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Sean Patrick Callan (no login)
Posted Jan 22, 2007 12:14 AM
The Federated Ship Painters and Dockers Union.
Within a year of Sir Henry Bolte's appointment as Victorian Premier in 1955, bribery allegations prompted newly appointed Chief Commissioner, Selwyn Porter to order a clean-up of gaming-squad police.
The clean-up, headed by ex-military man Mick Miller, was so effective that it caused a shake-out in the control of the underworld, with criminal elements from the waterfront moving in to fill the void.
Similar to Italian crime gangs, the 'dockies' followed an unwritten set of rules which included assistance to members, rejection of conventional justice and, of course, silence.
A brief history of the Painters and Dockers and information on:
Victor Allard James Frederick Bazely, Desmond Costello, Alfred Nelson, Freddie 'the frog' Harrison, Laurie Jones, The Kane's, Graham Kinniburgh, Bill Longley, Moran Family, Jack "Putty Nose' Nicholls, Steven Nittes, Victor Pierce, Jack Twist, Harold Nugent, Pat Shannon, Doug Sproule, Allan Williams, Charlie Wootton
LATEST - October 6, 2002: Herald Sun discredits accuser of alleged paedophile Archbishop - highlights dockie connection.
The Sunday Herald Sun highlighted the fact that the man accusing Catholic Archbishop George Pell of sexual abuse has Painter and Docker links.
The report came days after there was a scuffle between the accuser and a media throng camped outside his house on the first morning of a private hearing into the allegations.
Many have seen the report to be a reaction to the scuffle. Full Story
Freddie 'the frog' Harrison.
Harrison was known as a standover king. He ran an inner-suburbs protection racket in the 50's and demanded money from sellers of sly grog and SP bookies.
Freddie was killed as he uncoupled a trailer at 13 South Wharf on the Melbourne water front on February 6, 1958.
A gunman walked up to Harrison and said, 'This is yours Fred', and blasted half his head away with a twelve gauge shotgun.
This happened in front of dozens of work mates. All claimed to have seen nothing. The bullets used by the killer were said to have been disposed of by Charlie Wootton (below).
A week before his murder, Harrison had been pig-shooting with two friends, Jack Twist and Harold Nugent.
Jack Twist and Harold Nugent
As mentioned above, Twist and Nugent were friends of Freddie Harrison's.
The pair had been pig-shooting with Harrison a week before he was killed at Port Melbourne.
According to Tom Prior in his book 'Untold Violence', things turned nasty. Inside a car , Harrison turned a shotgun on Nugent and told him he was 'too big for his boots.' As Harrison fired, Nugent pushed the gun away with his hands losing two fingers and a thumb in the process.
Harrison turned the shotgun on Twist and fired. The gun jammed and Twist wrestled it away. Harrison managed to drive off, leaving Twist with the bloodied Nugent. Nugent later said he wounded himself in an accident while carrying his gun like a walking-stick - the wounds to the back of his hands, however, were puzzling).
Twist was interrogated by police after Harrison's murder but no charges were laid. He died in mid-1988 of cancer after moving to Hastings, on Victoria's south eastern coast.
Nugent was Charlie Wooton's step-father.
Charlie Wootton
Born in Sydney in 1941, Charlie Wooten has often been linked to illegal casinos and other gambling establishments.
As a teenager, Wootton reputedly disposed of the shot gun shells used by Freddie 'the frog' Harrison's killer on February 6, 1958.
On December 10, 1971, the day of union elections involving groups headed by Bill Longley and Patrick Shannon, a group of men turned up in five cars and began shooting.
Longley named Bob Dix (Pat Shannon's driver, Charlie Wooton and Corsetti (a long-time associate of Wooton), as being in the car. The group had lost the election.
During the shooting, Longley fled, unscathed. The opposition group seized the ballot papers and many were destroyed.
Wooton was among nine men associated with the dockers to be shot and wounded the following year ('72).
Pat Shannon was shot dead at Druids Hotel in South Melbourne in October 1973.
In the 70's, Wooton allegedly made millions out of Bacarat schools using dockers as hard men who ensured the swift running of the schools and the prompt payment of debts. He was later to become a well respected gaming identity.
Wooton was convicted of gaming offences in 1975 and 1979 and then twice in the late 1980's. He was fined on each occasion.
