Brothers 4 Life boss Damien Featherstone to stay in jail in Canberra after losing appeal
Damien Featherstone has failed in his bid to have his jail sentenced slashed over an ice-fuelled shooting, robbery and kidnapping spree
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Notoriously violent former Brothers 4 Life leader Damien Featherstone will remain behind bars until at least 2023 after losing an appeal stemming from an ice-fuelled shooting, robbery and kidnapping spree.
Featherstone, 32, originally from Wollongong, was last year jailed for a maximum of seven years and nine months for his leading role in the crime spree.
Featherstone, who was schizophrenic, had skipped his medication and was high on ice when he told his group of mates to “tool up” and get ready to rob a gun shop.
When one man refused, Featherstone shot him in the leg at point-blank range.
He then forced a woman into a car, before going on to carjack three elderly people and stealing knives from a military shop at Fyshwick.
Featherstone has been in and out of jail most of his adult life, including a stint in the Supermax section of Goulburn prison.
Featherstone’s legal team launched a multi-pronged appeal in the ACT Court of Appeal, claiming, among other things, that the jury should have been discharged, that some of the jury’s verdicts were “unsafe and unsatisfactory”, and that Featherstone should not have faced trial alongside co-offender Rodney Bloxsome, 50.
The court rejected all of Featherstone’s grounds of appeal, but found partially in favour of Bloxsome — previously one of Australia’s most wanted men — and acquitted him of two rape charges after the panel of three judges found the verdicts were unsafe.
Bloxsome’s convictions on a string of wounding, kidnapping, robbery and weapons charges stand, and he will be sentenced at a later date.
Featherstone is an inmate at Canberra’s ill-managed prison, the Alexander Maconochie Centre, where he has previously said he is better treated than at the interstate prisons where he has also served time.
The courts have previously heard that Featherstone has been caught with improvised weapons, mobile phones and drugs, and has once got in a knife fight while behind bars.
During one incident behind bars, in which both men were involved, Featherstone headbutted a guard and said “I will get you again and again and your family, you’re a dog c**t.”
Much of Featherstone’s sentencing hearing took place in closed court last year, at the request of Featherstone’s lawyers and lawyers for NSW Police.
Written reasons for Featherstone’s sentence were never made public.
Featherstone has said he is interested in turning his back on his life of crime when released.
