Bikies may face secret hearings to crack Shane Bowden murder case

Bikies and their associates face being hauled before secret “star chamber” hearings as police try to break the outlaw gangs’ code of silence to solve the slaying of notorious Gold Coast bikie Shane Bowden. A string of bikies and their associates have been jailed in recent years after falling foul of such hearings.

Bikies and their associates face being hauled before secret “star chamber” hearings as police try to break the outlaw gangs’ code of silence to solve the slaying of notorious Gold Coast bikie Shane Bowden.

Bowden, 47, was shot up to a dozen times in an execution-style killing in the driveway of his Pimpama home just after midnight on Sunday.

Police hunt Mongols over execution of Shane Bowden

He had been booted out of the Mongols bikie gang and rejoined his former motorcycle club, the Finks, where he was once an enforcer in its infamous “Terror Team”. A hit squad of Mongols bikies is suspected of being behind his murder.

Shane Bowden was gunned down in his driveway in Pimpama. Picture: Facebook

Police on Tuesday doorknocked Gold Coast bikies in an investigation that senior cops admit could be stonewalled by a “code of silence”.

Detectives may have to resort to Crime and Corruption Commission hearings to extract information. The closed-door hearings, dubbed the “star chamber”, are used by police during difficult investigations into murders, drug trafficking and other serious crimes.

Police at the murder scene in Pimpama where Shane Bowden was gunned down in his BMW, parked in his garage. Picture: Glenn Hampson

They were used to help investigate the double murder of ex-Comanchero bikie Shane Ross and his business partner Cameron Martin, who were gunned down in a Gold Coast park last year.

The girlfriend of one of the two Lone Wolf bikie gang ­members charged over the murders was charged with perjury earlier this year, accused of lying to a CCC hearing into the case. A string of bikies and their associates have been jailed for perjury or contempt in Queensland in recent years after falling foul of star chamber hearings into unrelated matters, including former Bandidos bikie Peter Mauric, who was hauled before the CCC in the investigation into the 2013 Broadbeach bikie brawl.

Police believe Bowden’s killers were waiting for him to return home. Picture: Glenn Hampson

Mauric was sentenced to 18 months’ jail in 2018 for giving conflicting evidence to the CCC and a court hearing against him and other bikies charged over the riot.

The CCC hearings proved crucial in the arrest of Mongols bikie Wade Yates-Taui for the killing of Bandidos gang associate Max Waller outside a Broadbeach high-rise in 2013. Bowden’s former Finks Gold Coast comrade Greg Keating was among those jailed for refusing to rat on the gang.

In 2011, then-Finks member Jason Morrison was jailed for contempt – and for blinding a man with a bar stool – after refusing to confirm he was a Fink or answer questions about the gang’s alleged involvement in drug dealing, at an Australian Crime Commission hearing.

Detective Superintendent Brendan Smith from the South Eastern Police Region said any move for CCC hearings would not occur until other avenues had been exhausted.

“There’s a long way to go before we get to that point,” he said.

Preliminary results of a post-mortem on Bowden’s body are expected before the end of the week.

Originally published as Bikies may face secret hearings to crack Shane Bowden murder case