Wooton was named as a 'Melbourne criminal' in a Commonwealth -New South Wales Joint Task Force on Drug Trafficking tabled in Federal and NSW Parliaments in 1983. He was stated to be an associate of John Doyle, now deceased, nominated as the Hong Kong-based drug partner of ex-NSW policeman, Murray Stewart Riley, jailed in 1978 over a previous $40m drug importation.
Wooton was investigated by federal police in 1986; in 1987 and 1988 his activities were probed by the NCA and the Victoria Police.
Transcripts of conversations between Painter and Docker Stephen Nittes (see Bill Longley below) and a member of the Nick Paltos Lavender drug syndicate had Nittes saying that he'd been told 'if you ever get into trouble with the police, ring up Charlie Wootton.
Reclusive in his older age, Woottons' was one of the notable death notices after high-profile crime lord Alphonse Gangitano, was killed in 1998.
Gangitano, a standover man involved with drug dealing, moved amongst the Italian groups as well as dealing with mainstream Australian criminals associated with the Painters and Dockers.
The Dock Wars
The dock wars of Melbourne began in the very early 1970's. The apparent reason for the escalation of waterside violence was the influx of drugs into Australia.
Most of the drugs coming in were being imported by Chinese triads. The Painter and Dockers Union as well as Police became involved as each group sought their cut of the profits. Police had been involved with the Chinese for many years pertaining to illegal gambling in China Town in Melbourne and similar Asian quarters throughout Australia.
Almost all of the feuding on the docks could be put down to disagreements over the distribution of ill-gotten profits and who would have the power to determine this distribution.
The warring between factions peaked un the lead-up to the elections for the maverick Painters and Dockers Union.
Alfred Nelson
In the lead up to union elections, Alfred Nelson, the wharfie's union welfare officer, disappeared. His car was fished from 10m of water near a wharf but his body was never found. Desmond Costello was apparently killed within days as a reprisal for Nelsons death.
Desmond St Bernard Costello
Costello was shot dead and his body dumped in an open excavation ditch in Collingwood. This was said to be in revenge for the murder of Alfred Nelson shot dead only days before.
During the elections, seven bullets were fired into the union's South Melbourne office.
Union secretary Terry Gordon told a federal inquiry into the waterfront, 'we catch and kill our own'. The State Secretary, Pat Shannon, echoed these sentiments by adding that 'no bullet had ever hit a non-union member.
Gordon's rhetoric was blown apart when 10 year old Nicholas Korvat was killed. The boy was shot in a gun battle at the Moonee Valley Hotel, Fitzroy. Docker Laurence Chamings was also killed in the attack.
Billy 'the Texan' Longley
Longley was a presidential candidate and the leader of a union faction at war with that of Pat Shannon's.
Longley was one of the most feared men on the docks during the 1960’s and 1970’s. He was known as "The Texan" because he wore a Stetson and carried a Colt .45.
Longley was convicted for a March 4, 1970, Mayne Nicholas robbery in the Sydney suburb of Guildford in which Victorian armed robbers ventured north.
The gang netted $587,870 in what was Australia's biggest armed robbery to date. The robbery was carried out along with fellow dockers, Stephen Nittes and Laurie Albert Jones.
The pair were sentenced to 16 years jail. In 1984, Nittes was recorded and photographed with Sydney Underworld figure, Dr Nick Paltos in Fawkner Park, South Yarra.
Paltos was a principal of the Lavender drug syndicate which had close links to Robert Trimboli. Nittes was recorded saying that he could "get rid of twenty kilos" of heroin and the tapes led to his return to jail.
During the early 1970s when the Melbourne waterfront war was in full flight, and Longley, described as an evil genius" disappeared from sight.
Despite being one of Melbourne underworld's most sought-after figures, Billy "The Texan" Longley managed to elude both police and his enemies for 16 months.
But, unlike a few of his friends and a lot more of his enemies, Longley actually turned up alive.
Longley doesn't want to actually rub anyone's nose in it by bragging about his 16 months "in smoke" (underworld term for lying low), but he reckons the police and rival crims who were looking for him never even came close.
He lived at a number of houses scattered around Melbourne, and even used to get out for the occasional game of golf.
