Bikies, TV stars and brawls: The rehab centre run from a tourist resort

Fisherman’s Village, a fading tourist resort, sits on the banks of the Karuah River. Its swimming pool and boardwalk overlook lush green riverbanks strewn with shells from oyster farms. It looks peaceful.

It’s not. This isolated holiday spot at Port Stephens has been raided by police, is frequented by bikies and criminals, and has been subject to lawsuits and turf wars.

The site became a minefield when a Hillsong-linked pastor, backed by a Newcastle property developer, began using some of the cabins as a rehabilitation facility called Connect Global a decade ago, despite the objections of the council, other cabin owners and tenants, who were forced to share a tennis court with alleged organised crime figures and drug dealers.

Connect Global has become a sought-after alternative to prison remand for people battling serious charges and substance abuse problems. Judges and magistrates have given it the green light for years, sending defendants who might otherwise be refused bail for drug trafficking, violence and firearms charges to the Christian, private facility. If its clients are convicted, time spent here can count towards their sentences.

Addiction-ravaged television star Andrew O’Keefe became a client after being accused of holding a sex worker by the throat (the charges were dropped). So was real estate high-flyer turned Dover Heights stabber Matthew Ramsay before he was sent back to jail for wandering off and getting high while on bail. A parade of alleged high-level drug dealers has cycled through the “Oyster Barn” common room.

Rehabilitation is important. But not everyone’s a fan of the Connect Global approach. When an Alameddine crime gang chief attempted to be bailed there this year, Hunter police told a court 15 of the facility’s clients had been charged over bail breaches within 12 months, and five had absconded. There were at least two police raids there this year, one by the bikie squad.

Police and prosecutors are collecting evidence and court documents that expose concerns about Connect Global so they can challenge bids for bail to the facility by defence solicitors.

Port Stephens Council has tried to close it. A Supreme Court Judge expressed “unease” about whether the court could have confidence in the facility.

Connect Global has also come under fire from patients’ families and others in the rehabilitation field, who wonder how courts have allowed it to operate as an alternative to prison remand without more rigorous scrutiny.

Connect Global argues it’s a victim of its own success; it has experienced a rapid rise in demand for its services, and in the past few years, it has worked hard to professionalise what began as an amateurish operation as demand for help from vulnerable men soars.

Connect Global’s chief executive and founder is Ross Pene, a Harley-riding New Zealand-born pastor who claims affiliation with the C3 and Hillsong Pentecostal churches. He has worked with addicts around Newcastle for decades; the Connect Global website describes him as a visionary. Like Christ, Pene embraces misfits; he performs weddings, funerals, christenings and “spiritual stuff” for bikies and has entertained the Finks and Bandidos for afternoon tea, he told a court this year.

Around 2013, Pene, a former bankrupt, set up a long-term rehab at Fisherman’s Village in Swan Bay, an early ’90s resort made up of privately owned lots intended for tourists.

He used cabins owned by Hilton Grugeon, a Newcastle property developer with links to the Liberal Party who has come before the corruption watchdog (In 2016, it found Grugeon paid $10,000 to a local MP in exchange for a painting worth far less to get around laws banning property developers from making political donations, but he was not found to have acted corruptly).

Grugeon said he acquired the cabins specifically for a rehabilitation facility operated by Pene. He said he has “met and spoken with men and their families that have benefited from the program”, although he has nothing to do with operating the facility.

The village was zoned for tourism, not rehab, so the move caused tension with locals. Port Stephens Council issued a stop-use order in 2022. After a court fight, Connect Global was granted a two-year trial period by the Land and Environment Court in October this year.

The other cabins are rented out, sometimes to single parents desperate for accommodation amid the acute housing shortage in the region.

The relationship between private tenants and patients has been fraught, and ranges from open conflict to close fraternisation (there has been at least one romantic relationship, multiple sources told this masthead). “The safety of CG’s clients and Ross Pene have been subject to serious assault and harassment by other owners’ tenants,” Grugeon said in a statement to this masthead.

