Frying Bacon

Journalist Wendy Bacon faced enormous pressure after she had the temerity to reveal Clarrie Briese's allegations against High Court justice Lionel Murphy ... Briese's evidence to a Senate committee was supposed to be a secret ... DPP Ian Temby also in strife with the Labor maaates ... From Justinian's archive ... September 1985 

Bacon: Murphy revelations - some Labor lawyers wanted her published

THE sentencing of Justice L. K. Murphy has rekindled the bitter debate about the High Court judge and the role of the press in his downfall.

Much of the legal world, particularly in Sydney, has divided into fierce pro and anti-Murphy camps.

Members of the NSW Society of Labor Lawyers, in particular, have been passionate about what has happened to the man who had assumed a position as their spiritual leader.

The focus for this outrage has been on National Times reporter Wendy Bacon.

Bacon was the journalist who revealed the in-camera evidence that Chief Magistrate Clarrie Briese gave to the first Senate investigation into Murphy’s conduct in June 1984.

This was the first time that the Briese allegations about Murphy were brought into the open.

Had it not been for this publication it is possible the lid may have been kept on the Murphy affair.

Bacon and The National Times also brought to light significant aspects of the NSW police tapes, specially devastating conversations between Murphy and Morgan Ryan.

She also detailed allegations about Judge Foord's alleged involvement in the Ryan case. Foord is awaiting trial on charges of attempting to pervert the course of justice.

In fact Bacon and The National Times have been at the heart of some of the major stories about the administration of justice in NSW.

One prominent person closely connected to the Labor lawyers has warned Bacon that some of Murphy's supporters would like "to destroy her".

Another of Murphy's closest friends suggested  that the NSW crown law officers "punish" Bacon by bringing a charge of perjury against her, based on findings made by the Court of Appeal in her bar admission application nearly four years ago.

Former friends of Bacon have also cut her, abused her, or refused to attend functions at which she is present.

As for Bacon, she says:

"Nothing could fly more in the face of equality before the law, which is what Labor lawyers and civil libertarians are supposed to be concerned about, than the fact that certain individuals from the big end of town can get special treatment." 

The Fairfax press has also been hammered, and bizarre plans have been floated by certain individuals that little mates at the Trades and Labour Council be prevailed upon to bring the print unions out on strike at the Broadway plant.

More recently, Murphy supporters have also been turning their displeasure on DPP Temby.

Justice Jim Staples told the recent Labor lawyers' national conference in Melbourne that the prosecution in the Murphy trial should be condemned for cross-examining the High Court judges' character witnesses so as to impugn their professional competence.

Staples said Temby should apologise, or resign.

One of Murphy's character witnesses, Justice M. Kirby, happened to be on the Labor lawyers’ platform at the time, prior to delivering a paper on defamation law reform.

While Temby is getting flak in Sydney for prosecuting Murphy, in Melbourne elements of the bar are up in arms over his prosecution of Neil Forsyth QC, for alleged tax offences.

This is regarded, by some, as an assault on the bar itself.

At the same time Bacon is fighting two contempt charges brought against her by the NSW Attorney General.

One of the charges relates to a story about some of the confidential parts of the Slattery report into the early release of prisoners in NSW.

The other concerns an article about aspects of the behaviour of NSW policeman Roger Rogerson, which was published in November 1984, just after proceedings had been commenced against him for bribery, and for which he was subsequently found not guilty.

The prosecutor in the contempt action involving Rogerson, Malcolm MacGregor QC, who is attached to the Office of the NSW Solicitor General, told the Court of Appeal that the prosecution of Fairfax and Bacon is not selective.

The Senate Committee on Privileges has also found that Bacon's article detailing Briese's secret evidence about Murphy was in contempt. The Senate is supposed to determine the penalty for Fairfax this session.

The NSW Crown has also just had served on Bacon an order for discovery in an attempt to recover costs awarded against her in 1971 for an unsuccessful attempt to quash her committal on charges relating to exhibiting an obscene publication - the famous Tharunka case, which Bacon subsequently won on appeal.