The Corkman Irish pub in Carlton, built in 1857 and demolished illegally this month. Credit:James Bowering The man who half-owns the land the pub stood on was Raman Shaqiri. Raman, who goes by the name Ray, also half-owns Shaq Demolitions and Excavations. So the firm that paid a surprisingly high $4.76 million for the pub last August was, in part, the same company that pulled it down. The act appeared particularly brazen because Mr Shaqiri holds both a valid demolition license and a current building license, via the Victorian Building Authority. He might have known what he was doing. You can look him up on the authority's website. You can even find his mobile phone number there, as required by law. Ring it often enough and eventually he'll pick up. "You must have the wrong guy," the man on the other end of the phone assured me when I rang it this week, before hanging up. If the man who drove Shaq Demolition's excavator had thought to cover with gaffer tape the huge logos emblazoned on the side of the equipment and trucks, it would have been hard to ever categorically say who knocked over the pub.

Havenlea is a project by the same developers in Cairnlea. They dumped waste and asbestos from the Carlton pub at the Cairnlea site. Credit:Justin McManus Similarly, if they had not demolished it on a quiet Saturday when residents were home and students at the adjacent Melbourne University law school were there to film the destruction on their phones, perhaps the city might never have been able to prove who did it. Title and company searches show Mr Shaqiri's home address to be a modest house in Brooklyn. Further investigation indicates a person with the Shaqiri surname bought a large property on Williamstown's The Strand last year for $3.8 million; the same address is the principal place of business for Shaq Demolition. The pub site the day after demolition finished. Credit:Simon Schluter That said, as easy as it is to track Mr Shaqiri via title searches and documents for the seven companies he is a director or secretary of, photos of him have proved elusive. Despite numerous requests, nobody who had worked with Mr Shaqiri was prepared to confirm what is believed to be a picture of him at the Grand Prix a few years ago.

Easier to find is Stefce Kutlesovski, his business partner in 160 Leicester Pty Ltd, and several other ventures. Mr Kutlesovski appears, from company and title searches, to live in either Cairnlea or Brooklyn. The Cairnlea home is just a kilometre from the land he co-owns where, on Tuesday, dumped waste, rubble and asbestos were found from the Corkman site. One of Mr Kutlesovski's companies, Makland, used to sponsor Melbourne Victory, and he is a director or secretary of 20 companies linked to construction and development. The pair have spent serious money buying and developing land all over Melbourne: $13 million inBox Hill for a Whitehorse Road site last month; Cairnlea where they this year paid an undisclosed amount for a large plot of residential land; and Brunswick East, where they bought a Lygon Street site for $16 million last year. As they've built, as is usual in the construction game, they have made some enemies. Three came forward anonymously to Fairfax Media to point out the pair's failings. Another went to the EPA's tip-off line. While not much for certain can be said about how the pair came to decide to demolish the pub, what appears likely is they will be worried about the mounting legal actions against them.

These include being pursued by the Environment Protection Authority over dumped asbestos and building waste, and by Melbourne City Council for breaking building laws. The plans the pair have just announced to rebuild the pub have cut no ice with the Planning Minister. Loading The government will still take them to the state tribunal to force them to rebuild within the year. The pair are still being pursued by the Environment Protection Authority over dumped asbestos and building waste and Melbourne City Council for breaking building laws. What once looked like an invitation to ignore Melbourne's planning laws will now serve as a warning to all other developers.