Launched by Brett Christian.
The creme de la creme of Perth’s bikie community, a smattering of pollies past & present, an array of veteran journos and Personalities mixed with bemused Elizabeth’s customers while sipping on plastic glassed vino… You can buy the book and get Avon Lovell to dedicate it to your favourite neighbourhood copper.At an outback campfire at Ora Banda, a hidden gunman shoots down Gypsy Joker, Billy Grierson.
The isolated gold mining town was owned by a former ranking cop, Don Hancock. He had the pub, the race track, the general store, caravan park and a gold ore crusher.
Hancock earned millions in illicit gold when he was Western Australia’s most senior detective. He owned a gold mine, race horses, properties and a large share portfolio in gold ventures. He also received regular cash from prostitutes for his protection.
He was the State’s foremost cop, and foremost corrupt cop.
His reputation was based on an infamous sting on the Royal Mint, Perth. Bullion worth (in today’s money) about $2.9m was extracted by a cunning thief using only a telephone. No witnesses, no violence, no victim. An extraordinary crime that was solved by Don Hancock, delivering up three brothers, Brian, Peter and Ray Mickelberg, who copped lengthy sentences.
And it was all based on falsified evidence.
Lovell’s first book, The Mickelberg Stitch, detailed a forged fingerprint, false confessions and a sham sketch of a suspect. The book was swiftly banned on police applications. His second book, Split Image, did not even hit the streets because of police and Crown threats to booksellers.
A few weeks after the murder of Billy Grierson, Ora Banda was blown to pieces. A year later, Don Hancock was executed by a car bomb. Was it the bikies? . . . Or was it crooked fellow cops afraid he would reveal his dark secrets?
The entire bizarre history of a twisted judicial and police system is exposed in:
Litany of Lies
Litany of Lies
Two Gypsy Joker gentlemen with a fan at the launch.
What a great read ! How on earth some people can be employed by the State while running mining operations and businesses is beyond me !
Buy this book. Remind yourself again of the need to be ever vigilant.
If you get rid of all the corrupt police from all states of Australia, you would be lucky to have enough police left to serve in one state, I once heard a statement made that many police would make great inmates, and many inmates would make great police, the real problem is Politicians, who avoid having Royal commissions into corrupt police at all cost, as this exposes the failure of politicians, Only those with honesty and integrity like NSW Independent member John Hatton who instigated a Royal Commission into corrupt police in NSW, made everyone realise how bad corruption really is, and still is, in our police services.
My Mother was the person the book “The Mickelberg Stich” was dedicated to… Wendy Baker.
I coincidently ended up working for Argyle Diamonds in the high security (lol) diamond sorting room, and from there i saw the corruption at play from the same faceless men in different official departments in police, Government and unions… and the complete sham into the investigation of the theft of up to $300 000 000… yes three hundred million dollars worth of diamonds… four corners done a report that was banned in WA, but I had a copy sent over from NSW, and western Australians need to see it now…
The official line that Barry Crimmins acted alone, and stole the diamonds from the level 10 screen room is absolutely laughable… you could wait there for fifteen years and not be able to find the 32 Pink diamonds he was CAUGHT with.
Barry Crimmins was a Victorian police officer who was thrown out due to corrupt bahvior, yet managed to get a job working for security at the worlds largest diamond mine.
When he was prosecuted, he served 18 months of a five year term, and was given the privelage of working as a trustee for the Fremantle Police station… go figure.
I was in the diamond room, when a large amount of diamonds went missing, and when I called in security to tell them that 140,000 carats of diamonds was missing and after about half an hour of investigation, I was told to account for it as an acid loss… in other words, the wieght was down because the non diamond product in the batch had been disolved by acid… which meant a 40% reduction… we were only allowed up to 5% acid loss.
I refused to sign, and I knew then that security were the theives…. not just Barry Crimmins… the story is a lot longer than this brief personal account, but neither the Federal Police, nor the State police had any interest in investigating these matters when Barry Crimmins was caught.
During the pilot strike in the early nineties, the safe at Argyle Diamond was full to the brim, as Diamond could not be transported without planes, so there was an estimated $4,000 000 000 worth of diamonds in the safe… yes four Billion Dollars.
The safe was audited when the planes were back on line, and it was two security guards that did the audit… problem is… they were husband and wife!!!
and the male part of that couple was an ex police officer who had been absolutely persistent in getting the copy of the banned “Mickelberg Stitch” book that I had been given, becuase of my mother assistance to the mickelbergs..and I mean persistent.. overly so in hindsight.
It is also interesting to note, that my mother had started out as a prosecution witness to do with some hand writing on a lease document that police had an expert to say was the same hand writing that had signed a forged cheque… problem was, when the jury was out of the room as a point of law was argued, my mum thought to tell them that the lease document had been filled out by her, and the handwriting was hers… not any of the Mickelbergs.
This same handwriting “expert” emerged in a case at the Parabadoo iron ore mine, run by Rio Tinto, and he once again, testified that the handwriting belonged to someone that it didnt…. but the AMWU (union) got a proper expert in to testify that it was not the same person, and won that case… the guy seems to be just a gun for hire.
I could go into a lot more detail, but not in a public forum. I give this broad account to generate some interest and hopefully bring some justice to the Mickelbergs and all Western Australians…
I have said for a long time now, that the “Underbelly” in Western Australia was not prostitution, drugs and armed robbery, it is deeply entrenched in the official system, that is government, Police, Unions and is based around Gold Diamonds and other valuable mineral resources.
I could give you a good story on how FIFO started, and how we all got screwed over in the set up by Rio Tinto, and our corrupt officialdom…