PLOT TO ASSASSINATE AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER

John Howard and George W. Bush have both been threatened with assassination in the past twelve months

TO CRACK THE CASE COP TURNS TO PSYCHIC AND KICKS OFF MAJOR SCANDAL

Someone wanted the Australian Prime Minister John Howard dead. And someone threatened to do it. Like US President GW Bush, Howard has had at least one threat of assassination levelled against him since the start of the War On Iraq.

The Australian Federal Police investigated, but apparently the investigation drew a major blank.

One AFP officer decided there was one still one more route worth pursuing, so he turned an infamous psychic from a small country town. Now the cop has been suspended from the force and the psychic was shocked when journalists turned up at her house asking questions.

How good could she be at divining the world of the unkown, of seeing the future, or reading invisible energy fields if she didn't know that a fleet of journos were about to make her the most famous psychic in the country?

The AFP officer was bound by a strict code of conduct regarding national security and the confidentiality of information. He apparently consulted the psychic, who he knew socially, without the okay from superior officers.

An AFP spokesman said : "I can confirm we are currently investigating the matter. A member of the AFP has been suspended … The AFP takes seriously all allegations of misconduct by officers, and does not condone the use of psychics in security matters."

The Melbourne Age has revealed the psychic is a medium named Elizabeth Walker. who seemed genuinely shocked when journalists hit her up for comments yesterday.

"It's an extremely sensitive situation … how did you find out about this?" she asked, not consulting her unique abilities to divine the truth about the mysteries of the universe.

The AFP officer took the stalled investigation into the death threats in his own hands late last year, and the disclosure of national security information has been under investigation since December.

Psychic Elizabeth Walker was called in for questioning by the AFP earlier this year.

Cops and detectives turning to psychics for help, when all other leads have dried up, is not unusual, though it is rarely discussed in the media, and official confirmation is even more rare.

The success rate of pyschic solving crimes, finding missing children or uncovering key evidence has been cited in police training manuals in the US and the UK, and some credit has been given to their unique abilities, but it doesn't happen at all in Australia.

"This really is a B-grade movie script that's been played out in real life," said a spokesman for the Opposition Labour Party.

Is he kidding? This is plot material for an A-grade Hollywood thriller!

PLOT OUTLINE : "Assassin threatens nation's leader, best cops in the country can't find the nutter making the threats, one young cop who wants to make a big splash turns to a psychic friend for help as the threats grow more serious. Cop gets busted, the psychic gets exposed.

"But did the cop find the information he was looking for? Will the plot to assassinate the leader be stopped before it's too late?

"Suspended from the force, the young cop decides to finish the mission he has assigned himself.

"The leader of the country isn't safe, the assassin is on the move, and only one young cop and a middle-aged country town pyschic can stop the hit from going down."

Don't get any ideas, I've already started writing the first draft of the screenplay and I'm up to page fifty four.

(Sources : The Sydney Morning Herald, The Melbourne Age, ABC News)