John 'Chow' Hayes

[citation needed] Hayes rarely attended school after his eighth birthday, and earned a living as a newspaper seller in the area around Railway Square.

[citation needed] As a teenager he became involved with gang-related crime in and around his local area, namely shoplifting, petty theft and assault.

A biography that was written about him in 1990 by David Hickie named "Chow Hayes, Gunman", suggested that he started carrying and using firearms in his late teens.

He became involved in larger robberies and stand-over extortion scams, which enriched his ego, but also gave him a very bad reputation with the general public and thus became a menace to the police.

[6] After hiding from police for six weeks, he (and his accomplice William 'Joey' Hollebone) was finally caught by the notorious Sydney detective Ray 'Gunner' Kelly.

Hayes was back in jail for another seven years in 1970 for a grievous bodily harm conviction when he sliced the face and arms of Gerald John Hutchinson with a broken glass in 1969.

[9] Chow Hayes was married on 23 December 1932[10] to his childhood sweetheart, Gladys Muriel King (1913-1969), known as 'Topsy', and they had four children, three sons and a daughter.