From the Inside: Chopper 1 (23 page)

‘Oh there’s one thing I can’t figure and that’s a white girl with a nigger.’

Amos yelled out the window, ‘Piss off you mad bastard’ and I ran to my car and sped off, firing shots in the air, laughing my head off as I went.

I suspect the rot set into the friendship after that. Amos was not amused. I, however, felt it was the very height of good humour.

At one stage I planned to stuff Amos head first into a tree shredder but I decided against it. I hope that one day I don’t regret my Christian kindness.

Billy Longley

Painter and Docker, Billy ‘The Texan’ Longley, was one of the hard men who ran the Melbourne docks when the docks were the centre of the underworld.

In 1971, he stood for election as President of the Victorian branch of the union. The election was held and Longley was confident he had won, but a short time later the ballot box was stolen and there was a fire in the office.

When the result was announced it was Arthur Morris who was elected President.

The secretary of the union, Pat Shannon, was gunned down in the bar of the Druids Hotel in South Melbourne, on October 17, 1973.

The Texan was charged with the murder. The Crown alleged that he paid another man, Kevin Taylor, $6000 to kill Shannon.

Longley served 13 years for the murder, always claiming he was innocent. Shannon was a popular man and from the day of the murder The Texan had to mind his back.

Longley was no stranger to courts. He had been charged with the murder of his first wife, Patricia, in 1961. He was found guilty of manslaughter but was later acquitted on appeal.

Allegations of organised crime and corruption made by Longley to The Bulletin magazine resulted in the then Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser, setting up the Costigan Royal Commission.

Longley told the Commission that since 1958 between 30 and 40 Painters and Dockers had been murdered as part of a union civil war.

Longley broke the traditional Painters and Dockers code of silence. Many police believed Longley would be killed by union supporters. But Read decided he would protect, and if need be, kill, for The Texan.

In the years Longley served for the murder of Shannon, no enemy got past Read to complete the act of revenge. Longley was released in 1988.

But while Longley has left the scene there are many criminals who still hate Read because he stood between them and the man they call ‘The Texan.’

*

MY friendship with The Texan started as an odd one. Some of the plots and plans that we put together in the late 70s I could never write about. Let’s just say that Putty Nose Nicholls and Bobby Dix weren’t on our Christmas list. Had I been supplied with the weapons as promised in 1976, then when I got out in 1977, the Victorian Branch of the Federated Ship Painters and Dockers would have drowned in a sea of their own blood and I would not have supplied life boats for the women and kids.

I was told to contact a chap re fully automatic weapons, but the party I was told to contact lost his guts, cried over the phone and pleaded with me to walk away from it all.

Within a week of my release I had a car load of dockies looking for me and unfortunately for them, they found me. But without the promised automatic weapons and hand grenades, I could not fully correct the situation.

In relation to the old Texan, the grand old man of the Melbourne criminal world, the wrong done to him at the hands of certain members of the union executive should not go unpunished. But had the automatic weapons been forthcoming, the 1977 dockies’ Christmas party would have been a blast in every sense of the word, let me tell you.

Around that time a team of dockies were looking for me with a bag of lime and a shovel in the car. They found me, but I pulled out a meat cleaver and a sawn-off shotgun. They didn’t even get out of the car; they just drove away with me laughing at them. Plastic gangsters.

Longley to me was in a way a second father, an uncle. If I had been Italian I’d call him my Godfather, not only a man of respect but a man I respect. In many ways the Overcoat Gang was there to protect old Billy, although old Bill never really knew it.

But it was generally known that any move towards Longley in Pentridge meant killing Chopper Read first, and whatever else I am, I’m not easily killed. The friendship between myself and Longley began in H Division labour yards in 1975-76. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. As a result we became friends and remain friends.

Longley was my mentor. He taught me tactics, strategy, patience, he taught me that one man can bring an army to its knees if he just watches and waits.

