RR Phantom
Location : Wasted Space
Job/hobbies : Cayman Islands Actuary
 |  Subject: OZschwitz poLICE corruption defined by top cop's crotch cam  Sat May 18, 2013 9:01 pm | |
| Detective Sergeant Graham ''Chook'' Fowler shot to prominence - literally - on Monday, June 5, 1995, when a secret camera placed under the dashboard of a car showed him in his Stubbies pocketing a $1000 bribe.
Fowler had been the boss of Kings Cross detectives but, unknown to him, his equally corrupt second-in-charge Trevor Haken had rolled over to the Wood Royal Commission on the NSW Police Service. For months Haken had been secretly recording his mates taking bribes to save his own skin.
The tape, which became known as crotch cam, was the defining moment of the commission.
GRAHAM "CHOOK"FOWLER
Quintessential: Graham ''Chook'' Fowler trying to hide at his central coast home. Photo: Barry Chapman
When the commission first knocked on Fowler's door, asking if he would be interested in ''assisting'' it, he knew his career was over.
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''This is not to go any further,'' Fowler later confided to Haken, who was wearing a listening device. ''I'll have an accident.''
He was referring to making a hurt-on-duty claim, which would leave him with a police pension for the rest of his life.
The very next day a junior detective, who is now a central coast solicitor, accidentally spilled a strawberry thickshake in the foyer of the City of Sydney police station.
By the time the constable came back with a mop, Fowler was down on the floor, claiming to have suffered serious injuries after slipping on the thickshake.
He limped as he made way his way into the witness box at the commission. Once ensconced in the hot seat, Fowler, claiming his neck was stiff, decided to tough it out.
''Did anybody ever offer you a bribe?'' asked counsel assisting John Agius, SC. ''No,'' replied Fowler.
Whilst you were at Kings Cross? - No.
Have you ever received money as a bribe as a police officer, Mr Fowler? - No.
I'm just going to pause, Mr Fowler. I'm going to ask you that once more: Are you telling the truth?
Instead, Fowler told the commission that, over six years, he won between $50,000 and $60,000 at the races even though he was unable to provide details of his bets. This was contrary to his TAB account, which showed he lost money.
And as for Haken's unfortunate video of Fowler slipping into his shorts the $1000 bribe from nightclub owner Steve Hardas, Fowler suggested that it was an actor playing him.
That video of Fowler taking the bribe was for many the quintessential image of the huge corruption uncovered by the commission, which ran for more than two years.
After leaving the force, Fowler attempted to invest secretly $100,000 in the Shortland Hotel in Newcastle, where he was spending a great deal of time both in front of and behind the bar.
An inquiry by the licensing court rejected his mate David Brigg's attempt to become the licensee of the hotel for failing to disclose Fowler's interest in the pub.
Born in Lake Cargelligo in 1943, Graham James Fowler was jailed in February 2000. He received a three-year sentence with a two-year non-parole period after he was convicted of receiving a bribe and giving false evidence, including his account of his slip on the spilt thickshake.
After leaving jail, Fowler ran a magazine distribution business on the central coast. Trucks would bring the ACP and Pacific Magazine titles, such as New Idea and Woman's Day, to the central coast, and Fowler would then distribute them to newsagents through the region.
On one occasion when Fowler was ill, one of the newsagents complained to the Sydney office of ACP that police were delivering Fowler's magazines for him in police cars. It was upsetting customers, said the newsagent, who thought police had better things to do. Fowler was told this was not to happen again.
''It's a shame we haven't got many coppers like him,'' Bill Bayeh said this week.
Bayeh, like Fowler, was a casualty of the commission, spending 16 years behind bars after he was taped dealing drugs. He said of the disgraced former detective: ''He was a good man, believe me. Anyone who caused violence in the Cross he used to pull them up all the time. I never give Chook anything, Trevor was the one I used to deal with.''
Two years before his death, Fowler and his third wife Sue moved into the same street in Bateau Bay as controversial MP Craig Thomson.
Fowler, who had been sick for some time, died of bladder cancer aged 69.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/police-corruption-defined-by-chooks-crotch-cam-20130518-2jtb9.html#ixzz2ThDE6RMj
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