NewsBite

The Queensland motorcycle gang members who spent time in jail and the crimes that got them locked up

From murder to fraud, the activities of notorious Queensland bikies reveal a raft of extreme offending. See why the Sunshine State is a criminal gang haven in our special report.

NewsRegional has examined the crimes of 20 notorious Queensland bikie gang members, finding a raft of extreme and serious offences including murder, manslaughter, arson, extortion, trafficking drugs and fraud.
NewsRegional has examined the crimes of 20 notorious Queensland bikie gang members, finding a raft of extreme and serious offences including murder, manslaughter, arson, extortion, trafficking drugs and fraud.

Queensland remains a haven for outlaw motorcycle gangs, despite authorities’ attempts to reduce their activities.

News Corp has examined the crimes of 20 notorious Queensland bikie gang members, finding a raft of extreme and serious offences including murder, manslaughter, arson, extortion, drug trafficking and fraud.

Researchers have found the state is a haven for criminal bikies, with the state home to the highest rate of outlaw motorcycle gang offences in Australia.

Scroll down to see the Queensland’s bikies from across regional and metropolitan areas of the state who have spent time behind bars and the crimes that got them locked up.

The high offending rates are in stark contrast to those of just a decade ago, when Queensland was touted as having the “toughest” anti-illegal motorcycle gang laws in the country.

Then-Premier Campbell Newman rolled out the Vicious Lawless Association Disestablishment Act in 2013, using them to ramp up harsher punishment for gang members who flouted the law.

Labor scrapped the laws in the wake of a review, finding tougher mandatory sentencing for bikies “excessively harsh”.

The Australian Institute of Crime has released research showing bikie gangs are responsible for more crime across the Sunshine State than in any other jurisdiction.

NewsRegional has examined the crimes of 20 notorious Queensland bikie gang members, finding a raft of extreme and serious offences including murder, manslaughter, arson, extortion, trafficking drugs and fraud.
NewsRegional has examined the crimes of 20 notorious Queensland bikie gang members, finding a raft of extreme and serious offences including murder, manslaughter, arson, extortion, trafficking drugs and fraud.

AIC principal research analyst Christopher Dowling and Serious and Organised Crime Research Laboratory research manager Anthony Morgan looked at the activities of 4000 gang members from 400 local chapters of 35 outlaw motorcycle gangs.

The findings were compiled for their Criminal Mobility of Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs in Australia report.

New South Wales and Queensland were the most common destinations for “criminally mobile OMCG members”, they said.

About one in 10 members showed “evidence of criminal mobility over the long term” and more than one-third of local gang chapters “comprised criminally mobile members”.

“The criminal mobility of outlaw motorcycle gang members presents a significant challenge to Australian governments and police,” the researchers noted.

“Examining patterns of mobility can help to better understand the opportunity structures that underpin offending by OMCGs and to drive national collaborative responses to these gangs.”

Acting Police Minister Mark Furner said outlaw gang membership numbers were dropping, with a fall of nine per cent over recent years.

Mr Furner said offending by bikies fell 20 per cent in the past two years but the government and Queensland Police were “regularly reviewing best practice when it comes to addressing all types of offending”.

About 40 bikies have been referred to the state’s Outlaw Motorcycle Gang Exit Program.

“The Exit Program continues to provide a safe pathway for those who want to take the step towards change,” Mr Furner said.

Retired District Court judge Julie Dick is conducting a review of Queensland’s serious and organised crime laws, with the report due early this year.

Opposition Leader David Crisafulli said, in September of 2022, the LNP would reintroduce the VLAD laws should it win government after the state goes to the polls next year.

Mr Crisafulli did not respond to NewsRegional’s request for comment.

Queensland Police Service was asked to provide an interview for this story but was unable to do so before deadline.

Queensland criminals with bikie connections and how they ended up in jail

Adam Warwick McCrea

Adam McCrea is the former president of the Wide Bay Rebels Motorcycle Club. .Photo: Alistair Brightman / Fraser Coast Chronicle
Adam McCrea is the former president of the Wide Bay Rebels Motorcycle Club. .Photo: Alistair Brightman / Fraser Coast Chronicle

Crime: Possessing and supplying drugs

Sentence: Seven years.

