Robert Rich appears in court charged with drug and firearm charges stemming from Operation Ironside

A FIFO mine worker allowed his rural property to be used as a firing range by men with alleged ties to an outlaw motorcycle gang – but may not have known they were bikies.

A FIFO worker let his rural property be used as a firing range by an outlaw motorcycle gang, a court has heard.

Robert Rich, 34, was charged with supplying a controlled drug as well as firearms offences on May 19, 2021, when police raided his rural property.

Several months later he had more charges laid against him as part of Operation Ironside as police discovered photos and videos from the property of guns being fired and stored.

During a hearing last month District Court Judge Liesl Kudelka heard that Rich had pleaded on a very narrow basis – that he had knowledge the property was being used by others to use firearms but was not personally involved.

FIFO worker Robert Rich has pleaded guilty to multiple firearms offences for allowing his rural property to be used as an arsenal by an outlaw motorcycle gang. Picture: Facebook

Rich did not have an encrypted AN0M phone, which was at the heart of the Operation Ironside investigation, and is not alleged to be a member or associate of a bikie gang.

A transcript of a police record of interview with Rich released by the court showed he had purchased a double-barrel shotgun for $1000 from a group of people who would come shooting at the property.

The firearm was found by police hidden in the leg of a pair of overalls at the rural property.

In a coffee table there was also a small quantity of the methamphetamine, which Rich admitted was the remains of an eight-ball, or 3.5g, of the drug.

“So I’ve got time off to drive the seeder so I bought an eight ball for my birthday to share with me mates and whatever and we obviously didn’t f---en have much,” he said in the police interview.

Also found in the house was a “military style” container containing around 395 rounds of ammunition.

Rich said he had been renovating the derelict property and had only had power restored weeks before he was arrested.

As a FIFO mine worker, Rich was not at the property for long periods of time, but had set up security cameras around the building to ensure the property was safe.

During the court hearing Jessica Kurtzer, for Rich, said a photo circulating among alleged members of a motorcycle gang of an arsenal of guns at the property could not be tied to her client.

“There is nothing to suggest he was at the farm house at the time in which the photograph is taken,” she said.

“The high point of the prosecution argument is that photograph but I say there is not enough there to say that he knew the photo had been taken and that it was being circulated to members of the (gang).”

Rich will face sentencing submissions next year while two other men, whose names are suppressed, will face trial on firearms charges for allegedly using guns at the property.