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pinched from ozbiker.org
WA Gypsy Jokers to get day in court
on fortification order
The WA chapter of the Gypsy Jokers motorcycle club will take their fight against
the states tough anti-fortification laws to the Supreme Court in December in a
move that could see the end of a two-year legal battle between the club and the
WA police.
The club have been given three days in the Supreme Court to show that their
Maddington clubhouse is not heavily fortified or used habitually by a class of
people reasonable suspected of being involved in organised crime.
The appeal is the last chance for the bikers to beat the fortification removal
notice which would allow police to tear down a concrete wall at the front of the
Lower Park Road clubhouse and security cameras mounted on the building.
The club and police have waited about 18 months to secure a date in the Supreme
Court to resolve the stand off. Neither group would comment on the development
yesterday, although many have criticised the time it has taken for the matter to
be resolved.
Senior police first asked the Corruption and Crime Commission to invoke its
exceptional powers in a secret hearing in December 2003. In April 2004, police
served WA's first fortification removal notice at the Gypsy Jokers' Maddington
clubhouse.
The bikers appealed against the notice and gave police a key to the front gate
under the proviso that officers contacted Gypsy Joker spokesperson Dean Adams 30
minutes before entering the clubhouse so he could he was there to accopany the
officers. That appeal was rejected by police and a second fortification removal
notice was issued. The club took the unprecendented (in WA) step of speaking
publicly against the laws before they were hit with the fortification removal
notice in 2004.
The anti-fortification laws were introduced after the car bombing deaths of
former CIB boss Don Hancock and his friend Lou Lewis.
The hearing is due to start on December 5 - the same day Coroner Alastair Hope
is due to start the long overdue inquest into the murder of Gypsy Joker Billy
Grierson.
Mr Grierson was shot as he sat around a campfire with other Gypsy Jokers on
October 1, 2000. Former CIB chief Don Hancock is considered a prime suspect in
the shooting and his subsequent assassination on September 1, 2001, was an act
of revenge carried out by ex-Gypsy Joker turned dog, Sid Reid... currently
serving time in an unnamed jail.
