Oxford St violence figures don’t add up

“What we are seeing

on Oxford Street is
that people are being
attacked . . . Police are
saying they will call
them back, and they
don’t call them back.”
- ACON president Adrian Lovney

Continued from page 1

“We have had a range of incidents re-
ported to us over the last two months
from on and around Oxford Street,
ranging from verbal abuse from cars
or on the street, to muggings and se-
rious physical violence leading to the
hospitalisation of the victims,” Mr
Lovney said
However, police from Surry Hills
Local Area Command (LAC) who
patrol Oxford Street reported only
16 incidents of ‘sexual prejudice’ on A Safe Place recently opened on Oxford Street to help protect and support the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender
or near the strip between January community, has received a positive response, says ACON president Adrian Lovney. Photograph by Melanie Russell.
and December of this year.
“As far as verbalisation of abuse “There was an excess of 800 re- “We know that they’re under re- of curbing violence in the area.
goes, you may be able to add another ports of assaults in the LAC in the porting, because people don’t think Det Insp Egan-Lee said that 10 to
ten cases on top of that,” Surry Hills same period,” Det Insp Egan-Lee anything is going to happen,” Mr 12 police officers patrol the strip on
Crime Manager, Detective Inspector said. Lovney said. weekends, and that the number ap-
David Egan-Lee said. “So as far as percentages go, the “What we are seeing on Oxford peared to be ‘sufficient to deal with
Of these 16 incidents, action had 16 incidents of ‘sexual prejudice Street is that people are being at- the problems’.
been taken against four people, Det crime’ make up about 2.3 per cent. tacked . . . Police are saying they will He said while the command did
Insp Egan-Lee said. Which, in the scheme of our greater call them back, and they don’t call not have a specific GLBT officer,
He said there were problems in area isn’t a major problem,” he said. them back,” he said. six employees had been trained on
the way these cases had been cate- ACON president Adrian Lovney “We accept the police are busy on GLBT issues, which gave them the
gorised, with some being incorrect- said one reason for the discrepencies Oxford Street but we’d like them to capability of dealing with homopho-
ly titled as ‘sexual prejudice crime’ between his services figures and that have more staff on the street.” bic violence.
when they had been perpetrated of the police were that victims were Mr Lovney said a visible police “In the end I can only act on what
within the GLBT community. not always reporting violence. presence was an effective method is reported to us,” he said.

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