Gangland widow calm over murder charge

MELBOURNE - She's charged with her brother-in-law's murder, but gangland widow Judy Moran was all smiles at her court appearance on Tuesday.

Pursing her deep red lips, she beamed and waved to her legal representatives like a benevolent grandmother, seemingly unperturbed by the gravity of the offence she faces.

``Ta ta, nice to see you,' she said, waving and grinning to a lawyer friend in the public gallery.

Her lawyer, however, was far from unperturbed.

Brian Bourke, QC, made it known to magistrate Jelena Popovic he was unhappy with the timing of the murder charge laid against his client and questioned its validity.

Moran, 64, was to apply for bail in the Melbourne Magistrates' Court on Tuesday on the lesser charge of being an accessary after the fact.

But a murder charge laid late on Monday meant that she could not make the application.

Moran hobbled into the court dock on Tuesday without the aid of a walking stick, wearing a navy knit jumper and matching cardigan, her blonde hair set in tight curls framing her face.

She was joined there by co-accused Geoffrey ``Nuts' Armour; both are now charged with the murder of Des ``Tuppence' Moran.

Judy Moran is said to be suffering a blood-related cancer.

A third co-accused, Suzanne Kane, 45, was not in court because of ill health.

Mr Bourke told the court he was concerned about the murder charge against his client being laid just hours before she was to seek bail on the accessary after the fact charge.

``We are concerned about the sinister aspect of the serving of the charge of murder,' he said.

``It was not contemplated that any other charge would be laid against her and certainly not a charge of murder.

``One approaches the whole thing with a great amount of suspicion.'

Mr Bourke said there was a ``sense of complete and indecent haste' about the new charge.

He said police served the charge on Moran at the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre about 3.30pm (AEST) on Monday.

During the hearing, police applied for an extension of the time they have to deliver a brief of evidence against Moran.

The matter was later adjourned to next Tuesday for argument on the police time-extension application, an application to interview while in custody and another application to take a forensic sample.

Des Moran was gunned down by two gunmen at the busy Ascot Pasta and Deli Cafe in Ascot Vale at lunchtime on June 15.

Shortly after, an eyewitness said Judy Moran was at the scene, screaming ``Dessy, Dessy' when she saw his body slumped in the cafe's doorway.

She was arrested little more than 24 hours later along with Kane, the sister-in-law of her youngest son Jason, gunned down in 2003.

Police are hunting another gunman and the getaway driver who are still on the loose.

Number plates from the getaway vehicle and clothes matching the description of those worn by the gunmen were allegedly found in a safe at Moran's house.

Moran's other son Mark was killed in 2000, the first of the Moran family to be assassinated in Melbourne's bloody gangland war.

Her husband Lewis Moran was shot dead in a Brunswick bar in 2004.

- AAP