{{Short description|Australian politician (1935–1998)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=September 2014}} {{Use Australian English|date=September 2014}} {{Infobox officeholder | honorific_prefix = | name = Frank Arkell | honorific_suffix = | image = | caption = | order = | constituency_MP = Wollongong | parliament = New South Wales | term_start = 24 March 1984 | term_end = 3 May 1991 | predecessor = Eric Ramsay | successor = Gerry Sullivan | constituency = | order2 = | office2 = 8th Lord Mayor of Wollongong | term_start2 = 27 September 1974 | term_end2 = September 1991 | predecessor2 = John Parker | successor2 = David Campbell | order3 = | office3 = Alderman of the Wollongong City Council | term_start3 = 4 December 1965 | term_end3 = September 1991 | predecessor3 = | successor3 = | birth_date = {{birth date|1935|09|13|df=y}} | birth_place = Port Kembla, New South Wales, Australia | death_date = {{death date and age|1998|06|26|1935|09|13|df=y}} | death_place = Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia | resting_place = | resting_place_coordinates = | spouse = | marriage_date = | relations = | children = | alma_mater = Edmund Rice College | occupation = | profession = }} '''Francis Neville (Frank) Arkell''' (13 September 1935{{spaced ndash}}26 June 1998) was an Australian politician. Arkell was a long-serving Lord Mayor of Wollongong and an independent member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly, representing Wollongong. In 1998, at the age of 62, Arkell was violently murdered in his home by Mark Valera. At the time of his death, he was under police investigation for child sex offences.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.mickware.info/Info/Reports/EarlyDays_files/7f61d0588509dee240b5671a9444f3bb-28.php|title=COURIER-MAIL: Shadowland [Investigation of male prostitution] | Early Days (1986-2001)}}</ref> Continued investigation largely cleared Arkell of wrongdoing, with police concluding that a tape that supposedly recorded Arkell making sexual advances to a teenager had in fact been faked by former Wollongong mayor and pedophile Tony Bevan as blackmail.<ref name=":0" /> Arkell was a Knight of the Order of the Star of Italy, according to his biography on the Parliament of NSW site.
==Early life== Arkell was born on 13 September 1935 in Port Kembla, New South Wales.<ref name="nswp" />
He grew up in a modest house out on the swamplands south of Wollongong, within walking distance of the Port Kembla steelworks that was built in the 1920s and which employed his truck-driving father through the Depression and beyond.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|last=Guilliatt|first=Richard|date=22 August 1998|title=City of Secrets|work=The Sydney Morning Herald|url=https://www.bmartin.cc/pubs/19gong/19980822smh.pdf|access-date=22 June 2021}}</ref>
The Arkells sent their sons to the local Christian Brothers College. This school was described by local activist and politician Paul Matters as an environment where a culture of sexual abuse and abuse of power was normalised, which occurred alongside the school's repressive approach to sexuality and morality.<ref name=":0" />
==Political career== Between 1974 and 1991, Arkell served as Lord Mayor of Wollongong City Council. He was elected as an independent to represent the seat of Wollongong in the New South Wales Parliament from 1984 until his defeat at the 1991 election.<ref name=nswp>{{Cite NSW Parliament |name=Mr (Frank) Francis Neville Arkell (1935-1998) |former=Yes |access-date=1 May 2019 |id=1930}}</ref>
==Later life and death== In October 1996, Franca Arena asked in state parliament whether Arkell was the person known to the Wood Royal Commission as W1 in allegations involving paedophilia.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/hansart.nsf/V3Key/LC19961031034?open&refNavID=undefined |title=Royal Commission into the New South Wales Police Service paedophile investigation|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304041738/http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/hansart.nsf/V3Key/LC19961031034?open&refNavID=undefined|archive-date=March 4, 2016 |author=Arena, Franca |author-link=Franca Arena |date=31 October 1996 |work=Hansard |publisher=Parliament of New South Wales |access-date=6 October 2012 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/hansart.nsf/V3Key/LC19961114007 |title=Parliamentary Disclosures By The Honourable Franca Arena |date=14 November 1996 |work=Hansard |publisher=Parliament of New South Wales |access-date=27 September 2008 |archive-date=24 May 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110524161230/http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/hansart.nsf/V3Key/LC19961114007 |url-status=dead }}</ref>
In 1998, seven years after he had left politics, Arkell was murdered at his home in Wollongong by Mark Valera.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/predators/mark_mala_vera/7.html|title=Mark Mala Valera: The Butcher of Wollongong|last=Kidd|first=Paul B|publisher=trutv.com|access-date=2008-09-27}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/04/12/1018333423966.html|title=Terse words from judge dismissing lifer's appeal|last=Crichton|first=Sarah|date=2002-04-13|work=The Sydney Morning Herald |access-date=29 August 2008}}</ref> Arkell's head had been smashed in with a bedside lamp, an electric cord was wrapped tightly around his neck, and tie-pins protruded from his eyes and cheeks. According to a subsequently broadcast media report, a police investigator revealed that, at the time of his death, Arkell was "...facing charges which had not gone to court..."<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/backgroundbriefing/wonderful-wollongong/3564856#transcript |format=transcript |date=30 August 1998 |access-date=6 October 2012 |title=Wonderful Wollongong |author=Robinson, Gareth |work=Background Briefing |publisher=ABC Radio National |location=Australia }}</ref>
Valera told police that he had killed Arkell because he was a "very, very horrible man". At his trial Valera attempted to run a homosexual advance defence, giving evidence that Arkell had seduced him and that they had been in a sexual relationship for more than a year. Valera claimed to have lost control when Arkell wanted him to be the active partner for the first time. Valera also testified that he had been a victim of sexual abuse at the hands of his own father, Jack Van Krevel, from the age of seven. In convicting Valera of murder the jury had rejected the homosexual advance defence. In sentencing Valera to two terms of life imprisonment, Justice Studdert rejected Valera's evidence that he had been sexually abused by his father or that Arkell had asked him to engage in sexual activity and that this prompted a loss of self control.<ref>{{cite AustLII|NSWSC|1220|2000|litigants=R v Valera |courtname=auto |date=21 December 2000}}.</ref>
==Notes== {{reflist}} {{s-start}} {{s-civ}} {{s-bef| before=}} {{s-ttl |title= Deputy Lord Mayor of Wollongong | years = 1968–1969}} {{s-aft|after= }} {{s-bef| before=John Parker}} {{s-ttl |title= Lord Mayor of Wollongong | years = 1974–1991}} {{s-aft|after= David Campbell}} {{s-par|au-nsw-la}} {{succession box | title=Member for Wollongong | before=Eric Ramsay | after=Gerry Sullivan | years=1984–1991}} {{s-end}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Arkell, Francis}} Category:1935 births Category:1998 deaths Category:Mayors and lord mayors of Wollongong Category:Members of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly Category:People murdered in New South Wales Category:People from Wollongong Category:20th-century Australian politicians Category:Independent members of the Parliament of New South Wales Category:Assassinated Australian politicians Category:Politicians assassinated in 1998