Gatto, Gangitano and gangland strife: Inside the case files of Victoria’s ultimate underworld lawyer

For many years Brian Rolfe was the lawyer of choice for Victoria’s most cunning crooks.

He was a straight shooter (as were many of his clients), was comfortable in the company of dangerous men and had a talent to forensically deconstruct a police case looking for a weakness.

As a young Geelong lawyer back in the 1960s, he was drawn to being a barrister by a flash car and flash clothes. “I saw a barrister from Melbourne turn up. He drove a white Jag and wore a caramel suit. He had two cases and was done by lunch. He suggested I should go to the Bar.”

The barrister was George Hampel, later a Supreme Court judge.

Rolfe drifted into criminal cases, including high-pressure murder trials when Harold Holt was prime minister, decimal currency was being introduced and capital punishment was on the books.

After seven years at the Bar, he returned to working as a solicitor and with colleague Bob Galbally, established Victoria’s first specialist crime practices – Galbally Rolfe.

Now retired, we meet for a chat at a groovy deli in Lygon Street. It is about 100 metres from where the exceptionally well-known Mick Gatto shot the exceptionally dangerous hitman Andrew Veniamin 22 years ago.

Gatto was acquitted of murder on the grounds of self-defence.

“We both have strong personalities, and we would clash at times. Gatto was a good client and good witness. Veniamin was a hitman who killed six, possibly more. Andrew was a short guy who wouldn’t take a backward step.

“At the trial, the prosecution tried to make out Veniamin was an innocent victim, and he was anything but.”

Brian speaks of his colourful clients with easy familiarity providing a personal insight into crooks who have dominated the headlines.

Nicola Gobbo was a barrister who became a secret police informer, betraying her clients and profession. She represented Faruk Orman, who was convicted of murdering armed robber and police killer Victor Peirce in 2002. The conviction was overturned when Gobbo’s role in the case was revealed.

“I briefed Nicola in the Orman case. She was an excellent barrister. She could master a complex drug brief and had a great knowledge of police procedures.

“The prosecution had a secret witness who first said they [he and Orman] had driven over Westgate Bridge. We found records that showed they didn’t. Next thing, a new statement arrives saying he’d made a mistake, and drove a different way.

“He claimed Orman confessed in a building that at the time had not been built. Again a statement turned up saying it was a mistake and it was somewhere else.

“I said to Bob [Galbally] the office must be bugged. We now know Gobbo was leaking, undermining her own client. It was outrageous no one was prosecuted [over Gobbo’s role as a double-agent] despite overwhelming evidence.”

James Frederick Bazley was Australia’s oldest hitman. Bazley was sentenced to life for killing three. He was paid $10,000 to kill Donald Mackay, who was shot in the car park of the Griffith Hotel on July 15, 1977. Mackay was killed because he was to expose a group involved in the lucrative marijuana industry.

Bazley also killed the drug couriers Isabel and Douglas Wilson, whose bodies were found buried in Rye in May 1979. He was released from prison in 2001 and died in 2018.

“Jimmy was very polite and quietly spoken. After he was released, I saw him walking around Princes Park. I asked, ‘How are you, Jimmy?’ He said, ‘Not bad Brian, but I’m struggling for money. You know what I do, so if you hear of anything give me a call.’ He was in his 70s then.”

Nobody knows how many murders Christopher Dale Flannery committed in his short and violent life, but he was given the nickname Rent-A-Kill for a reason. Flannery was acquitted of two murders – Melbourne businessman Roger Wilson and Sydney underworld figure, Raymond Francis Locksley.

He took a contract to murder Sydney undercover detective Mick Drury because the policeman refused a bribe to throw a trial against Melbourne drug dealer, Alan Williams. Drury survived.

In April 1985, Flannery asked Rolfe and barrister Phil Dunn to fly to Sydney with the plan of representing Tony “Spaghetti” Eustace who was facing serious charges.

“Flannery was quite pleasant. We had lunch at a beautiful restaurant where the table was laden with seafood. There was Chris, his wife Kath, Phil Dunn, and Tony Eustace.

“There was no one else in the restaurant. The owner said Mr Flannery likes it this way.

“When Eustace started quibbling about the cost of hiring us, I saw Flannery’s eyes narrow.

“About a week later, Eustace was shot dead. Flannery feared he was going to plead guilty and give up the others.”

