Thomas Ley

Thomas John Ley (28 October 188024 July 1947) was an Australian politician who was convicted of murder in England. He is widely suspected to have been involved in the deaths of a number of people in Australia, including political rivals.

Early life Ley was born on 28 October 1880 in Bath, Somerset, England, one of four children born to Elizabeth (née Bryant) and Henry Ley. His father, who worked as a butler, died in 1882. He was a prominent and vocal advocate of proportional representation, which the state adopted in 1919. Both of his electorates were in Sydney's southern suburbs.

As a teetotaler, Ley acquired the nickname "Lemonade Ley", but the temperance movement accused him of betrayal when he supported legislation which eased requirements for the sale of alcohol. It later emerged that Ley was being paid by the brewery lobby. Despite this, he was appointed as New South Wales Minister for Justice from 1922 to 1925 – in the cabinet of Premier Sir George Fuller – and gained a reputation for harsh decisions.

Federal politician

In 1925, Ley stood for the seat of Barton in the federal House of Representatives. He unsuccessfully tried to bribe his Labor opponent, Frederick McDonald, with a £2,000 share in a property at Kings Cross in return for withdrawing from the ballot. McDonald instead publicly revealed the attempted bribe. Despite that, Ley won the election on a large swing as part of the decisive Coalition victory that year.

Conventional wisdom would have suggested that Ley, as a former senior member of the New South Wales government, would have been given a post in the federal cabinet. However, Ley's fellow conservatives, including Prime Minister Stanley Bruce, began to have doubts about him after the election. As a result, Ley was not considered for ministerial preferment.

McDonald took the matter of the bribe to court, but disappeared in mysterious circumstances. The case against Ley collapsed for lack of evidence when McDonald failed to appear. While the disappearance may have been a coincidence, later events put the matter in a more sinister light. In 1928, state legislator Hyman Goldstein, another of Ley's public critics, was found dead after apparently falling from "Suicide Point" on the cliffs of Coogee. Then a group of businessmen, concerned at Ley's reputation for dubious business dealings, appointed Keith Greedor, a former Ley associate turned opponent, to investigate. Travelling to Newcastle by boat, Greedor fell overboard and drowned.

With Lawrence John Smith, Ley was tried at the Old Bailey; both were sentenced to death in March 1947. However, both Smith and Ley escaped the noose: Smith's sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, while Ley was declared insane and sent to Broadmoor Asylum for the Criminally Insane. He died there soon after of a cerebral haemorrhage. He is said to have been the wealthiest person ever to be imprisoned at Broadmoor. He left an estate in New South Wales valued for probate at £744.

Ley's wife had followed him to England in 1942. From Broadmoor, Ley wrote letters and poems, and protested his innocence to his wife and children. After his death, his widow returned to Australia. She died at Bowral, New South Wales in 1956.