Former Queensland Police Commissioner Terry Lewis was one of the state’s most controversial figures, whose spectacular fall from grace was instrumental in reforming the Fitzgerald anti-corruption inquiry.
His imprisonment, along with three ministers, marked the end of an era of widespread official misconduct and corruption in Queensland.
The once-styled Sir Terence Murray Lewis was one of the most high-profile victims of former Judge Tony Fitzgerald’s groundbreaking investigation in 1987-89.
The state’s youngest police commissioner and knighthood for services to the force was charged as a traitor to his oath after being convicted of receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes.
Still, Lewis maintained his innocence until his death on Friday, May 5, at the age of 95.
The state’s youngest police commissioner and holder of a knighthood for services to the police was charged as a traitor to his oath after being convicted of receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes, but maintained his innocence until his death on Friday at 95 years of age.
Born on February 29, 1928, Lewis was an unlikely police commissioner.
He grew up in a working-class family and left school at the age of 12 before drifting between different employers until he joined the police force at the age of 20.
Lewis was known as a hard and diligent worker, but in just two years, Lewis was wearing civilian clothes and working for the Criminal Investigation Branch (CIB).
He would later be put in charge of the Juvenile Aid Bureau, where he won a Churchill Fellowship to study police techniques abroad.
It was in the CIB that Lewis became close to corrupt police commissioner Frank Bischof and bribing “Rat Pack” agents Tony Murphy and Glen Hallahan.
In a scam known as “the Joke,” the Rat Pack collected protection money from brothels, gambling dens, and illegal bookmakers in exchange for turning a blind eye to the illegal activities.
Lewis was widely rumored to be Bischof’s bribe-collecting ‘bagman’; a claim Lewis always denied.
In 1976, Lewis was an inspector in Charleville when he was rescued from obscurity by the then Prime Minister Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen and appointed Assistant Commissioner.
The controversial move caused the officer to jump over 106 officers of equal rank and 16 of higher rank, enraging then Commissioner and anti-corruption officer Ray Whitrod.
Whitrod’s subsequent firing opened the door for his assistant to claim the top job at the age of 48.
During his 11-year tenure, the Commissioner had to refute claims that he had politicized the police force and enforced Sir Joh’s controversial legislation, including anti-street marching laws.
He also received many awards.
They include the Queen’s Police Medal, an Order of the British Empire (OBE), the National Medal and Queensland Father of the Year.
The awards were added to Lewis’s George Medal of Military Valor awarded to him in 1960 for disarming and arresting a man.
His career peaked in 1986 when he became the first serving Australian police officer to receive a knighthood.
That honor turned out to be short-lived.
The following year, media reports prompted Fitzgerald’s watershed investigation into police corruption.
When ex-Assistant Commissioner Graeme Parker, once Lewis’ right-hand man, admitted to taking bribes, the Commissioner’s days were numbered.
Lewis was suspended in 1987 and finally fired in 1989 after former police officer Jack Herbert confessed to the investigation that he had been Lewis’s bagman.
It was said that between 1978 and 1987, the Commissioner received more than $600,000 in graft payments.
In 1991, a Brisbane District Court jury found Lewis guilty of 15 charges of corruption, perjury and forgery.
The once powerful and influential figure of the state was sentenced to 14 years in prison and stripped of his knighthood, OBE and Queen’s Medal.
Lewis served just under seven years before parole.
Stripped of pension benefits, Lewis and his wife Hazel spent their last years in Brisbane as humble pensioners, aided by the financial support of some of their five children.
Hazel Lewis stood by her husband until her death in 2009 after a long illness.
In a rare interview in 1996, Lewis claimed he had been a scapegoat for two “politically ambitious” men whom he did not name.
“I am hopeful that I will be vindicated in the long run,” he said at the time.
That confirmation never came.