"I also used to jog a mile every night at dusk and I never tried to disguise myself," he says.
Longley knows a bit about going into smoke. He ran free for 16 months as the painters and dockers waged war on Melbourne's waterfront - a war that the Costigan Royal Commission said had led to at least 40 people being murdered.
He was just one of a number of painters and dockers who went into hiding during those wild and bloody times.
Some months after Longley disappeared in 1973, Pat Shannon was gunned down in South Melbourne's Druid's Hotel (now the Water Rat).
Longley was eventually convicted for ordering Shannon's murder, but almost 25 years later still maintains his innocence.
A huge police hunt in 1973, '74 and '75 failed to find Bill Longley.
"I was very fortunate in that I had an excellent network of very good friends who looked after me," he says.
"I remember a detective getting in the box during my trial and saying police had a squad of 21 men looking for me around the clock.
So you can imagine their surprise when I came forward with my lawyer and presented myself at Russell St police headquarters after 16 months on the run."
Longley's time on the run ended on February 13, 1975 when he gave himself up to homicide squad detective Jimmy Fry.
He says he came forward because he didn't want a judge to think his evasion of police was evidence of his guilt.
"My contention was that I wasn't fleeing the police but that I was keeping my head down, like a lot of other painters and dockers, on account of it was liable to be shot off by opposing factions in the waterfront battle," he says. "Those were wild times and a lot of my mates had been killed. I have a strong self-preservation instinct, and that's why I went in to smoke."
"They got the usual from me. Billy Longley's my name and I live at so-and-so, and that's all I've got to say to you. Tell 'em nothing - that was the code in those days."
In 1983, Longley was subpoenaed to give evidence to the Costigan Royal Commission into the Painters and Dockers Union. The Royal Commission was set up after a violent struggle in the union left as many as forty people dead.
Longley has been credited with from 11-16 other killings, although he denies these. Most of the dead were political rivals, murdered in the year following the election. During his lifetime, he was charged with another murder, manslaughter and three attempted murders.
Longley maintains that whenever a criminal was on the run they would head to Melbourne and avoid the criminal haunts of Sydney.
"We had a saying 'Sydney for money, Melbourne for blokes'," Longley recalls. "When we would go through Sydney we would never go to Bondi or Kings Cross because every crim in Sydney was concerned with what they used to call their insurance.
"And their insurance was picking up the phone and ringing through to their local CIB and saying to a detective they knew that they had just seen x and y at the Coogee Bay pub and they were still there if they wanted to get them - and not to forget that the call was part of their insurance."
Sydney, he says, was all about building up the insurance for future crimes by dobbing in other criminals. For Longley, Melbourne was a different place, a place where criminals had principles.
"Things were different in Melbourne. The significance of the saying 'Melbourne for blokes' is that other crims wouldn't dob you in to police. There were principles in the underworld then, and that's why so many international and interstate crims chose Melbourne to go into smoke."
Longley wasn't at all surprised early in 1998 when the much-publicised hunt for Queensland escapee Brendon Abbott and his sidekick Brendon Berichon turned to Melbourne. The pair were just another couple of additions to the motley crew of crims to have chosen Victoria as a hidey-hole while on the run. Although Abbott and Berichon were captured in Darwin in May, it was to Melbourne they fled after Berichon allegedly freed Abbott and four other prisoners from a high-security Brisbane jail in November last year.
Longley says Victoria used to be nationally and internationally renowned as a good place for criminals to go to ground, and the list of fugitives from the past to have done so reads like a Who's Who of crime.
It includes British MP John Stonehouse, Great Train Robber Ronald Biggs, armed robber and master of disguise Russell "Mad Dog" Cox, notorious NSW crime figure Edward "Jockey" Smith and convicted murderer Roy "Red Rat" Pollitt.
While Longley says Melbourne's reputation as a place to hide hasn't changed, police aren't convinced. A former member of the now-disbanded Major Crime Squad, which used to have responsibility for hunting fugitives, didn't have much time for The Texan's theories.
"Some of our best information on the whereabouts of escapees and other fugitives came from the Melbourne underworld," the retired officer says. "And Victoria can't have been that great a place to hide in because all the crooks nominated by Longley, other than Ronnie Biggs, were caught or killed."
