Deadline: Melbourne’s latest crime buzz with Andrew Rule and Mark Buttler

Two rival underworld families act like the Capulets and Montagues as forbidden love blooms in the northern suburbs. The latest crime buzz with Andrew Rule and Mark Buttler.

Andrew Rule and Mark Buttler with the latest crime buzz.

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

A LOT OF BULL

We’re not saying royal commissions pull punches or turn a blind eye to scallywags in the legal profession just because they are fellow lawyers.

It’s just that those inquiries cost millions (in legal fees, mostly) so the commissioners don’t chase every rabbit down every burrow merely to help the tax office.

This is lucky for the thrifty Melbourne lawyer who ditched the tradition of paper bags of cash dropped into the boot of the Benz after court.

Our lawyer, who thinks pro bono is an Irish rock singer, got a truckload of cattle delivered to his northeast retreat for services rendered. Cop that, Mr Taxman.

Livestock are good like that.

A horse can change hands without money changing hands.

A Richmond identity told Deadline (at Warrnambool races, in fact) about his two mates arrested for a robbery back when crooks, police and magistrates greatly respected priests.

A broadminded priest spoke to a certain magistrate then gave glowing character evidence on behalf of the alleged robbers in court.

God moves in mysterious ways. The charges were reduced to lesser offences (robbery-lite?) and the pair escaped jail with fines and bonds. An astounding result.

All became clear when a horse racing at Warrnambool the following May had an extra owner: in the racebook, the priest’s name was now next to the two alleged robbers’ names.

Luckily, a horse can change hands without money changing hands.

Such as when a Victorian country magistrate famed for flashes of compassion became a part-owner of a handy racehorse after a local trainer got a seriously lenient result on a seriously heavy charge.

The trainer was so seriously happy he even forgot to send the monthly training bill.

FRIENDS FALL OUT

Owners of the racehorse Institution were ordered to pay back $3000 long after it ran sixth at Flemington in November 2016 because it was trained by disgraced Aquanita trainer Robert Smerdon, later outed for illicitly dosing horses with “bi-carb” on race day.

Racing Victoria’s chief steward Robert Cram made the demand to the then general manager of Ultra Thoroughbreds, one Anthony Swords, whose boss was UltraTune tycoon and plastic-surgery buff Sean Buckley.

Anthony Swords. Picture: Wayne Taylor

Sean Buckley and ex-lover Jennifer Cruz Cole.

Swords, well known as Mick Gatto’s helper in mediation matters, has since quit Ultra and is no longer friends with Buckley, who’s back in the news over a lurid dispute with an ex-lover.

Swords has gone from telling racing authorities they could whistle for their $3000 to barracking against Buckley.

Proof that while time doesn’t heal all wounds, it wounds all heels.

As for Institution, the horse has just won two straight in far north Queensland after a long run of outs.

SOUTHERN COMFORTS

Some cynics suspect that Big Pharma lobbies governments to impose strict regulations on medical marijuana so the drug companies can keep selling billions of dollars worth of patent painkillers.

One peeved medical expert on the painkilling properties of cannabis oil even whispers to patients that they’d have to jump through so many hoops to get a legal prescription that it might be easier to get the good oil on the black market.

A smashed-up former jockey has taken the doc at his word and started making medicine for himself and other injured parties: baking marijuana leaves and boiling them in olive oil or butter.

Three drops before bed and it’s goodnight nurse.

A broken-down jockey is bottling his own label of cannabis oil. Picture: Stock image

The only reason Deadline mentions this is because the DIY alchemist has started bottling the stuff — and has produced his own label.

He calls it after a champion horse whose trainer, a reformed drug addict, hit big trouble last year when tests found traces of a performance-enhancing drug in the horse’s system.

The horse’s name is Alligator Blood. It could be the best trade name for a mood-altering substance since Southern Comfort.

They could do with some of it in South Australia, where a helpful copper has been sacked and fined for giving a distressed man cannabis during a police raid.

The now ex-policeman, Tyson Schrapel, was on the job at Port Augusta when the householder became agitated and asked for his “medicine” because he was scared of going to a mental hospital.

To calm him, the kindly walloper removed seized cannabis from an exhibit bag and gave it to the man with a bong.

Sadly, a detective dobbed in the good Samaritan.

ROMEO & JULES

Love grows in the most unlikely places.

The Capulets and Montagues and Hatfields v McCoys have a lot in common with two rival underworld families in the northern suburbs.

Eyebrows have been raised and muscles flexed but family opposition hasn’t stopped the union of a Romeo from one side with a Juliet from the other.

Senior members of each clan have in the past exchanged very little affection and several bullets.

But, for now, love conquers all.

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