Mongols boss loses marathon court fight to stay in SA
SENIOR Mongols bikie gang member Andrew Peter Stevens has lost his marathon Federal Court battle to stay in Australia — and has been ordered to pay an $80,000 court bill.
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THE key figure in the Mongols bikie gang in South Australia has lost his two-year legal battle to stave off deportation to the United Kingdom.
Andrew Peter Stevens, who was the backbone of the gang, has also been ordered to pay $80,000 in court costs following a Federal Court ruling that dismissed his appeal.
Mr Stevens, who is being held in detention in Perth until his deportation, launched his appeal after he was detained by Immigration Department officials and flown to Christmas Island.
Stevens is a UK citizen who had moved to Australia with his parents in 1971, aged nine.
His visa was cancelled in June, 2016, when Immigration Minister Peter Dutton ordered both he and former Comanchero Paul Burgess be deported on character grounds.
The detention of Mr Stevens crippled the Mongols bikie gang in Adelaide.
He was a long-serving member of the Finks SA chapter and kept his position as Sergeant-at-Arms when the gang patched over to the Mongols in 2013.
His judicial appeal against his visa cancellation was a drawn-out affair that involved countless hearings in the Federal Court.
It also hinged on a High Court decision involving other identical cases, but Justice Natalie Charlesworth ultimately ruled against him.
The patching over move was aimed at thwarting the state government’s anti-bikie laws but failed because police moved quickly to have the Mongols also declared an outlawed organisation in SA.
While Mr Stevens lost his Federal Court appeal, in February this year Mr Burgess won his judicial appeal and was released from detention.
He had a $500 cost order imposed.
More than 2000 foreign nationals have had their visas cancelled since 2014.
Of those, 130 were bikies.
Among them are failed gang leader Vince Focarelli, who fled Adelaide in March last year after being advised he was to be deported.
High-profile Adelaide underworld figure Leonard Gjeka was deported to his native Albania in late 2014.
As part of the crackdown, Richmond AFL footballer Dustin Martin’s father, who was linked to bikie gangs, was deported to New Zealand in March 2016.
“We are determined to, through this operation, target people who have been involved, in particular at higher levels of outlaw motorcycle gangs,” Mr Dutton said when the operation was launched.
“What we have done, in targeting the leadership of the outlaw motorcycle gang structure, has been to disrupt that process, their organisations, and that has had a massive impact, and that is the advice from the intelligence and law enforcement agencies.”