Private tenants are entitled to have alcohol, internet and parties, yet their homes abut rehab cabins, whose residents are supposed to be under strict restrictions imposed by the court.

For years, judges have allowed defendants to be sent there despite the zoning issue, often on the strength of Pene’s testimony in court; one described being “extremely impressed” by the program and the pastor’s “obvious commitment to it”.

Rehabs don’t need fences or security to accept patients on bail. But while the NSW Drug Court has strict rules about the facilities it sends people to – it demands an individual treatment plan from the NSW government department, Justice Health, and has a list of approved rehab facilities (Connect Global is not among them) – other courts do not apply the same scrutiny.

When this masthead asked Attorney-General Michael Daley whether rehabilitation facilities relied upon by the criminal justice system should be accredited by NSW Health, a spokesman said Daley had “asked the secretary of his department to conduct a review of the use of [Connect Global’s] Port Stephens rehabilitation facility as a matter of urgency”.

The Chief Justice of the NSW Supreme Court, Andrew Bell, said “the Supreme Court welcomes the review by the Department of Communities and Justice into the use of this facility”.

Connect Global, “a Christian-based program with a focus on producing men of god,” gets no government funding. It relies on donations and fees from clients. A price list from 2022, the year O’Keefe was there, outlined three packages: the $14,000 “standard lane” for entry within 5 months, the $35,000 express lane for entry within two weeks, and the $100,000 “platinum lane” for entry within a week or two. The platinum fee covered not only the rehab stay, which can last for more than six months but all legal costs, including a psychological report (all patients also pay $700 a fortnight from their Centrelink as rent for their cabins).

A spokesman for Connect Global said that fee structure has since been abandoned, and the standard charge was now $35,000. The centre now issues a more thorough “welcome pack” to prospective patients.

There’s little regulation of private rehab in NSW. Connect Global is not, and doesn’t need to be, a member of the peak body, the Network of Alcohol and Other Drugs Agencies. Federal standards are more about business operations than patient care. The centre operated for more than 10 years without the approval of Port Stephens Council. It is heavily Christian; the intake agreement says all church-related activities, particularly the Sunday service, are mandatory.

The supreme, district and local courts have bailed defendants on serious charges to Connect Global for years, even when the operation was, as one insider described it, “amateurish”. Despite steps to professionalise, Connect Global still worries the police.

This year, a man allegedly involved in the Alameddine crime family’s drug network, Ready4War, was charged with directing a criminal group from jail. He applied for bail to Connect Global, and Pene provided a statement to the court saying he was “suitable for entry”.

The Crown strongly opposed the application. It wasn’t just the man would be living close to private residents or that police argued he had a “staggering” disregard for rules in prison and expected him to continue offending if released. It was also because law enforcement said in court it was worried about Connect Global. A letter from a police intelligence analyst provided to the court said in the 12 months to March this year, police were aware of 15 Connect Global participants who had been charged with breaching bail. The analyst had a conversation with Pene about two clients who absconded last December, the court heard, and he’d said he didn’t know how they left or if anyone was going to pick them up. In February, police said they found a client was using his cabin-mate’s phone in contravention of bail conditions.

“Participants are accommodated in twin-share cabins, and their use of mobile and internet-capable devices cannot be monitored by staff when participants are in the privacy of their cabins,” police told the court.

Prosecutors filed affidavits, council notices, and old court cases to oppose the Alameddine-linked man’s bail application. They even summoned Pene.

“Mr Pene, you are saying you don’t have any concerns that [the man] might have access to mobile phones at Connect Global?” the Crown prosecutor asked.

“I can’t really guarantee that [he] is not going to get on the phone and do his old business,” Pene said. “I can’t guarantee that, but what I will do is do our best to eliminate any of that type of behaviour.” This masthead is not suggesting Pene was failing to meet his responsibilities, but rather the circumstances might be out of his control.

