October 1989: the Bull & Bear was a popular watering hole for lawyers and bankers in the centre of Adelaide. Its big-city vibrancy drew the crowds who plunged into the cavern beneath the granite-tower headquarters of the State Bank of South Australia.
It was a high-spirited Friday night gathering which brought together Anna-Jane Cheney, 24, and Henry Keogh, 34, for the first time. Anna arrived with friends from her law firm, Thomson Simmons, and Henry was there farewelling a bank colleague who worked with him in the Private Banking Division. There was a close business relationship between the bank and Anna-Jane’s firm. The senior partner, David Simmons, was also the Chairman of the State Bank board. People from both organisations knew one another professionally and socially. Among the good-natured end-of-the-week hubbub Anna-Jane and Henry’s paths crossed. The two engaged in playful banter. Many years later, Henry recalled, ‘During the conversation she asked what I did. I quipped that I couldn’t tell her. It was classified. Quick as a whip she said, “Oh, you’re the janitor then!” Brilliant. I loved it.’1
Friday was usually a busy day for Anna-Jane in her relatively new role with the firm, which at the time was one of Adelaide’s most prominent. She had earnt her degree at the Adelaide University Law School. Then the only law faculty in the state, it was seen as somewhat snobbish and exclusive, fostering a culture of conservatism that contributed to the club-like atmosphere of South Australia’s legal system. But Anna-Jane was by nature a bright, carefree person and, though she hailed from the comfortable eastern suburbs, she could not abide the pomposity of many of her peers.
Henry Keogh had been born in Dublin, Ireland. He and his family, which included two younger brothers, Michael and David, moved to England before immigrating to Australia in 1968 when he was just 13 years old. Coincidentally, it was the same year English pathologist Dr Colin Manock, who was to have such an impact on Keogh’s life, left Yorkshire and journeyed to Adelaide to take up the position of the state’s Director of Forensic Pathology.
Henry matriculated in 1971 and enrolled in dentistry at Adelaide University. A lack of financial support meant he had to take on his studies part time while working at a series of jobs, from waiting on tables to working at the Chrysler car plant at Tonsley Park in the southern suburbs. All this proved too much and he withdrew from university, taking a job selling insurance for Colonial Mutual, and later selling dentistry equipment and pharmaceuticals. His next move was to return to study and train as a licensed financial planner and adviser. In 1988 he joined the State Bank of South Australia as a financial consultant.
Those were heady times for the bank following its merger and privatisation in 1984 amid the laissez-faire environment of the newly deregulated banking sector. The bank’s CEO, Tim Marcus Clark, was determined to grow the business to compete with the big four national banks. Marcus Clark was a direct descendant of the Sydney department store family of the same name, which went broke because of its generous credit policy. He had a scar which ran across his throat, allegedly courtesy of a disgruntled creditor of his previous employer, the Commercial Bank of Australia.
After Marcus Clark took control of the State Bank its loan book grew to dizzying heights. As the competition for business intensified the bank developed a reputation as a lender of last resort. It moved well beyond the traditional, reliable mortgage-belt customer and aggressively pursued the bigger returns promised by lending to builders, developers and property speculators. By the end of the decade a raft of highly geared risky developments across the country came crashing down, leaving the bank holding worthless security for billions in outstanding loans. By 1991 the State Bank was the subject of a Royal Commission, having run up a debt of more than three billion dollars.
Adelaide is a small city. The spheres of influence regularly intersect, leading to conflicts of interest. These ‘conflicts’ may be no more than coincidental links, but the perceptions of conflict remain. Instead of being vigilant about such overlaps, the influential tend to treat them as the unremarkable consequence of doing business or engaging in public life. The Royal Commission into the stupendous collapse of the bank provides an illustration of these attitudes.
The Royal Commissioner appointed to the job was retired Supreme Court Judge Sam Jacobs AO QC. Jacobs was, at the time, Vice-Chancellor of Adelaide University and an esteemed pillar of the community. In what was to be another coincidence, he was later the Chairman of the Forensic Advisory Board, which oversaw the professional conduct of the state pathologists who were to become key players in Henry Keogh’s life.
When the first cracks were beginning to appear in the financial foundations of the bank I was working on the South Australian edition of the ABC’s 7.30 Report. Part of my brief was to investigate the health of the bank. It was a job made particularly difficult by threats from the government accusing us of undermining public confidence in the institution. It’s a balancing act that journalists regularly confront when alerting the public to any uncertainties surrounding such institutions.
On the eve of the Royal Commission I discovered that the Commissioner was part of a syndicate of half a dozen racehorse owners which also included the man at the centre of the debacle, Tim Marcus Clark. I produced a story that named the owners and asked why Justice Jacobs had not declared this conflict of interest as a matter of public record before or when accepting his commission.
