OFF THE WIRE
Peter Edwards
Staff Reporter
The last of the Bandidos is back behind bars.
Robert (Peterborough Bob) Pammett, 60, a former member of the Toronto chapter of the Bandidos Motorcycle Club, faces a bail hearing on Friday after he was arrested late last month for dangerous driving.
Pammett is one of the few remaining members of the Toronto chapter of the Bandidos, the world’s second largest outlaw motorcycle club, behind only the Hells Angels.
Pammett was invited to the April 6, 2006 meeting of the Bandidos near the hamlet of Shedden, outside London, when eight of his fellow club members were slaughtered.
For reasons never made public, Pammett skipped the late-night meeting in the barn of club member Wayne Kellestine, which ended in the worst mass murder in modern Ontario history.
Most of his time since then has been spent behind bars, awaiting trial on drug charges.
Pammett’s current driving habits are of particular interest to police because he was in the company of nine members of Ontario’s second-largest outlaw motorcycle club, the Outlaws, at the time of his arrest at 2 p.m. on July 24.
Police have heard the Outlaws are expanding into Peterborough, but haven’t yet seen a patch on a biker’s leather vest with the city’s name on it, Det. Sgt. Len Isnor of the Ontario Provincial Police Biker Enforcement Unit said.
There are about 50 members of the Outlaws in a half dozen chapters across the province, including two chapters in Toronto, Isnor said.
The largest outlaw biker club in the province is the Hells Angels, with some 170 members.
In March, Pammett pleaded guilty in Newmarket court to three counts of trafficking cocaine and possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking after selling cocaine to a police agent.
He served just a day in jail and WAS then allowed home, under house arrest, as he was given credit for two years of pre-trial custody.
He is currently fighting to retain possession of his fortified home just off Hwy. 115 beside the Otonabee River in Peterborough, with a life-size, Romanesque statue of a naked woman and a koi pond.
The property was seized by police as proceeds of crime in a drug raid.
The Bandidos were officially disbanded at the time of the 2006 massacre of Pammett’s clubmates.
Six Canadian Bandidos and associates, including Kellestine, were convicted of the murders, and are now each serving life terms.