He also says police access to much-improved electronic listening devices, telephone taps, surveillance techniques and sophisticated tracking equipment was making it harder for fugitives to avoid detection.
In an ABC-TV special, screened in 1998, Longley stated that among his friends were a number of senior Victorian police, including Brian "The Skull" Murphy, the former Victorian detective whose evidence helped convict him of murder.
Murphy and Longley subsequently formed a rather unlikely friendship and business partnership. The pair became friendly after Longley’s release from gaol in 1988, and now offer their services as industrial mediators.
"I’d like to set up as a consultant, advising people and firms on security matter. They might think I know the ropes, as someone who knows life from the other side of the tracks," says Longley.
"Looking back on my life, I regret the violence I’ve been involved in. But, the 1970’s were dangerous times on the waterfront. If you were a member of one faction or another, you could finish up with your head shot off,"
Now aged 72 (in 1998) and living quietly in suburban Melbourne, Longley goes ballroom dancing and counsels school children against getting involved in violence. Longley also lectured college students about keeping out of trouble and not being sucked in to a life of crime. "There is no glory in being in jail," he said.
Patrick Francis Shannon
A union rival of Billy 'the Texan' Longley, Pat Shannon, stood for an opposing faction at the bloody elections of 1971.
On December 10, 1971, the day of the election, Longley drove to the Williamstown Naval Dockyards with close associate and infamous gunman, James Bazely. He was standing on Longley's ticket.
He left Bazely's car parked just outside the main gates and walked towards the voting area. According to Longley, the returning officer told him that they had clearly won the election. As Longley chatted with supporters among the hundred or so crowd, he suddenly noticed some new arrivals.
According to Longley's statement at a later Commission, the men turned up in five cars and began shooting. Longley named Bob Dix (Pat Shannon's driver), Charlie Wooton and Corsetti (a long-time associate of Wooton), as being in the car. He could not be sure who was shooting.
During the shooting, Longley fled, unscathed. The opposition group seized the ballot papers and many were destroyed.
Wooton was among nine men associated with the dockers to be shot and wounded the following year.
Longley went into hiding for 16 months beginning in early 1973. A huge police hunt in 1973, '74 and '75 failed to find Longley.
After 16 months on the run, Longley came forward with his lawyer and presented himself at Russell St police headquarters.
Pat Shannon was shot dead at Druids Hotel in South Melbourne in October 1973.
At 9.55pm, Shannon was drinking when a man walked in carrying a .22 calibre rifle. The gunman pumped three shots into Shannon. He died instantly.
Police arrested four men over the murder: Longley, Kevin James Taylor, Gary Leslie Harding and Alfred Leslie Cannott.
Harding made a three-page statement to police.
In court, the Crown alleged that Longley paid Taylor $6000 for the hit and that Harding pointed Shannon out to Taylor in the hotel.
Harding's evidence was that he waited in the car and Taylor ran up, threw the gun into the back seat and said: "I shot him, I got him".
Longley, Taylor and Harding were convicted of Shannon's manslaughter.
Within 12 months Harding was dead, hacked to death in his Pentridge Gaol cell.
Longley, almost 25 years later, still maintains his innocence.
From: Australian Crime, Chilling tales of our time. Edited by Malcolm Brown.
Police apparently refused to act on the violence involved with the union, the allegation being that police were being paid to give Painters and Dockers a free reign. The allegations against police was given further credence when the then chief of the Victorian Homicide Squad, Kevin Carton, found the Victoria Police not competent to investigate the murders and prepared a report that called for judicial inquiry. His appeal was declined.
James Frederick Bazely
Born in 1924, Bazely was allegedly a hit man and also a target of pre-election violence, stood with a gun in his hand and a foot on the ballot box the day of the union elections.
Following the union ballot, Bazely was wounded in two separate ambushes.
Bazely was jailed after anti-drugs campaigner Donald Bruce Mackay disappeared from Griffith, NSW. in July 1977.
He was also found guilty of the April 1979 murders of drug couriers Douglas and Isabel Wilson at Seymour north-east of Melbourne.
The Wilsons' bodies were found in a shallow grave at Rye.
Bazely was sentenced to life imprisonment in April 1986 for the murder of the Wilson's.
He received concurrent sentences of nine years for conspiracy to murder Donald Mackay, and four years for the theft of $260,000 from Downards Security in 1978.
