Home Page - Save Our Kids - Mayor Frank Arkell

THE matter is not going to go away" said Royal commissioner James Wood tersely. The date was May 14, 1996, and the matter that was not going to go away was pedophile allegations against Frank Arkell.

At that stage Arkell, previously Wollongong's longest-serving mayor and a former State MP, was known in the Royal Commission only by the code-name W1. Several witnesses had given evidence about sexual encounters they had had with W1 while boys.

Arkell had been summoned to give evidence to the commission that day, but his lawyer, Rob Mcilwaine, had just handed up two medical reports, dated April 22 and May 9, which indicated Arkell was too mentally unwell to attend the Royal Commission. While the reports were confidential exhibits, it was understood the medical evidence suggested Arkell might attempt suicide if forced into the witness box.

Despite the commissioner's obvious displeasure at this turn of events, in some ways the matter did go away, at least for a while. Some months later, in September, the ongoing problem of what to do about Arkell was raised again in the Royal Commission. The commission had direct evidence from two men that Arkell had had sex with them as teenagers, but Arkell was still claiming he was too mentally unwell to attend. On top of that, the commission could find no evidence of police corruption. Instead of being corrupt, it appeared it was more of a case of police incompetence.

At the time the pressure was on the commission to wind matters up. There were only four sitting weeks left. Perhaps with all these things in mind, the commission decided to excuse Arkell from his summons and pass all its holdings on him to the police.

The obsessive, workaholic Arkell lived and breathed Wollongong. Born Francis Neville Arkell nearby Port Kembla, as a child, Arkell moved to a comfortable weatherboard house in Reserve Street, Keiraville, a suburb about 10 minutes' drive from the city centre.

He was educated at the Christian Brothers College in Wollongong and after finishing school began working with the ANZ bank. He eventually ended up in the real estate business before going into local politics.

Once described as the city's "ardent evangelist'", Arkell was the independent Lord Mayor of Wollongong for 11 years until he was unseated by the Lord Mayor, David Campbell, in September 1991. That was not a good year for Arkell. ln May he also lost his State seat of Wollongong to the ALP, having held it as an Independent since 1984.

Arkell, who continued to live in the granny flat attached to his mother's house even after her death some years ago, appeared to have little other interests in life other than his work. His spare time appeared to be crammed with attending civic functions for his "wonderful, wonderful Wollongong."

But there was a darker side to wonderful, wonderful Wollongong and the activities of some of its civic leaders. An earlier Lord Mayor of Wollongong, Tony Bevan, died of cancer in 1991. Inexplicably, he left behind a considerable collection of incriminating tape recordings and telexes he made of both his victims and his customers. These communications revealed that Bevan was the central figure in a large pedophile ring. After having sex with young boys himself, Bevan would pass them on to his friends, obtaining a fee for his service.

According to evidence at the royal commission, one person who availed himself of Bevan's services and was known to the pedophile ring as "Farkless Arkless," was Frank Arkell.

One witness, Wl3, was 15 when he was anally raped by Bevan. He latter became one of "the royal party" - Bevan's collection of young boys whom he brought to Sydney for his friends' use. The cheques for their services, always sent in advance to Bevan, was known as "the royal mail". Bookings for the boys were arranged by telex with code names being used for both the adults and the boys. The latter were always referred to as females.

W13 described "the royal party" travelling to a motel in Elizabeth Bay where they were lined up and chosen by various men. It was, he said like being a menu item in a restaurant. Using the name "Hook", Bevan would telex friends outlining such details as age, attractiveness and anal penetration ratings for these young boys. One of these boys told the commission that he was 15 or 16 when Bevan arranged for him to have sex with a male friend of Bevan's in Bevan's apartment The next night the boy was watching television when he saw the person he'd had sex with on the news bulletin. It was the then Lord Mayor, Frank Arkell.

Another witness, W2, was 16 or 17 when he met Arkell in Tony Bevan's office. Arkell subsequently offered him a job, but hinted that in return for getting the job he would have to have sex with him. W2 turned him down. Then there was G 17, who is now 33 years old. After meeting Arkell through Tony Bevan, G17 went for a drive with Arkell in his car. They drove to a local reserve where Arkell had both oral and anal sex with G17, who was 14 or 15 years old at the time. No money changed hands.

Finally, there was an incident in the early '70s with a 13-year-old boy whose commission codename is W26. Now aged 39, W26 recalled meeting Arkell at the public toilet in the IBM car park in Wollongong. "I had an act of gross indecency performed upon me," he said. Arkell gave him $20.

Months passed since that evidence was given to the royal commission. In October 1996, frustrated at what she believed was inactivity by the commission, Labor backbencher Mrs. Franca Arena took matters into her own hands by asking in State Parliament whether Arkell was the alleged pedophile, codenamed W1, in evidence before the Wood Royal Commission. She also asked whether Justice David Yeldham had been protected by the commission. Several days later the judge killed himself. The day after he was named in Parliament, the order suppressing Arkell's identity before the commission was lifted and a brief statutory declaration, dated August 21, was released for publication.

Among other things, Arkell said: "I am not and have never been a pederast or pedophile." He also denied any knowledge of meeting or speaking to confessed pedophile Colin Fisk, or attending "K Roo", a boy brothel in the Sydney's CBD.

"I refer to the allegation of W26 that I had sexual contact with him in a public toilet at the IBM car park. I deny this allegation. I have never had sexual contact with a male under 18 and never in a public toilet," Arkell also said in his declaration.

The week after Mrs. Arena named him in Parliament, the Herald visited Arkell at his Wollongong home. "Look, see," he said, raising his wrists, "no slash marks." Arkell explained that the reason he had not been able to give evidence back in May was that he had had the flu for six weeks. He added, "I dropped my bundle, and I just did not have confidence in myself." Warming to his theme of retribution against pedophiles he said, "Anyone who interferes with a young person, girl or boy, should be locked up and the key should be thrown away."

His naming in Parliament by Mrs. Arena in 1996 was not the first time Arkell's name had been raised. Two years earlier, in December 1994, Arkell was named by Mrs Arena's colleague Deirdre Grusovin. Reading from a statutory declaration provided by Colin Fisk, Mrs. Grusovio named Arkell and prominent solicitor John Marsden as pederasts. Several months later, Fisk withdrew his claims about Marsden, saying he'd been mentally unwell at the time he made the statutory declaration. About Arkell, he said nothing.

A year after the evidence was given against him at the Wood Royal Commission, Arkell was arrested by officers from the Child Protection Enforcement Agency and charged with 29 child sex offences against four victims. The offences, some of which dated back to 1973, included nine counts of sexual intercourse with a male without consent, indecent assault on a male, buggery, and using a stupefying drug to commit an indictable offence on male victims aged between 14 and 18.

After a five-day committal hearing in February the charges Arkell was facing had been reduced. Arkell was to have faced Parramatta Court on September 14. He faced four charges relating to two victims. The charges involved administering a stupefying drug and buggery.

Yesterday, as Arkell's house was isolated from everyday life by the customary blue and white police tape indicating a crime scene, passers-by could still see the graffiti "W1 you're a wanker" on the fence.