Central Coast: Lone Wolf sergeant-at-arms Joshua Battah sentenced over drive-by

It was August, 2014, a ‘turf war’ was festering between rival bikie gangs and Lone Wolf sergeant-at-arms Joshua Battah smelled a rat. The story behind the Central Coast’s most brazen drive-by shooting.

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Lone Wolf national sergeant-at-arms Joshua Paul Battah was on a knife edge.

Three days earlier a number of bikies had been stabbed when members of the Lone Wolf and Rebels outlaw motorcycle gangs clashed at Tweed Heads.

It was August 27, 2014 and the violent brawl was just the latest in a series of tit-for-tat skirmishes as the Rebels and the Lone Wolf gangs jostled for power.

Meanwhile north of the border, there was a High Court challenge underway in Queensland as bikies sought to overturn tough new laws that could see gang members face additional mandatory sentences of between 15 and 25 years if they were found guilty of certain offences.

Police from NSW, Queensland and Australian Federal Police officers joined forces for a 10-day cross-border blitz on Tweed-Byron bikie gangs.

Northern NSW had become a battleground as QLD bikies fled south to escape the crackdown.

The Rebels had established a chapter at Ballina and were pushing north to open a clubhouse at Tweed Heads, which was traditionally a Lone Wolf stronghold.

Tensions between the two clubs were at boiling point.

The day before senior detectives from the State Crime Command’s Gangs Squad had paid Battah a visit at a restaurant in Sydney’s west.

Fearing an all out “turf war” between the two gangs, the senior officers pleaded with Battah to use his influence to quell the simmering tensions. He wasn’t having any of it.

There was a `turf war’ festering between the Lone Wolf and Rebels bikie gangs.

Closer to home Battah had problems all of his own.

Earlier in the year he had been tasked by the Lone Wolf president to establish a chapter on the Central Coast but he was losing faith in a newly patched member.

The new pledge wouldn’t answer his phone and Battah was becoming suspicious.

He sent a text to the recently patched member saying “we’re at war with the Rebels bro” and asked him to come to Sydney to pick up some “tools”, which a court would later hear was code for guns.

Battah’s instincts — that the new pledge had “stitched me up a beauty” — were spot on.

Despite his bravado and ambition in January to be a founding member of the new Central Coast chapter, by August the new member had well and truly gotten cold feet and had gone to the police.

Detectives tapped his phone and got him to wear a wire, amassing police hundreds of pages of transcribed telephone intercepts and recorded conversations.

So when Battah’s text about going to “war” lit up his phone early that Wednesday morning the new member went straight to his police handlers who made a “risk management decision” for him not to go to Sydney.

Instead they made up a cover story as to why he couldn’t.

NSW Strike Force Raptor, Queensland’s Taskforce Maxima and the National Anti-Gangs Squad, were kept busy with rival bikie gang activity in 2014.

A series of text messages tendered to Gosford District Court showed Battah became increasingly irate and angry at the recently patched member, who he believed had “doublecrossed or set him up” with the police. And he was right.

Battah texted another Lone Wolf member asking if he has heard from the “c*** sucker” before directing another member to find out where he was “immediately”.

He send another text to the new member: “Ok u weak dog I want all the paper u own rite now and all your club gear dropped to Jarrods house all our boys gonna have twenty boys kicking your door you’re a weak dog I should put a bullet in u tonight no more f****** around c*** u have half an hour or I’m gonna put u in a whole makt it happen now”.

Not used to being ignored, let alone disobeyed, Battah rang another member and said “tell him I said he’s a weak dog and tell him to leave the Central Coast ‘cause we are coming after him mate, he’s next”.

Rebels bikie gang members had established a chapter at Ballina and were pushing north.

It’s now 4.52pm and a “frothing” Battah sends the new member one last message from his BlackBerry.

“If your not home in 1hr, I’m burning your house down. make sure your there. I want everything back,” he wrote.

Nearly two and a half hours later, shortly before 7.30pm, shots rang out in the night sky as the new member’s home at Toowoon Bay was riddled with six bullets.

The following day heavily armed Gang Squad members raided a house Battah owned on Tenth Ave, Budgewoi, and his home at St Clair in Sydney’s west where they find a cache of drugs, cash, Lone Wolf paraphernalia, a Glock pistol magazine and ammunition.

Cash and drugs found at Battah’s homes.

Photos courtesy of NSW Police.

Battah would later plead guilty to 11 charges of supplying and possessing prohibited drugs including 1.33kg of amphetamine, 28g of cocaine and vials of steroids.

He also pleaded guilty to two firearm offences but faced a lengthy trial at Gosford District Court after pleading not guilty to the drive-by shooting and knowingly directing the activities of a criminal group.

In September last year District Court Judge Michael Bozic found him guilty of being an accessory before the fact of the drive-by shooting and yesterday sentenced Battah to 11 years jail with a non-parole period of six and a half years.

With time already served since his arrest on August 28, 2014, the 37-year-old will be eligible for release August 27, 2025.

And with that, the knife fell.