Russell St bomber Stan Taylor dies in prison

RUSSELL St bomber Stan Taylor, who had been serving a life sentence for the infamous 1986 blast, has died in prison.

Russell St bomber Stan Taylor. Picture: George Salpigtidis

RUSSELL St bomber Stan Taylor has died in prison.

Taylor, who had been terminally ill for over a year, died aged 79 today in a secure ward of St Vincent’s Hospital.

The career criminal had been serving a life sentence without parole for the infamous bombing of the Russell St police complex in 1986.

The blast killed police officer Angela Taylor and injured 21 other people.

SPECIAL REPORT: The day police were targeted

CONFESSION: Fellow bomber admits to his role

THE TRIAL: Russell St blast ‘an act of war’

The explosion outside the Russell St police station on March 27, 1986, constituted one of the most serious attacks on police and authority in the state’s history.

A fire fighter in protective gear fights the city blaze in 1986.

An aerial view of the attack site.

Constable Taylor, 21, died three weeks after the massive car bomb was detonated and two others, Magistrate Iain West and Constable Carl Donadio were seriously injured.

The blast was timed for 1pm, as people from nearby buildings were heading off to lunch.

The explosives were placed in a stolen car parked at the kerb directly in front of the police complex, opposite the Melbourne Magistrates Court.

Stan Taylor. Picture: File

Russell St bombing victim Constable Angela Taylor.

Constable Taylor walking across the road from the court on her break when the bomb exploded. Mr West and Constable Donadio were also on the street at that moment.

As the state reeled from the brazen attack, a $500,000 reward was offered as police launched one of the biggest investigations in Victorian history.

A series of raids and tip-offs led police to arrest Stanley Brian Taylor, Craig Minogue and several other men two months later.

Taylor and Minogue had been behind a string of violent armed robberies in the four years before the bombing, earning them more than half a million dollars.

Taylor was driven by a pathological hatred of police — and contempt for society, stealing the gelignite and detonators he need for his evil plan from a mine.

During the trial, a former Taylor said the plotters hated police, which had driven their desire to target their headquarters.

Taylor had told him “they were rapt about the explosion,but were disappointed they didn’t get more of the bastards `but next time we will’.”:

Taylor had wanted “to injure and kill as many cops and law staff as possible”, according to the evidence.

Justice Frank Vincent said in sentencing Taylor with one of the toughest sentences handed down since the end of the death penalty, that the Russell St bombing was an “act of war’’ and that Taylor had “a powerful influence for evil on young men who themselves already had criminal tendencies’’.

Among those he recruited at a youth club was Craig Minogue, jailed for life but with a mininum 28-year term.

In rejecting an appeal against their terms, Chief Justice Sir John Young and Justices Gray and McDonald said “the crime was a singular exercise in violence aimed at the police in general’’ but noted the bombing was set in a public street with full knowledge and expectation there would be civilian victims.

“The crimes ... were as serious as any that have ever been committed in this state.

“The bomb was detonated in a major thoroughfare in the city of Melbourne close to its centre and at lunchtime on a working day.

“It was detonated in the close vicinity of not only a major police complex but also of a number of other places to which members of the public frequently resort.’’

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