(References Pages 112, 113,114. See also chapter 6 - sexuality and violence: questions of difference - Gail Mason)
1991: MM (Maurice McCartney?) NW FF (Felipe Flores?) WD
The following report appeared in the Sydney Telegraph Mirror newspaper on 8 April 1991:
Protest over gay violence
By JASON OFFORD AND CRAIG HERBERT
Eleven city buildings, including Parliament House and churches, were smeared with red paint today in a protest against gay bashings.The organised attacks began when glass doors at the entrance to the City Tower Centre in Market Street were splattered with paint at 3.15am.
Minutes later paint was poured across the front walls of Parliament House in Macquarie Street. The front doors of nearby St Mary's Cathedral were hit and St Andrew's on George Street was next.
Attacks were launched on the Ultimo headquarters of Channel 10, the Fairfax Newspaper Group at Broadway and a News Ltd building in Walker Street, North Sydney.
The Department of Education office in Parramatta and the city office of State Education Minister Virginia Chadwick were also smeared in red paint.
The Downing Centre court complex in the city was hit and the Church Mission Society in Bathurst Street was damaged.
On each occasion the vandals, wearing surgical gloves, tossed cans of red paint at buildings and stuck posters nearby.
The posters said: "We're over it. Stop violence against gay men and lesbians".
Cans of paint, green plastic bags and surgical gloves were found nearby at each site.
Police said three men were spotted driving away in a Ford Laser.A security guard, who saw the first incident, spotted three men running from the Market Street building covered in paint.
He said the men jumped into a late-model, dark-coloured car and sped off down George Street.
At Parliament House, a security guard saw three men getting into a late-model blue Ford Laser.
The men, aged in their 20s, were wearing jeans and T-shirts.
Police today arrested and charged a man with malicious damage.
Constable Phil Brooks, of The Rocks police, said the man was caught after officers pulled him over for a random breath test.
"The car and the driver was covered in red paint," he said.
"In hte car we found tins of paint and other goods connected to the attacks."
Constable Brooks said police were hunting another two men.
Today's trail of damage comes only hours after the Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby called on Education Minister Virginia Chadwick to try to stop gay violence.
In a policy paper released yesterday, the lobby said many youths had "found themselves at the mercy of the courts due to inaction by the NSW Department of Education to stop the bashings".
The lobby said there had been at least six gay-related murders in a year which had been committed by gangs of youths.
The lobby has asked Mrs Chadwick to appoint Violence Prevention Officers and implement curriculum improvements to help combat violence against homosexuals.
The policy paper was released at a conference on Sunday afternoon at Darlinghurst.
The attacks coincide with the sentencing today of three youths charged in connection with the death of a homosexual man last year.
Richard Johnson, 33, was bashed at a public toilet at Alexandria Park on January 24.
In court the bashing was described as "one of the most vicious, severe that one could possibly imagine without the use of any weapons, just with fists and feet".
A new organisation, the Richard Johnson Foundation, has also been set up to stop gay-related violence.
Ken Davis, a founding member of Gay Solidarity Group Sydney, and now Lesbian and Gay Solidarity, sent the following letter to the US GAY COMMUNITY NEWS, who published it in their May 5-May 11, 1991, edition:
Dear GCN: (Gay Community News)>Red paint splashed on the cathedrals, media headquarters and government buildings down town and in Parramatta - the lead story of Sydney's morning news Monday April 8 was dominated by the actions of the new and clandestine gay group, "One in Seven."
That weekend, their manifesto had appeared as a full-page ad in the Sydney Star Observer, "Our blood runs in the streets and in the parks and in the casualty and in the morgue.....Our blood runs because in this country our political, educational, legal and religious systems actively encourage violence against us. We are gay men and lesbians.....WE'RE OVER IT and we're going to paint the town red!"
And that same weekend another gay man was murdered in the inner west suburb of Newtown.
The rising tide of street violence and the almost regular news of murders has fostered unprecedented anger in Sydney's gay and lesbian communities. This anger had come to focus on the trial of the gang of eight young South Sydney men who had beaten a gay man, Richard Johnson, to death in Alexandria Park on 24 January 1990.
The red paint was to coincide with thesentencing hearing of four of the killers, yet had sought to focus the blame not on the killers as individuals, but on the education system, the politicans, media and churches who are responsible for the conditions that generate random prejudice-based violence.
An inner-city doctor who treats many people with HIV and many vistims of anti-gay violence was arrested in connection with the paint attack on parliament. He is just one of the scores of people who are trying to turn gay anger into constructive action.
Two large marches against anti-gay violence have been held and another is planned. The Whistles Project has distributed thousands of whistles and is teaching people how to use them to avert violence and call support when threatened by bashers. The project and Dykes on Bikes have begun regular night-time patrols, while another group, the Gay and Lesbian Street Patrol, is "tooling up."
There are unresolved strategic questions facing the movement: how much to rely on the police for protection, and the value or dangers in possible legislation outlawing "vilification on the basis of homosexuality," (Modelled on the existing Racial Vilification laws.)Left-wing lesbian and gay activists are wary of increasing police and state powers, which are more likely to defend institutionalised heterosexism than gay freedom.
