Lone Wolf bikie Brian Maynard sentenced over Tenambit public place shooting linked to Maddison Hickson

It was a shooting that worried police because of links to a woman starting a trial charged with murdering her criminal dad. But a court heard the early morning shots echoing through a Hunter suburb involved something much more petty.

CCTV of masked gunmen who peppered the front yard of a home on Goldingham St, Tenambit on October 16, 2022 where Maddison Hickson was staying. Picture: Channel 7

It was a shoot-up at dawn in a small Hunter suburb that caused shockwaves throughout senior levels of law enforcement.

There was the obvious extreme violence as a shotgun, shortened rifle and handgun were used to pepper a car parked in the driveway of an otherwise nondescript house in Tenambit, near Maitland, about 6am on that Monday morning in 2022.

And there were the unknown connotations involving a young woman, who had close links to the house and was about to walk into a courtroom for the first morning of her murder trial over the killing her of violent standover-man father.

Maddison Hickson, who admitted stabbing her father Michael Carroll to death during an argument just around the corner, would later be acquitted of any wrongdoing after successfully arguing she was only acting in self-defence.

And as it turns out, the only link Hickson had to the shooting was that it was targeted at a house belonging to a close relative, and occurred while relatives were inside.

CCTV of one of the masked gunman who peppered the front yard of a home on Goldingham St, Tenambit on October 16, 2022. Picture: Channel 7

In fact, petty grievances were the only motive for the shooting, which has now seen its first gunman sentenced to prison.

Proud Lone Wolf bikie member Brian Maynard will be eligible for parole before Christmas next year after he pleaded guilty to using an offensive weapon in company with intent to commit an indictable offence (intimidation) and firing a firearm in or near a public place.

Lone Wolf bikie Brian Maynard.

Newcastle District Court heard on Thursday that Maynard was on parole when he was one of four masked gunmen who sauntered down a public walkway next to the targeted house, before three of them fired their guns into the hire car parked in the driveway.

One bullet ricocheted off a window pane and ended up in a neighbour’s tree, while the fourth gunman battled unsuccessfully with a troublesome gun which never shot a projectile.

“This is just gratuitous criminality,” Judge Roy Ellis said while sentencing Maynard to a maximum jail term of four years and three months.

He added it was not necessary, was not performed out of a need for survival or money, but because there was an ongoing petty feud with people “they didn’t like”.

Brian Maynard will not be eligible for parole until November 21, 2025.

The judge said the gunmen chose to deal with the issue “by shooting up a suburban street...in a tiny little village”.

“For what purpose?” he said.

“There should have been another charge laid, [that of] stupidity, and [Maynard] would have had to have pleaded guilty to that.”

Judge Ellis said he needed to take into account Maynard’s terrible childhood – as well as the fact the now 27-year-old had spent all but 15 months in jail since he was 18 – when sentencing him.

Maynard had also pleaded guilty at the first instance, attracting a 25 per cent discount, and had a range of mental health issues that needed to be dealt with.

Judge Ellis warned Maynard about his continued membership in the Lone Wolf bikie club, which he had told authorities was a support mechanism, and told him he faced institutionalisation if he didn’t mend his ways when he was released.

He sentenced Maynard to a non-parole period of two years and three months, and with it being partially backdated, Maynard will not be eligible for parole until November 21, 2025.

Two other men will be sentenced later this year for their involvement in the shooting while two others will face a trial in 2025.