Happier times … policeman Denis Tanner signs his brother’s marriage certificate in 1981.
IT was just after midnight in a seedy, dead-end lane in St Kilda. A man’s body, trussed with black electric tape and with a hood over his head, was wedged into the back of a white van. The portly, middle-aged man who had ordered the abduction approached quietly. He was smiling, eyes sparkling with anticipation.
For months Philip Peters had planned this moment. The crooked lawyer who specialised in laundering cash had branched out. He was in the big-time now. He was about to turn killer.
Peters had planned it carefully. He was going to drug and abduct the man he believed responsible for losing him $200,000, then kill him. It was payback time.
Peters, known in the underworld as ‘Mr Laundry’, was going to take his victim to a remote farmhouse in St Arnaud in central Victoria, where he would be dismembered and buried in pieces by a butcher recruited for the job. ‘Where do we kill him?’ asked the former butcher.
‘Put a bag over his head,’ said Peters.
‘I’ve already done that, I’ve got him trussed up, hands and …’ said the accomplice.
‘Can he breathe? … Well, I want to stop him breathing … Put a plastic bag over his head,’ ordered Peters.
But, apparently just in the nick of time, police arrived after a concerned neighbor yelled out. Frantically, they worked on the victim with mouth to mouth and heart massage, but the body remained deathly still. There was no flicker of life.
The police’s apparently desperate actions were the final movements in an elaborate, three-month masquerade designed to snare Peters, the lawyer turned gangster, who had been determined to become a millionaire in six months – and was prepared to kill to get there.
As Peters was secretly taped in the back of a police car working out his alibi, police crowded around the lifeless body. It was lifeless because it was not the victim Peters had ordered killed. It was the dummy from Channel Seven’s television series, Full Frontal.
The producers had agreed to lend the police the dummy* as part of Operation Soli, a sting to catch Peters, who had been taped for months planning the abduction, torture and murder of his enemy. He had provided the drugs to dope his victim and found a stooge to do the actual killing – or so he thought.
In 1997, Peters, a former lawyer for the Crown Solicitor’s office and State Treasury, was jailed for attempted abduction, perjury and cultivating marijuana.
He was released just 22 days after being sentenced because of a deal where his original, more serious charges, including conspiracy to murder, were dropped in exchange for his guilty plea.
It seemed a tiny sentence for an ongoing conspiracy where a man could have died, but the deal was cut outside the court. The pressure is on to save money by avoiding long trials. A deal is a deal and Peters, having worked for the Crown and the other side, knew the unspoken rule that much of modern law enforcement is budget driven. Justice is not only blind, but broke as well. According to police, Peters was a brilliant thinker, but gripped by greed and vindictiveness, who planned to torture a man he believed had contributed to his financial ruin.
Peters knew from personal experience that in his circles the loss of money could prove fatal. At one point there was $30,000 contract taken out on his life by an amphetamines dealer over a ‘misunderstanding’ involving between $450,000 and $600,000.
Police believe the drug dealer organised four men to beat an elderly member of Peters’ family as a warning. Peters took the hint and changed his appearance, dyeing his hair and eyebrows, and carrying a gun.
Peters had taken possession of huge amounts of dirty money from the drug dealer and promised to launder it through a Melbourne computer firm and a property development in the Whitsunday Islands. The money went missing – and Peters would have too, but for a bizarre legal twist. The drug dealer took his case to the Solicitors’ Guarantee Fund and was repaid around $500,000 in compensation and legal costs, even though it was known the money was drug profits.
A former client of Peters said he was ‘known as Mr Laundry because he can launder millions for you.’
Peters, who was educated at Trinity Grammar and Melbourne University, spent ten years working for government departments before he started private practice in Essendon.
He soon earned the reputation as a ‘no-questions asked’ type who cleaned dirty money. He engineered property developments using a string of shelf companies and false names. He used his secretary’s name without her knowledge in one development. She knew there was a problem only when she started receiving funeral wreaths as a threat.
A New Zealand family asked Peters to wind up the affairs of a relative, Michael Joseph Smith, who had died in Melbourne. Smith, an oil rig worker, died in January 1989, aged 33. His brother, sister and their spouses flew from New Zealand to tidy up his affairs and arrange the funeral. They needed a solicitor and, as they didn’t have a car, they picked the closest lawyer to the motel they were staying in at Essendon. It was Peters. The family asked him to complete all legal details. He agreed to do so for a substantial fee, but later decided that wasn’t enough.