The next day was the opening session of the Commission, which was to last 18 months. I took my place in the front row of seats provided to the media. When the formalities were completed the Commissioner took his seat and addressed the packed room. His first words were directed to me: he was incensed that I had the audacity to suggest he might be in any way conflicted. He told those in attendance that he was a tolerant man but he would not tolerate anything that he considered to be in contempt. I was obliged to remain silent and weather his displeasure.
Justice Sam Jacobs proposed a bottom-up approach to his Royal Commission strategy. This meant the bank’s most senior staff and the then-Premier, John Bannon, a close friend of Jacobs’ son Michael, had the chance to hear all of the evidence given by their underlings before having to account for their own actions. No one has suggested it wasn’t a legitimate approach; but then, no one was ever prosecuted or penalised for the crippling losses of the bank.
The bad news for the South Australian taxpayer was the bank, at its inception, had been given a government guarantee by both sides of politics, assuring it a government-funded bailout. Innocent South Australians were saddled with a lifetime’s burden. The bank’s staff, like Henry Keogh, who relied on their job to support their families, found themselves facing financial oblivion.
Keogh’s personal life in the years prior had turbulence of its own. He’d met his childhood sweetheart, Susan, in 1970 when he was 15. Seven years later they were married and within a relatively short time had three daughters, Danielle, Elise and Alexis.
Trouble appeared in the relationship when Keogh reached his early thirties. His job at the time was with Astra Pharmaceuticals, which had him travel three or four times a year to Perth, a city riding high on the mining boom. On one business trip, at a city disco, Keogh met Tracy, a student and divorced mother of two. They began an affair. As the relationship developed he considered leaving his wife, who was by this stage growing suspicious of his possible infidelity. However, the two eventually reconciled and Keogh broke off contact with Tracy.
As a result of this upheaval Keogh changed jobs and joined a firm of financial planners. He and his wife also began looking for a new home. They found what they were looking for in 1988 and moved into a property in the north-eastern suburb of Athelstone. It was a serene location in the tree-lined lower foothills of Adelaide, a commitment to a quiet suburban life.
In the same year Keogh joined the State Bank, at a time when the Royal Commission was far from anyone’s wildest imaginings and the bank was still a vibrant and robust employer. His new job brought him into the city to work and, by chance, on one Friday night in October 1989, into the company of Anna-Jane Cheney.
It’s a pleasant evening’s walk down King William Street’s wide flagstone footpaths, past the spreading plane trees that line the route to Jolley’s Boathouse restaurant on the banks of the tranquil River Torrens. A number of those at the Bull & Bear decided to migrate to the iconic eatery. Among them were Henry and Anna-Jane.
The Boathouse is an Adelaide icon, a quaint, romantic rendezvous spot on the city’s edge. In the 1970s and ’80s, it had been the unwitting hub of a gay beat made notorious in the dark days of Adelaide’s ‘Family’ killings, during which young men were lured to their deaths by sadistic sexual deviants.
The restaurant was filled with the effervescent babble of Friday night diners. Though not seated together for the meal, Henry later moved down the table to where Anna-Jane sat and resumed their earlier conversation. After finishing dinner the group walked back into the city and along historic North Terrace to the Magoos nightclub, where their festive mood continued.
Anna-Jane and Henry enjoyed a dance together and around midnight, on Anna’s invitation, having been unable to find a nearby coffee spot, made their way to her rental property in Rose Park on the eastern fringe of the city. By Henry’s account they did no more than talk until around three in the morning, at which time he left. He says he informed her in that first encounter that he had three children but said that he was separated from his wife. He was in fact a married man still living with Sue and his family in their Athelstone home.
Anna-Jane was immediately smitten. She couldn’t wait to tell her closest friend, Lucinda Reu, about the new man she had just met. Needless to say, Henry’s circumstances were vastly more complicated than those of the 24-year-old unattached Anna-Jane.
According to Keogh things ran ‘hot and cold’ for a number of weeks; he says he was not looking for a relationship. It was after two months of casual encounters that the love affair truly ignited. Many years later, from prison, Keogh reflected:
It evolved more from emotional companionship than physical attraction. I’ve never been big on blondes, added to which Anna was a bit on the heavy side for my tastes – shallow but honest … In the areas of intellect, wit, confidence, verve, engageability [sic], no-nonsense approach to life and of course assertiveness she had quality in spades. And she was easy on the eye – stunning in fact.2
The relationship meant Keogh began living a double life. Friday nights he would often spend with Anna-Jane, making up some excuse each time to tell Sue. This went on for about 18 months. On one occasion the bank sent him on a two-week residential course at a conference centre in suburban Plympton. He told Sue it was for three weeks and spent the entire third week with Anna-Jane.
In September 1990 Henry bought an investment property in Hone Street, Parkside, with workmate Neville Bebee. Not long after they rented the house to Anna-Jane and two of her friends, lawyer Emma Marinucci and hairdresser Jane Kane. Henry’s home life was deteriorating: he was neglecting his wife and children and eventually, having denied it for some time, told Sue there was someone else in his life. That brought things to a head – he packed up his belongings and moved into the Parkside house with Anna-Jane.