(Flannery went missing in May 1985 and his body was never found.)

In 1982, Alan David Williams was the target of a drug squad operation in Melbourne with police using NSW undercover policeman Mick Drury. The set-up was for Williams to supply heroin worth $110,000 at the Old Melbourne Hotel. Williams wanted to do the deal from his car outside.

When police moved in they left a space big enough for Williams to drive off, dumping the heroin at Melbourne University where he once worked as a cleaner. Later, he asked hitman Christopher Dale Flannery to approach corrupt NSW detective Roger Rogerson to bribe Drury. When the undercover refused, Williams paid Flannery to kill Drury. He was gunned down while washing dishes in the kitchen of his Chatswood home on June 6, 1984. But he lived.

A contract was taken out on Williams, but the hit-team mistakenly killed his brother-in-law, Lindsay Simpson. Williams died in 2001.

“Alan Williams was very smart until the drugs got him. He bought his heroin from Roger Rogerson in Sydney and would stash it in a locker at Melbourne University SRC. He would wear desert boots and a duffle jacket to look like a student.

“He drove from the Old Melbourne [Hotel] up Flemington Road, dumped the heroin and hid on the roof of St Mary’s College watching police searching the grounds. (Williams was later acquitted.)

“I was with Williams as we walked down the back steps of a court in Sydney when we saw Drury. He said ‘G’day Alan’. I was astounded that he would speak to the guy who tried to kill him.

“Alan never recovered from the murder of his brother-in-law. He was devastated.”

Alphonse John Gangitano was a private schoolboy from a loving family who wanted to be a gangster. It was a poor career choice. The Black Prince of Lygon Street was the suspect in the Christmas Day, 1980, abduction and murder of teenager Debbie Boundy, listed as a witness against hitman Chris Flannery.

On February 6, 1995, Gangitano shot Gregory John Workman seven times in the back and once in the chest at a party in St Kilda.

Gangitano was shot dead inside his Templestowe home on January 16, 1998, almost certainly by his mate, Jason Moran.

“I met him in Pentridge and got him bail when he was a teenager. I knew him for many years – he was a charismatic character.

“His father took me to lunch. He was a lovely fellow who begged me to keep his son out of jail. He could have been anything, but his propensity for violence was extraordinary.

“Towards the end he was a loose cannon.”

Brian Alexander was a Sydney legal clerk who was a go-between linking corrupt officials and drug dealers. He was excused from testifying at the inquest of drug couriers Isabel and Douglas Wilson in Melbourne.

In December 1981, he was taken on a boat on Sydney Harbour by his criminal associates and thrown overboard chained to a gas stove. Neither surfaced.

“We got an injunction so that he didn’t have to give evidence in Melbourne. He was a very nervous man and then disappeared in Sydney.”

Dennis “Greedy” Smith was part of the 1976 Great Bookie Robbery using his share to buy a sex bar in Manila. Smith returned to Australia, was jailed for drug trafficking and died in 2010.

“Dennis was the driver when they knocked Brian Kane.” Kane was shot dead in The Quarry Hotel [Brunswick] in 1982, once believed to be by contract killer Rod Collins and prison escapee Russell Cox. Cox was never charged, nor convicted over Kane’s death, despite hours of questioning.

“Dennis said Cox was amazing and had no fear.

“Smith was well liked but didn’t understand police methods. He was caught because the hotel he owned was riddled with police listening devices.”

Rolfe has handled thousands of cases, but there is one where he believed his client was wrongly convicted. Aaron Rolls was having an affair, and his mistress wanted him to leave his wife.

On the Gold Coast, Rolls rang his girlfriend Mirvat Sleiman from a public phone outside a pub.

“He was unlucky because it was the meeting place for Comanchero bikies and police had it bugged,” says Rolfe.

Rolls told Sleiman he was going to kill his wife, making it look like an accident.

Both Rolls and Sleiman were convicted of conspiracy to murder. He was sentenced to 11 years and she to nine.

“I don’t think he meant it. I think he was stringing her [the girlfriend] along because he didn’t want the relationship to finish.

“I believe he was innocent. It troubles me to this day.”

John Silvester lifts the lid on Australia’s criminal underworld. Subscribers can sign up to receive his Naked City newsletter every Thursday.