Peters assumed the dead man’s identity, taking out a licence, opening bank accounts, registering his car and working as a financier under Smith’s name. In fact, Peters became Michael Smith in all his business dealings after his legal practising certificate was cancelled in 1989.
The Law Institute of Victoria moved on Peters late that year. It found money missing from his trust account. In each discrepancy the money was found to have been redirected to companies controlled by two drug dealers.
One witness described being in the office when a drug dealer arrived with money he wanted laundered. The man said the dealer produced $50,000 in cash from a paper bag to set up a bogus mortgage on an historic property in Essendon. The cash had previously been hidden from police in the ceiling of a house in Moonee Ponds.
Peter Kelly, a St Kilda solicitor, said Peters worked for him in the early 1990s using the name Michael Smith. He was supposed to help organise commercial and home loans. ‘He said he had a legal degree from New Zealand, but had never practised. What I remember most about him was his eyes, which looked straight through you. It was like he was from another planet.’ Peters did not conclude any loans, Kelly said. ‘I think, looking back, he was trying to set me up as another front for him.’
In 1994 Peters manipulated a client to perform minor criminal acts for him. In the end he asked the man, John, to help him kill someone he believed was responsible for a loss of $200,000 in an insurance fraud gone wrong.
The proposed victim allegedly ‘stole’ computer equipment from Peters’ company so the loss could be claimed, but the brilliant lawyer had made an unbelievable blunder. The insurance cover on the business had lapsed and the burglar with the green light would not return the gear or cough up the money he’d made.
Peters’ planned revenge was to organise a drug deal and then rip the man off for the money. He planned to take the man to a pit under a farmhouse in St Arnaud and torture him until the victim provided the cash. To do this, he wanted John, a butcher, to help abduct ‘Peter’ and ultimately to chop up his body so it would never be found.
John had been running two businesses when he was introduced to Peters, but both had failed after he was effectively manipulated into signing over his interests to Peters.
John said Peters used his legal experience to plan crimes. ‘He said he read files to see how criminals had worked. He read legal transcripts and his notes to see where they went wrong.’
Once Peters had effectively taken over John’s firms, the once successful businessman was at the mercy of the master manipulator.
John became involved with Peters at the lower end of crime. ‘We had no money and were in debt. We had to go with them. I was going to lose my house. They had me.’ He grew marijuana seedlings for the bent lawyer’s Sunbury property. It was not a great success. ‘The sheep ate the plants. They ended up stoned,’ John said.
Each crime was the same. Peters did the planning and John did the dirty work. Peters was almost never there when there were any risks.
He planned several major frauds, but when the plans turned to a murder plot, John went to the police with three boxes of documents to prove his claims. Police turned John into an undercover agent in early 1994. More than 4000 pages of conversations between the two men were taped, including plans to drug and kill the proposed victim. John had no doubt Peters wanted his enemy dead. ‘He was going to kill him for sure.’
The policeman in charge of Operation Soli, acting Detective Sergeant Jeremy Oliver, said Peters always used middle men as fall guys to try to protect himself from prosecution. ‘He always wanted someone else to do the dirty work.’ There was no doubting Peters’ intelligence. ‘He would just make up a story as he went along which would sound quite credible. He was able to think on his feet,’ Oliver was to recall.
Another policeman who had dealt with Peters made a blunter assessment. ‘His looks were deceiving. He looked like a fat idiot, but he had an incredibly quick mind.’
At one point Peters developed a plan to rip-off the Solicitors’ Guarantee Fund. He set up a false investment portfolio under the fictitious name of Giovanni Sanetti. The file said that Sanetti invested $60,000 which would eventually mature to $100,000. Police said that in 1993 Peters approached John and asked him to pretend to be ‘Sanetti’. The plan was to apply to the Guarantee Fund for the investment money which had allegedly been lost or stolen by Peters.
According to police tapes, Peters also planned an insurance fraud by buying a fish and chip shop in Gordon, near Ballarat, and burning it down three months later.
Peter’s plans to be a crime boss folded when he was arrested in the culmination of the sting. Peters forgot his golden rule: don’t get your hands dirty and always use a patsy. As agreed with police, John rang Peters to say he had drugged the target, who was in the freezer in the back of his St Kilda shop. Peters wanted John to put the body in the van and drive to the St Arnaud farm. Peters, naturally, would be in another car, away from any problems.
As part of the police plan, John persuaded Peters to come to the shop. When he arrived he was told the man was still alive. It was then that Peters showed himself to be a would-be killer.
