Lawrence Robert "Laurie" Connell (died 27 February 1996) was a

Western Australian Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...

business entrepreneur. As chairman of the Rothwells merchant bank, he was well known for his dealings with the

Government of Western Australia The Government of Western Australia is the States and territories of Australia, Australian state democratic administrative authority of Western Australia. It is also commonly referred to as the WA Government or the Western Australian Governmen ...

and his close relationships with a former

premier of Western Australia The premier of Western Australia is the head of government of the state of Western Australia. The role of premier at a state level is similar to the role of the prime minister of Australia at a federal level. The premier leads the executive br ...

, Brian Burke, and with entrepreneur

Alan Bond Alan Bond (22 April 1938 – 5 June 2015) was an English-born Australian businessman noted for his high-profile and often corrupt business dealings. These included his central role in the WA Inc scandals of the 1980s; the biggest corporate co ...

, during the

WA Inc WA Inc was the name for a set of public-private partnerships in Western Australia in the 1980s associated with the Western Australian Development Corporation, which became a political scandal. The state government, which was led for much of t ...

period in the mid to late 1980s. Laurie Connell was the grandson of a long-serving Western Australia Police Commissioner, Robert Connell (1867–1956) commissioner 1913–1933. In 1994, Connell was jailed for conspiring to pervert the course of justice by paying a jockey to leave the country.

Horse-racing scandals

1975 disqualification

Connell was reportedly warned off by stewards in 1975 for involvement in a betting scam at the

Kalgoorlie Kalgoorlie-Boulder (or just Kalgoorlie) is a city in the Goldfields–Esperance region of Western Australia, located east-northeast of Perth at the end of the Great Eastern Highway. It is referred to as Kalgoorlie–Boulder as the surroundi ...

races. Despite that, he became well connected in the Perth racing establishment and, in 1984, he sought election to a position on the committee of The Western Australian Turf Club, with the support of the committee's retiring chairman Sir Ernest Lee-Steere.Big Brother Jack
''

The Canberra Times ''The Canberra Times'' is a daily newspaper in Canberra, Australia, which is published by Australian Community Media. It was founded in 1926, and has changed ownership and format several times. History ''The Canberra Times'' was launched in 1 ...

'', 28 May 1989, at

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Danny Hobby

At the January 1983 ''AHA Cup'' in Bunbury, jockey

Danny Hobby Danny is a masculine given name. It is related to and short for the male name Daniel.🖾🖾 People *Danny Altmann, British immunologist *Danny Antonucci, Canadian animator, director, producer, and writer *Danny Baker (born 1957), English jou ...

jumped from his mount ''Strike Softly''. Hobby later claimed he jumped after accepting a bribe of $5,000 from Connell to do so. Almost a decade later, it was alleged that Hobby was paid over $1 million by Connell to travel around the world for several years to avoid returning to Australia and facing an inquiry. Ultimately Hobby did return and Connell was tried and sentenced to five years jail for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice during the investigation into the horse race. Hobby received a three-year term. Found not guilty of fixing the race, Connell served one year of his sentence in jail before being released.

Rocket Racer

In the 1987 3,200 -metre (two-mile)

Perth Cup The Perth Cup is a Perth Racing Group 2 Thoroughbred horse race run under quality handicap conditions over a distance of at Ascot Racecourse in Perth, Western Australia in January, usually on New Year's Day. The total prize money is $1,000,000. ...

, Connell's horse ''Rocket Racer'', ridden by leading Western Australian jockey J. J. Miller, won the race by nine lengths and couldn't be pulled up, doing nearly another lap of the course. Connell had backed the horse, initially at long odds, down to a 2/1 favouritism, and was believed to have collected $500,000 from bookmakers, as well as the $210,000 prize money for the win. The horse's performance, and subsequent collapse and death from unknown causes a few weeks later, was never fully investigated or explained, although it is generally assumed that it had been injected with

etorphine Etorphine (M99) is a semi-synthetic opioid possessing an analgesic potency approximately 1,000–3,000 times that of morphine. It was first prepared in 1960 from oripavine, which does not generally occur in opium poppy extract but rather the re ...

("elephant juice"). Rocket Racer was trained by Buster O'Malley, but another Connell-owned horse trained by George Way, had tested positive to etorphine a few weeks earlier, which had led to a long disqualification for Way.

Rothwells

During the 1980s, Connell started acquiring numerous local businesses through aggressive takeovers, before setting himself up as a deposit taker for investors under the name of Rothwells Merchant Bank, which had begun its life as a Brisbane-based menswear chain. Immediately after the

1987 stock market crash Black Monday (also known as Black Tuesday in some parts of the world due to time zone differences) was a global, severe and largely unexpected stock market crash on Monday, October 19, 1987. Worldwide losses were estimated at US$1.71 trillion. ...

, there was a run on the bank by local investors. Connell put together a rescue package involving numerous Australian businessmen, and approached the premier, Brian Burke, who provided a A$150 million government guarantee to provide short-term relief. Despite that, after Burke's resignation on 25 February 1988, incoming premier

Peter Dowding Peter McCallum Dowding SC (born 6 October 1943) is an Australian lawyer and former politician who was the premier of Western Australia from 25 February 1988 until his resignation on 12 February 1990 due to a leadership spill. He was a member o ...

was required to enter very complicated and controversial dealings in an attempt to protect the government's interests. Rothwells ultimately went into liquidation, resulting in heavy losses to the government and Rothwells investors. A

royal commission A royal commission is a major ad-hoc formal public inquiry into a defined issue in some monarchies. They have been held in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Norway, Malaysia, Mauritius and Saudi Arabia. In republics an equi ...

later found that:

Mr Dowding, as premier, presided over a disastrous series of decisions designed to support Rothwells when it was or should have been clear to him and to those ministers closely involved that Rothwells was no longer a viable financial institution. This culminated in the decision to involve the Government, through WAGH, in the Kwinana petrochemical project as a means of removing the Government's contingent liability for certain of the debts of Rothwells. Electoral advantage was preferred to the public interest.

The political fallout from the collapse, as well as other government dealings during the period, dominated media and political discourse in Western Australia during 1990, and premier

Carmen Lawrence Carmen Mary Lawrence (born 2 March 1948) is an Australian academic and former politician who was the premier of Western Australia from 1990 to 1993, the first woman to become the premier of an Australian state. To date she is the only female p ...

ultimately called the royal commission in November 1990 to investigate. The inquiry became known as the

royal commission and resulted in the jailing of Connell and a number of other involved parties.

Dispersal of estate

Connell died bankrupt. At the date of bankruptcy there was a deficiency of $341 million and additional pending claims of $60 million. In 1998, the trustee seized artworks which were sold for about $30,000.Insolvency and Succession Law
27 June 2009, pp. 13–14, at Sally Nash & Co, Lawyers In 2000 the trustees raised a further $120,000 from sale of artworks.