Mongols president Nick ‘The Knife’ Forbes wins first round of legal fight with police

Mongols bikie gang president Nick ‘The Knife’ Forbes has won the first round of a legal stoush with the state’s police over a notice banning him from associating with some of the state’s most hardened criminals.

The Queensland-based national president of the Mongols bikie gang has won the first round of a legal stoush with the state’s police.

Nick “The Knife” Forbes, who recently returned to power as national president of the Mongols bikie gang, was successful on Thursday morning in his Supreme Court legal action to challenge the Queensland Police officer, Detective Senior Constable Peter Wilmot, who slapped him with a notice banning him from associating with some of the state’s most hardened criminals.

Supreme Court judge Peter Callaghan this morning ruled that the QPS must give Mr Forbes, 52, a former hospital orderly from Runaway Bay, a statement of reasons for why he was issued a seven-page official warning for consorting with 68 alleged recognised offenders on February 17.

Mongols president Nick ‘The Knife’ Forbes. Picture: AAP Image/Richard Gosling

The official warning notice contained official mugshots of a menacing-looking group that includes accused killers, and feared henchmen, and is a virtual who’s who of Queensland serious crims, bikies and others.

Mr Forbes is on bail awaiting trial in the District Court for two counts of money laundering related to an alleged boiler room scam a decade ago.

It is expected that Mr Forbes will use the QPS statement of reasons to launch a further challenge in a bid to overturn the consorting notice.

The list of 68 names in the warning includes Toby Mitchell, the notorious bikie who was kicked out of the Mongols earlier this month for alleged disloyalty to the gang, and David Meatuai, 41, the Sergeant at Arms of that chapter, who is one of those accused of the murder of bikie Shane Bowden.

It also includes convicted killer Nelson Andre Patea, 38, and Tama Lewis, also known as Darren Watson, who is described in legal circles as the “charming psychopath”.

Nelson Patea is on the list of people Forbes was banned from associating with.

It also includes Brendan Berichon, 44, an accomplice of the Postcard Bandit Brenden Abbott in 1997, and Kris Spizzirri, 39, from Maudsland in the Gold Coast hinterland, the playboy son of a notorious Queensland drug kingpin, and alleged Mongols bikie Harley Joe Barbaro, 29, a truck driver, from Bundall, whose grandad was executed outside his home in Brisbane’s south when he was a child and whose brother is murdered Sydney underworld boss Pasquale.

The list also includes Queen Street Mall gunman Lee Matthew Hillier jailed last year for stabbing an ex-soldier to death and Anthony Yoon Sun Soong who was jailed for 13 years in 2019 for attempted murder.

The notices are issued under laws which were meant to be the centrepiece of the Queensland Government’s Serious and Organised Crime legislation, which replaced the controversial VLAD laws, introduced by the former Newman government after the 2013 Broadbeach bikie brawl.

In a letter contained in Mr Forbes’ claim, a senior legal officer from the QPS legal unit declined an initial request from Mr Forbes’ lawyer to explain the reason for the warning in March.

“The issuing of an official warning … is a decision relating to the administration of criminal justice,” the officer wrote.

“Accordingly, … it is not a decision for which reasons need to be given.”

Mr Forbes is the father of Haydn Forbes, who was alleged in separate proceedings to be vice- president of the Mongols “West City” Chapter.

Haydn, 26, has been in prison on remand since July last year charged, along with nine others, with the shooting murder of notorious bikie, Shane Bowden, on October 12, 2020.

Most of Haydn’s co-accused in this murder are also in the warning notice issued to his father.

Nick Forbes’ son Haydn is in prison on remand after he was charged, along with others, over the fatal shooting of Shane Bowden. Picture Facebook

The Mongols outlaw motorcycle gang is made up of former Finks bikies who “patched over”.

It is understood that police give mugshots on consorting warning notices so that those who receive them cannot later claim ignorance of the identity of a criminal associate.

The office warning notice, filed in court states in capital letters: “You are officially warned that the stated person(s) is a recognised offender, and consorting with the stated person(s) on a further occasion may lead to the commission of the offence of habitually consorting”.

Mr Forbes has also asked the court in his application to force the QPS to reveal when each of the 68 alleged recognised offenders will cease to be a recognised offender, defined in consorting legislation to be a convicted criminal who was sentenced to a crime punishable by at least five years in prison, or someone convicted of certain crimes such as associating with a terrorist organisation, weapons offences, riot, habitual consorting or kidnapping.

Criminals are no longer recognised offenders five years after they were convicted in the state’s Magistrates Court, and a decade after their conviction in the Supreme or District Courts.

Originally published as Mongols president Nick ‘The Knife’ Forbes wins first round of legal fight with police