Read Online All Fall Down by Matthew Condon - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Matthew Condon
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and Emerald creeks met with the Barron River, was a place of abundant sunshine, a place that winter didn’t visit, and the perfect location to grow everything from pineapples, coffee and bananas to lychees, cashews and mangoes. It was also the ideal landscape to grow marihuana.
Dickson, known as the Sheriff of Mareeba, had racked up some remarkable statistics in his two-and-a-half years as head of the local four-man CIB. His crime clean-up rate hovered around 84 per cent. By comparison, the Queensland average was a dismal 49 per cent.
Dickson had been sworn into the Queensland Police Force on 26 April 1966, and initially trained in the Legal Section before being seconded to Mobile Patrols and the CIB as an Education Department Liaison Officer. He was appointed a Detective Constable in April 1974, before being transferred to the Gladstone CIB. He then went to Yeppoon before being promoted to Detective Sergeant 2/c and placed as head of the Mareeba CIB on 19 October 1981.
Dickson would soon uncover evidence of organised crime and its involvement in the drug trade in the vast district under his command. He was shocked at what he found. ‘We didn’t look past the day-to-day thing sometimes,’ Dickson says. ‘I said to a few of the blokes, we’re all running around locking up bad guys, and we’re looking at bad guys only, but there’s this group of people who are supposed to be good guys who are running around watching us, in case we get in their way, and we’re not even seeing that.
‘It’s like people are so busy with the day-to-day operations and they get tied up with [trying to solve] petty things or smaller crimes and organised crime just goes along. Nobody can have a look at it because everyone’s got so much [other] crap to do.’
The Italian involvement in the drug trade was obvious. They’d been engaged in vice in the region since the 1930s. ‘I remember a fellow saying to me once – everyone will tell you the Mafia doesn’t exist … he was a policeman … but every now and again something happens and you start wondering again if it really does exist. We all knew it did. [But] it was a deniable thing in the 1970s and 80s. The Mafia? Don’t be stupid.’
Dickson took to naming his North Queensland beat The Badlands. By 1983, he was impelled to inform his superiors about what was happening in his district. He began writing long and detailed ‘Confidential’ reports to his superiors. ‘The drug problem in this area is enormous as is the area covered by Detectives in this District,’ Dickson reported. ‘Drugs such as cannabis, heroin, LSD and cocaine are readily available in this area in any quantity desired and no doubt the Police Department is well aware of the drug industry operating in this area and the fact that it is much larger than probably any other area in Queensland.’
The Mareeba CIB alone, he claimed in his report, had information involving 41 separate people or groups actively involved in drug dealing. During a single quarter in 1982, drugs arrests increased by 500 per cent. Dickson pleaded for some undercover operatives to support his team. ‘It is absolutely essential that undercover drug officers work in this area if there is to be any headway made against large-scale drug operators,’ Dickson wrote. ‘If Detectives from this office are able to make numerous drug arrests and gather information easily on the activities of drug offenders … the results following undercover drug investigations should be very productive.’
Dickson’s report wasn’t only not acted on, he received no acknowledgement that it had even been read by the police hierarchy. Undaunted, he tried again, citing a similar report he had submitted in late 1982 – a year after he had started work in Mareeba – seeking more staff. He had pointed out that criminals were escaping prosecution because there was not enough manpower to properly process numerous drug cases.
Dickson was getting angry. ‘No
Dickson, known as the Sheriff of Mareeba, had racked up some remarkable statistics in his two-and-a-half years as head of the local four-man CIB. His crime clean-up rate hovered around 84 per cent. By comparison, the Queensland average was a dismal 49 per cent.
Dickson had been sworn into the Queensland Police Force on 26 April 1966, and initially trained in the Legal Section before being seconded to Mobile Patrols and the CIB as an Education Department Liaison Officer. He was appointed a Detective Constable in April 1974, before being transferred to the Gladstone CIB. He then went to Yeppoon before being promoted to Detective Sergeant 2/c and placed as head of the Mareeba CIB on 19 October 1981.
Dickson would soon uncover evidence of organised crime and its involvement in the drug trade in the vast district under his command. He was shocked at what he found. ‘We didn’t look past the day-to-day thing sometimes,’ Dickson says. ‘I said to a few of the blokes, we’re all running around locking up bad guys, and we’re looking at bad guys only, but there’s this group of people who are supposed to be good guys who are running around watching us, in case we get in their way, and we’re not even seeing that.
‘It’s like people are so busy with the day-to-day operations and they get tied up with [trying to solve] petty things or smaller crimes and organised crime just goes along. Nobody can have a look at it because everyone’s got so much [other] crap to do.’
The Italian involvement in the drug trade was obvious. They’d been engaged in vice in the region since the 1930s. ‘I remember a fellow saying to me once – everyone will tell you the Mafia doesn’t exist … he was a policeman … but every now and again something happens and you start wondering again if it really does exist. We all knew it did. [But] it was a deniable thing in the 1970s and 80s. The Mafia? Don’t be stupid.’
Dickson took to naming his North Queensland beat The Badlands. By 1983, he was impelled to inform his superiors about what was happening in his district. He began writing long and detailed ‘Confidential’ reports to his superiors. ‘The drug problem in this area is enormous as is the area covered by Detectives in this District,’ Dickson reported. ‘Drugs such as cannabis, heroin, LSD and cocaine are readily available in this area in any quantity desired and no doubt the Police Department is well aware of the drug industry operating in this area and the fact that it is much larger than probably any other area in Queensland.’
The Mareeba CIB alone, he claimed in his report, had information involving 41 separate people or groups actively involved in drug dealing. During a single quarter in 1982, drugs arrests increased by 500 per cent. Dickson pleaded for some undercover operatives to support his team. ‘It is absolutely essential that undercover drug officers work in this area if there is to be any headway made against large-scale drug operators,’ Dickson wrote. ‘If Detectives from this office are able to make numerous drug arrests and gather information easily on the activities of drug offenders … the results following undercover drug investigations should be very productive.’
Dickson’s report wasn’t only not acted on, he received no acknowledgement that it had even been read by the police hierarchy. Undaunted, he tried again, citing a similar report he had submitted in late 1982 – a year after he had started work in Mareeba – seeking more staff. He had pointed out that criminals were escaping prosecution because there was not enough manpower to properly process numerous drug cases.
Dickson was getting angry. ‘No
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