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Investigate returns favour to Police, releases censored file

Investigate magazine has released part of its file on Heidi Paakkonen in response to a request via the news media from Police Superintendent Win van der Velde.

However, Investigate editor Ian Wishart has blanked out portions of the documents, including names, in response to van der Velde's release of documents to Investigate this week on the Crewe murders under the Official Information Act where all names, including those of police officers carrying out the inquiry, were blanked out.

"If Supt van der Velde is serious about investigating the Heidi Paakkonen sighting and perhaps actually finding her body or where she went, then he and his officers should consider getting off their chuffs and actually doing some police work," said Wishart today.

"The couple who knew Heidi and saw her on Kawau Island have already been to police on this and other matters. Police know their names, or would if they rechecked the files. Van der Velde could very quickly get a full copy of this report (including other pages) by letting his fingers do the walking and dialling up former Police Commissioner John Jamieson, who has a copy already."

Wishart added that the Kawau sighting was the only sighting made of Heidi Paakkonen after she disappeared by someone who actually personally knew her.

"The police, and armchair conspiracy theorists like the Sunday Star-Times' Neil Reid or DimPost's Danyl, need to bear that salient point in mind before playing fast and loose with what may be the best lead police ever get in tracking down Heidi Paakkonen's final whereabouts."

 

 
 

That's just a little bit of the file. Meanwhile, here's a sample of one of dozens of pages on the Crewe case released by police officer Win van der Velde (who suggested to an NZPA reporter I should provide the Heidi documents to police):

 
In all seriousness, if police need Investigate's assistance we are happy to help, but as I've said there's a starting point in their own files...

 

Crewe murders book: new review

From the Southland Times, 30 October 2010:

ARTHUR ALLAN THOMAS: THE INSIDE STORY by Ian Wishart, reviewed by Chris Chilton

"Undeniably...when Wishart hits he hits big. Arthur Allan Thomas: The Inside Story is a book two generations of New Zealanders have waited for...Wishart...offers an explosive new theory about who pulled the trigger of the gun that killed the Crewes in their Pukekawa farmhouse and theorises about the mystery woman who fed their infant daughter, Rochelle, for days after the murders.

"...With his thorough analysis of the evidence and his generous use of first-person accounts it's a stellar piece of journalism..."

 

A response to NZ Herald’s errors on Crewe book

A week might be a long time in politics, but a month is an eternity in publishing. Since last month's editorial the new book Arthur Allan Thomas: The Inside Story has finally hit the streets to a storm of controversy.

After reading the book, Rochelle – the only daughter of Harvey and Jeannette Crewe – has come forward to call for the case to be re-opened, as have many others. Some of my colleagues in the mainstream media have, however, been too dim-witted to accurately report what I wrote, contributing to a degree of misunderstanding and misinformation floating around in regards to what Arthur Allan Thomas: The Inside Story alleges against the late Detective Sergeant Len Johnston in regard to the Crewe murders.

It is true, as Herald journalist Andrew Laxon wrote this month, that I offer a "speculative" hypothesis of exactly how the murders went down. But that "speculation" is built on a solid foundation of circumstantial and in some cases eyewitness evidence that links Johnston to the crime.

When Laxon wrote that "Wishart...claims that Johnston was nicknamed 'The Fitter' and had a reputation for threats and violence [and Wishart] admits he has no evidence to support his theory", he is demonstrably wrong, as thousands of people who have read The Inside Story now realise.

I have two separate and independent eyewitnesses, one a former police colleague of Johnston's, who told me they had each been personally threatened by Johnston – one directly in regard to the Crewe case. This is new evidence, published for the first time in the book in full. It is direct testimony, not hearsay, as to Johnston's character and actions.

It is true I don't have "hard" evidence that puts Johnston at the murder scene when the shots were fired, but Laxon is wrong to rubbish me for that. I have a darn sight more hard evidence that puts Johnston inside the Crewe house leading up to the murders, whereas police had nothing that put Thomas there and they still managed to convince two juries he was guilty.

The reality is, if anyone had the smoking gun, "I saw him standing beside the bodies" kind of evidence, this Crewe murder mystery would have been solved 40 years ago. We are all here debating the case because there is not a shred of forensic evidence linking any particular individual to the crime scene.

The entire case against Arthur Allan Thomas was built on speculation, and fabricated evidence. As I say, there was no evidence to put Thomas at the crime scene and in fact he had an alibi supported by two people showing he was 15 kilometres away. The argument that Len Demler did it was built on speculation, and no evidence either.