In January, police called Pene about two people who had breached bail and fled Connect Global before Christmas, the court heard. Pene told them he reports breaches to the local police station by phone and email. The officers said there had been no call or email until two weeks after the men fled.

The officers said Pene claimed he knew of only three people leaving Connect Global in 35 years – but police told the court they knew of five since the previous March alone. Pene defended Connect Global, telling the court he was not running a jail, but he does have 30 cameras watching “every move”.

The court heard when police visited on April 11 this year, two residents were not there because a staff member had taken them to the shops - bail conditions ordinarily stipulate they should not leave the facility unless for court or medical reasons.

Pene was also asked by a defendant’s lawyers why there were photographs of him with bikies at the facility. That was years ago, Pene said, following a memorial for the Bandidos.

“I don’t have any business with them, but out of the goodness of my heart, I’d like to be able to relate to these guys,” Pene said of his 30 visitors.

The court heard of other bikies photographed with Pene, timestamped in 2021, which Pene said were likely taken at church.

In refusing permission for bail, the judge canvassed criticisms about access to phones, the police argument that “it’s not a place where patients are very well monitored and supervised”, and questions about bail compliance. He was “left with a sense of unease about Connect Global Limited as a facility in which the court can have confidence as a place to which people facing serious charges for which there are realistic bail concerns can be bailed to undergo drug and alcohol rehabilitation”.

So far this year, at least two search warrants have been executed by police at Connect Global; one in April, when a senior officer later told a court she’d watched participants openly using mobile phones without supervision, and another in October by the Raptor Squad, which targets crime groups, when an unauthorised laptop was seized from a man facing dozens of charges related to guns and drug supply (he was charged with breaching bail, yet allowed to return days later).

The Herald has attempted to contact Pene multiple times since early November. It also sent detailed questions to his work and personal email addresses last Monday, and alerted him to the questions via phone, social media and his business colleagues. He has not responded.

Police and Crown prosecutors aren’t the only ones worried. Victims are nervous, too.

Matthew Ramsay, an eastern suburbs real estate agent and alcoholic, was in a drug-induced delirium when he went to his former friend’s house and stabbed his friend’s wife in the chest, narrowly missing her aorta. He was arrested and sent to a remand centre.

A few months later, in September 2022, the court bailed him to Connect Global. His victim’s family didn’t hear about his release until the decision was made.

His victim was already terrified. She became even more so when her husband did some research on Connect Global and realised despite bail conditions requiring Ramsay to be sent to a “secure facility”, he believed it didn’t seem secure. It didn’t even have council approval. Moreover, its position on the waterfront, with a pool and sports facilities, made it seem more like a health retreat than an alternative to prison. “Given the circumstances,” the husband wrote to the officer in charge, “how the court allowed bail with no ankle bracelet in the first place really is beyond all of us.”

Swan Bay was better than jail for Ramsay. This masthead obtained footage of him kissing a woman in the pool and has seen footage of him at local shops. But it came to a messy end. Ramsay’s bail was revoked in June 2023 after he was found high off the premises. He is now serving at least 3½ years in jail for the stabbing.

Of those bailed to Connect Global, alleged high-level drug dealers are most common, although many also face charges involving firearms and violence. One bailed there around 2022 was an alleged drug dealer and male escort with suspected paranoid schizophrenia. He’d already served time in jail, where he was accused of bashing an inmate so violently that the man suffered serious injuries to his brain. He’d also had a childhood history of exposure to witchcraft and a “history of religiosity and experience of demons”, a court heard.

Connect Global promises a holistic approach to rehabilitation, equipping men for a “Christ-centred life of change”. As O’Keefe pointed out in a Daily Telegraph story a week after he arrived – an interview that raised eyebrows at facilities with a more cautious approach to media requests, given the vulnerability of their clients – “you do address issues of addiction and patterns of behaviour, but you do it in a way that is very much focused on being a useful member of family and community”.

