Bikie Toby Mitchell survived two shootings — and quitting the Bandidos
THERE’S no one more ex- than an ex-bikie. Except for feared enforcer Toby Mitchell, who was able to quit the Bandidos without punishment. How did he just walk away?
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TO measure Mitchell’s standing in the outlaw bikie world you have to understand how badly it goes for most members of the brotherhood when they want to leave it.
This is how it went for one Bandidos biker who quit. Stephen Jones wanted to change his life — instead, he almost lost it.
When three of his former “brothers” turned up at his house on a summer evening in 2009, they kicked the door in, grabbed him by the hair and threw him on to his bed. Then they pointed a handgun at his arms and legs and one snarled, “Where do you want it? You’re gonna cop one today, where do you want it?”
Jones pleaded for his life. They shoved the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger on an empty chamber, then bashed his head and cut his right ear with a knife. They held him down while one kicked him in the face. Then the man who had threatened him with the handgun hit Jones’s head with a guitar so hard the guitar shattered.
As they left, they told the bleeding Jones he would be killed if he went to the police. They stole two valuable Harley-Davidson motorcycles, his car, and other gear worth a total of more than $100,000, probably the real reason for the “punishment” raid.
Jones dragged himself to his neighbours’ house. At first, they did not recognise him because of his injuries. They called an ambulance. When the doctors cleared the blood away they made a list of his injuries: multiple cuts to his forehead, nose, eyes and especially his right ear; fractured cheekbone, eye socket and broken teeth.
All proof that there’s no one more ex- than an ex-bikie. Except for Toby Mitchell, it seems, who quit the Bandidos without a scratch in 2013.
He might dress like a gangsta rapper on angel dust and wear more heavy metal than Iron Maiden, mostly in his teeth, but in certain circles Mitchell has respect.
He also has enemies, all armed and dangerous.
MITCHELL BACK AFTER LOST MONTHS
The best-known tattooed face in town
THERE are less painful ways to become a household name than to be shot outside a popular inner-suburban gym on a busy weekday afternoon.
Toby Mitchell was known in his own circles — bikies, tattoo parlours and the fight crowd — before a gunman ambushed him outside Doherty’s Gym in November 2011. But it was surviving the violence of the next few seconds that made his tattooed face (and heavy metal teeth) one of the best-known in town.
Doherty’s Gym is in Weston St, Brunswick, near busy Barkly Square shopping centre and just down the street from the Quarry Hotel, where another Melbourne standover man, Brian Kane, was shot dead by two mystery gunmen in 1982.
Some things don’t change.
The name of the gunman who pumped five bullets into Mitchell that afternoon has been widely circulated but no one has been charged, just as Kane’s killers have never been arrested for the other shooting that set the “old time” underworld abuzz.
In both cases, revenge was apparently the motive for gunplay. But there was one difference. Mitchell, granite hard from years of gym work and kickboxing, pulled through where others might have died. He lost a kidney, most of his liver and movement in his right wrist but survived to fight another day: less than two years later, he was sprayed with bullets outside a rival gang’s clubhouse at a Melton industrial estate.
Mitchell the one-time raging bull had become Mitchell the bullet magnet. Someone out there didn’t like him. But who and why?
Plenty of people might have had reason to draw a bead on him but the Calabrian crime figure Rocco Arico was near the head of the queue. Evidence aired in a recent court case substantiated in detail the story of how Mitchell cheated Arico of a 1kg consignment of cocaine that one of Arico’s underlings “sold” to him on Boxing Day 2010.
Mitchell took the cocaine — but didn’t pay for it. After taking delivery of the drug at a prearranged outdoor meeting place in Brunswick, Mitchell told Arico’s messenger — Arthur Vouthas — that the money was in a bag under a nearby tree. He then drove away, quite possibly laughing.
