1919: The Fitzroy Vendetta Erupts: Shots Fired into a Sly-Grog Shop, Squizzy Taylor Acquitted
On the night of 5 August 1919, shots were fired into a sly-grog shop at 31 Fleet Street, Fitzroy, wounding three people: Minnie Clarke, Dick Paget, and James Darcy. All three were treated at St Vincent’s Hospital and all three refused to speak to police. The attack was part of the bloody Fitzroy Vendetta, a running war between Richmond and Fitzroy underworld factions that had left a trail of shootings across Melbourne.
Police observed Leslie “Squizzy” Taylor and two other men leave the area by motor-car in the early hours and arrested him the following day in Bourke Street. At the Fitzroy Court, witnesses including a horse trainer, a miner, and a bookmaker’s clerk all placed Taylor inside a nearby house at the time of the shooting. The bench acquitted him. It was a result that would define his career: ten prior convictions, a reputation as a sneak thief and companion of thieves, and a courtroom that could never quite catch him.
