The Brotherhood
Tuesday, 18th of February at 8.30pm
Peter Phelps eat your heart out � this is a tale of a real-life �Stinger� �
an undercover cop who spent most of his life as other identities. Lachlan
McCulloch is his real name, but for years he had others.
He was Lenny Rodgers, private schoolboy turned yuppie drug dealer, who
bought drugs from one of the country�s most dangerous crime families. He
was Dean Collie, a filthy mumbling vagrant with puffy cheeks, red eyes and
greasy hair, who went unnoticed in the street � but who noticed everything.
Lachlan McCulloch was one of the most successful undercover police officers
Australia has seen. In his 16-year career he won a valour award for saving
a child�s life and chief commissioner�s commendation for devotion to duty.
On March 2, 2002 he was presented with another chief commissioner�s
certificate for �honesty and integrity�. But in the end, McCulloch was too
honest and too devoted to duty for his own good. He did what few detectives
dare to do: he became a whistleblower, using all his nerve and skill to
trap a fellow cop who was selling information and drugs to the underworld.
McCulloch got his man but at a price. He earned not only the enmity of the
man he accused (and his criminal associates), he found himself up against
the full force of the police �Brotherhood�, which closed ranks to protect
one of its own, despite overwhelming evidence of corruption and criminal
manipulation.
Drugs, standover tactics, physical and mental coercion from colleagues and
superiors, Lachlan McCulloch fought them all. Although finally vindicated
when the corrupt detective and his criminal partners were jailed last year.
McCulloch�s mauling by the Brotherhood left him disillusioned and jobless.
�A lot of police get prematurely cynical � they�d like to say they�re
realists. So they don�t get really broken hearted when they get let down,
either outside of the job or within it. Lachlan has always worn his heart
on his sleeve and he�s an idealist, so when he was betrayed from within it
was like stabbing him in the heart,� says John Silvester, Senior Crime
Journalist at The Age newspaper, who investigated the story.
Despite death threats and perhaps because of the bitterness he feels over
his treatment by those he thought of as colleagues and friends, he is now
ready to tell his story, and does so in the Cutting Edge documentary The
Brotherhood, screening on SBS Television on Tuesday February 19 at 8.30pm.
It is a riveting view of one man�s attempt to follow his dream and his
conscience, a searingly honest appraisal of a career which earned the
highest commendation, but was left in tatters when he dared to expose the
truth.
http://www.sbs.com.au/whatson/index.php3?id=149
