The unsung heroes who risked everything to blow the lid on entrenched police corruption in Queensland are celebrated in an explosive new book about crooked cops, blackmail and bagmen.
In the highly anticipated third and final instalment of his true crime series, award-winning author Matthew Condon details events leading up to the 1987 Fitzgerald Inquiry and the downfall of controversial premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen.
All Fall Down makes the eye-watering claim that Sir Joh was offered a multimillion-dollar bribe to build the world's tallest tower in Brisbane just before being dumped by the National Party in 1987.
It also follows the life of former police commissioner Terry Lewis, including his time in prison.
The book, launched on Wednesday evening, features interviews with several key players who have, until now, remained silent.
Among them is former intelligence officer Peter Vassallo, who helped expose police corruption by supplying information to Four Corners journalist Chris Masters.
Mr Vassallo offered up the story, which helped prompt the Fitzgerald Inquiry, amid fears for the life of his friend, undercover police officer Jim Slade.
Mr Slade had been offered a bribe and asked to join The Joke, a system of corruption in the Queensland police force.
"They were very distressful times," Mr Vassallo told AAP.
Mr Vassallo, now 68, said he never publicly spoke about what he knew because he feared losing his job with the Australian Bureau of Criminal Intelligence in Canberra.
"At the end of the day, the appropriate people went to jail ... so there was no point in me coming forward," Mr Vassallo told AAP.
But seeing Mr Lewis protesting his innocence and reading about the rift between the former police chief and Mr Condon changed his mind.
"That left me with no option but to introduce myself to Matthew and to explain to him who I was and that there was an untold story," he said, wrongly believing at the time that Mr Slade had died of cancer.
Mr Condon said he had spent three years talking to Mr Lewis about Queensland's sordid past.
Despite widespread corruption in the force during his 11-year reign, Mr Lewis maintains his innocence and even said two months ago he still had no remorse.
Mr Lewis was jailed in 1991 and parolled in 1998.
Mr Vassallo said the extent of police corruption would not have been exposed if it were not for Mr Slade.
"The real hero in this story, and the man who was on the front line at all times, was Jimmy Slade," he said.
"He was the one who was threatened, he was the one who was offered bribes and resisted.
"Jim is the focus; without him nothing would have happened."
Mr Condon said Mr Slade was one of many people who stood up and told the truth.
"I think many are heroes," he said.
"We owe them a lot; Queensland history owes them a lot."
Share
