Former bikie reveals what it was really like to be in the Rebels
Shannon Althouse, by his own admission, looks like a pretty scary guy.
With tattoos covering much of his neck and face, he told Gary Jubelin's I Catch Killers podcast that his fascination with ink began when he started using drugs.
'I started getting 'em when I got addicted to methamphetamine,' he explained.
'I never had any face tattoos, head tattoos or anything till I started using heavy drugs. And then once I started using heavy drugs, I was just like, I want this face tattoo. I want that head tattoo, you know.'
'This is a true story, I'm not even lying about this,' he continued, when asked if he ever woke up with a new tattoo he didn't remember getting.
'I woke up in prison once, and as soon as I actually sobered up in prison, I did look in the mirror and I was thinking - wow. What happened? What have I done?,' he continued.
'I was shocked. I shocked myself.'
Growing up in Darwin amid a culture of domestic violence and alcohol, Shannon says his introduction into the criminal world began slowly, with he and his group of young friends and family heading out to cause trouble as a way to escape what was going on at home when their parents would throw parties.
'We used to just jump on our push bikes and take off, especially when all the parents and all the adults were drinking,' he recalled.
'You know, that was our safe haven - we'd kill time, kill our boredom, roll around and throw rocks at taxis or police cars and try to get into a police chase.'
It wasn't just the drinking and violence they were trying to escape, either.
Althouse discloses he was sexually abused by a friend of the family from a young age, with the abuse often taking place at these parties.
'When the families are all drinking and having a laugh and partying and stuff like that, you know, by the end of the night there are predators.'
Fast-forward a few years and Althouse found himself having served time in prison, and not only addicted to methamphetamine, but also holding the position of sergeant-at-arms in the Darwin chapter of the Rebels bikie club.
'It's just pretty much like you're the enforcer,' Althouse explained.
'You make sure that you enforce all the club policies, and protect the president. You're the president's right hand man, anything happens to him, you are the one that's getting done for it.'
'It's always seemed like a poisoned chalice, the sergeant-at-arms position,' observed Jubelin, 'you're gonna be at the forefront of anything that goes down.'
'Yeah, you're in the front of the line,' Althouse agreed.
'If anything goes down, any dramas, any wars - anything.
'It puts you in a bit of a position, like I said, the anxiety and paranoia that comes with all that too.
'When you're pulling up at the petrol station and a car pulls up and the windows are tinted, you know, like you're wondering - you don't know if you should grab a weapon or not, in case there's somebody … your enemy or an enemy of your mate. You know what I mean?'
In fact, it was a lesson Althouse would learn all too well when he was attacked in the street and run over in 2016, leaving him fighting for his life.
Althouse, giving context to the attack that left him in a coma, explained there had been an issue involving a member of another club.
'I knew him for years and we were mates at one stage, and he ended up owing me a bit of money, so I went there to go get the money,' he said.
Althouse explained that after a few failed debt collection attempts, he 'punched him around, you know, I gave him a hiding.'
After escalating conflict between the pair, Althouse says he had gone with his housemate to find the other member.
'As I've walked in to walk down to his work shed, 'cause he lived in an industrial area, he wasn't in there,' he recalled.
'I thought, oh, that's weird. But then I saw his headlights coming. I couldn't hear the car moving, but I could see headlights coming up, it was a big, big road, you know?
'And I looked, I walked down and looked down and I saw his Hilux just sitting there in the middle of the road facing me'
'I started walking towards him and did a twirl, showed him that I had no weapons, you know, and told him to get outta the car,' the former bikie continued.
'And then: first gear, second gear, third gear, and he just hit me and just ran me over, clean over.'
Althouse described hitting the ground and immediately going into shock.
'I couldn't move, couldn't hear - everything was ringing, but I could see what was going on,' he continued.
'My vision slowly started coming back again, and he was looking at me through the window, you know, and I thought, no, he's gonna double back and come and run me over to finish me off.'
Althouse managed to push himself up off the ground but knew immediately something was wrong.
'I just felt jelly,' he said.
'Like my whole left side of my body was just smashed. I coughed up a heap of blood on the road and I thought, wow, that's my lung, something's happened to my lung, I've punctured my lung.
'My housemate came over to me and as I started talking to him, I was spitting blood into his face. I said 'I'm dying. I gotta get to the hospital. I'm dying.''
Althouse was right. He had broken both shoulder blades and seven ribs, three of which had punctured his lung.
He ended up losing over four litres of blood, and nearly dying on the operating table.
Shortly after, he went back to prison for 10 years, for his involvement in a retaliatory attack (Althouse purchased the weapons used but was not present at the time of the assault).
But while inside, Althouse made a decision.
He began reading up on Buddhism and mindfulness, and realised he was meant for bigger things than spending his life locked up.
While incarcerated in Darwin, and then Alice Springs, he began helping some of the younger inmates.
There was a Royal Commission into [the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory], and all the young fellas, they started turning 18 and started coming into the maximum security prison,' he explained.
'Some of 'em couldn't read or write or anything like that. So I was grabbing their briefs and reading them for them and helping them out.
'And some of the stuff I read, it was pretty disgusting. So I thought, no, I've gotta help these young lads, and I started sitting there and helping 'em with their court proceedings helping 'em get through their compensation payouts and just guiding 'em as best as I can through the system, through the adult system.
'I knew it was different to the juvie as well. And then I just got a real passion for it.'
These days, Althouse is not only clean and sober (he'll have 10 years this October), but he has stayed true to the commitment he made in prison, and hasn't returned to a life of crime.
He's no longer a member of the Rebels motorcycle club, and has dedicated his life to mentoring First Nations kids in the Northern Territory through boxing and other community initiatives.
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