An RSL WA board member has laid bare what unfolded during a police-backed search of the Nollamara premises it seized from the Veterans Motorcycle Club, including the discovery of ammunition, magazine clips and pharmaceuticals.
Taking the witness stand in the WA Supreme Court on Monday, RSL board member Trent Mongan told the court Police Minister Paul Papalia and federal Defence Minister Matt Keogh were among those called before the club was evicted from the Sylvia Street property on February 6, 2024.
The Nollamara RSL.Credit: Google
Mongan told the court he arrived flanked by locksmiths and police, a move he said was aimed at distancing the league from anything “unfavourable” it feared may be found after tasking officers with conducting an occupier’s search. The police attendance was not part of any criminal investigation into the club.
The court heard the search recovered 35 rounds of live and dummy ammunition, magazine clips and boxes of pharmaceuticals, some of which had been imported from overseas.
But RSL WA’s lawyer Tom Porter claimed that within five weeks the VMC had removed the locks and refused to vacate the premises, prompting the league to take the matter to the Supreme Court.
The eviction came after the RSL board resolved to sever ties with club, repossess the premises and disband the Nollamara sub-branch over allegations it was being run like a bikie clubhouse with skimpy barmaids.
The VMC — which shared members with the sub-branch and had been occupying a building on the site for almost three decades — denied the allegations, firing back with a counterclaim against the league.
The Sylvia Street premises is situated on Crown land granted to the RSL on the condition it is used as a meeting place for the organisation’s members.
At the centre of the case is whether the agreement reached between the Nollamara sub-branch and the VMC in 1996 for the construction of a clubhouse constituted a formal lease.
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