Dad joins biker gang to ‘protect daughter’ – then everything goes wrong
A father has told of the extreme steps he took to protect his daughter from a gang member — by joining the gang himself.
Stephen Pattman was living an ordinary life in suburbia when he learned that his daughter Chloe, who was then nineteen years old, had begun a relationship with ACT Rebels president Ali Bilal.
Pattman attempted to get Chloe to leave Bilal for two years before he, along with his son Chris, joined the gang themselves.
“I found myself in situations where I wondered, ‘What the hell have I gotten myself into?’” Pattman, who became a patched member of the gang, told “A Current Affair,” an Australian TV news program akin to “60 Minutes.”
“I could either do nothing and just observe her end up where – how creative can your mind be – where does she end up?”
Or he could join them “and get this man close and that’s exactly what I did.”
Pattman on “A Current Affair” A Current Affair/Channel nine
Pattman and his son managed to last three years until gang life became too much. The father and son abandon the gang, but their departure didn’t go as slickly as they would have liked.
“We knew there was going to be repercussions, because once the patch was off our back, it didn’t stop there.”
Pattman told “A Current Affair” he feared for his safety and was harassed by gang members.
He said he asked on more than one occasion for his family to be left alone — until one day he could take it no more.
He and Chris were standing on the side of a street in Canberra, an inland city in northern Australia, when they were confronted by a gang member in a car. Pattman was transferred a gun by his son, and he fired it into the car.
Court documents seen by “A Current Affair” said the bullet went through the driver’s headrest and out the rear passenger window.
Pattman re-enacts the shooting. A Current Affair/Channel nine
The man in the car suffered bleeding to his ear and improvised hearing harm.
After the shooting, Pattman and his son fled to a national park, where they lived in a campsite for a year. He has pleaded guilty to an act of endangering life and unauthorized use of a prohibited firearm and is awaiting sentencing.
Despite the possibility of jail, he didn’t regret joining the gang. He’d spoken to Chloe, who told him Bilal was no longer in the gang scene.
“He claims he is out of that lifestyle now, and I hope he is true to his word because I do and did fear for my daughter’s life being around that scene.”