From the late 1980s, a wave of btal murrs swept Sydney’s clifftops. The victims were gay men; police barely bothered vtigatg." name="scriptn
Contents:
- DEEP WATER: WERE 30 UNSOLVED SYDNEY ATHS REALLY GAY HATE CRIM?
- BONDI RISE MEMORIAL HONOURS VICTIMS OF SYDNEY GAY HATE CRIM DURG 1970S TO 1990S
- STT JOHNSON: MAN NFS TO 1988 GAY HATE MURR
- AUTHOR DUNN MCNAB HOP ONE OF THE GAY HATE CRIME GANG MEMBERS FALLY SPEAKS OUT
- NOW THEY'RE 40-SOMETHG, WILL BONDI'S GAY-BASHG GANGS DOB KILLERS FOR $100,000
- JAGUARS STRENGTH COACH KEV MAXEN COM OUT AS GAY
- BLOODSPORT: THE BONDI GAY MURRS
DEEP WATER: WERE 30 UNSOLVED SYDNEY ATHS REALLY GAY HATE CRIM?
* gay bondi murders *
Users have lled “the shy man’s beat”, or the “last stop on Sydney’s gay sex tour”.
In 2012 the New South Wal puty state roner Carmel Forb overturned the suici fdg but uld not terme how he police have formed Operatn Parrabell, a team of eight tectiv who will apply an FBI measure of hate bias – creria to terme if a crime is motivated by bias agast, for stance, sexual orientatn – to see if as many as 88 Sydney aths datg om the 1970s onward, cludg 30 unsolved s, were gay hate s were marked suici or e unknown, but past police nclns are now beg lled to qutn.
A new SBS vtigatn has unvered “ser mistak” were ma the ial vtigatns, cludg the misspellg of one ad man’s Johnson tells Guardian Atralia that applyg the FBI hate bias creria is unlikely to unver gay hate crim bee the strgent checklist requir s to be solved, perpetrators to be intified and their hatred of victims to be proclaimed. Instead, he says, a better exercise would be to pull every police file on every ath near a gay Sydney meetg place om the 1970s to about 2000 and ask: was this se properly vtigated? The aim is to attract a natnal dience to the story, and to unver more possible gay hate crim and murrs producer, Darren Dale, says he was spired by hearg 2012 about the murr of Ahmed Ghoniem, who was found Sydney apartment wh multiple stab wounds and blunt trma juri.
BONDI RISE MEMORIAL HONOURS VICTIMS OF SYDNEY GAY HATE CRIM DURG 1970S TO 1990S
If you were a gay man Sydney durg the 1970s to 1990s, there was a chance you uld get beaten up or killed, Garry Wotherspoon says. A memorial to the victims now stands on the eastern suburbs se where many of the acts of vlence took place. * gay bondi murders *
The two attacks were unrelated but Dale, who is gay, uldn’t help but pare the public rponse.
STT JOHNSON: MAN NFS TO 1988 GAY HATE MURR
The NSW Police Force has admted s officers may have ma ser mistak while re-examg potential gay-hate murrs among a list of 30 unsolved aths. An SBS vtigatn has unvered a failure by police to check even basic tails for some of the men, rultg an erroneo asssment beg provid to NSW State Coroner Michael Barn. For the first time, each of the 30 s is explaed tail this SBS teractive. But some of the s would have amounted to a few l if SBS had relied on what police managed to unver. * gay bondi murders *
“I live Potts Pot [ Sydney], and I thought, if there is someone attackg and murrg gay men – more gay people livg there than I spect anywhere else Atralia – then how e ’s not any of the papers, ’s not been the news? Shawn Seet, the director of the ld Canberra polil drama The Co, is at the the prent day, fictnal Detective Senr Constable Tori Ltigman, played by Yael Stone of Orange Is the New Black, her own DNA to see if match DNA found on a piece of lead pipg, which she spects may be her gay brother’s. His 1989 drowng had been rerd as a drama’s central ncerns are: Did the fictnal Kyle “Hammers” Hampton (Craig McLachlan) – a one-time member of a gay-bashg gang – play a role the men’s aths?
Photograph: Sean O'Reilly/SBSThe ‘gay ATM’It was not until 2005, 17 years after Stt Johnson’s ath, that Steve realised his beloved brother might have died vlently: he had been sent a clippg about the vlent aths of three other gay men year the NSW senr puty state roner Jacquele Milledge found that the televisn newsrear Ross Warren, 25, and barman John Rsell, 31, had been murred two separate attacks 1989, most probably thrown off a cliff at Bondi’s Marks Park, which was known as a gay beat. Photograph: Steve JohnsonSteve Johnson believ, along wh many others, that herent bias play a role both the mimal media verage of the stori and the public and police rponse to vlent crim agast gay people.
“I’m unsure what role homophobia played the 1980s, ” he says, “but certaly seemed that the police systematilly avoid vtigatg the aths of gay men, or men prumed to be gay.
