A MAN holding a shotgun told patrons he was Chopper Read’s cousin and related to the Kelly gang when he brandished the firearm in a pub near Gunnedah.
Phillip Jason Winsor remains behind bars after admitting to three firearm-related offences stemming from incidents in Mullaley and along the Oxley Highway in September, 2016.
Winsor was due to stand trial but in Tamworth District Court he admitted to firing a firearm on the highway between Gunnedah and Mullaley, possessing the same firearm on September 22 at the Post Office Hotel, and threatening to use the offensive weapon on the same date outside the hotel, when he intimidated a man in the carpark.
According to facts tendered in court when Winsor pleaded guilty, the 44-year-old, who has been behind bars since his 2016 arrest, went to a property on Black Stump Way at Mullaley.
Winsor, who had stayed at the property previously, was denied access to the homestead by a resident, and went to a woodpile on the property and obtained a .410 shotgun.
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He then walked to the Mullaley township, hiding the firearm in his jacket.
About 8.30pm, he went to the hotel and asked for a lighter before getting into a verbal altercation.
He opened his jacket and grabbed the firearm, but dropped it on the ground and the breach opened.
Winsor then said to a staff member: “You don’t know if you going to call the cops do you big guy?”.
The staff member didn’t want to upset Winsor and told him“you’re right”.
“The offender stated that he was related to the Kelly Gang and that his cousin was Chopper Read,” facts detailed, before Winsor walked out of the hotel.
Two men, hiding near a car in the carpark, saw Winsor, before one ran back into the hotel. Winsor later held the gun in a “sideways fashion” and “the offender pointed the firearm towards [the man’s] face”, before telling him, “don’t you run away too”.
The man went inside and the doors and windows of the hotel were locked and the lights turned off.
The offender stated that he was related to the Kelly Gang and that his cousin was Chopper Read.
- Police facts
“As the patrons hid inside the offender tapped the firearm one a hotel window a number of times before walking off,” police facts detailed. He was arrested the next day by police.
In an interview with police, Windsor admitted to being in possession of the shotgun and firing it out of the sunroof while he was a passenger in a Holden Commodore traveling on the Oxley Highway between Gunnedah and Mullaley.
Three other related charges of possessing a shortened firearm without authority, not keeping a firearm safely and intimidation will be dealt with when Judge Jeffery McLennan sentences him in April.
He remains bail refused.
Breanna Chillingworth
Northern Daily Leader Senior Crime and Court Reporter
Northern Daily Leader Senior Crime and Court Reporter
