The Gold Coast Bulletin

Bikie beats raid charge

But ‘broke’ Hells Angel fined over iPad access fail

- GREG STOLZ greg.stolz@news.com.au

A “BROKE” Gold Coast bikie boss targeted in a moneylaund­ering probe has beaten a charge of failing to give police access to his encrypted BlackBerry phone after a court ruled it was illegally seized from a car he drove to meet officers who were raiding his property.

But Gregory Pearce, Gold Coast president of the Hells Angels gang, was yesterday convicted of a second charge of failing to give bikie-busting cops access to his iPad.

Pearce protested that he was “broke” and “struggling to pay all the bills” when Taskforce Maxima officers raided a Burleigh Heads industrial shed where he was living in October 2017, Southport Magistrate­s Court was told.

“As you can see I’m living it up in this joint,” he joked with detectives in a video of the raid played to the court.

Asked about a stash of watches, Pearce told officers they were “imitation ones from Bali” and were “all broken”.

Police seized an iPhone and iPad from the shed and a BlackBerry from a VW Amarok he turned up in after detectives arrived with a search warrant to find him not at home.

After telling police that he had “nothing to hide” but could not remember the BlackBerry passcode, he said the phone was not his and had been left in the car the previous night by someone else.

“It’s not my password to give,” he told officers.

Defence barrister Martin Longhurst successful­ly argued that the BlackBerry should not have been seized from the Amarok because it was not parked on the property specified in the search warrant.

“It’s long been recognised that a search warrant is an infringeme­nt of a citizen’s rights and should be interprete­d strictly,” Magistrate Brian Kucks ruled.

But Mr Kucks found Pearce guilty of failing to provide the correct pin code for the iPad.

Pearce was fined $500 and also ordered to reappear in Brisbane Supreme Court over a suspended sentence imposed in 2016, and could face jail time.

 ??  ?? Gregory Brian Pearce.
Gregory Brian Pearce.

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