The most heartening response to the murders in the South Sydney area has come from the local high school students. The morning after the red paint protest, hundreds of people packed the Art Gallery cinema for the launch of the video Truth or Dare, a hard hitting and effective work by the students to educate their peers across Australia against "poofter bashing."
Supported by a range of organisations including the South Sydney Youth Service, the Family Planning Association, and the AIDS Council of NSW the 24-minute video very realistically dramatizes anti-gay violence and works through a range of sexuality and prejudice issues. Most of the young people who made Truth or Dare are from the local area, a working class neighbourhood with large Aboriginal and Vietnamese communities. South Sydney Council, according to its Mayor Vic Smith, also covers one of the largest gay communities in the world.
The video project follows a successful series of school workshops in which lesbians and gay men confronted the prejudices of the students. Prior to that there had been a tendency to see poofter bashing as a valid sport, and to side with the local youths who had been arrested in connection with the Richard Johnson killing.
In helping the young people launch the video, Justice Elizabeth Evatt linked prejudice-based street violence to teh institutionalised racist violence of police and the high-tech violence of the US-led forces in the Gulf War (1991), One of the actors, Greg Waters, called on the audience to direct their anger at the bashings and murders beyond the local youth gangs and towards addressing the homelessness, racism, unemployment and boredom that feeds into domestic and street violence.
The issue is now whether this explicit and valuable video will get into schools across New South Wales and the rest of Australia. Or will the education authorities hide behind false "decency" and risk more students being hurt, killed or gaoled because of anti-gay bashings?
Ken Davis, Sydney, Australia (founding member of Gay Solidarity, now Lesbian and Gay Solidarity)In a protest against queer bashing murders, anonymous activists in Sydney, Australia threw red paint at the entrances to eleven major public and private buildings on April 8th.
Among the buildings hit were the Catholic and Anglican cathedrals, the New South Wales Parliament, the State Department of School Education, the office of the minister of education, the Local Courts Complex, the City Tower Centre, TV Channel 10, the Church Mission Society and two newspapers.
In a flyer, activists said the locations were chosen “for their outstanding contributions to homohatred, discrimination, and violence against gay men and lesbians.”
Police charged one man with “malicious damage” for the Parliament vandalism. Mark Bloch, a 33-year-old gay doctor, pleaded guilty on April22nd and was ordered to pay 1,500 pounds in clean-up costs. None of the other paint-bombers were caught.
Seeing Red“Today we’ve painted the town red: the colour of our blood that’s being spilt on the streets, the colour of our anger at the shit that’s heaped on us by a society that says violence against gay men and lesbians is OK,” the activists proclaimed in their flyer.
“Gay men and lesbians are denounced by the church, discriminated against in the justice system, mocked in the media, and swept under the carpet by the education system. Is it any wonder young people decide it’s OK to hunt and kill us for fun?”
The flyer recounted last year’s murder of 33-year-old Richard Johnson in a public toilet in Alexandria Park by eight teen-aged males who found his telephone number on the toilet wall and invited him to the park for sex.
“They kicked him so hard his jeans split open, his chest caved in and his liver ruptured,” activists wrote. “an hour later they went back to the park where they had left him. He was semi-conscious, coughing up blood. They went away again and left him to die. These men believed this killing was OK because the man they killed was gay.
“They believed this because violence against gay men and lesbians is openly encouraged by our society. This is not an isolated or unusual incident.”
On April 15th, two of Johnson’s murderers were sentenced to 18 years in prison. Five of the men were found guilty of manslaughter and jailed for 3 ˝ to 10 years each. The eighth man was convicted of murder and remains to be sentenced.
According to Sydney’s Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby, local youth gangs committed at least six gay-related murders in 1990.
The following item by Deborah Arentz appeared in the Wentworth Courier, Sydney, on 24 April 1991:
Bondi police have issued an urgent plea to homosexual victims of violence in the hope they will come forward to report bashings.
The police believe many gay men and women are frightened to report violent crime because they believe they will be ridiculed or verbally or emotionally abused by police officers.
Bondi police want to break down the barriers and with their appeal hope to convince homosexuals they will be treated with understanding.
The police are concerned homosexuals who frequent a known hangout at South Bondi could be preyed upon by anti-gays and they said the only way to stop the violence was to identify offenders before it was too late.
Officers said gay violence was not as common in the South East as it was in Surry Hills, Newtown or Darlinghurst but they do have reason for concern.
On July 26 a gay Thai student was attacked and killed in the Bondi area and Bondi's Gay Liaison Officer, Brad Scanlon, said the murder was an incident which must not be repeated.
He said violence against the gay community was something which had occurred for many years but it had only hit headlines in recent times because it was now common to publicise a victim's sexual habits.
Constable Scanlon said homosexuals could only protect themselves by coming forward to give information to the police.
"I am available to meet with members of the gay community out of uniform, anywhere and at any time," Constable Scanlon said.
"We are sure there are more incidents of gay violence but because of a fear of the police, the bashings are not reported and this is dangerous.
"Violence against the gay community is usually caused by hatred and to stop the attacks the police need to know who is responsible.
