A top Canberra bikie faces being hit with a harsher jail sentence for his role in a violent home invasion, after evidence emerged about him still being a member of the Satudarah motorcycle club.
David Michael Evans, 33, faced the ACT Supreme Court last week, where he had previously pleaded guilty to his role in a violent home invasion ordered by Canberra underworld matriarch Sharon Stott.
During the attack in January last year, Evans repeatedly hit his victim with an electric guitar, breaking the man’s leg and ribs, while a co-offender, Dean Reid, held a knife to the man’s throat.
Both men are members of the local chapter of the Satudarah MC, and both have served as the club’s Canberra chapter president, according to police.
At a sentencing hearing earlier this year, Justice Chrissa Loukas-Karlsson accepted Evans’s barrister’s argument there was no proof he was still a member of a bikie club, and there was no proof the crime was related to the bikie Satudarah’s activities in Canberra.
Bikies are often whacked with harsher jail sentences than ordinary street criminals, because continuing membership of motorcycle clubs suggests they are less likely to turn away from a life of crime.
On Thursday, it emerged Reid had in March pleaded guilty in the ACT Magistrates Court to a separate string of harassment offences committed behind bars, and had admitted in court documents that he was a member of the club.
Satudarah Canberra bikie club has a small presence in Canberra.
Justice Loukas-Karlsson accepted crown prosecutor Keegan Lee’s argument that she should consider the Magistrates Court documents and revisit her earlier finding that there was not enough proof to find Evans not being a Satudarah member.
Justice Loukas-Karlsson has previously said the home invasion would have been a “harrowing” experience for the victim.
Stott, a career drug crook who roped Evans and Reid in as hired muscle in the home invasion, was sentenced to 19 months for her role in the crime, but was released after time served and was granted bail ahead of her upcoming trial relating to another standover job.
Norman Collier, then 25, and Joshua Watson, 36 — neither of whom are bikies — were earlier this year sentenced to 18 months jail, to be suspended after six months served, for their lesser, non-violent roles in the home invasion.
Evans and Reid — who are the only two of the five offenders who remain in jail over the attack — will be sentenced at a later date.
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Source: Daily Telegraph