Channel 7 Today Tonight (Adelaide)

Peter Liddy’s Assets 14 November 2005

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

In order of appearance

Leigh McCluskey - presenter
Andy Martin - former victim of Liddy
Byron Mills - former victim of Liddy
Stephen Pallaras – Director of Public Prosecutions, South Australia at seminar
Graham Archer - interviewer and producer
Frank English – Melbourne antique dealer
Roly Martin - Melbourne antique dealer

Program

Leigh McClusky

First tonight, another strange chapter in the saga of paedophile magistrate Peter Liddy’s hidden assets. Now back in July it seemed that some real progress had been made when police charged a lawyer friend of Liddy’s with allegedly stealing five of his antique American rifles. But just a few months on, all of those charges have been dropped by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions on the basis that they apparently weren’t confident they could proceed with their own charges. As Graham Archer reports, it’s yet another setback for the victims of Mr Liddy in a case no-one seems to want to take on.

Andy Martin

Well, my first reaction Graham was, I was gutted. Absolutely gutted and disheartened once again. You know, it feels like I’ve been down this road before.

Stephen Pallaras

On the subject, challenges to the criminal justice system, there is only one challenge and that is to get it right.

Graham Archer

And who could disagree? But what can victims and the community do if they believe the DPP hasn’t got it right?

Byron Mills

Again, nothing ceases to amaze me in this whole case.

Graham Archer

That’s Byron Mills, the young man who brought paedophile magistrate, Peter Liddy, to justice. Now he’s been dumbfounded yet again by the DPP’s decision just a week or so ago to drop all of the charges against this man [image of Van Kruysen shown on camera] for allegedly stealing Liddy’s antique American rifles; a decision that in the view of another Liddy victim, Andy Martin, seems to have been made a little too hastily.

Andy Martin

Overnight, that’s what it’s like to me, they’ve made this decision overnight mate, considering how long it’s taken for us to get where we… where we’re at and overnight someone’s just put a big… closed a big door on that.

Graham Archer

Earlier this year Today Tonight recovered not only a cache of Liddy’s antique Colt 45 revolvers but also three of his valuable Kentucky rifles from an arms auction house in Melbourne. After the antique rifles were handed to police, the man nominated as the supposedly independent valuer of Liddy’s assets, long-time personal friend and Legal Services lawyer, Eric Van Kruysen, was arrested and charged by Major Fraud Squad police at the house he shares with his mother. It seems the police had also found two other antique rifles owned by Liddy, which they believe had been sold by Eric Van Kruysen in 2003, despite a long standing court injunction freezing all of Liddy’s assets. There was always something unsatisfactory about Van Kruysen’s role in being the only valuer used to catalogue Liddy’s assets. Aside from his close friendship with Liddy his ultimate valuation bears the troubling declaration that:

“I do not pretend this is a comprehensive list of items in the residence. I have not looked in every cupboard.”

While we know numerous things were removed from Liddy’s Kapunda house, let’s just stick with the disappearance of those rifles. A few months ago Today Tonight discovered that this man, Frank English, took Liddy’s three Kentucky rifles to a Melbourne auction house back in February on behalf of his friend, the same valuer, Eric Van Kruysen.

Didn’t put ‘em up for sale?

Frank English

Hey?

Graham Archer

Didn’t put ‘em up for sale?

Frank English

Umm, I don’t know if I can actually answer that.

Graham Archer

Maybe this catalogue would help you.

Frank English

Umm...

Graham Archer

Frank English initially had trouble recalling things he’d done quite recently, although the paperwork did help. He also denied even knowing at the time he took the rifles to Melbourne whose they actually were.

Frank English

I have been recently informed of the history of those guns.

Graham Archer

Funny that because back four years ago, in November 2001, Eric Van Kruysen was asked to meet with the victims’ lawyers who were trying to get an accurate picture of Liddy’s assets as the court had ordered. During that meeting, Van Kruysen refers to those rifles and names Frank English as one who knew about them. Roly Martin was the Melbourne dealer Frank English took the rifles to.

So when they came to you, you must have taken a bit of interest in them.

Roly Martin

Oh they were good because they were good clean examples, good examples of what they were.

