Kidnapped

  Praise for Kidnapped

  ‘Remarkably researched so as to explain one of Australia’s most extraordinary criminal cases. The intricacies of the police investigation are clearly set out and the mind of a famous criminal is revealed.’

  Chester Porter QC

  ‘Mark Tedeschi has given us a detailed and compelling account of events, unfolded with his customary forensic skill and interspersed with interpretation and analysis that informs and provokes. Greed will continue to motivate some people – not all like Stephen Leslie Bradley – to criminal offending; but not often (fortunately) does it have the deep personal consequences or arouse the public’s interest, indignation and anger as the events in this case did. It was a case that also provided a quantum leap in crime investigation techniques, as Tedeschi explains.’

  Nick Cowdery AM QC

  ‘Few know the mind of the murderer like Mark Tedeschi. This is an utterly compelling account of the kidnap and murder of schoolboy Graeme Thorne from an author with unparalleled knowledge of the investigation and prosecution of crimes which have terrified Australians. From a distance of 55 years, Mark’s analysis shows that the criminal justice system of the time was both efficient and effective.’

  Margaret Cunneen SC, Deputy Senior Crown Prosecutor

  ‘The kidnap, ransom and subsequent killing of schoolboy Graeme Thorne in 1960 was one of the most widely reported and closely followed crimes of twentieth century Australia. Mark Tedeschi’s careful telling of the story is at once a study of kidnapper Bradley – suave continental chancer, bungler, family man and killer – and at the same time it presents a picture of an insular Australia encountering a strand of icy pragmatism direct from war-damaged Old Europe. Finally Tedeschi brings a senior jurist’s insight to the complex police investigation and Bradley’s trial for murder.’

  Peter Doyle, writer, academic, and occasional curator at Sydney’s Justice & Police Museum

  CONTENTS

  EPIGRAPH

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  PREFACE

  1. Windfall

  2. From Istvan to Stephen

  3. Testing mettle

  4. Feeding sharks

  5. Removals

  6. Controlling the avalanche

  7. Impostors and informants

  8. Skeleton at the fort

  9. Flight and ruses

  10. Leaves, seeds and general vegetable matter

  11. International waters

  12. Crossing the divide

  13. Remand, reversal and reunion

  14. Justice in action

  15. Last embrace

  16. Hypotheses and syntheses

  PHOTOGRAPHS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  END NOTES

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  I dedicate this book to the three teachers in my family, who have played such a large role in my life: my late grandmother, Rosina Tedeschi (1893–1971), my late mother, Ruth Tedeschi (1926–2003), and my wife, Sharon. Their talents and dedication as teachers and their support of and confidence in me have been the foundations upon which I have built my professional career as an advocate.

  Insatiability

  (translated from Italian, which in turn has been translated from the original Romanesque)

  God took mud from a swamp, modelled a puppet

  and blowed on its face.

  The puppet suddenly moved

  and a man emerged at once

  who opened his eyes and found himself in the world

  like someone who awakes from a great sleep.

  – What you see is yours – God told him –

  and you can use it as you like:

  I give you all the Earth and all the Sea,

  except for the sky, because that’s mine …

  – What a pity! – said Adam – It’s so beautiful …

  Why don’t you give me that too?

  Carlo Alberto Salustri (pen name: Trilussa)

  Italian poet (1873–1950)

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Alan Gold, literary mentor extraordinaire, who continually badgered me to write another true crime book.

  Chief Justice the Honourable Tom Bathurst, who gave me permission to access the State records relating to the trial of Stephen Bradley.

  State Records New South Wales, and in particular the ever-helpful and patient staff at the Kingswood Repository.

  Nerida Campbell, Curator of the Justice and Police Museum, Sydney Living Museums (formerly the Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales), for giving me access to the holdings of the Museum on the Graeme Thorne kidnapping and the extradition and trial of Stephen Bradley.

  Warwick Abadee and Robert Henderson, who provided much information on the movement of P&O ships between Australia and Britain.

