Former Bandidos president jailed for extortion

A FORMER Bandidos motorcycle club Coast president has been jailed for extortion after having a former club member's motorcycle taken from him.

JAILED: Blair Raymond Thomsen pleaded guilty to extortion in January (pictured outside Maroochydore Court House), he was today jailed for three years and nine months. Picture: Stuart Cumming

A FORMER Bandidos motorcycle club president has been jailed for extortion after having a former club member's motorcycle taken from him.

Blair Raymond Thomsen, a former president of the club's Sunshine Coast chapter - was today sentenced to three years and nine months in jail for extortion and ordered to serve 34 months of a jail sentence that had been suspended, for the arson of a rival motorcycle gang's clubhouse during a dispute in 2007.

In January Thomsen, 44, pleaded guilty to extorting the former member, demanding he hand over his motorcycle, valued between $16,000-18,000, and ordering another club member, Ricky Wayne McDougal, to take the motorcycle.

Judge Gary Long said Thomsen had no reasonable cause to demand the property, and while McDougal was responsible for physically stealing the motorcycle and has since been convicted on that charge, that did not detract from the seriousness of Thomsen's offending.

"In this case you've sought to use that (club) context in respect of a person who was in reality a former member of the club and who had previously sought to leave the club without apparently incurring any suggested liability in terms of assignment or forfeiture of his motorcycle,” he said.

Judge Long spoke of threats and an apparent culture of the use of violence within the club, and noted Thomsen had voluntarily put himself in the position of president.

He said Thomsen had a criminal history dating back to 1991, and had spent time in jail before.

His crimes included entering a home at night and assault occasioning bodily harm while armed in company in 1994, drug offences in 2001 and 2004, and arson in 2007.

Thomsen served 20 months of a five-year jail sentence he was given in 2008 for setting fire to the clubhouse of a rival motorcycle gang in 2007, and was still subject to that suspended sentence when he committed the extortion in 2013.

In 2014 he was sentenced to jail for supplying dangerous drugs.

Judge Long said the offence Thomsen committed was a serious one, and was connected to involvement in the motorcycle club, or gang, culture.

"(This crime) must attract a strong response to properly denounce and punish the offending,” he said.

Thomsen will be eligible for parole in December 2018.