Lawyers, Lies and Money

This is a wry but candid first-person account of the scandal surrounding the corruption of the NSW Minister for Corrective Services Rex Jackson. It is written by the then high-profile criminal defence lawyer who was jailed for his part in it. It winds through an intriguing slice of Sydney’s ‘colourful’ underworld at that time – half-arsed crims; some straight and some very bent coppers; dodgy policing practices; court tactics; informants now named; prison life and the kindness of fellow prisoners. Behind all this there is an uneasy backdrop of paranoia-tinged menace – suspected conspiracies, reports of betrayals and executions, anonymous death threats. This dark account is nuanced by its unexpected humour and the gently passing story of his Jewish family, their feuds and oddities, and his parents’ brave move from grey post-war England to promised ‘Sunny Australia’. They were bolstered by the success of their eldest son and dismayed by his eventual downfall as a self-described ‘corruptible sod’. This account is worrying, sad and drily comic.