Roger Caleb Rogerson is about as famous – and infamous – a police officer to ever flash a badge. In the publicity blurb from his autobiography, The Dark Side, Rogerson wrote: “All that people know about me is that I’m a corrupt cop, shot three men [in the line of duty] and was a mate of Neddy Smith…”
That’s probably all that most people would need to know about Roger “the Dodger” Rogerson. It was his mate Arthur “Neddy” Smith, one of the most notorious rapists and murderers ever to pull on a balaclava, who claimed that Rogerson was the man to go to if you wanted the “green light” to commit crimes in NSW.
Back in the 1980s, Rogerson was the most decorated, most admired and most feared detective sergeant in the NSW police force who earned 13 awards for bravery; he was the can-do cop always on hand to nab bank robbers, drug dealers and a vast assortment of the other denizens of the dark who occupied Sydney’s seamy underbelly.
The problem was, somewhere along the way, this lauded police officer forgot where the thin blue line stopped and the dark side began.
Rogerson is taken into custody on May 27, 2014, for questioning in relation to the murder of Jamie Gao. Photo: AAP
Rogerson is taken into custody on May 27, 2014, for questioning in relation to the murder of Jamie Gao. Photo: AAP
Rogerson is taken into custody on May 27, 2014, for questioning in relation to the murder of Jamie Gao. Photo: AAP
Rogerson was the man responsible for the shooting death of heroin dealer Warren Lanfranchi in a Sydney laneway in 1981. Lanfranchi, Rogerson claimed, had pulled a gun, so Rogerson shot him. He was later commended for bravery.
But Lanfranchi’s girlfriend, a prostitute named Sallie-Anne Huckstepp, called the established story and Roger’s motivation into question. Huckstepp made the claims loudly and publicly. She was murdered in 1986, drowned in a lake in the middle of Sydney’s Centennial Park.
In 1984, detective sergeant Michael Drury was shot twice through the kitchen window of his Sydney home. Drury survived to claim that Rogerson had offered him a bribe to change his evidence in a drugs trial. Rogerson was aquitted.
Finally he was drummed out of the force in 1986, his former glory all but destroyed by the Lanfranchi and Drury affairs. He was later convicted of perverting the course of justice after depositing $110,000 into bank accounts under a false name and spent three years in jail, from 1992 to 1995. In 2005 he was convicted of lying to the 1999 Police Integrity Commission and served 12 months in jail.
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