"If violence is kept secret the offenders gain more confidence and feel they can get away with more daring crimes."
Constable Scanlon said any information given to the police could be done anonymously and the police would not force a victim to press charges.
He said generally there were only "fringe dwellers" from the gay community who lived in the Bondi area and he denied there were any known, established gangs who were targetting homosexulas in the South East.
Constable Scanlon wants to talk to any members of the gay community who have been bashed or threatened or to other residents who could have information on offenders. To contact Constable Scanlon call Bondi police on 307 060 (Ed: This was the phone number in 1991, but will have changed since then).
MAURICE JOHN MCCARTY, 46, an Australian Ballet Company employee, died in Royal Prince Alfred Hospital on 8 April 1991, just hours after being bashed at his hime in Linthorpe Street, Newtown. A 20-year-old unemployed man was committed for trial on a charge of murder. murdered in Newtown, Sydney on 7 April 1991 (report in Daily Telegraph 9 April 1991)
JOHN CRANFIELD, 35, Qantas steward, murdered on 20 May 1991 by Darren Scott Oliver who pleaded guilty to the charge. A second man was to face trial.
The Sydney Morning Herald's Eastern Herald supplement of 25 July 1991 reviewed a short film called Resonance which was voted Best Short Film at the 1991 Sydney Film Festival. Michael Visontay writes: "The issue of gay bashing has received a lot of coverage in the media recently, following the horrific murder of a gay man in Darlinghurst by a group of youths, and several similar cases.
To the public, the graphic evidence reported from the youths' trials was sensational and disturbing. To Sydney's gay community, it was one of untold cases and attracted media attention merely because of its extremity.
Most people on the set of Resonance have been bashed at one time or another, according to Stephen Cummins and Simon Hunt. And that doesn't mean they're gay; if the animals want blood, they'll get it, whether you're gay, straight or a girlfriend. This link between homophobia and misogyny is one of the central concerns of Resonance, a short film about the sexual politics underlying gay bashing."
FELIPE MARCELO FLORES, 27, battered to death at Woolloomooloo on Monday 2 September 1991
From guidetogay.comEditor's comment: 19 years later???
Thursday, 12 August 2010Paul Darcy Armstrong, 47, was sentenced by the New South Wales Supreme Court today after being found guilty by a jury back in April this year.
Summing up prior to sentencing, Justice Terrence Buddin said that Armstrong had picked up Mr Flores, then 27, in a Sydney gay bar in September 1991. According to the Australian Associated Press, Mr Flores' brutally beaten body was found in a deserted neighbourhood just half an hour after friends saw him leave with a "tall" man.
Justice Budden described the attack as "savage and sustained" and that Mr Flores had "mercifully" died almost immediately after the beating.
Mr Flores had been HIV Positive and there was, said the judge, the possibility that his imparting this news to Armstrong triggered the attack.
Armstrong was arrested in 2008 after DNA tests matched him conclusively to matter found beneath Mr Flores' fingernails and blood spilt on his shirt.
Armstrong, a father of two who was diagnosed HIV Positive in 1999, denied ever having known Mr Flores after being shown a picture of him. However, he did admit to having been sexually promiscusous during the period in question. He was sentenced to 17 years but will be eligible for parole in 2010 (Ed: should't this be 2020?) after only 11 years.
The victim's sister, Ines Flores, read an emotional statement to the court in which she described her late brother as a "generous and caring man".
ERICH KUHN, murdered Narrabeen teenager, went to Kings Cross to hunt gays andAsians in the late 1980s, the Supreme Court has been told. Rolf Hendrich Kuhn was giving evidence at the trial in which his elder brother, Hans Christian Kuhn, 27, has pleaded not guilty to murdering Erich Kuhn in 1991. Under cross-examination about Asian and gay-bashing escapades, Rolf Kuhn said he was present when his brother was involved in two stabbings on one night in Kings Cross. Rolf told the court he did not at the time disagree with his brother’s anti-homosexual behaviour, although he had since changed his views. The case was before Justice Badgery-Parker.
BRIAN TRAVERS, 56, bar-manager of the Latrobe RSL Club,murdered on 1 March 1992 by Damien John Roetz, 19. Roetz was found guilty of manslaughter by Chief Justice Green, who said: “I find that the accused’s acts would otherwise have constituted murder, but the crime was reduced to manslaughter because the accused acted in response to provocation.” But he said that while the law accepted that the provocation dismissed the murder charge, it did not excuse a homicide altogether. Roetz was sentenced to three years jail of which 18 months are suspended.
CYRIL OLSEN, 64, murdered in Rushcutters Bay Park on 22 August 1992
DON GILLIES murdered by Malcolm Green in May 1993 (details below of trials and trial judge by David Marr and Ryan Heath relating to Sir Gerard Brennan)
ALAN GEORGE EDWARD LAMPARD, also known as ALAN GEORGE EDWARD KERNOT, murdered on 11 May 1993. The following report was from the Northern Territory News of 13 May 1993 under the heading: Cops, gays unite over bash killing: ADELAIDE. - Police and Adelaide's homosexual community joined forces yesterday to try to solve the gay bashing murder of a 32-year-old man in the city's southern parklands.
