Gold Coast Bikie gang: Most infamous crimes revealed
Gold Coast police came to the brink of a violent confrontation with a group of bikies after a shooting at a Tugun football field.
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THE bikie gang wars of the 2000s and 2010s are rightly considered among the most infamous crimes the city has experienced.
From the Ballroom Blitz and Christopher Wayne Hudson’s downfall to the Robina shooting and Broadbeach brawl.
But one of the Gold Coast’s most infamous gang-linked stoushes goes back much further, to the mid-1990s.
This year marks 25 years since the trial of Tweed Heads man Sean Patrick Jones who shot two members of the Black Uhlans Motorcycle Club.
Jones was jailed in 1997 for the shoot-up.
It was 1996, a year that included a plane crash into the sea off Currumbin and a mass drug overdose in central Broadbeach.
On Saturday, November 9, more than 500 bikies from multiple clubs attended a bike show at the Tugun Seahawks Rugby League. It had been organised by the Odin’s Warriors club.
Jones, then-29, arrived at the club on his Harley Davidson just before 2pm and had a confrontation with Black Uhlans members Richard McKenna and Steve Zarkoff, both 32 years old at the time.
It escalated rapidly and Jones pulled out a handgun and shot them both in the stomach.
Both survived, though Zarkoff was left a paraplegic.
A witness told New Corp how the shooting unfolded.
“I could see what was going to happen. They were going to have another go at him,” the witness said.
“He could see them coming. He said: ‘Get away from me, get away from me’.
“I saw him put his hand into a sack bag he was carrying. He brought out this gun. Bang! Bang! They fell on the spot.”
Jones fled the scene on his motorbike.
Bikies attacked the media, ripping tapes from cameras in an attempt to prevent themselves being filmed.
A Channel 9 reporter was chased by bikies and her vehicle ran off the road. She was heard screaming as bikies threatened her with a knife.
The bikies warned that they would kill anyone who attempted to enter the club.
“Get out of here or I’ll kill you,” one said at the time.
Armed police flooded the scene.
While police initially believed the shooting was gang-on-gang warfare, detectives found that once Jones surrendered himself at Southport Police Station, it was something entirely different.
Gold Coast CIB chief Detective Inspector Arch McDonald revealed that Jones had gone to the show, not to confront the Uhlans but his former partner over a custody dispute.
It was alleged his former partner was in a relationship with McKenna at the time.
Jones, who was held in protective custody in the lead-up to his trial, pleaded not guilty to all charges.
At his 1997 trial, conducted under tight security, Jones said he had feared for his life after being attacked in his backyard by two men wearing balaclavas in August 1996.
Under cross-examination, he insisted he had not seen McKenna’s face but recognised McKenna by his build and voice.
Jones said NSW police had refused to prosecute McKenna, who had an alibi for the time of the assault.
He told the court during his trial that he was assaulted by another member of the Black Uhlans at the bike show.
Minutes later, McKenna and Zarkoff abused him.
As they split up, Jones said he feared for his life and shot both men, Jones said.
“It was like bang, bang _ I just tried to keep the shots low,’’ he said.
During the case, Jones alleged he had sworn an affidavit outlining the criminal activities of McKenna as part of the custody case.
The affidavit, Jones alleged, had later been tabled at a meeting of the Black Uhlans.
Following an eight-day trial in the Supreme Court, Jones was found not guilty of attempting to murder McKenna and Zarkoff.
However, he was found guilty of lesser charges of grievous bodily harm.
Justice Brian Ambrose sentenced Jones to five years’ jail, to be suspended on May 9, 1998, with his sentence backdated to his arrest the day after the shooting.
Justice Ambrose said that as a consequence of Jones’ affidavit, the Uhlans “resolved to have him killed or seriously injured” and it had been agreed that a “ticket of $100,000 to achieve this result would be funded by the motorcycle club’’.
The case returned to the headlines in 2000 when both McKenna and Zarkoff attempted to sue Jones for criminal compensation under then-new crime laws.
They were awarded $65,625 in 2001.
