Neddy: the Life and Crimes of Arthur Stanley Smith

351 Pages·2017·5.42 MB·English

by  Neddy Smith

NEDDY a.k.a. ARTHUR STANLEY SMITH is a notorious criminal, but he has
left a legacy in this best-selling book which was the basis of Blue Murder, the
electrifying TV series which swept critical and viewer records away. In 1992,
after being provided with an indemnity from prosecution, he gave detailed
evidence to an inquiry on police corruption. He is serving two life sentences for
murder, and likely to die in Long Bay’s hospital unit unless the State grants him
mercy for blowing the whistle on matters of the greatest public interest.
TOM NOBLE was a journalist at The Age. He is the author of Untold Violence:
crime in Melbourne today, Walsh Street, I, Mick Gatto and Steve K.

First Published 1993
Second edition 1998
Reprinted 1998
Third edition 2002
Reprinted 2005
Reprinted 2008
Published by Kerr Publishing © 1993 Smith Family Trust
© 1993 additional matter, Tom Noble
© 2002 Noble House Enterprises
© 2017 Kerr Publishing
This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or
review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written
permission from the publisher or the recording of Copyright Agency Ltd under their rules for use.
National Library of Australian Cataloguing-in-Publication data: Smith, Arthur Stanley, 1944-Neddy ISBN
9781925282924 (eBook)
1. Smith, Arthur Stanley, 1944- . 2. Crime-New South Wales-Sydney.
Criminals-New South Wales-Sydney-Biography.
Noble, Tom, 1964- . II. Title. 364.373092
To my three children,
Jaime, Darren and Daniel,
to my three beautiful grandsons
Raecin, Jordin and Kaed
and to a special friend
Donna Brotherton.
Facsimile of Smith’s original typescript entitled Thank Christ for Corruption,
1992
Contents
Editor’s Foreword
Introduction

1. The Fuzzy Blue Line
2. Home Boy
3. In the Nicks
4. Looking down the Barrel
5. Easy Money
6. Double Bay Days
7. Educating Neddy
8. The Bangkok Business
9. The Green Light
10. With a Little Help from my Friends
11. Mixed Fortunes
12. Back with Abo

Photo Section

13. Blood on the Streets
14. Doing Business
15. A Spot of Robbing
16. Broad Daylight
17. Going to Work
18. The Life of Riley
19. Stinks
20. Losing Control
21. Betrayal
22. Back Inside
23. Payback Time
Facsimile of Indemnity granted to Smith
Editor’s Foreword
If you think there is a can of worms being opened up in Queensland in the
Fitzgerald inquiry, then you can take my word for it you have a container full
to deal with down here ... compared with a sardine can full of corruption up in
Queensland, New South Wales leaves Queensland for dead.
David Kelleher,
to a Sydney court, mid-1980s
This is an extraordinary book, not just for what it says, but for what it is.
For two decades, some of Australia’s leading journalists have written about
crime and corruption in Sydney in the 1970s and 1980s, a time when politicians,
magistrates and police have been jailed for corruption.
Here, in this book, however, is a wealth of material from an insider. And not
just any insider, but one of Sydney’s biggest and most enduring criminal figures.
Neddy Smith’s confessions have already prompted a massive inquiry by the
Independent Commission Against Corruption (the ICAC), an inquiry that has
become New South Wales’ biggest probe into police corruption.
Smith’s allegations have been extraordinary and his revelations have
repeatedly made front-page headlines. Many will be made public for the first
time in this book.
The question of how accurate these allegations are is one that will be debated
for a long time to come. My view is that they have been thoroughly investigated
by a team of trained professionals from the ICAC—who have excellent access
through subpoenas and the like to various material—and they obviously believe
there is a good deal of truth in Smith’s stories, otherwise the matter would have
been ditched more than two years ago.
It must be said that Smith has been coy about some matters in this book,
notably his knowledge of murders and of drug trafficking. Because he has an
indemnity on crimes committed in New South Wales, he has been
extraordinarily frank about these—confessing to many crimes he would never
otherwise have been associated with. But his indemnity does not cover murder
or activities that cross state or international borders, hence there are passages in
this book that—clearly signalled for the most part—reflect the limits of that
indemnity.
Another notable change to Smith’s original manuscript is the deletion or
amendment of peoples’ names. Much of this has been done on legal advice.
Apart from that, however, Smith’s story is very similar to when I first read it.
While I have acted as editor and researcher, the flavor and style of the book are
very much that of the original manuscript, entitled ‘Thank Christ for
Corruption’.
Throughout his life, Smith has been fit and healthy, a man who has never
smoked or used the drugs he sold—his diet is vegetarian. Yet he is an ill man.
He now takes 36 pills each day to stem the effects of Parkinson’s disease. For a
man who was once very fit, he can manage only 20 minutes walking a day. Yet
Smith wants no sympathy. Refreshingly, for a book by a criminal, Smith does
not seek to justify his actions, engender sympathy or protest his innocence. As
he says, he chose his course and he must go where it takes him.
Tom Noble
Sydney, May 1993