The man, who was found dead in a pond in Veale gardens early Tuesday (11 May 1993), was identified as Alan George Edward Lampard, also known as Alan George Edward Kernot, police said.GORDON BRIAN TUCKEY, 22, murdered in (August?) 1993 on remote part of cycleway at East Woonona, Wollongong, by Thomas Albert Dunn, 19. Tuckey’s body was found in a pool of blood and was naked from the waist down and had a pair of panty hose tied around his penis. His head had been bashed against the concrete several times, making his face unrecognisable. (report in SSO 5 July 2000)
JOHN MILICEVIC, 45, stabbed to death by three men in Rushcutters Bay Park on Sunday 15 August 1993.
Bruce Grant, coordinator of the Lesbian and Gay Anti-Violence Project (!993) said the early signs emerging from the attack on 15 August suggested it was a gay murder.
“Since statistics have been gathered on gay-related murders from 1987 there has been an increase. For the last three years there have been four or five murders a year. This year we know of at least two,” Grant said.“If police confirm Milicevic’s as a gay murder it will bring the state (NSW) total to 18 since 1987, according to Anti-Violence Project records.”
CRISPIN DYE, 41, Cairns resident in Sydney to visit his mother for the 1993/1994 summer holidays, murdered on 23 December 1993, bashed to death in Little Oxford Street laneway. Three youths were seen bashing and robbing another man in the area on the same morning, but they have never been identified.
Photos by Mannie De Saxe and Kendall Lovett, Lesbian and Gay Solidarity, June 1994
The Lesbian and Gay Anti-Violence Project launched (January 1994)the results of a major study into gay murders published by Stephen Tomsen of the University of Newcastle. His 40 page paper, Gay Killings in NSW: Victimisation and the Legal Response, concludes:
“The real number of gay killings that have occurred in NSW since 1980 is much larger than has been previously thought.Analysis of records from 1980 to present revealed ------ at least 74 homicides which could reasonably be termed as gay killings,” he wrote.
“There is a strong link between these killings and the violent conceptions of male identity which are held by the young men who are typical offenders ----- homophobia has an obvious link to some killings, such as planned gangattacks on gay men at homosexual beats or areas with gay bars, and was apparent in the bragging of some offenders about their personal history of involvements with gay-bashings.
Other offenders also regard gay men as ‘soft targets’ for robbery with violence due to their many difficulties in reporting attacks. But the link with masculinity is paramount.”
Since 1987, Tomsen has identified 10 unsolved “gay hate” murders in NSW. His study does not include other high-profile, unsolved gay murders of the same period, such as that of Ludwig Gertsch, where police investigations centred on the beneficiaries of his substantial estate.
GORDON WILLIAM MILLS, 40, bashed to death at Mill’s West Ryde home on 15 March 1994 by Kenneth Stephen Richards, 25, in a drug and alcohol-affected rage after being told by another man that his 40 year old friend had tried to sexually abuse him after he became unconscious during a heavy drinking session. NSW Supreme Court Justice Brian Sully said Mr Mill’s alleged sexual assault of Richards had been “provocative conduct” which was “socially affronting” to the troubled younger man. He sentenced him to a minimum of four years and six months in jail, with an additional term of two years and six months, over the killing.
STEPHEN REGINALD DEMPSEY, 34, of Palm Beach, murdered at Deep Creek Reserve at Narrabeen on or about 4 August 1994. Richard Leonard,22, shot Dempsey with an arrow when Dempsey made homosexual advances towards him on 2 August 1994. Leonard submerged Dempsey’s body in a creek before returning that night to dismember it and take the pieces home in garbage bags. He hed put the bags with the body into his refrigerator. About two weeks after the murder, Leonard allegedly started a relationship with Denise Shipley, 19. They were also accused of stabbing taxi driver Ezzedine Bahmad 37 times.
JAMES WILLIAM MEEK, 51, murdered in his Surry Hills home in March 1995. Michael Alan Heatley, 19, was charged with the murder. Post-mortem results revealed that Meek died as a result of multiple blows to the head with a blunt instrument.
WENDY BELL, 59, Sydney taxi driver, murdered 4 May 1995 by Michael Shand Walker
KENNETH BRENNAN, 53, school teacher, murdered in his home, Elizabeth Bay Sunday 11 June 1995. SSO 130397 KENNETH BRENNAN - murdered school teacher - Elizabeth Bay 110695. The SSO reported on 27 July 1995: "Police have received a couple of promising leads after setting up an information caravan in Oxford Street, Darlinghurst, as part of their investigation into an Elizabeth Bay murder. Fifty-three-year-old Kenneth Brennan was found dead around 5.20pm on Monday 12 June, in his Onslow Avenue apartment. He had been stabbed to death. Brennan was last seen alive around 10pm on Saturday 10 June."