MOB BOSS ROCCO ARICO LEFT WITH NO FANS
When Vouthas opened the bag he found, instead of the $375,000 cash he had bargained for, a bundle of old Ralph magazines. Vouthas then had to face Arico, telling him he could scrape up $100,000 but not the full amount to cover the lost merchandise — let alone the loss of face.
The enraged and humiliated Arico threatened Vouthas (and his wife, Stacey) demanding that they sell or mortgage their house in Coburg to pay what was owed — or that Vouthas kill Mitchell to settle the debt.
When Mitchell was shot outside Doherty’s Gym 11 months after the cocaine rip-off, Vouthas claimed credit for it — but Arico knew it was a lie. He continued to stand over Vouthas and his family, “torching” Vouthas’s father’s car and threatening to shoot up their house, exerting pressure that would turn Vouthas into a police informer willing to wear a “wire” to trap Arico.
The result: Arico has been implicated in several serious crimes, sentenced to a long jail term and will face deportation to Italy, his country of birth, if and when he is released from prison. Arico, of all people, knows that life is cheap in jail: he is the prime suspect for organising the murder of Carl Williams at Barwon’s high-security unit in early 2010.
Toby Mitchell will get out of jail much sooner than Arico — probably in the next six weeks — but will not face deportation because the former Bandidos sergeant-at-arms is very much a “homegrown” crook.
‘I can think of plenty of worse kids’
GEOFF Mitchell, Toby’s father, was a knockabout footballer turned part-time bouncer and small-time greyhound trainer who grew up around Moorabbin. He took his family to Darley, next to Bacchus Marsh, in the early 1980s when Toby and his siblings were young.
Geoff, big and tough, played country football then and had a reputation as an enforcer on the ground and as a rough diamond off it. By comparison, young Toby seemed pleasant enough. Former teachers at Bacchus Marsh recall he was “no real problem” at school.
One former metalwork teacher recalls young Mitchell didn’t like authority and hung around with some “hard nuts” but was never the worst of the bunch.
“I’d class him as a larrikin more than belligerent in those days,” says the retired teacher. “There were plenty of them at the Marsh then that would poke their chests out and have a go but he (Toby Mitchell) had a bit more class than that.”
Another trade teacher says he got on well with young Mitchell. “He was a guy you could talk to and have a bit of fun but he knew where the line was.”
The former carpenter admits he probably had less trouble than some teachers because he was “six foot and 120 kilograms” and had worked on building sites with tradesmen and labourers before taking up teaching.
“I kept a little black book for troublemakers, which made them think I was a copper brought in to clean up the school. If someone played up they got their name in the book. He (Mitchell) knew he might be in the black book and that he didn’t want a second stroke against him. He took that message on board.
“I can think of plenty of worse kids. There was no sign of him standing over other kids or brawling at school.”
It was not until much later that former teachers and classmates realised that “their” Toby Mitchell had become the notorious underworld figure.
“(Toby) was pretty quiet ... low-key,” says another former local. “He wasn’t out there stealing or being a smarta---. I never saw any sign of him being a bad kid.”
That might have been a shrewd character reading, according to those who know Mitchell.
In his time with the Bandidos, he had a reputation as a diplomat in a setting where bloodshed is the normal way of settling disputes. And he formed a firm friendship with (now former) Richmond footballer Jake King, who apparently part-owns a South Melbourne tattoo parlour with him.
After the family left Bacchus Marsh, Geoff Mitchell set up greyhound kennels at Keysborough. Those who visited “Mitchell Lodge” suggest it was a fairly grand name for a collection of tin sheds and an “office” barely big enough to fit the imposing figure of Mitchell sr, who wears ear studs and heavy gold chains and did a bit of nightclub bouncing to help feed the dishlickers.
No matter what else he threatened, Geoff Mitchell never threatened to become the Bart Cummings of greyhound training.
But in an otherwise modest career dating to the 1970s, he did produce one top-grade sprinter, Remo Rubik, which won country cups, made the field for the 2009 Greyhound Melbourne Cup and later stood at stud. At $1100 per straw of semen, Remo was a hot dog for a while.
