The Age from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia • Page 6

1 6 THE AGE, Friday 14 October 1983 Police want Telecom to watch staff By DAVID HUMPHRIES Victoria Police are far from satisfied with the role and performance of Telecom in the fight against illegal SP betting operations. Inspector Bob Pittaway.who heads the Zebra task force set up two years ago to spearhead a crackdown on SP operations, said yesterday that Telecom appeared to be scaling down its own investigation arm while arguing that it was fully committed to co-operating with the police. "I can't complain about the assistance from Telecom officers on the taskforce but I feel they're the sort of enterprise that must put in a certain amount of policing into their own organisation," he said. Asked if his investigations had found evidence of Telecom staff facilitating SP operations. Inspector Pittaway said: "Our prime target is the SPs and that's why I say Telecom should take some steps opinion from the Federal Attorney-General's Department Mr Brack calls it an instruction from the Attorney-General.

"We are not about to take action which conflicts with Commonwealth law," he said. Mr Redlich said he was unconvinced by the legal opinion and had sought a second opinion from the Commonwealth Crown Solicitor. Should that confirm the original opinion, the Government should change the law, he said. The police have been taking their own steps to obtain access to the equipment The Chief Commissioner, Mr Miller, has sought a review of the opinion from the Federal Government and is awaiting a reply. Inspector Pittaway said the equipment would "facilitate tlie suppression of telephone SP operations and bring our task to an end quite dramatically." en to or sought information from Telecom about SP betting and you must judge his report and his in the light of that statement." Central to the police discontent is the refusal by Telecom to allow them the use of a piece of equipment called a call record printer, which Telecom uses for a number of functions, including the testing of lines, but which is capable of tracing the destination of phone calls.

Police say the device would considerably ease the burden of tracing SP operations, which use call-diverting units to send incoming calls from bogus premises to another location and thereby evade detection. Telecom, in turn, argues that such police use of equipment would contravene the Telecommunications (Interception) Act and supports its case with a legal to police their own departments, their own employees." On Wednesday, the Federal Government's special prosecutor, Mr Robert Redlich, revealed that Federal authorities were investigating allegations that Telecom staff provided sophisticated telecommunications equipment for illegal gambling operations. Mr Redlich accused Telecom of aiding and abetting SP operations, and said insular and indefensible Telecom policies had substantially prolonged Victorian police investigations into SP operations. Telecom responded yesterday by saying Mr Redlich had produced nothing new. "He has repeated comments out of a Royal Commission which took place in 1962 when conditions were quite different from today," said the chairman of Telecom, Mr Robert Brack.

"Mr Redlich has not met, spok Eastwood not guilty of prison death Edwin Eastwood was acquitted yesterday of the murder of a fellow prisoner in the Jika Jika wing of Pentridge jail. After retiring for two hours, a Criminal Court jury found him not guilty of having murdered Glen Joseph Davies on 30 April 1981. and not guilty of the alternative charge of manslaughter. As members of the jury walked in front of Eastwood to leave the court, he thanked them. Eastwood was in Jika Jika serv- ing sentences imposed in 1973 and 1977 for kidnapping.

During the trial, the Crown alleged that Eastwood strangled Da-vies because of long enmity between the two men. then stabbed himself to support a claim that Davies had attacked him. An improvised dagger made from a sharpened yellow plastic hairbrush was tendered during the trial. In an unsworn statement. Eastwood said he had strangled Davies in self-defence.

This was a retrial. An earlier trial ended in June without a verdict, after a third prisoner, who was present at the time. Gregory John Brazel, refused to take the oath and give evidence. The trial judge. Mr Justice Tadgell.

sentenced Brazel to two years' jail for contempt of court. Woman PC charged over death A policewoman was yesterday sent for trial on a culpable driving charge after a coroner found she had killed an Elstern-wick constable when she drove into the back of a parked truck. Mr Ian von Einem, SM, said Kathryn Anne Butcher, 22, of Ormond, had made a "serious error of judgment" in trying to overtake two cars on their left side in Kooyong Road early on 3 December last year. Police witnesses said Miss Butcher went to a staff Christmas party at Caulfield. She later left with Constable John Henry Roberts, 21, who was killed in the accident.

Sergeant Gary Phillips, of the accident investigation squad, said Miss Butcher's Toyota Celica had hit a truck parked partly on the nature strip. Constable Roberts died later in hospital. Sergeant Phillips said Miss Butcher- had a blood-alcohol reading of .169. I Melbourne medics head research grant list M. J.

Rand will study mechanisms controlling nerve functions in the heart and blood vessels with a $191,000 grant These figures, from the first breakdown of the $42,835 million in medical research funds announced in the Federal Budget, were announced by the acting Minister for Health, Senator Grimes. From KEN HALEY CANBERRA. Melbourne professors and institutes head the list of recipients of Federal grants announced yesterday, keeping the city pre-eminent as a centre of Australian medical research. The Government has approved recommendations by the National Health and Medical Research Council, giving $7.7 million to Simple. Flexible.

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also been recognised. Professor W. J. Louis of the Austin Hospital has been allocated $454,000 to conduct research into the action of drugs designed to combat hypertension and treat other cardiovascular complaints. At the Repatriation General Hospital, Professor T.

