ENRAGED at being told to keep the noise down while rampaging through a Cooks Hill unit complex at 2am, Newcastle Nomads bikie Michael Lockyer opened fire at a couple arguing with him from the third floor, four bullets embedding in the wall around the open window and the fifth miraculously whizzing between the pair.
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Lockyer, 43, went to the Darby Street unit block in the early hours of July 25 last year to find and confront a man who he had been arguing with over Facebook.
Armed with a baseball bat and wearing a balaclava and a Nomads long-sleeved shirt, Lockyer first ripped the screen door off a unit at 251 Darby Street before realising he had the wrong place.
It was while leaving that unit and walking through the common area of the complex that an irate Lockyer started loudly yelling in an attempt to lure out the man he was feuding with on Facebook.
But his shouts drew the attention of a woman and her partner on the third floor of a unit block, who told Lockyer to keep it down or he would wake people up.
Annoyed at being told to keep quiet, Lockyer told a woman he was with to "get the gun" and she went and retrieved a .45 calibre revolver from her unit.
The woman handed the gun to Lockyer who immediately aimed it at the bathroom window where the couple he was arguing with were standing and fired five shots, four of the bullets striking the wall around the window and the fifth going through the open window and passing between the couple. Lockyer and the woman fled the scene as the police were being called.
But Lockyer wasn't finished searching for the man from Facebook. About 4.30am that morning, he broke into another unit in the complex armed with a piece of timber. Again Lockyer had the wrong unit.
A terrified woman told police Lockyer stood still for about 30 seconds before saying: "I was knocking and looks like I got the wrong unit". He then left and was arrested about 50 metres up the road holding the piece of timber. But police didn't link him to the shooting until a search of his unit revealed a .45 calibre revolver hidden inside an oven.
Lockyer, one of 21 Nomads charged with participating in a criminal group over the gang's turf war with the Finks, was represented by solicitor Chris O'Brien when he appeared in Newcastle District Court on Thursday and pleaded guilty to firing a firearm at a dwelling or house, aggravated break and enter, possessing a firearm in contravention of a firearm prohibition order and possession of an unauthorised pistol.
He will be sentenced on October 15, about a week before he is sentenced in the local court for participating in a criminal group.
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