Leadbelly: The Inside Story of an Underworld War Book

An early book about the Melbourne Gangland killings
6 April 2012

This book was released pretty quickly after the Melbourne Underground Gang War, which I still clearly remember. At the time all we knew was that criminals were pretty much going around killing each other, sometimes in broad daylight. There was one incident when one of the victims, Jason Moran, was shot point blank with a shotgun while he was sitting in his car getting ready to take his children home from their weekly football match. Many of us were laughing, thinking that finally something exciting was happening here in Australia, and there was also a debate as to whether the police should actually get involved as some were suggesting that we should simply leave them alone so that they can systematically kill off each other.
Thinking about those events about ten years later (though this war has continued to a minor extent since, particularly with the murder of Mario Condello, and lately the arrest of Judy Moran on the suspicion of manslaughter) I do wonder whether a hands off approach would have been at all possible. Personally I do not think so. As Silvester explains at the beginning of this book, one of the reasons that the war broke out was, to an extent, the exposure of systemic corruption within the Victorian Police Force. Anybody familiar with the Underbelly television series will be aware that corruption in the Australian police is not unknown, but bribery is not necessarily rife. However, at this particular point, a huge corruption scandal had broken out, and one of the results was that quite a few convicts were released as their arrests were considered dubious at best. Therefore, putting more criminals onto the street than normal, together with a breakdown of the respectability of the police force opens up opportunities for gangs to begin to take matters into their own hands.
Silvester is a reasonably well known Australian true crime writer (though I had not heard of him before this book) so he generally knows what he is talking about (and being a journalist, has access to sources that many of us don't). I have done a bit of criminology (having taken the subject at university) though I would hardly call myself an expert. Anyway, one of the other ideas he proposes is that there is a normal, and natural, shift in the make up of the criminal underworld. As the established godfathers are killed, arrested, or retire, others come up to take their place. Usually the older figures are pushed out in favour of a younger crowd. However, at this point in time, the natural evolution broke down when quite a few of those locked up were released. This was his theory, however it was 2004, and there was still a lot of uncertainty as to what was going on at the time (particularly due to ongoing investigations).
If we move forward another seven years, the gangland wars were then turned into a television series called 'Underbelly'. In this book we do not hear the name of Carl Williams, nor do we know anything about his connections with the Carlton Crew. All Leadbelly really does is that it goes through each of the murders outlining the person who was killed and the circumstances of the murder. Sometimes we know what happened (such as when Mick Gatto killed Andrew Venniman), other times we do not. However, it wasn't until all was said and done, and all of the dust had settled, that a clearer picture came to light. Initially we had a series of murders, connected namely through the association of each of the victims. However, by 2007, a much clearer picture had arisen to be able to make a proper television series.
Some have suggested that maybe because Carl Williams was still on trial (or the investigation was still ongoing) as the reason why Silvester did not write too much about the background or the connections, however for some reason I do not think that that is truly the case. The reason I say this is because when Underbelly was released, the Victorian Supreme Court put out an order preventing the series from being aired in Victoria for the reason that even at that time the trials were ongoing. I suspect that back in 2004 this was more of the case, but once the matters reach the courts, then the information being collected by the police is released to the public. In 2004 Silvester would not have had access to these investigations, in 2007 he would have.
This book was okay, but as mentioned, it was probably released a little too soon after the fact. In 2004 people still wanted to know what was going on and the cause. In a way they wanted to pierce the veil of the underworld to see what started this gang war and who the belligerents were. As it turned out it was simply one man wanting to claw his way to the top, and would use whatever means necessary to get there. In Carl Williams' case it pretty much involved him killing off his rivals. However, it was also a case of Williams trying to muscle in onto somebody else's territory (the Morans). The series suggested that he got access to the Moran's drug printing press and began to sell ecstasy onto the streets at massively reduced prices. Obviously the Morans did not appreciate somebody attempting to under cut them, so they did what criminals normally do when somebody tries to undercut their business - they shoot them. However Williams survived, and in that situation, if you are going to shoot somebody, make sure they are dead, because I tell you one thing, they are hardly likely to think 'gee, I upset him, I better not do that again.' No, they don't back off, they get even.