Ex-girlfriend claims she didn’t know Shane Bowden was Mongols boss
She was once a fitness trainer to Kim Kardashian and Britney Spears, but Janet Campbell soon found herself in jail, piecing together her “destroyed” life. Now she has lifted the lid on how her former bikie beau kept his life as the Mongols’ former Sergeant at Arms a secret.
Police & Courts
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The ex-girlfriend of a bikie boss wounded in a drive-by shooting this week has broken her silence over a violent home invasion that landed them both in jail.
Janet ‘Aysen’ Campbell — a glamorous Hollywood trainer who claims to have worked alongside Kim Kardashian and Britney Spears and dated NBA megastar Denis Rodman — says she was in the “wrong place at the wrong time” when arrested with Shane Bowden.
Bowden, the Mongols’ former Sergeant at Arms, survived a suspected hit just days ago.
Ms Campbell, speaking for the first time since her arrest five years ago, told the Sunday Herald Sun she was looking for a second chance at life.
She said when they met she had no idea her former bikie beau was a key player in Melbourne’s crime world.
“I f----d up my whole life up dating the wrong guy, and the domino effect has destroyed my life,” Campbell, 43, said.
“People shouldn’t be scared of me, I’m not a bikie. I made mistakes, bad choices but I don’t judge Mongols, they are the nicest people if you get to know them. It was awesome to see a different side to the underworld.”
Ms Campbell, a mum of two, spent three months in prison over a 2015 South Yarra aggravated burglary which was sparked by a drug debt.
Bowden — wearing night-vision goggles, dressed in camouflage gear and brandishing a knife — kicked one victim in the head.
Ms Campbell, who had a tooth knocked out amid the mayhem, said her involvement was “naive” but alleges it was a “set-up”.
“It was stupidity. What was I thinking?” she said. “Shane was trying to collect, he was doing a favour — they owed money.
“We weren’t armed. Three guys came at him, we were attacked. Of course we fought back.
“Yes, I did hit a guy with a spanner, they were attacking us. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, it could have happened to anyone.
“A part of me has died since that incident. It has traumatised me and destroyed my career.”
Ms Campbell — who also rubbed shoulders with world champion boxer Floyd Mayweather and rapper Ja Rule — spent two decades working in Los Angeles as a celebrity fitness trainer.
Clients such as Spears, Beyonce, Sharon Stone and Steven Seagal paid as much as $US500 an hour for her services, she said.
But when her father fell ill in 2014 she returned home, becoming friendly with Bowden, who was her neighbour in Port Melbourne.
She said she was unaware of his extensive rap sheet and status as sergeant-at-arms of the Australian branch of California’s notorious Mongols bikie gang.
The pair still keep in touch and have spoken since Bowden was ambushed outside a house in Epping on Wednesday night.
Bowden was released from Loddon Prison just 15 days before the attack, with a contingent of Mongols including Toby Mitchell greeting him at the gate.
“He’d see me carrying my grocery shopping and come and help me — he is a great soul,” Ms Campbell said.
“He was kind, generous, a really good guy.
“We were inseparable. He dressed normal, he didn’t wear the Mongols leather jacket around me. How are you meant to know he’s dangerous?”
Ms Campbell, who was imprisoned at the maximum-security Dame Phyllis Frost Centre in the same unit as underworld matriarch Judy Moran, said her time behind bars was hell.
She said she lost 12kg because the food was inedible and guards laughed at her requests for a piece of fruit.
“You feel completely isolated, very scared, it was so different to the glamorous lifestyle I was used to,” she said.
“I’d never been to jail before, and then all of a sudden I was in with murderers. I was so scared deep down. They thought I was some crazy Mongol girl.
“Just because people f —k up doesn’t mean they’re not humans. I just wanted to die in there. I’m so humiliated, I’m so embarrassed at what I’ve done to myself.
“Dogs get better treatment than people in jail. They (inmates) are not getting treated like humans.”
Ms Campbell said her conviction had “destroyed her career” as a personal trainer.
But she claims she is involved in a forthcoming instalment of the Matrix film franchise in Sydney, and is trying to bring “LA vibes” to Melbourne with a focus on nutrition based on a person’s blood type — fielding inquiries on social media.
“In LA, everyone is focused on their health and fitness, I don’t really see that here,” she said.
“So many people are unhealthy. I want to change that.”