Pat Booth's daft claim that Jeannette Crewe did it then killed herself after shooting Harvey is entirely speculation, and in fact goes hard against the evidence – for example, the blow Pat claims was delivered by Harvey was so viciously hard that it knocked six teeth out, smashed her nose and an eye socket, and according to the pathologist cracked her skull right around like a boiled egg. The pathologist also said the injuries were consistent with the butt of a rifle being smashed into her face with extreme force.

Pat's "domestic violence" theory fails to demonstrate how a mere punch from Harvey could have caused such traumatic skull injuries. More to the point, Pat Booth's theory disintegrates on this: Jeannette was so badly wounded the head injuries alone could have killed her the same way that actress Natasha Richardson died on the skifield last year after whacking her head on the snow, and suffering an epidural hematoma – bleeding on the brain. There was no way Jeannette Crewe was bouncing around helping her father move Harvey's body, and romping with Rochelle as the "mystery woman" seen by witnesses. Further, the angle of the shot into Jeannette's head did not lend itself to suicide, without massive and extreme gymnastics on Jeannette's part, involving holding both arms backwards, and bolt upright into the air, while she lay face down on the ground – a very odd stance for a suicide shot.

I honestly can't understand why the media (TVNZ, the Herald, RadioLive, Otago Daily Times, the Dominion Post) still give a shred of credence to Pat Booth, and allow him to keep twisting the knife into Rochelle and her family with his bizarre, impossible and hurtful allegations against her mother.

In contrast, the case against Johnston that I make in The Inside Story is strong enough for a retired detective inspector, Ross Meurant, to call it "disturbingly possible" in the Herald, and Laxon's opinions need to be measured against Meurant's more informed reading of the evidence and the nuances it presents. The submissions detailing the hard evidence that does exist, the possible motive and Johnston's ample opportunity, are far stronger in fact than Crown Prosecutor David Morris was able to rustle up against Thomas. If you doubt me, read the book.

When Andrew Laxon writes "Even Wishart admits that his theory, which has been dismissed by other commentators, is "entirely speculative" and could be wrong", he quotes me out of context. For a start, the "other commentators" had not actually read The Inside Story when they "dismissed" it, and secondly nowhere in the book do I suggest the facts I've uncovered are "wrong" – the claim is an example of the Herald journalist interviewing his typewriter and missing the keyboard entirely.

Laxon is right that I admit my hypothesis of how the crime might have unfolded in the Crewe house with Johnston is "entirely speculative", but the evidence underpinning this speculation is firm, both circumstantial and direct testimony, and in this regard makes my evidence stronger than the evidence that convicted Thomas and stronger than the evidence used to blame Demler.

Ultimately, the test of whether I've made a convincing argument is over to readers of the book to judge for themselves, but I can't let Laxon's misinterpretation of my case against Johnston to go unchallenged, and the Herald refused to correct their errors – ironic when you consider the other glaring factual mistakes in Laxon's piece that I brought to their attention and which they readily corrected.

Example? Well, the Herald writer opened his synopsis of the case against Thomas by saying police had accused Thomas of perching on a window ledge to shoot Jeannette through an open window, then rushing inside to club her in the face with the gun, then shooting her again on the floor, and finally shooting her husband who evidently had snoozed through the mugging and two gunshots and was still in his armchair. Of course, astute readers will know that was never the police case against Thomas, and Jeannette was only shot once, not twice. It is commonly accepted Harvey was shot first.

If that's what passes for fact-checking at the Herald, somebody pass me a laugh-meter next time they take a supercilious crack at yours truly.

Somebody killed the Crewes. We know it wasn't Thomas, we now know it is highly unlikely to have been Len Demler. We are left with a cop who fabricated the entire case against Thomas, who knew where to get objects only the killer could have known about, who according to a former colleague had lit fires to intimidate, and who threatened to kill people who crossed him. This same cop turns out to have known Jeannette Crewe in advance of the murders, and been in her house, prior to a series of intimidatory arsons and then the murder.

Because of this book, New Zealanders now have a much clearer picture of the Crewe murders than they have ever had in the past, and Rochelle Crewe has come forward as a direct result. The public, and Rochelle, are entitled to ask the obvious questions that arise from Johnston's involvement in the investigation: did he do it? Shouldn't someone be held accountable at some level?

