Lovers, feuds, court orders: Why these bikies turned their backs on OMCG life
From exit fees and brandings to assassination attempts, these are the bikies who turned their backs on their clubs and the prices they paid to do so.
Police & Courts
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Bikie gangs are built on loyalty and walking away is no easy feat.
Members who choose to leave their clubs are faced with harsh penalties, including hefty exit fees, forfeiture of bikes and sometimes violent retribution.
Those who do walk away are motivated by a range of factors, from police attention and court orders, to the desire to raise a family and live a wholesome life.
These are some of the bikies proving there is life after the club.
Bradley Bowtell
Bradley Bowtell was among the highest-ranking Nomads in the country but said he left it all behind to spend time with family and grow a legitimate business.
The 37-year-old former Newcastle City chapter president – and rumoured one-time national president – rose swiftly up the club’s hierarchy after being recruited in early 2014.
His enormous stature and loner nature drew the attention of the Nomads with Bowtell later telling a court they manipulated him into joining their ranks.
In 2018 and at the helm of the local chapter, Bowtell’s life began to spiral.
The Nomads were in the thick of a violent war with the Finks, his family home had been shot up, and he had been dragged before the NSW Supreme Court and issued a Serious Crime Prevention Order.
Bowtell later said the court mandate to stop associating with his fellow bikies had given him a taste of life away from the club, and prompted his decision to leave.
“It allowed me to distance myself away from other members,” Bowtell told the Newcastle District Court in June.
“That’s when I could not have a clouded judgment, or cloudy brain fog of other people’s decisions in my life.”
Although Bowtell did eventually leave the club, the process took several months, and in that time he was pinged for ice supply.
He told a sentencing hearing he was now focused on spending time with his family, coaching junior footy and growing his small concreting business.
Still, he was sentenced to two years and three months behind bars for the supply, and will be eligible for parole in June next year.
Chris Rymer
Penrith Rebels bikie Chris Rymer became known for sharing his lavish lifestyle and designer purchases on Instagram before he walked away from the club to pursue family life.
But he was dragged back into the headlines in March when a shooting left him with irreparable damage to his penis.
Rymer, 30, had been shot up to four times through the rear window of a taxi at Riverstone, with one bullet hitting his genitals and two his stomach.
The taxi driver was also shot but managed to steer the pair to hospital.
Police are investigating whether the shooting was an assassination attempt carried out by a man with links to the Lone Wolf OMCG.
A year earlier a court heard Rymer had parted ways with the Rebels, even going so far as to remove or cover his club tattoos.
A NSW Supreme Court bail review, for drugs and weapons charges that were later dropped, heard he left to rekindle his relationship with his girlfriend and operate a dog breeding business.
Moudi Tajjour
Mouhamed ‘Moudi’ Tajjour had already served four years behind bars for manslaughter before he was named Nomads national president in 2018.
He was always destined to be in the public eye as brother to current bikie Sleiman Tajjour, cousin to Kings Cross identity John Ibrahim, and having briefly married the sister of disgraced property developer and former Auburn deputy mayor Salim Mehajer.
It wasn’t long after Tajjour, 37, secured the top job he sensationally quit the club with his brother’s blessing.
“He said, ‘go burn your colours and I’ll send word out and no one will approach you, burn your colours and you’re out’,” Tajjour told The Daily Telegraph last year.
“It sent shivers up my spine. It was a happy moment but I was also upset as I walked away from 20 years on the street.”
A non-consorting order gave Tajjour the space he needed to cut ties with the club completely.
“Police helped me by putting me on an order,” he said.
“Even though I was retired, I was still seeing some of (the members) for coffees so I had to cease contact with everyone.
“(Police) saved me from this life. I had an excuse to say I was out … I walked away.”
Tajjour said he was happier than ever after leaving the club, thanks in part to his new partner and medication to manage his anger.
He runs a popular podcast, is working on a book, and welcomed his first child in June.
Graeme McGilvray
Former president of the Hells Angels South Coast chapter, Graeme McGilvray, is said to have fled the club in the 12 months since he was convicted of affray after a violent pub brawl.
A court heard the 34-year-old attacked a group of men at Huskisson Pub in January last year because they were “staring at him”.
The fight, which lasted 35 seconds and was caught in its entirety on CCTV, broke out after McGilvray head butted one of the men.
He then chased a man with a metal stool.
The father to three boys was on an alcohol and cocaine binge at the time of the assault, with his lawyer telling Nowra Local Court he had since changed his ways.
“He knows there is no excuse but the explanation would be that his judgment was clouded by drugs and alcohol,” the lawyer said in September.
McGilvray, who has the Hells Angels logo tattooed on his head, was sentenced to a two-year intensive corrections order with drug and alcohol counselling, and ordered to abstain from alcohol in public.
