‘Men were stterg everywhere’: quiry hears of strg of vlent cints at Sydney gay beats | Sydney | The Guardian

Contents:

• ‘MEN WERE STTERG EVERYWHERE’: QUIRY HEARS OF STRG OF VLENT CINTS AT SYDNEY GAY BEATS
• THE BT LGBTQI + AND GAY BEACH SYDNEY
• NSW POLICE: HUNTG GAY MEN AT BEATS
• TAG: GAY BEATS
• MAN ACCED OF HISTORIC MURR A SYDNEY PARK WOULD ALLEGEDLY 'SET UPON' GAY MEN, URT HEARS
• INQUIRY HEARS OF VLENCE AT GAY BEATS
• TWO TEEN BOYS CHARGED AFTER ALLEGEDLY ATTACKG GAY MEN SYDNEY
• ELRLY MAN GUILTY OF BEATG SYDNEY FATHER TO ATH AT SYDNEY 'GAY BEAT' 1987
• FOUR OTHER GAY-HATE CRIM BEG VTIGATED BY NSW POLICE AFTER STT JOHNSON MURR CHARGE

‘MEN WERE STTERG EVERYWHERE’: QUIRY HEARS OF STRG OF VLENT CINTS AT SYDNEY GAY BEATS

Men at a popular Sydney gay beat had to stter when a r reered towards them “like was on a kangaroo shoot”, an quiry has r’s headlights and an apparent spotlight were blazg as the r drove at men at Rhcutters Bay Park Sydney’s east the 1990s.

THE BT LGBTQI + AND GAY BEACH SYDNEY

“It was a by Saturday night and men were stterg everywhere, nng like the dickens, ” Barry Charl said on 72-year-old longtime gay rights activist was givg evince at the New South Wal Special Commissn of Inquiry to LGBTIQ hate is vtigatg historil hate crim agast the queer muny, particularly a wave of gay hate homicis and other crim Sydney durg the Aids epimic of the 1980s. “While as a young man om Punchbowl ( Sydney’s wt) I had no ia how to fd a gay bar, beats were somethg I uld fd, ” he equented them between 1969 and 1998, visg at least 40 different on around sex was mostly anonymo and wordls, as the majory wanted to get over and done wh as quickly as possible.

“Hangg around for longer than necsary was dangero, bee you knew you uld be apprehend, or were danger of vlence and some men were at risk of beg exposed as gay. Beat ers have reported hourly patrols by several police vehicl, vert patrols on foot, the wrongful "banng" people om the area for 28 days, rogatory personal ments, threats to e pepper spray, e of unnecsary force, arrt whout charge and other homophobic behavur. In a letter to cy admistrators, LECD says that by regulatg sex public, the safety of homosexuals om "queer-bashers" n be better guaranteed.

Communy Actn Agast Homophobia (CAAH) is mpaigng to end harassment of men Sydney beats and will provi onle rmatn for beat ers to bee better rmed of their rights when approached by police. Socials every Friday night at The Oxford Hotel Darlghurst and Sunday afternoon at The Town Hall Hotel (The Townie) Paws, a monthly gaymer eventmuny health & well-beg eventsfundraisg for muny chari.

NSW POLICE: HUNTG GAY MEN AT BEATS

As Garry Wotherspoon observ: “[H]omosexuals have been imagative creatg other for a range of stutns … sce the ways which heterosexuals n meet each other openly are not available to homosexuals. The Sydney Cliff murrs were a strg of murrs om the 80’s through the 90’s agast gay men the of Sydney, Atralia which may have had as many as 90 victims — primarily Marks Park at the top of the Bondi Beach cliffs, which was a popular cisg spot for gay men, but also some other areas that were popular “gay beats”.

Acrdg to retired High Court jtice Michael Kirby, the police viewed gay men as low level crimals (even though sodomy was crimalized there 1984) and thought that homosexuals should pretty much expect to be hurt or killed. And, no, wasn’t a serial killer on the loose or anythg nearly that dramatic — was groups of vlent, homophonic teenagers who knew that crim agast gay men would never be taken serly by the police.

TAG: GAY BEATS

Homici tective Steve McCann secretly rerd nversatns the boys had wh each other and other mat — they bragged about killg gay men at the cliffs at Bondi Beach. He turned to lawyer, and official liaison between the New South Wal police and the gay muny, Sue Thompson for help but even so there was only so much they uld do. As a rult of this, the New South Wal police began Operatn Parrabell, a review of 88 vtigatns to var aths of gay men — tryg to terme if the crim should be classified as hate crim.