There are two inquiries we need to have, really. The first one is easy. In my view Bruce Hutton should be taken in for questioning, read his rights, and charged under the Crimes Act with perverting the course of justice. The evidence is already there, police could do this tomorrow without breaking a sweat, if they were honest. Of course, finding honesty inside Police National Headquarters is like finding gold in a coalmine.

The second inquiry should be held into who killed Harvey and Jeannette. It is unlikely that court action will follow as, in my view at least, the probable culprit is dead. Nonetheless, a finding based on the civil law test of balance of probabilities would give closure to the Crewe, Demler and Thomas families, and for the rest of us provide some valuable answers to a $50 million investigation made vastly more expensive than it should have been as a direct result of Hutton and Johnston's corruption.

Something every driver should be forced to read

This is the victim impact statement that New Zealand father Duncan Woods read out to a Christchurch court this week as a judge weighed up sentencing for Ashley David Austin, whose vehicle lost control and slammed into a mother and two children, killing Duncan's four year old son, Nayan:

 

Ash, it's really hard to find the words to express the devastation that your actions have had on the lives of my family, friends and on me.

I am broken in every conceivable way. I am tormented by the prospect of having to live perhaps another 50 years.

I was not with my family when the car you were driving hit them, I was in the park opposite running. I saw the car there on my way home and I stayed on the other side of the road. I saw lots of people gathering around and figured the last thing that anybody needed was another rubbernecker.

I got home and not long after received a call from Emma.

I rushed to the hospital where I was greeted with the news of my four-year-old son's death. I walked into the next room to find my then six-year-old battered and broken. He was in a lot of pain and didn't know about his brother and his best friend. We didn't tell him because he had to focus on himself.

The next few hours I alternated between the room where my family were grieving and where Jacob was being treated. I had to switch from tears to smiles and back again. I had to talk with police, doctors, social workers, many others, all of whom were amazing. We had to make phone calls and try to remain composed.

At one stage that evening I was led to a corner of the hospital to visit Nayan. I could see his dead body covered in blood, bruised with grit in his teeth. The light in his eyes was gone, I was not allowed to pick him up or hold him and I really wanted to. He was not ours anymore, he was evidence to be investigated to determine the cause of death.

I had to plan, attend and speak at the funeral of my four-year-old son. These are things no father should endure. It's difficult to pick a coffin and have your son placed in it, carry him to a hole in the ground and place him there. The pain is immeasurable and unending and one we should not have had to experience.

Your decision to drive the way you did has changed the course of many lives. Nayan's is over. He will not build friendships, fall in love and have a family of his own. These are the unknown victims in my mind, whose life will be poorer for never getting the chance to meet him. My family have lost a brother, a cousin, a nephew, and a grandson and a great-grandson. My wife and I have lost our child.

My heart breaks when I see Jacob alone, at times when he and Nayan would have been in full swing. At only seven years old he is having to adjust to life in the absence of his best friend. I am amazed by his resilience so far, but know as he grows older there will be many questions and so much pain for him.

Our house feels empty. I find myself gazing from Emma on the computer, perhaps to Jacob playing a game, I observe myself watching the television. We are in our own spaces, physically close yet feeling so isolated from each other. I find it hard to share my grief because it overwhelms me with such ferocity that I become unable to contain my emotions.

I look at our situation and I imagine Nayan there with us. He was the one who bridged the gap between us all, the glue that brought us together and bound us as a family. It feels like a part of all of us died that day.

I had to return to work and I am fortunate to have a workplace, colleagues and students who are amazing. They've supported me as much as anyone can expect, unfortunately what they cannot give me is the desire and joy I once found in my work. As a teacher these are essentials to be good at what you do.

I worked hard in my job and believed I could be part of something that would revolutionise the delivery of education and in the process change the world for the better. I had grand dreams and I believed that I was going to achieve them.

These dreams are now dead to me and everything seems so pointless.

The world I worked for is gone and I am left with nothing but regret and self-loathing for the mess I made of the priorities in my life.

My last moments with Nayan involved taking a computer from him so I could catch an early bus to get to work. His last interaction with me was him in tears and refusing to speak to me.

I told him I loved him as I did every day when I left for work. He and Jacob would often wave to me from the window. On that day they never appeared. I can only guess it was because they were still upset with me for leaving. I never saw him alive again and didn't get the chance to hold him, walk with him, talk with him and play with him again. I am tortured by this and would have given everything to have taken the next bus. At least I would have known his last time with me was happy.

I soldier on in life, painting a false smile and pretending to laugh. I know that Jacob deserves to have a good life and accept that my responsibility to him is not ended. I draw strength from him, and force myself from each moment to engage in life so he will not be damaged like I am, and can continue to thrive. I have a responsibility and so I carry on, even though sometimes I wish I didn't have to.

