Ray Whitrod

On 24 September 2007, Mick Keelty presented the inaugural Ray Whitrod Oration.

Whitrod's memoirs were published as Before I Sleep (University of Queensland Press, St Lucia). He died in 2003.

Whitrod was honoured with a Laudatis from the World Society of Victimology in 1994. In 1997, he received an honorary doctorate in laws from the Australian National University.

The Fitzgerald Inquiry in the 1980s revealed institutionalised corruption in Queensland during Bjelke-Petersen's time, and vindicated Whitrod's stance. Terry Lewis had been knighted, but was later stripped of his knighthood and jailed for criminal activity. The Fitzgerald Inquiry led to Bjelke-Petersen's political downfall, and he himself was charged with perjury, the case being dismissed only because of a hung jury, the foreman of which was an undeclared active member of Bjelke-Petersen's National Party.

In 1979, Whitrod and his wife returned to Adelaide. He founded the Victims of Crime (now Victim Support) Service, an Australian first. Under Whitrod's guidance, the service went on to establish itself across the nation. He taught as a Residential Scholar at the University of Adelaide from 1992 to 1995. In 1993 he began a PhD in Psychology.

After his resignation, Whitrod taught criminology as a visiting fellow in the Department of Sociology at the ANU from 1977 to 1981. He had been awarded a Masters of Arts in Sociology from the ANU in 1972.

Whitrod became Queensland Police Commissioner in 1970 and immediately set out to eradicate corruption, raise educational standards and bring women into all fields of policing. He organised for the Queensland Education Department to provide officers with classes in literacy and basic arithmetic. As an inducement to attend classes, he offered an extra week's leave for every subject they sat. The Police Union objected with such vehemence that they by-passed both Whitrod and his Police Minister, Max Hodges, and complained directly to the Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen. Bjelke-Petersen, himself a former Police Minister, endorsed the union's stand and he publicly declared that "the Queensland people do not require their police to be Rhodes scholars". Whitrod clashed with the premier on other matters.

Whitrod served as the Papua New Guinea Police Commissioner from 1969 to 1970. This came about after a casual telephone conversation with the retiring commissioner, a personal friend, who asked Whitrod to ask around to see of there was anyone willing to replace him. Whitrod agreed to make some enquiries, but could find nobody willing. He reported back to the retiring commissioner, who said that his departure date was fixed, and asked if Whitrod himself might be interested. Without even consulting with his wife, he agreed.

In 1963 Whitrod attained a Bachelor of Economics degree from the Australian National University (ANU), which he had been studying part-time since the late 1950s. He attained a postgraduate degree in criminology at the University of Cambridge in 1965.

Whitrod joined the Commonwealth Investigation Service as its director, moving to Canberra. The CIS became the Commonwealth Police Force (now the Australian Federal Police) in 1960, and Whitrod was its first commissioner. He remained in this post for nine years. He was the driving force behind the Commonwealth Police Act and the Australian Police College, now the Australian Institute of Police Management, at North Head.

Whitrod was made a Member of the Fourth Class of the Royal Victorian Order (later regraded as Lieutenant) in 1954. He was elevated to Commander of the Royal Victorian Order in 1963. He received the Queen's Police Medal in 1967, was named Queenslander of the Year in 1972, was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 1987, and in 1993 became a Companion of the Order of Australia.

In 1949 Whitrod moved to Sydney where he helped establish the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), and was engaged in investigating Soviet espionage. He was at the centre of investigations into Vladimir Petrov and his wife Evdokia, who defected in 1954.

In 1938 Whitrod married Mavis, seven years his senior, who died in 2001. They had two sons and a daughter. His son and daughter-in-law, Andrew and Diane Whitrod were killed in a car crash in 2001. He was survived by his other son Ian, and his daughter Ruth.

Raymond Wells Whitrod, AC, CVO, QPM (16 April 1915 – 11 July 2003) was an Australian police officer and criminologist. He was considered a world leader in the way society treats victims of crime. He was known as a man of high professional standards, with a commitment to justice, equity and integrity. He became best known for his term as Commissioner of the Queensland Police Service, resigning in protest in 1976 at the corruption then endemic in Queensland, and in particular over the appointment by the Premier of Queensland, Joh Bjelke-Petersen, of Terry Lewis as Assistant Commissioner.

Ray Whitrod was born in Adelaide on 16 April 1915, attending Adelaide High School. He joined the South Australia Police (SAPOL) in 1934. He was engaged in detective work from 1937 to 1941. He left to join the Royal Australian Air Force, seeing service as a navigator in north Africa and Europe. He then rejoined SAPOL.