The Gangland War (50 page)

What was described in court later as effectively joining a criminal ‘tribe' appalled other defence lawyers and dried up lingering sympathy among police and prosecutors. Her explanation is that she was friendless and had nowhere else to go — but it looked like cuddling up to drug-dealing killers. At best, it was professionally reckless and personally naïve.

‘She's intelligent and a good solicitor but completely devoid of common sense,' says the detective. ‘There's some sort of imbalance that makes her attracted to these people.'

To which a defiant Garde-Wilson adopts the missionary position: that she is entitled to befriend and defend people who society despises. ‘Someone has to do it,' she says.

The funny thing is she probably means it. To understand why, you have to know where she came from.

PEOPLE around Armidale, NSW remember Greg and Judy Wilson's skinny little girl as polite and well-behaved but determined. If the young Zarah inherited a stubborn streak of altruism it should not surprise anyone. She descends from one of the most eminent but offbeat establishment families in Australia, distinguished by dedication to community service. She has respectable relatives all over Australia who must be bemused by their blood ties with Melbourne gangsters' pinup lawyer.

Zarah's great-grandmother, Dr Ellen Kent Hughes, the oldest of a tribe of children of a leading Melbourne surgeon, succeeded in a male-dominated profession in a man's world. She practised medicine under her maiden name almost until she died at the age of 86 in 1979. She was a local councillor for 30 years and received an MBE, at least partly for her fierce advocacy for the Aboriginal fringe dwellers around her adopted hometown of Ar-midale — a worthy cause, but not always a popular one among the less enlightened in the middle of last century.

The doctor's younger brother, Sir Wilfrid Selwyn Kent Hughes was one of the most remarkable Australians of his or any other generation; the sort of man who could conceivably have inspired a film like the British classic
Chariots of Fire
. He was an Olympic athlete, Rhodes Scholar, a hero in two world wars (a young lighthorseman in the first and a prisoner at Changi in the second), a
successful author, Cabinet minister and driving force behind the Melbourne Olympics in 1956. Until his death, at a great age, he was a familiar figure at Melbourne's Anzac Day Parade, in which he rode an officer's charger in his light-horseman's uniform.

A sister, Gwenda, was a respected Anglican, committed communist and educational reformer who taught at one of Melbourne's oldest private schools and bequeathed scholarships to young Aboriginal students. It was that sort of family, of free spirits and strong minds.

Zarah's great-grandmother Dr Kent Hughes was no delicate Edwardian debutante. She published
Observations on Congenital Syphilis
in 1919, two years after graduating from Melbourne University. Like the great-granddaughter born just before her death, she fell in love with an older ‘unsuitable' man at the age Zarah was when she met Lewis Caine.

Ellen Kent Hughes raised eyebrows by hurriedly marrying Paul Loubet, a French divorcee who died tragically just three months later. She gave birth, apparently to the Frenchman's son, moved to Queensland with the baby to work in a hospital in 1918 and two years later married Francis Garde Wesley Wilson, a returned soldier and auctioneer.

After moving to Armidale in 1928, the Wilsons started a local dynasty. The middle name ‘Garde' was handed down each generation and the family stock and station business was called Garde Wilson for 65 years until it was sold in the early 1990s.

Zarah's grandfather Bill Wilson was a much-loved stock and station agent — his grazier clients included New England's famous Wright family, related to the poet, Judith Wright. One of Bill Wilson's long-time clients sums up the three generations pithily: ‘Old Garde Wilson was pretty bloody tough, Bill was a gentleman and Greg had a few kicks and bucks.' Greg was the Wilson who would become Zarah's father. He stayed in the family stock and station business but took a punt in the 1980s by leasing extra
land and running sheep on it. His wife Judy Kemp, known as a local beauty, was (and is) a good horsewoman. She rode in shows and Greg played polocrosse. They had two children: a boy and Zarah, who was named after a Malaysian aunt. Zarah, like her mother, rode well and won ribbons at local shows.

For a while, all went well. Greg and Judy Wilson bought land to grow more wool. Zarah moved from Martins Gully primary school to New England Girls School and her brother went to boarding school in Tamworth. But when drought hit in the early 1990s, they faced spending borrowed money to feed sheep worth less every week, gambling that rain would eventually save them. They lost.

