This was published 9 years ago
Much to discover before getting to the bare bottom of latest Peter Foster saga
By any measure, Wednesday night's instalment of A Current Affair showing footage of notorious conman Peter Foster being dragged from under bushes near Byron Bay - with his pants down around his ankles and bare buttocks on full display - was an outstanding piece of television.
But there is so much more to this saga.
Notorious conman Peter Foster is arrested by Byron Bay police at Ewingsdale on Tuesday.Credit: A Current Affair
ACA reporter Justin Armsden identified Foster as the mastermind behind the Sports Trading Club, which bills itself as an international gambling syndicate, that was being operated from a rented property at Ewingsdale where Foster had been hiding from the Australian Crime Commission and other law enforcement agencies since September last year.
Foster's role is now expected to spark a lengthy investigation into the secretive Sports Trading Club business, which uses a Panama-based "privacy protection service" to conceal the identity of the company behind the online gambling scheme. There is no suggestion the Sports Trading Club has operated illegally, however Foster was previously involved with an almost identical gambling business called Sportalists, which shut down its website after a similar expose on ACA in 2012. Sports Trading Club was founded two months later.
Notorious conman Peter Foster is arrested.Credit: A Current Affair
Further fuelling intrigue, PS has obtained documents which lists the former high-profile Sydney solicitor Leigh Johnson as Sports Trading Club's "legal partner".
Johnson was embroiled in one of Sydney's most absorbing and dramatic legal sagas, stemming from a red light camera offence in the mid 1990s when her former legal clerk Kala Subramaniam was charged with making a false statutory declaration stating she drove Johnson's green BMW when it was snapped in Surry Hills. Johnson was convicted but successfully appealed to the District Court and had subsequent charges of attempting to pervert the course of justice discharged.
Johnson is well known throughout Sydney's court rooms, as much for her "glamorous" wardrobe as her high-profile cases, which have included defending Gary Murphy, one of the five men convicted of Anita Cobby's murder in 1986, and Glen Eaves, one of the bikies convicted of manslaughter in the 1984 Milperra massacre.
But on the subject of Foster, Johnson is keeping tight-lipped, opting not to return PS's calls.
A Current Affair reporter Justin Armsden on the left, watches as notorious conman Peter Foster follows on a stretcher following Tuesday afternoon's discovery of Foster hiding out near Byron Bay.Credit: A Current Affair
ACA's Armsden confirmed the show had hired private investigators to help locate Foster, and when they secured footage of him outside the Ewingsdale property he was running Sports Trading Club from it was enough for Byron Bay police to execute warrants for his arrest.
PS understands mobile phone numbers and movements of Fosters close associates led ACA to his hiding place.
Former high profile defence lawyer Leigh Johnson as seen in Sports Trading Club website.
As for Armsden bounding into the property with his camera crew, the reporter of 25 years' experience defended his actions.
"I've learned that sometimes you have to go there, you have to push the boundaries and in this case we were dealing with a fugitive and we felt justified in our pursuit of him, though it was an issue we discussed at great length before going in," Armsden said.