The ACON Rural Project Newsletter, Issue 9, July 1995 advised of a forthcoming Conference on Violence: The Australian Institute of Criminology has announced it will hold the first national Conference on Violence Against Gays and Lesbians on 27-28 October (1995). The Conference will address issues of violence against the gay and lesbian communities, with a discussion focussing on incidence, education, prevention and control. Topics include community education, schools-based violence, the response to hate crimes, media attitudes, anti-vilification legislation and reducing homophobia. The Conference organisers are hoping to attract participants from commonwealth, state and local government agencies, police, lawyers, community organisations, judges and magistrates, as well as academics. (Australian Institute of Criminology, GPO Box 2944, Canberra City, ACT 2601 phone:02 6260 9221 fax 02 6260 9201 AIC web site http://www.aic.gov.au
The following report appeared in the Sydney Star Observer of 27 July 1995:
A 27 year old gay man was bashed last week by six teenagers in Riley Street, Darlinghurst. Phillipe Cahill sustained head injuries, a fractured cheekbone and severe bruising. The bashing occurred near Rogues nightclub at 9.45pm last Friday night, and was subsequently reported to Kings Cross Police. "There wasn't a lot the police could do, but at least they were helpful," said Cahill.
SSO 170497 JOHN DALEY, 17, killed in Brisbane (Spring Hill) January 1996
Brisbane Murder (reported in the Sydney Star Observer on Thursday 17 April 1997)
Homosexual Advance Defence has been raised after a 20-year-old man admitted to murdering a gay Brisbane teenager. Richard Vandenhoek told the Queensland Supreme Court this week he "freaked out" after 17-year-old John Daley allegedly tried to pick him up in January last year. Vandenhoek kicked Daley to death in the carpark outside the Sportsman Hotel in Spring Hill before stealing his wallet. The court heard he later returned to urinate on the body.
SSO 260697 CHRISTOPHER JOHN SMITH murdered Gosford 8 April 1996
Dr PETER ROWLAND, 67, murdered on 25 June 1996. The doctor was shot point-blank in his bed with a sawn-off pump action shotgun at Gundaroo, near Canberra.No motive was established for the murder although the Crown had claimed at least one of the two brothers convicted on 3 August 1999 of the murder hated homosexuals.Michael Privett had told police five days after the murder that he had killed Dr Rowland because "he was a fag." He later recanted saying he had been offered $50 000 by his younger brother to lie.
The following report was in the Sydney Star Observer of 5 September 1996:
TEENAGE GANGS IN KILLINGS OF GAYS - report in The Newcastle Herald, 17 September 1996.
Teenagers have been responsible for 70% of gay killings in NSW since 1980, using rocks, scissors, hammers, and bows and arrows in the brutal attacks, according to a Newcastle study.
Dr Stephen Tomsen, a criminologist from the University of Newcastle, outlined 74 gay killings in NSW, 'a much higher figure than previously thought.'
'NSW seems to have a higher rate of gay killings than other States, and the victims included a mix of inner Sydney and suburban areas including three from the Hunter,' Dr Tomsen said.
The following report was from Capital Q Weekly, 1 November 1996:
SSO 120697 - Barry Thompson - gay bashing - Wollongong - not killed
JOHN HUGHES (STORY REPORTED BY GEORGE BALTHAZAAR - no dates available at this stage but throat cut, bound and gagged - back lane in Elizabeth Bay?) story to be confirmed.
(August 1996 NSW A/G - homosexual advance defence report)
(Homophobia in the classroom SSO 30 January and 6 February 1997)
(SSO 170497 gay schoolboy Christopher Tsakalos back to school - Cranebrook High School guilty)
(SSO 150597 - NSWTF President Denis Fitzgerald reiterated his union's support for Cranebrook High School's teachers and said the elimination of all forms of harassment, including homophobia, was a priority for the Federation. The NSW Department of Education assistant Director General George Green "appalled" by GALTAS media release - "absolute and utter nonsense".)
SSO 060397: SCOTT STUART MILLER - 21 year old - Darling Harbour - gay murder?
SSO 120697 - Barry Thompson - gay bashing - Wollongong - not killed
BARRY WALTER COULTER, 68, murdered on 1 November 1997 by a 15-year-old boy, who was found not guilty of murder, but guilty of manslaughter, on 16 April 1999. Police looking into Mr Coulter's past had found he had been before the courts in Sydney several times on charges ranging from indecent assault and buggery to carnal knowledge in the 1980s and 1990s, but had always been acquitted. In the eyes of the prosecution it was a cold-blooded murder. "This young man, at the age of 15, planned and carried out the execution of a fellow human being," Crown prosecutor Ms Penelope Hock told the court.
The defence saw it differently - a paedophile had won the trust of a young boy and turned his world upside down.
Three youths admitted in the Launceston Supreme Court in 1997 that they were involved in a hate motivated attack against two gay men in Launceston's City Park in June 1997.
In Hobart Magistrate's Court on Friday 19 December 1997 two young men who have no prior police records were sentenced to a two month suspended gaol sentence with 70 hours of community service for their part in a hate motivated attack against two gay men in the Elizabeth Street Mall in July (1997). The third man involved in the attack was yet to be sentenced.
