SHARON O’NEILL: But for those at the centre of the allegations, there has been no closure
MALCOLM NOAD, BULLDOGS CEO: It is still an issue for the club, yes, no doubt. Our fans are abused at games, our players are abused at games. We had someone ejected only three or four weeks ago, when we played the Dragons for abusing players when they came off the field, and calling them rapists.
GARY McEVOY, FORMER DETECTIVE: What was a functional office quickly became dysfunctional, and, as I’ve said to others, of the 10 staff that were working in February 2004, there is only four still at work. Six of those 10 staff are no longer at work. Four of those six were all directly attributable to the fallout from this inquiry.
SHARON O’NEILL: Former Detective Senior Sergeant Gary McEvoy is one of those four casualties. After 23 years of service, he was medically discharged from the police force in February this year, after suffering a nervous breakdown. Tonight he speaks on camera for the first time about what went on inside that investigation and what really happened in Coffs Harbour in the early hours of February 22, 2004.
GARY McEVOY, FORMER DETECTIVE: In February 2004, I was investigations manager here at Coffs Harbour. I was in charge of the detective's office, about eight or so detectives in the Coffs Harbour office, and initially it was my role to manage and lead that inquiry. We knew that there was a squad of 25 Bulldogs players that had been in town over the weekend. A female had made a complaint of rape on the Sunday morning. She had been taken to hospital. She was seeing counsellors and getting all the welfare support. The limited information that the investigators had that morning - they didn't have names of players. All they knew - that an incident had occurred at the pool involving some players. So they asked the football manager for the Bulldogs, Gary Hughes, if he could identify what players were at the pool at the time and have them present themselves to the police station. As a result, four players came forward.
SHARON O’NEILL: The four players were interviewed and videotaped at the Coffs Harbour Police Station just hours after the alleged assault. They told detectives one player had consensual sex with a woman in the pool in the early hours of that morning while two players watched. A fourth player had had sex with the same woman earlier in the evening. In the following 24 hours, the players' statements were being sported by independent witnesses.
GARY McEVOY, FORMER DETECTIVE: By the Monday afternoon, for example, we hadn't identified one witness that gave evidence that would support what our victim had told us up to that stage. The statements that we had taken by then - and they were getting close to about the 12 mark - were all consistent with what the three players – or the four players had told us immediately after the job had come in. So, we – we had serious concerns which way the investigation was going to go.
SHARON O’NEILL: The woman making the allegations denied she was the person in the pool having consensual sex, despite the fact that a number of witnesses described a person of similar appearance and wearing similar clothing. The Bulldogs players told police they left the woman swimming in the pool, and independent witnesses confirmed they saw a woman swimming alone in the pool, who did not appear to be distressed in any way. By this time, the sun was beginning to rise.
GARY McEVOY, FORMER DETECTIVE: We've got about an hour to account for, from when this act occurred, that we have no doubt did occur, and when staff find the lady crying in the car park area. And, in trying to find out what happened in that hour, we have identified the fact that the victim approached a room where a girlfriend of hers was in and she asked that girlfriend to go back down to the pool area and find her shoes. And it would appear that at the time the victim and the girlfriend were talking, she wasn't upset, she wasn't crying, she wasn't emotional. Now, shortly after, the girlfriend returns from the pool, unable to find the shoes, and finds the victim in a distressed and crying state in the vicinity of the car park and rooms.
SHARON O’NEILL: The investigators were puzzled. Could there have been two incidents in the pool? Could a rape have occurred after the consensual sex in the pool? Did it happen before or after the woman's friend went back to the pool to search for her shoes? Could six men have attacked the woman in daylight without hotel workers and guests in the vicinity of the pool area witnessing such an event?
GARY McEVOY, FORMER DETECTIVE: No other witness was found that could describe a second incident, a second gathering of players in the pool area, for example, or cries for help or anything consistent with another incident occurring.
SHARON O’NEILL: Two days after the rape claims were made, Sydney broadcaster Ray Hadley dropped this bombshell in a live radio broadcast.
RAY HADLEY, 2GB BROADCASTER: She has then disclosed that at least six of them sexually assaulted her without her consent by anal, vagina al penetration.
GARY McEVOY, FORMER DETECTIVE: There was uproar that the only way Hadley to get hold of that is from a police officer. Someone has placed their own interests ahead of the investigation and jeopardised our inquiry for the sake of Mr Hadley getting a lead story on everyone else. We were pretty shocked.
MALCOLM NOAD, BULLDOGS CEO: I think that what happened was that the cops' report that was leaked to the radio very early on and subsequently read out meant that a lot of people in the media made a decision within a few days that the players were guilty.
SHARON O’NEILL: If the media was of the view that the players were guilty, it was a view reinforced by these comments made by Chief Inspector Bretton, who was in charge of the investigation.
CHIEF INSPECTOR BRETTON: She was a victim of a very serious sexual assault.
SHARON O’NEILL: It was an assertion that surprised and concerned some members of the investigating team.
