Don Dunstan relates in his book the story of the appointment of an excellent person to a senior office within the State. Dunstan recommended to Cabinet a person for the job, but the Premier of the day, Frank Walsh, told Dunstan that this man was not a fit person for the job. The Premier had received advice from the then Commissioner of Police, John McKinna. The police commissioner told Dunstan that the nominee was a homosexual and that homosexuality was still a crime in the State. Don Dunstan demanded to know the evidence that raised such an allegation. McKinna mentioned the rumour and innuendo about the man. Dunstan wrote: ‘I flew into a temper and demanded to know how he dared to traduce a citizen and endeavour to interfere with Cabinet appointments on such a basis.’
Three days later, the Commissioner produced patrol logs from police that mentioned three occasions on which police were suspicious about his behaviour but there was no evidence of his homosexuality. Firstly, the person was seen sitting in a car late at night talking to a man in the Adelaide parklands. It was not clear whether or not it was near one of the beats. Secondly, patrol officers stopped outside the person’s house to question a passer-by and saw him get up with another man from behind the garden wall of his house and walk inside. The third report mentioned how police had been despatched to a part of his house, which had been rented separately. Some transvestites were present but Don Dunstan wrote that the man under suspicion was not there at the time.
‘I looked at the Commissioner with astonishment and fury. I indicated my disgust in round terms — the matters in the patrol reports indicated no action not capable of perfectly innocent explanation,’ Don Dunstan wrote. Later, Cabinet accepted his nominee.
These were strange words from a person who was a professional politician and who would have understood the power of rumour and innuendo. I think Don Dunstan protested too strongly in his book, because by the end of his career it was accepted that Dunstan was a homosexual and may have favoured homosexuals in some of his appointments. The changing world and the activities of Don Dunstan in the 1960s and 1970s with his appointment of a reputed homosexual to a senior position within government began all kinds of rumours about prominent people. It also set the scene for stories of prominent people within Adelaide’s society being involved in the boys’ murders and rumours about the existence of a high-level ‘Family’ began to spread throughout the city.
Trevor continued to investigate the murders and, as a separate initiative, commenced Project Egret in 1989, which gained intelligence on paedophilia and led to a task force of police, called Operation Torpedo, investigating this crime in South Australia. This task force was interested in the so-called ‘Family’ but the initiative occurred as a result of rising national and international concerns about child abuse. About eighty people were jailed for offences relating to child abuse but they were not, in reality, connected with the Family.
Members of the legal fraternity were interviewed as part of police investigations and rumours that a legal person, Peter Liddy, was a member of the Family were untrue. The Attorney-General in 1989, Chris Sumner, went public and said categorically that the rumours were wrong. Police agreed with this view. And years later, a magistrate would come under notice for having sex with minors, but he, too, was not a member of the Family.
The denials of the Attorney-General did not quell the rumours, which were spreading through Adelaide like wildfires. In fact, the denials seem to fuel the fire. Many people became aware for the first time of members of the legal fraternity being homosexuals. The rumours intensified, so that the Family now reputedly included not only members of the legal profession, but also politicians and members of Adelaide’s elite.
These rumours were all wrong. They were urban myths.
And they weren’t helped by the unfortunate coincidence of the surname of the former Attorney-General in the Liberal Government, Robin Millhouse. He had the same surname as Doctor Peter Millhouse, who had been charged with the murder of Neil Muir. The public appeared to think that there was a relationship between the two of them. Also, Adelaideans seemed to have forgotten that the doctor was acquitted of the murder charge. The rumours were simply built on false foundations.
Obviously, investigations need to cover all possibilities to ensure that strangers, not acquaintances, abducted Richard Kelvin. Trevor Kipling had made sure that all the people coming in contact with Richard were checked out. One of those people was Rob and Betteanne’s gardener. I briefly spoke with him in the front garden of the Kelvin home early in the investigation. A single man, he was tall, tanned and ruggedly handsome. He couldn’t offer any information about Richard’s disappearance in the days after he went missing but several weeks later I received a letter from him. The letter came through the normal postal system into the internal mail system of the police. The letter was thrown into my wire basket on my desk. I didn’t know who it was from when I opened the envelope and started reading. The further I read the letter, the more my mouth dropped open. It appeared to be a love letter!
‘What is a nice young man like you doing the job that you do. You are too nice for that type of work . . .’ were some of the words used.
When my composure came back, I had a bit of a laugh about it and showed it to Trevor. We kept quiet about it as we didn’t want any rumours starting about Richard and his family’s connections. We were satisfied
