The president of the Sydney chapter of the Hells Angels, Derek Wainohu, and the Comanchero city chapter chief, Mahmoud "Mick" Hawi, had organised the sit-down to discuss the problem of Zervas's parlour. During the meeting Anthony Zervas arrived with a sawn-off shotgun. "That is a big no-no to do that at a sit-down," said the underworld figure. A scuffle ensued during which one of the Comanchero was hit in the head with the gun. "That's when it turned into open warfare," the crime figure said. The next day the tattoo parlour was sprayed with bullets. Several weeks later a masked man on a motorbike fired three shots at the building. The parlour has been closed since October after being firebombed. On that occasion a silver car disgorged three men shortly before 11.30pm. After smashing the front window, the car sped off and the parlour went up in flames.

At the time the Herald reported that since the store had its official opening in September, although it had been trading in the previous months, up to six Comanchero members had taken to circling the block on their bikes during the day on at least four separate Saturdays. "There's five or six of them and they circle like vultures. There's a group of the Hells Angels standing out the front of the shop with their arms folded, looking tough. They wear their colour, their branded jackets, then the police come and drive around. It's like Keystone Cops," a nearby store manager said at the time. A police source yesterday confirmed the sit-down and the consequences of Zervas setting up the tattoo parlour in Comanchero territory. He said the move by Zervas to set up a tattoo parlour in Brighton would have been inflammatory. "Brighton-le-Sands is right in the heartlands of [the Comanchero City Chapter's territory], it's where they go every Friday, Saturday night."

It was an overreaction to a flippant remark made to Peter Zervas while walking along a street in Brighton-le-Sands that had landed him in jail in the first place. In the early hours of New Year's Day 2005 a reveller had called out "Happy New Year" to him. "F--- you. You think you're a legend and a clown," snapped Zervas, who returned five minutes later with a black revolver from which he fired up to six shots, wounding one man. A travel bag with the revolver, a sawn-off shotgun and clothing was found at Anthony Zervas's neighbour's home during a police search later that night. It was never going to end well when the Hells Angel leader Derek Wainohu happened to be sharing the same flight, QF430, from Melbourne to Sydney, with five Comanchero on Sunday two weeks ago. When he called for reinforcements to meet him at the airport, the Zervas brothers were among those who answered his call to arms. Within 10 minutes of the plane's arrival, Anthony Zervas lay dying on the floor at Terminal 3. Wearing his Hells Angels T-shirt, his older brother Peter comforted him as bystanders attempted to resuscitate him. Meanwhile, the registration number of the taxi seen speeding from the airport with four Comanchero inside was circulated on the police radio network. Within half an hour police had pulled over the taxi and arrested the four occupants. Coincidentally, it was stopped in Brighton-le-Sands in the same street as Peter Zervas's ill-fated tattoo parlour.

Loading Last Sunday, only a week after his brother's death, Peter Zervas survived a hail of bullets outside his mother's home. But the bikie is following another piece of gangland etiquette - he is refusing to speak to police about either his brother's killer or the identity of his would-be assassin.