dv said:

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/trotter-v-chopper-day-of-judgment-20121130-2am3m.html

Now you would think Read and his boys (the feared Overcoat Gang in Pentridge) would have worked out that hostage plots usually end badly. But criminals are not usually renowned for their judgment on such matters.

Later that year, Amos Atkinson, armed with two shotguns, fired at police before climbing the stairs to the Italian Waiters’ Club to hold 30 people hostage.

He said if Read was not released within 24 hours he would start killing his captives.

But Amos lost interest after four hours when his mother (a regular diner there) arrived to act as a go-between. She walked up the stairs in her dressing gown, ending the tense standoff by hitting her son on the head with her handbag while telling him to stop being stupid. He then released his captives and surrendered. The siege was a heinous crime on many levels.

Shots were fired and victims terrorised – that much is certain.

But worse, the Waiters’ was a Melbourne institution where reporters, politicians, detectives and the occasional Italian waiter could get a decent feed and a passable claret well after legal closing.

The hostage drama brought publicity and with it stricter policing of the establishment’s liberal interpretation of the licensing laws.

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Amos was just a very naughty boy.