Home Page - Save Our Kids - Police Chief Pedo Friends

Despicable, disgraced, corrupt former Queensland Police Commissioner Terry Lewis accumulated a number of pornographers and paedohiles as friends.

He was Commissioner when he diarized on April 21 1985 about reading a draft of the Sturgess Report on "An inquiry into sexual offences involving children and related matters".

The next entry in Lewis’s diary is: “To Creek Rd re massage by Phillip Asmar.”

More than 16 years earlier a Phillip Asmar had featured in a series of newspaper articles and Parliamentary questions alleging children were being sold pornography.

Asmar was later fined $150 for being in possession of pornographic films.

Sunday Truth reported on September 22 1968: “Customs investigations following raids three weeks ago have involved Army officers and a number of well-known Brisbane businessmen in a ring smuggling pornographic films and literature into Brisbane from the cesspits of Asia.

“Several well-known Brisbane criminals are also believed to be involved in the smuggling racket. Some of the pornographic pictures have been distributed to students at a southside secondary school.”

At this time Lewis was running the juvenile aid bureau of the police force and as such could have been expected to be making enquiries about schoolchildren receiving pornographic films but his highly detailed diary containing voluminous daily entries contains no entry relevant to the porn ring and the allegations of minors being sold pornographic films. 

There are frequent references to minor issues such as individual boys and girls who were being a problem at home, preparations to deal with appeals against a recent promotion and writing a report on a Churchill Scholarship overseas trip. Intriguingly, he was sufficiently concerned about children accessing inappropriate literature to “Read the German law relating to the dissemination of publications detrimental to youth; and the instructions for the enforcement of that law”

Neither was he overtaxed with cases. According to his diary he had time on three days in November to read that year’s voluminous Hansard reports.

In the 1960s Col Bennett, the barrister, parliamentarian and fierce warrior against corruption, frequently raised concerns about the activities of detectives Glen Hallahan, Tony Murphy and Terry Lewis, together known as the Rat Pack.

On October 22 1968 Bennett was responsible for asking a series of questions to Premier Bjelke-Petersen.

Q: Has his attention been drawn to recent articles in newspapers claiming that pornographic photographs are shown to organized gatherings in different parts of Brisbane? A: Yes.

Q: Has a complaint been made that the photographs are being sold to schoolboy cadets in camp for Army training? A: No.

Q: Will he investigate the allegation that the photographs are being distributed by a commissioned officer of the Royal A stralian Army? A: This allegation is being investigated.

Q: Are the prints of the pornographic photographs being distributed to high school children through a greengrocer?  A: No evidence has been obtained of the distribution of pornographic photographs to high-school children through a greengrocer.

Q: Will the police inspect and investigate Victoria Barracks following allegations that an Army officer and also an Army public relations officer are printing obscene pictures there? A: The Police Department has not received any complaint that an Army officer and also an Army public relations officer are printing obscene pictures at Victoria Barracks.

On December 10 1968 Bennett asked Bjelke-Petersen further questions.

Q; In view of his answer to my question on October 22 concerning a claim by me that an Army public relations officer was dealing in obscene pictures in collaboration with the proprietor of an Ampol garage, will he now review his answer since Commonwealth police apprehended, and charged in court on November 29, Captain Phillip Frances Asmar? A: I see no necessity for reviewing the answer given on October 22, 1968.

Q: Is there any deliberate attempt by the Queensland police to avoid investigating matters of this nature? A: No.

Q: Although he refused to arrange for an inspection and investigation of Victoria Barracks, will he now do so following the discovery of this Army officer and of his activities? A: No. I am advised that there is no justification for such an inspection and investigation.

Sunday Truth reported on December 15 1968: “The Army has decided not to renew the appointment of a full-time Brisbane CMF officer accused of possessing pornographic films. Army HQ confirmed this week that Lt Asmar would leave the CMF later this month.”

On June 1 1969 Sunday Truth carried a headline: "Ex-Army officer Asmar fined $150 by the Customs Minister for possessing pornographic films."

And still Lewis, whose sole job was the welfare of juveniles, had made no reference in his diaries to the case.

Bennett had not named the detectives involved but if Lewis, Murphy and Hallahan, were not involved they would almost certainly have known of the case.

