How Melbourne’s gangland code of silence crumbled

Shifty McGrath was going down for murder. His only chance of seeing another day outside prison was to break Melbourne’s underworld code of silence and flip on Carl Williams.

Police search the scene of Michael Marshall’s murder on Joy St, South Yarra.

A transcpript of a getaway driver’s conversations with anti-gangland detectives probing gangland hits lays bare how the first cracks appeared in the Melbourne underworld war code of silence.

The killer, one of Australia’s most evil criminals, indicated he could help the officers bring down drug kingpin Carl Williams.

The man, who the paper cannot name and who has been given the pseudonym Shifty McGrath, was softly spoken but calculating as he tested his position for a deal.

McGrath was arrested on October 25, 2003, in the hours after a shocking public execution of drug dealer and hotdog vendor Michael Marshall in front of his five-year-old son in Joy St, South Yarra.

McGrath, a drug dealer, had also been the driver in the callous ambush shootings of Williams’ enemy Jason Moran and his bodyguard Pasquale Barbaro at an Auskick clinic in Essendon four months earlier.

Police hunt for clues after Marshall was executed in front of his son. Picture: Peter Smith

The Herald Sun has also obtained details of a coded phone conversation, intercepted by police, between Williams and one of the hitmen in November.

Police would later allege the call was to confirm the “hit” had been done.

The conversation is stunning for its audacity.

“Listen, I think that horse got scrapped, the one that you and George (Williams’ father) tipped me for,” the hitman said.

“Oh, did it?” Williams responded.

“Yeah, I think it got scratched.”

The hit team had surged ahead despite finding a bug in one of their cars.

Police even listened in as they navigated the streets on their way to kill Marshall, not knowing what they were about to do.

Only as they heard shots ring out did the Purana anti-gangland taskforce detectives realise they were witnessing yet another gangland murder in the escalating underworld war.

The pair were arrested in the hours after the shooting near the Elsternwick Hotel, possibly as they were on their way to meet Williams at his mother Barbara’s Essendon house.

Details of the subsequent conversations between getaway driver McGrath and police officers Stuart Bateson and Boris Buick – made while he was in custody after his arrest, and which became part of later court proceedings – shed light on how police began unravelling the gangland war.

McGrath was interviewed at police headquarters, but some of the best work by the two anti-gangland detectives came during short trips between the Purana offices in St Kilda Rd and his jail cell.

The 12-gauge sawn off shotgun used to murder Jason Moran and his bodyguard Pasquale Barbaro. Picture: Colin Murty

Early in the conversations, as officers made small talk with McGrath who had been charged with Marshall’s murder, the middle-aged ice addict revealed he had once wanted to be a cop.

“Did you know I applied for the police force once,’’ McGrath told the somewhat surprised detectives as they weaved through the city.

After McGrath explained it was a childhood ambition, Sergeant Bateson noted it must have been before he “got priors obviously,” before querying “What went wrong ....?”

“Oh, when you don’t get a chance at one sort of life ... People fall into other things,” McGrath, sitting in the back seat of an unmarked police car, said.

The officers were probing McGrath not only on Marshall’s murder, but also the Jason Moran hit and gangland landscape.

It did not take long for McGrath to claim he was unaware the Marshall job was going to be a “hit’’ and that his co-accused, known as “The Runner’’, pointed a gun at the getaway driver as they approached the target house.

“I didn’t know he was going to kill him. That’s f...in’. I may have thought he might, he was going to be a bit more heavier than a f...in’ debt collection but, ah, I didn’t know he was going to kill him,” McGrath bleated.

Sergeant Bateson was eager to turn the conversation to the Auskick shootings, saying: “Yeah, well what about Moran?’’

That was the moment when McGrath opened the door to the investigators.

“I don’t know. I can always find out things...’’ he said.

The manipulative gangland figure even asserted to Sergeant Bateson that he deliberately took “The Runner’’ to a house he knew was bugged to incriminate him after the Marshall murder.

Stuart Bateson.

Boris Buick.

The Purana detectives, rightly, did not believe McGrath was unaware of the kill plot.

But regardless of whether McGrath’s story was true or not, the officers picked up on one important point – McGrath was prepared to become the first gangland killer to roll in what would become a house of cards.

One gangland figure, Evangelos Goussis, even dubbed one section of Barwon Prison the “deal or no deal’’ unit.

Back in the car, Sergeant Bateson probed: “I just want to get this straight in my mind, you’re saying that you were trying to help us when all this happened?’’

“Yes, after he did what he did and yeah, I can tell you other things too that I, where I can prove I tried to help ya,’’ McGrath confirmed.

“Yeah, well I’d be, I’d be always keen... I mean we’re here primarily to talk about Jason’s (Moran) death,’’ Sergeant Bateson reinforced.

And that was exactly what McGrath did, sealing a deal later in prison – after insisting on an audience with then-Assistant Commissioner Simon Overland – triggering the downfall of Carl Williams and his crew.

Williams fought his first murder charge, the killing of Marshall.

After he went down for that one, he came under severe pressure to buckle and plead guilty to three more killings and a conspiracy to murder.

A plea deal was his only way out, especially with ex-wife Roberta and his father under the microscope.

He agreed to a plea deal, admitting to having Mark Mallia, Jason Moran and Lewis Moran killed.

Williams in the dock at the County Court preparing to be sentenced for the murders of Lewis Moran, Jason Moran and Mark Mallia. Picture: Jason South

Williams also fessed up to a failed plot to execute Mario Condello.

But he did not confess to murdering Mark Moran in 2000.

Judge Betty King provoked an outburst from Williams over the severity of his sentence – life with a minimum of 35 years.

Williams, however, had already began cooperating with police on an unsolved double-murder.

That would cost him his life, when it leaked out and Matthew Johnson bashed him with a bicycle stem in their jail unit in April 2010.

As for McGrath, he would never truly feel the infamy he should have for his role in the murder of Jason Moran – who did not even have the chance to pull out the gun hidden down the front of his pants as he was shot at point-blank range while sitting in a van with five children.

He was never convicted over his role in the Auskick hit due to his cooperation.

Or purportedly helping Williams murder Jason’s half-brother Mark Moran.

His identity is suppressed forever, as is that of The Runner.

And there is every chance that due to his extraordinary deal, McGrath will be out of jail soon, if he is not already walking among us now.

His sadistic co-killer, The Runner, was harder to roll and even threatened to kill Sgt Bateson during a heated court hearing in September 2004.

The officer’s notes detail the accused shooter repeatedly mouthed the words: “You’re dead Bateson”.

He continued: “Stated I was responsible for his current whereabouts. Aggressively called me a dog and the like”.

But even The Runner rolled – annoyed at Williams’ non-payment for murders – and is also expected to be free within years.

Originally published as How Melbourne’s gangland code of silence crumbled