Bazely's appeal to the Full Court in June 1986 against the murder convictions was dismissed speedily and he had no chance of finding the $60,000 needed for an appeal to the High Court.
The Kane's
Les, Bryan, and Ray Kane, were the enemies of the 'Bennett Gang'.
They were stand over men who had conducted 'ghosting' rackets on the docks for several years. Ghosting involved the dock-side employment of fictitious individuals. The salaries of the non-existent dockers were collected by those running the rackets as were tax refunds in the worker's names.
The Kane family partook in a deadly feud with the team of armed robbers led by Raymond 'Chuck' Bennett.
In this they were apparently backed by members of the Consorting Squad.
The feud heightened after Bennett and his men undertook the Great Bookie Robbery on 21 April 1976.
During the robbery a boxing trainer, Ambrose Palmer, had been referred to by name by one of the robbers.
Ambrose apparently apparently recognized the mans voice as that of a man who'd been trained by him years earlier.
He kept the mans identity to himself for sometime but eventually let his name slip to one of the Kane brothers.
At a Richmond hotel in mid-1978, one of Bennett's men, Victor Mikkelsen, refused a drink from Les Kane. A brawl resulted and Les had an ear almost bitten off.
On October 19, 1978, Les Kane was bundled into a distinctive pink Ford Futura.
His wife Judy was pushed away by three masked men with machine guns. Kane was never seen again.
Brian Kane was shot dead at the Quarry Hotel in Brunswick in November 1982.
Victor Allard
In 1979, painter and docker, Victor Allard, a probable heroin dealer, was shot dead in Fitzroy while in the company of Dennis Allen.
Allen became the prime suspect.
Graham Kinniburgh
In November 1979 the BCI received information on a narcotics drop from Thailand arranged by Graham Kinniburgh, through the Painters and Dockers.
A phone tap was immediately put on Kinniburgh's North Melbourne home.
Kinniburgh was a close associate of high-profile underworld figure Alphonse Gangitano.
Gangitano was from a respectable Italian family but not one that had connections with the Calabrian and Sicilian organised crime syndicates.
In his life as a criminal this lack of forced allegiances allowed him to move amongst the two main Italian groups as well as dealing with mainstream Australian criminals associated with the Painters and Dockers.
Jack "Putty Nose' Nicholls. One time Union Secretary.
Doug Sproule, a target of pre-election violence.
Allan David Williams, was a former docker who supplied drugs to Dennis Allen.
Williams brother in law was mistakenly killed by a man acting for Allen who believed him to be Williams.
Williams was also a friend of big time speed dealer John William Higgs.
It was Williams who attempted to have policeman Mick Drury assassinated so that he would not give evidence to sink Williams heroin empire.
He had sold heroin to Drury at the Old Melbourne Hotel.
When police swooped for the arrest, Williams was startled by the screeching tyres of an over anxious police officer. A former champion footballer, Williams legged it, outrunning police.
Allan Williams passed away at the age of 49 on August 28, 2001.
He apparently died from hepatitis many raising the question as to whether or not this was caused by syringe use.
Jason Moran
Notorious criminal Jason Moran was entrenched in the Painters and Dockers culture as a water-side worker.
The stand-over man and half brother of Mark Moran , gunned down in 1999, was jailed for his part in a vicious brawl involving Alphonse Gangitano.
The Moran's are feared in the Melbourne underworld and have faced many charges relating to high level amphetamine trafficking.
They were also involved with the Flemington crew of armed robbers.
These included Frank Valastro, Graeme Jensen, Mark Militano and Walsh Street suspect Jedd Houghton.
Career criminal Raymond Denning once claimed that the Morans were directly involved with the armed robbery and shooting of a security guard in July 1988.
This robbery is said to have directly led to the Walsh Street police shootings.
Victor Pierce
Victor Pierce, a member of the Pettingill crime family who was acquitted Walsh Street police shootings worked on the docks for four years before he was shot dead on May 1, 2002.
He was sitting in his car in Bay Street, Port Melbourne when another car pulled up along side and Pierce was shot three times.
The shooters car was a mid-80's Commodore, eerily similar to the one used to lure the two young policeman to Walsh Street in 1988. The car used in Victors shooting was found burnt out the next morning.
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