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NSW Police, Adrian Gard, All Blacks, ARU: Who's playing silly buggers?

12th February, 2017
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All Blacks coach Steve Hansen. (AAP Image/Paul Miller)
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12th February, 2017
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On Tuesday afternoon, 7 February 2017, the NSW Police issued a statement indicating that they had charged a 51-year-old man with public mischief over the discovery of a listening device in the hotel team room of the All Blacks.

The listening device was discovered the All Blacks in their Sydney hotel six days before the Sydney Bledisloe Cup Test in 2016.

The NSW Police refused to confirm who the charged man was. They did confirm that his case comes up before the Waverley District court on March 21.

This information-bereft statement has further complicated what was already a perplexing incident.

Why did the NSW Police give details that could identify the man concerned but leave out the crucial detail of his name?

Why was the public mischief law used when a more serious charge could or should have been laid?

According to an article on Rugby.com.au, the official ARU website, public mischief relates to “Any person who, by any means, knowingly makes to a police officer any false representation that an act has been, or will be, done or that any event has occurred, or will occur” that requires “an investigation by a police officer.”

A conviction for public mischief can, “at worst,” according to Rugby.com.au, lead to 12 months in prison, a fine of up to $5,500 or both.

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Curiously enough, the day after the NSW Police statement was put out, the Daily Telegraph was somehow able to provide the details the police would not provide.

The Telegraph (one of the best tabloid newspapers in the world) reported that the NSW Police will allege that Australian-based Adrian Gard, “one of the most respected players in the private security business” and a long-time guard used by the All Blacks, planted the bug himself, then “found it.”

This explains, sort of, the public mischief charge.

The Daily Telegraph further revealed that the NSW Police investigators “did not believe” that the bug was in the foam of the chair as Gard had claimed.

Further more, the Telegraph report stated that the NSW Police “refused to confirm this element of the investigation, saying that the full extent of the allegations would become clear during the court hearings.”

And further, the report in the Telegraph noted that the NSW Police has “not hinted at any alleged motive.”

It is obvious from all of this that the NSW Police believe that Gard somehow did a protection service no-no of planting the bug himself and then “discovering” it.

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As far as Gard and the All Blacks were concerned, however, he had worked for them for a long time and had (and still retains apparently) the full confidence of the management of the All Blacks.

All Blacks coach Steve Hansen

Why would Gard compromise this confidence and the security businesses he and his brother controlled to set up a bug for himself to discover?

I guess the court case will provide some answers to these questions that right now do not lend themselves to easy, obvious answers.

The Daily Telegraph somehow got Gard to talk to them about the charge and he told them this: “The bug was news to me. I literally had no idea about it, until I was told about it… The truth will come out in the end.”

I asked around several people who know a lot about the security protocols for sports teams. They made the point that Gard was well-known in the security industry, that he was more on the “muscle” side of security business than on the “intelligence” side.

His work has mainly been in “operations” rather than in the management of the various companies (BGI Security, Marine Security Response and Shadow Personal Protection) he and his brother, Ashley, are involved with.

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“The All Blacks don’t bug themselves,” I was told.

If Gard did plant the bug according to the allegation made against him by the NSW Police, “who was he working for…?” People running security firms do not generally destroy their own businesses by planting false bugs.

Somewhat facetiously, one of the suggestions put to me was: “Maybe Bill Pulver protests too much.”

This was a response made to the over-the-top reaction to the NSW Police charges by the chief executive of the ARU, Bill Pulver: “The aspect that still leaves a bitter taste out of this whole affair is that the discovery of the device was reported publicly on game day, when it is understood the alleged discovery of the device occurred much earlier in the week.

“Clearly the media attention that resulted from it was a distraction that neither team needed on the morning of a very important Test match.

“The ARU and the Wallabies were never accused of any wrongdoing, however it is important that this matter reached a conclusion to provide complete reassurance to all fans that the organisation and the team had no part in any of this.”

Too little information here. The ARU, in the form of Wallabies coach Michael Cheika, actually raised this accusation themselves by claiming (incorrectly) that the All Blacks had accused them of wrong-doing in this matter.

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After the third Bledisloe Cup 2016 Test, Cheika claimed that the All Blacks had accused the ARU over the planting of the bug: “The All Blacks caught me a bit offside with the accusation that we tried to bug them.

“They had that the whole week. That showed a lack of respect. I wouldn’t be smart enough to get that sort organised.”

michael-cheika-australia-rugby-union-wallabies-2016

It was the All Blacks, after all, not the Wallabies, who were “bugged.” But reading Pulver and Cheika, you would be pardoned for thinking that it was the Wallabies who had been bugged.

