Bikie guilty of habitual consorting
ACCUSED Mongols bikie Harley Barbaro was back in court after being arrested last year for alleged consorting.
Barbaro was arrested by police in June 2020 and charged with consorting and drug offences.
The brother of slain Sydney underworld boss Pasquale Barbaro on Thursday pleaded guilty in the Southport Magistrates Court to a charge of habitually consorting.
Barbaro will be sentenced in the same court on April 1.
He has yet to enter a plea for the remaining charges, which include allegedly breaching bail and possessing dangerous drugs and weapons.
At the time of his arrest, police alleged Barbaro consorted personally or by phone with four other outlaw motorcycle gang members – Sonny
Jenkins, Matthew Hutchins, Todd Barnes and Joel Barnes.
Defence lawyer Campbell MacCallum, of Moloney MacCallum Abdelshahied Lawyers, said the charge came from Barbaro using an encrypted app to chat with “childhood friends”.
“There are, like, 200 messages of a totally mundane nature with no criminality discussed,” Mr MacCallum said.
“Police got into it and have absolutely no evidence of criminal events, just pure chats friends.”
Barbaro in 2019 was found not guilty of habitually consorting. Under Queensland law, for someone to be found guilty of habitually consorting police must issue them with an approved warning notice with the name of a “recognised offender” they cannot contact or meet.
Police must also have evidence the person issued the warning had consorted, was consorting or likely to consort with a known criminal.
The court found there was no evidence Barbaro had consorted or was likely to consort with recognised offenders before the warning was issued.
The prosecution was also ordered to pay $4500 to Barbaro for the legal costs for taking the matter to trial.
Barbaro was the first person to challenge the consorting laws in court after the legislation was introduced in 2016. among childhood