Ash, I feel that you have responsibility, just as I do, to move forward in life. You can't put this right, there is no justice in this situation. You are in control of the choices you make from now on and I hope you honour the spirit of my boy. He was such an incredibly caring and giving individual. I hope you make a positive impact on the lives of others in the community. Nayan would have. You owe that to him.

I was not at the accident and I did not witness it, but from what Emma has said to me, you were there with her trying to help my family. You did not run and I know you and your family have suffered terribly too.

I know your remorse is genuine and I appreciate that after making the mistakes you did, you have done all that you can to help us. It speaks to your character. Only you know the truth of your actions that night. It's not for me to speculate or to judge you. I believe that regardless of the motivation behind the decision you made to drive that way, that you in no way intended to cause the tragedy that unfolded.

I know you did not intentionally set out to injure and to kill that night. I accept that your actions had terrible consequences, but I can see beyond the pain and tragedy and I know that it does not mean you are a bad person.

In fact, I believe the opposite, I believe you are a good caring man who's made a terrible mistake, and it's for that reason that I forgive you.

I don't want you to go to prison or be sentenced to home detention. I want no form of monetary reparation from you.

There's no just outcome for me that any imposed sentence could bring. If anything it would just cause me more pain. I don't believe you represent a threat to our community and I can see no benefit in punishing you.

I am sure that living with the weight of the death of a child on your conscience is the most brutal punishment that exists.

If you were to do community service I would like it to be connected to people and making a genuine difference. I think that children like Nayan would gravitate to you and I would love to see you brighten their lives.

It's been an agonising decision over whether I would speak or not today. Ultimately my motivation for doing this is to give voice to my son. I try to imagine what Nayan would say were he here with us.

I think he would probably have tuned into the pain we are feeling and tried to take that away. I can imagine him lifting his shirt to show his tummy and running around the room laughing, checking to make sure we were all laughing with him. He would maybe stop and pull out a few dance moves.

What would Nayan say? I struggle with this. I imagine he would probably apologise to us all for causing such pain, see our distress and try and make it better. He would do this all the time with me, this was just the way he was. So caring and so loving and so giving. He was a beautiful boy.

h/t CHristchurch Press

New lead in Swedish tourists cold case

Latest Investigate magazine, on sale this morning...Missing Swedish tourist Heidi Paakkonen was last seen alive on Kawau Island in Auckland's Hauraki gulf, in the company of a man who was not David Wayne Tamihere...

 

NEWS: Previously unreported attempt on Jeannette Crewe's life

EXCLUSIVE

KILLER TRIED TO MURDER CREWES TWICE
SUB: Jeannette’s Brakes Cut In 1969

By Ian Wishart
TGIF Edition

 

The killer of Pukekawa farmers Harvey and Jeannette Crewe tried to murder the couple twice, and only succeeded on the second occasion.

In a dramatic new twist to the 40 year old cold case tonight, two witnesses have come forward to reveal the brake lines on Jeannette’s car were cut “clean through” in early 1969, soon after the first fire at the house that had been ignited using baby Rochelle’s clothes.

It’s the first time this first attempt on the lives of the couple and baby Rochelle – believed to have been a passenger in the car - has ever been made public, and it comes from an elderly Auckland couple.

 “My wife was in the [maternity] annex with Jeannette Crewe,”  the new witness told TGIF Edition today, “they were in adjoining beds and became good friends.

“Somebody cut the brake lines on Jeannette’s car” he told us, “It was cut clean through, and had to have been done by a professional person.”

“Jeannette complained that the brake line was cut and she’d had to stop the car.”

“She was driving out the drive and the car wouldn’t stop,” remembers his wife. “It wasn’t long after we got home from the annex. She told me she hadn’t been able to get out of the house because the car had to be repaired and it took a couple of weeks. She was definitely quite shaken, I can tell you that.”

The Crewe house driveway opened out onto State Highway 22. Brake failure could have been lethal.

“ The fires and that together, to me they had to have been done by the same people. I’m not sure whether she reported it to police or not,” adds the husband.

In the books, newspaper clippings and police documents released in the Crewe murder inquiry, there appears to be no reference to Jeannette’s brake failure. In fact, there’s no evidence Jeannette reported the brake sabotage to police either, and that in itself raises enormous questions. Was there a reason for her not to involve police?

