Ritzy dinners to baby parties: Notorious alleged bikies make joke of soft touch magistrates
A group of Brisbane’s notorious alleged bikies are making a joke of Qld’s consorting laws despite repeatedly being sprung socialising together at the city’s hottest nightspots.
Police & Courts
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The state’s soft-touch magistrates have let a group of notorious alleged bikies – several with lengthy rap sheets for violent crimes – walk free from court on charges of repeatedly consorting with their criminal mates at some of the city’s hottest nightspots.
Those who walked from court in recent months after pleading guilty include a notorious former bikie who threatened to kill a nightclub bouncer, and his Comanchero mate who as been jailed five times for crimes including savage bashings – one the drunken assault of a police officer – and three of their mates.
They were sentenced under laws which give magistrates the power to lock them up for three years but were given paltry fines or good behaviour bonds or no punishment at all for consorting.
In sentencing one of the most high-profile former bikies in Brisbane, George Bejat, on December 8, the Magistrate concluded that Bejat was just socialising with convicted criminals.
“I have been told about the fact … you were there because they were friends. Unfortunately for you, they happened to be people that are involved in criminal activity, and, you know, that is the way things go,” the Magistrate said.
The sentences make a mockery of Labor’s claim to be tough on crime and to protect Queenslanders from bikie violence spilling into public places in a repeat of the notorious Broadbeach bikie brawl, with Police Minister Mark Ryan boasting in parliament that “we get convictions and we lock them up”.
Despite the obvious dangers of bikies gathering in groups at restaurants and bars, mingling with diners oblivious to the violent criminal pasts of men at the next table, only one Queenslander has been jailed under the habitual consorting laws since they were passed in 2016.
There have been less than 10 convictions for consorting since the laws were passed five years ago, yet Mr Ryan told The Sunday Mail in a statement that “the number of prosecutions for Habitual Consorting demonstrates that the laws are working to prevent consorting and are deterring recognised offenders from establishing, maintaining or expanding criminal networks.”
“I commend police for their relentless efforts targeting those who wish to do harm to the community,” he said.
Mr Ryan claimed that Queensland has the toughest, strongest and most comprehensive anti-gang laws in the nation.
“That’s why there are no clubhouses in Queensland and no national runs,” he said.
“And it explains why, according to police, the number of OMCG members in this state continues to decline, while numbers rise in other jurisdictions.”
The Queensland Police Service told The Sunday Mail in a statement that: “The impact of these is not necessarily seen in charges, convictions or the sentencing of individuals..”
On April 30 last year, police prosecutors in Brisbane Magistrates Court quietly dropped consorting charges against four Mt Isa men, telling the court they had no evidence to offer against Adrian John Ashton, Luke James Collings, Stephen Wayne Frost and Joshua-Kye George Kleinhans.
The consorting laws were meant to be the centrepiece of Labor’s Serious and Organised Crime legislation, which replaced the controversial VLAD laws, introduced by the former Newman government after the 2013 Broadbeach bikie brawl.
The VLAD laws forced courts to sentence gang members, gang associates, or gang office bearers to 15 to 25 year mandatory jail terms on top of any sentence imposed for crimes such as drug trafficking.
Asked for his response to the soft sentences, Acting Attorney-General Mark Bailey told The Sunday Mail that the laws “appeared to be” preventing consorting.
This was despite George Bejat admitting he consorted six times between March 14 last year and June 13 and Grigori Kossian consorting “repeatedly and persistently” on five occasions between March and June, ignoring repeated warnings from police.
“The Palaszczuk Government’s tough organised crime regime is the most comprehensive and workable response to addressing all forms of organised crime in the nation,” Mr Bailey said in a written response to questions.
“Courts operate independently of Government and it is for the Courts to exercise their independent judicial discretion to determine what sentence to impose in the particular circumstances of each case,” Mr Bailey said in the statement.
The tough habitual consorting laws were aimed at stopping outlaw gang violence particularly on the Gold Coast, but it hasn't stopped the bloodshed, including the horrific execution of Shane Bowden by Mongols bikies in the garage of his girlfriend’s home and the murder of drug trafficking Comanchero bikie Shane Ross and his business partner Cameron Martin in a park in 2019.
The Brisbane Magistrates who sentenced these men were persuaded that they were just catching up with lifelong friends, met through school or church.
Kristy Bell, defence solicitor for Armenian-immigrant Kossian told the court: “Mr Stojakovic and Mr Bejat are all persons with whom my client has been friends with since he was 13 … they all attended the same high school”.
Bejat is godfather to Stojakovic’s four-year-old daughter, Ms Bell told the court.
While Nick Dore, defence solicitor for Mehran Faraji told the court of Faraji meeting up with Bejat and Stojakovic on May 22, 2021 at Bisou Bisou in the Valley after Bejat had dinner there.
“It’s a social gathering, in my submission that makes difference to consorting … (such as) police finding three or four recognised offenders planning a robbery or drug trafficking or something to that effect.”
But other times Bejat’s socialising with bikie mates have turned violent.
He was sentenced to two months’ jail, suspended for a year, for his part in a random “violent pack assault” of a former footballer after 3am outside the trendy Mr Mista nightclub in February 2020.
