Jeff Sher interview 18 November 2009

Before you took silk in 1975, you acted - not for Billy "the Texan" Longley, a notorious figure in the history of the Painters and Dockers - but for one of the people he instructed to kill the-then union leader Pat Shannon. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Well, I was briefed (with Frank Vincent for one of the co-accused and Des Wheelan for the other) to defend three young men who were charged with murdering Pat Shannon. One had driven the car, one (my client) had been the person who identified Pat Shannon to the man who shot him, who was the third accused. One of the most horrific things about that case was the police had done a re-enactment with the co-operation of the accused of the shooting and it was really quite horrific to watch them re-enact the murder. I wasn't quite sure how they were going to be defended on the basis of this particular evidence anyway. They were pretty heavy parties that were involved. In those days, the Painters and Dockers were notorious and havens for criminals. When we went out to the Commonwealth Town Hall to do the committal, there were police everywhere and we were asked to go and see the magistrate before the case started who wanted to give us a warning, and the warning was, "well gentlemen, there's some pretty heavy people involved in this case. If any shooting breaks out in the court, you're all to dive under the Bar table". It was a comforting piece of advice. Anyway, nothing happened during the committal of any note, but during the trial on about the second or third day, there was a great noise at the back of the court and we turned around and there was a guy attacking one of the accused in the dock, actually in court. He was ultimately charged with contempt of court, that particular fellow.

Is he alive?

Oh I don't know, I mean Frank Galbally appeared for him on his contempt charge, and I think he was dealt with and they were all convicted. My client's defence was duress. He said he pointed out Shannon to the guy who shot him because he was scared of Billy Longley with whose wife he'd been having an affair while Longley was in jail. So he had reason to fear him. That case actually ended up in the High Court with a rather strange finish. We'd tried to run duress at the trial. The trial judge said "well, the law was against you" and wouldn't let us even put it to the jury. We appealed at the Court of Appeal and they said "well the law is that duress is not a defence to murder", and then we appealed this point to the High Court because it was a pretty important point, like my client was a principal in what's called "principal in the second degree". He wasn't the actual killer and the argument was: if you're a principal in the second degree, you can rely on defence. We argued the case in the High Court and they reserved, and then before they handed down the decision, the House of Lords in England upheld the point in respect of an IRA crime so we notified the court of this decision which they would have been aware of anyway, and the case was then listed. Well it was then pending the decision. In the meantime, my client was murdered in Pentridge. It was said that his co-accused murdered him for putting him into the police and he was ultimately tried and acquitted of that murder so the High Court then listed matter for mention. I was told before I went into court, don't say anything. I'm not sure why, and they just announced that the appeal had abated because the appellant had died so the point was never resolved. Interesting.

Did you ever have fears for your personal safety when you were acting for people like this?

Only once. In my early days, I appeared for a guy charged with murdering his wife and he was clearly mad and the defence was insanity and then in the middle of the trial he changed his instructions and said that he hadn't done it, that some intruder had killed his wife and he wanted to give evidence and I had to get the trial judge, I forget who it was, to tell him that he couldn't give evidence at that stage, he had to wait and I ran insanity not staying the fact that he didn't want me to. I was almost worried what would happen if that fellow got out of jail, he was seriously mad and quite dangerous. But I'm still here.

Yes, so all being well, that continues. Over the course of your career, and yours has been a long and illustrious career, do you feel you developed in any way the habit of seeing through a glass darkly after acting for so many people like this?

I don't think so. I think I still have faith in human nature, I think people are intrinsically good but I'm not starry-eyed about the villains that exist and some of the extremes of society which I think we're all suffering from at the moment. There's extremists in our midst and around the world who are a great threat to us all. I didn't become super cynical, I think I was always a bit cynical but I think I'd describe myself as an optimist.

Did you meet Billy Longley?

Never. I had nothing to do with Billy Longley because he actually handed himself in some time later and I think he thought that the Crown could never prove his guilt, but he was wrong. He was convicted.

Were you surprised some years later when the Costigan Royal Commission got going and the sorts of findings they came up with in terms of the Painters and Dockers and Billy Longley and other characters like that?

They went right off the planet. They started off looking into one particular topic and ended up following this trail, I think, to the benefit of the community ultimately, down an entirely different path. I think a lot of people were surprised with what happened there, including Kerry Packer.

Conducted for the Victorian Bar oral history project by Juliette Brodsky, and filmed by Stewart Carter on 18 November 2009