[1] His father, Roger was a senior executive with the Australia and New Zealand Bank while his mother Audrey was a prominent socialite in Melbourne high society.
[2] In a 2006 interview with the Canadian journalists Julian Sher and William Marsden, Hill stated of his youth: "It was party time.
Parties, women, bikes, fast, all the good things in life, when you are young, Live for the moment, I did that for fourteen years.
[3] Sher and Marsden described Hill in the 1970s as a tall, lean man with long, curly black hair, a prominent nose, a narrowly formed face with "determined eyes" and "a hint of a smile".
[5] Hill joined an outlaw biker gang, the Phantoms Motorcycle Club, that "patched over" in 1972 to become the Hells Angels Melbourne chapter.
[3] Hill laughed when the police raided his house to seize $10, 000 Australian dollars along with a package of amphetamine, and invited the arresting officers over for tea.
[4] Kenny "Old Man" Maxwell, a former chemist for the Royal Dutch Shell Oil company, had started to work for the Hells Angels.
[8] Maxwell also trained three members of the Oakland chapter, James Brandes, Sergei Walton and Kenny Owen into how to make amphetamines.
[9] In return, Hill agreed to buy in bulk the chemical phenyl-2-propanone (P2P), which was crucial for manufacturing amphetamines and was legal in Australia at the time to smuggle into the United States.
[9] Between 1980 and 1982, Hill was responsible for smuggling 300 liters of P2P into the United States, which provided enough P2P to manufacture about US$50 million worth of amphetamines.
[11] In exchange for helping to pay Barger's legal fees, Hill and the others were allowed to continue to wear their Hells Angels patches.
"[12] Together with three Hells Angels of the Melbourne chapter, Ray Hamment, John Madden and Roger Biddlestone, Hill built a lab for manufacturing amphetamines.
[12] With the start-up capital of $15, 000 Australian dollars raised by the sale of stolen motorcycles, Hill and the others opened their amphetamines-manufacturing lab in late 1980.
[12] The P2P he used came from the Calaire Chemical Company of Calais, France while the uncle of the Hells Angel Terry "Pop" Faulkner provided the necessary import license.
[11] At the time, the Hells Angels had no chapters in Western Australia, forcing Hill to use the Gypsy Jokers instead to sell his amphetamines.
[11] When he saw Hill leave the Greensplopes property, he realized that something suspicious was occurring and entered Greenslopes after the Hells Angels went out to discover their lab.
[14] Hill had placed a voice-activated tape recorder to discover any unauthorised entries, but had defeated its purpose by neglecting to turn it on.
[16] Armstrong placed a call with the Australian federal police to ask if they knew of any American Hells Angels whose moniker was "the Assassin".
[16] Armstrong received the answer that the nickname applied to James Patton Brandes, the same member of the Oakland chapter who had such a close friendship with Hill.
[16] Most worrisome to Armstrong was the news that Brandes was planning to visit Australia soon and had already taken out a travel visa with his destination listed as Melbourne.
[18] Also found in Brandes' briefcase were newspaper clippings about his trials, a pair of thumb screws, a detector for electric listening devices, and a copy of the U.S. Treasury's forensic handbooks with the passages about how to wipe fingerprints off metal being highlighted.
[16] Finally found on Brandes were the secret passwords given to FBI agents which allowed him to access the computer system of the U.S. Justice Department via the internet and learn about the ongoing status of any federal investigation.
[16] Armstrong bore a strong resemble to the English comedian Benny Hill and as soon as he arrived at the Melbourne airport to see Brandes, the latter immediately realised him.
[18] The Australian customs learned that Brandes had lied on his visa application as he failed to mention his convictions for drug dealing and gunrunning.
[18] Australia does not permit foreigners with criminal records to enter its borders, and Brandes was promptly put on the first flight back to San Francisco.
[19] Armstrong decided to play a psychological game, launching raids on Hill and his associates while he and the other policemen would make seemingly casual off-hand remarks that suggested there was an informer in the ranks of the Angels.
[4] Hill became increasingly unpopular within his own chapter with the feeling being he was too greedy in keeping the profits from the sale of amphetamines to himself while his obsessive paranoia about the supposed informer grated on many.
[22] Biddlestone who chose to stay on with the chapter was kidnapped by his fellow Hells Angels; held captive for 15 hours; had nearly every bone in his body broken during a lengthy torture session; and was dumped barely alive in front of a hospital.
[22] In a final blow against the Hells Angels, Hill sold the amphetamines recipe to the Black Uhlans biker gang, thereby breaking the monopoly held by the Hells Angels who until then were the only Australian bikie gang that knew the secret for making amphetamines[23] Hill agreed to turn Crown's evidence and in a five-hour interview with Armstrong told all about his criminal activities.
[22] In 1987, in a plea bargain with the Crown, Hill pleaded guilty to various drug charges for which he was sentenced to five years in prison.