Deadline: Bandidos national run turns sour in 2023
Last year the Bandidos national run at Ballarat featured a Welcome to Country ceremony and kumbaya vibes. Fast forward 12 months and bullets were flying and bikies hitting the bitumen.
Police & Courts
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Mark Buttler and Andrew Rule with the latest scallywag scuttlebutt.
Bullets and bingles for Bandidos in Ballarat
The Bandidos went from zero to 100 with their national run at Ballarat at the weekend.
On their previous trip to the ‘Rat for last November’s AGM, the biggest thing to report was that the Welcome to Country ceremony had been brought into the bikie world under the supposedly progressive national presidency of “Big Tony” Vartiainen.
But things weren’t quite so woke this time around.
On Saturday night, a senior local member was given the traditional outlaw Welcome to the Wrong End of a Gun greeting.
The fellow under fire had been with others at the club’s clubhouse in Greenbank Court, Delacombe, when there was some difference of opinion.
The upshot of this was that he presented himself at a local hospital with a nasty bullet wound to the upper body.
One shrewd local observer thought it was probably the result of a dispute resolution process to do with club infighting.
“We’ll see how the negotiations go from there,” he said.
There was further bad luck for the target after he skipped an ambulance ride and arrived at hospital under his own steam, presumably hoping not to stimulate the curiosity of local cops. But police were already there on unrelated business.
The one thing worse than being shot is trying to tell the police you have no idea who dunnit.
But the bad luck didn’t end there for the bikie fraternity. Deadline understands there were also three separate road accidents involving riders as they made their way around the Gold Rush capital.
One member is said to have suffered a broken arm and another a back injury after mishaps in what, it must be said, were pretty good conditions.
That meant that members of the Echo Taskforce, more accustomed to organised crime investigation, had to turn first responder a couple of times.
They were in town to monitor the movements of the Bandidos but were pressed into service after the boys hit the bitumen.
Uncovering an undercover cover-up
Speaking of cops being in town, there is the undeniably true story about the undercover “operatives” who blew into Warrnambool last year to drift around and see what they could find out about the disappearance (presumed murder) of local man Christopher Jarvis back in 2006.
The father of four was last seen leaving his rented Wangoom house for work at a local transport firm early one Tuesday morning.
His station wagon was later found on fire at Thunder Point coastal reserve but there was no sign of him then or since.
His family suspected foul play immediately but certain local detectives dismissed that solely on the grounds there was no body to be found.
The fact that Jarvis was engaged in a bitter argument over money with his ex-policeman landlord seemed not to bother the alleged investigators, despite the fact his disappearance came just 24 hours before a VCAT hearing over the rent dispute. Hmmm.
In the end, it was that well-known whistleblowing fraternity, the “first wives’ club”, that changed the police view of the Jarvis case. That was when the conscience-stricken ex-partner of a local man came to police with a detailed tip about her ex’s association with the former policeman in question, and alleged admissions he had made to her about Jarvis’s death.
The information was, she alleged, that Jarvis’s body had been buried in the Framlingham forest. Which was why two undercover officers in dirty jeans and the like were sneaking around in the bush, much to the indignation of indigenous traditional owners, notably some youths who might have been tending the odd “pot plant” there.
When said youths bailed up the scruffy trespassers, thinking they were rip-off artists, they got a fright when the pair produced pistols and identified themselves as police.
That’s when the undercover mission was blown.
Despite the undercovers’ cover being blown, the ex-cop was charged with Jarvis’ murder. Those charges were dropped some eight weeks ago, with the DPP saying there was no reasonable prospect of conviction.
What would Jesus drink?
Deadline would never resort to crude religious stereotypes because it’s plain wrong and probably in breach of some kind of industry guidelines.
Besides, why go out on a limb when others will do it for you?
A well-placed spy has sent us a flyer from the St Dominic’s Catholic parish in East Camberwell which is holding an evening for 18 to 30-year-olds called “How to Drink Like a Catholic.”
It’s fair to say the first thing that came to mind were the many Group One boozers from the RC flock that Deadline has known over the years.
But maybe we took it the wrong way and, in fact, there’s a message of moderation being conveyed.
It should be noted that our informer is a proud Mick man and partial to a sip on any day ending in Y.
Vegas man gambles and loses
So you wanna run the drink-drive gauntlet as a P-plater?
Well, there are probably less conspicuous vehicles around to do it in than an already distinctive 1972 Ford Galaxy that’s been tricked up with old-school American police logos. Not exactly the (Blues Brothers) Bluesmobile but close.
The 27-year-old driver found this out the hard way on Lygon St in Brunswick East early on Sunday morning.
He was cruising in the old Galaxy, emblazoned with Nevada State Trooper markings, when cops from Melbourne West took a professional interest. How could they not?
They did a roadside breath test and the Brunswick driver recorded a reading of .062, enough to have his licence disqualified for six months.
Breathing easy
A Deadline spy noticed a high-profile Melbourne organised crime figure looking relaxed with some female company a couple of weeks back.
Perhaps any stress in his life was eased a touch when a leading underworld identity abruptly became a non-threat.
Dan’s armed guard cops a break
The spontaneous applause at the Carbine Club lunch last week had hardly ended (after Eddie McGuire scooped everyone with news that Premier Andrews had stepped down) when one diner shared an inside snippet.
A close relative of his, he said, was a police officer who would be relieved by the Andrews exit, as he was mighty sick of being posted to the security detail that has sat off the Andrews’ family home for a very long time.
The officer in question is one of very few trained to handle a military-grade weapon that sounds rather like an anti-tank gun suitable for halting a threatening vehicle by blowing it to smithereens.
Whatever the capabilities of the “bloody big gun”, as our source calls it, the policeman concerned is hoping he won’t see it again for a while.
Sir Henry Bolte or John Cain would have been amazed at such precautions. Which
underlines the fact that a nasty after-effect of the rifts caused by the pandemic is the
sort of security we used to associate with American presidents and banana
republics.
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