Radio 5AA Leon Byner - 26 April 2005

Peter Liddy's Guns

This version of the transcript has been edited by Dr Robert N Moles

Peter Liddy's guns - interesting story that Channel Seven ran last night - they shocked police when they collected the guns. They took the cops in to the Channel Seven boardroom and we'll talk to Graham Archer, the Executive Producer of Today Tonight, and Angus Redford who has some interesting things to say on this and what this means.

The jailing of Peter Liddy was a high profile case, at the time of the court case there was much talk about how many assets the accused had, there was a super fund pay out of about $750,000 sale of his house, but the real value was what was allegedly and shown on Channel Seven last night - what was in the house.

There was talk of a gun collection but there were denials of its existence. A historical video showed many valuable assets inside the house which just disappeared. There was the mysterious cancellation of a contents insurance policy. Last week Channel Seven found the gun collection, and they showed it to police in the Channel Seven boardroom.

Why couldn't anyone bar a media outlet find this evidence and what of the associations of many members of the legal bar with this case and its evidence or lack of it? To put this in to perspective and give us an idea of where this might be going, lets talk to the executive producer, Graham Archer. You guys have spent about three quarters of a million dollars on this?

Graham Archer

Yes we have, we've spent three years and an enormous amount of time and money. I don't think certainly any television program has pursued an investigation as thoroughly and diligently as we have in this case.

Leon Byner

The question is why?

Graham Archer

Well there's a few reasons for that. One of them is that we were subject to legal action by a number of lawyers and therefore clearly we had an interest in defending ourselves. But more fundamentally and before that happened, was the fact that we knew simply from evidence that we had right from the early days and from our observation of what had happened before the court and the valuation and sale process, that something was terribly wrong with this case. That people had been cheated, who are already victims in the sense of being the victims of child abuse and now being cheated of their chance to reap some compensation.

Added to that the Government, particularly the Attorney-General, Michael Atkinson had made a token effort to investigate and had come up with a finding which actually accused us of making false allegations and that there was therefore nothing to investigate. I'm just one of those people who feels that the truth should come out and in this case, that's been our motivation.

Leon Byner

Last week there was a major turning point in this story because you found this gun collection which many suggested was fictitious and never existed. So what did you do? You got hold of it and you put it - explain it and tell us - walking the police in there and what their reaction was.  

Graham Archer

The gun collection was fundamental to this because it proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that assets of significant value had been hidden away - that they always existed and that a number of people involved knew they existed. When we got them, we were somewhat shocked, when after three years of searching you finally find something, obviously you're kind of a bit bewildered to start with.

These were 18, 45 colt revolvers from the American west. They were fairly awesome looking items. We brought them back here and we decided that we would produce a story that brought people up to date with what had happened so far. On Friday we had a meeting with four members of the fraud squad. This meeting was scheduled anyway because we had a lot of material that they wanted.

Leon Byner

What was their reaction when you presented them with the guns?

Graham Archer

They were gob smacked. They were absolutely speechless.  

Leon Byner

Explain to the people of Adelaide, the significance of you producing that gun collection?

Graham Archer

It proved that assets did exist and that they had been hidden and that their existence had been muddied by people who knew or should have known that this stuff was out there. They show also therefore that there's a lot of other stuff and we know that there is a lot of other stuff that hasn't yet been recovered, we've got a very, very good idea of where it is and so now do the police. It would be very healthy for those people who've got carriage of this material to offer it up rather than to dig a bigger hole for themselves. It was the heart of the collection, but by no means the extent of it. There's some very, very valuable gold coins and shipwreck material and some other guns, and some magnificent rifles from the American revolution which are also out there. It justified our search, it justified our belief in what we were doing. It demonstrated that things are crook.

Leon Byner

Had any reaction from the Government about this at all?

Graham Archer

None.

Leon Byner

Stay on the line. Angus Redford, Liberal Parliamentary Secretary. Angus, you saw this last night, put your perspective on this - what does this mean?

Angus Redford MLC

Firstly can I thank Today Tonight for the work they've put in? I think that there's some real concerns. The Government purported to investigate these allegations and made a statement to the Parliament a couple of years ago saying that there had been a thorough investigation. It went on and said it wouldn't make that report public. Now there seems to be a pattern with this Government that if Today Tonight do anything, it is to be automatically ignored, not to be taken seriously and I'll give you another example.

Today Tonight presented in its campaign in relation to the Keogh matter, some evidence from a Professor Thomas. Now - the Attorney-General stood up in Parliament and proceeded to say that Professor Thomas was in fact not qualified and quoted from a judgement from a Magistrate who's at the lower end of the court system. What the Attorney-General didn't do was disclose to the Parliament that that decision has been overruled by non other than Justice Mullighan. What the Attorney-General did then was after tremendous pressure from myself, and other Liberal Members of Parliament, he finally stood up and he apologised to the Parliament for misleading Parliament. But he never apologised to Professor Thomas. He then went on and said he was making further inquiries in to Professor Thomas' qualifications and that we would hear further from the Attorney-General.

Now we haven't heard anything from the Attorney-General since then. What we're seeing is a pattern on the part of this Government to attack Today Tonight and anyone associated with Today Tonight, rather than trying to deal with the allegations that Today Tonight make seriously.

Leon Byner

Now Today Tonight have found the guns - and know where other assets of considerable value are - what does this now mean?

Angus Redford MLC

When the Attorney-General stands up in Parliament and says that things have been fully and properly investigated, you have to take that with a grain of salt.  

Leon Byner

Back to Graham Archer. Graham, what's next for you?

Graham Archer

Well obviously we're going to pursue this further. A group of police officers have been diligent in their work so far and has taken us seriously over a period of a couple of years and obviously were greatly enthusiastic about the fact that they now have possession of these guns. They've got their own inquiries which are going on. We also have more material, some of which we can't reveal at this stage for legal reasons which is every bit as damning as what we put to air last night and in fact confirmed that there are a group of high profile people who knew and some others that should've known that what they told the courts was deceptive or misleading.

This is what it gets to. The point is that there's a court process here in place that the victims got an order from the District Court to freeze all of Liddy's assets, but the essential part of the order was that a list giving full particularity of his assets had to be provided to the court. There's no point in freezing assets and then saying, yeah but we don't care what you've got, because people can hide them. At no stage has that order been complied with.

Leon Byner

Do you think heads are going to roll over this?

Graham Archer

I thought heads would roll when we found the DPP spending most of his day down at the TAB when he should have been at work. Instead I got letters from almost every lawyer in the criminal bar saying what a jolly good fellow he was and we should lay off and in fact a senior barrister, Michael Abbott QC's first statement to me on camera was, 'when are you going to apologise to Mr Rofe?' Not one criminal lawyer, not one person in the criminal bar said, 'gee this is no good ... we can't have a DPP who's not at work'. Not one - and so what do I expect? Very little.

Leon Byner

Graham, thanks for joining us today. Back to Angus Redford. Angus, where does this go now from your point of view?

Angus Redford MLC

There are some very disturbing matters that need to be fully investigated. If I can just add one thing to what Graham was saying. Members of the legal profession are designated as officers of the court and they have a duty to be honest and frank with the court. Your client might tell you something which is untrue, but you have a duty to the court not to convey that untruth to the court. Now I'm not suggesting that that's happened in this case, but certainly there are some questions along those lines that need to be asked. These poor victims went through a heck of a lot and I think as a community we owe it to them to, as Graham has done, to search diligently for the assets so they can be properly compensated and a short statement to Parliament is simply not good enough.

Leon Byner

Thank you for joining us today - a fascinating development to a story that's got no end yet.

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