MORE than 20 members of the Newcastle Nomads outlaw motorcycle gang will plead guilty today, avoiding what was set to be a marathon hearing in Newcastle Local Court
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The Nomads members were set for a three-week showdown with Strike Force Raptor prosecutors over allegations the bikies were either directing or participating in a criminal group during the gang's turf war with the Finks. But on Wednesday, barrister Bill Hussey, who appeared for all 21 Nomads bikies, said the three-week hearing, due to start on Thursday, could be vacated after a plea deal had been reached with the prosecution.
Court news: the Newcastle Herald
The parties had planned for the bikies to plead guilty on Wednesday and then adjourn the matters for sentence until late September.
But Magistrate David Price ordered all 21 Nomads to appear in court on Thursday to enter the pleas and possibly be sentenced.
In response to 18 months of drive-by shootings, firebombings and bloody brawls, Strike Force Raptor detectives came up with a two-pronged approach to quell the violence.
As well as the Serious Crime Prevention Orders, which targeted five high-ranking members of the Finks and Nomads with never before used legislation, they would execute widespread raids and charge everyone - every member of the warring Finks and Nomads - with either directing or participating in a criminal group.
The Finks members pleaded guilty and have been dealt with by the courts.
The Nomads include high-ranking members Dylan Patrick Brittliffe, Bradley Bowtell, Kane Benjamin Tamplin, Blake Kevin Martin and James Kenneth Quinnell, who were the five members of the gang subject to the Supreme Court's Serious Crime Prevention Orders.
Bowtell, Tamplin and Brittliffe were charged with knowingly direct the activities of a criminal group between November 27, 2016, when a Finks member was knocked off his bike by members of the Nomads at a set of traffic lights, until April 5, 2018, the date investigators searched 31 Hunter properties belonging to either the Nomads or the Finks.
In between those dates there was an explosion of violence on Hunter streets and as part of their case against the Nomads, Strike Force Raptor prosecutors were set to outline a laundry list of fire-bombings, drive-by shootings, brawls, intimidation and deliberate hit-and-run attacks that knocked rival gang members off their motorbikes.
The Serious Crime Prevention Orders have since expired and there has been no further incidents of violence between the Finks and Nomads in the Hunter.
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