THE TEXAN

He’s the man they love to hate,
Now they have him behind the gate,
Him and his team were dockland perfection,
They fought the Commies and won the election,
The other crew had to pull up their socks,
So they got Franny to pinch the box,
Pat and Putty said what a top plan,
But that’s when the shit hit the fan,
The Pom was busy cutting toes,
The jacks sat back picking their nose,
The word was out the Texan had lost,
But nothing is gained without a cost,
A few broken heads and busted legs,
They were going down like bloody tent pegs,
Someone had a sweet connection,
There wasn’t much police detection,
But when in doubt just blame the Texan,
Pat felt safe, it was his big day,
He even had a bodyguard,
But Machine Gun Bobby wasn’t trying too hard,
The press roared like thunder,
Someone had to go under,
The other team had plenty to hide,
But the Crown Law gave them a nice free ride,
They couldn’t beat him any other way,
So they loaded him up and sent him away.

William O’Meally

William John O’Meally was the last man legally flogged in Australia. He was convicted of killing police constable George Howell in 1952, and sentenced to death, but this was commuted to life in jail.

He was flogged for attempting to escape and spent 12 years of his 27-year sentence in solitary confinement.

O’Meally was portrayed as one of the toughest, most dangerous men in jail. He claimed he was ‘the man they couldn’t break’ and stated he was behind prison riots and much of the violence inside Pentridge.

In later years O’Meally mellowed and became involved in writing poetry.

Although his papers were marked ‘never to be released’ he was freed in 1979.

Read remembers a very different O’Meally from the hard man image he had cultivated in prison over three decades.

*

ONE chap who had a big reputation but that I found very forgettable was Bill O’Meally. I first met him in B Division in 1975. He was an odd old chap with a sad complex about his hair falling out. He once tried to colour his grey hair with Nugget (shoe polish) and went out into the exercise yard to sunbake, but the sun was hot and he started to sweat. The Nugget began to run, and when he noticed it, he rushed off back into the division.

There are a host of people who have, in pride of place above the fire place or in the dining room, an oil painting signed by William O’Meally. The fact is that any old crook who was in B Division when old Bill was there will tell you that Bill couldn’t paint a fence with a spray can.

He soon gave up painting, but it didn’t give him up . . . jail is overcrowded with promising artists, all of them unknown and not able to sell their work for a good price. But with Bill’s name on the bottom a painting could be sold for $1200 or $1500. Bill used to be called in to write his name on the bottom of various works of art.

Christ, I even sold an ‘O’Meally’ after it was given to me by a prisoner who owed me money.

The Pentridge painting trick was a great giggle. But there was a better one. At HM Prison Geelong the boys were turning out Pro Harts by the dozen, then sending them out to be sold as stolen property. No-one was going to buy them if it was claimed they were legal, because buyers would have checked them and found they were fakes. But if it is a pile of two or three ‘stolen’ Pro Harts, then it’s quite different. They can go for two or three grand each, bought by the greedy, stupid yuppie class.

It wasn’t hard. Paints, canvas, paint brushes, check out Pro Hart’s style in an art book and away they went. Who’s going to know the difference? It was a great old trick.

Greedy yuppies . . . where would the crooks be without them? Coke, speed and hot property: they love it all.

Peter Lawless

Peter Lawless was one of the big names of crime in the 1970s. He was a star witness in the Beach Inquiry into the Police in 1975. Lawless was sentenced to life for the murder of Christopher Fitzgerald. In 1987 he was released after serving more than 14 years. He was then implicated in an attempted robbery of a National Australia bank in Ringwood later that year and sentenced to a further seven years.

*

PETER Lawless won’t sue me. I’d punch his head in if he tried. I’ve known the bloke for 20 years; during the Overcoat Gang war in Pentridge he sat on the fence in H Division trying to be mates with both sides. He is a top jailhouse lawyer, nowhere near Peter Allen’s level, but very skilled nevertheless.

Peter is known in jail as a non-tubber. In other words, he doesn’t mind walking past the shower room, but not a lot of people can remember him stepping inside. He hasn’t been seen taking his clothes off and hopping under the water.

There is a standing giggle in Pentridge and criminal circles that the only way for the police to get Peter Lawless to sign a confession is not to try threats of force or violence but to threaten him with a large bucket of hot, soapy water. It is said that Peter would sign his own Granny up if he was threatened with the content of said bucket.

