Abortion probe's star witness dies
By GEOFF WILKINSON
20dec02
THE woman at the centre of Victoria's notorious abortion inquiry has died -
35 years after being told she had only 18 months to live.
Margaret "Peggy" Berman played a leading role in the 1970 Kaye inquiry into
police protection of illegal abortionists.
Mrs Berman alleged corrupt police had been involved in an abortion
protection racket for more than 14 years and gave evidence against four
former homicide squad detectives tried for conspiracy to obstruct justice.
Mrs Berman, who worked as a receptionist at an East Melbourne abortion
clinic, said she paid two high-ranking police officers pound stg. 300
($600) a month for six years on behalf of the doctors who employed her.
Superintendent John Edward "Jack" Matthews and Inspector Jack Ralph Ford,
both former heads of the homicide squad, were jailed for five years with a
minimum of three years and served 28 months.
Former Constable Martin Robert Jacobson was also jailed for conspiracy and
served 13 months. Former Station Officer Frederick John Adam was acquitted.
Ten more serving and former police were cleared of allegations made at the
inquiry.
In 1973, Mrs Berman and journalist Kevin Childs wrote Why Isn't She Dead!,
a book about the scandal that rocked the Victoria Police.
Mrs Berman had had a breast removed after developing cancer in 1965, and
later suffered secondary cancers in the spine.
A specialist told a County Court hearing in 1970 that she had already
survived longer than was expected.
She died two weeks ago of a heart attack, aged 79.
Her son Peter, a Melbourne barrister, said yesterday that his mother's
recovery from cancer had been remarkable.
"I've seen the radia tion scars on her back, both sides of the spine. It
was just extraordinary that she beat it. She had a lot of guts," he said.
William Kaye, QC, who conducted the inquiry, found criminal abortions had
been performed in Melbourne for years only because of police co-operation.
Mr Kaye, later a Supreme Court judge, described Mrs Berman in his 1971
report to Parliament as "a dominant figure in corrupt practices with police
officers".
The Kaye report said Mrs Berman had given evidence that police had made
demands of eight doctors other than the three who employed her.
Crown prosecutor Norman O'Bryan told the jury at the conspiracy trial that
corrupt police had preyed on Mrs Berman for years.
Mr O'Bryan, who also later became a Supreme Court judge, said that though
Mrs Berman was "no paragon of virtue" she had shown in giving evidence the
virtue of trying to tell the truth -- unlike the accused men.
Mrs Berman, who was released on a bond when she pleaded guilty to an
abortion charge in 1970, was indemnified against prosecution.
She told the court she had had a sexual relationship with Ford for six
years in the 1960s and that he had beaten her frequently while he was head
of the homicide squad.
She said that as well as his $600 a month "retainer fee" from her
employers, she had paid him $200 a month of her own money for two or three
years to settle his gambling debts.
Mrs Berman is survived by her son and two grandsons.
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,5709721%255E2862,00.html
