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According to
celebrity criminal Mark
"Chopper" Read, Bennett was in a class of his own.
"He was a
thinker and a top gang war tactician", Read said.
"He was a
master planner and one of the Australian underworld's foremost bank
robbers".
Bennett lead the 'Kangaroo
Gang' with Brian
O'Callaghan robbing jewellery shops all over Europe.
The gang, which included
Bennett and several other career criminals, preyed on high-class jewellers and fashion houses in the UK and Europe.
They often used attractive women
decoys to distract staff during daring daylight raids.
Several members of the gang were
believed to be part of the Grandfather Mob, who used similar tactics in raids on
courier vans in Australia during the late '90s.
Melbourne
bookmakers had met at the Victorian Club's former
premises at 141 Queen Street to settle
up on the first business day after a major metropolitan race meeting for almost
a century.
Huge amounts
of money would arrive by armoured car.
Once inside
the club there was almost no security. It
all worked on trust.
The millions
of dollars in cash present each settling day had attracted the attention of
criminals.
Several gangs,
including one led by the notorious Edward "Jockey"
Smith, had
conducted preliminary checks on the feasibility of committing the robbery but
the job had always appeared too daunting.
Bennett, had the
dash, brains and imagination to consider the whole matter as a serious
proposition.
At the time
of planning what was to be Victoria's biggest ever heist, Bennett was sitting in
a jail cell on the Isle of Wight.
Late in 1975,
he took advantage of pre-release leave and flew to Australia to case the
Victoria Club.
After
accomplishing his mission, he jumped on a plane and returned to England and
completed his sentence, content in the knowledge that when he was a free man he
could turn his attention to the job others had just talked about.
When he
returned to Australia, Bennett quickly went about recruiting a team of nine.
Police have
said the group was possibly the best gang of armed robbers ever assembled in
Australia and that they had specialised in "commando-type raids".
"They
copied the methods of an English group called the Wembley Gang which had used
similar commando tactic," former Consorting Squad boss Paul Delanis told
author Malcolm Brown.
Though the
gang Bennett recruited has never been positively identified it is believed that
one of the key members was Ian Revell Carroll, a man with the imagination to
carry out a big job.
Another
apparent member was Anthony Paul McNamara.
Bennett
organised "laundering" and called upon a close friend, Norman
Lee, a dim sim maker, for help in at least that regard.
Police later said that Bennett and
Lee "were like brothers".
There was another man, jailed
at the time, who received his share of the haul.
Most of the
gang were 'known to police' but one of them, described as a 'time and motion
expert' was unknown to detectives.
He lived in a
northwestern suburb and had been part of a planning team for major armed
robberies in Melbourne, Perth and Sydney.
Bennett's team allegedly also
included
Brian O'Callaghan,
Laurie Pendergast, Vincent Mikkelson and two brothers.
Bennett took
the group to a secret training camp in rural Victoria.
He behaved
like a football coach, giving instruction to his team that for three months they
were to swear off the booze and keep away from women knowing that loose lips
could destroy the job before it started.
He counselled
his men to remain calm, be quiet and, when they got the loot, not to start
throwing it around.
The robbery
was to take place on April 20,
1976.
Bennett
chose the date because it was the post
Easter settling day and bookmakers would
be settling up after not one but three
race meetings.
As
to minimise the gang's chances of
failure, Bennett organised a virtual
dress rehearsal during the Easter
long-weekend.
According to
information later given to police, the gang went into the deserted premises of
the club over the holiday and practised what they were going to do. His
plan was to use a team of six to storm the club, backed by at least three
others.
The gang, armed with sub-machineguns, held up
bookmakers on their settling day and a huge amount of cash was handed over.
The
robbers grabbed 118 calico bags filled with cash.
The
raid officially netted $1.4 but estimates of up to $15m have been made as to the
actual contents of those bags.
Dennis
William Smith is rumoured to have laundered some of the proceeds from the
robbery.
It
was after that robbery that Smith,
and long-time partner, Kerry Ashford, opened the sleazy Aussie Bar in the
Philippines capital Manila, an offshore haven for major criminals from Sydney
and Melbourne.
Police investigators have shown
some of the money went to Manila via Canada.
Some of the money was invested in
real estate in New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria.
The gang had a female expert
based in Sydney to handle the complex property investments.
Bennett also appeared to have
helped out his family.
His mother collapsed in the
waiting room of a Melbourne solicitor and when ambulance officers arrived they
cut off her clothes to attempt external heart massage.
They found $90,000 concealed in
her clothing.
After the Bookie Robbery tensions
mounted with other criminals, and apparently some police keen to recover the
stolen millions.
Particular animosity had grown
between Bennett's team and Painter
and Docker brothers, Les and Brian Kane.
During the robbery a boxing trainer,
Ambrose Palmer had been referred to by name by one of the robbers.
It was
believed Palmer recognised the bandit's voice.
Ambrose apparently kept the mans
identity to himself for sometime but eventually let his name slip to one of the Kane
brothers.
A group of Sydney criminals known as
the "Toecutters" also started making inquiries.
They were an infamous group which
used to torture armed robbers who were known to have done big jobs and to steal
their money.
Bennett's name started being bandied
around, and to the Toecutters he meant trouble.
They decided to leave and his men
alone - Bennett would never be stood over and no amount of money was worth what
would happen if they tangled with him.
On October 19,
1978, the fiery Les Kane was shot dead at his Wantirna home. His wife Judy was
pushed away by three masked men with machine guns. She
and the rest of the young family were then forced at gun point to listen from
another room while Kane was pumped full of lead in the bathroom. He
was bundled into a distinctive pink Ford Futura and never seen
again. Bennett,
Mikkelsen and Prendergast were charged with the murder.
The famous Les Kane
murder trial featured Colin
Lovitt QC.
The trio were
acquitted.
Bennett was shot dead at
Melbourne Magistrates court on November 12, 1979.
He was about to face a committal
hearing for a $69,000 payroll robbery in Yarraville.
From the Police Report comes the
following passage:
The deceased appeared before the
Melbourne Magistrates Court at 10am Monday 12 November 1979 where he was facing
committal proceedings on two counts of armed robbery.
His case was transferred
from the main court to the 10th court which is on level one.
Whilst being
escorted to this court at about 10.20am. he was confronted by a man who fired
three shots at him.
The deceased, after receiving a gunshot wound to the chest
and hand, ran down a flight of stairs into the court yard where he collapsed
into the arms of two uniformed policemen.
They were Senior Detectives Glare and
Strang from the consorting squad and Mugavin from armed robbery.
The two
consorting squad detectives assisted Mugavin as most other officers had been
called away to a trade union demonstration.
The offender escaped immediately
after by going down a back stairway which leads to the car park.
He then made
his was through a hole in the iron fence and disappeared into the city.
The two policemen rumoured to have
been involved in Chuck Bennett's murder were Paul John Strang and Brian
Francis Murphy of the Metropolitan Regional Crime Squad.
Murphy
had no business being at the Magistrates Court and happened to be passing by
when he saw what he thought was a demonstration.
The coroner found that the officers
were in no way involved in the shooting.
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