Vic police sniff out drugs at Big Day Out

Police have welcomed a decrease in drug-related arrests at Melbourne's Big Day Out music festival. Source: AAP

THERE'S been a decrease in the number of drug-related arrests at Melbourne's Big Day Out music festival.

A total of 29 people were arrested for drug offences on Friday, down from 40 people at the same festival at the Melbourne Showgrounds last year.

Acting Superintendent Bernie Edwards says only a small number of the 23,000 music fans at the festival were doing the wrong thing.

"We were generally happy with patron behaviour throughout the day, and it looks like most people enjoyed the event," he said.

"It is disappointing that 29 people didn't get the message."

Sniffer dogs were used to find revellers carrying illegal drugs.

Police seized drugs such as ecstasy, amphetamines and cannabis.

Of the 29 arrested, 15 people have been referred to a drug diversion program and 14 have been cautioned.

The Big Day Out heads next to Sydney on Australia Day.

11.27 | 0 komentar | Read More

One dead, two critical in Qld car crash

A man was killed and two others were left in a critical condition after a crash north of Brisbane. Source: AAP

A MAN was killed and two others were left fighting for their lives following a three-car smash north of Brisbane on Friday.

A 20-year-old Donnybrook man died after the car he was a passenger in collided head-on with another vehicle on Pumicestone Road at Caboolture about 3.35pm (AEST), police say.

The 43-year-old male driver and sole occupant of the other vehicle survived the smash despite a third car ploughing into his utility and flipping it on its roof.

He was flown to hospital by helicopter with critical injuries, as was the 26-year-old male driver of the first car who was also critically injured.

A man and woman in the third car suffered only minor injuries.

11.27 | 0 komentar | Read More

Man charged over A-League police assault

A MAN has been charged with assaulting police during the A-League Sydney derby at Parramatta earlier this month.

Officers were conducting crowd control at the match between Sydney FC and the Western Sydney Wanderers about 9.45pm (AEDT) on Saturday, January 11, at Parramatta Stadium when a 29-year-old man approached a male officer and allegedly pushed him.

Police said the man then allegedly acted in an intimidating manner toward a female officer, before he was pulled away by two other men.

Following inquiries, police arrested the man on Thursday and charged him with two counts of assault police officer in execution of duty.

He was given conditional bail to appear in Parramatta Local Court in March.

11.27 | 0 komentar | Read More

WA's shark net trial ready

THE shark barrier designed to protect beachgoers at Western Australia's popular Dunsborough beach has been completed.

Premier Colin Barnett has confirmed the City of Busselton's beach enclosure trial at Old Dunsborough Beach is under way.

The $165,000 barrier, based on those used on the Gold Coast to prevent bull shark attacks, has been constructed over the past few months, as debate rages over WA's controversial shark kill policy.

The enclosure comprises six metal piles drilled into the seabed supporting a 100m x 300m mesh barrier.

The trial will test the suitability of beach enclosures to protect beachgoers from sharks.

Mr Barnett said Old Dunsborough Beach was an appropriate location - despite no shark attacks being recorded at the location.

"Old Dunsborough Beach is used for school holiday swimming lessons, surf lifesaving and community events," he said.

Mr Barnett said the beach enclosure trial was one of "a range of measures" put in place to decrease the risk from a shark attack.

"The state government recognises that a range of measures are needed to ensure West Australians can enjoy our beautiful beaches. Funding research into shark deterrents is part of this strategy, as is the beach enclosure trial," Mr Barnett said.

11.27 | 0 komentar | Read More

AMA calls for national summit on alcohol

EMERGENCY doctors who spend their weekends dealing with victims of drunken violence have called on the federal government to follow NSW's momentum in tackling alcohol-related harm.

Sexual assaults, dying car crash victims and surviving drunk drivers and coward punch victims are some of the cases Victorian emergency physician Dr Stephen Parnis deals with on an average weekend.

He told reporters in Sydney on Thursday there was no doubt there was more alcohol-related harm victims fronting hospitals than when he started 21 years ago.