Gang affiliation: Rebels Motorcycle Club

One-time bikie head honcho Adam Warwick McCrea copped seven years in jail on eight charges related to the trafficking and supply of drugs.

Police raided the Fraser Coast father-of-three’s Takura home in 2009, finding 101 ecstasy pills, 17g marijuana in a Brut deodorant can, 7g of seeds, a 500ml bottle of testosterone in a fridge, a Pepsi can with nine vials of steroids and digital scales hidden in a leather glove.

The former boss of the local Rebel Motorcycle Club chapter pleaded guilty to the offences, while trying to convince Judge Margaret Wilson the drugs were for his and his partner’s personal use.

When police, during raids on March 4, 2009, found 100 ecstasy pills, 17g marijuana in a Brut deodorant can, 7g of seeds, a 500ml bottle of testosterone in a fridge, a Pepsi can with nine vials of steroids and digital scales hidden in a leather glove.

They also found handcuffs, 143 shotgun shells, 252 .22 calibre bullets, a rifle bolt and a magazine behind a corrugated iron wall in the shed.

McCrae bought about $102,000 worth of cocaine over five months, telling the court he was addicted and it was for him to use.

He claimed he got the ecstasy for his partner, and the $9000 cops found in his safe was from his partner’s tattoo shop.

“Well what a crock of s**t that is,” he said as he was taken from court after his sentencing in 2012.

Some two years later, he tried to stop authorities from keeping $84,655 found during the course of police investigations.

The Crime and Misconduct Commission sought to confiscate the money and goods and McCrae fought the move but ultimately lost.

The court did order the CMC release some property he owned including a 2007 Harley Davidson motorcycle, a 2008 homemade boat trailer, a 2001 Toyota wagon and a 2003 Nissan patrol wagon.

McCrae was eligible for parole in August of 2014.

READ MORE HERE.

Benjamin ‘Notorious’ Geppert

Benjamin Geppert.
Benjamin Geppert.

Crime: Assault occasioning bodily harm, burglary at night, demanding property with menaces and breaching bail

Sentence: Three years

Gang affiliation: Finks Motorcycle Club and Hells Angels Motorcycle Club

Benjamin Geppert is a Gold Coast-based Finks and Hells Angels bikie with a history of violence and other offending.

He’s also known for his presence on Instagram, with his social media obsession put on ice after he was jailed for a number of offences in August of 2021.

Geppert pleaded guilty in the Southport District Court to two counts of assault occasioning bodily harm and one each of burglary at night, demanding property with menaces and breaching bail.

The assault related to him bashing a man with a baseball bat over a $500 drug debt.

The Gold Coast Bulletin reported Geppert sold the victim a quarter of an ounce of methamphetamine for $1500 but was only paid only $1000.

Geppert sent the man a picture of a gun as a threat and then attacked him while saying the debt had risen to $2000.

He returned to the man’s property and bashed him again, telling him the debt was now $3000.

Geppert did a runner to northern NSW after police became involved, but was caught and ferried back to the Sunshine State.

Judge Catherine Muir sentenced Geppert to three years in jail.

He was eligible for parole on December 3, 2021.

READ MORE HERE

Benjamin Thomas Mortimer

Benjamin Mortimer.
Benjamin Mortimer.

Crime: Manslaughter

Sentence: Nine years and six months

Gang affiliation: Finks Motorcycle Club

Finks motorcycle gang member and professional martial arts fighter Benjamin Thomas Mortimer and his brother-in-arms Wade Yates-Taui – along with a third co-accused not connected to the motorcycle gang – killed a man at Broadbeach in June of 2013.

Max Waller, 28, suffered six stab wounds to his chest and arms, with a puncture to the lung ultimately ending his life following the brutal attack on the Gold Coast street.

Waller was an associate with a rival bikie gang.

He was killed after a woman told friends “I want Max Waller dealt with”, the men’s committal hearing was told.

She claimed the victim took money from her to repay a drug debt she supposedly owed to Waller’s friend.

Solicitor Michael Gatenby, who represented both Yates-Taui and Mortimer, told reporters the killing had “nothing to do with any motorcycle club”.

“It seems to have been a relationship, it’s always about a girl,” Mr Gatenby said.

“The irony of the whole thing is that these were a group of friends.