Asmar is an unusual name. A check of registered voters through the decades resulted in just the one Phillip Asmar. He was born on November 12 1933 and served in the army from 1954 to 1968.

At one stage he ran a business called the Californian Health Studios in Queen Street, Brisbane. It  may well have been a reputable business but as MP John Melloy told the Queensland Parliament on March 13 1975: "There are the massage parlours and vice dens which masquerade behind the misnomer of 'health studio'. Good health is the last thing clients of these establishments expect, or receive."

Lewis's diaries show he visited Asmar on numerous occasions, usually at weekends.

In January 2017 I spoke to Asmar's widow who said she was completely unaware of any relationship between her husband and Terry Lewis and that she did not know that Lewis had been a frequent visitor to "P. Asmar".

A Brisbane man named Harry Handy was appalled when he discovered in 2017 that his father, a close friend of Lewis, had from an early age sexually interfered with boys.

The discovery prompted memories of a phone call he had received from his mother in 1985.

He recalled: “I received a telephone call from my mother asking me to come to Brisbane from Gladstone as soon as possible as my father had to go to court the next day and there was a possibility he would go to jail.” 

Just before he was due to board a plane he received a message that he need not make the journey.

“On returning home I telephoned my mother to find out what this case was all about. She indicated she didn't want to discuss the matter and I wasn't to raise the subject again. 

“The only thing she would say was that Terry fixed everything and the matter was closed.“

In 2017 Harry discovered his father had been charged with unlawfully and indecently dealing with a female child and raping her. 

His father, Thomas Adams Leon Handy, had not been jailed but merely fined $500 on each charge.

“It seems very obvious that there was definite interference in this case,” said Harry.

"My father didn't have a great circle of friends but was extremely friendly with Terry Lewis and Paul McLachlan (convicted paedophile and former Catholic Priest). 

"He visited Lewis on several occasions while he was in prison." 

In the mid 1980s there were allegations Lewis was protecting paedophiles, including a police constable with a public relations role who had become a television personality.

On November 20 1984 Opposition MP Wayne Goss told Parliament that a police raid two years earlier "clearly proved a close involvement and association" by the police constable "with persons who were involved in child pornography and the exploitation and sexual molestation of young people.”

Goss said: “The Opposition and a wide cross-section of the police force and the public are disturbed that the Queensland Government and the senior administration of the police force—the Commissioner of Police—have allowed that police constable to remain in a position of the highest trust in respect of children, notwithstanding numerous complaints and widespread concerns a over a period of at least two years…"

He told how a doctor and his wife had discovered photos of their 15-year-old son in a pornographic pose with the police constable who was determined to maintain contact with the boy. When they were due to be away from home one evening Redcliffe police promised they would charge the constable if he arrived at the home.

Goss said: "This information in relation to the request to the Redcliffe police was conveyed to the commissioner's office, however, and as a consequence the constable was tipped off. Accordingly, he did not travel to the family's home as planned and promised, and thereby avoided prosecution."

Former judge John Kimmins reported in August 1998 after his Inquiry into Allegations of Misconduct in the Investigation of Paedophilia in Queensland that Detective Inspector Tony Wright had recalled "...members of the Child Exploitation Squad had been involved in the investigation of matters which ultimately led to the charging of ABC presenter William John (Bill) Hurrey and police constable David Warren Moore with offences relating to the sexual assault of adolescent boys.

"Members of the Squad harboured concerns that their investigation of Moore (a police officer) was being frustrated by lack of recognition for the significance of the matter, as well as possible active interference from within the office of former Commissioner Lewis."

Well may they have been concerned. Lewis recorded in his diary for May 14 1983 - well after the raid which had revealed Constable Moore's unsavoury activities - that he had appeared with Moore when he received a plaque of appreciation from Channel 7.

And that same year Lewis sent a Christmas card to a third member of the paedophile ring.

Despite Hurrey being universally known as "Bill", Lewis referred to him as "Billy" in his diary.

Another paedohile among Lewis's friends is Professor Paul Wilson who, in 2016  was sentenced to 18 months' jail on four counts of indecent treatment of a child.

I asked Lewis in 2017 when and how he had met Phillip Asmar and how the relationship developed to the point where he was visiting Asmar at his home. Lewis is 95 today. I don't think he's going to respond.

Terry Lewis died in May 2023.