CHASING A YOUNG REBEL WITHOUT DUE CAUSE

It was hailed as the biggest-ever sting operation against police. At one
stage, 80 officers chased detectives in a $2 million investigation. But, as
Darren Goodsir reports, the Internal Affairs inquiry has backfired - and
careers may be on the line.

The police station in Young, a cherry-growing community amid the
wattle-stained countryside of south-western NSW, sits in a prominent
position at the top of Cloete Street: up near the court and the town's
other institutions of surety.

But rather than being the symbol of proud authority, in the past four years
the cop shop has become a tawdry template for a fractured town.

It is all because of a failed police bust - a 30-month-old Internal Affairs
operation touted as the biggest investigation of its kind mounted outside
Sydney.

The case is now unravelling in the courts, with police disclosing that an
Internal Affairs undercover officer may have lied to get listening devices
and taps on telephones. It's the most serious of claims: that a police
untouchable provided false statements to Supreme Court judges in sting
operations.

"There are so many victims in this," said Les Canellis, a retired sergeant
in the town for 17 years - pensioned out of the police because of his
experiences.

"It is incredible that so much has been done, and so little has come out of
it - except losers and victims and no satisfaction.

"And that there still remains so much to be done. This is a blight on the
town and the police. It lives with many of us till this day."

After scores of interviews with serving and former police, Internal Affairs
operatives, councillors, lawyers, townsfolk and criminals, it is clear that
this attempted police purge - this so-called purification of Young - was a
juggernaut that was off the rails.

The commander of Internal Affairs, Assistant Commissioner Mal Brammer, was
no stranger to the town; he was a local. So was his father, who once worked
at Highbank Station, a vast property on the town's outskirts.

For years the father had been reporting to his son. Literally as if he was
a police informant. Mindful of Brammer's powerful position and influence,
locals were forever telling the father their problems.

The Rebels motorcycle club had set up a clubhouse outside Young, and their
arrival, it was suggested, had influenced young people to misbehave.

Whether by chance, drugs soon became more noticeable in town.

There was a succession of crimes that failed to be resolved to the
community's satisfaction, including the shotgun death of Benjamin Walker,
the current mayor's son - a case that the coroner recently said he could
not investigate because of the police's poor initial efforts.

Then a teenager was viciously attacked with a screwdriver, there was an
alleged pack-rape and there were other crimes. Convictions were hard to
secure, and a perception of a growing crime problem took hold. Influential
local figures fuelled a sense of disenchantment, and much of that
frustration was inevitably directed at the detectives in Young.

Enter Detective Sergeant Terrence Henry Fraser, a local for 17 years, with
a handlebar moustache, tattoos and a penchant for big motorcycles, looking
more like the renegade bikies causing so much irritation than the policeman
charged with keeping them in line.

He lived with the former mayor's daughter.

Perhaps because of his gruff appearance, he came to be seen as part of the
problem.

"It got to the stage where everyone blamed him for the town's woes," one
police insider said. "It was a case that he looked like a bear and smelled
like a bear - so, you know what comes next."

Fraser was no backroom player. As part of his duties, he mixed with
criminals and bikies, and such ties - even if they were for the purposes of
soliciting intelligence on crime - only made the town's tongues looser.

Brammer has previously confirmed his father, and other intelligence,
influenced the formation of Operation Banks, the targeting by Internal
Affairs of Fraser and the Young detectives.

But the case was doomed from the start.

It has now been disclosed in the Downing Centre Local Court that the
Internal Affairs undercover officer who signed statements to get listening
devices and bugs to initiate the operation may have lied to Supreme Court
judges. Such a dangerous irregularity has seen the sudden adjournment of a
drugs hearing against a man caught up in Operation Banks.

And the Police Commissioner, Peter Ryan, is awaiting a report on the case,
in which more than 50 officers have been formally interviewed.

By June 1998, with warrants for electronic surveillance having been issued
by Justices Henry Bell and Graham Barr, an integrity test was ready to be
unfurled.

Fraser was told by his boss, Inspector Alan Baker, there was information
about drugs being dealt from a house down the road from the police. It was
further indicated that the woman there accepted credit cards as payment for
drugs. Fraser was told to immediately get a search warrant and raid the
home, a place loaded with bugs and other devices.

Primed for the integrity test, eight officers - one with a video camera -
went on the raid.

They could find nothing. But, once Fraser and his team left, another team
was sent in and they found marijuana secreted in the home's washing machine.

Fraser was declared to have passed the test. But he was marched into the
police station the next day and, on the orders of the Southern Rivers
region commander, Assistant Commissioner Eric Gollan, was suspended and
dispatched.

So too was another detective, Senior Constable Cliff Whiteman. Two people,
Dianne Ewen, and Richard Gordon Tyler, were charged with drug offences.
Tyler is still before the courts on a charge of supplying one kilogram of
cannabis - to which he has pleaded not guilty.

Gollan proudly announced the suspensions and arrests to the media, holding
a celebratory news conference in which he pleaded for community assistance.

"When the operation was launched, several targets were identified within
the police force as well as the Young community. The investigation has
involved modern policing techniques ...

"It was the largest operation of its kind in country NSW. The community
expects professionalism and the right attitude from police.

"I feel for the police left over there. There are a lot of good police in
Young ..."

The new Young boss, Chief Inspector Harry Koster, now inherited the mess.
Brammer and Internal Affairs quickly left town and left a heap of
unresolved issues for others to investigate.

Gollan set up Taskforce Lennonville, assembling 17 investigators to pore
over old cases, briefs of evidence and to interrogate town identities.

At its peak, 80 officers were on the case, raiding alleged drug farms and
chatting to many people.

Despite regularly asking for details on his plight, Fraser remained
suspended without an adequate explanation for more than two years. His
partner, Whiteman, pleaded guilty to an assault charge, having been caught
on a bug planted in the police station thumping a juvenile in custody.

Ewen pleaded guilty to drugs charges.

Late last year, in a letter from Mr Ryan, Fraser was cleared but was
chastised for breaching three minor police regulations, none of the
breaches being sufficient to justify his dismissal. He was then urged to
return to work. Instead Fraser put in a complaint and is on sick report.

Fraser's complaint - based on the injustice of a two-year suspension with
no result - has taken on a complexion of its own.

Two weeks ago the man investigating his complaint, Superintendent Peter
Gallagher, disclosed to Tyler's solicitor, John Bettens, information
showing "at its highest" that lies were told to judges during Operation Banks.

Mr Ryan is using a lawyer from the Crown Solicitor's Office to prevent the
release of the documents already shown to Mr Bettens.

Regardless, the Tyler case - which spanned six hearing days over more than
a year, including evidence from 15 police officers - has suddenly been
adjourned.

Indeed, other senior officers spoken to by the Heraldhave been prompted to
make their own complaints about allegations of police misconduct in Banks
and Lennonville - and the Police Integrity Commission is monitoring an
inquiry that has raised questions on the workings of Internal Affairs.

Last year, acknowledging the damage caused by Banks, and the failure to put
police scalps on sticks, the Deputy Police Commissioner, Mr Jeff Jarratt,
visited Young. He talked to groups of young officers; and he spent moments
alone with those whom he felt needed the extra bit of attention. And he
promised full support to the town's police.

But then, Young is all too familiar with promises.