suspicious ‘inferno’ guts businesses in Melbourne’s west

The owner of a law firm that was firebombed in Melbourne’s inner west overnight has longstanding business associations with underworld figures including Mick Gatto and Mark Balsillie, the Finks national bikie president.

Victor Doree is listed as the principal lawyer of Kingsford Lawyers, one of the businesses destroyed in Tuesday’s early morning arson attack on Hudsons Road in Spotswood.

Emergency services were called to the warehouse business premises about 2am on Tuesday after multiple residents reported hearing popping noises.

One resident, who did not want to be named, said she woke up to clouds of smoke rising from the area just before 2am. She said that in the time it took to call Triple Zero, the smoke quickly turned into bright orange flames.

“By the time the fire brigade arrived, it was an inferno. It was just mad,” she said. “Within 15 minutes, it went from crackling sounds and smoke to a full-blown fire.”

Speaking at the scene on Tuesday morning, assistant chief fire officer Greg Christison said while he understood the blaze to be suspicious, he could not comment on how it had started.

“We had our fire investigation team attending earlier this morning, and we’re working very closely with Victoria Police to determine the cause of the fire,” he said.

According to corporate regulator ASIC, Doree is the current director of the law firm, which has offices in Perth, the Gold Coast and in Italy, according to its website. An office in Tweed Heads is listed as “coming soon”.

Doree was a shareholder in another company that was burnt down in a deliberate fire over a decade ago. Operating under the name Latham Moore and Associates, the office on Centre Road, Bentleigh was targeted in 2012, and had links to Gatto and a debt collection business named after him.

A company formerly known as Gatto Corporation, which was co-owned by Melbourne’s most persuasive debt collector, used the premises of Latham Moore and Associates as its principal place of business, ASIC records at the time showed.

Doree, who was born in the UK, was also director of a company called The Buck Stops Here Pty Ltd, which was based in the same Bentleigh offices that were destroyed by the 2012 blaze.

Since that fire, Latham Moore and Associates’ most recent listed address was the Spotswood address – the same building where Doree’s firm was targeted again.

Doree also has links to Balsillie, the national Finks bikie gang boss who, in March 2021, invested in a Queensland-based company, Gluck Nominees – a company with which Doree was also involved.

Doree, 57, has dozens of companies registered with the corporate regulator that appear to specialise in property development, luxury cars and hospitality.

Kingsford Lawyers’ Queensland arm is currently registered under the same address as one of Balsillie’s collapsed hotel companies.

The Age understands Doree took up occupancy of the Hudsons Road factory about a decade ago and has operated various businesses out of it since.

Surrounded by several workshops full of tradies, witnesses said they hadn’t ever seen clients or employees coming or going from the office.

When asked about the fires, Doree told this masthead the attacks at both locations were “totally unrelated”, and that Latham Moore was “totally unrelated to Kingsford Lawyers”.

“A police source confirmed that they have viewed CCTV footage which shows a vehicle ramming the roller door of the warehouse … The warehouse is tenanted and used for storage totally unrelated to Kingsford Lawyers,” Doree said.

“At this stage we do not know what was being stored in the warehouse or whether items were stolen from the premises.”

When asked about his business relationships with Gatto and Balsillie, Doree said: “We do not discuss our clients, which is legally privileged.”

Christison said on Tuesday morning that upon arrival, fire crews “were able to identify a fire that was burning with some intensity” and quickly escalated their response.

“At the height of the fire, we had 14 fire appliances on the scene here with a number of specialist aerial appliances. We’ve had over 50 firefighters, and we still have some specialist equipment coming to the fire round here this morning.”

The blaze was brought under control about 4.45am, he said, and crews were still on the scene to put out the “remaining pockets of fire”.

“Unfortunately, two premises were completely gutted,” the assistant chief fire officer said. A number of surrounding businesses were also affected. Nine people were evacuated from the buildings.

Witnesses at the scene told this masthead that a car had been rammed into the front of the Kingsford Lawyers office.

When asked to confirm how the arsonists gained entry to the factory, Christison said he could not comment. “It’s too early in the firefight, but we are treating the fire as suspicious,” he said.

“It’s our job as a fire service to protect the community from fire, and we’ve been very busy of late. I think we’ve all seen many media reports of the activity levels through metropolitan Melbourne and surrounding suburbs.

“The activity levels at the moment are like we haven’t seen before.

“Our job, we’re ready to respond. Our crews are professionally trained, and that’s our job. So, we’ll always respond to fire. Frequency just varies depending on different circumstances and time of day, but our job is to protect the community from fire, and we do it very well.”

Police confirmed the offenders were seen driving away from the area in a ute, but the direction they drove off is unknown. Anyone with information is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

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