In the words of Malcolm Brown in The Sydney Morning Herald, Bottom made "heroic, ground breaking efforts to expose organised crime" and "did more than any other single individual to bring crime and corruption to public attention in NSW in the 1970s and 1980s". At times, he and his family were afforded 24-hour police protection.[1]
One of his most famous exposes, the release in 1984 through The Age newspaper of material on identities and rackets from telephone taps illegally carried out by undercover police in New South Wales, provoked state and national inquiries and ultimately prompted governments to allow law enforcement agencies to legally use telephone interception in organised crime cases.[2]
Over the years, he has participated in 18 Royal Commission and other judicial and parliamentary inquiries and has played a key role in the establishment of state and national institutions to combat organised crime and corruption.[3][4]
He sparked his first inquiry into the New South Wales police force with an exposé in The Bulletin magazine in 1963 with an article titled Behind the Barrier.[5]
Since his retirement, Bottom still writes occasional articles, and has been a regular witness before parliamentary committee hearings reviewing law enforcement efforts to combat organised crime.
In 2003 he was made an honorary professor of journalism by Queensland's Jschool for his "outstanding contribution to journalism",[7] and in 2019 he received the Danger Lifetime Achievement Award, part of the Sydney Crime Writers Festival.[8]
