Flashback: Coast’s day of bikie infamy

A LITTLE more than a week after those involved in the Broadbeach bikie brawl going free and a month out from the VLAD laws review, the Gold Coast Inc. mood is a nervous one.

SEPTEMBER 27, 2013. It is a day that will forever remain scarred into the memory bank of the Gold Coast.

And it will be particularly so for the people who were there that night in the heart of the Broadbeach restaurant precinct when a terrifying bikie showdown erupted in their midst.

Families and visitors dining in one of the Gold Coast’s visitor hot spots had their enjoyment obliterated as warring bikies feuded openly on the footpath.

A warning of what was to come sounded when dozens of Bandido bikies in full colours roared into Broadbeach on the Friday night.

Two men wrestle on the ground during the notorious Broadbeach bikie brawl. Photo: Qld Police

They would eventually have the violent run-in outside Aura restaurant with two men before hopelessly outnumbered police tried to contain the situation.

Chairs and tables flew, a bystander was threatened with having their throat cut, and a police officer was king-hit. The Gold Coast Bulletin later reported that after the brawl, gang members stampeded the Southport Police Station where three of those arrested were being held.

The brawl was later described by bikie-busting police superintendent Jim Keogh — who headed up the Rapid Action Patrol squad to crack down on Gold Coast gang crime — as a line in the sand.

Gold Coast Bikie Brawl between the Bandidos and Finks at Broadbeach. Photo: A Current Affair

“That was the single most defining moment,” he told the Bulletin in September last year.

“That’s a big call when you consider the Ballroom Blitz (where rival bikies clashed at a kickboxing event at Royal Pines) and Robina Town Centre, where an innocent lady was shot, but Broadbeach was a declaration of war.”

Supt Keogh was commenting a year on when the LNP government’s Vicious Lawless Association Disestablishment (VLAD) laws had kicked in and police led by his RAP squad were starting to win the war against bikies on the Coast.

Last week, the fallout from the brawl was all but concluded in the courts when 18 current and former Bandidos involved in the disturbing incident all walked free.

Jacques Teamo and ex-Bandidos president Adam White, painted as changed men by their lawyers, got four-month suspended sentences, the most serious punishment dished out. Others were given shorter sentences, also suspended, while the rest copped fines, none more than $4500.

Some members of the Gold Coast business community are alarmed at the sentences as well as the Labor Government’s ongoing review of the VLAD laws.

Speaking to Coast Weekend, top Gold Coast real estate agent Lucy Cole, who has been in the industry more than 20 years and has one of her Lucy Cole Prestige Properties offices in Broadbeach, says the sentencing was disappointing.

“It’s been a slap in the face for Gold Coasters, what was dished out,’’ she says. “You feel like you go back to square one now. They all end up being cautioned and essentially let off.’’

A Surfers Paradise business owner says he believes a watering- down of VLAD will mean “all that hard work will be reversed overnight and those guys will be back in no uncertain terms — immediately’’.

“I can’t believe they are talking about watering it down. You’ve got these Chinese billionaires investing here now — if it’s not safe, they aren’t going to do that.’’

The Labor Government is scheduled to report back on its review of the laws in October.