NSW: Top cop said he was disgusted at Marsden "cover up"

AAP General News (Australia)
04-10-2000
NSW: Top cop said he was disgusted at Marsden "cover up"

(EDS: PLEASE NOTE GRAPHIC CONTENT THROUGHOUT)





A former police superintendent has told the New South Wales Supreme Court he was disgusted
at the preferential police treatment given to solicitor JOHN MARSDEN who was known as
a pot-smoking poofter.

ROBIN BARRETT SMALL says Mr MARSDEN, then a member of the NSW police board, was given
three days to clean up his house before a 1994 drug search.

Mr SMALL, now a grazier, also says Mr MARSDEN gave a false name in 1967 when he was
arrested in a public toilet openly wanking in front of two people who were cops.

He says when the solicitor later was arrested for using unseemly words he gave his correct name.

Mr SMALL says his fingerprints matched those taken from the man involved in the toilet incident.

The former superintendent was giving evidence about information he gave Channel 7 reporter
GREG QUAIL in 1995.

Channel 7 is defending Mr MARSDEN's defamation action relating to programs broadcast
in 1995 and 1996 which claimed the solicitor was a paedophile.

Mr SMALL says two months after he gave ALP frontbencher DEIDRE GRUSOVIN documents,
including some relating to the drug search, he was visited by the Channel 7 reporter.

He confirmed the fingerprints incidents and told the reporter the drug search was a farce.

The hearing is continuing.

AAP RTV mss/sb/msk/jn

KEYWORD: MARSDEN (SYDNEY)

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