Les Hoddy's

[F420]

Though still a proud and strong man, and above all loyal to the Gypsy Jokers Motorcycle Club he co-founded in the early 1970s, media and friends agree Mr Hoddy was feeling the effects of constant attention from the authorities hellbent on breaking him.

He was not the same man who thumped a cop during a brawl when WA police unnecessarily harassed mourners during a club associate's funeral in 2001.

 

He was not the same man renowned for fighting out of his weight class and he certainly wasn't the same man who vowed to fight tooth-and-nail to win back the assets that had been taken from him.

 

Reduced to driving a car left unused when close friend Gary Ernest White was convicted of a murder 18 months ago, and doing labouring work for cash only, the 56-year-old grandfather-of-eight had lost the devilish glint in his eye that was present when he was one of the most respected bikers in Australia.

 

While police hated him and fearfully claimed he had threatened to murder scores of officers and their families, hundreds of people turned out to say goodbye to him at Midland Cemetery last weekend.

 

Now, the attention has turned to his family and their battle to share in his estate.

 

At the time of his death, Mr Hoddy was still the only person really targeted by police under WA's four-year-old unexplained wealth laws which allow them to freeze anyone's assets. If he wanted them back he had to prove how he had obtained them, and that was exactly what he was trying to do.

 

But last year, Mr Hoddy was charged with serious drug counts over the supply of 29g of amphetamines.

 

The charge will now be dismissed, but not the confiscation action. In fact, now he has died, the court will deem he "absconded" and he will forfeit the lot.

 

Late last year, Mr Hoddy spoke exclusively to The West Australian about the confiscation, claiming there was a police conspiracy to get him because of the Gypsy Jokers' involvement in the car-bombing murder of former CIB chief Don Hancock and his friend Lou Lewis.

 

"It's completely and utterly wrong," he said about the confiscation laws. "They can use the law to destroy anybody that they have got anything against. It takes you five years to prove it was legitimate and in that five years your business is destroyed anyway. Then they have got someone to say I was a drug dealer. They have raided all my places 20 times and they have never found any drugs."

 

Mr Hoddy said the laws should change so people whose assets were frozen could continue to operate their businesses and people convicted of drugs offences could keep legitimately earned property.

 

"They take people's inheritance off them because they get caught with something 20 years down the track," he said. "That part should be a no-no. Even if it is drugs. That's something their parents gave them."

 

Long-time partner Pattie said the laws were disgusting and Mr Hoddy had been driven to an early grave by police attention.

 

She said he had hoped to provide each of his children with a house from the sale of his assets and they would consider some sort of challenge to the law.

 

"How can you lose something because you die before they get it to court?" Pattie said. "They are the ones that should get their acts together because they are the ones doing the court process, and things could have gone through court a long time ago."

 

Pattie said the children were devastated and Mr Hoddy was not the ruthless criminal police had made him out to be.

 

"They have lost their father now and that is the most important thing," she said.

 

The Western Australian Director of Public Prosecutions is likely to apply for the final confiscation of Mr Hoddy's Harley-Davidson motorcycle, Holden Commodore sedan, two trucks, trucking equipment, Maddington home and Bellevue trucking yard within a month.

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0803/unclep/news/leshoddy.jpg

[Luke Skywalker]

RIP mate.

 

WA seizure laws are nothing short of draconian. They could be from China.

[F420]

I got these articles from www.ozbiker.org

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