Report from Capital Q, 16 January 1998:
Police are calling for information on a young man who might be able to assist in the investigation of the murder of Trevor John Parkin on 29 December (1997). Parkin, 36, was found dead from severe stab wounds on the living room floor of his Glebe unit. Detective Inspector Bob Dickson said police had established that Parkin was seen at the Toxteth Hotel in Glebe at 8.30pm on 27 December and left a short time later after buying beer. Parkin was with a 16 to 20 year old male, described as Caucasian, 178cm (5'10"), thin build, fair complexion, with short straight light brown to fair hair. He was wearing baggy blue jeans and pastel t-shirt. Police have released a FACE image of the young male. Anyone with information is asked to contact Glebe police on (02) 9552 8099 or Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
The following news item was published in Capital Q on 18 January 1998:
The Tasmanian Gay and Lesbian Rights Group (TGLRG) has called on that state's Education Department to institute education programmes in schools to stem homophobic violence. The call comes after the conviction in late December (1997) of two young males for their part in the bashing of a gay couple in Hobart's Elizabeth Street Mall last July. They were sentenced to a two month suspended jail sentence with 70 hours of community service. TGLRG spokesperson, Nick Toonen said the Education department had a responsibility to reduce negative and violent attitudes to gay people. "Gay bashers are usually young males who have learnt their prejudices in the school yard. Lesbian and anti-gay violence programmes have been successfully implemented in NSW and we urge the Tasmanian education authorities to implement similar initiatives in this State," Toonen stated.
The Sydney Star Observer carried the following report, on 12 March 1998, of an anti-gay bashing at Taylor Square on 10 February 1998. The SSO followed up the report with a second article on 26 March 1998:
PAUL JOSEPH HARRIS, 47, was murdered on 20 June 1998 at Queanbeyan by Pieter Egbert Helmhout, 31, and Mark William Helmhout, 37, and were jailed on 22 June 2000 for at least 13 years and six months. Mark Helmhout had decided to make the killing look like a gay bashing and in a final act of humiliation the victim's trousers were pulled down in the bush where his body was dumped. (report in the Newcastle Herald, 23 June 2000)
NCL Herald 130700 - DAVID O'HEARN murdered - Albion Park Rail 12 June 1998)
NCL Herald 130700 - FRANK ARKELL murdered - Wollongong - 26 June 1998 )
Mark Valera grinned yesterday (8 August 2000) after he was found guilty of the mutilation murders of former Wollongong lord mayor Frank Arkell and Dapto shopkeeper David O'Hearn, as reported in the Sydney Morning Herald on 9 August 2000. Judge Timothy Studdert will sentence the 21-year-old tae kwon do student next month. The killer told police he had chosen Mr O'Hearn at random. "I had on my mind that I wanted to kill someone that day," he said.
After bludgeoning Mr O'Hearn to death with an ashtray he spent an hour mutilating the body. Using knives, a small saw, a corkscrew and a hammer, Valera decapitated the body then tried to cut it in half. He wrote bizarre and evil messages on the walls in blood.
He bashed and strangled Mr Arkell two weeks later because he was a paedophile. "I felt that someone should kill him because of all the nasty things he had done to kids," Valera told police. He said he telephoned Mr Arkell and pretended to be gay so he could be invited into his home. Mr Arkell's badly beaten body was found in the bedroom of his granny flat with tiepins stuck in one eye and cheek.
The defence said Valera suffered post-traumatic stress caused by years of physical, mental and alleged sexual abuse by his father, Mr Jack van Krevel.
David Marr, in his book THE HIGH PRICE OF HEAVEN (pages 59-61, Allen & Unwin, 1999) writes as follows in relation to a case in which there was a possibility that 'homosexual advance defence' might be used:
"The failure of Green's appeal was greeted with relief by police and lawyers worried by the appearance in Australia of what's called the 'homosexual advance defence' - the argument that men can be excused even horrific violence if it's in response to a man trying to fondle or kiss them. This idea was born on psychiatrists' couches in America in the 1930s and reached the courts there in the sixties. It was a marvellous new device to give violence a respectable face in the courtroom.
By the eighties the tactic had reached New South Wales and young - overwhelmingly young - men were being acquitted or convicted on lesser charges after bashing or killing gay men even when the evidence suggested they'd deliberately targeted them and even when these sprees ended in shabby robberies. What makes this worse are official figures that showed even in this tolerant country disturbing levels of violence against homosexuals. They are still four times more likely to be assaulted and about twice as likely to be murdered as Australians in general.
In a few New South Wales cases in the nineties the 'homosexual advance defence was pleaded after violent killings.
* McKinnon said he was lured to the victim's house to buy marijuana and hit him with a wine bottle when he jumped on the bed and tried to seduce him. He also knifed and bashed the man, left him unconscious then stole his car and boasted he'd just 'rolled a fag'. Acquitted of murder.
* Turner said he was wandering down the road when a stranger invited him in for a drink then a little later grabbed his bum with both hands and 'said something'. Turner bashed the old man with a garden gnome, stabbed him a number of times, stole and later tried to sell the dead man's video. He was found not guilty of murder and sentenced to three years for manslaughter.