Benjamin Main
Former high-profile member of the Newcastle City/Hunter Valley Finks, Benjamin Main – who was at one-time rumoured to be the chapter president – is hard to miss with a face full of tattoos.
But a court this year heard those tattoos were among the decisions Main regrets, and had caused him to miss out on jobs and be judged by the public.
Cessnock Local Court in March heard Main, 28, made a string of poor choices – most recently participating in a violent pub bashing while serving a community corrections order.
He had previously been handed a Serious Crime Prevention Order by the NSW Supreme Court but his lawyer said he had “fallen off the rails” after it expired.
“His choices are something he probably regrets,” Roland Day said.
“It led him to that situation … he probably thought he had a sense of loyalty.
“He shouldn’t have gone back to those associates again.”
Mr Day told the court Main was a cocaine addict with emotional issues but was working to better himself under the positive influence of his new partner, a nurse.
Main requested a non-consorting order be put in place by the court, banning him from associating with the Finks once again, with the hopes it would allow him to get his life together once and for all.
He was sentenced to 16 months behind bars for affray, with that penalty dropped to a 12-month community-based intensive corrections order on appeal.
Mark Buddle
Mark Buddle was the national Comanchero leader before he fled overseas a decade ago to avoid police questioning over the murder of a security guard.
He has never been charged or issued any arrest warrant in relation to the death.
The 42-year-old, who is reportedly worth $100 million, had been laying low in Dubai with wife Mel Ter Wisscha until he was spotted in footage uploaded to social media in May.
The video showed Buddle in a scuffle with a group of British tourists, after one of them reportedly slapped his wife on the backside.
One month later Buddle fled again, this time to war-torn Iraq, as it was reported his life was in danger.
His move was also said to be motivated by the AN0M raids.
“He would have been on the network and a lot of his dealings would have been captured,” a senior NSW police officer told The Daily Telegraph.
“Even before this he was getting a lot of attention … there are a couple of contracts out on his life which may have been a motive behind him deciding to go to such an obscure place.”
It is understood Ms Ter Wisscha, who is not accused of any wrongdoing, has organised paperwork for herself and the couple’s two children to return to Australia.
It has been reported Buddle has struggled to relinquish control of his club while living abroad, sending a text to members in 2018 that read: “I’m the f**king commander of the world … no one is to touch another member or set up another chapter without my permission.”
Ty Jaques and Brent Oliver
Ty Jaques was only a member of the Newcastle City/Hunter Valley Finks for eight months but the experience left him permanently scarred.
He was savagely set upon by members with the word ‘dog’ tattooed on his forehead after he betrayed the club by participating in a police interview.
The Newcastle District Court in 2019 heard Jaques, 31, since had trouble removing the branding and was covering it with bandaids.
He joined the club and signed its rules in 2017, at the same time as Brent Oliver.
Oliver, 29, had been desperate to leave the club five months on and paid its $10,000 exit fee.
Both men were at the time charged with participating in a criminal group and contributing to criminal activity.
Judge Roy Ellis said both Jaques and Oliver had been at low points in their lives when they joined the club, and were lured by the promise of camaraderie.
“It was a rather naive decision to join,” Mr Ellis said.
“(Jaques) was suffering post-traumatic stress disorder after being present at work when a person was shot and then (the gunman) turned the gun on himself.
“(Oliver) and his partner suffered a miscarriage and he had just been terminated at his mine as it closed down.”
Jaques was sentenced to a 16-month intensive corrections order while Oliver was sentenced to an 18-month community corrections order.
Peter Zdravkovic
Former senior Commanchero Peter Zdravkovic was the target of an attempted assassination after he posted pictures to social media of himself burning his club colours.
In a series of posts to Facebook in June 2018, Zdravkovic, 39, taunted his fellow members, writing “they say they took my bike … you wish you s**t eating f**ks” and “this photo doesn’t show you motherf**kers holding my colours”.
Finally the ex-Canberra chapter commander posted “you will never take my colours like I took yours,” with pictures of his Comanchero vests burning.
Zdravkovic’s partner was then sent a screenshot of a retaliatory Snapshot that read, “Peter Zdravkovic, you and your crew got 24 hours to hand over everything, bikes, your AMG, colours, everything … or else the HITSQUAD gonna show up to your family’s”.
Just days later a group of masked and armed men stormed Zdravkovic’s Canberra home, shooting up the property and torching his prized Mercedes Benz and BMW. He lost a finger in the shoot out.
Comanchero Axel Sidaros, 25, was the only person charged over the attempted hit.
In December 2019 he was found guilty by an ACT Supreme Court jury of seven offences including attempted murder and arson, and later sentenced to at least eight years behind bars.
During the trial, asked what message he was trying to send by burning his colours, Zdravkovic responded, “no message”.
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