One of Geoff Mitchell’s greyhound influences was well-known trainer Chris Johannsen — a classmate from their days at Moorabbin West Primary and later Sandringham “Tech”. That is the Chris Johannsen who last year had his trainer’s licence suspended for six months when one of his dogs tested positive to a prohibited drug. But his old school friend has mostly avoided controversy except when seen supporting his son during various court appearances.
A group of former suburban greyhound owners recall that Geoff Mitchell was honest to deal with — especially about their dog’s ability. He strongly advised them to “sack” the dog because she lacked the killer instinct to be a winner.
‘He’s got a smile on his face 99 per cent of the time’
The same could not be said of the trainer’s son. For someone who had shown little interest in sport apart from wearing basketball singlets around the streets, Toby soon made waves in the kickboxing scene.
He became a skilled fighter and something of a crowd favourite because, apart from his extreme taste for tattoos, jewellery and clothes, he had personality and intelligence not always displayed by his contemporaries.
There were persistent rumours that some of his fighting skills were later used outside the ring. Like fellow kickboxers Dave “the Rock” Hedgecock, “Machinegun Charlie” Arnautovic and Andrew “Benji” Veniamin, Mitchell was to form associations that intrigued police.
One of the first times his name became public beyond kickboxing was when he was named in court as a person of interest for the murder of Mark Mallia, whose burnt body was found in a wheelie bin at a Sunshine reserve in 2003.
Mitchell was never charged and no evidence was ever produced to prove he had any part in Mallia’s torture and murder. But he apparently did something to upset a dangerous criminal, Gavin “Capable” Preston, currently in jail on serious charges and still the prime suspect for the Doherty’s Gym shooting.
Mitchell almost died that day and will carry the scars — and permanent injuries — as long he survives. He used to be a walking advertisement for human growth hormone — and perhaps that illegal substance helped him recover from near death.
“For a bloke who could barely move and should be dead by now, he looks a million bucks,” says one observer. In truth, he is no longer the Once were Warriors figure he cut before the shooting.
But his public persona, says one close observer, is still “bold as brass”, all confidence and intimidation.
One-on-one, away from his peers, he is more serious and reflective than the character he plays in front of cameras.
“He looks after himself. He’s got a lot of personal pride. He’s no druggie hobo. He’s too measured for that,” the observer says.
Before he went to jail, he lived well in a high-rise apartment tower, drove prestige cars and wore expensive clothes. All, apparently, without working or involving the tax office.
In his dealings with the law, which are numerous, he treats police as cannily as he treated his teachers 25 years ago.
“He never jacks the cops up,” says one source. “He’s cool as a cucumber. He’s not an idiot. He’s got a smile on his face 99 per cent of the time.”
Oddly (for a one-time bikie enforcer) Mitchell is a little like Mafia lawyer-turned-gangster Mario Condello, who could mix “game face” menace with silky social skills right up until the night he was shot dead in his own garage. “You could sit around and have a laugh with Toby,” says the source.
Career criminal Chris “Badness” Binse saw Mitchell’s diplomatic side when the underworld wrecking ball that is Gavin Preston stalked him in 2011.
Binse later said Mitchell was keen to “have a chat” with Preston to see how the situation could be defused. It didn’t work, but there were other times when it has. He made a point of not upsetting members of rival outlaw gangs for no reason. Of course, sometimes it could not be avoided.
The result is that he is still alive — but in jail, serving the final weeks of a 20-month sentence after being caught with large quantities of cocaine and amphetamine while on bail for other offences.
He has served most of his sentence in the Metropolitan Remand Centre, which was hit by destructive riots last year. Scores of prisoners took the chance to play up, but not Mitchell. He’s too disciplined for that. Besides, he needs to concentrate on who might be waiting for him when he gets out.
His tattoos are extensive and expensive but not bullet proof.