Deadline: Cashed-up gang’s tastes in art run far beyond tattoos

As police confiscated run-of-the-mill Cartier bracelets and Rolex watches from this Melbourne crime gang, they were shocked to find paintings by some of the biggest names in Australian art.

An acclaimed Brett Whitley painting found its way into the NCF art collection.

Andrew Rule and Mark Buttler with the latest crime buzz.

Tattoos, guns and oil paintings

The Notorious Crime Family was known for its assertiveness when it was at full strength.

Evidence of the gang’s attitude was plain to see on a Harley Davidson motorcycle seized under warrant around the time the NCF came under intense police scrutiny.

A decal on the side of the bike says “Pay Up Sucker”, a line which brought to mind NCF member Jimmey Barkho’s recent court appearance.

Police allege they were able to lay a firearms charge against Barkho after finding a video in which he jokingly addresses a dog at gunpoint.

“Where the money at?” Barkho barks at the pooch, which wisely maintains its right to silence. No good gangsta dog wants to be a stool pigeon.

A Harley Davidson is seized in raids on Notorious Crime Family.

A NCF motto emblazoned on the side of the seized bike.

Dogs, guns and Harleys apart, Notorious Crime Family members tend to be keen on tattoos demonstrating their gang allegiance: the letters “NCF” and inked-in images of their favoured AK47 machine gun emblem.

But some cashed-up NCF members’ interest in art went well beyond tattoos. Whether this was because they’re renaissance men in touch with their inner Picasso is debatable.

More likely it was because cunning accountants and lawyers told them they should look at art as an investment.

If that’s the case, they wouldn’t have been the first crooks to look for ways to turn rivers of dirty cash into something a little less crass and obvious than jewellery, boats, cars and racehorses.

It seems that state and federal police who confiscated the usual Cartier bracelets and Rolex watches in their asset-stripping operation against biker gangs also found works of art by acclaimed artists.

There was, for instance, Page of Lovers, a 1971 work by Brett Whiteley, one of the biggest names in Australian art.

A painting from Adam Cullen’s Ned Kelly series was in the gangsters’ gallery.

A work by another famous artist, Fred Williams, was also in NCF hands. That was Hillside Landscape with Green Tractor. You Yangs, a 1978 piece valued more than a decade ago at up to $180,000.

Another contemporary painter, the late Adam Cullen, also had one of his Ned Kelly series in the gangsters’ gallery. Cullen, like Whiteley, was keen on drugs but also guns and crooks. Not a great mixture.

Speaking of guns, the gang held two 2005 works by Archibald Prize winner, Ben Quilty, titled Mazda 121 and Bongo Van.

Quilty, of course, painted a massive canvas of a well-known and once admired corporal called Ben Roberts-Smith, painted posing with his hands extended like a cocked pistol. Its value might have dropped a little in the last couple of years. Or then again, it might not.

The art market, like notorious crime figures, is a fickle beast.

Sheales gets benched

In the strict courtroom hierarchy, magistrates and judges rule the roost. But vocal defence barristers sometimes like to crow a little too loud in the service of their clients.

This was the case when magistrate Rohan Lawrence, relatively new to the bench after being appointed in late 2021, faced repeated interruptions from high-profile criminal barrister Damian Sheales in a recent Melbourne Magistrates Court hearing.

Throughout the lengthy murder committal, Sheales was observed speaking over the top of his Honour, and making unsubtle remarks under his breath during prosecution submissions.

We are instructed by esteemed colleague Rebekah Cavanagh that the fed-up prosecutor sat down at one point to ask the beak to intervene.

High-profile criminal barrister Damian Sheales. Picture: Getty Images

And so it came to pass that the empire fought back.

“Mr Sheales, your disrespect can sometimes be astounding,” Mr Lawrence told him.

“I am telling you I don’t want to hear from you.”

The lawyer in question is known for his larger than life presence.

He shows what most accused criminals imagine is the right stuff by fighting hard and loud for clients and is quick to jump to his feet to object.