"I could fill a book with the number of tragedies I have seen from treatments and admissions that are directly related to alcohol," the Australian Medical Association (AMA) Victoria president said.

Dr Parnis said it was well and truly an epidemic.

"It's time for major change, time for a parliamentary inquiry into the issue and a national summit," he said.

The AMA has welcomed proposed measures put forward by the NSW government on Tuesday, including earlier lock-outs in party hot spots and harsher penalties for alcohol and drug related crimes.

But the association believes it does not go far enough.

It wants to see the federal government convene a national summit to come up with solutions to the alcohol misuse epidemic.

The summit would bring together government, councils, police, health experts, teachers, victims and industry.

AMA federal president Dr Steve Hambleton said Australia needed leadership from the federal government and support from the states.

According to the AMA, at 2am in an emergency department, about 20 per cent of people are there because of alcohol-related trauma.

Perth intensive care specialist Professor Geoffrey Dobb said sometimes he went to work in the morning and half of the people in intensive care were there due to alcohol.

"An action that lasts for just a second can impact on people for the rest of their lives," he said.

The effect of alcohol misuse also extends to children, with tens of thousands of cases each year of alcohol-related child mistreatment, the AMA says.

Prof Dobb said there needed to be a change in the drinking culture in Australia.

While the group is looking to the commonwealth for help, Acting Prime Minister Warren Truss told reporters on Wednesday people should not rely on the government to stop alcohol fuelled-violence.

He said governments could make it easier for people to be jailed, but they could not solve the problem.

"People have got to take responsibility for their own lives, recognise the impact on people that they may hurt as the result of some silly drunken violence but also on their own lives."

The AMA's call comes just days after the NSW government announced a suite of reforms to target drunk and drug-fuelled violence.

The proposed laws include the creation of a fatal one-punch offence that would carry a minimum eight-year jail sentence if committed under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

They also include 1.30am lock-outs and 3am last drinks at bars and clubs across an expanded Sydney CBD entertainment precinct.

Other proposed reforms are mandatory minimum and longer maximum sentences for serious alcohol-fuelled assaults, 10pm closing times for bottle shops and new powers allowing police to administer drug and alcohol testing to suspected offenders.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has thrown his support behind the AMA's proposal, saying it wasn't a problem in just one small pocket of Sydney.

"It isn't just a challenge for local and state governments. This is a national issue that demands national attention," he said in a statement with Labor health spokeswoman Catherine King.

Mr Shorten said the community owed it to innocent one-punch victims like Daniel Christie, who died after being assaulted in Kings Cross on New Year's Eve, to face up to the problem of alcohol-fuelled violence.

He said a national summit was the most appropriate way to bring key groups together, including the hotel industry and health experts, to work in partnership with government to tackle the issue.

NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell said it was up to the federal government to decide whether a national summit on alcohol was necessary.

"These are problems that extend beyond state borders," he told reporters on Thursday.

"The prime minister has made clear ... that he recognised not only was it a national problem, but that the commonwealth is prepared to play its part."

11.27 | 0 komentar | Read More

Abuse by Marist brother 'criminal'

A MARIST brother who taught at a school in Cairns where boys were molested has been forced to acknowledge the criminal nature of the behaviour.

Brother Andrew Moraghan, who was a dorm master at boys' boarding school St Augustine's College in Cairns in the 1980s, at first told a national inquiry into child sex abuse that accusations of abuse were so rare in those days that he would not know how to characterise it.

Br Moraghan was being questioned by Justice Peter McClellan, chair of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse at a hearing in Sydney on Thursday.

The commission is examining Towards Healing, the Catholic Church process for handling abuse complaints, by exploring what happened to four abuse victims, one of whom, DK, has accused senior religious staff at the school of failing to act against a brother, Ross Murrin, even though in 1981 they knew of a number of complaints against him.

Murrin is now in jail for offences he later committed at schools in Sydney.

Br Moraghan told the hearing he did not know that Murrin was a sex offender until he was charged in 2008 with matters unrelated to St Augustine's.