Clients rise at 5.30am, exercise, and work (Pene told a podcast the men were rebuilding his toilets). There are two hours a day of meetings and “education programs”. A brochure describes the facility as a rehabilitation, education and training centre that provides around-the-clock supervision and “access to caseworkers, psychologists and doctors”.

Yet court documents quote two separate former patients who said the counselling never eventuated. “They never had one counsellor on site,” one former resident told a court. When the comment was put to Pene, he replied, “That’s just not true.” In a dispute over a client’s claim for a refund, an affidavit from the parent of another client alleged: “There are no D&A qualified counsellors, there are only people from the C3 church who run Alpha groups one evening a week ... preparing men for baptism into the C3 church.”

Others have said the same thing, all on condition of anonymity because they were afraid of the Connect Global clientele. “[He] didn’t receive any professional help with his drug problem or mental health,” said one parent. “I never saw a qualified psychologist,” said a former client, “there was no treatment plan”.

Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission documents show while O’Keefe and Ramsay were there in 2022, Connect Global had just two full-time staff members, and two volunteers for a program serving between 20 and 28 men. An extract from that document is published below.

In October 2023, Connect Global obtained accreditation under the Australian Service Excellence Standards, which is required of all rehabilitation operators and focuses on business policies and procedures. The report said it now employed two managers and five staff with diploma qualifications.

When O’Keefe attended in 2022, Connect Global’s intake agreement was also vague. There was no written mention of what happened to money if a client left. A father is suing the facility for the reimbursement of $35,000 after his son was expelled within a week because other clients accused him of trying to procure alcohol (the father says this was not proven). In the defence filed to the court, Connect Global said it had discussed the no-refund policy verbally.

The intake agreement has since been updated to include forms to collect medical details, information about jail history and AVOs, and family background. It stipulates the no-refund policy and refers to the fact the centre shares its facility with private residents, including women and children.

“When [Connect Global Limited] started ... there were little or no guidelines or government regulations for privately run facilities seeking to provide long-term assistance to addicts,” a Connect Global spokesman said. “In the last few years, with the massive increase in demand for placements within CGL, the facility has had to quickly grow into a program that not only complies with the recent federal government health standards but also managing the complexities of the demands of the criminal justice system where many participants are bailed to the facility, recognising that it is a quasi-custodial setting.”

The Connect Global spokesman said reliance on donations and entry fees meant staffing levels were “challenged”. The organisation recently updated its management structure to balance the criminal justice, health and psychological needs of patients. It had also overhauled its on-site procedures and staff training “in recent weeks,” he said.

The private rehabilitation sector is unregulated. Anyone can establish one as long as they gain accreditation under a relatively new national quality framework that requires centres to demonstrate adherence to a handful of vague principles such as “planning and engagement” and “continuous improvement”.

Victoria and Western Australia have looked deeper into the private drug and alcohol rehabilitation sector after scandals there. A Christian centre near Perth – the Esther Foundation – was found to have used gay conversion therapy, used forcible restraint and exorcism, while the Victorian Health Care Complaints Commission found one centre had opened in a former brothel, with stripper poles and statues of naked women but no treatment programs (Victoria Police later found a meth lab on the site).

For help with drug and alcohol addiction, contact the National Alcohol and Other Drug Hotline on 1800 250 015

Robert Stirling, the chief executive officer of the Network of Alcohol and Other Drugs Agencies, said the demand for services was so high that families were desperate. His organisation’s survey of not-for-profit NSW facilities found around 1800 people on waiting lists. That does not include people waiting for publicly funded services.

“This has created an environment where people needing support, and their families, are desperate and may pay money to attend a service that does not meet clinical care standards,” he said, speaking generally.

“Unfortunately, in NSW, the sector is unregulated, and the government doesn’t have a lot of power to respond to a number of questionable services that are popping up unless they are funded by government.

“This means that the quality and safety of care for people who need treatment and support is compromised, and they have little protection if something goes wrong.”