Finks sergeant-at-arms and former boxing star among five men jailed over brutal bashing of clubmate in Salisbury headquarters
A FORMER champion boxer-turned bikie and a former sergeant-at-arms of the Finks Motorcycle Club have been jailed over the brutal assault of a fellow member.
HE was crowned Australian amateur heavyweight boxing champion at 19 — but fighter-turned-bikie Mostyn Niem-ann’s fall from grace was complete yesterday as he was jailed with four other men over the savage bashing of a senior Finks member in a club dispute.
Niemann, 26, former Finks south chapter sergeant-at-arms Corey Dettman and four other men were members or associates of the then-Finks when they took part in a planned attack on Charles Bonnici at the club’s north headquarters at Salisbury in February 2013.
Chief Justice Chris Kourakis also declared Dettman a serious repeat offender and jailed him for 15 years, while Niemann received the lowest sentence of seven years and 10 months. Dettman, Niemann, Bozidar Cekic, Dean Richard Ciantar and Paul Paunovic had each denied they had taken part in the bashing of Mr Bonnici over an internal club dispute within the Finks — a defence rejected outright by Chief Justice Chris Kourakis.
In March, Chief Justice Kourakis found each of the men guilty of aggravated causing serious harm with intent and today said senior Finks members Dettman, 43, Cekic, 25, and Paunovic, 41, were the ringleaders of the attack.
“Each of them personally struck Mr Bonnici, or encouraged it, tacitly or otherwise, at close quarters. It matters not which of them inflicted any particular injury,” he said.
Chief Justice Kourakis found that Ciantar, 25 and Niemann, 26, were Finks nominees at the time and had acted as lookout as the assault unfolded. Mr Bonnici, who was sergeant-at-arms of the Finks’ north chapter at the time, was left in a critical condition after the bashing, and suffered injuries that included a collapsed lung, 13 fractured ribs, lacerations to his face, a broken jaw and nasal bone and permanent brain damage.
The Chief Justice said while Mr Bonnici’s status as a senior bikie did not mitigate the offending, it did not deserve a penalty as severe as the bashing of a random person would.
“All things being equal, the assault on Mr Bonnici will not attract a sentence as high as those which might be imposed for violent offences committed by outlaw motorcycle gangs on innocent members of the public who have no association at all with their attackers,” he said.
In declaring Dettman a serious repeat offender, Chief Justice Kourakis said the senior bikie had a criminal history dating back to when he was 15 and had spent 16 of the past 20 years in custody. Dettman’s first violent offence as an adult was the assault with a broken bottle of an off-duty police officer in August 1990, for which he was jailed for 30 months.
Chief Justice Kourakis said Dettman had failed to change his ways despite numerous chances, and believed he was “not yet capable of extracting himself from his lawless ways”.
He accepted that Dettman was “reasonably intelligent and competent” but said “however clever Mr Dettman may be, it is his moral compass that is the issue”.
“As sergeant-at-arms he took a leadership role in the Finks by re-establishing the south chapter,” Chief Justice Kourakis said. “He has attracted young men like Mr Cekic and Mr Ciantar to his side.
“He remains a relatively fit and strong man. I found in my reasons for verdict, that despite his denials, he was a member of the Terror Team.”
In declaring Dettman a serious repeat offender, Chief Justice Kourakis imposed a higher-than-usual head sentence with a non-parole period of 12 years, backdated to April 2013 when he was taken into custody.
“On release from parole ... Mr Dettman will be 53 years of age,” he said. “At that age and after being separated from his criminal associates for such a long period I expect the risk of serious repeat offending will have substantially reduced.”
Paunovic was jailed for 12 years with a non-parole period of eight-and-a-half years, and Cekic was also jailed for 12 years, with a shorter non-parole period of seven years and 10 months.
Ciantar, who has spent 16 hours a day inside his Adelaide Remand Centre cell since April 2013, received a head sentence of nine years and a non-parole period of six years and two months.
Chief Justice Kourakis imposed the lowest sentence upon Niemann, saying: “Mr Niemann was with the Australian Institute of Sport between 2008 and 2010 travelling around Australia and overseas ... he represented Australia at the Commonwealth Games.”
He took into account character references describing Niemann’s involvement as “totally out of character” and believed Niemann had better prospects of rehabilitation than most of his accomplices.
He imposed a head sentence of seven years and 10 months with a non-parole period of four years and nine months, backdated to October 2013.