Even when police arrived he remained cool, discussing possible legal defences with his partner, still unaware that the victim was a television dummy. As police ‘worked’ to save the alleged victim, Peters was plotting a plan that would put him in the clear, but leave his mate John out in the cold.
PETERS: ‘Just don’t worry about him, John.’
JOHN: ‘So, who – who – drugged him, what – what if they ask me questions like that? Hey?’
PETERS: ‘Well, we’re gonna have to say you did, John.’
Peters was originally charged with 13 major criminal charges including incitement and conspiracy to murder. The charges were later amended after he agreed to plead guilty to incitement to kidnap, cultivate marijuana and perjury.
County Court Judge Byrne sentenced him to three years and six months’ jail with a minimum of five months. When pre-trial detention was taken into account he was freed 22 days after he was sentenced.
John was handed a two-year suspended sentence for his activities with Peters and on his release worked 18 hours a day in two jobs to recover financially. ‘I always knew he would get away with it. It’s a joke what he got.’
FOLLOWING is an edited transcript from 4000 pages of secretly-taped conversations between ‘John’ and corrupt lawyer, Philip Peters, in which they discuss the plot to abduct and torture a man before butchering him to dispose of the body.
Tullamarine, 11 February, 1994:
JOHN: ‘… You and Phillip were gonna take him up to St Arnaud and stick him in a f...... pit and things like that, now I’ve been trembling, you know for a f...... week.’
PETERS: ‘Well, that’s what I was gonna do. I really was. Because the bastard had pinched $200,000 worth of stock.’
JOHN: ‘Yeah, and what would have happened if he got out of the pit?’
PETERS: ‘Well, he wasn’t gonna get out. He wasn’t gonna get out, ever. We were gonna get the stock and then he was gonna vanish. He was gonna vanish, John, believe me.’
JOHN: ‘All I could think was my wife, my kids, you know, things like that – nothing else.’
PETERS: ‘No, I would never, ever have let it get to a situation where there could be any risk at all. He was going to vanish totally.’
JOHN: ‘As in totally dead, dead.’
PETERS: ‘Dead, dead. Well, he – he has pinched so much from so many people that the world – you would get a medal. Apart from the stuff he pinched from Phillip, he pinched a car from me and sold it and then told the coppers that I told him to do it.’
PETERS: ‘Yeah, well, Danny has I believe – no, not has – had put a contract out on him.’
JOHN: ‘That’d explain the way sort of you know he rang, yeah.’
PETERS: ‘Yeah, yeah. No, that’s why he’s got seven around with him … I made some inquires and Danny had apparently put a contract out on him two years ago.’
JOHN: ‘Yeah.’
PETERS: ‘The bloke took Danny’s money then told K …..’
JOHN: ‘Like I said to you believe … with the pit, it’s the wife and kids, I’m not worried about anything else.’
PETERS: ‘No, well look, don’t worry about that, there is no way on earth I would let that sort of thing happen. No, he was never gonna get out of the pit. I was gonna get as much as we could, because he owes me … he took $200,000 worth of stock … the business went down.’
PETERS: ‘When you’re talking on the telephone be very cautious because I just don’t trust telephones.’
Tullamarine, 16 February, 1994:
JOHN: ‘Well if there’s money to be made, I’ll – I’ll go along with the original idea, mate.’
PETERS: ‘Right. Well, if he turns up with the cash.’
JOHN: ‘Yeah.’
PETERS: ‘Then as long as we can get him away, where we can see what the hell is going on.’
JOHN: ‘Yeah.’
PETERS: ‘You know, if he brings the cash up the bush or whatever, then we can do it … providing things go right we can, but, you know, we’re – step number one is protection.’
JOHN: ‘Yeah.’
PETERS: ‘Step number two is the money. You know, money’s no use at all, if you’re not protected. It’s something to think about.’
JOHN: ‘I think he’s – he’s greedy enough to fall for it … If he smelt the dollar, yeah.’
PETERS: ‘He is, but the one thing you’ve got to be careful of … is that you’re not followed. You know, you’re going to need back roads and all sorts of things.’
A St Kilda pizza parlour, 17 February, 1994:
PETERS: ‘This is getting beyond me, but I – I want to get this bastard.’
JOHN: ‘Yeah.’
PETERS: ‘You know, that – Theo had already indicated that he’s quite prepared to run him up and then knock him over. Now he’s gonna be even happier to do it … Look, if his money goes – he’s got to be put away, otherwise, you know, it’s, it’s exposing everybody to too much risk … We’ll do – we’ll do the community a service.’