* Dunn was cycling along a bike path when a man in a frock appeared waving his penis, thrusting his hips and saying he was going to 'get' him. Dunn was seen punching and kicking the transvestite for forty minutes. The body was found next morning half-naked with a stocking tied round its penis. Dunn stole the man's keycard and cigarettes and boasted afterwards that he'd 'bashed a rock spider'. A jury found him not guilty of murder and he was sentenced to seven years for manslaughter.
* Richards, a man with a violent criminal record, collapsed in a stupor from drink and drugs in a friend's house. Weeks later he learnt something not quite amounting to 'sexual interference' had happened to him while unconscious. Returning to the house with two mates, he punched the man to death and they stole the television. He was found not guilty of murder and sentenced to four and a half years minimum for manslaughter."
Marr writes further (pages 70 and 71), "So in late 1997, Green's case was sent to a new trial. Once again the Crown claimed Malcolm Green's whole story about the 'homosexual advance' was a cover for premeditated murder. Green again denied this. Now he was allowed to argue the flashback as that something extra to intensify his revulsion at finding Don Gillies' hands gently touching his groin. This time the jury convicted him only of manslaughter and his sentence was reduced by a third to a little over ten years.
Green's case was barely reported in the press but the High Court's verdict produced a flurry of hostile commentary in the law journals. It was called disappointing and dangerous. I call it bigoted in the drift of Brennan's rhetoric.
The worst of it is that the court had an opportunity - just as it did in Mabo - to establish in law principles that few parliaments in the Commonwealth would be brave enough to legislate. Instead, it did the opposite and endorsed the 'homosexual advance defence'. So now wherever a gay man is bashed or killed in Australia, juries can expect to hear some version of Green's story - he tried to kiss me, he touched my balls, he came onto me, he said something, I had a flashback, he waved his dick at me - in the hope of winning a little sympathy for the violence that followed. It works often enough, and only because the High Court has said 'ordinary' Australian men might react that way . . . . ."
An article by Ryan Heath in the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) journal Vertigo No.7 of July/August 2000 reports as follows on Sir Gerard Brennan:
"Sir Gerard Brennan (AC, KBE) was appointed in 1995 as the 10th Chief Justice of Australia, just three years after his principal judgement in the second Mabo case which upheld the Native Title of Indigenous Australians.
The press release which heralded Brennan's election as Chancellor of UTS spoke glowingly of his "vigorous defence against perceived political attacks on the judiciary which challenged the integrity and independence of the courts". But the Brennan story goes a lot deeper.
The 1999 book The High Price of Heaven, by the award-winning journalist, David Marr, has several interesting references to Brennan. Published by Allen and Unwin, Marr's work is subtitled "a book about the enemies of pleasure and freedom", a label placed by implication on Brennan himself.
Marr describes Brennan as "a man deeply influenced by a living belief in Catholicism and an intimate understanding of its values and history. Brennan's brand of Catholicism brings with it not only an instinct for racial justice but a freight of bigotry about homosexuality which he has now helped fix in Australian law."
Specifically, Brennan is raised in The High Price of Heaven in the context of the case of Malcolm Green, a man who killed a gay real estate agent, in May 1993, by smashing his skull and stabbing him with scissors a dozen times. The victim, 36 year old Don Gillies, allegedly made a sexual advance on Green.
The tactic used to give Brennan the leverage to argue that this gruesome act by Green was merely manslaughter (and not murder) is known as the "Homosexual Advance Defence." While used in several previous cases, it was the judgement of Sir Gerard Brennan which enshrined "homosexual advance defence" as a precedent in Australia's legal system.
Brennan's judgement means men can now be considered justified in grievous bodily harm or killing another man who tries to kiss or fondle them.
Despite Green's act being judged as murder in its initial trial, and again by the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal, Sir Gerard Brennan was one of three High Court judges to overturn the murder conviction. This was a decision made not on legal technicalities, but as David Marr suggests, on the "gut feelings" of those judges.
The gut feeling of Brennan was one of disgust and fear towards homosexuals. These are feelings that have been developed by the values by which Brennan was born and raised. Feelings that he is now carrying onto his work as UTS Chancellor."
BRENDAN McGOVERN, 29, murdered on 3 March 1999. He was found strangled in harbourside bushland, close to the edge of the Parramatta River at Gladesville Reserve at Huntleys Point. The SSO reported (16 November 2000) that a NSW Supreme Court judge had sentenced a man to 5 years imprisonment over the death of openly gay accountant Brendan McGovern.
Twenty-one-year-old Kane Graham was found guilty of manslaughter on 6 September (2000) for the killing, which occurred at the Gladesville Reserve in March 1999.
Justice Whealy delivered the sentence on Friday (10 November 2000), saying that Graham’s “comparative youth” and the fact that his “general demeanour was remorseful” were part of the factors considered in passing sentence. Whealy said McGovern’s death was “needless”, also saying that the gravity of the offence demanded a sentence involving full time custody. The maximum penalty for manslaughter is 25 years. According to Dr Lawrence, the forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy on Brendan McGovern, the young accountant died as a result of strangulation possibly as a result of being held in a [tight] headlock.
In his citation Whealy referred to court records describing McGovern as an “experienced 29-year-old homosexual” who frequented “gay beats”. Whealy also said that in his opinion Graham “----presented as a very quiet, shy, deeply introspective person.”