For Anna-Jane’s parents, Kevin and Joanne, Henry Keogh was not the man they had envisaged to be their daughter’s life partner. They had trouble coming to terms with a married man and then a divorced father of three who was significantly older than their daughter, and who didn’t have the professional standing they may have hoped for. Even Henry confessed, later in jail, ‘I was often mystified as to what a woman like Anna saw in me given my baggage.’3
The families were hardly stamped from the same clay. Henry’s father, Henry Senior, worked for a building company, and was tirelessly patient and forgiving of his wife. Eileen was a garrulous and at times quarrelsome woman who was likely to round on anyone who hinted at being her social better. She was a strict Catholic and had a problem with alcohol. For Henry Junior, her violent rages were ‘burnt into [his] memory’.4 As a young boy he witnessed her plunge into fits of rage, pack her bags and threaten to leave the family. His father would prevent her taking her things so she would storm off empty-handed with her husband chasing after her, begging her to come back. Henry developed a nervous defensive response of cleaning the house when he felt stressed or under any kind of pressure. He recalled:
I wouldn’t, couldn’t sleep a wink until she got back. Most times she would act as if nothing had happened. Often enough, though, she’d be in the blackest mood and not speak to dad for days, or us, unless it was to scream and threaten before she’d boil over and thrash us – particularly me – with anything that was close at hand: belts (both ends), coat hangers, shoes, the cord of an iron etc.5
A source of friction between Anna-Jane and Henry was his assurances that he had initiated divorce proceedings so their relationship could progress. When Anna-Jane happened to do a search of the Family Court records she found no sign that any papers had been lodged. This revelation shocked her and did nothing to improve his standing in the eyes of her family. In fact Henry had lodged the papers, but they’d been returned for a correction to the address he had given, which was that of his mother. Eileen was vehemently opposed to divorce so she had destroyed the documents without ever telling Henry they had been returned. This antipathy to divorce extended to her own marriage. She and Henry Senior had divorced and he had re-married, but Eileen simply would not accept the divorce was legitimate and was openly hostile to his second wife.
When Henry discovered the fate of the documents he was able to reassure Anna his promises were genuine, but her family remained sceptical. It was because of Eileen’s unpredictable, destructive behaviour that Henry decided, when a wedding date was set, that his mother should not attend, much to Anna-Jane’s relief.
Anna-Jane’s family was financially and socially well established. Her father, Kevin, had practised haematology with the Institute of Medical and Veterinary Science (IMVS) and at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital. Her mother, Joanne, was a former nurse and her brother, Marc, ran a successful upmarket car sales business.
Anna was born at the Memorial Hospital in March 1965 and attended the private Pembroke School in Adelaide’s well-heeled eastern suburbs. She excelled at school and was popular with her fellow students. Teachers were full of praise about her attitude and scholastic ability, believing she was destined for something great. One recalled being delighted that at 14 years of age Anna-Jane abandoned her plans to become a vet and instead decided law was her calling. She made good on that ambition, entering Adelaide Law School in 1983. Her lecturers and tutors were impressed, one telling the press, ‘She would always focus on what she wanted to achieve and then go for it … you can see from her career … that she went from good to better and beyond.’6
Kevin and Joanne’s resentment towards Henry ran deep, according to Anna’s sister-in-law, Sue, who later wrote in her witness statement:
Anna’s mother doesn’t like Henry at all and she was saying to me she may not even attend the wedding. Henry and Anna’s relationship was of great concern for myself and that of the family … our relationship with Henry is only tolerated because he was with Anna.7
Sue expressed her own misgivings: ‘I like Henry on a social basis but in general I didn’t like him. There was always a side of him I did not trust. The family were of the same opinion.’8
When Joanne learnt Henry was a father of three she became so upset she tried to persuade Anna-Jane not to marry him. Anna-Jane was having none of it. As her mother later recounted, Anna-Jane had said that Henry was the man for her, unlike the stolid, insipid lawyers who pursued her:
I can sit at a dinner table and look at my lawyer friends and think, ‘You slept with him, and he slept with her, and so on’ … It’s so incestuous. I’m not like that; I don’t want that for myself.9
It was in November 1992, at Mecca’s Bar and Restaurant in fashionable Melbourne Street, that Anna-Jane and Henry broke the news to their closest friends that they planned to wed. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Anna-Jane was head over heels for Henry. He, on the other hand, was slightly troubled and made no secret of the fact to Anna-Jane herself. He was worried about marrying again so soon, after 15 years of married life.
Keogh was also candid about his unease at the prospect of starting a new family. He had had a vasectomy after his third daughter was born and was worried Anna-Jane’s maternal instinct may kick in, leaving her resentful and unfulfilled if she faced a childless future with him. He did not want to commit to marriage with this possibility hanging in the air. Whenever he raised it he was reassured by Anna-Jane that she was only interested in her career and her future with him.