  Christine and Pauline Vizzard, nieces of the late Fred Vizzard QC, for a photograph of their uncle and information about his career.

  Walter Glover, for his personal recollections of his neighbourhood friend, Graeme Thorne.

  Robert Teicher, for an account of his mother’s brief confrontation with Stephen Bradley.

  Chester Porter QC, Nick Cowdery AM QC, Margaret Cunneen SC and Peter Doyle, for their generous pre-publication comments. Chester Porter also for permission to refer to his account of Fred Vizzard QC. Peter Doyle also gave me access to the papers of his late uncle, Detective Sergeant Brian Doyle.

  Dr Michael Diamond, psychiatrist, for permission to quote from a forensic psychiatric report.

  To the team at Simon & Schuster Australia, particularly: Larissa Edwards, for her encouragement and support; Anabel Pandiella, for her enthusiasm and joie de vivre; Claire de Medici Jones, for an excellent job of editing; and Roberta Ivers, for many helpful suggestions.

  My wife, Sharon, for her patience, encouragement and wise advice.

  Mark Tedeschi AM QC

  PREFACE

  Greed is the most ubiquitous of the seven deadly sins. We all know what it looks like. We have all seen it in others and harbour it in ourselves. Some say that it is the root evil from which all the other deadly sins emanate. It is the vice addressed by the tenth commandment: ‘You shall not covet your neighbour’s house, your neighbour’s wife, his male servant, his female servant, his ox, his donkey, or anything that is your neighbour’s.’

  We all covet from time to time: possessions or accolades, recognition or acceptance, power or security, wealth or the fulfilment of our sexual urges. Most of us who are mentally healthy are able to keep our covetous desires in check and appreciate the differences between our needs and our wants. Deep down we understand intellectually that even if we were somehow able to fulfil our cravings, within a short time we would be no happier than before, and other equally powerful desires would emerge. We are able to appreciate the destructive potential of unrestrained greed and to prevent it from overwhelming our thoughts and deeds, consuming us, and ultimately destroying us.

  There are a few among us, however, who are so totally consumed by greed that, although technically sane, they are unable to think rationally about their cravings and desires. They seek the fulfilment of them so voraciously that they destroy the boundaries between their own valid needs and the legitimate rights of others. Some – mercifully only very few – are so overwhelmingly driven by greed that, like the man I describe in this book, they are prepared to kill to acquire the objects of their desires. So overpowering and all-consuming is their sense of entitlement, and so irrepressible is the allure of the desired goal – generally wealth – that such people are unable to appreciate the terrible risks they run of destroying their own lives and the lives of others dear to them.

  Over many years, I have prosecuted a number of such people for murder. The feature I have observed that they most commonly share is an ingrained, almost unshakeable, belief
that they are owed something by the universe. The man I describe in this book was so gripped by his desires and so intent on achieving his ends that he lost the ability to see what most other sane people would have realised in an instant: that he was hell-bent on a path of inevitable self-destruction. His downfall was almost assured by the brazenness of his covetous pursuits and the risks inherent in his chosen methods.

  Some people are of the view that any person who commits a serious crime, particularly murder, must necessarily be mentally ill. In my opinion – based upon many years’ experience as a prosecutor and defence barrister – murders are often committed by people who are perfectly sane but consumed by intense passions, such as greed, lust, jealousy, or the fear that comes from a loss of control or an overpowering sense of inadequacy. I believe that most of us, given the right circumstances, are susceptible to these powerful passions; that some of us are liable to be blinded by them; and that a few of us – thankfully small in number – are capable of being driven by them to commit murder.

  This book is about Stephen Bradley, who perpetrated the 1960 kidnapping-for-ransom of eight-year-old Sydney schoolboy Graeme Thorne. The crime gripped the whole nation – turning a sleepy, prosperous and safe post-war Australia into a place with dark undercurrents, where children could be snatched off the streets. The author, who was the same age as Graeme, vividly remembers the anguish caused by the boy’s disappearance.

