In reviewing the evidence presented about the Sinclair network, Royal Commission counsel William Fisher described it as a ‘major heroin operation’, but pointed out that the Commission’s information came from a source ‘fairly low down in the echelon’. While giving evidence about some rivalries within the ring, star witness Edwin Smith gave strong indication that there was a higher level of managerial control above both William Sinclair and Mr BL. Sometime in mid-1978 Edwin Smith was party to a conversation at Kingsford’s Regent Hotel with Warren Fellows, Mr BL and Sinclair’s son Gregory, allegedly running his own cannabis import operation, about some problems with the current operations. Complaining of William Sinclair’s mismanagement, the group discussed putting him on a ‘pension’ and appointing his son Gregory to succeed him. Some time later Edwin overheard his boss BL saying that the people above Sinclair said he was not to be shifted. On another occasion Warren Fellows told Edwin Smith that while in Hawaii he had spoken to someone about the possibility of putting a contract on Bill Sinclair to have him murdered. Not to mention that whenever he talks about the Thai people, it sounds like he thinks they’re a different species. Have you never heard of cultural differences?

What do you say in parting to a man sentenced to the ultimate misery? When it sinks in that you are returning to a luxury hotel and then home to your family ... and he will return to an overcrowded, stinking cell. In the late 1970s, author Warren Fellows and two of his friends had the perfect scheme: they would traffic heroin between Australia and Thailand, concealing it flawlessly in high-tech, invisible compartments in suitcases. The money was there, and the process seemed foolproof--especially because they hadn't gotten caught in all their prior attempts at smuggling. But in 1978, all that would change, and Fellows would spend the next twelve years of his life enduring violations of his human rights of unimaginable hideousness. I later learned former Eels and Rabbitohs player and future successful coach, Graham Murray, was Hayward's last visitor the previous October while "Muz" was on the way home from a world trip.Fellows, convicted in Thailand, spent these twelve years in Bangkok's infamous Bang Kwang prison, witnessing atrocities committed by both prison officials and his fellow inmates. He survived countless torturous beatings, was forced to eat rats, and endured solitary confinement under terrifyingly inhumane conditions. On a daily basis, Fellows also witnessed the torture and execution of those around him, their screams as common as the insects and vermin in his cell. Many of the prisoners in Bang Kwang turned to heroin--the vice that landed Fellows there in the first place--to escape their daily nightmares, and the prison guards often helped feed this deadly addiction. Australian Warren Fellows becomes a willing drugs courier at the age of 21 and is finally caught in Thailand with 24 bags of heroin, spending 12 years in a Bangkok prison.

Through his network, Mr BL moved over eleven kilograms of heroin a month, an estimated 15 per cent of Sydney’s market. BL’s fourteen employees were professional criminals and their personal details are eloquent testimony to increasing dominance of the criminal milieu over the city’s drug traffic: Anyhow, there will be a big celebration and there's going to be a big amnesty. That's my other big hope of getting out." The pugnacious blond Paul Hayward, who weighed just 65kg, played 78 first-grade games from Newtown from 1973-78 and was good enough to be chosen in a Combined Sydney team that toured New Zealand in 1976. He was also a talented boxer who, after an amateur career that reportedly had him in contention for Olympic selection, turned pro and was unbeaten in eight fights before his life as he knew it was turned on its head. It was hardly a regulation league story (as I was to cruelly find out) but, I thought, a valid human interest one. Headsy was very supportive. He told me Hayward was virtually non-comprehensible, his hair was shaved and van Gulik's visit lasted just minutes. I asked when he was there. It was Good Friday, the day after I had been with Hayward.We can't 'bag' this place, it would be self-defeating. But it's really bad - the food, it's rice rolled like oats, you can't eat it. Fellows, so thin, so sad-looking, sat beside him. But Hayward, freshly grown beard suiting him, looked quite well ... and so damned happy to see someone. It finally hit home just how amazed I was. If there was such a man, he was using his courage to hide it. And he looked so different with the beard. And so eager to talk - about anything. But mostly the good things, the football days, they were the last happy days he could remember; and the dream of returning to Sydney, they were the only happy thoughts of the future.

The thing that keeps me going is the hope that one day I’ll get out and see my wife and kids again. Paul Hayward Adrian Simon says caring for his ill and infamously convicted drug dealer father broke him both emotionally and physically. Picture: Adam Ward Hayward later explained they were from death row. The prisoners sentenced to execution. They stay here sometimes for years, always in chains, rarely let out of their cells, with their ultimate end by firing squad.Fellows revealed in his book that notorious criminal Arthur "Neddy" Smith organised the deal. Smith was in a de facto relationship with Hayward's sister-in-law, and that is how they met. With the hindsight of age and wisdom, I realise how naive those comments were. But it was borne from the immediate emotion of my experience.

Sheffield four-piece band Harrisons penned a song entitled "Simmer Away" after reading The Damage Done. I was fortunate to win the award and dedicated it to my best mate who had died the previous Christmas Eve while his wife, like Gail Hayward, was four months pregnant. Tony Eustace, thirty-five, an English migrant with prior convictions, ‘suspected as a receiver of stolen goods and a major drug distributor’; BL associate, distributor of one-pound heroin lots.Hayward's loyal wife talked about the uncertainty she might face if Paul ever returned, considering how differently their lives had changed. "I suppose I worry about Paul. What he may do. If for some reason we don't hit it off, he might think 'I've lost my wife, my kids, my football career – for what'?" The hands were fidgety, the mood moved from chirpy to almost teary during our long talk. He was happiest when he spoke of his footballing days.