![]() In reality, the prostitutes would be forced to work out of the city's bars and hotels and the protection money would continue to flow, though the arrangement was more of a bother for Bischof's bagmen. To the public, it showed a police commissioner acting to clean up vice. He immediately proposed to government that the six tolerated brothels in the city - including Killarney - be closed and literally padlocked. But how would he cover the scandal, particularly from the curious eyes of government? If the truth got out, Bischof's kickback system could be exposed just short of two years into his period as commissioner. Bischof, on hearing the news, raced back to Brisbane and reinstated his boys. Credit:Steven Siewertĭonovan immediately stood down Hallahan and Lewis and said they'd never work as plain-clothes officers again. The legacy … eldest daughter Mary Anne was 15 when Brifman died. (She used the pseudonym Marg Chapple - her own sister's name.) It was there she came to the attention of Consorting Squad detectives Tony Murphy, Glen Hallahan and Terry Lewis - the so-called Rat Pack and the favoured boys of corrupt Queensland Police Commissioner Frank "the Big Fella" Bischof. Shirley quickly took up work as a prostitute at a brothel called Killarney in South Brisbane. By early 1958, the Brifmans were heading for the bright lights of Brisbane, where Shirley could make more money. The family rumour was that Shirley had begun a career in prostitution out of her husband's hotel shortly after, or possibly even before, their marriage. She gave birth to her first child, Mary Anne, in December, and by June the following year, Shirley and Sonny were finally married at the Cairns courthouse. In July 1956, Shirley - four months into the pregnancy - made an extraordinary £5000 claim against Brifman in the Townsville Supreme Court for alleged "breach of promise to marry". The naive Shirley Emerson had fallen pregnant to Brifman. Law and disorder … disgraced former Queensland Police Commissioner Frank Bischof.īut there was a problem. Brifman was 20 years older than Shirley, of ordinary appearance, and seemed to enjoy "living off women", whereas Shirley was young, outgoing, attractive, and just starting to live her life. Back in Atherton, Shirley's parents disapproved of the coupling. Very soon, though, she had moved in with Brifman himself. They believed Shirley, after starting work as a barmaid under Brifman's charge, was living in staff quarters at the hotel. Running away from home in her late teens in 1954, she set up in Cairns and worked as a barmaid for Szama (Sonny) Brifman, a recent immigrant from Poland and manager of the Court House Hotel.Īccording to Shirley's family, Sonny Brifman's adventure as a hotel proprietor was funded by his then wife, who died in 1955. Shirley Brifman, née Emerson, was born into a large and impoverished family in the timber-cutting region around Atherton in Queensland. ![]() In private, the same men issued her a warning - take a lethal overdose or we will kill your children. In the months leading up to March 4, Brifman had been publicly derided by her corrupt police contacts as a moral vacuum, a known drug addict, a prostitute and a liar who consorted with dangerous criminals. In that era, particularly in the 1960s and '70s, there were many tales of accidental "overdoses" of prostitutes who had strong ties to police on Australia's eastern seaboard. Most importantly, she was to be the chief witness in a perjury case against the ruthless Brisbane detective Tony Murphy that directly stemmed from her torrent of recriminatory allegations. She'd received death threats by the notorious Sydney killer and psychopath John Stewart Regan. She had been relentlessly interrogated by detectives about her television allegations and had made several attempts on her own life. In those months preceding her sudden death, Brifman remained in constant fear for her life and those of her children. Dirty deeds … Terry Lewis, a bagman for Frank Bischof. ![]()
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