Free Before I Sleep by Ray Whitrod Page B

opportunities to observe the more effective detectives in action because I had been attached to the operational sergeant’s small team. We investigated the more serious cases. This was a plum job. I don’t know why I was picked but I was soon using my stenographic skills to provide what amounted to the first records of interview used by the South Australian Police. I had learned shorthand at school and was the department’s fastest writer (120— 140 words per minute); I was also a reasonable typist, although not the best. One of my colleagues from my days as a police messenger was even better and could type at forty words per minute. My sergeant ensured that I was present and taking notes at all important interrogations. I would then type these up and they would form an integral part of the prosecution’s case. Sometimes I would be the one who gave this essential evidence in both the Magistrates’ and the Supreme Courts. On occasions my shorthand notebook outlines would be checked under cross-examination. I became an accomplished prosecution witness.
    In this way I relieved the sergeant and others in his squad of the boring chore of one-finger typing of long documents. This also meant that an opportunity to manufacture false evidence was lost since I was not prepared to commit perjury in order to obtain a conviction. In any case reference to “Detectives Underwood and Remington” (the two brands of typewriters in the CIB office) to bolster cases for the prosecution was rarely employed. I was never aware of it actually happening, but jocular comments from time to time by some of the staff suggested that there may occasionally have been a slight rearrangement in the sequence of question and answer to strengthen the police case.
    One of the duties of a junior plainclothes man in those days was to supervise the operation of the totalisators at racecourses. The workers in the tote would sell tickets through a window until just before a race. In order to ensure that no ticket-seller took a ticket for himself after the start of a race, there was a plainclothes policeman on duty inside the tote. The police also kept an eye on the calculation of dividends to ensure that the right amount of money was paid out. It was dreary work. One Saturday, while inside the tote, I noticed a young lady at the window buying a ticket. She looked younger than the statuatory twenty-one years. I went outside and identified myself as a police constable. The girl confessed to being nineteen years of age. I took her name and address and informed her that I would have to report the matter. What happened next is something I only learned about indirectly. The girl went straight to her father, a prominent member of the Jockey Club’s committee. The father approached the senior sergeant on duty to see if the matter could be fixed.
    â€œWho’s the constable?” the sergeant asked.
    â€œWhitrod.”
    â€œNo chance.”
    Detectives of that era were also greatly aided by the legislative consorting provisions which made it an offence to consort with convicted or reputed thieves. In the popular imagination, criminals congregated in “thieves’ kitchens”, places that were half brothels, half sly grog shops. Here they would drink beer and plot crimes. If undesirable types could be prevented from congregating like this, the theory went, the crime rate would diminish. Conviction for consorting carried a penalty of up to six months’ gaol and there were probably five or six such convictions a year, just enough to keep up the pressure. CIB officers would note any suspicious meetings and issue warnings. If the consorting continued over a period of months, then the person involved could be charged, but more often he would be “squeezed”. After, say, five warnings, the person involved was considered ripe for a charge. He would be aware of his position. Some CIB officers would then squeeze him for