August 3, 2006
Tim Nam.
AFTER two days of terror, the farmer Timothy Nam killed a Sydney enforcer known as "No Thumbs" to save his family.
Yesterday, a Supreme Court judge ordered he be set free, questioning whether he should have been jailed in the first place.
Nam, 29, had been subjected to "a terrifying nightmare not of his making which had been instituted by the cowardly conduct of Michael Pestano towards his family," Justice Michael Adams said.
His words were music to the ears of Nam and his elderly parents. When his mother, Margaret, 65, embraced him, Nam told her: "Please tell them to get the paperwork done quickly so I can get out of here."
After two years in prison, Nam will be released in seven to 10 days, pleading guilty yesterday to manslaughter, reduced from murder, for shooting Pestano, the 52-year-old associate of Sydney criminals who had been paid $9000 to force the Nams off their leased farm near Wellington in the Central West.
Justice Adams gave him the minimum sentence, making him eligible for parole from today. He said the case was one of the most troubling he had heard and that Nam hardly deserved the reduced charge.
He expressed astonishment that police called to the isolated farm at the hamlet of Arthurville allowed Pestano and five other thugs to terrorise Nam, his partner, their baby and his parents, threatening to bulldoze their house, burn it down, bash them and rape the two women.
"They shot at us … bang, bang, bang," 70-year-old Laurie Nam told the Herald, remembering the fateful Friday night of July 23 two years ago.
"I yelled, 'Give me the gun', but Tim was so traumatised he just sprayed back at them, 10 to 14 shots. It all happened in three seconds."
Pestano went down, fatally shot. Two of his gang were wounded. When police finally turned up five hours later, Mr Nam snr told them: "I did it."
He spent four months in jail alongside his son, both charged with murder, before it was clear that he was not telling the truth. About that time, Tim Nam was visited in Bathurst Jail by three Sydney criminals.
"They came to thank him," Laurie Nam said. "They said: 'We're grateful for what you did because we would have had to kill him ourselves.' Tim wasn't sure how to respond."
Pestano was a debt collector and associate of the late standover man and former private detective Tim Bristow. He informed on criminal Tony Vincent, claiming he was involved in an alleged underworld murder, still unresolved.
Small in stature, he was also known as the Gnome.
He never spoke about how he lost both thumbs, but those who did not like him offered the opinion that it was an act of retribution.
Life could get violent. Pestano and his son were bashed and put in hospital when they tried to collect $40,000 worth of jewellery from a businessman.
And at Arthurville, Pestano finally pushed too hard.
Mrs Nam can't wait for the day her son walks free. "I'm over the moon," she said. But although he is also jubilant, Tim Nam will return to a life that probably has been forever damaged.
His former partner is in a new relationship. His son is three. The family has not returned to the farm since the shootings, and it has been sold by the owners, David and Colleen Taylor, of Port Macquarie, former neighbours and friends who hired Pestano.
"I think maybe Tim will go to Sydney or some place else," Mr Nam snr said. "As soon as he walks out of jail, Margaret and I are buying him a meal. He's ordered already - 'Kentucky Fried Chicken, Mum, plenty of it.' He's been waiting for it for two years."