  The case is presented not only because it is such a stark example of a man so consumed by greed that he was driven to commit a terrible crime, or because it is the only example of the kidnapping of a child for ransom in Australia, but also because it marked the beginning in Australia of modern-day forensic science as a tool in the investigation of serious crime. Many of the techniques of scientific detection used to implicate Bradley, which have since become commonplace, had never before been used in a police investigation. To some degree this explains why the police took so long to focus their attention on him. This case therefore marked a watershed in the annals of modern criminal investigation.

  At the time, there was much controversy over exactly how Bradley abducted Graeme Thorne and the circumstances that came to mark the end of his venture. As Bradley went to his death professing his innocence, that controversy has endured. The version of events that I present here, which in many respects is different to other commentators, is based on my own synthesis of information from a variety of sources. I have relied, in part, upon Bradley’s oral and written confessions to the police some months after the kidnapping – confessions he later retracted. It must be remembered that these confessions were intended to portray himself in the best possible light, so his words should be viewed with considerable scepticism.

  My version of what occurred relies heavily on the scientific evidence led at Bradley’s trial, which is a much more reliable source of information about what actually happened than any later explanation by him. I have also given much credence to the hypotheses that were put to Bradley during cross-examination at his trial by Bill Knight QC, the Senior Crown Prosecutor who prosecuted him, because Knight had the benefit of hearing all the witnesses first-hand and had direct access to the investigating police. The version I have advanced also takes into account my own professional experience as a Crown Prosecutor over the past thirty-two years, including nearly 200 murder and attempted-murder cases, and also the six years that I practised at the defence Bar representing persons accused of serious crime.

  This book depicts, among other things, the planning and commission of a kidnapping and its consequences from the point of view of the perpetrator, Stephen Bradley. I have obviously not had access to him. There has, of necessity, been a need to engage in creative reconstruction in order to present what I believe were the thought processes, emotions and motivations that lay behind this egregious offence. My understanding of Stephen Bradley, as well as his wife, Magda, is entirely my own subjective, personal view. I feel that my experience as a prosecutor has enabled me to get inside Bradley’s mind and experience his thought processes. This is something which I seek to do in every case that I prosecute. I am convinced that if I can understand the motivations for a crime by getting into the mind of an accused person, I am able to present the case more thoroughly and convincingly to a jury. I have prosecuted many people who, like Bradley, were blinded by their unrestrained desires and innermost fears, and this is an important reason why I have striven to understand his motivations.

  There was much debate at the time of Bradley’s trial as to whether his wife, Magda, knew in advance of her husband’s plan to commit the kidnapping – an allegation she strenuously denied. I have witnessed numerous cases in which close family members have refused to accept that their loved one could be capable of committing a heinous crime. I am confident that I have accurately assessed Magda Bradley’s unrelenting hope – against all odds – that her husband was innocent of the terrible crime with which he was charged.

  In this book I have also set out what I believe would have been the emotions and thoughts of the victims – primary and secondary – of Bradley’s criminal actions, including members of Graeme Thorne’s immediate family. Stephen Bradley’s daughter and step-children were also secondary victims of his crime, albeit in a completely different way. I believe my contact over many decades with victims and their families has enabled me to intuit what they might have felt and thought at the time. My apologies in advance if I have misinterpreted any of them.

  This reconstruction of the commission and investigation of a terrible crime that gripped the nation in 1960–1961 has necessitated my own creative input, based largely on my professional practice over many years. However, I have not allowed my subjective interpretations to detract from the accuracy of the factual details of the case, which were extensively documented at the time. Where there are direct, contemporaneous accounts of conversations, I have quoted them verbatim. Otherwise, I have interpolated my best assessment of what I believe would have been the substance of conversations, based upon the known facts.

  I have used pseudonyms for only one set of names – in order to protect Bradley’s step-children from further embarrassment. They were incidental, secondary victims who do not wish to have their identities disclosed. This has necessitated using the same pseudonym for their father’s surname and for their mother’s surname before she married Bradley.

