Neil Cummins: I’d take a bullet for the King of the Cross John Ibrahim

With the nickname “muscles”, 124kg bodybuilder Neil Cummins worked as a nightclub bouncer until King of the Cross John Ibrahim asked what he wanted to do next. “Walk with you,” he replied. READ HIS STORY

Gary Jubelin interviews former Kings Cross bouncer and John Ibrahim’s bodyguard Neil Cummins for the I Catch Killers Podcast. Picture: David Swift

Neil Cummins “craved to be hit by a bullet” while working as personal bodyguard for Sydney nightclub king John Ibrahim.

That’s the degree of devotion his boss inspired in the 124kg bodybuilder, whose nickname is The Muscle.

During the 2000s, Ibrahim ran more than a dozen nightclubs in Sydney’s red-light Kings

Cross district, Cummins told the I Catch Killers podcast.

It was dangerous work but, if they were going to be shot at, “I wanted it to be me”.

There was every chance that would happen, with business rivals taking out contracts to kill Ibrahim.

Neil Cummins said John Ibrahim was his boss, friend and “brother”.

On at least one occasion while they worked together, the man known as the last King of the Cross had a $100,000 price put on his head.

“Jealousy, that’s all it was,” said Cummins, explaining why his boss was targeted.

At the time, in 2010, the Underbelly: The Golden Mile television series had dramatised the history of Kings Cross, including Ibrahim’s business dealings.

“It all goes back to the TV show, that’s when the targets came,” said Cummins.

Sydney’s red-light district Kings Cross. Picture: Damien Shaw

“Personally, I think he was an easy target because he walked the streets, he didn’t care.

“He’d go to cafes by himself sometimes. If you wanted to do a hit, it was easy.”

Cummins himself was no stranger to the world of nightclubs, where legitimate business

interests and those with less honest intentions often end up mixing on the dancefloor.

Growing up in Liverpool, a tough city in northern England, his father ran a nightclub and

took the young Cummins in with him to work.

“I’d sit in the office and he told me never to come out. Even if it got full on, ‘Just stay in the room. Don’t come out’.

Fadi Ibrahim and Neil Cummins at the 2010 Emirates AJC Doncaster Day at Royal Randwick Racecourse in Sydney.

“I used to hear doormen … throwing people against walls. My dad even used to throw

people against walls.

“He told me afterwards, ‘Certain dealers came in and we had to deal with them. Certain

dealers tried to take over the club.”

One time, as an adult, Cummins remembers seeing a group of doormen from a rival club

approach carrying machetes and guns.

“I remember my dad telling his doormen to go upstairs where there was a gym.

Neil Cummins (left) with interviewer Gary Jubelin. Picture: David Swift

“Underneath the boxing ring there were guns, weapons, everything. They came downstairs

and just annihilated them.”

The experience didn’t deter Cummins. If anything, he wanted more.

Moving to Australia, he found his way to Kings Cross and started working as a doorman but always hoped to become a bodyguard.

Unafraid to admit he enjoyed hitting people when the job demanded, Cummins admits to

abusing steroids in order to bulk up.

Cummins told Jubelin he still has flashbacks of shootings. Picture: David Swift

He trained by punching brick walls with his bare fists to toughen the knuckles.

The first time he met Ibrahim, Cummins said, he expected someone taller, given the outsize reputation the five-foot-something nightclub owner had earned by that time.

“When this Range Rover came down Oxford St, I was expecting the biggest person

coming out.

“John walked past me. I wasn’t ready … I just went, “Who are you?”

“You just think he must be someone big. His presence and the way he walks in the Cross makes him six foot two.”

Despite his relatively small stature, Ibrahim could handle himself when times demanded it and in the tightly-packed world of the city’s nightclubs, business dealings did get tense.

“John leads from the front. I’ve seen him blue and John can definitely look after himself,”

said Cummins.

After a few years working the doors at Ibrahim’s DCM nightclub, Cummins got the chance he wanted.

“When DCM closed down, John sent me a message and asked me what do I want to do? I just sent back, ‘Walk with you now’.”

But his choice came with a warning.

“John actually pulled me aside … just me and him and said ‘Is this the life you want to go

down?’

“Are you sure you want to walk by my side? Because, to me, I feel like this is not for you.”

Ibrahim was trying to protect him, Cummins said, knowing his potential bodyguard had a

young family and the nightclub life could be demanding.

“I said, ‘No, I want to be with you, John’.”

Today, his loyalty to Ibrahim is without question.

“He was a good boss but he was also a friend. And he was like a brother to me.”

Over the 16 years they worked together, Cummins got an unrivalled insight into a world

where billionaires, celebrities and bikies mixed together.

World champion boxer Jeff Fenech was among the stars he saw moving through his bosses’ orbit, Cummins said.

So were radio host Kyle Sandilands, businessman Richard Branson, popstars Natalie

Imbruglia and Guy Sebastian, as well as the hosts of TV show The Voice.

There was another side to the Golden Mile however. Cummins was nearly killed in a drive- by shooting, escaping death by chance when he left the spot where he usually stood to watch a nightclub door.

He was also caught up in a brawl when Comanchero bikies surrounded another club,

demanding its owner come down to face them.

“I called John, I called everybody down. We stood there. John stood right at the front.”

Ibrahim was never scared, said Cummins. On that occasion, he encouraged his boss to leave. Minutes later, “it erupted”.

Looking back, said Cummins, while the rewards of the life he chose were great, the cost was too high.

Cummins now gets flashbacks of the shootings and drive-bys.

“Nowadays, if my kids wanted to go to Kings Cross, I wouldn’t even let them.”