According to police, he snuck in through the car park.
At 1:07am on January 20, the man prised open a fire door with a wire hook and climbed 27 flights of stairs. He used the hook a second time to bypass another locked door and scaled a ladder, pushing through a rooftop hatch.
The man seemingly wasn’t there to admire Melbourne’s CBD skyline. Soon, he abseiled over the edge of the building, before returning to the roof and exiting the way he came in.
Graffiti adorning the Novotel South Wharf in Melbourne. (Instagram: goodbirdart)
When the sun rose later that morning, the purpose of the stealth mission was revealed.
A spray-painted, black-and-white cartoon bird was now perched on the side of the shimmering gold Novotel South Wharf hotel. The creation was five floors high and more prominent than the hotel’s own exterior signage. The words “HE HE MEOW” were underneath the bird’s beak, as if being squawked into the world.
Many Melburnians would have recognised it instantly. It was “Pam the Bird”.
Police say removing the graffiti around Melbourne is expected to cost more than soar $200,000, (Instagram: goodbirdart)
During the last year, Pam the Bird has been frequently painted on the side of trains. It has appeared on roofs, freeway signs and the CityLink “Cheese Stick”. The bird left its mark on Channel Nine’s headquarters, heritage-listed buildings and structures. Like clockwork, Pam the Bird struck again in July, emerging on top of the Flinders Street Station.
On that occasion, police alleged, two intruders waited until 3:00am to break into the station and went up an internal ladder to reach the top of the historic clock tower. Pam the Bird was incorporated into the clock face, its big round eye staring straight down Elizabeth Street.
Flinders Street Station’s clock was vandalised in July, with the clean-up bill estimated at over $24,000. (Supplied: Victoria Police)
‘Pam the Bird has blown people’s minds’
Depending on who you ask, Pam the Bird can be viewed as an icon of Melbourne’s street art culture and a harmless act of roguish rebellion. Others see it differently. The bird has been featured on T-shirts and has an Instagram page with more than 75,000 followers.
A “Pam the Bird” mural can be seen on the iconic Shot Tower in Clifton Hill. (AAP: Diego Fedele)
Adrian Doyle, a prominent figure in the city’s street art scene, believes Pam the Bird has “added to the myth of Melbourne”.
“Let’s face it, Pam the Bird has blown people’s minds away again and again and again,” he said.
It’s not a view shared by the Melbourne City Council, which promotes sanctioned street art projects but spends millions each year getting rid of unwelcome tags and graffiti.
“There is no artistic merit to these works — it’s just plain vandalism,” Lord Mayor Nick Reece said.
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Alleged vandals unmasked
Police are not impressed, either, arguing that Pam the Bird glorifies crime and that the unsolicited murals have cost more than $200,000 to remove.
As officers revealed in a Melbourne court, the feathered fiend and its alleged creator had been under investigation since January 2024.
Matthew Raoul White, 39, (left) has been released on bail, while Jack Gibson-Burrell, 21, has had his bail bid denied. (ABC News)
Victoria Police’s most dedicated Pam the Bird watchers have been senior constables Scott Nicholls and Michael McCarthy from the Transit Divisional Response Unit.
The pair trawled through hundreds of hours of security footage, analysed phone data, checked bank records and used undercover officers and enlisted handwriting experts in a year-long investigation.
Police swooped on January 30, arresting Jack Gibson-Burrell, 21, and an alleged accomplice, Matthew Raoul White, 39.
Matthew Raoul White leaving the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday. (AAP: Diego Fedele)
In court, Senior Constable Nicholls labelled Mr Gibson-Burrell as “one of the most prominent graffiti artists in Australia” and a “notorious vandal”.
Worse still, the officer alleged, Mr Gibson-Burrell’s crime spree had escalated from small acts of graffiti to violent attacks against people, thefts of cars, a shop ram raid and break-ins. In court documents, police claimed he was involved in an unsanctioned martial arts “fight club” and was under investigation for allegedly stabbing a man.
“He has to be held in custody to prevent him from causing chaos in our state,” Senior Constable Nicholls told the court.
Officers who raided Mr Gibson-Burrell’s house last week said they seized harness straps, a heavy-duty extension pole, cameras, T-shirts and clothing used during graffiti attacks captured on CCTV.
Police dismiss copycat theory
During a bail hearing, Mr Gibson-Burrell’s lawyer questioned how police could be certain the 21-year-old was the sole creator of Pam the Bird.
Senior Constable Nicholls said the bird’s look was too “distinctive” for copycats to properly mimic and “the average Joe does not climb a building 100 metres in the air in order to commit a bird graffiti at night”.
Police said Mr Gibson-Burrell had previously been caught in Queensland spraying Pam the Bird, and undercover police spotted him going to the Bodega spray paint shop in Abbotsford straight after the Novotel incident. The shop is operated by Mr White.
The graffiti has become a common sight around Melbourne over the past year. (Instagram)
The court was told Mr Gibson-Burrell gave a no-comment interview and would be contesting the current charges.
Mr White, meanwhile, is accused of helping Mr Gibson-Burrell and spraying his own prominent tags around the city, including “SROCK” and “NEON”.
Senior Constable McCarthy said Mr White once spent 100 days in a San Francisco jail for graffiti crimes and jumped off a moving train in 2018 for a social media stunt.
Still, the onus will be on police to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the men are guilty of the latest string of charges.
Channel Nine’s Docklands headquarters were among many locations targeted. (Instagram)
While Victoria Police are confident their evidence will stack up, Magistrate Johanna Metcalf said it was too early to be decisive about the strengths and weaknesses of the prosecution case.
On Wednesday, the magistrate denied Mr Gibson-Burrell bail, holding him in custody to face a trial or a contested hearing that may not happen for another 18 months.
Mr White was freed on strict bail conditions after agreeing not to graffiti, to surrender his passport and abide by a nightly curfew.
As the bail hearing wrapped up in court, another group of men were abseiling down the side of the Novotel South Wharf. They weren’t armed with spray cans, and had instead come with cleaning equipment. Pam the Bird was scrubbed off.
One down, many more to go.
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