Graham Archer

Did he mention who he was selling for?

Roly Martin

No he didn’t, he just said that he was selling on behalf of a friend.

Graham Archer

Didn’t mention Peter Liddy’s name by any chance?

Roly Martin

Never.

Graham Archer

That name doesn’t mean anything to you?

Roly Martin

Nah, doesn’t mean anything at all.

Graham Archer

Also at that meeting back in 2001 Van Kruysen told the victims’ solicitors the rifles had been stolen or sold. No report to police was ever made and years later they just happened to turn up with Mr Van Kruysen, and Frank English just helping out. Then mysteriously they were suddenly withdrawn from sale after police stepped up their inquiries following our recovery of the Colt 45s.

Frank English

Yes, I saw them on television.

Roly Martin

I was told they were withdrawn from the sale as there was a bit of doubt over their ownership.

Graham Archer

A doubt over their ownership?

Roly Martin

Yeah.

Graham Archer

Didn’t say they were stolen at any stage?

Roly Martin

Nope.

Graham Archer

Right, just a question over their ownership?

Roly Martin

Well, let me think, things happen so quickly. I think they must have been misappropriated some time back and there was doubt about their ownership.

Graham Archer

Whatever it was something wasn’t right. But in the four months since Van Kruysen was charged the DPP had dropped the case and now it’s a question of why.

Graham Archer

[Question to Mr Pallaras in the seminar] There’s a recent case in which a person was charged with an offence as a result of a three year investigation that my program undertook.

We had the opportunity to put this concern to the new DPP, Mr Stephen Pallaras, without naming the specific case.

[Continuing question to Mr Pallaras in the seminar]
Now, it’s been through the hands of six people in the DPP’s department, one of them in fact failed to turn up to a court hearing and it’s been dropped.

How could a complex issue like this be handballed between so many people and had anyone come to terms with it? There were just four court dates. Each time a different prosecutor appeared and on the third occasion no-one from the DPP’s Office turned up at all, and this note appears on the court file:

“Advised Ms [beep] from the DPP, she advises the prosecutor due to attend court, hurt her back, and in the confusion people forgot to advise the court. She profusely apologises to the court for its inconvenience.”

What faith does that give you in the system?

Andy Martin

Oh, I have no faith at all. No faith at all Graham, and once again I’d be silly if I said yes I have faith in this because they’ve shown... nothing’s gone our way it feels like… Nothing has gone our way and how many times can victims be victims in one case?

Graham Archer

And the next prosecutor who appeared withdrew the charges four days later.

Stephen Pallaras

I commend you to take the material that you have, if you think it’s relevant, to the police.

Graham Archer

But the police were the ones that served the charges. I don’t have to convince the police.

Stephen Pallaras

We do not withdraw cases lightly. Ultimately the decision has to rest with those who are trained to make them and employed to make them.

Graham Archer

Which gets back to my original point - that you end up being a law unto yourself - your office.

Stephen Pallaras

Well, that’s an emotive way of describing something of which we are by legislation empowered to do.

Graham Archer

Nor does it seem were the police - who’ve put two years work into the case - consulted. The question now is, who owns the guns and how did Mr Van Kruysen get his hands on them? Perhaps Peter Liddy gave them to him before the injunction, but if that’s the case why not tell the victims’ lawyers? Why say he didn’t know where they were and that they’d been sold or stolen?

Byron Mills

I think it’s disgusting that again maybe authorities haven’t had as much passion I guess that Channel 7’s been fortunate to have. The investigators have passion in their job, and yourself as well, that you wanted to see the answers to all these questions.

Graham Archer

When we asked the DPP’s Office about their reasons for dropping the charges they said ‘all the right steps were taken, but on reviewing the evidence supplied by the police it was considered there was no reasonable prospect of a conviction on the charges before the court’, charges that had been formulated by the DPP’s Office themselves.

Andy Martin

I believe there should be a commission. Once again, definitely there should be a commission. This has to be looked into. We’ve seen it with the churches, we’ve seen them have to put their hand up, take responsibility and be accountable, why can’t the Government do the same? You know, practice what you preach.

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