“It’s a tragedy for all four families, someone lost their life and these people were unfortunately involved in it.”

Mortimer, Yates-Taui (see separate entry) and Cohen Andrew Smith were charged with murder but the offence was downgraded to manslaughter, to which they all pleaded guilty.

During the sentencing, the court heard Mortimer took the weapon – a steak knife – to the victim’s home.

He copped nine years and six months behind bars with parole eligibility after serving four years and six months.

Yates-Taui was sentenced to seven years and six months and Smith was sentenced to eight years’ jail.

READ MORE HERE

Blair Raymond Thomsen

Blair Raymond Thomsen.
Blair Raymond Thomsen.

Crime: Extortion, arson

Sentence: Three years and nine months

Gang affiliation: Bandidos Motorcycle Club

A Harley Davidson motorbike, the firebombing of a rival gang’s clubhouse and drugs – one-time Sunshine Coast Bandidos president Blair Raymond Thomsen seems to have the quintessential bad boy bikie cliche down pat.

Thomsen was jailed for almost four years after he pleaded guilty in 2017 to extorting another club member to hand over his $18,000 motorbike to another Bandido affiliate, Ricky Wayne McDougal.

McDougal was also convicted over the theft.

During Thomsen’s sentencing, Maroochydore District Court Judge Gary Long said there was a culture of threats and violence in the Bandidos local chapter, where Thomsen “voluntarily put himself in the position of president”.

Thomsen’s criminal offending was extensive. He was done for entering a home at night and assault occasioning bodily harm while armed in company in 1994 and drug offences in 2001 and 2004.

He was sentenced to five years in jail during 2008 after setting fire to the clubhouse of a rival motorcycle gang in 2007.

He was still on the arson suspended sentence when he committed the extortion in 2013.

READ MORE HERE

Brett ‘Kaos’ Pechey

Brett Pechey. Photo: Mark Calleja
Brett Pechey. Photo: Mark Calleja

Crime: Threatening to kill, possessing a firearm in circumstances of aggravation, possessing unlawfully obtained property and multiple police order breaches relating to domestic violence offences.

Sentence: One year

Gang affiliation: Bandidos Motorcycle Club

His tattoos, nickname and reputation make this former West-End Bandidos bad boy one of the most recognisable bikies in Queensland.

Brett ‘Kaos’ Pechey loves flaunting his wealth on Instagram, even bragging about his gold Rolex and $160k Range Rover.

And there was that one time he claimed to have a hot Ducati motorbike, but the photo he posted was not of his bike and was actually a photo anyone could find using Google.

His love affair with social media had to go on the backburner though, when he copped a spell in the lockup for threatening to kill cops in an ice-fuelled outburst.

Pechey had moved to Perth from the Gold Coast to live with his Instagram-influencer girlfriend, when he “imitated the cocking” of a long-armed gun toward two cops who were issuing him with a domestic violence restraining order in September 2022.

“I’m not here to hurt anyone, if I was you wouldn’t know about it. I could just turn up – click, click, boom,” he told them.

He went on to make a video of himself sitting in a car next to a gun where he said: “F**king c**t … die today, coppers die today. Yeah boy, f**king maggots.”

He pleaded guilty in Perth Magistrates Court to threatening to kill, possessing a firearm in circumstances of aggravation, possessing unlawfully obtained property and multiple police order breaches relating to domestic violence offences.

He was jailed for one year.

READ MORE HERE

Cameron Templeton

Cameron Templeton. Photo Adam Armstrong.
Cameron Templeton. Photo Adam Armstrong.

Crime: Aggravated extortion and threats

Sentence: Four years

Gang affiliation: Black Uhlans Motorcycle Club

Bikie gang member Cameron Templeton used his affiliation with the Black Uhlans to steal from relatives of his former partner and coercing her into handing over their child to him.

His brazen crime netted him $20,000.

The Black Uhlans Motorcycle Club was formed in the 1970s and police consider the club to be one of the country’s most dangerous.

Templeton was drowning in a $370k debt in 2013 when he used standover tactics to threaten his former partner’s mother and her partner into paying him and into making them bring their grandchild to see him.

Wearing gang colours, the criminal ordered the male victim to hand over $10,000 while they were outside the Black Uhlans’s clubhouse in Burleigh Heads.