J. Martin will have $232,000 for the study of bone disease treatments, and at Melbourne Unfversity, Professor Magpies go on the rampage CANBERRA. Scientists with the Department of Territories and Local Government have some advice for Canberra residents who believe that the local magpies are more aggressive this year than usual. The director of the Wildlife Protections Division, Dr. Bryan Pratt, said yesterday that departmental biologists believed there might have been some upset in the birds' hormone balance this year.

They started breeding much earlier than normal because of the early Spring weather but were interrupted by a sharp cold snap. "They started harassing people early and they went off for a while but now they are back in action and causing the usual rush of complaints we get at this time of the year." The birds are showing a degree of memory intelligence which has surprised the scientists. Birds which have in the past had a feather or two removed to alter their flight characteristics and thus upset their aim at human targets have shown a high degree of reluctance to enter departmental traps this year. three Melbourne medical research institutes. The world-renowned Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Park-ville is getting $3,759,589 to undertake research this financial year.

The Howard Florey Institute of experimental physiology and medicine has been granted $2,534,148 and the Baker Medical Research Institute $1,406,564. Individual researchers have Mr Burke: "Safe and steady" Mr Burke said the Government had restructured the conveyancing scale and more valuable properties would now attract a higher rate of duty. Mr Burke said his Government wanted to Australian ownership of property and would investigate the application of a higher rate of duty to conveyances involving property acquisitions by foreign interests. Stamp duty on motor vehicle registrations and transfers will double to $3 on each $100 from 1 November, and the provision of a maximum duty will be abolished. Phone: Bus.

P.O. BOX2567W, GPO, Melbourne, PERTH. The West Australian Government has boosted public sector spending and increased a range of charges and taxes in the first State Budget brought down by the Premier and Treasurer, Mr Burke. Mr Burke yesterday described it as a responsible and prudent Budget. "We have aimed for a Budget that is safe and steady," he told Parliament.

It is Labor's first Budget in 10 years, but Mr Burke said the difficult economic conditions had put constraints on the implementation of the new Government's programs. The Government has increased spending in the key areas of housing, capital works, technology and tourism, and has eased payroll tax provisions for small business. "The principal themes of the Budget are the encouragement of a higher level of economic activity in the State and the stimulation of employment" Mr Burke said. However, Mr Burke said it had been necessary to increase several charges, despite severe pruning of departmental expenditures. Stamp duty on mortgages and other fixed-term securities will rise, and the Government will also introduce a stamp duty on life assurance on 1 November, which will bring Western Australia into line with other States.

SYDNEY. Federal Police telephone intercepts had indicated a link between the NSW Corrective Services Minister. Mr Jackson, and associates of a "known drug Neddy Smith, the NSW Opposition claimed yesterday. In State Parliament the Opposition asked whether police had tried to establish that Mr Jackson was friendly with businessmen who regularly dealt with a man Identified as "a gunman, stan-dover man and one of the country's most notorious heroin The Opposition said Mr Smith had been identified by the Woodward Royal Commission as witness "BL" and by the Lanfranchi inquest as witness and that he bad been linked with major Australian drug syndicates. Mr Jackson said outside the House: "I don't know Neddy Smith, whoever he is, from anyone else." The Opposition claims were made in a series of questions in Parliament yesterday.

In his report on allegations of corruption in the State's early prisoner release system, the Police Commissioner, Mr Cec Abbott had said that Federal Police Almost everybody consults The Age classifieds before they buy a home, check the complete classifieds in tombrrow's Age. THE AGE CLASSIFIEDS GET RESULTS Bro the worn I telephone taps had been associated by covert means with Mr Jackson. Mr Jackson has said both inside and outside Parliament this week that he speaks to hundreds of people a week and he does not know the backgrounds of all of them. When the Abbott report was tabled in Parliament on Tuesday, the Premier, Mr Wran, said there was no evidence to justify criminal proceedings against Mr Jackson or anyone else. The Opposition Whip, Mr Moore, asked the Deputy Premier, Mr Ferguson, yesterday: "Were you advised as acting Premier that Australian Federal Police in the course of authorised phone taps had established that people with whom the Minister for Corrective Services associated on a regular basis were associates of known drug trafficker, Neddy Smith? "Are you aware that this is the same Neddy Smith who was identified by the Woodward Royal Commission as witness BL and the Lanfranchi inquest as witness and that as such he has been linked with major Australian drug syndicates?" 652.P.147R around the world.

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6.58PM. ADVANCE AUSTRALIA FAIR. 7.00PM- BRINGING THE WORLD BACK HOME. The official presentation of Canberra's newest network with the Prime Minister, The Hon. R.

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8.30PM. A SQUARE OF SKY. First of a compassionate 8-part autobiographical series from Germany depicting the Jewish experience of World War II seen through the eyes of a young Polish-Jewish girl. 9.28PM. NEWS AND WEATHER BULLETIN.

9.30PM. MOVIE: THE CONFORMIST. Enthralling dramatic film hailed as Bernardo Bertolucci's finest work. A non-compromising political, sexual thriller of corruption and cowardice set against the background of Benito Mussolini's fascist regime in 1930s Italy. Intrigue and murder build to a shocking finale.

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