Deadline: Wikipedia’s Toby Mitchell mix-up

Toby Mitchell has been called many things. Now thanks to Wikipedia he has a new title. Andrew Rule and Mark Buttler with the latest crime buzz.

Toby Mitchell — former Australian sporting hero.

Melbourne’s top crime writers Andrew Rule and Mark Buttler with their weekly dose of scallywag scuttlebutt.

WHEN TOBY MITCHELL COPPED A SERVE

For someone with so many bullet wounds, Mongols bikie boss Toby Mitchell is a man for all seasons.

He was, for instance, seen in the leafy bayside suburb of Highett the other day watching his beloved Port Colts play footy, where he nodded politely to an ex-policeman also lining the boundary.

Toby Mitchell the tennis player. Picture: Google

Maybe they’d met once at Olympic Park dogs back when Toby’s dad trained dishlickers.

Among the human tattoo’s other interests — exotic cats and photography, for instance — he apparently loves tennis.

He can be seen every year in a great seat at the Australian Open.

Deadline is pretty certain he has never actually played the game at the top level, despite the impression you might get from checking his name on the internet.

Truth is, there is another Toby Mitchell, the one born at Leongatha in 1976, who made the main draw of the Australian Open a couple of times in the 1990s.

Much to tennis Toby’s amusement, perhaps, is that his initial Wikipedia entry features photographs of tattoo Toby looking badass on gang runs and outside court (that’s law court, not tennis court).

The actual Wiki page has made the distinction clear, suggesting that readers should not confuse the tennis racqueteer with the bikie racketeer.

Watching the Australian Open is as closes as this Toby Mitchell ever got to a tennis court. Picture: Michael Klein

Mitchell v Mitchell would make a good charity match if Tennis Toby agreed to play left-handed and not to try too hard.

The Echo task force could supply an umpire. The Mongols could organise some exotic dancers as ball persons. What could possibly go wrong?

IT’S A GAS, GAS, GAS

A prison Skype call has ended in tears for a hot-headed guest of Her Majesty.

The crook went crazy over something that was said and trashed a phone area before being taken to his cell and doing his level best to destroy it.

After thousands of dollars of damage, officers eventually brought matters to an end by blasting the inmate out of his cell with tear gas.

It brought to mind the time a visitor at one of our maximum security jails paused in a cell to watch the 2013 Oaks with a senior corrections officer.

The visitor was disappointed to watch his horse, Tear Gas, fail to land the chocolates.

“Tear gas always wins in here,” the official said dryly.

UNHAPPINESS IS A WARM GUN

The Melbourne vehicle industry can be a volatile workplace when the wrong people get upset.

Auto business operator Joe Scordo. Picture: Supplied

Photos taken at Sunshine West auto shop International Motor Cars may or may not show how seriously some people take business disputes.

IMC, previously run by Joe Scordo, was blasted with shots a while back for reasons that remain unclear, leaving the odd bullet hole in the odd car.

Not that a little drive-by would be front of mind for Mr Scordo at this point.

He is cooling his heels in the clink after being arrested over allegations IMC premises was to be the “main door” for a $1.6 billion drug importation conspiracy uncovered by the AFP’s Ironside operation.

The current owners of IMC had no idea about the alleged drug scheme and are not involved in the plot.

The business’s address, incidentally, is Enterprise Way.

International Motor Cars after it was blasted with shots. Picture: Supplied

SNAKE EYES AND SANTA CLAWS

It’s not easy coming up with good aliases for protected witnesses, alleged crooks and proven crooks whose names have been suppressed in exchange for informing their way into lighter jail sentences.

That is why one of the most dangerous and duplicitous reptiles ever to pull on a balaclava has already been through one perfectly good alias and we have had to re-name him yet again — as “Snake Eyes”.

Just to make it clear who’s who in the zoo, Snake Eyes is the one who white-anted Goose after shooting dead a couple of other bad guys. Keeping up?

A Deadline reader has kept track of Snake Eyes over the years since running across him while working a conciliation officer dealing with disputed worker’s compensation claims.

It seems that Snake Eyes, who was then known simply by the name his parents gave him, was genuinely injured while working as a builder’s labourer for his brother, the one we will call Santa Claws.

Snake Eyes fell down an unprotected stairwell in a partially built house. That’s career crooks for you — they just won’t follow health and safety regulations.

“This actually seems to have happened,” states our source.

“But I am sure you will not be surprised to know that (Santa Claws) had not paid any premium for worker’s compensation — so the case was being done under what was then called the uninsured fund as ... all workers are covered even if there is no known employer.

“His name never meant anything to me until the insurer rang me pre-conference to draw my attention to his name and the numerous references to his life online.

“While I never felt concerned as this life I was in had nothing to do with his ‘other life’ I was very curious to see what he was like. He was being represented by a prominent labour lawyer who I knew quite well. He was wanting a permanent impairment claim — a lump sum for his injuries. I followed all procedures in accordance with our protocols and he was a very polite and pleasant person to me and the agent.

“(Santa Claws) was not there as Worksafe had been ‘unable to locate the Employer’. I would love to know how much effort they put into that.

“The one thing I do remember was how slight he was and how much he was dripping in various pieces of gold jewellery.

“I wonder how much he got as he did seem to have some serious injuries … although he had recovered by the time I saw him.”

LES IS MORE

Les Twentyman has a million stories from a life full of doing good works with “bad” kids on the wrong side of the tracks, but one that still makes him laugh is the day he borrowed a bus from Sunshine Secondary School to take a load of delinquents on an excursion.

Les Twentyman. Picture: Supplied

Sadly, there was a lengthy traffic jam and the young rogue males amused themselves by reaching out and breaking the aerials on nearby cars.

But the real trouble started when their bus crawled alongside a bus full of convent girls and Team Twentyman started “mooning” them.

Given that the borrowed bus was clearly marked, Sunshine Secondary College got a lot of heat the next day from the outraged convent principal, which was relayed to Twentyman with interest.

That’s just one of the yarns that will be in the documentary on Twentyman’s life work currently being put together by production company JDL Films and acclaimed director Rod Hardy. Stay tuned.

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