AUTHOR DUNN MCNAB HOP ONE OF THE GAY HATE CRIME GANG MEMBERS FALLY SPEAKS OUT
Rewards of $100,000 will be offered for rmatn leadg to the killers of three men on the Bondi-Tamarama headlands the 1980s, which a roner 2005 lked to a spate of "gay hate" crim." name="scriptn * gay bondi murders *
His brother says this was an implsible ncln: many gay men have told his vtigatn that the area had been a popular beat sce the 1960s but gay men were often too sred to report asslts bee “police treated them like perpetrators, not victims”’s vtigatn also clud terviewg former gay-bashg gang members, who had sentially operated wh impuny bee there was still a “lot of hatred towards gays”, he says.
Homosexualy was only crimalised NSW 1984 and the Aids panmic was full flight. The unvarnished fact is that late at night, Marks Park, a grassy verge ppg the headland and the ncrete pathway skirtg the cliff face, had been a gay beat – a place where homosexual men would socialise and hook up – sce at least the late 1920s.
Gangs like the Bondi Boys (otherwise known by their graffi tag PTK, or People that Kill) would prowl here, rryg out brazen acts of vlence; ’s likely that at least a few were serial offenrs; perpetrators of an anti-gay murr spree that swept across Sydney at the is no simple whodunn; volv a tangled tale of hate crim volvg multiple spects, gangs prisg up to 30 members, some of whom circulated among other gangs across Sydney, posg a dark mosaic of murr. This is a lot more than n be said for the other men killed here, or for that matter, the vast majory of other murrs of gay men blightg Sydney at the a year to the day earlier, on another eezg night July 1989, Ross Warren, a handsome, charismatic weatherman and newsrear om WIN-TV Wollongong, vanished on this headland the early hours of a Saturday morng.
NOW THEY'RE 40-SOMETHG, WILL BONDI'S GAY-BASHG GANGS DOB KILLERS FOR $100,000
Jacksonville Jaguars associate strength ach Kev Maxen jt me out as gay. * gay bondi murders *
”In what was perhaps another watershed moment this year, a 75-year-old man was arrted for the murr of Raymond Keam, a martial arts expert and father of two who was found beaten to ath January 1987 at Alison Park, Randwick, then a well-known gay beat Sydney’s east. As Sue Thompson, a former state ombudsman’s vtigator who joed the police force 1990 to ordate s liaison wh the gay and lbian muny, tells me the podst: “Cliffs were the easit weapon; you didn’t have to rry anythg wh you. ”“Thgs did not change magilly 1984 [when homosexualy was crimalised NSW].
”For Thompson, beg a liaison officer was eply personal: one of her close iends, a gay man, had been murred only months before she took the role, and she was ls than imprsed wh the police rponse. The gay muny’s mistst of police at the time wasn’t helpg to quell the vlence. “Thgs did not change magilly 1984 [when homosexualy was crimalised NSW], ” Thompson outled one of her reports.
It was my job to brg peace between police and the gay and lbian muni and effect anisatnal change police culture. ”If there remas any doubt that gay men’s liv were seen as of ls value at that time, look at how the murrs were vtigated by the Bondi police.
JAGUARS STRENGTH COACH KEV MAXEN COM OUT AS GAY
In the late 1980s and early ’90s, Sydney’s gay and lbian muny was unr siege (bashgs and murrs of gay men were also happeng Melbourne, Brisbane and Alai, but not on the same sle). Activists splattered red pat over 11 cy buildgs, cludg state parliament, the Downg Centre urt plex, and the headquarters of Channel 10 and The Sydney Morng Herald, then loted Jon Street, class were sprgg up ner-cy gyms and muny groups, and a group of gay volunteers – some of them former members of the army, navy and police force – began foot patrols along Oxford Street and Darlghurst Street foot patrol RtersStill, the murrs ntued.
In May, one of their own, social science teacher Wayne Tonks, was murred his Artarmon apartment by two young men (not his stunts) was outrage when the so-lled gay panic fence, a cel wrkle the law that enabled killers to claim an alleged sexual advance provoked them to a murro rage, was ed the murr trial of Christopher McKnon, arrted for killg Mrice McCarty, a technician wh the Atralian Ballet, April 1991. ”Parkhill nces that the culture of the NSW police force reflected broar societal norms of the time, although possibly exacerbated by a mostly male staff and the AIDS crisis, which provid those wh an agenda agast gay men wh the perfect ammunn to stigmatise the LGBTQ muny even more.
Earlier this year, the fdgs om an 18-month parliamentary quiry, Gay and Transgenr Hate Crim between 1970 and 2010, found that the NSW Police Force had failed s rponsibily to properly vtigate historil hate crim. My book on the murrs, Bondi Badlands, was published back 2007, and over the years one qutn has ntued to hnt me: what turns young men to murrers of gay men?
BLOODSPORT: THE BONDI GAY MURRS
The pop-psych explanatn we so equently hear – that those who m vlent offenc agast gay men mt have suffered sexual or physil abe themselv – don’t necsarily hold up to close scty. Make no mistake about this: the men, like so many others at the time, were slghtered bee they were gay. "It was part of life beg a gay man Sydney at the time, you were aware of the hate crim … uld've been me, rather than the people I know, " Mr Wotherspoon lived through the 70s to 90s, a dark chapter of the Harbour Cy's history where dozens of mal were sla btal fashn.