Deadline: Is Cave Clan back beneath Melbourne’s streets?

They made headlines for their exploits in the tunnels and drains beneath Melbourne, and two men spotted climbing down a Camberwell manhole suggests the Cave Clan could be back.

Cave Clan made headlines in the 90s for their exploits beneath Melbourne. Picture: Jason Edwards

Mark Buttler and Andrew Rule with their weekly dose of scallywag scuttlebutt.

DOWN TO EARTH

We have not heard much about the Cave Clan for years. But back after the underground group formed in the 1980s, it often made the news with exploits in the tunnels and drains beneath Melbourne, much to the displeasure of the authorities.

But either the original Clan is back or others with similar interests have taken up their subterranean hobby.

Two young men climb down a Camberwell sewer.

Our eastern suburbs spy, codename “The Irishman”, spotted these young blokes crawling into a manhole near the Camberwell Hockey Club the other day.

Armed with rope and wearing head-mounted cameras, they left the manhole cover out of place and set off.

The Irishman could see the danger of a five-metre drop on to concrete. As he noted, the area is full of “old people who can’t see two feet in front of them”.

But he didn’t want to put the manhole cover back in place in case the group were trapped below, so he called the police.

While he waited, another two explorers emerged and assured him there were “plenty of ways to get out” and that he could put the cover back.

Cave Clan members explore the storm water system beneath Hawthorn in 1990.

The police still hadn’t arrived and The Irishman gave up.

Such exploration was big in the 1990s and the Cave Clan spread interstate and made trips to other cities to see what lay beneath.

Because of a number of fatalities associated with flash-flooding, the Cave Clan had strict rules about going underground in wet weather.

Their motto? “When it rains, no drains”.

SULKY TEA LEAF’S RED HOT GO

Cynical people call the harness racing fraternity “thieves on wheels” and like to rhyme “trots” with “red hots”.

It’s all water off a duck’s back but, sometimes, the trots authorities lift the lid on skulduggery, as they may have done in the abortive ring-in case in Adelaide recently.

That was the fascinating case in which Horse A raced in place of Horse B without detection in the first leg of the daily double but the alarm bells went off before another switch happened in the other leg of the double.

It now seems that refugees from whiffy South Australian trotting have moved east across the border. Such as young Jayden Brewin, whose family have relocated to Bendigo to help his previously brilliant career as a reinsman.

Jayden Brewin (left) warms up a horse by wading through the shallows at Port Gawler in 2018. Picture: Graham Fischer

Brewin isn’t far out of his teens but has had his ups and down. He capped off driving a double at Stawell not long ago by crashing his mother’s car while dodging Skippy on the Avoca-Dunolly road.

The stewards have pinged him for various indiscretions but the worst this year is what was alleged to be a blatant attempt to rig a race. It was, ironically, in the Fr Brian Glasheen pace at Charlton last month, a race named after the much-loved “pacing priest”.

Anything named after the revered Glasheen should be a good clean event. Sadly, the stewards initially didn’t think it was.

Stewards and punters alleged that Brewin’s horse went unaccountably wide around a turn, leaving a timely opening for a fancied runner to get off the fence and win.

People can get disqualified for years for these kind of moves but young Brewin was found not guilty. The charge was reduced and he was given a brief suspension.

Meanwhile, other problems are brewing for the young driver who was sprung pinching cash from another driver’s bag between races at Geelong on September 4, a transgression punished by the stewards under a catch-all provision in the rules.

In jail, that sort of behaviour is punished with broken fingers and boiling water.

NOWHERE TO RUN

In Mad Max 2, Wez tells Max “You can run, but you can’t hide”.

The line wasn’t original — the legendary heavyweight fighter Joe Louis coined it about an elusive opponent in the 1940s — but was highly effective. Still, it hasn’t filtered down to Cranbourne, where a couple of local fellows have found themselves in a cell over some dodgy DIY work.

Police grabbed them after turning over a house in Dingley where they found a crude homemade number plate bearing the words I’LL RUN.

A police officer with the dodgy DIY number plate.

It turns out the Cranbourne men didn’t get the chance to do that and were bundled into a police van instead.

Also found at the house were cash, shonky licences, a knife and drugs.

Judging by the quality of the artwork, it may be an object lesson in not mixing drugs and number plate manufacturing.

SLUG CASE ON THE RICHTER SCALE

Robert Richter QC’s intervention in the long-running I Cook “Slug Gate” saga has a lot of people licking their lips.

Robert Richter, QC. Picture: Chris Kidd

One Herald Sun reader last week commented that someone could make a motza televising the legal eagle’s future Q and A session as a pay-per-view proposition.

The barrister known as “the Red Baron” certainly promises to make a more searching examination than the recent parliamentary inquiry into some of the issues surrounding the Dandenong food company’s enforced closure in 2019.

Even police, many of whom have been left licking their wounds after courtroom encounters with the legendary lawyer, are looking forward to what transpires.

“A David and Goliath situation like this … he’d be salivating about it,” one senior officer said of Richter, who will be hungry for success after suffering a setback in the George Pell case.

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LOAD OF ULTRA TROUBLE

Artificial insemination is banned in thoroughbred horse breeding so when a galloper named Ivy Eff went around in race five at Ballarat on Wednesday it seemed a touch cheeky.

Ivy Eff finished well down the track but her clever name — she is by Master Of Design from La Famelia — reminded some racing people of the trials and tribulations of Ultra Thoroughbreds boss Sean Buckley.

Buckley is entangled in an investigation by stewards into allegations of transplanting of embryos, which is against the (thoroughbred) Studbook rules and likewise the rules of thoroughbred racing.

Sean Buckley with former partner Jennifer Cruz Cole.

Buckley denies the allegations and is co-operating with the investigation, which he says is “nonsense” and a result of a disgruntled employee’s campaign to discredit him.

Meanwhile, Buckley faces drama on other fronts. He has been charged with making threats to kill and recklessly causing injury.

The man who made his fortune heading the Ultra Tune automotive chain also faces counts of stalking, maintaining a listening device and installing an optical device.

But if the freak galloper Incentivise wins the Melbourne Cup next week it will give Buckley a bright spot in a tough year.

That’s because he raced Incentivise’s sire Shamus Award and owns a substantial share in the stallion, who is well on the way to being a gold mine.

Proof that luck is where you find it.

BUILDING A CASE IS CHILD’S PLAY

Money-laundering syndicates tend to be seen as running dodgy property investments, cashing casino chips, owning car wash places and using shonky accountants with two sets of books.

But there’s a new kid on the cash-cleaning block: Lego.

A group charged by Victoria Police over an alleged $27m laundering operation was found with $100,000 worth of the children’s play phenomenon.

No one is yet sure what the launderers do with Lego but it isn’t the first time it has been linked to crime gangs.

Portland, in the US, reportedly has a Lego underworld. And, in 2019, it was reported that French police were piecing together a case against an international gang of Lego thieves.

I LOOK LIKE MICK WHO?

A reader we will call Ken was interested in last week’s item that the Carlton identity Mick Gatto had kindly tipped off a neighbouring lawyer on the Mornington Peninsula that it might be an idea not to drive a Range Rover that looked like his. Ken says that at the height of the gangland war, police told a close neighbour of Gatto’s in suburban Lower Plenty he had a rather unfortunate likeness to the underworld figure and should be a little careful with his movements. The startled citizen sold up immediately.