Ex-Nomads president Bradley Bowtell claims he was manipulated into joining the club

A former outlaw bikie boss has opened up about life in the Nomads, revealing how he was groomed to join the club and the price he paid to escape it.

Bradley Bowtell was, by his own admission, an awkward and chubby kid.

Having grown up in the Hunter Valley, he joined the workforce at a young age and had very few friends. Instead of spending his teens and twenties partying, Bowtell funnelled his energy into the gym.

Hard work, and many years of steroid abuse, paid off. Bowtell was known around Singleton for his imposing stature. With broad shoulders, a shaved head and tattoos from the neck down, he had the look of a man you wouldn’t want to cross.

It was his sheer physical dominance that drew the attention of the Nomads in early 2014.

Then-Newcastle City Nomads president Bradley Bowtell outside the NSW Supreme Court in 2018. Picture: Dylan Robinson.

Opening up about his experiences in the outlaw bikie gang for the first time during a sentencing hearing in Newcastle District Court this week, Bowtell said he’d been repeatedly targeted by members.

“I was approached by some members of the club at the gym over a number of weeks, into months,” Bowtell said.

“They kept approaching me in regards to hanging around with them and going to social events.

“From there they sort of put it in front of me, joining. They painted a picture that it was sort of going to be a good thing to do, which it ended up not being.”

Claiming to have missed out the best parts of his youth, Bowtell, then aged 30, was lured in by the promise of mates, women and parties.

Speaking in court in support of her son, Shirley Bowtell said it was a deliberate attempt by the club to manipulate him.

Bradley Bowtell was appointed chapter president soon after joining the Nomads. Picture: Facebook.

Bradley Bowtell has admitted to years of steroid use. Picture: Facebook.

“They played on an ego for him, his ego,” Ms Bowtell said.

“He liked to go fishing and camping and whatever and there was no one to go with him at the time, and then the club came along.

“It was like a grooming of him.”

How exactly Bowtell came to be president of the Newcastle City Nomads chapter is as much a mystery to him, as anyone else. But his ascent up the hierarchy was meteoric. One police source said he’d never not known Bowtell to be the chapter president.

“Any time you’d go to the Islington clubhouse, he’d be there,” the source said.

Bowtell told the court the role had thrown him into the thick of the club’s activities.

“It was pretty much president straight away, there was no going through the ranks,” he said.

“They just dropped it on us ... I’m sort of shell-shocked.”

Bradley Bowtell’s Singleton Heights home was the target of a drive-by shooting in 2018. The following year, 101.85 grams of ice was found there during a police raid.

For years a rumour circulated among police that Bowtell had been not only the Newcastle City president, but the Nomads’ national leader too. It was long-suspected, but something he’d always denied.

Asked in court, and under oath, whether it was true, Bowtell finally set the record straight: “No”.

Life as a Nomad was good, until it wasn’t. In 2018, things began to spiral. The Singleton Heights home Bowtell shared with his partner and son, then aged three, was shot up at the height of a bloody war with the Finks. One month later Bowtell and his comrades were dragged before the NSW Supreme Court and slapped with Serious Crime Prevention Orders.

Bowtell said a court mandate to stop associating with fellow bikies was the excuse he needed to claw his life back.

“I was pissed off at myself for joining and putting my family in that position where they could have been harmed,” he said.

“(The order) allowed me to distance myself away from other members.

“That’s when I could not have a clouded judgement, or cloudy brain fog of other people’s decisions in my life.”

Bradley Bowtell used a court order as a catalyst to leave the club. Picture: Facebook.

Bradley Bowtell said he had turned his life around. Picture: Dylan Robinson.

Bowtell wanted to leave the club, but he was scared. He knew retaliatory attacks were common, as was having to pay an exit fee into the tens of thousands of dollars. He was lucky to make it out relatively unscathed. Bowtell was forced to forfeit his expensive Harley Davidson motorcycles, and of course his club paraphernalia, but escaped any further penalty.

Still, his departure from the club dragged out. It took several months for Bowtell to completely cut ties with the Nomads, and it was during this time he was stung for drug supply.

In November 2019 Hunter Valley detectives raided the same Singleton Heights home where Bowtell now lived alone, locating just over 100 grams of ice in his garage. Bowtell agreed to sit down with police for a recorded interview, something Judge Roy Ellis acknowledged was the ultimate sign he’d turned his back on outlaw life.

“For a member of a motorcycle club to even participate in an electronically recorded interview would historically result in a not insignificant punishment,” Judge Ellis said.

“I’ve seen men sitting in front of me who have had ‘dog’ tattooed across their entire forehead, not because they made any admissions or dobbed anybody in, but simply because they’d participated.”

The Nomads’ Newcastle City clubhouse in Islington has since been closed down by Strike Force Raptor.

In the 18 months since the supply charge, Bowtell, now 37, said his life had changed dramatically. He runs a concreting business where he employs six workers, coaches junior footy and has custody of his son in the afternoons and on weekends.

“I’ve got a lot more to live for these days than worrying about club life,” he said.

His mum agreed.

“We’ve had a lot of talks about where he went wrong,” Ms Bowtell told the court.

“Now he keeps an eye on me and I keep an eye on him.”

Despite turning his life around, Bowtell still had the drug supply charge to answer to. After pleading guilty, he was on Thursday sentenced to two years and three months behind bars.

“At the end of the day, there are consequences for the things we do in life,” Judge Ellis said.

“Unfortunately for you, this is one of them.”

Bowtell will be eligible for parole in June 2022.