Comanchero Alex Bourne used a
sledgehammer to smash the hand of a drug dealer who lost an
ounce of the bikie's ice to a thief, court documents revealed on
Monday.
In September
last year the dealer met with an associate of Bourne, nicknamed
"Mad Bitch" in messages, who gave him the ice to sell.
Alex Bourne was a member of the Comanchero when he blackmailed and
threatened Canberra drug dealers. Photo: Danielle Smith
He and the woman met another man
with the intention of selling the ice, worth about $5300 on the
street, but during the meeting the other man stole it, the documents
suggest.
Bourne, 30, "wasn't very happy"
about the theft, and soon contacted the dealer over Facebook, saying
he had an hour to meet him in Gungahlin.
It was about midnight, and when
the dealer arrived Bourne led him to an underground car park and
demanded he hand over rings, a watch, and $2000 in cash.
Bourne, who admitted the crimes in
court on Monday, then picked up a sledgehammer and told the dealer
to put his hand on the concrete.
He complied, believing Bourne
wanted to scare him, but the Comanchero hit the dealer's hand
multiple times with the sledgehammer.
One strike caused the bone on top
of the man's hand to protrude and the man was in "extreme agony",
the documents say.
Bourne kept hitting the man's hand
and he "struggled to breath and his leg started to twitch".
He later had surgery at hospital
but doctors may still have to amputate a finger that has limited
movement, the documents suggest.
The man's mother became involved
and started paying off the debt purportedly owed by her son to
Bourne.
In one incident, the drug dealer
led police on a pursuit because he had in his car drugs to be sold
to settle his debt with Bourne.
Once he disposed of the drugs he
made full admissions to police about the police pursuit.
Police said that showed the fear
he had of Bourne and of losing the drugs a second time.
Blackmail and trafficking
In December last year Bourne
learned a different man had been selling a small amount of MDMA,
tendered police allegations say.
Bourne knocked on the man's door
and introduced himself as "Alex" and a member of the Comanchero. He
accused the man of putting a "dint" in their wallets and said it was
unacceptable the man would sell drugs in competition with the gang.
He said instead of tying the man
up, putting a gun in his mouth and shooting him they had come to
talk about an arrangement.
The man refused to work for the
Comanchero selling drugs, but said he would pay Bourne, to
compensate the gang for its loss and punish him for selling in their
"territory".
He gave $1100 to Bourne, who said
that wasn't enough, but he agreed to leave.
A few hours later Bourne sent the
man a message on Wickr. Bourne's username on the encrypted messaging
app was "Elchapo2615".
The message said "we have been
more than reasonable, my bosses have told me to get $10k off you.
What are you going to do about it?"
He agreed to give Bourne $6000,
his entire savings, if they left him alone after that.
But after handing over the money
he received a text from someone else demanding $15,000.
He feared no matter what he handed
over the group would continue to threaten him.
In what was a controlled police
operation, Bourne met the dealer at a garage last December to give
him drugs to sell.
Police say Bourne trafficked MDMA
when he handed 28 grams of the drug to the dealer.
At an arraignment in the ACT
Supreme Court on Monday, Bourne, of Gungahlin, admitted to a count
of intentionally inflicting grievous bodily harm, one of blackmail
and one of trafficking in MDMA.
