The Professor: ‘A Furtive Piece of Filth’

Date and Place of Birth: January 1961: Somewhere in Melbourne’s leafy eastern suburbs

Current Positions: Head of Holt Sightings Investigations Unit and Head (acting) Armory and Covert Operations

Prior Occupations: Chicken Salt Taste Tester (Bayer Australia), “Sales Representative” (Monsanto Australia)

Qualifications:Year 10 Certificate (St Michael Jackson School for Boys, 1976), B.Sc (Augusto Pinochet Agricultural Institute, Santiago, Chile, 1984),  PhD (Monsanto Agricultural College, Louisiana USA)

Trouser size: 182cm

Favourite Documentary: Roundup and the Mekong Valley Rice Miracle

Favourite Book: Cooking with Chicken Salt by Margaret Fulton

Favourite band: Chad Morgan Allstar Jug Band

Pet hates: Thin People

Phobias: Vegetables

Favourite Food: Chicken Salt

Childhood Hero: Kim Philby

Western Zodiac: Capricorn

Chinese Zodiac: Year of the Pangolin

Babylonian Zodiac: House of the Weeping Carbuncle

Famous Quote: ‘I didn’t do nothing!’

Although they first met at the St Michael Jackson School for Boys in the early 1970s, in contrast to his more famous and high-profile counterpart Dr Erstwhile Treuthwright very little is known about The Professor. 

Unlike Dr. Erstwhile Truthwright, who revels in public adulation and is regularly pictured pushing himself to the foreground in photographs with the rich and powerful, The Professor is secretive and publicity averse.  In an interview with the Herald Sun in 2023, Dr. Truthwright described his offsider as “a furtive piece of filth”, which helps explain why the 180kg ablutophobic was appointed head of internal security (including membership background checks) and Holt Investigations.

What is known about The Professor is mostly culled from police records and court transcripts.  For example, in 1975 while still an inmate at the St Michael Jackson School for boys he was arrested after trying to set fire to Melbourne’s John Curtin Hotel and to the neighbouring Trades Hall. 

 In 1983 he was sentenced to six months prison after being found guilty of arson following a fire at a school hall scheduled to host a campaign speech by then Opposition Leader Bob Hawke.  Around the same time, he was questioned 27 times by police (but never charged) regarding the devastating  Ash Wednesday bushfires.

In 1991 NSW police detained him less than 100m from the the Sydney headquarters of the Reserve Bank of Australia while riding a bicycle fitted with a 4-stroke lawn mower engine and carrying 52 litres of aviation fluid and a box of matches.

In 1997 the Queensland Supreme Court granted mining magnate Clive Palmer an injunction order prohibiting The Professor from coming within 1 kilometre of Mr Palmer’s Coolum resort if carrying paraffin and a disposable lighter.   Less than two years later,  South Australian police arrested him after he was found hiding in a 44-gallon drum at the rear of the fire station in Snowtown 150km northwest of Adelaide.  No charges were laid. 

And in 2009 he was questioned by Victoria Police a total of 33 times after being discovered in the boot of a car seen leaving the vicinity of one of the Black Saturday fires.  The driver of the car, Dave Hughes, said at the time that even though he was confused as to why the vehicle felt like it was towing a load of bricks he had no idea he had a stowaway.  Mr Hughes blamed future Victorian Premier Dan Andrews for the confusion.  Neither man was charged.