by Chris Griffith
Published 10 Nov 1996 in The Sunday Mail
He said boom gate duty was recrimination for his public outspokenness against police corruption.
But he says he became a police outcast, "a dog", two years earlier after giving court evidence against police colleagues in Townsville.
He transferred to Brisbane, where he taught legal studies at the Queensland Police Academy, before eventually turning up at the Police Operations Center.
The former senior constable wrote a 100-page submission to the Fitzgerald Inquiry detailing police corruption, including incidents where police divided a marijuana haul between them, and the beating of women in the Townsville Watchhouse.
From 1992-95, he was the Labor member for the Brisbane western suburbs state seat of Mt Ommaney, a normally blue ribbon conservative seat which he won by just 500 votes.
FORMER Labor State MP Peter Pyke and his family have spent four months hiding, in fear of their lives.
Last week Mr Pyke and wife Maryanne met The Sunday Mail in bushland close to Brisbane and revealed that a threat had sent them packing from their rented Oxley house.
He said the threat had occurred on June 28, shortly after he discussed lodging a complaint with the CJC alleging police had deliberately trumped-up charges against him in late 1993.
In January last year, Mr Pyke and two security officers were cleared of assaulting and depriving the liberty of Brentus Noel Whittaker, Maryanne's estranged first husband, during a supervised access visit in 1993 to his then two-year-old daughter, Tahlia.
Despite being totally cleared, Mr Pyke said the distraction of fighting the year-long case had destroyed his parliamentary career, undermined his political support, and had ruined him financially.
But he remained determined that the CJC should investigate what he labelled "a politically motivated and biased police investigation" despite the threat.
He is also planning to sue police and to take his concerns to the Anti-Discrimination Commission.
The threat, he said, was delivered in a Brisbane bottle-shop on June 28 this year.
"We had the kids coming over for dinner. On the way home, I stopped at a bottle shop in Toowong. I bought two bottles of white wine and I was walking to the counter, and this customer turned to me face on.
"He said: `You don't know me, but I know who you are. The c...s that bricked you before know you are going to the CJC. They're not going to let you do that. They're going to get to you first, and by the time they're finished, no one will believe anything you say. Someone's got too much to lose."'
Mr Pyke said he had no memory of walking out of the bottle shop. "I was just blown away, I couldn't believe it, but by the time we got to bed, I'd made up my mind we couldn't stay there.
"I was waiting for them to kick down the door in the middle of the night, take every scrap of evidence we've got, stick a needle in our arms, and then charge us with all kind of drug offences."
About two weeks beforehand, I had met Mr Pyke at his home. He said he had begun to assemble his case of police misconduct from the reams of police documents obtained under discovery during his 1995 trial.
At that stage, he was hiding the documents in the roof of his house.
The threat, however, proved to be the final straw which sent the former police officer of 16 years and his family packing. Three days later, Peter, Maryanne, and Tahlia headed for NSW and could not be contacted, even by close family members.
Despite three years as an MP on around $78,000 per year with $20,000 annual allowances, and an $80,000 superannuation payout, he said he was almost penniless, $250,000 out of pocket since his case begun.
He owns no property, he has no job, and his only asset is a four-wheel drive.
"The case also cost me my seat, and in the circumstances, the Labor Party government of Queensland."
He said he had tried to raise the issue last year in State Parliament, but then Speaker Jim Fouras and Leader of the House Terry Mackenroth had told him not to, claiming it was bad politics before an election.
These days, Mr Pyke has no immediate political aspirations. He has resigned from the Labor Party, ending all speculation about a political comeback in Mt Ommaney.
Over the last four months, the family visited supporters such as Canberra-based constitutional lawyer Richard Refshauge, QC, (brother of NSW Health Minister Andrew Refshauge), and former NSW independent John Hatton.
He also met with Independent Senator Mal Colston who assisted with a complaint to the Senate's Legal and Constitutional Committee.
"We've also put files away. The CJC's got a file, I've got a copy of the file here, the original is tucked away in safety, and there are other copies with friendly people."
The couple also had blood and urine samples taken and preserved to prove they do not take drugs.
This month Mr Pyke completed his submission to the CJC which he has now lodged - a process that began after he met acting CJC chairman Lou Wyvill late last year.