GARY McEVOY, FORMER DETECTIVE: It wasn't consistent with the evidence we had. Different members of the team had different views on what he had said and how he was going about dealing with the media. All I can say is that it wasn't consistent with the evidence we had gathered up to that point.
SHARON O’NEILL: At the same news conference, Chief Inspector Bretton appealed for a seventh player, who allegedly witnessed the rape by six others to, come forward to police.
CHIEF INSPECTOR BRETTON: There is a seventh player involved. It's quite easy to exculpate yourself from the inquiry, if you want to put your hand up and say you’re that seventh person.
REPORTER: ...is that the victim's version.
CHIEF INSPECTOR BRETTON: No, we know the seventh person.
REPORTER: How do you know that?
CHIEF INSPECTOR BRETTON: Somebody told us.
GARY McEVOY, FORMER DETECTIVE: The young woman described a player coming over to the pool area, looking inside while the rape occurred and he didn't take part in the rape, apparently. He then left the pool area, so, that's where the evidence comes from of a seventh player. It doesn't come from any other witness.
SHARON O’NEILL: Did the investigation ever rule out the notion of a seventh player, that had been a seventh player?
GARY McEVOY, FORMER DETECTIVE: We never found evidence of six players being there, let alone seven players.
SHARON O’NEILL: By the end of the investigation, Gary McEvoy was convinced his doubts in the early stages of the police inquiry were right - no rape had occurred.
GARY McEVOY, FORMER DETECTIVE: I think this is unique, that the allegations that the lady is making actually occurred with so many independent witnesses, and we were so lucky to get the players that were in the pool area committed to an interview within hours of the allegations made. So their stories were locked in. And, yet, 10 weeks of investigation, many, many people interviewed and not one piece of evidence has been identified that contradicts what the players have said. Not one piece of evidence has suggested that there was a second incident in the pool. There is enough evidence there to come to a conclusion.
SHARON O’NEILL: It was a conclusion supported by the Director of Public Prosecutions.
MALCOLM NOAD, BULLDOGS CEO: My understanding is that it's one of the easiest decisions they've ever had to make.
SHARON O’NEILL: But at the press conference to announce the case was closed, Chief Inspector Bretton did nothing to clear the Bulldogs' name.
REPORTER: Do you believe something happened in Coffs Harbour in February?
CHIEF INSPECTOR BRETTON: Absolutely.
MALCOLM NOAD, BULLDOGS CEO: There is no doubt it was left up in the air and comments like that and other comments very early in the investigation from the same officer who suggested that a very serious sexual assault had happened, rather than an alleged sexual assault had happened, I think, showed that some people had made their mind up very early on in the investigation and then set about trying to prove what they thought initially, and they couldn't.
SHARON O’NEILL: So how angry do you feel about it?
MALCOLM NOAD, BULLDOGS CEO: Very angry.
SHARON O’NEILL: In May this year, radio broadcaster Ray Hadley received another police leak on the Bulldogs' investigation, which he used to hose down any suggestion the Bulldogs had been vindicated by the decision not to lay charges.
RAY HADLEY, 2GB BROADCASTER: Senior police have told me this morning the reason they couldn't sustain any charges was because of the flawed investigation in the very early stages.
GARY McEVOY, FORMER DETECTIVE: The investigation was never flawed. It was thorough, it was professional. The reason why there was no charges laid was there was no evidence to support the allegation. It's as simple as that.
SHARON O’NEILL: Gary McEvoy is no longer in the police force, but he is still trying to get his own closure from the Bulldogs' investigation. He wants Police Commissioner Ken Moroney to officially repudiate the claims made by Ray Hadley and confirm the name of the senior police officer he thinks he knows spoke to Hadley.
GARY McEVOY, FORMER DETECTIVE: I named that officer to Mr Moroney and to the investigators and, in actual fact, the investigators told me that they identified a phone call on the day of his broadcast from 2GB to Coffs Harbour Police Station.
SHARON O’NEILL: Commissioner Moroney is currently on leave and was therefore unavailable to be interviewed by Stateline. His spokes woman said an internal investigation by the complaints management team has yet to be finalised.
This week at the Bulldogs, training was under way for the first round of the rugby league finals. Although the Coffs Harbour incident is not foremost in their minds, it's never far away.
MALCOLM NOAD, BULLDOGS CEO: Every time there is a story about player misbehaviour in the media, Coffs Harbour comes up again, and it did this morning. You know, whether it's newspapers, radio or television, they always refer back to Coffs Harbour. That's just something we have to live with, I think, but I think, you know, we've done a lot in the last two years in a lot of areas in the community where we've re-established our reputation to a great extent, I think. There will always be disbelievers out there, but, you know, there is nothing we can do about that. We’ll just have our heads down every day trying to do the best possible job we can do.
SHARON O’NEILL: Gary McEvoy is now finalising a book about the Coffs Harbour investigation. He says it is helping him in his healing process, but it's also important that people know the truth about what happened back in February 2004.
GARY McEVOY, FORMER DETECTIVE: I've started something. People have told me I can walk away at any time, I don't have to finish it, but I feel I've started something, I've got to finish it, and it will be finished when the record is set straight.
