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John Silvester

John Silvester

John Silvester is a columnist.

Victoria failed to learn the lessons from the past and arm its corruption watchdog with teeth.

‘Norm’s a bit short’: The history lessons Victoria failed to learn

In 1981, it was $20,000 cash and a beach house. Today, it’s organised crime infiltrating the CFMEU – and a toothless watchdog. It’s time to fix it. John Silvester outlines how.

  • John Silvester

Latest

John Silvester (left) and Stuart Bateson feature in Naked City: Hit Men.

The underworld’s coldest killers … and how they were caught

From secret tapes to the detectives who stood face-to-face with hitmen, a new documentary series hosted by John Silvester goes inside Melbourne’s gangland war.

  • John Silvester
John Silvester’s Naked City: Market Murders, The Great Bookie Robbery, Russell Street bombing, Neighbourhood Wine, coffee with Carl Williams and the Black Prince of Lygon Street, St Mary Star of the Sea.

A bloody mafia war, a heist and a courthouse execution: The secrets bubbling below a city’s surface

Coffee with Carl Williams, sacred sites where gangsters roam free: This is the dark history of Australia’s underbelly

  • John Silvester and Pablo Barnes
Smiling assassin. Lorraine Moss with two of her children.

‘My mother poisoned my father, and I had to live with the aftermath’

Long before Erin Patterson used poisonous mushrooms to kill three family members with deadly beef Wellingtons, Lorraine Moss was lacing her husband’s food with arsenic.

  • John Silvester
Flower tributes at the footbridge where the Bondi shootings took place.

Who planted the seeds of hate?

Pound for pound, people from a Jewish background have done more to drive progress in modern Australia than any other minority.

  • John Silvester

Security warning to lawyers, police and judges ahead of arsonist’s release

A specialist threat assessment centre has been contacting the group of law and justice figures about their personal security ahead of the man’s release from jail this week.

  • John Silvester
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The golden era of England’s test cricket team is over, and analysis from Australian economists shows it wasn’t that golden to begin with.

Naked Sport: Why a crime reporter is investigating England’s Ashes fiasco

There is a precedent. After all, Richie Benaud had a stint as a crime reporter.

  • John Silvester
SOG police arrest Stephen Asling after three bandits tried to escape with $1million from the Melbourne Airport in 1992. One of the bandits, Normie Lee, was shot dead.

Why we expect ordinary police to be heroes

From blowing holes in Hells Angels’ clubhouses to intercepting Carl Williams’ hitmen, retired Special Operations Group officer Bill Duncan reveals the reality of elite policing.

  • John Silvester
Neale Fursdon - a much loved cop who spread his knowledge and generosity through the Pacific and Asia.

The gentle giant who fought cartels and became an angel in Asia

Neale Fursdon spent most of his career dealing with drug traffickers and international people smugglers. But he was one of the most affable people I have ever met.

  • John Silvester
Jessie Clarey, Victoria’s fourth policewoman to graduate.

This policewoman had the answer to youth crime 86 years ago. It fell on deaf ears

In her award-winning 1939 essay, Jessie Clarey wrote: “For permanent results, it is not sufficient for us to ascertain, ‘Did the boy steal?’, but, ‘Why did he steal?’”

  • John Silvester