Chapter 14 argyle - State Law Publisher

FINAL REPORT
indicated to Shore that he believed that the telephones were bugged. She was not aware of
any belief he had in relation to LDs as such.
Thoy gave evidence that, “[a]part from telling one of [the] officers that he was waiting for
[them] to come, the only odd thing that I found difficult to understand is that a lot of the
interviews were done at his ensuite, a fellow sitting on the sink, one on the dunny, and me
next to the safe, trying to talk to him. I found that a little bit odd”. Thoy was not aware
where the LD had been placed, and he assumed it had been installed by technical personnel
from BCI. After the search, he found out that the LD was in Roddan’s office.
Gwilliam told the Royal Commission that, during the search he “got the impression that
[Roddan] was wanting to conduct the majority of the conversations in the ensuite, which is
where the safe was, and it ended up with three detective sergeants and Lindsay Roddan in
this small, confined area, but only the conversation that was held in the main office area
was picked up by the listening device”.
The implication of Thoy and Gwilliam’s evidence is that Roddan was deliberately avoiding
the office, as he knew the LD to have been installed there. This seems largely speculative
and based upon a construction of behaviour made after the event. There is no apparent
reason why Roddan would avoid the office, given that he was speaking to police officers
who, he must have suspected, would record anything he said in any event.
In relation to the search on 26 February 1990, Roddan told the Royal Commission: “I knew
the coppers were coming because it was all over town. Corfield had been blabbing his big
mouth to Devenish and everyone else and was telling them that they were going to tip me
over. I knew they were coming … I was expecting to be tipped over by the coppers and I
warned Rae-lene that … “[d]on’t get too excited if they come thundering through the door
one morning”.
Roddan was asked directly whether he had any friends or acquaintances in the Police
Service at that time, to which he replied: “There were people I knew that were police
officers, and in many occasions … it’s only subsequent to all this nonsense happening that
I’ve been aware that they were police officers … I had no association with anyone because
they were a police officer and they could do me some favour”.
Roddan believed his telephone was being intercepted, but he did not know about any LD
being present during January 1990. He denied that he had made any attempt to distance
himself from it. He explained that he “was sitting on the bed watching the safe” while it was
being searched by the police.
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