.. from Ozbiker.org 27/8/04

Four WA Gypsy Joker Motorcycle Club members and an associate, accused of waging a bombing campaign against former high-ranking (and allegedly corrupt) Perth detective, Don Hancock, were today acquitted.

Over the past eight weeks, the WA District Court has been told how the club believed Mr Hancock had shot Gypsy Joker member Billy Grierson as he sat at a campfire at Ora Banda, 70km north-west of Kalgoorlie, on October 1, 2000.

A jury today returned not guilty verdicts for Les Hoddy, Richard Samuels, Robert Stupar and Gary White, who were each facing three charges of plotting and then planting bombs, in an act of revenge, that damaged the home and businesses of the former head of Perth's Criminal Investigation Bureau.

Graeme "Slim" Slater, who had faced four charges in relation to the bombing campaign, was also found not guilty but had earlier confessed to a related charge of attempted arson.

He was sentenced to three years jail but will be eligible for release this afternoon.

In sentencing Slater, Judge Allan Fenbury said he took into account time already served on remand.

Slater spent 20 months in custody awaiting trial on charges that he wilfully murdered Mr Hancock and his friend Lou Lewis in a car bombing in September 2001 before being acquitted of those charges by a jury last year.

The car bombing was allegedly the final act in the campaign against Mr Hancock that the prosecution said began with the destruction of the retired detective's home and businesses in late 2000.

Meanwhile, the person whose testimony the Crown based their whole case around, Sid Reid, the ex-member, turned dog, will return to his secret location prison cell, to serve out the remainder of his 15 year sentence.