1. Norman Bruhn was a notorious and violent Australian dockworker, armed robber and standover man with links to the criminal underworld in both Melbourne and Sydney.
56 Facts About Norman Bruhn
1. 2.
In September 1926 Bruhn relocated with his family from Melbourne to Sydney, where he attained a brief ascendancy by targeting the underworld vice trade, using violence and intimidation against cocaine traffickers, prostitutes and thieves.
3.
In June 1927 Norman Bruhn was shot twice in the abdomen in an inner-city laneway in Darlinghurst.
4.
Norman Bruhn died in Sydney Hospital the following morning, refusing to name his assailant.
5.
Norman Leslie Bruhn was born on 2 June 1894 at Geelong, the fifth of ten children of Oscar Johann Bruhn and Mary Anne.
6.
The father of the family, Oscar Norman Bruhn, worked as a baker, employed since 1884 at John Little's Bakery in Moorabool-street, South Geelong.
7.
Norman Bruhn had been working in a local woollen mill when his arm was caught in a loom, causing a fracture and dislocation of the lower portion of the limb.
8.
On 6 June 1908 Oscar Norman Bruhn was officiating as a goal umpire at a football match between the Barwon and Chillwell Juniors teams at Kardinia Park in South Geelong.
9.
Norman Bruhn was asked to leave the ground, and when he refused, Bruhn tried to put him over the fence, but was unsuccessful.
10.
In late May 1909 Oscar Norman Bruhn was charged with unlawful assault after he threw his own son through a window at his residence in South Geelong.
11.
Norman Bruhn initially threw a plate at his wife that missed.
12.
Norman Bruhn then picked up his child by the legs, swung him around, and hurled the boy through a glass window and bamboo blind.
13.
The boy "said he had no desire to press the charge", so the police withdrew the charge and Norman Bruhn was allowed to go free.
14.
In November 1909 Oscar Norman Bruhn was brought up on a charge of using insulting language at South Geelong.
15.
Norman Bruhn was fined just one shilling after he signed "the pledge".
16.
In November 1910 Norman Bruhn was one of five people fined ten shillings each for riding bicycles at night without lights.
17.
In September 1911 Oscar Norman Bruhn was arrested and charged with the indecent assault of 22-year-old Margaret Sudgell at Marshall-town, near Geelong.
18.
In July 1914 in the Geelong Police Court, Norman Bruhn was charged with offensive behaviour.
19.
Norman Bruhn did not appear, but his legal representative pleaded guilty on his behalf, explaining that the defendant had received a position in a wool-shed and so was unable to attend court.
20.
Norman Bruhn enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force on 4 December 1914.
21.
Norman Bruhn was initially placed in the 6th Battalion.
22.
Norman Bruhn left Australia in February 1915, serving at Gallipoli and in France.
23.
Norman Bruhn was court-martialled on two occasions and was treated in hospital for gonorrhoea a number of times.
24.
Norman Bruhn was detained in prison and in hospital for various periods.
25.
Norman Bruhn escaped from custody and was absent without leave in France from March to October 1919.
26.
Norman Bruhn was finally apprehended at Amiens and taken to London, where he was court-martialled for a third time and detained in custody.
27.
Norman Bruhn left England aboard the Konigin Luise in December 1919, arriving at Melbourne in February 1920 and was discharged from the army, with the unexpired portion of his sentence remitted.
28.
On 26 July 1920 Norman Bruhn was arrested and charged with having unlawfully assaulted Constable William Gleeson in the execution of his duties.
29.
Norman Bruhn was recognised and apprehended while police were inquiring into other matters at North Melbourne.
30.
Waterson snatched back the notes and Norman Bruhn then ran away.
31.
Norman Bruhn was later found in the Inward Parcels Office, identified and arrested.
32.
At the time of the occurrence Norman Bruhn was found to have been standing nearby with some other men.
33.
Norman Bruhn too was arrested and charged with loitering with the intent to commit a felony.
34.
Norman Bruhn was suspected of the crime and his movements were kept under surveillance for several days.
35.
Norman and Irene Bruhn were tried on the robbery charge before a jury and acquitted, after Irene had claimed "that a man had pushed the serge through the front window of her house and had not returned for it".
36.
In September 1921 Norman Bruhn was charged in the City Court with having assaulted and robbed Thomas Hogan, a postal assistant, on the night of September 10 in Capel-street, West Melbourne.
37.
On 5 October 1921 at the Melbourne General Sessions Norman Bruhn was tried on a receiving charge in relation to Hogan's hat and a larceny charge regarding the harness.
38.
Norman Bruhn claimed mistaken identity, but the jury found him guilty on both charges.
39.
Norman Bruhn was sentenced to prison terms of six months for larceny and a further three months for receiving.
40.
On 11 January 1923 Norman Bruhn was sentenced to a period of indeterminate reformatory imprisonment under the Indeterminate Sentences Act 1907.
41.
Six other men, including Norman Bruhn, were present, all of them "very much under the influence of liquor".
42.
At the trial Norman Bruhn claimed he was returning from a party and was simply talking to the two men when the police appeared and arrested him.
43.
In Sydney the Norman Bruhn family rented a house in Park-road, Paddington; Norman Bruhn joined the Wharf Labourers' Union and began work on the wharves.
44.
When he began working on Sydney's docks, Norman Bruhn "established connections with the networks that smuggled or pillaged cocaine".
45.
Norman Bruhn had "discovered in Sydney a new field for exploitation", an area of activity so lucrative "that several well-known Victorian criminals followed him to Sydney".
46.
Norman Bruhn targeted his rivals' sly-grog shops and brothels by ransacking the premises, beating up customers and demanding 'standover' payments.
47.
When he gained his brief ascendancy in Sydney, Norman Bruhn was counted among the underworld lovers of the coveted and notorious prostitute, Nellie Cameron.
48.
Norman Bruhn was asked if he had ever slashed men with razors in company with Bruhn.
49.
Norman Bruhn's companions were Robert Miller, a man named Hassett and another man.
50.
Norman Bruhn ran into Charlotte-lane and saw Bruhn lying in a pool of blood, with Miller bending over him.
51.
Norman Bruhn was put into Infield's taxi and taken to Sydney Hospital.
52.
At the hospital Constable Blench later reported that Miller remarked to him, regarding Norman Bruhn's shooting, "It's the coldest thing I've seen".
53.
When Norman Bruhn was admitted to hospital, he was suffering severely from shock as a result of his wounds.
54.
The bail magistrate, Mr Hardwick, arrived at the hospital to interrogate the dying man, but Norman Bruhn refused to give any information, claiming he did not know the name of his assailant.
55.
Norman Bruhn died at 5.50 am in Sydney Hospital on the morning after the shooting, aged 33 years.
56.
In October 1943, while enlisted in the Army as a private and stationed at Cowra, the older brother Keith Norman Bruhn Faure was refused a meal at the Garden of Roses cafe because of the lateness of the hour, to which he responded by knocking a tray from the proprietor's hands and kicking him in the stomach, assaulting an officer and smashing three plate-glass windows and the glass door.