"Maryanne and I had a lengthy discussion with Lou Wyvill and (Complaints Section head) Michael Barnes. It went for hours. At the end of that, Lou Wyvill was very keen to pursue the allegations."
But Mr Pyke said he had refused to hand over documents when Mr Wyvill told him that police stationed at the CJC could access it.
"I was aware that one of the first commissioned officers appointed to the CJC when the National Party established it before the 1989 election had been a special branch operative in Townsville.
"You could not have got someone more loyal to the establishment than that person."
However, he now believes he has little choice but to cooperate, and has requested CJC Witness Protection.
Mr Pyke was assisted politically by his public campaign against domestic violence in the early 90s, but the issue also proved his downfall.
Shortly before he was elected, he established and headed the Police Service's Women's Safety Unit, and later as a parliamentarian assisted constituents with domestic violence issues.
This role brought him into contact with Maryanne Whittaker, who had approached Pyke as a constituent in July, 1993.
Mrs Whittaker had gained custody of daughter Tahlia following her breakup with husband Brent seven months earlier, but a Family Court order allowed him six trial supervised access visits to Tahlia.
These were granted despite Brent Whittaker's track record of domestic violence against his wife, as documented, especially in photographs.
These visits occurred in a park under supervision of Maryanne's mother, Joan Margaret McDonald. Mrs Whittaker's family also employed a security guard to protect Mrs McDonald.
During the sixth access visit on November 20, 1993, a scuffle broke out after Mr Whittaker had arrived accompanied by another woman.
Under the conditions of the court order, Mr Whittaker was supposed to be alone, as there had been concerns that the child could be abducted.
There are differing versions of what happened next, but all agree Mr Whittaker would not release the child when Mrs McDonald declared the conditions of access had been breached and terminated the visit.
Mr Pyke, the security guard, the guard's employer, and a local resident all assisted in restraining Mr Whittaker until police arrived 20 minutes later.
When police did arrive, the security officer, Graham Keith Morrison, lodged a complaint of assault by Mr Whittaker, and Mr Whittaker also claimed assault and deprivation of liberty.
Mr Pyke is now claiming the ensuing investigation was orchestrated to snare him. He says:
The investigation was one-sided because police investigated Mr Whittaker's complaint, but not the complaint against Mr Whittaker by security guard Graham Morrison.
In his report, the investigating officer said medical evidence had established that Mr Whittaker had been assaulted, but the report dismisses Mr Morrison's complaint because there was "no medical evidence" to back it up.
Yet in a statutory declaration in May 1994, Government Medical Officer Donald Buchanan said the investigating officer asked him only to examine Whittaker. "I was not introduced to him (Morrison), or asked to examine him".
Important police documents were not in the file given to senior police who had to decide whether he would be charged. He claims the missing documents included a two-hour taped police interview with Mrs Whittaker, the criminal history of Mr Whittaker, and the police notebook containing Mr Morrison's complaint.
Mr Pyke said that a comprehensive submission prepared for police by his solicitor, Terry O'Gorman, was never included with the report to senior police.
He said police used the media to vilify him. For example, he said in late November 1993, a newspaper had reported that police expected to charge him, but the investigation continued for another three weeks. He was not formally charged until January 25, 1994. Two months of speculation in the media occurred before any sub-judice period.
He said the investigating officer's report had omitted important background, including Mr Whittaker's domestic violence history, abduction threats, the grounds under which access visits had been allowed, and Mr Whittaker's previous involvement with Oxley police.
He said the report did not mention he had made a lawful citizen's arrest of Mr Whittaker before detaining him.
He said investigators had failed to take notes of any of four interviews he gave police on the day.
He also claims police had a potential conflict of interest.
Two months before the incident, Mr Pyke had complained to Police Minister Paul Braddy about the behaviour of Oxley Police officers at a Neighbourhood Watch meeting.
A letter to Mr Pyke from Assistant Commissioner John Walker said two police officers had been reprimanded as a result. The reprimand took place four days before the park incident, and one officer was ordered to apologise personally to Mr Pyke.
Mr Pyke said that despite the reprimand, one of these men oversaw the investigation against him, and the other had been responsible for recommending charges against him to Assistant Commissioner Walker.