Moreover, if you read Wayne Smith in The Australian you will find this sort of victimisation being endorsed.

Smith is often privy to the thinking of the ARU on important issues. Writing this week in an article titled ‘Cheika just wants it all to go away’, Smith reported: “In fact, the All Blacks didn’t actually accuse Cheika or the Wallabies of anything. They didn’t need to. A few pregnant pauses at New Zealand Rugby Union chief executive Steve Tew’s presser, a dramatic Eddie Jonesesque arching of the eyebrow and, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, all the blame laid at Australia’s door.”

That settles it, then. Don’t take any notice of what the New Zealand Rugby Union actually says. Just interpret the eyebrow of Tew to find out what he really means.

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Compare Bill Pulver’s truculent statement with that made by the New Zealand Rugby Union this week regarding the NSW Police investigation into a listening device found in the All Blacks hotel team room in Sydney last year:

“All Blacks Head Coach Steve Hansen said: ‘Frankly, the charge seems bizarre and unbelievable. It’s very hard to understand. The charged man has worked for the All Blacks, and many other organisations, for a long time and is someone who is trusted and respected by us.

“‘However, as with all cases before the courts, there has to be a due process that takes place and it is not right or proper for us to make any further comment as this could jeopardise the outcome of the case.'”

It is a pity that this statement from Hansen and the New Zealand Rugby Union does not come with pictures of the All Blacks coach’s eyebrows so that its “true meaning,” as far as the ARU is concerned, can be ascertained.

Despite this commitment to no further comment, Hansen, a former detective before becoming a professional rugby coach, could not resist hitting back at the Pulver/Cheika accusation of the All Blacks practising skullduggery by planting a bug and then blaming the ARU.

Here is Hansen talking to the New Zealand radio station Newstalk ZB:

“The Wallabies were already under enough pressure and it’s not something… as I said, the integrity of the game is bigger than winning or something we would do.

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“It’s unfortunate it came to that point and both sides were affected by it, because it was a shock to everyone in our group who weren’t aware of it – we kept it pretty quiet.

“There’s no advantage to us. To hear (Pulver) saying we were trying to put them off is just rubbish.”

Hansen then went on to defend Gard and said he was entitled to a fair hearing: “I don’t understand it. I know the guy that has been charged with it and I’ve got a lot of time and a lot of respect for him. I don’t see any motive for him to do it. That’s why I can’t believe it.”

There was something significant in this stream of consciousness from the All Blacks coach and former detective Hansen.

That was his assertion that “we kept it pretty quiet.”

When I read this my mind went back to an article published over the weekend in the New Zealand Herald by Gregor Paul, the journalist who broke the story on the morning of the Test.

The heading of the article is: “‘Spygate’ has sparked a bitter feud between rivals.”

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Paul directly challenged Michael Cheika’s version of events that the All Blacks had the “whole week” to put out the bugging story and that publishing it on the morning of the Test “showed a lack of respect.”

According to Paul: “The New Zealand Rugby Union reported to the New South Wales police that they had found a device because they were duty bound under World Rugby integrity guidelines to do so.

“The New Zealand Rugby Union say that there was no intent to imply or insinuate guilt based on the timing of when they did so. New Zealand Rugby Union went to considerable length to deter the Herald from publishing the story on the day of the game.

“Cheika’s outburst last year felt to the New Zealand Rugby Union like a punch to the side of the head and so too did the ARU’s hasty response to the news that an arrest had been made in connection with Spygate.

“The statement from CEO Bill Pulver was almost vitriolic – as if he was genuinely pleased that the man arrested worked for the All Blacks.”

Now, for me the most interesting part of this argument from Gregor Paul was his new information that the New Zealand Rugby Union had tried to talk him out of running online his scoop.

When I first wrote about Spygate for The Roar, I gave my article the title: “Has New Zealand been playing silly buggers with the ARU?

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I asked a series of questions in the article that implied that the New Zealand Rugby Union was somehow devious in publishing the details on the morning of the Test.

Julian Savea of New Zealand All Blacks scores a try

Here are some of the questions that justified the charge of deviousness.

1. Why did the New Zealand Rugby Union waiting until the following Saturday and at the same time of Gregor Paul’s story to inform the ARU about the device?

2. Why were the NSW Police not informed about the bugging device on the Monday it was found, rather than after Gregor Paul’s story?

3. Why wasn’t SANZAAR informed? As soon as the story broke SANZAAR issued a “please explain”.

4. Why wasn’t World Rugby informed until the Saturday?

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I also made the point that Bill Pulver got to the “heart of the matter” of the matter on that fateful Saturday when he questioned the motives of the New Zealand Rugby Union by stating his concern that the media revealed the scandal on “match day … and that’s all I’ve got to say.”