Some debt-stricken farmers handled it the only way they knew how: they shot themselves. Greg Wilson didn't do that but he shot 2000 merino sheep in one day, which left a financial and emotional burden that affected the family a long time. For a start, it changed their life outwardly as well as inwardly. Zarah moved from the New England private school to O'Connell High School. Her uncle, Greg Kemp, thinks the experience must have left its mark on both children. Of Zarah, he says, ‘She was quiet, but I think it (the drought losses) motivated her to succeed and make a bit of money.'

One night, probably in late 1993, Zarah's brother argued with his father, got drunk, took a vintage army pistol from the farm's gun safe and drove off in a rage. About 1.30am, he pulled into the BP roadhouse at Uralla, about twenty kilometres from Armidale, and filled the car. He then produced the pistol, ordered the attendant into the car and drove west. It might have been a cry for help but it promised to end badly.

By the time the alarm was raised at 5am the roadhouse owner, Reg Buckley, thought he would not see his employee alive again. But, around dawn, the now sober teenager realised the gravity of what he'd done. He apologised to the attendant and let him
out at Boggabri, shaken but unhurt, and turned himself in to police soon after. Meanwhile, a distraught Greg Wilson had turned up at the service station, looking for his son and dreading the worst.

‘Greg was a real gentleman,' recalls Buckley. ‘He apologised and he handled himself better than anyone else about it,' in contrast with some other citizens in Armidale who later pressured him to ‘call off' the police investigation, he says.

Buckley, relieved at the outcome, did not attend the subsequent court case and isn't sure if young Wilson ever served time for the hijacking. Wilson later worked as a jackaroo and is now married with children and working in a government job in outback Queensland. But, back then, the incident capped off a bad couple of years for his parents. They sold out and moved over the border to Murgon to start a bed and breakfast business.

In 1994 Zarah went to boarding school in Toowoomba, where she was enrolled under the full family name of Garde Wilson, with a hyphen thrown in. Perhaps that was the first sign that she was inventing herself a new persona who would become a successful lawyer.

WHEN Fairholme College's class of 1995 had its reunion a decade later Zarah Garde-Wilson wasn't there but a ripple of thirdhand gossip about ‘the underworld' went around. Few ‘old girls' could recall much about her but they had heard about the dramatic events in Melbourne and that one of their own was somehow involved.

In her two years at Fairholme College, the quiet girl from Armidale had made little impression. She was neither a star student nor raving beauty. In the 1995 yearbook, her name is misspelt twice, perhaps a sign of her fringe status.

She arrived in year 11, when friendships had already formed and weren't easily gatecrashed. She played ‘fair' A-grade hockey
alongside a future state player, Renae Van Schagen, who recalls her as ‘an independent person who got on with everyone — but I wouldn't say she had a best friend'.

One Fairholme girl, Angela Keogh, knew Zarah because they were both from Armidale and had shown horses together. Angela's mother Robyn recalls her as ‘slim, well-proportioned, very controlled and a bit different. And very competitive — she rode to win,' she adds, with a faint trace of disapproval.

Zarah, though not ‘daggy', was well-behaved and studious. There were rebels among the provincial private schoolgirls but Zarah wasn't one of them, surprisingly. She was never the one caught smoking, sneaking out of bounds or even wearing her uniform too short. Robyn Keogh sometimes wished her own daughters were less ‘adventurous' and more like the more studious Zarah.

Things change, and so do people. A decade after leaving school, Angela Keogh was working in Melbourne but when her mother asked her if she had caught up with Zarah, she said she hadn't. Angela knew they now moved in different circles.

Zarah was in the fast lane with some of the biggest speed merchants around. One was Carl Williams, the man who was at the heart of the underworld war and who will be in jail for decades. The other was Tony Mokbel, the multi-millionaire drug baron and punter who skipped bail in March 2006 to avoid facing fresh charges, and was recaptured in Greece a little more than a year later in possession of an illegal wig.

