Chapter 14 argyle - State Law Publisher

FINAL REPORT
have been threatened. Zanetti said that he did not have any personal involvement in the
decision to transfer Thoy out of the CIB back to uniform.
Ultimately, the allegation that Thoy was to be “burnt” relies upon the evidence of comments
Roddan is alleged to have made, together with the actual “demotion” of Thoy to uniform.
The comments of Roddan, albeit reliant on the sometimes vague evidence of others, may
have been made, but it does not follow that any perceived adverse consequence for Thoy
must have occurred at Roddan’s behest. It is doubtless the case that Roddan was angry
about the investigation led by Thoy and may well have wished Thoy ill in the presence of
others. Roddan may even have attempted to claim some credit for Thoy’s transfer to
uniform. However, there is no evidence that could establish that he did in fact have any
influence in that regard. As will be seen later, Thoy’s transfer was handled very poorly by
police senior management. Thoy’s impression that he was being punished for his role in the
Argyle investigation should have been anticipated by management. Instead, this impression,
not unreasonably based, was allowed to fester and grow.
LISTENING DEVICE PRODUCT 1990
Early in the first investigation, Detective Sergeant Mirfin of the Bureau of Central
Intelligence (“BCI”) called Thoy in to listen to an excerpt of an LD tape. Thoy told the Royal
Commission that this was “[a] small excerpt from the LD in relation to an Uncle Max”. An LD
had been installed in the home of Roddan, and had captured one side of a conversation
between himself and another.
Thoy later received a transcript of that excerpt, which bears the date 28 February 1990.
Thoy stated that he heard the audio on 26 February 1990, and deduced that it must have
been transcribed on 28 February 1990. The transcript records one side of a conversation
between Roddan and a person he calls “Max”. Roddan tells Max to “just tell the boss [he’s]
doing everything he can”. The discussion, it seems, was in relation to monies owing.
Gwilliam also identified to the Royal Commission the same LD transcript of Roddan with a
person identified as “Max”. He said that he was originally shown this by Thoy and the copy
he saw had the words typed at the top, “ ‘Possibly police’ or ‘Probably police’, one or the
other”. Later, Gwilliam did receive a copy of the same document, without the notations. In
his evidence before the Royal Commission, Gwilliam could not recall whether it was the first
or the second version that contained the comments about police. No copy with those
notations has been located. Gwilliam said that in “1993-94 it [the transcript] began to mean
somewhat more to me”. Presumably this is because the information about “Uncle Max and
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