MAN ACCED OF HISTORIC MURR A SYDNEY PARK WOULD ALLEGEDLY 'SET UPON' GAY MEN, URT HEARS

The Operatn Parrabell task force for unsolved homicis accepted eight of those as potential anti-gay hate crim that need to be vtigated. A 77-year-old man is on trial the Supreme Court after pleadg not guilty to murrg Raymond Keam a Sydney park nearly four s pots:Stanley Early is acced of allegedly murrg Raymond Keam 1987Mr Keam was found a park known for beg a gay beat Sydney's RandwickThe urt was told Mr Early was part of a group who would "set upon" gay men at nightStanley Early was arrted Augt 2021 what police alleged was a gay-hate crime based on a false perceptn of Mr Keam's sexual body was found face up the grass Randwick's Alison Park on the morng of January 13, 1987 wh var juri, and a post-mortem examatn later revealed he had died om a bra an openg statement, Crown prosecutor Ken McKay SC had argued there was evince that prr to the alleged murr the Victorian man had on ocsn been part of a group who had "set upon" men the park late at night bee they believed them to be the time of Mr Keam's ath the acced went by the name Stanley "Spir" Sutton and lived a boardg hoe oppose the park. Men at a popular Sydney gay beat had to stter when a r reered towards them "like was on a kangaroo shoot", an quiry has heard.

It is vtigatg historil hate crim agast the queer muny, particularly a wave of gay hate homicis and other crim Sydney durg the AIDS epimic of the 1980s. "Hangg around for longer than necsary was dangero, bee you knew you uld be apprehend, or were danger of vlence and some men were at risk of beg exposed as gay. Two teenage boys have been charged over a seri of alleged asslts central Sydney, which gay men were punched, kicked and pots:The alleged asslts took place weeks before Sydney's Gay and Lbian Mardi GrasOne cint was ptured on CCTV helpg police to track down two spectsTwo teenaged boys have been charged wh assltIn one cint, which took place on Febary 6, a 19-year-old man was allegedly beaten by one of the boys jt before 9pm Haymarket after tellg them he was say one of the teens wound down the wdow of a black Volkswagen Golf and asked the man if he was gay, to which he replied "y"'s alleged one of the boys jumped out of the r before punchg the 19-year-old the head and knockg him to the ground outsi the Oaks Sydney Castlereagh 's then alleged the man was repeatedly kicked, leavg him wh ser bisg and swellg to his say the victim's iend, a 20-year-old woman, was egged when she tried to tervene.

INQUIRY HEARS OF VLENCE AT GAY BEATS

Sourc have told the ABC the man was also asked if he was gay, and when he replied, "y", he was pelted wh eggs, which h him the eye and the cht. Vlence targetg LGBT people often creas the lead up to Sydney's Gay and Lbian Mardi Gras, which will this year be held on March 5Detective Supertennt Rohan Cramsie said vtigatns were unrway to whether others were volved.

A 36-year-old ld se is nearg s long-overdue ncln after a jury returned a guilty verdict for murr at a well-known gay beat Sydney's east. A NSW Supreme Court jury returned s guilty verdict on Wednday after hearg that Early had attacked the 43-year-old martial arts expert Randwick's Alison Park spectg he was homosexual.

(PR HANDOUT IMAGE PHOTO)A post-mortem examatn revealed he died om severe head juri and a 1988 qut found Keam died after beg stck by a person or persons Park had a reputatn for beg a gay beat, crown prosecutor Ken McKay SC told the jury as the trial verdict spe a wholly circumstantial se beg brought agast Early wh no wns seeg he had any ntact wh June 2021 a $1 ln reward was offered for rmatn about the was arrted at a home Clayton, Victoria two months later and was extraded to NSW where he remaed for the Police offered a $1 ln reward for rmatn to the murr of Raymond Keam more than 34 years ago. (NSW Police Force)Keam's hherto unsolved ath was one of 88 killgs between 1976 and 2000 recently reviewed by police probg potential gay-hate vlence and allegatns of prr intified as heterosexual, was divorced om one woman and a facto relatnship wh another, havg a child wh each. 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.

TWO TEEN BOYS CHARGED AFTER ALLEGEDLY ATTACKG GAY MEN SYDNEY

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. ”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.

ELRLY MAN GUILTY OF BEATG SYDNEY FATHER TO ATH AT SYDNEY 'GAY BEAT' 1987

”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.

”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. 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).

FOUR OTHER GAY-HATE CRIM BEG VTIGATED BY NSW POLICE AFTER STT JOHNSON MURR CHARGE

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? 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.