Day Coast’s most infamous bikie was taken down
FEW Gold Coast criminals are more infamous than Christopher Wayne Hudson.
The club-hopping bikie was a central figure in the gang wars of the mid-2000s, before gaining national infamy with a central Melbourne spree that killed 43-year-old solicitor Brendan Keilar.
This weekend marks 15 years since Hudson’s notorious rampage made headlines around the world.
It capped off a short but violent criminal career, which ended with Hudson jailed for 35 years.
Hudson came to prominence in the early 2000s as a member of the Black Uhlans.
“Before long he wanted to join the Finks,” a bikie associate told the Bulletin in 2007. “The Uhlans, having had a taste of his crazy young ways, were not too sorry to see him go, so he patched across (defected).’’
After a handful of years with the Finks, Hudson defected again in October 2006, this time to the Hells Angels.
The Bulletin reported during the wars that he convinced hierarchy he could deliver with drug contacts in the then-lucrative Surfers Paradise nightclub world. The Hells Angels gave him a Harley-Davidson motorcycle and he was away with them.
This betrayal set the stage for a brewing gang conflict that came to a head in March 2006 when the Hells Angels and Finks went head to head during a kickboxing fight night at Royal Pines Resort. It would be dubbed the “Ballroom Blitz”.
The fight was supposed to be in the ring but the battle raged across the room in front of 1800 people.
The violence began after the Finks spotted Hudson.
Members and associates of the Hells Angels were sitting ringside when the large group of rival Finks, including Shane Bowden and Nick “The Knife” Forbes, arrived.
Forbes threw a punch at Hudson.
Footage showed Forbes and Hudson coming to blows, before Bowden pulled a handgun and shot Hudson twice, in the face and back.
Forbes then held Hudson against the ring while Bowden and another man rained more blows on him.
It was believed the shooting was retribution for Hudson’s defection.
Bowden, who was on parole at the time for drug trafficking and property offences, was convicted and went back to prison for seven years.
He would be gunned down in his Gold Coast drive way 14 years later.
Hudson survived his encounter with Bowden but was also charged with several offences, including affray.
He travelled to Victoria where, in June 2007, he committed his most infamous crime.
At 8am on June 18, the then-29-year-old shot and killed Mr Keiler amid peak-hour traffic on Melbourne’s King St.
The 43-year-old lawyer was killed running to the defence of Kaera Douglas, a young woman being attacked by Hudson.
Paul de Waard, a young Dutch backpacker was also shot while trying to help Ms Douglas, who was shot in the stomach by Hudson.
Both Mr de Waard and Ms Douglas survived their injuries.
Hudson went on the run, sparking a nationwide manhunt but handed himself in to police two days later.
Before he was arrested, he phoned his parents on the Gold Coast and told them he was coming out of hiding.
Anne Hudson told the Bulletin at the time that he made a second call after being taken into custody.
‘‘After he handed himself in he called us back to say he had handed himself in,’’ she said. ‘‘He said he loved us very much and he was sorry for everything.
‘‘He said he had been treated very well by police.’’
His grandfather Wilfred said Hudson had fallen in with a bad crowd as a teenager.
‘‘He got hurt in a car crash about 10 to 12 years ago, maybe that’s what sent him silly. It was just after he got his licence,’’ he said.
‘‘Grandchildren can be more trouble than they’re worth.
‘‘How he got a gun I don’t know. He’s never had one in his life.
‘‘But once they get in with this crowd they’re gone. But you can’t really blame the bikies for this one, he’s only got himself to blame.’’
Detective Inspector Stephen Clark said Hudson’s surrender was “the best outcome”.
Hudson pleaded guilty in May 2008 and was jailed for his crimes.
He remains behind bars today.
Mr de Waard received the Royal Humane Society of Australasia’s medal for his role, while Victorian Premier Steve Bracks announced a $250,000 trust fund would be established for Mr Keilar’s family to support them.
He said Mr Keilar had paid a terrible price for his heroism.
Originally published as Gold Coast Bikie gang: Most infamous crimes revealed
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