Chapter 14 argyle - State Law Publisher

FINAL REPORT
mention of Lynch is equally consistent with a conversation of the type described by Roddan
and Vinnicombe.
Gwilliam told the Royal Commission that, towards the end of 1990 he received another
page of LD transcript from a police officer, whom he is now unable to identify, near the
Causeway. He was told by that officer that it had been “withheld from [them] because it
was considered to have an indication of corruption”. This transcript is of a conversation
between Roddan and an unknown person. There are references in it to matters that have
been interpreted as relating to police investigations. In particular, Gwilliam interpreted
Roddan’s comment, “[y]ou buggers pumping around there”, as referring to the police
executing search warrants on the banks. There were such warrants at least in
contemplation at this time, because it was believed that Roddan may have received monies
from overseas. Roddan was unable to recall the context of this conversation, or to indicate
to whom he had been talking. In relation to a suggestion that it was a police officer,
Roddan was adamant that this was “absolutely impossible … I didn’t speak to police, other
than for some licensing matter or something of that, to make a complaint about some theft
from a property, or some criminal offence by an employee or something of that nature”.
This transcript is of only one side of a telephone conversation and it is, therefore, very
difficult to interpret. Nothing arising out of it clearly indicates that the person being spoken
to is a police officer. Whilst Gwilliam places some reliance on the circumstances in which
this transcript was given to him, those circumstances cannot be confirmed.
RODDAN’S KNOWLEDGE OF POLICE INVESTIGATIONS
Karpin and Corfield told the Royal Commission that, by 21 January 1990, Roddan was
making claims that he had “heard your person has had my phone bugged” and was saying
“I’m under police surveillance”. Throughout the various investigations, there have been
allegations that Roddan was aware of the activities of police, and some examples of this
have been mentioned previously.
If Roddan did have any “inside knowledge” in relation to the Argyle inquiries, then
consideration must be given to where that knowledge came from. The two avenues that
have been suggested are WAPS and from within Argyle.
Noye’s preliminary report records that, “[d]uring the previous operation conducted jointly by
Argyle Diamonds and the police, the connection between Crimmins, the senior security
officer for the on-duty shift and a suspect, Roddan, was not known, thus leading to
information being immediately leaked to Roddan”. Noye later continued in his report that,
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