A complex chapter in the annals of Australian criminal history is set to close with notorious gangster Neddy Smith believed to be just days away from death.
Smith, whose crimes spawned an award-winning television series and made him at one time the most infamous crook in the country, seems to no longer have any will to live.
The 74-year-old is in a secure section of Sydney’s Prince of Wales Hospital having been taken there two weeks ago from Long Bay jail and is unlikely to ever return to his cell.
Smith was originally treated for an infection but his condition rapidly deteriorated and while doctors are unsure of the exact nature of his illness it appears he is in the last stages of Parkinson’s disease.
He is having trouble breathing and refuses to take medication.
‘He’s just given up,’ a prison source said. ‘He’s not going to last the rest of the week. He won’t get back to the jail.
‘It’s just a waiting game now.’
A complex chapter in the annals of Australian criminal history is finally set to close with notorious gangster Neddy Smith (pictured with daughter Jaime) just days away from death. The 74-year-old is in Prince of Wales Hospital and is unlikely to ever return to his cell
Smith, whose crimes spawned an award-winning television series and made him the most infamous crook in Australia, seems to no longer have any will to live. Smith (left) is pictured with ex-wife Debra and brothel keeper Harvey Jones, who he was convicted of murdering
Smith was originally treated for an infection but his condition rapidly deteriorated and while doctors are unsure of the exact nature of his illness it appears he is in the last stages of Parkinson’s disease. He is having trouble breathing and refuses to take medication
Smith has been in prison for three decades, serving sentences for two 1980s murders he has always denied committing.
He spent a further decade behind bars during three stints in the 1960s and 1970s. Now after more than 40 years in custody he is ready to give up.
‘He’s just over it,’ the prison source said. ‘It’s been more than 30 years.’
Most of Smith’s criminal contemporaries of the 1970s and 1980s are already dead. In the 1990s he was charged with killing seven of them.
Smith was a major heroin distributor in Sydney when the city’s streets were awash with that drug. He once claimed to be a cash millionaire.
While dealing narcotics he was also pulling off brazen armed robberies worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
At his physical peak Smith was an imposing figure, standing about 198cm (6’6″) tall but the once fearsome street fighter has in recent years become a shuffling wreck.
His legacy will be more complicated than that of a typical career criminal. The man who wreaked havoc across Sydney as a young thug also helped reform the New South Wales Police Force from inside jail.
In the early 1990s Smith agreed to give evidence at an ICAC hearing into the then complicated relationships between NSW police and criminals.
Smith’s revelations at the ICAC inquiry damaged the reputations of several NSW detectives he claimed had given him the ‘green light’ to commit major crimes.
Smith (right, with former partner in crime Graham ‘Abo’ Henry) has been in prison for three decades, serving sentences for two 1980s murders he has always denied committing. He spent a further decade behind bars during three stints in the 1960s and 1970s
Neddy Smith and Graham Henry, who is alive but retired from crime, were a formidable team, reaping millions of dollars between them out of heroin distribution and payroll robberies. Henry (far right) is pictured at the May funeral of their friend Henry Charles ‘Danny’ Landini
Some of those allegations were examined again during the later Wood Royal Commission into police corruption which Smith also assisted but in a less public way.
His long relationship with the disgraced detective sergeant Roger Rogerson caused both men ongoing difficulties and was depicted in the award-winning television series Blue Murder.
[Smith loudly complained that the actor who played him in Blue Murder, Tony Martin, was too short. Rogerson, portrayed by Richard Roxburgh, was annoyed he was shown smoking].
Smith maintained Rogerson had been his silent partner in armed robberies and other crimes; Rogerson insisted Smith was simply a valuable informer.
It was Smith who in 1981 drove drug dealer Warren Lanfranchi to an appointment with Rogerson at which the policeman shot Lanfranchi dead.
Rogerson, now 78, is serving a life sentence in Long Bay for the 2014 murder of 20-year-old student and wannabe drug dealer Jamie Gao.
Smith was played by Tony Martin (pictured) in the ABC television series Blue Murder. The show screened in most Australian states in 1995 but was banned for years in NSW while Smith’s murder charges moved through the courts. Smith said Martin was too short to play him
Smith’s final downfall began in October 1987 when he and another criminal killed tow truck diver Ronald Flavell during a road rage incident at Coogee.
He was granted bail but in December the next year was arrested with two others outside Botany Council preparing to snatch its Christmas payroll drop.
With Rogerson by then out of the force and his other police friends no longer able to help, Smith was refused bail and has been in prison ever since.
While in custody Smith was charged with the 1980s murders of drug dealers Danny Chubb, Barry McCann, Barry Croft, Bruce Sandery and Lewton Shu.
He was also accused of murdering brothel keeper Harvey Jones and prostitute turned police informer Sallie-Anne Huckstepp, who had been Warren Lanfranchi’s girlfriend.
Smith was convicted of the Jones murder and acquitted of killing Huckstepp after the Chubb, McCann, Croft and Sandery cases were dismissed at committal. The Shu case was no-billed.