Unlike the aforementioned Ben Roberts-Smith, Sheales once had a defamation win over that particular newspaper after coming in for some tough criticism from a racing writer. So enough said.

He’s the sort of barrister someone like Marlion Pickett might lure across the Nullarbor to assist in his present troubles. Would that be a good idea? The jury’s out on that one.

Hero cop rode Grand National winner

The arrest of Richmond premiership player and sometime scallywag Marlion Pickett on burglary charges will be upsetting for all concerned, especially the nice folks who made a touching television documentary about Marlion’s brush with the Big House before the Tigers took a punt on him.

On the other side of the thin blue line, Det. Sgt. Peter Griffiths has hit the headlines for his brave performance in the arrest of a violent offender who tried to kill him with a hammer early last year.

In the split-second available, Griffiths ignored his training (to shoot high and centre of the body) and deliberately aimed low, wounding the attacker in the knacker, which is an irresistible rhyme.

Griffiths’ instinctively humane decision cost the wannabe cop killer Abdul Ibrahim a testicle but saved his life, for which he is now very grateful.

Detective Sergeant Peter Griffiths. Picture: Valeriu Campan

All of which proves that Griffiths is a better copper than he was a jumps jockey. He remains one of the turf’s accidental heroes after winning the Australian Hurdle-Grand National Hurdle double on Sir Agrifo in 1987, setting a post-war weight-carrying record.

Apart from those two big wins on the champion jumper (whose regular rider had been injured), Griffiths won only one other race from 70 rides. That was on an obscure beast called Graphite at St Arnaud.

His last ride was on Sir Agrifo, but his aim that day wasn’t as good as it is with a pistol. The big softie let the horse duck around a jump, disqualifying him.

Griffiths was always far too big to be a jockey, anyway. He found his niche in the police force in 1993 after deciding that horse training was mostly about chasing up bad debts. Which was a lucky break for Abdul Ibrahim.

Fangs for the ride

Deadline would never mock the thrift of others but there are limits to saving a buck. Such as when confronted with a life-threatening situation.

A former top detective now working in private industry is on a good wicket but that didn’t stop him considering his fiscal priorities in a potentially life-and-death scenario in the back of an ambulance.

Our man — known as “Bothwell” to protect his privacy — had been reaching into a bush at his country retreat when he felt a sharp pain in his arm.

He found two puncture marks and immediately deduced a snake had bitten him.

Bothwell reasoned it would take an ambulance too long to reach him so he jumped in his vehicle and drove towards the nearest hospital.

En route, he started to feel poorly, sweating bullets as he travelled the winding country roads to town with a blood-venom reading well over the limit.

By the time he reached hospital, he was decidedly unwell and was told he would be taken to Melbourne by ambulance.

But, as they left for the Big Smoke, the patient started to wonder what impact the trip might have on his wallet.

It was a long way to Melbourne and would have been a very expensive journey if medical insurance didn’t cover it.

At that point, the persuasive Bothwell talked the ambos into pulling over while he made a call to get answers on the dollars.

After some minutes, he was told the insurers would foot the bill, so our hero gave the green light and the journey resumed.

Deadline readers will recall the reason he got his unusual nickname. It happened at a metropolitan police station years ago when he unthinkingly commented on a picture pinned on a notice board of a colleague’s wife and newborn baby (captioned “Mother and baby both well”) by yelling words to the effect: “What the (expletive) sort of name is Bothwell!”

After his latest adventure, he might well be renamed the Death Adder. Because he acts as if there’s one in his pocket.

From E.R. to TV

There are times when it’s best not to be the star of the show.

Viewers checking out one of those fly-on-the-wall hospital TV reality shows recently would have seen a shooting victim being wheeled into a Melbourne emergency unit.

The bloke was in a bad way, having been shot multiple times in an incident (which actually happened some years back).

It was looking touch-and-go for the victim, who happened to be a member of a formidable organised crime group.

The good news was that the doctors and nurses got the job done and he’s still alive.