Hells Angels contract killer Gerald Preston launches court action to secure prison switch to UK

GERALD David Preston, the man convicted of the Lonsdale double murder bikie hit, has launched court action to have a decision refusing his request to transfer to a UK prison overturned.

SA convicted murderer Gerald David Preston found guilty of murdering Les Knowles and Tim Richards by shooting at Lonsdale motor garage leaving Family Court 18 Nov 1998.

ONE of South Australia’s most notorious killers has launched Federal Court action after being refused permission to serve out his jail term in Britain where his mother lives.

Gerald David Preston – who executed two men in a Hells Angels-sanctioned hit – is seeking a judicial review of the decision, claiming there has been a breach of “natural justice’’ in the process that resulted in his transfer being denied by federal Justice Minister Michael Keenan.

Preston, now 56, made the application under the International Transfer of Prisoners Act and was advised in November that his request had been refused. Last month he launched the Federal Court action seeking a judicial review of that decision to have it overturned.

He lists several grounds in his application for review, including that the minister was “misinformed about the true nature of my relationship with my past criminal associates’’ and the minister “wrongly assessed the potential for risk to my person’’.

The Sunday Mail was refused access to other documents in the Federal Court case file, including extensive affidavits prepared by Preston to support his application.

Justice John Mansfield has also taken the unusual step of ordering that sections of some documents be placed in a sealed envelope and not accessed without his express order.

Preston is serving a life sentence with a 32-year non-parole period after being convicted in 1998 of the cold-blooded executions of drug dealer Les Knowles and Tim Richards at Knowles’ auto repair business in Lonsdale in July, 1996.

The Supreme Court heard Preston was paid $10,000 by Melbourne-based Hells Angel Terrence Tognolini to carry out the hit, allegedly sparked by a dispute over drug-dealing in the southern suburbs.

In 1999, Preston was questioned after the execution of his former partner, Vicki Jacobs, in Victoria.

She was shot six times in the head and upper body as she slept next to their son, Ben, 6.

Jacobs was the key prosecution witness in Preston’s murder trial in 1998 and subsequently refused police offers of witness protection.

At a subsequent coronial inquest into her death, Coroner Phillip Byrne found that “the fingers of suspicion point squarely at Gerald Preston, Terrence Tognolini and his associates as implicated in the death of Ms Jacobs’’.

Retired Major Crime detective Gerry Feltus, who led the investigation into the Lonsdale executions, yesterday said Ms Jacobs was murdered to send a warning to others.

“She was killed to send a clear message to any witnesses in the future – this is what will happen if you give evidence in any case involving gang activities,’’ he said.

Mr Feltus said he remembered Preston as one of the “most calculating’’ killers he had ever encountered during three decades of homicide investigations.

“He was a very cool, calm criminal. He was meticulous in planning his crimes and carrying them out,” Mr Feltus said.

“He was also remorseless. At Lonsdale, he was prepared to kill everyone in the workshop just to make sure his target Les Knowles was dead.’’

Originally published as Hells Angels contract killer Gerald Preston launches court action to secure prison switch to UK