Bandidos high-profile senior member Arthur ‘Mr T’ Loveday found dead in Port Macquarie motel room

Loveday’s body was found in a room at Kew’s Royal Hotel outside Port Macquarie on the mid-north NSW coast.

 

 

 

Loveday, 61, had a string of convictions. But was best known when he was represented by a nun-turned-lawyer, the late Mother Yvonne Swift, who successfully fought to have his conviction for murdering Stephen Leslie Shipley in Parramatta Jail overturned in 1992.

 

 

 

 

Loveday, who had been jailed for life, won a pardon.

It is understood that before he died he had separated from wife, Catherine Vella, cousin of Rebels leader, Alex Vella. The couple, who married in 1998, have twin teenagers, a boy and a girl.

 

 

Loveday had served time for kidnapping, rape and armed robbery, and had escaped from jail twice, but in Port Macquarie he was a fixture at the local surf life saving club and Port City Breakers junior rugby league club, where his son was a member.

“He was a nice guy,” a spokesman for Port City Breakers said. “He helped in a volunteer role. We are sad to hear of his passing.”

Loveday was recruited by the Bandidos after he was released from Berrima Jail and for a time was their PR man, the face of the gang in which he was highly respected.

 

 

 

 

 

It is understood that Loveday, who had lived in Port Macquarie for more than a decade, had been staying at the Royal Hotel, a pub popular with local bikies, for a couple of days. His body was found on Sunday.

He did not leave a note but police have said there are no suspicious circumstances.

His last conviction was three years ago when he was sentenced to nine months jail for flushing steroids down a toilet during a police raid of his home in Lincoln Road, Port Macquarie.

He had pleaded guilty at the Port Macquarie Local Court to obstructing the execution a warrant, assaulting an officer and possession of a prohibited drug, namely two grams of steroids.

Loveday used to wear so many gold necklaces that he was likened to “Mr T” from the TV series, The A-team.

After the 2006 funeral of murdered Bandidos chapter president Rodney “Hooks” Monk, Loveday faced the media and said the gang had put violence behind them.

“We’ve got enough worry about fighting terrorists let alone fighting one another,” he said. At the time he was nursing a broken finger after coming off his bike on the way to the funeral.

The Bandidos are now planning a fitting farewell for Arthur Loveday.