Lenny McPherson - Youth and Early Criminal Career, 1930s-1940s

Youth and Early Criminal Career, 1930s-1940s

Lenny McPherson was born in the inner-Sydney suburb of Balmain in 1921, the tenth child of metalworker William McPherson and his wife Nellie. He had some schooling at Birchgrove Primary School, but did not go on to secondary school.

McPherson's first brush with the law came at the age of 11 when he was convicted of stealing and placed on a 12-month good behaviour bond. Eighteen months later, on 13 June 1934, he faced court on another stealing offence and his bond was extended for a further year. On 18 June he was convicted on two charges of stealing and committed to the Mount Penang juvenile detention centre on the NSW Central Coast. According to Reeves, McPherson was frequently bashed and sexually assaulted during this first term of incarceration, a common experience for juvenile detainees at this time.

During World War II McPherson's father found him a position as a driller at the dockyard where he worked, enabling Lenny to avoid conscription, because dock workers were a protected occupation. During this period he racked up a string of traffic fines for minor infringements including speeding, illegal parking and driving an unlicenced vehicle.

In 1940 McPherson married 16-old Dawn Joy Allan at Rozelle, New South Wales.

McPherson's first criminal convictions as an adult were in 1946. In January he was convicted and fined for possession of stolen goods -- a conviction that was upheld on appeal—and a month later, on 15 February, he was found guilty of receiving stolen goods and sentenced to 12 months' hard labour at Long Bay Jail. Soon after, he was convicted on another similar charge and sentenced to 18 months, to be served concurrently.

In June 1946 McPherson was briefly transferred to a low-security prison farm at Glen Innes in northern NSW, but six weeks later he was transferred to the maximum security Grafton Gaol because of his "unsatisfactory" behaviour. His wife appealed for him to be transferred back to Sydney to serve out his term at Long Bay. Notably, Tom (Thomas) Sheehan, ALP State Member for Cook, also wrote to the Corrective Services Minister on McPherson's behalf, even though McPherson's current home at Gladesville was not in Sheehan's electorate.

Both requests were initially denied, but a few months later McPherson was transferred back to Long Bay to serve out the rest of his sentence. He was paroled on 24 December 1946, having served only 10 months of his 18-month sentence. McPherson had difficulty re-adjusting to life outside prison. He began drinking heavily and soon fell into a pattern of alcohol-fuelled verbal and physical abuse against his long-suffering wife Joy. His marriage quickly deteriorated, and McPherson took up with other women.

During the 1940s he had associated with the Surry Hills based underworld figure, William 'Joey' Hollebone, but they later fell out. William 'Joey' Hollebone committed many underworld murders in Sydney and was a close associate of the notorious hitman, John Frederick (Chow) Hayes. After Hollebone was arrested for a robbery, he accused McPherson of tipping off the police to his whereabouts and in revenge Hollebone's gang brutally pack-raped McPherson's mistress, who was pregnant to him. Hollebone died in 1960.

According to Tony Reeves, McPherson had frequently "fizzed" (informed) on fellow inmates while in prison to gain small privileges and ingratiate himself with prison officers. This habit continued after his release, as McPherson began cultivating selected police officers by informing against rivals or those who offended or annoyed him. One contemporary recalled that the young McPherson was widely known at the time as "Lenny The Pig" and "Lenny the Squealer".

On 24 June 1947 McPherson faced a minor charge of using indecent language and was fined £2.