(Peters then goes on to explain that the man he wants dead will try to cut John out of any major cannabis crop and deal directly with the drug dealers.)
PETERS: ‘Yeah, well he’s a lying, thieving, nasty little bastard.’
JOHN: ‘Yeah’
PETERS: Once that’s happened, you’re free, and then we can hit him with impunity.’
In the frame … Tanner (middle) at detective training school. Ron Iddles is behind Tanner’s right shoulder.
ATTILA ERDEI A millionaire drug dealer and killer who was unknown before Operation Pipeline. Sentenced: 22 years.
BELLA BERNATH Head of an elusive and established group supplying many substantial street dealers. Sentenced: Four years.
MANUEL VENERIS Assets exceeding $800,000. Sold drugs valued at $1.2 million during the operation. Sentenced: Four years.
PAUL WOOLES Involved in the distribution of heroin and amphetamines in Victorian and WA prisons. Sentenced: Six years with a minimum of two.
PETER BABES An associate of Leimonitis. Bragged of his ability to supply pistols and machine guns. Sentenced: Two years.
ANTHONY HICKEY Primary source of amphetamines. Second in charge to Veneris. Career criminal. Sentenced: Six years, minimum of three.
JOHN FALZON A millionaire from Laverton who trafficked in heroin, amphetamines and hashish. Sentenced: Seven years with a minimum of five.
THEODORE LEIMONITIS His syndicate was linked directly to an amphetamines laboratory; a major hashish importer. Sentenced: Four years.
Father and son … Vincenzo and Alfonso Muratore. Both gunned down in Hampton 28 years apart.
Rocco Medici and his brother-in-law Giuseppe Furina … found tortured and murdered in the Murrumbidgee River.
The only picture of US mafia hunter John T Cusack (circled) in Australia, at a gathering of Victorian investigators in 1964.
Anti-drugs campaigner Donald Mackay … murder unsolved.
The ‘Friendly Godfather’ Joe Arena … murder unsolved.
Police needed to fly in to destroy this remote bushland marijuana plantation … but was the job sold out from within?
Respected senior policeman Dick McLean (above, centre front row, and below in cap) … turned bad when he left the job.
Policeman Gary Whelan … was given a second chance, and blew it.
Robert Arthur Selby Lowe was convicted of the 1991 murder of Sheree Beasley (left). He remains the prime suspect in the disturbingly similar case of Kylie Maybury in 1984.
Tullamarine, 24 February, 1994:
Peters talks of buying a fish and chip shop and then burning it down for the insurance.
PETERS: ‘What’s gonna happen, gonna buy this fish and chip shop and go into … three months or whatever and then there’s gonna be a fire in the place and that’s gonna be Fish and chip shops go all the time.’
JOHN: ‘What exactly is going to happen to him eventually? Is he –?’
PETERS: ‘He’s going to vanish. You don’t need to know about that … I want to get some money out of him first.’
18 February, 1994:
JOHN: ‘I mean, are we really going to kill him? What are we going to do?’
PETERS: ‘Well, look, that’s up to them. I don’t give a stuff.’
JOHN: ‘Yeah.’
PETERS: ‘All I want is – is my money back and Phillip’s money back.’
JOHN: ‘Yeah.’
PETERS: ‘I don’t give a stuff what they do with him. But obviously, if he vanishes, it’s going to be better for you.’
(They talk of the marijuana John grew for Peters, later eaten by sheep.)
JOHN: ‘The sheep ate them, Philip. Go outside and see if there’s any stoned sheep running around the paddock.’
PETERS: ‘There’s dead sheep all over the place, they probably suicided.’
(They discuss getting drugs to knock out the man Peters wants abducted.)
JOHN: ‘And make sure you bring it down to the shop and I’ve got it there.’
PETERS: ‘Yeah, yeah.’
JOHN: ‘I’m not running around for three days like we did with the bloody sample.’
PETERS: ‘No. It’s got to be there first.’
(He returns to the subject of the fish and chip shop).
‘But basically what it is, we run the fish shop for three months or something and then the fat boils over … you’ve seen it happen.’
At a St Kilda pizza parlour, 2 March, 1994.
JOHN: ‘And with (the name of the target), what’s going to be the outcome with him, mate?’
PETERS: ‘Well.’
JOHN: ‘Is he still goin’ up to St Arnaud, or what?’
PETERS: ‘Yeah, providing we can get him up to a big enough deal.’
