Life on the West Island - The last bushrangers?

Many West Islanders believe that our famous bushrangers mostly plied their murderous trade and died out or were executed in the 19^th century. But a recent revival of interest in the “After Dark Bandit” shows that the tradition of bushranging survived well into the 1970s.

An interview last week with celebrated investigative journalist John Silvester on ABC radio again raised the little-known story of the After Dark Bandit, who conducted a reign of terror in rural Victoria and outer suburban Melbourne for over two years in the period 1977 to 1979, during which there were 24 armed robberies on banks and TAB branches.

While the police believed that the bandit was a single man, they were baffled at the manner in which he operated. In particular, it seemed that he was able to strike at sites kilometres apart in quick succession. The truth did not emerge until an arrest was finally made, and the ingenious plot became clear. John Silvester reported that there were in fact two bandits, who were identical twins. He said that they had invented an ingenious crime tactic, using their identical looks to baffle detectives. The twins used double hits – one raiding a country TAB with the second hitting another branch in a nearby town about 20 minutes later wearing identical clothes to add to the confusion. As police believed one suspect was responsible, they would move their roadblocks to the second site while the brothers hid in the bush using pushbikes, motorbikes or hiking up to 50 kilometres through the scrub to freedom.

For some reason, they usually struck late in the day or ever after dark, earning the title of the After Dark Bandit (or bandits, as later emerged). Police assumed that they were using the cover of darkness to make their escapes, but according to Silvester the reason was more mundane. Both men were terrified of snakes, and as they usually fled into the bush, they operated in daytime in colder weather, but after dark during daylight saving periods when they assumed that snakes would be bedded down for the night.

Sillvester says that the twins had been born into a life of crime: On December 15, 1949, [their father] Kay Morgan tried to rob the Eltham State Bank, firing three shots at a bank officer who promptly grabbed the branch handgun to fire 15 shots at the bandit - who wisely withdrew without any cash. Morgan escaped, only to crash his getaway car into a ditch. He was arrested a month later, finally serving nearly three years' jail for the failed armed robbery.

Dad set the boys on the road to crime when they were still in primary school - they were only 10 when they acted as lookouts while he committed burglaries. As young adults they started on the straight path as moderately successful building contractors but when the industry suffered a dip in 1977, they returned to the family business.

As their crime spree escalated, the Morgan boys drew the attention of Geoff Wilkinson of the Melbourne Sun, who first coined the moniker “the After Dark Bandit.” The boys embraced this notoriety, and according to Wilkinson from then on, they would frequently announce themselves – “remember me, I'm the After Dark Bandit, you know who I am.” They would point sawn-off shotguns at their trembling victims while scooping up as much cash as they could and heading off into the bush.

The police search proved fruitless until Peter Morgan was recognised, as reported by Silvester: On April 27, 1979, Peter Morgan was set to rob the Heathcote CBC bank, which he had raided twice previously. This time he was confronted by the local policeman, Senior Constable Ray Koch. Morgan shot Koch twice, then forced him into the bank and robbed it of $11,000.

Rick Hasty was on duty at Bendigo that day - he was an old-fashioned country cop who relied as much on experience and common sense as the rule book. There was a skeleton crew of five police on duty in Bendigo that day when Rick was returning from visiting Jean Koch, Ray's wife. Stationary at the lights in the divisional van near the RSL, he saw a man walking towards him with a red Zapata moustache, blue jeans and a jumper, carrying a blue suitcase. ‘‘I don’t know why but I just knew he was the bloke who shot Kochie. And I also knew that he knew that I knew.’’

Hasty, who was unarmed, made a U-turn and wandered after the man. He stopped the suspect, asked what was in the suitcase then forced it open. Inside was a can of Coke, a newspaper and a blue haversack. Hasty opened the sack to find it contained a shotgun, a monkey mask and the cash from the Heathcote robbery.

Morgan, knowing the gig was up, grabbed the pistol concealed in his back pocket and using his left hand stuck it in Hasty's midriff. He was left-handed, the safety catch was for a right hand, and he couldn’t reach it with his left thumb. When Hasty grabbed the gunman by the throat and pushed him against the wall, Morgan managed to say: “You’ve got me, you’ll make a hero!”

Peter Morgan quickly confessed and implicated his brother, Dougrt. Koch survived after removal of his spleen and protracted and painful surgery, while Hasty was eventually awarded the Queen’s Gallantry Medal.

After they had finally been arrested and revealed to be two identical twins, some in the media saw them as almost romantic figures, dubbing them “Australia’s last bushrangers”. The courts did not agree, and both served 17 years in Pentridge Prison.

After their release, they returned to the West Island building trade and the After Dark Bandits are reported to be constructing houses together. No longer “Australia’s last bushrangers,” they are apparently now on the straight and narrow.