After Caine's death, Garde-Wilson could pass for a starcrossed lover who had made a mistake but the Mokbel connection exposed by police surveillance shredded her reputation. Deliberately, some would say.

When she appeared in court on the contempt charges in November 2005, a police investigator testified that she had indulged in an ‘on-again, off-again' sexual relationship with Mokbel — who
already had a wife, a mistress and a penchant for prostitutes, as well as a lot of racehorses he raced in other people's names, and a lot of relatives and friends who seemed ready to ‘mind' money and property for him. Police sources said Zarah had been seen in a Queensland casino with Mokbel, and used houses and cars that he and his associates owned.

Besides suffering this humiliating publicity about what she describes as irrelevant and deliberately damaging material on her private life, she was refused witness protection and found guilty of contempt. Asked why she wouldn't testify against two gunmen over her boyfriend's murder, she wept in the witness box and said she didn't want ‘my head blown off'. Apart from being convicted — in itself a serious matter for a lawyer — no penalty was imposed.

At the time her barrister told the court she was suicidal and that the prospect of losing her certificate to practise law could destroy her. Two years on, she was trying to stare down notoriety and an uncertain future in the face of moves by lawyers' professional bodies to have her practising certificate revoked.

Talking with her, it's tempting to look for the note of regret, an intention of a new start, but she won't bite. She is controlled, but traces of bitterness and bravado colour off-the-record answers to questions about the path she has taken and the way she has been treated.

Ask other lawyers about her and responses range from harsh criticism about ‘provocative clothes' and ‘obvious conflicts' to grudging sympathy. But two common threads run through the responses, at least from male barristers: that she is naïve and has lacked a mentor to guide her through the hazards of dealing with wealthy, violent and manipulative criminals.

One of Melbourne's wiliest criminal lawyers, who was taught his craft by the legendary Frank Galbally, says Garde-Wilson ‘has ability' but is trapped because she won't seek advice and has
burned bridges with potential mentors. He is more generous than many of his peers. ‘I feel sorry for her. We are a conservative, judgmental profession, too quick to bag people. Her response is to stand back and shrug it off.

‘She doesn't speak to people around the traps. We all learn at the expense of our clients but some of us forget that. But the fact is she hasn't distanced herself from criminals sufficiently. And her mode of dress is a cry for acceptance. I think she's got guts, but it is misplaced. She has capacity, works hard and fights for her clients.'

But he warns that those who ‘cross the line' and flout ethical rules don't last. ‘If you lose the respect of the bench, the future is bleak.' Because once the courts lose trust in a lawyer, clients soon catch on, too. The bigger the crook, the better the lawyer they need. ‘You're not better than them but you have to remain objective, and a good crook understands that. Good crooks will drink with shady solicitors but they won't use them when it matters,' he says, sharing a conclusion he has drawn after 30 years dealing with criminals.

Several senior counsel wrote references for Garde-Wilson's court appearance in 2005. These stressed her youth and inexperience, praised her diligence and skill at preparing briefs. But within a year none of the referees was keen to talk about her. One says there is ‘room for criticism'. Another says ‘the kindest thing I can do is make no comment', then makes several pithy comments. ‘Do not glorify her,' he says.

So much for the prosecution. Margaret Cunneen, NSW Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor, switches hats to run a defence of female lawyers in general, that she feels might apply to Garde-Wilson too: ‘Women have something against them that men don't … all the other women. It's doubly hard for women if they don't toe the line completely. If they don't they are slapped down.'

‘Slapped down' is how Leigh Johnson feels about the way she has been treated in Sydney courts. Johnson's chequered legal career and personal style foreshadowed Garde-Wilson's by a couple of decades. Leggy, blonde and known in her prime for small skirts and big statements, she was often accused of getting ‘too close' to notorious criminal clients, among them one of the Anita Cobby murderers.

Johnson, once memorably described by colourful barrister Charles Waterstreet as suffering the ‘tall, blonde poppy syndrome', leaps to the defence that Garde-Wilson feels she cannot publicly make for herself: ‘Women are taught to fall in love. She did and she chose the wrong guy — but who doesn't? Most people who get married, for a start.