The couple’s problems appear to have begun with a burglary in 1967, which was attended by police officer Len Johnston – named in the new book “The Inside Story” as being responsible for a 1963 fire at the Otahuhu Police Station that he lit in a bid to incriminate a police colleague.

There’s some evidence the 1967 burglary was an insurance fraud perpetrated by Harvey Crewe in a bid to raise cash to run the farm, and Johnston’s testimony in court indicates he did not believe the burglary was genuine.

The new book alleges Johnston tried to blackmail the wealthy and attractive Jeannette Crewe over the burglary fraud, and that the detective may have been responsible for two subsequent  arson attacks – the first in December 1968 while Jeannette was still in the maternity annex, and the second six months later on June 17, 1969, exactly a year to the day before the couple were eventually murdered.

Until tonight, it has never been publicly revealed that the brakes on Jeannette’s car were cut, forcing her to make an emergency stop. This new revelation of an earlier attempt to kill Jeannette is further proof that Pat Booth’s ‘murder-suicide’ theory doesn’t stack up against the evidence.

Equally significantly, the brake sabotage happened months before Jeannette’s mother later changed her will, meaning the killer cannot have been driven by the will but by something else.

TGIF Edition is not making the names of new witnesses in the Crewe murders investigation public, in the expectation that their fresh testimony will be needed for an eventual full Commission of Inquiry.

The couple who’ve come forward should have been the last people to see the Crewes alive – they met up with Jeannette, Harvey and Rochelle at the stock sale the afternoon of the day they died, and Jeannette invited her friends to dinner – “Come and have fish and chips with us”. The witnesses now believe they dodged a bullet.

“We couldn’t do it,” remarks the wife, “and in hindsight we are kind of glad we didn’t. Who knows what might have happened if we had also been there that night.”

New TGIF Edition: Crewe case bombshell

The new TGIF Edition is now free, and available from this page, just click on the link labelled TGIF 22 October when the page opens and you will get the PDF version which you can save to disk for fast navigation.

Pass it on, tell your friends.

 

Open publication - Free publishing - More obama

TGIF Edition tonight: Jeannette was victim of earlier murder attempt

EXCLUSIVE. Only in TGIF Edition this weekend. Available for free by signing up to our Facebook page, or Twitter account. Tell your friends.

Police renege on Crewe case promise

STATEMENT BY IAN WISHART

Police National Headquarters has broken a written promise it made 11 years ago, by refusing to re-open the investigation into the Crewe murders.

In 1999, police wrote to the Thomas family, pledging to re-open the murder case if new information on potential suspects came to light.

"Although the case is not currently being investigated," wrote Inspector Lindsay Duncan from Police National Headquarters, "it is still considered unsolved.

"If information came to hand which indicated who the offender/s might have been it would certainly be investigated, that is, the investigation would be re-opened." Download Policeletter

How do we move from a situation where any information that merely "might" indicate a possible offender would trigger a complete re-opening of the case, to this week's deceptive move by Police Commissioner Howard Broad and his morally corrupt sidekick Rob Pope to merely "re-analyse" the Crewe murder file, and not investigate new suspects at all?

The Royal Commission of Inquiry in 1980 heard more evidence than any of the Thomas juries or Appeal judges ever heard. They tested police and other witnesses fully, and ruled there was clear evidence that Detective Inspector Bruce Hutton and his sidekick Len Johnston had fabricated evidence in order to convict Arthur Allan Thomas.

As readers of The Inside Story now know, footnote 105 of that book lays out Crimes that Hutton may have broken punishable by up to 14 years jail:

105 Under the Crimes Act 1961, I believe there is sufficient evidence for Hutton to still be charged and sent to jail for the rest of his days. The police don’t hesitate to prosecute sexual offences dating back to the 1960s so I can’t see why this would be difficult. I don’t have the 1961 version at my fingertips, but I’m sure there was an equivalent provision to the current s115, which reads:

Conspiring to bring false accusation

Everyone who conspires to prosecute any person for any alleged offence, knowing that person to be innocent thereof, is liable...(a) to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 14 years if that person might, on conviction of the alleged offence, be sentenced to preventive detention, or to imprisonment for a term of 3 years or more. I’m sure Hutton’s lawyers might try to argue he didn’t ‘know’ Thomas was innocent when he framed him, but I think a jury can reasonably be left to determine whether a cop who has to fake evidence to push the balance from ‘innocent’ to ‘guilty’ is deemed to know it by definition.

There’s also section 113:

Fabricating evidence.

