CRIMINAL COUPLES Mum & dad drug dealers
Just like Bonnie and Clyde, these Australian partners in crime made major headlines for their dirty deeds Meet ‘Dazza & Shazza’
Gold Coast couple Darren Michael Baxter and Shayde Hodgson-gulson claimed they wanted to live a “simple life” with kids and a mortgage... after robbing a bank to pay for their ice addiction and taking in a homeless man while on the run in luxury hotels.
Baxter, 31, and HodgsonGulson, 23 – dubbed “Dazza and Shazza” – stormed the Burleigh Waters Suncorp Bank dressed in motorcycle helmets, gloves and jackets on September 26, 2019.
Allegedly “fried on ice” at the time of the robbery, the engaged couple were armed with a fake pistol.
The court heard Baxter po pointed the gun at a worker a and told them to fill up a la laptop bag with money. W With no customers, but fivefifi five st staff on duty, Baxter raan ran to t the tellers while Hod Hodgson-gulson acted
aas as a lookout.
Fleeing the scene on a motorbike with $5925, the pair later dumped their ride in a carpark.
Three days later they were arrested at Peppers Broadbeach after Baxter’s fingerprint was found at the bank.
In a bizarre twist, a homeless man named Sonny – who was unaware of their crime – was befriended by the couple just hours after the robbery.
He stayed with them in several hotels for three days, where they ordered room service and took Sonny shopping ng for clothes.
In July 2020, the couple ple pleaded guilty to armed robbery. Baxter’s barrister James Mcnab told the court his client wanted to break a cycle of drug use, have a “simple life” with his partner, get a job, have kids and a mortgage. He said Baxter was addicted to ice at the time of the robbery and had used 15g in 10 days.
Baxter, who also pleaded guilty to 18 summary offences, was given a sentence of six years in jail, with parole in June this year. HodgsonGulson was sentenced to four-and-a-half years, but was given earlier parole in December to spend time in a rehabilitation facility.
From the outside, Richard and Rachael Llewellyn looked like any other happy and successful couple with children. But behind the “happy families” facade was a dark secret.
Richard, who had previously been a successful boat dealer, had started to take government benefits and turned to crime to maintain his family’s lavish lifestyle.
To pay the rent for the family’s luxury high-rise apartment, the father-ofthree was secretly working as a street-level ice trafficker to Gold Coast night clubbers.
Making his “side hustle” a family affair, Rachael was also roped into the business. When she was not caring for their children, Rachael helped with “bagging and weighing ice” for her husband.
On one occasion, she wasas caught handing over 50 ecstasy pills worthth $1000 to a “police operative”.
Details of the shady scheme were uncovered when the couple faced the Supreme Court in May 2016. Richard, 42, admitted to selling ice between August 2013 and January 2014.
He pleaded guilty to five drug charges including attempting to cook “speed” in a secret lab located in his Boondall home.
Meanwhile, partner-incrime Rachael, 48, pleaded guilty to three charges of supplying drugs, including $1000 worth of ecstasy.
Handed a five-year sentence with 20 months behind bars, Richard’s barrister Colin Reid said his client’s “biggest regret” was involving his wife, and he was finding it “very difficult to forgive himself”. Rachael was given a nine-month suspended sentence.