The Club Deroes Motorcycle Club or Club Deroes MC are an Australian

outlaw motorcycle club An outlaw motorcycle club is a motorcycle subculture generally centered on the use of Cruiser (motorcycle), cruiser motorcycles, particularly Harley-Davidsons and chopper (motorcycle), choppers, and a set of ideals that purport to celebrate fre ...

that was formed in

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...

, Western Australia, in 1971.

Four club policy and the Mongrel Mob conflict

In the 1980s Western Australia was home to four outlaw motorcycle clubs, Club Deroes,

Gypsy Jokers The Gypsy Joker Motorcycle Club (GJMC), are a " one-percenter" motorcycle club that was originally formed in San Bernardino, California on April Fool's Day, 1956.Isaacs 2004 Though founded in the United States, the MC expanded successfully overs ...

Gods Garbage A deity or god is a supernatural being who is considered divine or sacred. The ''Oxford Dictionary of English'' defines deity as a god or goddess, or anything revered as divine. C. Scott Littleton defines a deity as "a being with powers great ...

and the

Coffin Cheaters The Coffin Cheaters are an international outlaw motorcycle club that was formed in Perth, Western Australia (WA), in 1970. The Perth-based Coffin Cheaters amalgamated in 1999 with a previously unrelated club in Victoria called Coffin Cheaters, a ...

. All except the Gypsy Jokers originated in WA. In 1989 these four gangs combined forces to violently eject the New Zealand-based street gang, the

Mongrel Mob The Mongrel Mob (sometimes self-labelled as the Mighty Mongrel Mob or colloquially known as the Mob) is an organised street gang and Prison gang based in New Zealand. With a network of more than thirty chapters throughout the country and additi ...

, which was attempting to establish itself in Perth. Events escalated over a five-day period where Selwyn Wharepapa, one of the leaders of the Perth Mongrel Mob, was injured in the bombing of the Mongrel Mob's metalwork shop with two kilograms of

gelignite Gelignite (), also known as blasting gelatin or simply "jelly", is an explosive material consisting of collodion-cotton (a type of nitrocellulose or guncotton) dissolved in either nitroglycerine or nitroglycol and mixed with wood pulp and saltpe ...

and the Mongrel Mob retaliated with an attempted explosion at a tattoo shop linked with the Gypsy Jokers. The following night police raided three homes, arresting seven people, including Wharepapa in possession of firearms, baseball bats and drugs. Two days later, Wharepapa was shot in the groin in the Perth suburb of

Swan View Swans are birds of the family Anatidae within the genus ''Cygnus''. The swans' closest relatives include the geese and ducks. Swans are grouped with the closely related geese in the subfamily Anserinae where they form the tribe Cygnini. Sometim ...

. Gypsy Joker Paul Hugo and Gods Garbage member Ronald Scott were arrested and charged with

assault occasioning actual bodily harm Assault occasioning actual bodily harm (often abbreviated to Assault OABH, AOABH or simply ABH) is a statutory offence of aggravated assault in England and Wales, Northern Ireland, the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, Hong Kong and t ...

. It was enough to force the Mongrel Mob to leave Perth.

References

{{OutlawMotorcycleGroups Outlaw motorcycle clubs Gangs in Australia Motorcycle clubs in Australia 1971 establishments in Australia Organizations established in 1971 Organisations based in Perth, Western Australia

Four club policy and the Mongrel Mob conflict

See also

References