Of course, all this is said in jest, a bit of criminal mirth and comedy. However, all mirth and comedy is based on fact, and the fact is if a new prisoner asked Peter where the shower room was he would be in real trouble trying to offer the right directions.

Dave Dominguez

Dave Dominguez was a nice guy who fell victim to the modern epidemic of drug abuse. He was serving a short sentence for burglary when he died of a drug overdose in Pentridge’s B Division. He was found dead in another prisoner’s cell in April 1985. Heroin was found in his blood stream, a puncture mark in his left arm. But no-one ever found the syringe he was supposed to have used to inject himself.

Police said that a number of inmates refused to cooperate with their investigation into Big Dave’s death.

*

‘BIG Dave’ Dominguez was a six foot, two inch, 22-stone lovable jolly giant who had befriended me in Geelong Prison in 1974. I spent 10 very happy months in that jail before being moved back to H Division, as it was thought I was standing over half the Geelong prison.

It wasn’t true. If fellow prisoners wish to give me money and gifts it would be impolite to refuse, and I’m nothing if not polite.

Big Dave, however, had a drug problem, and that problem almost created a falling out between myself and my old friend Frankie Waghorn.

Big Dave would borrow money from other inmates and ‘forget’ to repay it. I would see to it that his debts were paid or cancelled. However, the drugs had taken their hold and Dave’s word became totally worthless. I repaid his debts to the tune of several thousand dollars. It was only after I got out of jail in late 1984 that I came to understand that a large part of his friendship toward me was so he could stand behind my name, as he was a marked man.

His friendship with me was, in fact, keeping him alive.

He got out of jail and used my name to borrow a further $1150 from my girlfriend Margaret — and forgot to repay it. Eight weeks later he returned to Pentridge, to B Division. By this time I was again in H Division. He had blood enemies in B Division. On my final plea to repay Margaret, and his refusal, I withdrew my friendship and protection.

He was found dead in his cell of a drug overdose. That was in 1985.

Drugs have destroyed the lives, hearts and minds of too many good men. In my heart the memory of Big Dave still saddens me.

Johnny Morrison

John Lewis Morrison, like so many of his type, died a violent death. His remains were found by a sharefarmer in a crop of barley near Laverton in December 1972. He had been blasted in the head with a shotgun.

*

IF God in heaven came down to earth and walked the streets of Melbourne under cover as a streetfighter he would not beat Johnny ‘The Face’ Morrison, even if God carried an axe. That is my opinion.

The Face got his nickname because he was an ugly bastard with a head full of pimples, boils and scars. He was befriended by my old Dad. In fact, if the gossips and slander merchants who sometimes tease my Dad because of me knew how many crazy streetfighters, killers and gunmen he has helped, they might be a tad more polite.

Morrison was murdered in the early 1970s in the dockies wars. He was found buried in a farmer’s paddock at Werribee. But as a streetfighter in the 1960s ‘The Face’ was a blood and guts legend. He’s forgotten now, and if I don’t mention him he may never get a mention any place else. He held my coat for me when I was a young 14-year-old kid about to fight a much bigger and older boy with a big local reputation in Collingwood.

‘The Face’ said: ‘Mark, reputations are based on a hundred facts — and a thousand fairy tales. A horse is only as good as its last race. So get in there, rip his head off and piss down his neck’.

I lost the fight, but remembered the words. And I’ll never forget ‘The Face’. May he rest in peace.

Victor Frederick Allard

Victor Frederick Allard was one of the first Painters and Dockers to graduate to the drug world. A big man with a reputation as a standover man, he became a street heroin dealer and a well known figure with the prostitutes in St Kilda.

In February, 1979, Allard was shot dead, blasted three times in the stomach as he walked along Fitzroy Street.

He was in debt over heroin deals when he was murdered. His killing has not been solved.

Two years before he was murdered there had been another attempt on his life. He was shot in the stomach while drinking in a South Melbourne hotel in 1977.

*

THERE was one rat who smashed me over the head with an iron bar in St Kilda in the late 1977. No wonder my memory is half shot to pieces, with the blows I’ve taken to the head over the years.