A one-time Maroochydore brothel owner who was the first woman jailed as part of the Fitzgerald Inquiry into police corruption, has released an adults-only book revealing her time in the sex industry.
Suzy Thwaites, who also had establishments in Brisbane and northern NSW, tells of corruption at the highest levels, standover bikies, verbal and physical abuse, thieving staff and partners, and even a murder.
She also had a “very scary run-in” with a Noosa man.
“He was dealing in steroids and God only knows what else. I didn’t want to know and neither did I care,” she said.
“After several calls and threats from him I told him straight that if he came near me again, I would blow his f…..g head off.”
In addition to giving a revealing look into the day-to-day operations of a brothel, the book, The Price of Sin, tells of Suzy being caught up in the 1987-89 Fitzgerald Inquiry into police corruption that resulted in the resignation of long-term National Party Premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen and the imprisonment of Police Commissioner Terry Lewis.
Lewis, who died last month aged 95, was convicted on corruption and forgery charges and was released in 2002 after serving more than 10 years in prison.
In another twist, the Queensland Government announced in April that sex work would be decriminalised.
But it was too late for Suzy as her businesses in Queensland were never legal and she had to stay one step ahead of the law.
She says there were countless raids on her premises in Bradman Avenue, Maroochydore.
“My little illegal house operated in the very same street as the old police station,” she recalls. Then along came a “friendly” policeman who offered an out for Suzy’s business after several raids, “a full-on police ambush”, as she calls it. “He offered a deal to raid the premises every six weeks or so and arrest one of the girls and fine her,” Suzy says.
“That would be it. I could keep operating.”
That arrangement came under the spotlight of the Fitzgerald Inquiry.
“We were all walking on eggshells,” she says. Inquiry officers contacted the owner of the building housing Suzy’s premises and told him he would be arrested if he didn’t throw her out.
Then Suzy was arrested after investigators filmed her premises and tapped her phones.
“It was my fault for doing a deal with the cops in the first place,” she says.
She was charged with “owning and operating a bawdy house”.
Suzy pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three years in jail, but unexpectedly eight weeks into her sentence she was released.
“The whole thing was really a political sham. They did get most of the corrupt police, but many walked away scot-free. My book is the first written by an actual player involved in the joke.”
She decided to leave Queensland for NSW where she could work legally. And that’s where more problems arose. But that’s for another book.
The Price of Sin is available on Amazon.