Smith was a major heroin distributor in Sydney when the city’s streets were awash with that drug. At the same time he was pulling off brazen armed robberies which netted him millions more dollars
Those charges were based on supposed confessions Smith made to a junkie cellmate dubbed Mr Brown who Smith claimed had been set by police to keep him locked up.
Smith maintained he was simply ‘talking s***’ to the informer Mr Brown but tapes of their conversations helped convince a jury he had murdered Jones.
Mr Brown said in evidence: ‘He told me that Jones was crying and he said, “I’d die for you, Ned”, and Ned said, “Well, you’re about to, ya c***”.
“Ned told me then that, “I blew his heart out with a big 357”.’
For Jones’s murder Smith was jailed for life without the possibility of parole.
While in prison Smith penned two popular books. There was an autobiography written with Tom Noble called Neddy: The Life and Crimes of Arthur ‘Neddy’ Smith and Catch and Kill Your Own, which detailed unsolved gangland murders.
Smith’s long relationship with the since disgraced detective sergeant Roger Rogerson caused both men ongoing difficulties and was portrayed in the award-winning television series Blue Murder. Rogerson (left) is serving life for the murder of 20-year-old drug dealer Jamie Gao
Among the murders described in the latter book was that of Brian Alexander, who Smith was shown in Blue Murder throwing off a boat while the law clerk was chained to an Early Kooka stove.
Smith was never charged with killing Alexander. Associates have suggested it might have been fortunate he never faced a jury over killing Lewton Shu.
While on trial for Jones and Huckstepp’s murders Smith would sign copies of Neddy for court staff and journalists with the inscription ‘Walk tall and f*** ’em all.’
Arthur Stanley Smith was born in Sydney near the end of World War II. His father was an American serviceman he never got to know.
Smith grew up in Redfern, briefly attended the nearby Cleveland Street Boys High School and has been known since childhood to friends and family as Ned.
Young Ned took to crime early and spent stints being brutalised in boys’ homes before graduating to adult prisons including the infamous intractable section at Grafton jail.
Smith married Debra Bell in Long Bay jail in 1980 (pictured) and the couple had three children. They eventually divorced but Debra has remained a loyal ex-wife. She has previously said she was horrified to learn her husband was a drug dealer
While working as a medical orderly at Parramatta in 1974, Smith saved the life of prison officer Willy Faber after he was bashed by armed robber Ray Denning during an attempted escape.
That good deed did not earn Smith any friends among his fellow inmates.
Smith was prone to occasional extreme acts of violence – particularly when drunk – but could be charming company, even in his prime.
In his heyday he socialised publicly with senior police, judges, prominent businessmen and well-known entertainment figures.
Smith married Debra Bell in Long Bay jail in 1980 and the couple had three children. They eventually divorced but Debra has remained a loyal ex-wife.
She has previously said she was horrified to learn her husband was a drug dealer.
‘But there were the good sides and the funny sides as well as the bad sides of Ned and no one knows the real Ned like me and our children and he has never kept the truth from them,’ she was said.
‘I’m not about to say that Ned was the devoted father or husband, or that he was innocent of all crimes.’
Smith was a intimidating presence in his prime but could be charming company. In his heyday he socialised publicly with senior police, judges, prominent businessmen and well-known entertainment figures
‘As funny as it may seem, Ned has always been as honest as he can.’
Smith had been a huge drinker in his day, downing at least 30 middies in a typical session before switching to Jack Daniels. With him all the way was fellow armed robber and drug dealer Graham ‘Abo’ Henry.
That pair and their companions could regularly be found in inner-city pubs such as Alexandria’s Iron Duke and Star hotels, the Captain Cook at Millers Point and Chinatown’s Covent Garden.
Smith and Henry, who is alive and retired from crime, were a formidable team, reaping millions of dollars between them out of heroin distribution and payroll robberies.
The pair later fell out but Henry is aware of Smith’s current condition and maintains contact with his family.
Smith was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 1981 and his health has been deteriorating ever since.
It was reported more than 15 years ago his paralysis from Parkinson’s was so advanced he could not write, climb stairs or brush his teeth without an electric toothbrush.
Debra Smith (above with Smith and daughter Jaime) was horrified to learn he was a drug dealer. ‘But there were the good sides and the funny sides as well as the bad sides of Ned and no one knows the real Ned like me and our children and he has never kept the truth from them’
In recent years he has regularly been confined to a wheelchair and has suffered from dementia. Sometimes he still believes he is married to his ex-wife.
A fanciful media report in 2017 stated Smith had tried to escape from Prince of Wales Hospital, a claim mocked by those familiar with his physical state.
‘He’s in a wheelchair,’ Debra Smith told Daily Mail Australia at the time. ‘So how’s he going to escape?
‘He can hardly stand up. He can’t even walk, let alone run. If he was going to escape they’d have to have an electric scooter to get him to the carpark.
‘I don’t think he’s got any more friends out there anyway. It’s bull****.’