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Who Killed Adrian Kay?

Back in the 1970s and 1980s when proper gangsters such as Paddles Anderson, George Freeman, Stan ‘the Man’ Smith, Lennie McPherson and Neddy Smith controlled the Sydney underworld, one of the underlings stood out among them for his style and class. His name was Adrian Kay, and, from humble beginnings in Sydney’s inner western suburbs, he had started out selling secondhand cars in the early 1970s and from there his career mysteriously took off, enough to provide him with the luxuries in life to which he quickly became accustomed.

Always immaculately groomed and with his trademark yellow Rolls-Royce with the number plate AK 000 double-parked out the front, Adrian Kay was often seen in the best eastern suburbs establishments, wining and dining with a beautiful young lady on his arm or sipping champagne at the bar at Eliza’s in Double Bay with other colourful characters of his ilk.

But it was said that Kay made his money from things a little more nefarious than selling used cars. It seemed as though his car yard was really just a front for a racket where he manufactured fake number plates and log books for imported luxury cars to avoid paying import duty, which, in those days, especially on Mercedes-Benzs, was about another half on the top of the cost of the car. Business boomed in those days before computers, before things could be checked out in a hurry, and Kay reaped the rewards and lived like a king.

It was never really certain whether or not Adrian graduated to drugs, but you could be forgiven for thinking that he was in it up to the eyeballs. By the early 1980s he was hanging with a bad crew, men who dealt in heroin and would kill you as soon as look at you if you did the wrong thing by them.

By now Adrian Kay’s fortunes had seen him buy into a partnership in the trendy King Arthur’s Court hotel at the top of William Street in the Cross, and he also allegedly had interests in a couple of pubs interstate. But both federal and state police believed that Adrian’s real skills lay in importing and distributing heroin.

But whatever the case, Adrian Kay decided he needed a bodyguard, or a ‘minder’ as it was fashionable to call them in those days, thus becoming arguably the only car dealer and hotelier in Australia’s history to do so. And, never one to do things by halves, he employed the services of one of Sydney’s most notorious crooks of the time, a thug named Bob ‘the Basher’.

The Basher was a big lump of a bloke with a record for assault, malicious injury, resisting arrest, false pretences, breaking and entering and numerous driving offences. He left Sydney’s western suburbs in the 1970s and quickly infiltrated the lucrative eastern suburbs underworld by bashing whoever they wanted and collecting unpaid debts for SP bookmakers.

It wasn’t long before the Basher became a force to be reckoned with throughout the pubs in trendy Double Bay, Woollahra and Paddington, and it seemed as though wherever the Basher was, there was trouble. Drunk, the Basher was the most obnoxious thug on the planet and you’d only have to look at him sideways and he’d want to belt you. Sober, he was a good bloke and could mix with the hardcore criminals and at the same time bask in the notoriety feted upon him by the society fringe-dwellers who hung around the more notorious pubs for kicks.

In only a short time it was fashionable to have the Basher in your company and he was seen in the best of Sydney’s restaurants, wining and dining with some of the eastern suburbs’ better-known villains and socialising with the hangers-on.

And so, Adrian Kay, with the Basher driving the Roller, became an item around town, and to mess with the dapper car dealer was to mess with the Basher, and that wasn’t a good look. But before long Adrian sacked the Basher, telling everyone that his minder had developed a reputation as a ‘big time’ brawler and it wasn’t good for Kay’s image. The pair became bitter enemies.

Six months later on 27 March 1986, the Basher was having a few drinks with friends at the most fashionable bar in Sydney at the time, Pronto, in Double Bay, when a yellow Rolls-Royce with the number plate AK 000 and dark windows pulled up out the front. The Basher walked from the bar at Pronto, sat in the back seat of the car and closed the door. Soon after he left the Rolls and, as the patrons stood aside in horror, went back to the bar, his shirt covered in blood, ordered a beer and collapsed from a bullet to the chest.

The Basher survived the shooting and proudly wore the bullet, which had just missed his heart and surgeons said was too risky to move, like a badge of honour. He later told a reporter, ‘I didn’t know I was shot until I looked down and saw the claret.’ By being shot in public in a Rolls-Royce, the Basher achieved legend status throughout the underworld.

The occupants of the Roller, Adrian Kay and an associate, Bob ‘the Blender’ McIntosh, were charged with attempted murder and held without bail for a week. It was alleged that when the Basher entered the back seat to discuss his ongoing feud with Adrian Kay, the Blender shot him once in the chest from the front passenger seat with a .22 pistol.

But, as is the way of the underworld, the Basher didn’t hold a grudge against his alleged would-be assassins and arrived at court a few weeks later driven by Adrian Kay in the yellow Rolls, where he said that he would be appearing in Kay’s defence and that he had accidentally shot himself in the chest while he and his best mate Adrian were having a quiet chat. It was all a simple mistake. Case dismissed.

Two months later, Adrian Kay was found dead at his King Arthur’s Court Hotel with two bullets to the chest and one in the head, in a classic contract hit. Naturally the police made Bob the Basher – who they found in a bar – their first port of call. The Basher had a watertight alibi and when he heard the news he burst into laughter and shouted for the bar.

As it turned out there were a lot of reasons why a lot of sinister people wanted Adrian Kay dead, the most likely being his involvement in the funding of a military coup in the Seychelles Islands with Australian-raised money. Perhaps Adrian Kay knew too much. A Vietnam veteran, Peter Drummond, was charged with the murder and found innocent. The case remains open.

Meanwhile, the Basher’s run of bad luck with prestige yellow cars continued. On 3 August 1986, he left Eliza’s restaurant at Double Bay with a male companion at around 1am in the other man’s yellow V12 Boxer Ferrari. As they neared the King’s Cross tunnel the Ferrari ploughed into a solid concrete substation at 100 miles an hour. The driver survived but the Basher was killed instantly. In the end the Basher went out in the manner in which he and Adrian Kay lived. In the very, very, fast lane.