long-term boyfriend of high-profile heroin trafficker Holly Deane-Johns has emerged from jail to become a senior WA member of the FINKs

long-term boyfriend of high-profile heroin trafficker Holly Deane-Johns has emerged from jail to become a senior WA member of Australia's most notorious bikie gang, the Finks.The West Australian can reveal that Stephen John Wallace is a regular visitor to Bandyup women's prison where Deane-Johns has been since her transfer from a Thai jail in December 2007.During heated political debate over the repatriation of Deane-Johns, the 38-year-old's relationship with Mr Wallace was given as one reason she should be allowed to return to serve out her jail term in WA.Mr Wallace, who was released from prison soon after his girlfriend was returned from Thailand, served seven years of a 15-year sentence for heroin trafficking with Deane-Johns.
She served time in WA for the same crime before her arrest in Thailand in 2000 for trying to mail 10.4g of pure heroin to Perth. She was jailed in 2003 for 31 years before her prisoner transfer deal in 2007. She is still petitioning Thailand's king for a full pardon.Then corrective services minister Margaret Quirk refused her first application, saying: "WA prisons are not a dating service for heroin dealers."
But a second application on medical grounds was supported by the Howard government.
Ms Quirk said yesterday she was disappointed to hear of Mr Wallace's involvement with the Finks."It was certainly put to me that he was reformed and had learnt his lesson so it's disappointing," she said. "His ongoing contact with her is now problematic, but she continues to assert that she's rehabilitated."The Finks continue to be a focus of the WA police gang crime squad, who recently raided their Balga clubhouse after associates were allegedly caught with firearms in separate incidents.Police fear an outbreak of violence between the Finks and rival gang the Coffin Cheaters over the recruitment of expelled Cheater Troy Desmond Mercanti to the fledgling WA Finks.Last month, Mr Wallace and other Finks accompanied Mercanti's partner Tammy Cherie Kingdon to and from Perth Magistrate's Court where she faces charges of stealing from a trust fund set up for the benefit of a slain Coffin Cheater's children.
Labor MP John Hyde, who is a long supporter of Deane-Johns and visits her regularly, said her relationship with Mr Wallace had changed.
"It's wrong to say that she's in a strong relationship with him," he said. "She's not going to put herself at risk. Her links are to the Wallace family. The thing is Holly doesn't have control over people that are claiming to be part of her life."
Mr Hyde said Deane-Johns had been a model prisoner who had completed a post-graduate diploma and hoped to become a social worker.She was also working on a book about her life.

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