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

Western Australian Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to t ...

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, formally referred to as His Majesty's Government of Western Australia, is the Australian state democratic administrative authority of Western Australia. It is also commonly referred to as the WA Government o ...

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 bra ...

, 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, and what was at the time ...

, during the

WA Inc WA Inc was a political scandal in Western Australia. In the 1980s, the state government, which was led for much of the period by premier Brian Burke, engaged in business dealings with several prominent businessmen, including Alan Bond, Laurie ...

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 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 sometimes referred to as Kalgoorlie–Boulder, as the surrounding urban area includ ...

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 ...

'', 28 May 1989, at

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Danny Hobby

At the January 1983 ''AHA Cup'' in Bunbury, jockey Danny Hobby 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 in jail before receiving a work-release.

Rocket Racer

In the 1987 3,200 -metre (two-mile) Perth Cup, 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 rel ...

("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 is the name commonly given to the global, sudden, severe, and largely unexpected stock market crash on Monday, October 19, 1987. In Australia and New Zealand, the day is also referred to as ''Black Tuesday'' because of the time z ...

, 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 served as the 24th Premier of Western Australia, from 25 February 1988 until his forced resignation on 12 February 1990. He was a member of parli ...

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 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. A member of the Labor Party, sh ...

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.