At 81, John Hatton is learning to ski and has returned from six weeks in New Zealand, which is why he missed the ACT Supreme Court's reference last month to Mafia involvement in Colin Winchester's murder.
Organised crime figures who believed they had been double-crossed were said to have a motive for killing assistant federal police commissioner Winchester, but police had been unwilling to reinvestigate Mafia links.
This would not have been news to Mr Hatton, the former NSW independent member of parliament and corruption fighter who instigated the Wood Royal Commission into NSW police corruption in 1995.
Mr Hatton spelt out the Mafia's connection to Mr Winchester's murder during a wide-ranging speech to Parliament in May, 1990. He had been calling since 1987 for a royal commission into joint Mafia and police marijuana crops and again in 1990, for their relationship with Mr Winchester's murder.
Mr Hatton had told Parliament the ACT chief magistrate Ron Cahill was brave and competent at Winchester's inquest. But today, 24 years later, he says he has bitter memories of that hearing, of three days of hostile questioning in the witness box, of having documents screwed up and thrown in his face in what he believed was a conspiracy to break him.
"Frankly, they went very close (to breaking him). I went back to my motel room after the third day and said 'I'm getting out of here'. I stopped at a cafe in Goulburn, went down into an alley and just sobbed and sobbed," Mr Hatton said.
In Parliament in 1990 Mr Hatton said he was aware of marijuana crops worth $100 million in the Bungendore and Braidwood areas planted about 1983, including two that were ripped off five times while under police surveillance.
NSW and to a lesser extent federal police were involved in "Operation Seville". Mr Hatton said Mr Winchester's role was pivotal, but before he could give evidence against 11 people charged when the National Crime Authority brought the matter to court, he was killed in January, 1989.
"The Australian Federal Police investigation became split into two camps, those who wanted to get to the truth and those who wanted to cover up the illegality.
"The federal government's response to the assassination of the second most senior police officer in Australia was to hold an inquest. However, if a person is accidentally run over by a bus and killed an inquest is held. An inquest is a legal requirement for probate reasons," Mr Hatton had said.
"Cahill is the ACT chief magistrate and also the coroner. He is doing two jobs at once. That inquest relied on a compromised police force as its investigative arm."
At the time Mr Hatton felt the inquest had turned into a quasi trial of David Eastman, later convicted of murder.
Mr Hatton told Parliament on the night after Mr Winchester's murder, area police commander Bill Fleming offered him police protection. Later police paid Bungendore constable Peter Jamieson, who had tried in vain to do something about the drug crops, to relocate with his wife and family.
"It is obvious that police thought Hatton and Jamieson were under threat – a direct link in the minds of senior police between Winchester's death and Operation Seville," Mr Hatton told Parliament.
So great was Jamieson's concern that he kept unofficial running sheets, threatened to go to superiors, but was "abused and assaulted" by district detective Bill Cullen. Cullen has since died.
While Mr Hatton's speech made no mention of him, another former detective John Edlund, told the Canberra Times in 2006 he too paid a heavy price for giving evidence at the Winchester inquest about Bill Cullen. Mr Edlund, who had come across the crops on horseback, had his distinguished police career ruined because he was a whistleblower.
Mr Edlund's case was taken up by another NSW parliamentarian, Morris Iemma, before he became Premier. Yet it was not until 2011 NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione apologised for Mr Edlund's wrongful charges and treatment at the hands of senior police. Mr Edlund died that year aged 65, after a two-year battle with cancer.