Former timber worker Matthew Mackay and labourer Paea Talakai – who were accused of fracturing the footballer’s cheekbones in the melee with more than a dozen blows – were also convicted over the attack, which was partially caught on video.
Bejat was seen on the video “laughing and taunting bystanders” to the obscene violence.
Talakai is due to be sentenced for consorting on January 31.
Last Monday, Kossian, who used to own Twist Burgers in Wynnum Plaza, was sentenced to $500 good behaviour bond for consorting and breaching his bail, and no conviction was recorded.
Kossian, from Bridgeman Downs, admitted he consorted with Bejat, Stojakovic and William Adib Samra five times last year including at a part in a room of the Bridgewater Quest Hotel in Kangaroo Point in March, at Julius Pizzeria in South Brisbane the following month, and at a christening lunch for the baby daughter of alleged bikie Matthew Mackay at the Belvedere Bar and Grill in Hamilton on May 16, where he was godfather.
He also admitted consorting at the Iris Bar and Bisou Bisou, part of Hotel X in Fortitude Valley in May and June last year.
Kossian was also convicted of breaching his bail conditions by chatting with Bejat, after bumping into him by chance at a Chemist Warehouse store on Gympie Rd in Kedron on July 27.
Kossian states in court documents he lives 8km away at Bridgeman Downs, while Bejat lives in high-rises in Newstead and Hamilton.
A week earlier, on January 12, Mehran Faraji, personal trainer and former financial advisor from Kangaroo Point was convicted of consorting and fined $1000, despite the Magistrate remarking about his “unenviable criminal history”.
The Magistrate had before her details of his history which include a one-year prison sentence with immediate parole for attacking a nightclub reveller, knocking him out cold with a single punch to his forehead in an unprovoked attack in The Met nightclub in the Valley in 2010.
The man’s skull was fractured, and a drunk Faraji had to be pulled off the man as he lay unconscious.
The assault in the nightclub’s “Red Room” was triggered when Faraji told the man’s girlfriend to “shut up you slut” after she told him, “Hey mister, shoosh,” when he was cheering on two men who were fighting in the nightclub.
The Iranian-born 37 year old, whose first child is due in July, also had his suspended sentence for possession of a taser extended for a year in court last week.
Faraji was previously sentenced to three months prison, suspended for two years, by the same court for possessing the taser on May 29, 2020.
Faraji wore $1000 Louis Vuitton loafers and a $650 Salvatorre Ferragamo belt to court last week to admit to consorting twice with Bejat and Stojakovic, firstly at the Bridgewater Quest Hotel party in Kangaroo Point in March and again he met them at the ground-floor French brasserie Bisou Bisou within the up-market Hotel X in Fortitude Valley, part of the Intercontinental Hotels group, when they were having dinner on May 22.
It was “partly spontaneous, partly planned”, his lawyer Nick Dore told the court.
On October 15, William Adib Samra, 32, a Coffee Club manager and supermarket manager from Doolandella, who has a 1 per cent tattoo on his right lower leg became only the fourth person to be convicted of consorting in Queensland.
He was convicted for consorting multiple times with George Bejat, Zivko Stojakovic, Matthew Mackay, Sava Cvetkovic and Mario Stojakovic, but not further punished because of time served on remand.
He admitted to consorting at Mackay’s daughter’s christening at Hamilton’s Belvedere Bar N Grill in May, and at Bisou Bisou in Fortitude Valley with Bejat and Stojakovic.
Samra’s lawyer submitted to the Supreme Court that the first person convicted of consorting was given six months prison in November 2020, the second person received a $600 fine, and the third got a six month good behaviour bond.
In August, a Magistrate sentenced Stojakovic to a year’s jail for consorting and 17 other charges including cocaine possession and assault, but “some measure of reluctance” ordered he be paroled immediately. She also sentenced for consorting on Bejat on December 8.
Critics argue the sentences show the laws are a waste of police resources … just a slap on the wrist.
Former Gold Coast CIB boss Terry Goldsworthy, now a Bond University criminologist, told The Sunday-Mail that if there is no punishment metered out for consorting, it was waste of police time and resources to charge criminals with consorting.
“You could put those resources into targeting high level criminality.”
The soft sentences come as the effectiveness of the Palaszczuk government’s revamped anti-gang laws is due to be reviewed by a retired Supreme or District Court judge as part of a promised check-up by the five year anniversary in March.
In a statement Mr Bailey said that terms of reference for the review were being drafted, and “work was ongoing” to appoint a retired judge.
THE MAGISTRATE
In sentencing the magistrate told notorious bikie George Bejat: “I have been told about the fact... you were there because they were friends. Unfortunately for you, they happened to be people that are involved in criminal activity, and, you know, that is the way things go”.
FOR KOSSIAN
Kristy Bell, defence solicitor for former Burger store owner Grigori Kossian told the sentencing hearing:
“Mr Stojakovic and Mr Bejat are all persons with whom my client has been friends with since he was 13... they all attended the same high school”.
FOR FARAJI
Nick Dore, defence solicitor for Mehran Faraji told the court of Faraji meeting up with Bejat and Stojakovic on May 22, 2021 at Bisou Bisou in the Valley after Bejat had dinner there.
“It’s a social gathering, in my submission that makes difference to consorting…(such as) police finding three or four recognised offenders planning a robbery or drug trafficking or something to that effect.”
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