Jailhouse Jock: Let me return to Australia
Scot who pursued his football dream Down Under tells how he got involved with crime figures which led to him being deported
AN EXPAT booted out of Australia over his links to organised crime has begged to return Down Under.
Convicted heroin trafficker David McCulloch was deported from Australia almost two years ago amid fears he posed a threat to society.
The 72-year-old, of Glasgow’s Maryhill, was an associate of key figures in Melbourne’s deadly drug war, which resulted in 36 deaths.
But the great-grandad, who left Scotland in 1971, said: “I’m now more Australian than Scottish. My family are in Australia and it’s where my parents are buried.
“It’s a long fight and things are moving very slowly. But my life is there and I need to go back.”
In 1986, former footballer McCulloch was jailed for fiveand-a-half years for trafficking heroin from a car yard.
He said he got sucked into crime when his dad fell ill with leukaemia and he needed money for specialist treatment.
The disgraced Scot also set up as a jailhouse lawyer while behind bars and helped other inmates learn to read and write after being jailed for 12 years and six months for a second drug offence.
He was deported two years after being released in 2017. Victoria Police claimed he was conning vulnerable prisoners out of money with bogus legal advice.
McCulloch was flown back to the UK despite inmates successfully appealing their cases and their families supporting him.
His legal team say the ruling to deport him was based on a fake police intelligence report.
Officers who led the drug probe which resulted in McCulloch being locked up in 2005 have been imprisoned for organised crime offences, including drug dealing.
The ex-bank worker has always maintained corrupt detectives framed him. He says his solicitors have evidence which could overturn the decision to cancel his right to stay in Oz after almost 50 years there.
Meanwhile, he continues to help inmates in Australia’s high-security Barwon prison with their legal matters.
McCulloch, now in London, said: “Police in Australia think I am something I’m not.
“I committed a crime more than 30 years ago for which I’ll forever be ashamed. I knew people involved in crime but I had no illegal dealings with any of them. Two corrupt officers went to jail and admitted they fabricated evidence against me which resulted in me going to jail for a crime I didn’t commit.”
Australia’s Department of Justice and Community Safety launched a public inquiry into Victoria Police’s handling of informants and crooked officers. A former high court judge has been appointed as special investigator to look at corruption claims.
The department said: “Individual cases will be a matter for the special investigator and the courts. It would be inappropriate to comment further.”
by greed in the end and I’ll forever be ashamed of what I did.”
In the early 90s, McCulloch worked as a financial adviser and became friends with gangland figures Lewis Moran and Graham Kinniburgh, aka The Munster, who were senior members of the notorious Carlton Crew.
He soon got to know other members of the organised group but maintains he was never involved in any illegal activity.
He said: “My dealings were always legitimate and professional. I knew their background but when you’re an ex-inmate you’re not always going to get respectable clients. I couldn’t be fussy and I comforted myself knowing I wasn’t doing anything illegal.”
While in prison, he also became associated with the Carlton gang’s arch-enemy Carl Williams. A turf war between the two factions has been linked to the deaths of 36 men between the 90s and the 2000s.
McCulloch said: “Murder is always wrong. I was friends with the factions in the dispute because I had no criminal involvement within any of them.
“Being friendly with both sides was a high-wire act. They used cocaine, which gave them bravado and made them paranoid. There was always the risk that either side would do something to me as I chose to remain neutral. Looking back, I was naive.
“If there was an opportunity I would suggest they put the past behind them but none of it seemed to work, sadly.”
Williams was behind the deaths of Kinniburgh and Moran, who were both shot dead. Williams was then bludgeoned to death while serving life for murder in Barwon.
McCulloch had been charged with conspiracy to traffic amphetamine and cannabis in 2001 after 50,000 Australian dollars was found in his car.
He claims it belonged to one of four friends who were inside the vehicle. He says the money was taken from the car and placed inside this flat. Police then claimed the cash was found there. He was released on bail but was eventually jailed in 2005.
In 2011, an officer gave an affidavit that he had been fitted up. The senior investigating officer was later found to be corrupt.
McCulloch believes the officer in charge, who was later jailed for corruption, was desperate to nail him as he believed he was responsible for a break-in at a drug squad office. A list of registered informants was stolen.
He said: “I had nothing to do with the break-in. They got me mixed up with someone else when an informant spoke of a Melbourne businessman. He later said he didn’t know who I was. But the police were desperate.”
McCulloch was also approached by gangland barrister Nicola Gobbo, who represented many of Melbourne’s most notorious criminals. It later emerged she was an informant who betrayed her clients and gave information to police. However, he says Gobbo didn’t represent him.
Now he faces a battle to get back into Australia after his residency visa was ripped up amid police claims submitted to Australia’s minister of immigration that he maintained contact with high profile inmates. Cops also alleged he charged two prisoners hundreds of dollars for work he didn’t carry out – a claim later found to be invalid.
McCulloch is now scraping to get by while he tries to find a way back to Australia. He said: “I’ve been cut off from my family – my children, grandchildren and great-grandkids. I still need to work. I’m in touch with some inmates in Australia and doing legal research for some firms.
“I’m in London but my life and my revenue stream is in Australia. I’m fighting to get back. I can’t give up.”
A Department of Justice and Community Safety spokesperson said: “Deportation and the cancellation of visas or residency status is a matter for the Commonwealth.”