Everyone is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 7 years who, with intent to mislead any tribunal holding any judicial proceeding to which section 108 applies, fabricates evidence by any means other than perjury.

Or section 116:

Conspiring to defeat justice .

Everyone is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 7 years who conspires to obstruct, prevent, pervert, or defeat the course of justice in New Zealand or the course of justice in an overseas jurisdiction.

And there’s always that old standby, s109:

Punishment of perjury.

(1) Except as provided in subsection (2), everyone is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 7 years who commits perjury. (2) If perjury is committed in order to procure the conviction of a person for any offence for which the maximum punishment is not less than 3 years’ imprisonment, the punishment may be imprisonment for a term not exceeding 14 years

Now, Commissioner Howard Broad, if he was sincere, could order an investigation today into Bruce Hutton under any or all of those sections of the Crimes Act, and police are entitled to use testimony taken on oath by a Royal Commission.

In my view, the case against Hutton is a legal slam-dunk or so near to one as to be of no practicable difference. Broad's failure to open an investigation into Hutton, despite this being one of the key questions raised by Rochelle, shows this latest review is probably a cynical stunt by police designed to take the heat out of the issue.

There are, and always have been, two separate issues: prosecution of Hutton for fabricating evidence, and working out who killed the Crewes.

Initially when I heard Broad on Newstalk ZB this afternoon, I was cautiously optimistic. Broad said he was bringing on one of their best analysts to: "grab the file, grab what other people have said about the case, and subject it to some really top line, modern analysis, and come up and help me write a genuine response to Rochelle Crewe."

Yet when Rob Pope was interviewed by media, he told them his man would only be looking at the police file. They would not be looking at new evidence he told Radio New Zealand Checkpoint, because two courts and a Royal Commission had already heard all the evidence:

"Look there are a lot of difficulties with this file...this is one of the most heavily scrutinised cases in NZ history,. It's been through two court cases, a Com of Inquiry and well over 100 OIA requests."

First point: the evidence heard by the two court cases was mostly perjured testimony fabricated by police. But Pope continues:

"The facts are actually there for all to see and there is little that would not be known to those who have taken the time to follow this particular inquiry over four decades."

Hmmm. The police "facts" aren't worth the paper they are written on, and certainly the police file has few "facts" in it. What about the new facts in The Inside Story, including eyewitness testimony about Detective Len Johnston's corruption and arson?

"Police are in the business of assessing facts, we are not going to speculate," said Pope. Given the entire police case against Arthur Thomas was speculative, this turning over of a new leaf is good. But Pope clearly doesn't want to admit that there is new direct evidence in the book.

"We need to look at the facts of the case."

Indeed. Read the book, it's more accurate and honest than the police file. Pope didn't rule out that his man would read the book: "At this point it's too early to pre-empt anything, but what we do need to do is become conversant with the file, understanding it."

He was very condescending towards Rochelle Crewe however, subtly suggesting her questions to police were based on her failure to understand how good the original police investigation was:

"They [the questions] are all related in terms of her understanding of the investigation and its aftermath but not actually being in a position, because of her age, to understand it".

Well, if the police expect us all to believe they will find the truth in their own file, they clearly think the public are idiots.

As I state in The Inside Story, media attention has focused for 40 years on the police file, or what I called "information in the box". But the official fabrication findings against police prove we can't trust what was in that box. Which is why Rob Pope's sly promise to Rochelle to dig back into that box and come up with answers is a crock of pig manure.

The answer is not "in the box", because the prime suspect in the killings was in charge of that box and saw to it that nothing that could incriminate him ever came near that box.

Perhaps I'm wrong, and a smart young police analyst will do more than read the police file, he will also read The Inside Story and realise his bosses are trying to turn him into a patsy.

This police inquiry is a small step, but a dangerous one for both Police and the Government. For Police, if they try and whitewash this yet again, they will face a wave of white hot public anger because people are reading The Inside Story and seeing the evidence for themselves.

For the Government, the longer police take to deliver their initial report, the closer it gets to election year, and this is one timebomb they are not going to want exploding next year.

SFO raids WSD Group

The company pinged by TGIF Edition and Investigate magazine for its links to money launderers working for Islamic terror group Al Qa'ida, has today been raided by the Serious Fraud Office.

WSD had on its board at one time no lesser personages than former Progressive Party deputy leader Matt Robson, and former Internal Affairs Minister Richard Worth.

Both of those men were duped by Riaz Patel, the character at the centre of WSD.

Another Investigate story gets results...