He also ordered the male to bring another $10,000 within two weeks.

“You’ll f---ing pay. You know what clubs are capable of if you don’t pay. You know what happens to narcs,” Templeton told the victim.

The victims were able to raise the money, handing over $5000 to the bikie at a Coomera service station.

Another $5000 was paid when Templeton’s daughter was brought to him at Nerangba.

A fortnight later Templeton told the couple to pay him another $10,000.

“If you don’t, I will f---ing kill youse. I will send the boys around,” he threatened them.

Judge Alexander Horneman-Wren sentenced Templeton to four years in jail with parole eligibility after serving a year.

READ MORE HERE

Chris Bloomfield

Chris Bloomfield. Picture: Jerad Williams
Chris Bloomfield. Picture: Jerad Williams

Crime: Extortion, assault, stealing, unlawful use of a motor vehicle, making threats to kill and fraud

Sentence: Four years and three months jail

Gang affiliation: Hells Angels Motorcycle Club

When it comes to making a career in what you know, it seems Hells Angel member Chris Bloomfield might be on the money.

The notorious gang member and criminal is turning his attention to a career in law after he was accepted into Bond University.

Cast your mind back to 2016 and you might recall Bloomfield being at the centre of a Snapchat video scandal involving footballer Jarryd Hayne.

Hayne was filmed joy-riding around the Gold Coast and rapping with the former bikie after a day at the races, which was also attended by other NRL Titans players.

“Haynesy just gave me five grand,” Bloomfield boasted in the video, waving a wad of cash.

The NRL Integrity Unit gave Hayne an official warning not to associate with known criminals.

When he got the acceptance to Bond Uni, Bloomfield was awaiting trial for extortion offences.

The charges stemmed from the time he and two fellow Hells Angels allegedly bashed a man over a $20,000 drug debt.

They also threatened to kill the victim’s family and stole his BMW.

“Every week u don’t pay my f***ing money, 10 per cent is getting added onto that amount,” he texted the victim.

“U wanna go to the cops I know where your f***ing family lives and I’ll shoot every single one of those mother f***ers til I find you!!’

Bloomfield was sentenced in 2018 to four years and three months in jail with parole after serving 11 months after he was convicted of extortion, assault, stealing, unlawful use of a motor vehicle and making threats to kill.

Not long after this, he pleaded guilty to fraud and unlawful use of a motor vehicle and was sentenced to another four months for these offences.

This offending related to a forged document, illegally showing he had “completed” a mandated motorcycle riding course.

He used the documents to get a motorcycle licence through the Department of Transport.

READ MORE HERE

Christopher Taylor

Christopher Taylor was a Lone Wolf.
Christopher Taylor was a Lone Wolf.

Crime: Extortion, kidnapping, assault and possessing stolen cars and weapons

Sentence: Seven years

Gang affiliation: Lone Wolf Motorcycle Club

Christopher Taylor is a one-time Lone Wolf bikie president who was convicted of more than 40 offences after stabbing a mechanic with a screwdriver then telling the victim’s mum to pay a ransom.

Taylor bashed and stabbed Todd Shinkel in March 2013, after Shinkell was kidnapped over a $6000 drug debt.

After the attack, he called Shinkel’s mum saying he would gouge the man’s eyes out if she did not hand over $1000.

The Southport District Court heard Taylor tried to leave the bikie gang when it was declared a criminal organisation, but he claimed he was threatened by other members.

The court heard he became a member of the gang because he missed the “locker room camaraderie” of his rugby team.

“He keeps playing until he was 28 when an injury prevented him from playing at a high level,” his defence lawyer told the court.

“He didn’t have access to the locker room camaraderie.

“He was approached by members of the club – people who played with him. It got him into trouble”

Taylor was sentenced to seven years’ jail, with parole after serving two years and four months.

READ MORE HERE

Clarence Joseph Kercher

Clarence Kercher. Photo: Adam Head
Clarence Kercher. Photo: Adam Head

Crime: Drug trafficking

Sentence: Eight years

Gang affiliation: Mongols Motorcycle Club

Once a Mongol, always a Mongol – except when your drug business makes a loss … apparently.

Bikie Clarence Joseph Kercher found himself without his freedom and the right to wear his gang’s colours when his decision to traffic drugs turned sour.