I suggested that this statement by Pulver was “revealing and fair comment.”

I am much less confident about all this now after Gregor Paul has revealed that the timing of the release of the details about the planting of a listening bug were virtually taken out of the hands of the New Zealand Rugby Union by his determination to publish his scoop late on the Saturday morning of the first Bledisloe Cup Test.

Paul’s admission that the New Zealand Rugby Union tried to talk him out of publishing his scoop on Test day actually answers a lot of the questions I raised after Spygate was first revealed.

The All Blacks were not concerned about finding the bug. Steve Hansen told reporters this at the time: “I wasn’t too bothered about the device… no one knows who has done it.”

Hansen clearly was going to wait until the Test was over before revealing the news. He didn’t bother, for instance, to inform Steve Tew at the Olympics, as he explained after the All Blacks thrashed the Wallabies: “The reason that we didn’t go there (to the relevant authorities) straight away is we went through a process with our hotel and our CEO (Steve Tew) was away at the Olympics, and he arrived, and he needed to be spoken to and fully briefed on it. Once he was fully briefed, he said ‘righto’ we need to take this to the police.”

In retrospect, Gregor Paul can’t be blamed for wanting to get his scoop out as soon as he had nailed the story down.

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The journalist creed is “publish and be damned,” unless there are defamatory implications. This was a story that any journalist worth his salt would have published if he or she had got all the diverse pieces of information together.

The fact that it was inconvenient for the All Blacks was rightfully dismissed by Paul.

On 24 August 2016, Tom Decent published an article titled ‘Bledisloe Cup: Bill Pulver says All Blacks bug was “unnecessary distraction‘ in the SMH. Details of what Pulver knew and when are damning evidence against his contention that the All Blacks created Spygate to somehow embarrass the ARU and the Wallabies.

“Pulver has revealed he was shown a picture of the device on Friday by the New Zealand Rugby Chief Steve Tew at an annual board dinner.

“He was ‘shocked’ when he saw the photo but was under the impression that the story would not get out to the public, which turned out not to be the case after it was reported in the media on Saturday, the day of the Bledisloe Cup opener between the All Blacks and the Wallabies in Sydney.

“‘Literally at about 10 o’clock that night Steve Tew showed me a photograph of this funny little device that looked like two batteries with a little wire, pretty innocuous,’ Pulver said. ‘He said that at this point they were confident that it wasn’t going to be an issue for public exposure but then of course he rang me – and in fairness to Steve most apologetically – that it had been released to the public. He was a bit embarrassed by that and we both agreed on the Friday night that it should be handed over to the police.'”

I’m not quite sure what exactly Pulver meant by all of this. But I’ll have a go. I think Pulver was suggesting that he and Tew agreed on the Friday night that the device be handed over to the NSW Police for further investigation.

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Presumably, the telephone call made to him by Tew came on the Saturday, after Gregor Paul had published his scoop on the New Zealand Herald’s online site.

All this fits Paul’s contention that he defied the New Zealand Rugby Union by publishing his scoop when he did.

Pulver was quoted by Tom Decent in wrapping up his article this way: “‘I don’t think there was anything sinister about it. It was probably shock… a bit of delayed reaction to hand it over to the police. I think in retrospect they would hand it over to the police a lot earlier than they did.'”

CEO of Australian Rugby Union Bill Pulver, and Wallabies head coach Michael Cheika

How could Pulver say this week, then, in the light of his behaviour at the time when the bug was revealed to him, that the publication on “game day” of the bugging device “left a bitter taste” for him, the Wallabies and the ARU?

How could this be so when he knew about the bug the night before and that he acknowledged at the time that there was nothing sinister about the way the New Zealand Rugby Union had handled a difficult situation?

The real discussion in time, when all the details of Spygate emerge following the court hearing, is whether the All Blacks should have gone public as soon as the bug was discovered. Or whether the policy (that they were not able to implement) of keeping quiet until after the Test was the best practice in this matter?

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But this is a discussion for another time.

Right now, I think we (and I mean myself, Bill Pulver, Michael Cheika and Wayne Smith) owe Steve Hansen and the New Zealand Rugby Union the benefit of an open mind.

We need to stop imputing, inferring or stating that Spygate was somehow an attempt by the All Blacks and the New Zealand Rugby Union to derail the Wallabies and the ARU.

It was a stuff-up by someone. All, hopefully, will be revealed at Waverley District Court in March.

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