  I have used imperial units of length that were applicable at the time. If any Gen-Xers or Gen-Yers are unfamiliar with them, there are many websites that provide conversion details.

  Mark Tedeschi AM QC

  Sydney

  2015

  1

  WINDFALL

  Stephen Bradley stared with disdain at the photograph on the front page of the newspaper. It showed an elated thirty-seven-year-old Bazil Thorne holding his winning lottery ticket – Number 3932 – which had been drawn the previous day, 1 June 1960. It was the tenth draw of the Opera House Lottery, which the New South Wales Government had established to raise money to build what they promised would become the pre-eminent Sydney icon.

  Stephen’s disdain was tinged with envy for the lucky winner of the £100,000 prize.1 What had Bazil Thorne done to warrant a windfall that would ensure his financial security and comfort for the rest of his life? Stephen was sure that this man, who stared with such provocative glee at him from the newspaper, had not had to go through the many traumas that had shaped his own life. Bazil had not lived through the Nazi occupation of Hungary, or suffered Bradley’s experiences of the political turmoil, disempowerment and poverty that accompanied post-war communism and Soviet domination in Stephen’s native country. Bazil had not been through the trauma of a migration, as Stephen had endured in an attempt to find a better life. Bazil did not have the millstone of speaking English with a foreign accent like the one that constantly marked Stephen as an outsider. Bazil had not been compelled to change his name, unlike Stephen who, because of the constant mispronunciations of his dignified birth name, Istvan Bara
nyay, had chosen to metamorphose to the unmemorable anglicisation ‘Stephen Bradley’.

  Whereas boring Bazil was probably still married to his childhood sweetheart, the thirty-four-year-old Stephen was a man of the world who had had a multitude of relationships, and had been married three times – a rarity in those days. Stephen had undergone a divorce from his first wife in Europe, and had stoically borne the sudden, tragic death of his second wife in Australia. A man like Bazil Thorne had never had to confront the denigrating looks that Stephen and his third wife, Magda, frequently faced whenever they mentioned that they had previously been married and that their three children were products of their former marriages. Magda’s eldest son, Paul Weinberg, was now thirteen, and her second boy, Ross, was just five, while Stephen’s own daughter, Helen, was seven. Stephen doted on all three children – treating each of them equally, as though they were all his own flesh and blood – and they in turn responded with genuine love for him. The five of them wanted more than anything to spend time together enjoying the simple pleasures of life, such as romping around at the beach. Stephen had to bear the burden of his stepson Ross, who was totally deaf and largely unable to communicate with words, and who had to be picked up each week (in view of inquisitive neighbours) by a special bus to take him to a special school – St. Gabriel’s School for Deaf Boys at Castle Hill – run by the Christian Brothers, who went to such effort to convey to the five-year-old boy the language, social interactions and cultural nuances that other children soaked up effortlessly. Because of the ordeal of caring for Ross, Stephen and Magda had chosen not to have any more children together.

  The newspaper photo of Bazil Thorne, who worked as a commercial traveller in partnership with his elderly father, showed him in an old-fashioned, cheap overcoat and holding an utterly standard hat. His wife probably bought his clothes for him once a year at downmarket stores like Gowings or Lowes, whereas Stephen was always immaculately groomed and dressed in clothes from the most chic stores. Although he was not tall, many people had told Stephen that he was classically handsome, and his past successes with women were testament to that. Magda had been instantly and irrepressibly drawn to his sexual magnetism, despite the fact that she was married to someone else at the time. He was proud of his taut body and his physical strength, but it was his personality, his education and his charm that gave him entrée into the upper echelons of Sydney society. He was able to project that personality to impress people well above his station in life. He was most attracted to – and envious of – people with vast amounts of money, as demonstrated by their impressive houses and cars. That was why it was so important to have a sizeable home of their own in a good suburb and a car that people would notice.