Kercher’s motorcycle club kicked him out after he racked up too much debt while running his drug dealing business for two years on the Gold Coast.

Taskforce Maxima investigators found Kercher had a range of drugs including methamphetamine, cocaine, MDMA, steroids and marijuana.

It was revealed in Brisbane Supreme Court in 2018 Kercher sold drugs to clients on credit but repeatedly failed to recover the money he was owed, despite using threats and violence on his customers.

“However, it also can be said that he himself had been subject to threats that increased over a period of time because of the fact he owed money to those from whom he had obtained drugs,” prosecutor Mark Green told the court

“Because of the number of customers that he (had supplied drugs on credit to and who had not paid him) he found himself in a position where he was not only subject to those threats but also had been threatened with having his motorbike confiscated and being kicked out of the club because of the way in which he conducted his business.”

Kercher was sentenced to eight years in jail with parole after two years and two months.

READ MORE HERE

Joshua Shane Carew

Joshua Shane Carew.
Joshua Shane Carew.

Crime: Drug trafficking

Sentence: Seven years

Gang affiliation: Rebels Motorcycle Club

Joshua Shane Carew sold drugs across a large swath of Queensland, earning him a significant spell in the slammer.

The one-time Rebels Motorcycle Club associate made big news in 2014 when he was locked up under Queensland Violent Lawless Association Disestablishment Laws.

He spent six weeks in solitary confinement along with his brother-in-laws Steve Smith and Scott Conly and Paul Lansdowne and associate Dan Whale.

They were sin-binned for allegedly being in breach of the laws by drinking together in the Yandina Hotel.

The group became known as the Yandina Five.

Carew spoke to the Sunshine Coast Daily of his relief at being released and allowed to go home to his family.

“I’m just very relieved to be out of solitary,’’ Carew said, explaining he was locked on his own for 23 hours a day for most of the six weeks he was inside.

“You are also alone for the hour you get in the exercise yard.

“It’s really a cage. You feel like an animal.

“You start hearing voices and you are talking to yourself. Some have been in there for four months.”

Carew’s freedom was short lived though, with police finding $144,000, six grams of pure methylamphetamine, cooking instructions, cutting agents and a list of drug transactions worth $43,000 at his home.

The Brisbane Supreme Court was told Carew trafficked and produced drugs for two years, including at his parents’ property in Hervey Bay.

While on a suspended sentence for supplying cocaine, he sold drugs on the Sunshine Coast, across central Queensland and also in Brisbane.

He was sentenced to five years in jail in 2016.

READ MORE HERE:

Jacob Graham Stanes

Jacob Stanes.
Jacob Stanes.

Crime: Fraud

Sentence: Three years

Gang affiliation: Finks Motorcycle Club

Not all bikies’ crimes involve violence.

Jacob Graham Stanes, who has affiliations with the Finks, chose a more white collar route for his get-rich scheme.

Stanes and businessman Garreth Charl Cain defrauded $1.4m from 28 people in a Gold Coast-based fake cold call investment scheme.

Stanes, who was involved in the sales side of the enterprise, scored the lion’s share of the cash and pocketed $594,605.

Cain obtained $478,335 for providing the software needed to carry out the crime, the Brisbane District Court heard in 2022.

Crown prosecutor Greg Cummings said $1,009,793 of the stolen money was never recovered.

He said investors were falsely told they were dealing with an established company with a trusted record, but their money was never invested.

The scheme happened in 2015.

Stanes was jailed for three years with parole available last June.

Cain was sentenced to five years in jail. This was suspended after 12 months for five years.

READ MORE HERE:

James Thomas O’Brien

Convicted amphetamine kingpin James O’Brien.
Convicted amphetamine kingpin James O’Brien.

Crime: Trafficking dangerous drugs

Sentence: 14 years

Gang affiliation: Rebels Motorcycle Club

Notorious Rockhampton bikie and criminal James ‘Jimmy’ Thomas O’Brien proudly posed in front of a massive pile of cash for a photo while holding a sign saying ‘The bank you can trust’ in one hand a shovel in another.

The photo was taken while he was part of a drug gang producing more than $28m worth of the drug speed over six years.

O’Brian and Mackay methamphetamine cook Michael Paul Falzon were both locked up for their part in the multimillion-dollar crime ring.

