for his hte because he was afraid Clark would know it was he who had informed.

'You would not need to come to the conclusion that these fears might very well be genuine, would you?” his Honour said.

Mr Tupman replied that it was not unusual to have people who feared for their lives, or said they did, and the tape was about nine months old, and “I felt they had remained alive.”

“Certainly the bad publicity would not have helped their cause, but I did not see the necessity to direct that they get some sort of protection, if indeed they would have agreed to some form of protection.

“I was only dealing second hand with the tapes and frankly, with what was on the tapes I found them hard to believe,” Mr Tupman said.

He agreed with Mr Hampson that he could not believe statements on the tapes that one syndicate had brought such large quantities of drugs into Australia in two years.

It has been estimated that the Clark syndicate had imported heroin valued at about $lOO million into Australia in just nine months. In an earlier hearing of the commission, an author.

Richard Hall, who wrote the book. “Greed,” which centres on Clark’s career, said he had obtained information on him from New Zealand criminals. But Mr Hall declined to reveal in open court the names of the criminals he had spoken to. “I think the naming of people I talked to in the Auckland underworld would be a breach of confidence,” he said. He also refused to name other sources, including police officers, who had given him information in confidence. He told the commission he was not prepared to testify as to the real name of “Jim the Grammar School Man,” an Auckland criminal, or “George the Mediterranean” in open court The commission later adjourned in camera.

In his book, Mr Hall had said Johnstone was on a conservative estimate the sixth syndicate member that Clark had either killed or ordered to be killed. He told his Honour that the other five were Gregory Ollard, Julie Theilmaii, Harry Lewis, and the Wilsons. Mr Hall said he believed that Ollard and Theilman were dead, but admitted that he knew nothing about their deaths.