A FORMER Gold Coast Titans rising star and patched Hells Angels bikie has been granted bail while awaiting trial for his alleged role in a terrifying extortion racket.
One-time Titans U20s player Christopher Bloomfield was on Friday granted freedom from a Brisbane jail where he has spent the past two months held under harsh conditions, including solitary confinement for up to 23-hours a day.
Brisbane Supreme Court judge Alan Wilson had been told Bloomfield was a “professional sportsman’’ and had been a member of the Hells Angels’ Gold Coast chapter until he resigned from the club in October 2013.
Chris Bloomfield was a rising star for the Titans. Source: News Limited
Bloomfield, 23, and fellow accused probationary Hells Angel member Brady Van Rooijen, 25, were arrested in March after police from crack anti-bikie Taskforce Maxima Hydra raided a Varsity Lakes premises and arrested them on charges of extortion and assault causing bodily harm.
The pair are also facing a charge of being a participant in a criminal organisation which under Queensland’s harsh anti-bikie laws carries a mandatory prison term of 15-years.
Justice Wilson granted the pair bail on condition they report to police regularly, live at a specified address and obey a nightly curfew.
Bloomfield was a product of the renowned Gold Coast rugby league nursery Palm Beach-Currumbin High which has produced stars such as State of Origin legends Darius Boyd, Ben Hannant and Ben Ikin.
“(Bloomfield) is a talented sportsman and played professional rugby league … and rugby union,’’ his lawyer told the court on Wednesday.
The prosecution is expected to allege the pair, along with the so-called bikie extortion ringleader
Rhy Tracey Mirkin, 30, used terrifying stand-over tactics to get an innocent victim to pay $16,000 over a bungled “ice’’ drug deal.
Police claim the victim – a friend of one man who owed the gang and could not pay up – was bashed, had his BMW taken and was threatened by Bloomfield that he would be shot and killed if he didn’t cover the outstanding debt.
Barrister Saul Holt, for Bloomfield and Van Rooijen, said his clients would strenuously deny the charges allegedly committed between October 2013 and May last year.
Van Rooijen’s heavily pregnant partner wept openly in court on Friday when Justice Wilson announced he would grant both men conditional release.
