Judy Moran hospitalised, believed to be battling a liver ailment

The gangland matriarch who is doing time for the murder of her brother-in-law has been transferred to a public hospital after becoming severely ill.

Judy Moran has been taken to St Vincent’s public hospital. Picture: AAP

Gangland matriarch Judy Moran has been transferred to hospital after becoming seriously ill at the weekend.

Moran, who is doing time for the murder of her brother-in-law, is believed to be suffering from a liver ailment.

She was moved from the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre, a women’s prison in Melbourne’s western suburbs, on Saturday.

Moran, 79, was taken to St Vincent’s public hospital.

The 79-year-old became severely ill over the weekend.

She is being treated in the St Augustine’s wing, a secure area of the hospital where prisoners are taken when jail medical centres cannot deal with their health issues.

A St Vincent’s spokeswoman said on Monday she was in a stable condition.

Moran, who has suffered from ill health for some time, is serving a minimum 21-year stretch for the 2009 murder of her brother-in-law Desmond “Tuppence” Moran.

He was shot dead by Geoffrey “Nuts” Armour in an ambush at a delicatessen on Union Rd in Ascot Vale, making him the fourth Moran to be murdered in the space of nine years.

He had earlier survived another attempt on his life at his Ascot Vale home.

In 2011, Judy was given a maximum term of 26 years by Supreme Court Judge Lex Lasry for having organised the killing because she believed the victim owed her money.

“Sir, you are wrong. I am innocent,” she said as the sentence was handed down.

Lewis Moran, the criminal husband of Judy and brother of Des, was shot dead at the Brunswick Club in March, 2004. His mate Bert Wrout was wounded in the attack.

Lewis and Judy’s son Jason was shot dead at a footy clinic at Cross Keys Reserve in Essendon in 2003.

Jason’s mate Pasquale Barbaro also died in the gunfire, one of the most notorious crimes of Melbourne’s era of gangland carnage.

Mark Moran, the son of Judy and Sydney criminal Les Cole, was fatally wounded outside his Aberfeldie house in June, 2000.

Cole was another linked to Judy Moran whose life was claimed by violence. He was shot dead in Sydney in 1982 in what is suspected of being an underworld hit.

The murders of Lewis, Mark and Jason were all suspected to have been commissioned by drug boss Carl Williams.

The families had been at war from the time Williams suffered a gunshot wound in a meeting with Mark and Jason at a reserve in Gladstone Park years earlier.

Judy was devastated when photographed at the scene of Jason’s death as he sat in a van with Barbaro and a group of children who were together for a footy clinic.

But that did not stop her deciding to murder Jason’s uncle in what was ultimately a badly bungled crime.

Homicide squad detectives quickly determined Judy was behind what had happened and were able to prove it.