JOHN: ‘All right.’
PETERS: ‘I’m not interested in knocking him off – over four, five grand or ten grand, but if we can get up – get him up to fifty or a hundred grand, yes, it’s worth it, to get my money back.
JOHN: ‘All right.’
PETERS: ‘Bloody rotten little shit, he is. He – look, John, you’ve got no idea of what a bloody, lying, devious, dishonest, nasty little shit he is.’
JOHN: ‘He – he looks like that, that’s why he – he – just like a little ferret.’
PETERS: ‘What I’m trying to do is build the bank – the bank roll … for other operations. I’ve got to find a million dollars within the next six months.’
JOHN: ‘That’s – that’s a small order.’
PETERS: ‘Well, I’m gonna do it, John.’
Tullamarine, 23 March, 1994:
JOHN: ‘Is there really a pit, up at St Arnaud, or what?’
PETERS: ‘Yeah, there’s a cellar in the house.’
JOHN: ‘Right.’
PETERS: ‘Brick, you know, with a very narrow staircase, so, you know.’
JOHN: ‘I just hope he doesn’t get out of there mate.’
PETERS: ‘Well, that’s why I’m thinking we might need a third person, we might need a third person, we might need someone to go and sit up there.’
JOHN: ‘And how long do you think you’re going to need to set up somebody to sit up with him?’
PETERS: ‘I would think only a day or two, he’s going to give us the information. If he doesn’t then, he vanishes, which he’s gonna do anyway.’
McDonald’s car park, Tullamarine, April, 1994:
PETERS: ‘Well, I think he’s got to vanish anyway.’
JOHN: ‘Yeah.’
PETERS: ‘The minute we do that, for your, our, for your sake, he’s got to vanish.’
JOHN: ‘Yeah.’
PETERS: ‘But what I was – what I had originally intended to do, was either get the two hundred, or get some satisfaction.’
(The two men talk about how that will be able to get the victim to St Arnaud.)
PETERS: ‘It’ll be something like an old-fashioned Mickey Finn.’
JOHN: ‘We, the other thing, if he was – who is gonna kill (the man), up at St Arnaud, then?’
PETERS: ‘If necessary, I will, but I – I think we’ve now got to the stage, where – you know, it’s got to be you and me and no-one else, John.’
JOHN: ‘All right.’
PETERS: ‘I don’t nee-, I don’t want a third person involved, either.’
JOHN: ‘Fine with me, mate.’
PETERS: ‘That way, if something goes wrong, we know there’s only two people to blame.’
PETERS: ‘You’d take him out and bury him.’
Tullamarine. McDonald’s carpark, 14 April, 1994:
(The two men discuss how they will drug the target.)
PETERS: ‘But it’s basically knock-out drops.’
JOHN: ‘Yeah. Where do you get ’em?’
PETERS: ‘They used to be all over the place. I’m finding it very difficult – I’ve got a half a dozen people looking for them.’
JOHN: ‘It must be the signs of the times, mate.’
JOHN: ‘But can you use anything else.’
PETERS: ‘Look, I’m sure you can, but I don’t know – you know, I’ve got no idea what three or four moggies tastes like.’
JOHN: ‘What are moggies?’
PETERS: ‘Mogadons.’
JOHN: ‘Oh.’
PETERS: ‘Sleeping pills – but you know, presumably, that’d be the same … I’ve got a couple of blokes having a hunt around for me, so we’ll see what they come up with. There was a woman, Poison Ivy, convicted a couple of years ago, and if I could find a copy of the court transcript, I’d know how to make the stuff, even, because she was using it, but it – it’s around.’
(The two men discuss disguising the taste of the Mogadons.)
PETERS: ‘What does (the victim) drink?’
JOHN: ‘Coffee.’
PETERS: ‘They tell me it (the drug) is fairly bitter, so it’ll have to be coffee with sugar, or something – anyway, you can do some tests on it, John, try it on the girls.’
(By 19 April, as they are getting close to abducting the target, Peters also considers killing a woman.
PETERS: ‘You said you wanted to kill her … There is no way on earth I’m going to do business with her, but have a think about it – what we should be able to do, is set her up in the same way we’ve set up (the target) and do the same thing. I’m getting enough – and for Christ sake, don’t call them ‘Mickeys’ on the phone … you never know who’s listening.’
PETERS: ‘But if we set her up in the same way, we can achieve the same result, and pick up a substantial quantity of material.’
