Scot Palmer recalls his run-in with notorious criminal Dennis Allen at Richmond’s Cherry Tree Hotel

WHEN Scot Palmer banned notorious hitman Dennis Allen from his Richmond pub he knew trouble would follow. He was right.

AN extract of Paul Amy’s new book Fabulous Fred: The Strife and Times of Fred Cook, published in last week’s Sunday Herald Sun , revealed the violent relationship between Cook and notorious criminal Dennis Allen.

Today, former Sunday Herald Sun sports writer Scot Palmer recounts his dealings with Allen when Palmer was a partner in Richmond’s Cherry Tree Hotel.

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EACH time the gold-laden tattooed figure of the deadly drug dealer Dennis Allen walked in my wife’s heart missed a beat and mine was filled with trepidation.

I can imagine the fear footballer Fred Cook felt and the terrible uncertainty of what would happen next when cold-eyed Allen visited.

We were all faced by an unstable character with a gruesome background in murder.

As a partner in the then notorious backstreet pub, the Cherry Tree, in Richmond, the time finally came when I had to stand my ground, almost nose to nose, and ban Allen.

From the time my colleagues Ron Barassi, Adrian Gallagher and my family took over the pub, Allen felt we had encroached upon his territory.

It had been where bleary-eyed addicts ordered first drinks of raspberry cordial in the morning, waiting for the arranged drug delivery from Stephenson St, where Allen lived in high security.

Oh, how the words of my son Lincoln, the hotel’s young licensee, hit home, having heard my edict to Allen one day. Lincoln said: “What have you done now Dad?”

It wasn’t long before shots were fired — not for the first time — into the cherry-coloured masonry of the pub and word filtered through to me that a contract had been placed on my head.

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All of Allen’s efforts of trying to gain a foothold in the pub, like buying a rum and coke in a short glass and leaving a $50 note as payment, had failed. The change was handed back to him on his next visit.

Lincoln had also been party to another frightening episode when a drug dealer arrived one night and didn’t like the way a patron and boarder, the late In Melbourne Tonight crooner Terry Holden and his drinking partner looked at him.

The drug dealer pulled out a revolver and for what seemed a lifetime threatened to blow off my testicles. My son, in the meantime, had slipped upstairs and returned with his shotgun, warning the swarthy intruder he had him in his sights.

Fabulous Fred, in the new book of the same name, no doubt encountered much the same from Allen and his associates, and from what I hear much worse.

My wife and son, and Allen, were always under intense police scrutiny, although not once did we call them for help. We were told by people “in the know” to try to handle it ourselves because things like the gun play and intimidation might only get worse.

TV cameras were mounted on the derelict Rosella Factory aimed at the pub and up Stephenson St. Our red phone was bugged until my wife Lorraine had it checked privately and insisted the listening device be ­removed.

One large Painter and Docker, who was a regular drinker, became something of a saviour for whenever Allen tested our willpower and crossed the doorstep, our gentle giant always saw him out.

The drama on each occasion was intense as it would have been at Cook’s Station Hotel in Port Melbourne, where Allen — with his dangling array of chains, worth $250,000, around his neck — felt he had a stake in the property and power over the great VFA goalkicker.

What did scare me however was the aftermath of our keenly contested pool tournament when I handed out trophies and shouted a beer for the unlucky runner-up who seemed like an OK bloke. He didn’t let on that he had bikie connections and was in the drug business.

Shortly after this, his body was found floating down the Yarra in a drum with his legs cut off.

Stories of Allen’s appearances at pubs in Richmond were frightening. People who fell into his clutches left town.

It took my family about 18 months to rid the wonderful Cherry Tree — the spot where history proves ­“Squizzy” Taylor was first caught jumping the bar to steal 10 shillings from the till — of drugs. No longer did we have to pull young girls from the toilets with needles in their arms.