By John Tognolini
Not long after his June 6 acquittal by the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal of all charges related to the Hilton bombing of 1978, TIM ANDERSON spoke to JOHN TOGNOLINI about the case, conditions in prison and what is still wrong with the police and court system.
What were your feelings last year when the jury convicted you and Judge Grove sentenced you to prison?
It was a real shock. I'd been preparing myself for the worst — as I was eight months later in the appeals court. We thought the trial had gone very well, and as time went on and the jury didn't make a decision after five-six hours, I started to fear a hung jury.
For days after that I was very depressed, because the defence thought the case had won. It was hard to imagine how we could lose. I'm sure that the judge and the prosecution thought I was going to be acquitted, and yet still the jury comes down against you. You really don't know how a jury thinks.
The fact of your name being linked to the Hilton bombing for 13 years by the media raises the question of trial by media.
I put it down to two things. Prejudice is a very big factor: the danger that people came into the jury having made up their minds before they heard any evidence; that would have been a danger in a retrial as well. And also the fact that was underlined by the court of appeal: that the prosecution presented the case unfairly. Putting it bluntly, they lied to the jury about what the evidence was.
We put to the court as grounds for appeal 53 instances, and documented them all, where the prosecutor said to the jury things were not the evidence or were not based on the evidence; that was very difficult to deal with.
The basis for the police laying the charges was the word of prison informer Ray Denning?
A very big unanswered question is, Why did the police arrest me on Denning's evidence? The court of appeal thought this was quite remarkable.
The magistrate at the committal said it wouldn't have gone to trial on Denning's evidence. This raises the question, Did they have a prior connection with Evan Pederick? The whole issue of how they came to arrest me is very interesting. I'm thinking of referring the question of my arrest to the Independent Commission Against Corruption, which seems to be the only vehicle to do this.
The basis for the police laying the charges was the word of prison informer Ray Denning?
A very big unanswered question is, Why did the police arrest me on Denning's evidence? The court of appeal thought this was quite remarkable.
The magistrate at the committal said it wouldn't have gone to trial on Denning's evidence. This raises the question, Did they have a prior connection with Evan Pederick? The whole issue of how they came to arrest me is very interesting. I'm thinking of referring the question of my arrest to the Independent Commission Against Corruption, which seems to be the only vehicle to do this.
Did police have other prison informers to be used against you?
There is a great use of police informers at the moment. In my case, apart from Denning, there were another half dozen queued up to give evidence against me. I've got all their statements against me, and they were not used. Documents from the prosecution show that they were thinking of using those ones after I was arrested and dumping Denning. The prosecutor had some doubts about Denning; subsequently he lost all those doubts when he presented him to the jury.
Why is there such an increase in the use of prison informers?
One of the reasons cited, probably correctly, is that police verbals have been under attack.
But it's not true to take the next step and say that police verbals are not happening. Verbals are still being used, and I've seen a number of cases recently where they've been used by some old well-known characters just to round off the evidence for the conviction. The only difference is that there was a High Court decision two months ago which requires judges now to give a warning to a jury that they should look for corroboration of unsubstantiated evidence and allegations of confessions by police.
Don't you think it's ironic that Denning is being released in November for his work with the police and prosecution in fitting you with the Hilton?
Well, he's still got another charge against him, remember: my charge against him for attempting to pervert the course of justice comes up later this month. There has to be a question of bail there because there may be some fears that he's going to assume a false identity and leave the country, which the police have arranged for him.
There was also withholding of evidence by the prosecution?
It's a real echo of the previous frame-up in 1978 to 1985. The judicial inquiry into our convictions there was a result of the ts by Special Branch. Exactly the same thing happened again, except on this occasion it's the prosecution that withheld the evidence — interviews with the main witness.
There are about 10 major inconsistencies with the evidence of Evan Pederick that arise out of their interviews with him. If my appeal had failed, we would have had grounds for an inquiry based on the withholding of this information.
The frame-up of 1978: there are police officers still holding bravery awards from that, who are now in senior positions in the police force.
In jail I took the opportunity to make freedom of information applications for the advice that led to those awards, and I've now got all those documents. I've started the process to have those awards withdrawn.
They are in very senior positions; Bourke is in charge of the Tactical Response Group.
