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Don Hancock car-bomb supergrass Sidney John “Snot” Reid freed

 
 
Tony Barrass  |  PerthNow
Tony Barrass

THE supergrass who broke the bikie code of silence over the 2001 car-bomb murder of top cop Don Hancock and his mate Lou Lewis is now a free man.

High-level sources have confirmed Sidney John “Snot” Reid, who served just 15 years after testifying against fellow Gypsy Joker Graham “Slim” Slater and then fingered another bikie associate for murder, has been released from an east coast prison within the past six months.

The news has swept police and criminal circles and while his whereabouts are unclear, it is believed he and his girlfriend have assumed new identities under the witness protection program.

Once described as Australia’s most protected prisoner, Reid has been shuffled between high-security facilities, including Goulburn’s “Super Max” which houses the country’s worst offenders.

While Reid pleaded guilty to the double killing just weeks after his February 2002 arrest, Slater pleaded not guilty to murdering the pair by detonating a bomb under the car they were driving when returning from the races in September 2001.

Slater was spectacularly acquitted of all charges brought by Reid’s roll-over in a verdict that stunned police, the victims’ families and the wider community.

Reid told police the murders were payback for the death of Billy Grierson, who they believed was shot dead by Hancock outside the retired detective’s outback pub at Ora Banda, near Kalgoorlie, on the night of the Sydney Olympics’ closing ceremony.

Forensic police gather evidence at the scene of the car-bomb in Enfield St Lathlain that killed Don Hancock and Lou Lewis.

Forensic police gather evidence at the scene of the car-bomb in Enfield St Lathlain that killed Don Hancock and Lou Lewis.Picture: WA News

Reid then accused another Joker associate, Gary White, of murdering drug dealer Anthony Tapley the previous August in a completely unrelated crime unknown to police.

White was subsequently charged and convicted of murder, primarily on Reid’s testimony, and is still in jail serving a 22-year-minimum life sentence. While bones believed to be Tapley’s were later found at a Northam Farm, they were never conclusively proved to be his.

White’s legal team wants Attorney-General John Quigley to refer the conviction back to the Court of Appeal based on the unreliability of Reid’s evidence and what they believe to be fresh evidence from prisoners who served time with the bikie.

“There are so many unanswered questions,” White’s lawyer Gary Massey told The Sunday Times this week.

He believes Reid’s testimony in the White conviction was manufactured to make sure Reid gained maximum benefits for himself at the expense of his client, who has always maintained his innocence.

For Reid’s unprecedented co-operation, a Letter of Comfort, signed off by then assistant police commissioner Tim Atherton and DPP Robert Cock, was taken into consideration when Reid was sentenced.

Mr Atherton this week told The Sunday Times he would never have signed the supporting letter — the only one in his long career — if there were any doubts about the Tapley investigation.

“I asked the question along the lines that, ‘Have we run out all inquiries into his (Tapley’s) missing persons file’, to which I was told, ‘Yes, boss’,” he said. “It was drawn to my attention some time later that the Tapley missing person file was still open.”

The Sunday Times approached the Gypsy Jokers for comment.