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Finks enforcer free but banned from city

 

THE notorious Finks enforcer jailed for the bloody `Ballroom Blitz' has been banned from the Gold Coast in a bid to shatter the bikie stronghold on the Glitter Strip.

Six years after the terrifying Ballroom Blitz, senior Finks member Shane Scott Bowden is back on the streets, but he has been blacklisted from the Gold Coast.

Bowden also has been ordered to surrender his membership in the Finks and warned not to associate with members of any outlaw gang.

He is living in a halfway house and will remain under strict parole conditions until March 2013.

Queensland police have been issued with Bowden's description and informed of his extensive criminal history and violent past.

Officers have been warned not to approach Bowden but to use any breach as leverage to force him back behind bars.

Bowden was sentenced to 6.5 years' jail by a District Court judge who declared him a `serious violent offender'.

Co-accused, Nicholas `The Knife' John Forbes, received an 18-month sentence for assault occasioning bodily harm while armed.

The trial heard Forbes attacked Christopher Hudson, a former Finks member, in front of 1800 people at a kickboxing tournament at the Royal Pines resort at Carrara in March 2006, before Bowden shot Hudson in the face and back.

Graphic video footage played to the court showed the tournament, in the resort's grand ballroom, descended into chaos as patrons threw punches, chairs and glasses at each other.

 

 

The pair -- both key members of the Finks terror team -- were part of a national manhunt for Hudson after he defected to the Hells Angels and tried to recruit other Finks members.

Forbes was arrested months after his release, accused of a violent riot with Hells Angels rivals in a nightclub.

With the terror team almost at full strength as senior gang members are gradually released from prison, police doubt Bowden will stay away from the club.

Bowden has a full back tattoo of the Fink insignia and is a devoted member of the gang.

While on the run over the Ballroom Blitz, Bowden taunted police with notes saying, `Sorry I wasn't here'.

"No doubt he's already been on the Gold Coast," police said yesterday. "We're looking for him and, if we catch him, he's back in the bin."

Prominent criminal lawyer Bill Potts, who represented Bowden, questioned the conditions of his client's parole.

"He has been deemed by the parole board to be safe to release in the community and yet he has been banned from entering a geographic area where his family, friends and support group reside," Mr Potts said.

Bowden cannot appeal the restrictions and police vow he will be arrested if he breaches the conditions.

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