He's also in charge of the Special Weapons Squad. Dennis Gilligan is in charge, amongst other things, of the committee to oversee the controls on police verbals and the introduction of video taping interviews. Roger Rogerson is out of the force, of course, and there are a couple of others who have bravery awards, but those are the main three.
Doesn't it seem a bit strange that such characters have positions of power in one of the largest police forces in the world and also that, to the 75% of the police who are under 25, they are referred to as role models?
The old CIB was disbanded because it was called by then police commissioner Avery "a hotbed of corruption". A lot of those people have been kicked out of the force, but a number of the ones who stayed in there and kept their heads down have got promoted in the course of time. Apart from the ones we've mentioned, there are a few others who have some pretty heavy reputations now in disturbingly senior positions in the force.
How did Corrective Services react to you on the inside?
I wasn't having any special problems with prison officers, but with the hierarchy of Corrective Services, who pretty soon got a whiff that I was a troublemaker and an embarrassment to them. They started to shuffle me around; eventually they started to deny me access to certain things such as word processing facilities and the education section because they were worried I'd use the equipment to write letters to the ombudsman about the conditions in jail and so on. I was being bricked out of doing basic things like my studies and not allowed to have books.
Do you think that's a normal procedure: Tim Anderson, known troublemaker, to be treated as any other troublemaker?
They have lists. I've seen one from two years ago. It's got the critical 10 and the crucial 20, like the most wanted within the ot. They have in some cases completely unfounded allegations against people like drugs, violence, organised crime. I don't know what they've got against me.
You said on your release that animals in Taronga Park Zoo were better treated than people in prison in New South Wales.
In the last jail I was in, the assessment prison at Long Bay, they've got a yard 140 metres long with 100 people in it for seven hours a day. There are no standards you can enforce against the Corrective Services Department that ensure they give a certain amount of space and privacy to prisoners. I'm sure that sort of situation and conditions of overcrowding wouldn't be tolerated at Taronga Park Zoo.
At the assessment prison, which is built for 210 people, you have over 300 people. In the reception prison, also at Long Bay, there are 550 to 600 people, and that was built for about 300. Just about everyone is two people to a cell and in some cases three to a cell.
It's still against prison regulations to have two to a cell. There are a lot of problems with two to a cell: you're trying to do a course or study in a bathroom/toilet with someone else locked in with you for 18 hours a day; it's almost impossible.
You've said that the bachelor of arts you did during your first seven years in jail would be impossible to do now.
It's much harder to do something like that now than it would have been 10 years ago. [Former prisons minister Michael] Yabsley's policy of property: you can't have a typewriter in your cell, you can't have more than two books until you've got proper authorisation, and in the jail I was in, you had to be six weeks before you got that authorisation. If you moved from one jail to another, your education material would be taken away from you for six weeks.
There are a lot of petty bureaucratic barriers that were put up by the Yabsley regime and the overcrowding, which is all pervasive.
There's very little resources put into education now.
What's happening with the two units that have been formed in Corrective Services, the intelligence gathering unit and the new paramilitary riot control squad?
They've always had emergency squads, special response squads — there are a few different names they've gone by, but they've always had them. It seems to me that they've become elite squads separated from the general prison officer. There is now very heavy antagonism between the internal investigation unit and the emergency unit and your general prison officers.
They appear to be more violent than they were six or seven years ago. There's a lot of violence. There's a Turkish man called Oskan who was very badly bashed two weeks ago in the jail I was in. The whole wing saw him being choked and dragged out of the wing. Five witnesses saw him being dragged by handcuffs across an asphalt square yelling out "Let me walk! Let me walk!" He was then he was taken out, and I saw his injuries after that. He had bruises the size of plates over his back and buttocks. Everyone in the jail knows about it. Nothing was done about it. It's like a return to the days of Grafton in the mid-'70s.
One of the problems is that prisoners don't have anything to do with middle-class existence. People, unless they have a friend or relative in jail, don't know or care much about it.
There's a huge amount of ignorance about prisons. One of the things I'm trying to do is to point out the conditions in the jails and also how that impacts back on society. It's not a situation where you can lock people up and forget about them. People who have been in jail come back to inflict the brutality and dehumanisation that was inflicted on them.