POLICE GOT A CUT OF CANNABIS PROFIT, ROYAL COMMISSION IS TOLD

A DRUG baron's career flourished after he paid thousands of dollars to a
sergeant who gave him a green light to carry on growing cannabis, the
police royal comission was told yesterday.

The criminal struck a money-spinning deal when arrested for growing
cannabis plants at a campsite by the Moore River in Gingin on September 6,
1989.

The drug baron told the commission he had hurriedly harvested part of the
crop in rainy weather and had already hiddden the drugs when caught,
frustrating four or five drug squad officers trying to smnash his
operation. The deadlock ended in a deal he claimed was brokered with
Det-Sgt Ron Clarke and former detective Peter Coombs that reaped financial
rewards for both Sgt Clarke and the drug baron.

Pollice wouldd allow the drug baron's wife and accomplices to go free and
charge him with having just 10 plants instead of 60 he had hidden, for
which he was fined $400.

Sgt Clarke and another officer later returned 50 plants which the criminal
dried in his roof cavity and sold for $20,000, paying Sgt Clarke
$6000-$8000 of the proceeds. The university-educated drug baron agreed to
become an informant, nominating people in the drug trade he disliked or
wanted removed from the industry, who were then raided. Police allowed him
to keep about 39 crops which were processed for huge financial gain, he said.

The drug baron said he paid Sgt Clarke for his friendship, and another officer.

"He - they asked for money. It seemed like the thing to do, to give them
some," the drug baron said. "We were making so much money as it was. Ron
gave us the greeen light."

Payments to Sgt Clarke continued until he was transferred to the north-west
of the State in 1990. Another officer, whose name was suppressed, then
received payments.

The arrangement was revealed after the 42-year-old drug baron was caught
for manufacturing amphetamines last year, and he went to six officers
hoping for a reduced sentence. They were identified only as Neville
Dockery, Shaun Miller, Steve Quartermaine, Ron Clarke, Jeff Beaman and
another officer whose name was suppressed.

All refused to help. He went to the police internal affairs unit and
latterly to the royal commission on police corruption, earning a one-third
reduction in his sentence.

The names of the drug baron, his wife and four other associates have been
suppressed. He is known as R1. His then wife was R5, and her friend was
R2 who is now his wife.

R3 was an accomplice, R4 was at the scene only to fix a car, and R6 was an
accomplice who left the illicit drug industry after the baron's arrest.

The drug baron said he had gone to the camp site with his wife and one of
her friends for a picnic but soon realised it had been discovered.