‘Dumb bastards’: Gang-busting cop Ken ‘Slasher’ McKay calls out bikie ‘clowns’
A former cop has laughed off the threat of violence from outlaw bikie gangs, saying members are cowards - “otherwise they wouldn’t have this big need to be in groups of 20” - and he was proud to send the smallest woman in his team to arrest them. NEW POLICE TAPE PODCAST
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One of Sydney’s most outspoken former senior police officers has launched a blistering attack on outlaw bikies calling them cowards, dumb bastards and women-bashers, while at the same time admitting the public often don’t know the worst of what crime groups are up to.
“We, keep you in the dark,’’ said former NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Ken “Slasher” McKay in a wide-ranging interview for new podcast Police Tape.
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McKay said he had spent much of his 37-year career investigating organised crime groups, and while the public got to hear of the shootings, drug dealing and sex attacks by bikies and Middle Eastern gangs and others, they were carrying out far worse.
“We (the police) work on groups of organised criminals that you don’t even know about, and you don’t need to know about, because if you did know what they were up to you’d be quite concerned. So we keep you in the dark and deal with it and that’s what organised crime investigations do,’’ he said.
“So we deal with them so you can actually sleep in bed at night and think the world’s great and it’s all good out there.’’
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BEATING THE BIKIES
During his career, McKay has dealt with some of the most evil human beings across the criminal spectrum, but he reserves most of his contempt for Outlaw Motorcycle gangs.
“Don’t forget bikie groups have a couple of smart people at the top and the rest are just dumb bastards and you only have to look at them, you know — they dress up like clowns, they ride loud machines, get grabbed by the cops all the time and they’re quite easy to infiltrate because, you know, once you start getting some of these people with intellectual incapabilities and you grab them, they love to roll over,’’ he said.
One case he highlights is the bikie-busting work of Operation Sibret, which totally dismantled the Nomads bikie gang network from Newcastle and the north coast of NSW, all the way up to the Gold Coast chapters, in 2014.
“You know you’ve done your job,” he said, “when the end result of that operation pretty much ticked all the boxes and achieved what you had started out to do. I think we locked everyone up. We lost a few along the way — they were dead. We locked up the main players, we found all their stashes, we found all the armaments, we found everything we sort of set out to do.
“But again that Nomad’s gang in Newcastle was your typical bikie group — you know, the president was an absolute bonehead, the whole group was run by the Sergeant at Arms. They ran around the town and they were utilising the dumb bastards down the bottom to deliver the gear, and we just followed them around and go and get the highway patrol to pull them up and do a random take out, just to get an idea of what they were up to.’’
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Listening devices were used in helping to get information on the gang, with McKay saying he heard things which appalled him.
“They were treating their women the most horrible way. You know they would bash their wives for birthdays, Fridays, Sundays, anniversaries or whatever.’’
It was this information which also helped to break open the gang, with the female victims of the bikies speaking out to bring the club down.
“We tracked them (the women) and going through the health system they were all in hospital at different times under different names. And again that was probably the pleasing thing about that operation — when we grabbed them all (the bikies), we took all the women away and they all rolled. It was actually like them being released from prison you know. It was just amazing.’’
NOTHING TO FEAR
When asked if he feared retribution from bikie gangs, McKay laughed.
“The biker groups are pretty much cowards you know. Otherwise they wouldn’t have this big need to be in groups of 20. You know, we used to take great pride in sending the littlest girl on the team to arrest bikies because they had nothing … they couldn’t go toe to toe with a 5ft, little blonde girl. I was never fearful of any of the bikers and I don’t think any of my staff were because they bring nothing to the table.”
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