The Brisbane Supreme Court in 2015 heard they produced 200kg of meth, selling it for $88,184 a kilogram.

Justice Tim Carmody said the operation was worth about $28,102,477.

O’Brien was sentence to 14 years behind bars.

He spent some of this at Woodford Correctional Centre in southeast Queensland and most of it at Capricornia Correctional Centre in central Queensland.

It’s not clear how long Falzon was locked up for.

READ MORE HERE

Lionel Patea

Lionel Patea.
Lionel Patea.

Crime: Murder

Sentence: Life in prison

Gang affiliation: Comanchero Motorcycle Club

Lionel Patea is one of Queensland’s most violent gang members.

The brute murdered his partner Tara Brown after she dropped her three-year-old daughter at daycare in Molendinar in September of 2015.

Patea ran Tara’s car off the road.

He bashed her around the face and head with a steel water hydrant cover while she was trapped in the vehicle.

He was convicted of Tara’s murder in 2017 and ordered to serve a life sentence.

A year later he was convicted over the bashing murder of father-of-two Greg Dufty in 2015.

Patea’s brother Nelson Patea and Aaron Crawford pleaded guilty to manslaughter over Greg’s killing.

The Brisbane Supreme Court ordered Patea to serve an additional life term for Greg’s death.

He can apply for parole in 2048.

Nelson Patea was sentenced to eight years and Crawford was jailed for 10 years.

READ MORE HERE

Mark James Graham

Mark James Graham.
Mark James Graham.

Crime: Attempted murder, unlawful wounding

Sentence: 12 years

Gang affiliation: Mongols Motorcycle Club and Finks Motorcycle Club

Mark James Graham injured an unsuspecting woman while trying to kill a rival gang member in a wild shooting at the Robina Town Centre.

Graham shot the gun twice, one bullet injuring the bystander in her buttock.

The target of the 2012 shooting was not hurt.

During his sentencing in 2014, Graham offered a letter of remorse to the court.

He was sentenced to 12 years’ jail, with parole after serving 10 years.

READ MORE HERE

Mathew David Kratiuk

Mathew Kratiuk.
Mathew Kratiuk.

Crime: Assault occasioning bodily harm in a public place while intoxicated

Sentence: 12 months

Gang affiliation: Unclear.

It’s not clear which motorbike gang Mathew David Kratiuk once belonged to – a search of the internet and media reports don’t name the club.

But the born-again Christian has repeatedly said publicly he was involved in an outlaw bikie group.

Despite refashioning himself as a CEO, motivational speaker and Vinnies Sleepout ambassador, Kratiuk was sentenced in 2022 to 12 months behind bars.

The sentence was the result of punching a man in the head after being evicted from a Fortitude Valley nightclub.

The man’s head hit the concrete, leaving him with a frontal contusion and a small subarachnoid haemorrhage.

The Brisbane Magistrates Court heard the Cliqued Digital CEO was extremely drunk when he attacked the man who just wanted to talk to him.

Kratiuk was sentenced to one year in jail in July last year, after he pleaded guilty to assault occasioning bodily harm in a public place while intoxicated.

He was due for parole on August 24, 2022.

In a Facebook video for Hillsong Church, Kratiuk said he was once a “patched member of one of the biggest biker gangs in Australia”.

He entered rehab and began” turning his life around” after he felt the call of God, he continued.

READ MORE HERE

Paul Jeffery Lansdowne

Yandina Five member Paul Lansdowne celebrates being released from jail. Photo: Darren England
Yandina Five member Paul Lansdowne celebrates being released from jail. Photo: Darren England

Crime: Trafficking and possessing drugs

Sentence: Four years’ jail

Gang affiliation: Rebels Motorcycle Club

Bikie Paul Jeffery Lansdowne’s undoing was talking too much.

A member of the notorious Sunshine Coast-based Yandina Seven, the one-time Rebel member had his drug enterprise fall apart after cops recorded his conversations on the phone.

Cops even put a bug in his house and they monitored his text messages.

In 2017, he was convicted of possessing and trafficking methylamphetamine in Eerwah Vale from February 22 to June 25, 2013.

He was sentenced to four years in jail.

READ MORE HERE

Russell Wattie

Russell Wattie.
Russell Wattie.