(Peters said he would like to experiment with the drugs to get the dose accurate.) ‘The bloody things have turned out expensive. It’s costing a hundred bucks for the what, three doses I’m getting. I’m picking them up tonight.’
JOHN: ‘All right and (the target is) gonna be done this week?’
PETERS: ‘Mm, I think you should give this stuff a test. If it doesn’t work, then we review everything, but you know, if you give Ben or someone.’
On 20 April Peters hands the drugs to John.
JOHN: ‘So, how do – how many of these do we have – do – do I use?’
PETERS: ‘I would put – I’d give him four, two and two.’
JOHN: ‘Well, after he’s asleep, what’ll I do with him?’
PETERS: ‘You’re going to have to secure him reasonably – very, very well.’
JOHN: ‘What, so he’s gonna be slapped about?’
PETERS: ‘Mm, as long as he’s properly secured – that’s gonna be the – real trick … A tape around the mouth, cuffs on the hands and ankles, and you haven’t got a problem … Make sure you’ve got some heavy, sticky bandage, or whatever, we may need to wrap that round his mouth.’
JOHN: ‘Right. They’re not gonna find him, up at St Arnaud, then?’
PETERS: ‘No.’
JOHN: ‘They’re not gonna find the body, are they?’
PETERS: ‘Nuh, nuh, they’re not going to find anything.’
21 April, 1994:
(John rings Peters and tells him he has drugged the victim. Peters drives to a shop in St Kilda where, he believes, the unconscious man is trussed in a van outside. But it is the dummy in the van, and police hidden nearby.)
JOHN: ‘Well, the moggies you gave me, mate, worked beautifully.’
PETERS: ‘Good.’
JOHN: ‘Where do we kill him.’
PETERS: ‘Put a bag over his head.’
JOHN: ‘I’ve already done that, I’ve got him trussed up, hands and.’
PETERS: ‘Yeah, but.’
JOHN: ‘I’ll show you.’
PETERS: ‘Can he breathe?’
JOHN: ‘Yeah, come on, I’ll show you.’
PETERS: ‘Well, I want to stop him breathing.’
JOHN: ‘Well, come and have a look.’
PETERS: ‘Put a plastic bag over his head.’
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: ‘Hey, what are you doing there? Hey, what are you doing there? Police, call the police.’
POLICE OFFICER: ‘Police, don’t do anything, get on the ground.’
POLICE OFFICER: ‘Get on the ground, go on. Get on the ground.’
POLICE OFFICER: ‘Put your hands behind your back. Hands behind your back.’
The police then pretend to find the ‘victim’ in the car.
John and Peters are put in a police car. Peters sets out to concoct a legal defence, unaware he is being taped.
POLICE OFFICER: ‘Who’s gettin’ the ambulance?’
POLICE OFFICER: ‘They didn’t – they didn’t call an ambulance.’
POLICE OFFICER: ‘Well, arrange an ambulance now.’
JOHN: ‘What do we do now, Phil?’
PETERS: ‘No conspiracy to murder.’
JOHN: ‘You’re f......’ kidding me.’
PETERS: ‘Well, all we were trying to do, is get some money out of this bloke that owes me and Phillip some money.’
JOHN: ‘What do I tell ’em?’
PETERS: ‘Just that.’
JOHN: ‘So what did we do to him?’
PETERS: ‘Nothing.’
JOHN: ‘How did he get in the back of the van?’
PETERS: ‘Just don’t worry about him, John.’
JOHN: ‘So, who – who – drugged him, what – what if they ask me questions like that? Hey?’
PETERS: ‘Well, we’re gonna have to say you did, John.’
JOHN: ‘With what. What did I use?’
PETERS: ‘Just a couple of Mogadons.’
JOHN: ‘And where’d I get ’em? Who am I – you gave me the shits, mate.’
PETERS: ‘Yeah.’
JOHN: ‘Come on, what do I say, Phil.’
PETERS: ‘I gave you a couple of moggies, that’s all.’
JOHN: ‘If they ask me, how many’d you give me, how many?’
PETERS: ‘Two. Two.’
JOHN: ‘If they ask me when you gave them to me, what, what do I say?’
PETERS: ‘A couple of days ago.’
JOHN: ‘All right. How much shit are we in?’
PETERS: ‘Oh, a bit.’
* Peters was not the only one fooled by the dummy. A senior police-man nearly collapsed when he saw what he thought was a suspect fall past his window after being thrown from an upper-storey interview room at he St Kilda police station. It was the dummy.