Father's Day a haunting massacre reminder

For many Sydneysiders this Father's Day signifies a day of paternal appreciation, love and fond memories.

For others, scarred by the events of 30 years ago at a car park in Sydney's southwest, the day haunts them.

Tensions were at boiling point in 1984 after members of the Comancheros Motorcycle Club walked away from their brotherhood and patched over to the first Australian chapter of the Bandidos.

The deep-rooted rivalry and feuding between the clubs exploded into violence on September 2, 1984, claiming seven lives and thrusting bikie gangs into the national spotlight.

Six bikies and 14-year-old bystander Leanne Walters were killed when the two warring clubs engaged in gunfire at a swap meet in the carpark at the Viking Tavern in Milperra.

The Comancheros suffered the greatest casualties, losing four members, while the Bandidos lost two of their brothers.

Dozens more were injured including the Comancheros founder and leader, Scotsman William "Jock" Ross.

The massacre captivated the nation, made headlines across the globe, and a huge police investigation culminated in about 31 people being tried for murder.

After a lengthy journey through the judicial system, nine men were convicted of the seven murders and 21 men convicted on seven counts of manslaughter.

The men convicted of murder received prison sentences ranging from life to 18 years.

Former champion boxer turned Bandido Philip "Knuckles" McElwaine beat the murder charge but was found guilty of affray.

Among those found guilty of murder were eight Comancheros including Ross, and one Bandido, Tony "Lard" Melville.

However the murder convictions were later overturned to manslaughter on appeal.

The bikies had their sentences drastically reduced, including Ross who reportedly served just over five years.

The Bandidos president who led the split from Comancheros, Anthony Mark "Snoddy" Spencer, did not make the trial, having taken his own life while in jail.

Other players have since died, are living a quieter life, like Ross, or cashed in on their tales of notoriety.

Former Bandidos Sergeant-at-Arms Colin "Caesar" Campbell - convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to seven years jail without parole - published a book in 2011 on life as a bikie enforcer.

The hotel at the scene of the crime underwent a major makeover and became The Mill Hotel.

Reports at the time and a popular book chronicling the events, one of Australia's worst public place shootings, depicted a religious-like devotion within the Comanchero club ranks to their brotherhood and the hierarchy.

According to the book Brothers In Arms, which later inspired a TV mini-series, Ross - the self-proclaimed supreme commander - was a military-style ruler.

With this came a non-negotiable set of club rules, including not getting into bed with other members' wives.

Thirty years ago, membership to these groups was restricted to Anglo-Saxons and required a plausible level of motorbike riding skills.

Nowadays membership conditions have relaxed and the ranks of the nation's most notorious groups - Rebels, Hells Angels and Nomads - have embraced members with Middle Eastern heritage.

The game changed in the mid-90s to 2000s when power struggles between clubs erupted and there were sweeping recruitment drives to bolster power.

"That's when the recruitment processes and the bikie gangs changed considerably and one of the reasons for it was the violence between the gangs was getting greater," former NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Clive Small told AAP.

"They needed more membership so they could assert authority and protect themselves."

Sam Ibrahim, from one of Sydney's more infamous underworld families, was a senior member of the Nomads Parramatta chapter, which split in 2007 to form the Kings Cross-based club Notorious.

Ibrahim shares the Middle Eastern background of other bikie gang heavyweights, including ex-Comancheros Sydney president Mahmoud "Mick" Hawi.

Mr Small, who co-authored Blood Money: Bikies, Terrorists and Middle Eastern Gangs, says Ibrahim is an example of people who don't jump through the traditional nominee hoops to climb up a club's ranks.

Changing membership has propped up numbers but also made clubs more susceptible to infiltration and abandonment, he believes.

"What you are seeing is numbers of bikie gangs breaking away and patching over to other clubs and you would not have seen that in the 80s," Mr Small said.

"This is all coming about because of power struggles between the clubs. Some clubs are weakening and others are building."

Anti-gang laws introduced in NSW in 2013 were brought in to combat tit-for-tat bikie shootings plaguing Sydney's streets.

Tattoo parlours, family homes and businesses were targeted as the Hells Angels and Nomads feuded.

But Mr Small believes the criminal minds have matured over recent years.

"The reason for that is simply while they are shooting at one another and fighting these battles it's costing them money," he said.