In the 1980s, top-down corruption spread through the NSW Police Force. Only one officer stood up to Sydney’s ruthless top cops to blow the whistle, and her name is Deborah Locke.
Former detective Deborah Locke spent years refusing hush money and dodging bribery from Roger Rogerson, ‘Australia’s most crooked cop’, and his associate Glen McNamara.
Deborah Locke talks about growing up in the Hells Angels, 1980s police sexism, and taking down Roger Rogerson, on Crime Insiders:
“Roger Rogerson was allowed to do anything except for kill a cop down,” said Locke, “It was out of control”.
Locke was the sole officer to stand up at Parliament House during the Wood Royal Commission and declare there was corruption in the NSW Police Force.
Locke and independent politician John Hatton tried to find police officers who would sign a declaration that corruption existed, but not one did.
The normal answer by most cops was I’ve got a wife and a mortgage, or Roger will kill me, or I’ll be ostracized or my career will be over.”
Former detective Deborah Locke
In 2016, Glen McNamara and Roger Rogerson were found guilty of the murder of university student Jamie Gao. Locke attended court for the trials.
“Roger told me that I was an effing idiot that I never took money. And it’s like. I’m free. I could jump out of that courtroom and I could go buy a sandwich,” she said.
“I don’t regret the choices I’ve made by being an honest cop […] The opinion was that I was an idiot. But who’s laughing now?”
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