Stench of paedophile case rising

By Greg Ansley

CANBERRA - John Marsden, a Sydney society lawyer with the air of a puckish Oscar Wilde, is putting his life on the line.

Is he, as Channel Seven claims, a paedophile who frequented boy brothels to commit rape, sodomy and sadistic whippings?

Or is he, as Marsden retorts, a victim of his own success and of his outspoken homosexuality?

If Marsden wins the case he is pursuing against Channel Seven, he stands to win damages that could soar into double-figure millions.

If he loses, he could go to jail.

Whatever the outcome of the defamation action unfolding before Justice David Levine in a courtroom packed with hugely expensive legal teams, journalists and avid spectators, Marsden has exposed yet again Sydney's unsavoury sexual underground.

The case has mingled high society with the tragic world of "rough trade" and "rent boys," revealed so appallingly in the Wood royal commission into police corruption that splintered into a specific inquiry into paedophilia.

Two of Marsden's alleged victims have been convicted of brutal murders; one fell, jumped or was pushed to his death from a balcony; allegations have been made of intimidation of witnesses.

As many as six witnesses have died, mainly of Aids.

Claims have been made of attempted bribery by both sides, and evidence has emerged that Channel Seven was given the names of 12 potential witnesses by police in a secret deal to protect other sensitive information surfacing from a subpoena served by the channel's lawyers.

A jury has already determined that Marsden was defamed by two Channel Seven programmes, Real Life and Witness.

Under new laws, Justice Devine will determine what damages, if any, should be imposed.

Channel Seven maintains its allegations that Marsden had sex with under-age boys, including prostitutes, are true, and has won the right to introduce new evidence obtained after its subpoena trade-off with the police.

The origins of the case lie in the outrage that swept across Australia as the Wood royal commission dug-out the filth from a corrupt police force.

Increasingly it became clear that police were accepting payments to protect paedophiles - both individuals and organised rings - and that the stench reached high levels of society.

Dozens of men have since been pulled into the spotlight, from high-profile businessmen and public officials to priests and teachers.

Their haunts became public - clubs such as Costellos in Kings Cross, where young boys were procured, drugged and sodomised by a wealthy clientele, or the farm run as a perverted coastal resort south of Sydney where the "attractions" extended to bestiality.

In the course of the near-hysteria that followed the commission's revelations, Marsden's name began to circulate, finally emerging publicly in state Parliament and later on Channel Seven.

Marsden in many respects drew attention to himself.

A successful lawyer, he was before the case a flamboyant extrovert and partygoer whose close friends included senior politicians and legal and business identities.

Witnesses appearing for Marsden have included Olympics Minister Michael Knight, Kathryn Greiner, wife of a former NSW Premier and prominent in her own right, and even lawyers from Mollesons, the law firm representing Channel Seven.

Marsden was a former president of the NSW Law Society and, again until the case, member of the State Police Board.

But he was also a rebel who publicly confessed to smoking marijuana, who once had been arrested after approaching an undercover policeman in a Sydney toilet, and who had stood in the front line against police at the first gay mardi gras in 1978.

Five years ago he topped it all in an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, during which he cruised past "The Wall," a notorious pick-up spot for gay prostitutes.

The paper reported that Marsden surveyed the talent with a running commentary: "Don't like him ... He's even worse ... urk, he's worse still."

Marsden later regretted both his homosexuality and his very public acknowledgement of it.

"If I'd been able to choose my own sexuality," he told the paper, "I would have pushed the straight button."

And as the pressure of the Channel Seven case grew, he wrote to a friend, another former Law Society president, Norman Lyall: "I made a mistake in coming out."

But as the paedophile scandal widened it was too late for regrets.

In the NSW Parliament, Marsden was named by Labor MPs Franca Arena and Diedre Grusovini, who lost her seat on the Front Bench as a result of her allegations.

Channel Seven followed with its claims that Marsden did, indeed, prey on young boys.

Marsden's accusers have alleged that he has tried to entice witnesses into changing their stories; state MP Peter Breen late last year accused the police of bribing others to testify that they had under-age sex with the lawyer.

This week it emerged that Seven's lawyers had cut a deal with Steven Elomari, one of the witnesses against Marsden, in which they agreed to pay $A1000 a week for five years and relocate his family if he agreed to the release of secret tapes made by the Wood royal commission - on the condition they contain incriminating discussions between Elomari and Marsden.

The evidence so far has been unpleasant: tales of rape, seduction under the influence of drugs, marijuana and cocaine binges, rough handling and whippings.

The alleged victims included pre-teens and boys under 15.

But it is also contradictory.

Dates are wrong, places of supposed assignation did not exist at the time, one witness was in police detention at the time of alleged offences, and details are incorrect.

One witness, Les Murphy, was one of three brothers jailed for life for the infamous rape and murder of nurse Anita Cobby.

Marsden claims he is innocent, and that Channel Seven has ruined his life.