In 2010 Br Moraghan - along with a previous witness at Thursday's hearing, former principal at St Augustine's Br Gerald Burns - attended a Towards Healing mediation session with DK, a 49-year-old father of three who wanted to ask them what they knew about Murrin's behaviour and why they did not act to protect other boys.

Justice McClellan pressed Br Moraghan on how he, as an experienced teacher and a manager at the school in 1981, would have characterised an allegation that a brother had touched the genitals of a boy.

"I think my first response would have been shock... I would think it would be a gross act of irresponsibility," Br Moraghan said.

Justice McClellan asked: "Would you see it as a crime?"

When the witness said he did not know how to answer that because it would have been something so completely out of common practice, Justice McClellan asked if he would consider it a crime if a brother touched a female school child.

The witness said he would consider it the same as touching a male pupil.

Justice McClellan said: "So you would see it as a crime?"

Br Moraghan said he would see both acts as a crime.

On Thursday Br Burns denied he lied to DK in the mediation session about his knowledge of other complaints by boys about Murrin's behaviour.

Br Burns told the commission that at the time he was at St Augustine's he would have seen the behaviour as a moral lapse not a crime.

The hearing continues

11.27 | 0 komentar | Read More

WA police get suspended term for tasering

TWO West Australian policemen convicted of assaulting an Aboriginal man by repeatedly tasering him in a lock-up have been given suspended jail terms and fined.

CCTV footage showed the officers - Aaron Grant Strahan, 45, and Troy Gregory Tomlin, 34 - tasering Kevin John Spratt nine times in just over a minute after he refused to be strip-searched in the East Perth watch house on August 31, 2008.

Perth Magistrate Richard Bromfield ruled on Tuesday that Tomlin was guilty of all three charges he faced, while Strahan was guilty of three charges and acquitted of a fourth.

While defence lawyer Karen Vernon had asked the magistrate to impose a good behaviour bond or a fine, rather than a term of imprisonment, Magistrate Bromfield said on Wednesday that imprisonment was the only appropriate sentence.

State prosecutor James MacTaggart had not asked for a jail term, instead suggesting a significant fine.

Tomlin was given an eight-month prison sentence, suspended for six months, as well as a $3800 fine.

Strahan was also given an eight-month jail term, suspended for six months, and a $3250 fine.

In determining the fine, Magistrate Bromfield took into account Tomlin and Strahan's earlier fines of $1200 and $750, respectively, after an internal WA Police disciplinary hearing.

Magistrate Bromfield described the policemen's actions as "a gross error of judgment" and "persistent and repetitive assaults" on a vulnerable victim in custody.

He rejected a suggestion from Ms Vernon that Mr Spratt could have been screaming in joy during the assault as "fanciful", instead describing his utterances as loud and protracted cries of anguish. And while Mr Spratt had been intoxicated and unco-operative before the assault, his struggling during the incident was an understandable response as the Tasers were clearly causing him discomfort.

"No reasonable person could view that footage without being disturbed," Magistrate Bromfield said.

"He was in custody. He could not flee from either of you. He was in an extremely vulnerable position."

Mr Spratt made a brief statement outside court, thanking the media for covering the matter.

After the verdict was handed down on Tuesday, he said he hoped the judgment made it less likely that others would suffer at the hands of police misusing their power.

"A Taser should only be used as a last resort," he said.

While the defence had argued the policemen's actions were justifiable because Mr Spratt was uncontrollable, the court heard from an expert witness that police were instructed not to use the devices for the purposes of ensuring compliance.

Mr Spratt is submitting an application to WA Attorney General Michael Mischin for an ex-gratia compensation payment and is also considering civil proceedings against the officers.

Tomlin and Strahan declined to comment outside court but are expected to issue a statement later on Wednesday.

They are expected to have to fight to keep their jobs as a result of the convictions.

Strahan is still performing operational duties for the WA police, while Tomlin is now a police auxiliary officer.

Both were formerly senior constables.

11.27 | 0 komentar | Read More