Crime: Drug importation

Sentence: Two and a half years’ jail

Gang affiliation: Outcast Motorcycle Club

Russell Wattie might have spent more than two years behind bars for importing LSD, but that didn’t stop him from trying to forge a career in politics.

Some 11 years after his crimes, the “reformed” Outcast Motorcycle Club member ran as an independent for the seat of Maryborough.

He ironically made the bid while Campbell Newman was the Queensland premier – he was the architect of state’s Lawless Association Disestablishment legislation, designed to rein in bikies like Wattie.

“You’ll have the people who are glued on, calling me a criminal and listen to anything Campbell Newman says,” Wattie told the Courier Mail in 2015 of his parliamentary bid.

“Yes, I have had a colourful past – that’s just one brief period of my life.”

Wattie did not win the seat but his LinkedIn profile shows he works for Sterling and Wilson Western Downs Green Power Hub as senior health and safety advisor.

READ MORE HERE

Ricky Wayne McDougall

Ricky Wayne McDougall was convicted over a death on the Sunshine Coast.
Ricky Wayne McDougall was convicted over a death on the Sunshine Coast.

Crime: Manslaughter, stealing

Sentence: Eight years

Gang affiliation: Bandidos Motorcycle Club

Bandido bikie Ricky Wayne McDougall is no stranger to the inside of a jail cell.

McDougall has served time over the death of a man and has also been convicted of stealing.

He and Shane Garry Collas were charged with murder over the killing of Dean Tennant in a road rage attack at Currimundi Marketplace on the Sunshine Coast in 2004.

They pleaded guilty to manslaughter when they faced Brisbane Supreme Court in September of 2006.

Another man, Lyall Tau Maguire, was charged with murder but he was acquitted by a jury.

Dean was stabbed in the chest with a rusty fish filleting knife after a run-in with the three men in the shopping centre car park.

McDougall and Collas were sentenced to eight years in jail.

About 13 years after being jailed for the manslaughter charge, McDougall was back before the Maroochydore District Court pleading guilty to stealing a Harley Davidson motorcycle.

It’s not clear what he was sentenced to, but the sentence was to take place while he was behind bars for different offending not related to the manslaughter.

READ MORE HERE

Wade Yates-Taui

Wade Yates-Taui.
Wade Yates-Taui.

Crime: Manslaughter

Sentence: Seven years and six months

Gang affiliation: Finks Motorcycle Club

Finks motorcycle gang member Wade Yates-Taui was part of a trio sentenced to jail for the horrifying street killing of a rival bikie gang member.

Yates-Taui, Finks brother-in-arms and professional martial arts fighter Benjamin Thomas (see separate entry) and non-bikie Cohen Andrew Smith pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Max Waller, 28, at Broadbeach in June of 2013.

Waller suffered six stab wounds to his chest and arms, with a puncture to the lung ending his life.

Waller was killed after a woman told friends: “I want Max Waller dealt with” over a perceived drug debt, a committal hearing heard.

Solicitor Michael Gatenby represented both Yates-Taui and Mortimer.

After court, he told reporters the killing had “nothing to do with any motorcycle club”.

“It seems to have been a relationship, it’s always about a girl,” Mr Gatenby said.

“The irony of the whole thing is that these were a group of friends.

“It’s a tragedy for all four families, someone lost their life and these people were unfortunately involved in it.”

Mortimer, Yates-Taui and Smith were charged with murder but the offence was downgraded to manslaughter, to which they all pleaded guilty.

During the sentencing, the court was told Mortimer took the weapon, which was a steak knife, to the victim’s home.

Yates-Taui was sentenced to seven years and six months, with parole eligibility after serving two years and three months.

Mortimer copped nine years and six months behind bars, with parole after serving four years and six months.

Smith was sentenced to eight years’ jail, with parole after four years.

READ MORE HERE

Add your comment to this story

To join the conversation, please Don't have an account? Register

Join the conversation, you are commenting as Logout

Original URL: https://www.couriermail.com.au/truecrimeaustralia/police-courts-qld/the-queensland-motorcycle-gang-members-who-spent-time-in-jail-and-the-crimes-that-got-them-locked-up/news-story/d3ad6cd3340e7be9658ddfa29306b943