However associate professor Susan Hayes, head of the Department of Behavioural Sciences in Medicine at the University of Sydney, noted in a report tendered to the court that an assessment of Graham’s personality showed an elevated score on a test scale for “ant-social behaviours.” This indicates “that he sometimes manifests behaviour that is reckless and potentially dangerous to himself or those around him,” she noted. Hayes also noted that Graham “craves excitement and stimulation.”
The two men met through a telephone chat line, arranging to meet for a sexual encounter on the night the killing occurred. After meeting face-to-face at a school near Graham’s West Ryde home, the pair drove in McGovern’s car to bushland near the Gladesville Reserve.
During cross-examination from Crown Prosecutor Tim Hoyle SC in September (2000), Graham said he and McGovern engaged in mutual fondling before McGovern asked Graham to give him oral sex, which Graham said he refused. According to Graham’s testimony, a struggle erupted after McGovern tried to prevent him from leaving. The struggle eventuated in Graham strangling McGovern after getting him in a tight headlock. McGovern’s body was found off Gladesville Reserve the next morning by local schoolgirls.
KEITH HIBBINS murdered in Fitzroy Gardens, Melbourne on 25 April 1999.
PlanetOut News Staff filed the following report on 4 August 2000: "The Supreme Court of Appeal in Melbourne on 4 August imposed harsher sentences on two men who killed a gay man in the mistaken belief he was a rapist. In June after the men pleaded guilty to manslaughter, trial court Judge Philip Cummins had allowed both to walk free at sentencing, after they'd spent six months in pre-trial detention, suspending the remainder of their sentences of three years.
That left many in the community feeling that a gay man's life had been treated as less valuable than another's might have been. Director of Public Prosecutions Geoff Flatman appealed the sentences given Kristian Dieber, 24, and John Whiteside, 28, as "manifestly inadequate" for the beating death of Keith Hibbens, 45.Dieber and Whiteside were told by a woman - falsely as it turned out - that she had been raped by two men.
They entered a park in search of the criminals and saw Hibbins with his life partner David Campbell. The couple feared Dieber and Whiteside were gay-bashers and started to run away, convincing Dieber and Whiteside that they were the rapists. They caught up with Hibbins, who had a disability, and although he offered no resistance, they beat him so badly that he lost consciousness and died 11 days later. Doctors found 20 separate injuries had been inflicted on Hibbins.
Before a packed courtroom, appellate court Justice John Winneke said "The viciousness of their assault and its lack of foundation, to my mind, smacks more of a desire to avenge and punish two innocent citizens than it does of misguided chivalry. It seems to me that no matter which way one tries to justify or explain the facts found by the [trial] judge, the conclusion remains inescapable that a decent life has been taken because the two respondents, hitherto of good character, decided to take the law into their own hands and became without proper justification the judges and punishers of the deceased."
Winneke continued, "Their acts were not those of motivated citizens seeking to apprehend and detain a person whom they had reason to believe had committed violent sexual offences. They had no such reason, they asked no questions, and made no investigation. They made no attempt to hold and detain a much older man until the police arrived. They simply concluded guilt because their victim had sought to flee before their patent aggression."The three-judge appeals panel unanimously agreed on six-year jail sentences for both offenders, of which they must serve not less than four years. The men may appeal.Melbourne's Crime Victims Support Association called the new sentences "more in line with what we expect should have been handed down in the first place.""
JAMIE CREIGHTON and ALI MOKDAD murdered in Alexandria house 22 June 1999
HARRY JANSON, 57, murdered in his Cabramatta home, July 1999.
The Bill is the first and most significant parliamentary inquiry into Genocide as a crime in Australia, with the support of all parties except One Nation.Submissions were sought from interested members of the community.
Senator Brian Greig (Democrats) spoke on 29 June 2000 to the tabling of the report.The following paragraph is the one which we should look on with some alarm, not forgetting that this is the year 2000, that all sorts of anti-discrimination legislation has been passed by state and federal governments, and that discrimination against gays, lesbians and transgender people in Australia is nothing short of a disgrace in terms of human rights abuses by governments weaving their ugly ongoing webs of homophobia:
"In reaching its findings, the committee has expressed the view that domestic anti-genocide law should be a powerful tool in bringing about changes in attitudes towards the crime of genocide in all its manifestations. It became clear during the process that there was considerable misunderstanding and misinformation about the notion of genocide and how it applied. For me, that was particularly emphasised in the submission by the Returned and Services League. As I made very clear in my additional comments, both I and the Australian Democrats found the submission to this inquiry by the RSL to be nothing short of appalling.
Far from presenting the committee with considered opinion or relevant information, the RSL submission was little more than vilification. Its argument that gay and lesbian citizens ought to be excluded from anti-genocide legislation is disgraceful, and its refusal to acknowledge that homosexual people were persecuted and slaughtered by the Nazis constitutes Holocaust denial. Indeed, the arguments against gay and lesbian citizens by the RSL were, for the most part, the very arguments that the Nazis used as justification for the murder of gay and lesbian people 50 years ago. Ironically, the vilification of homosexual people by this RSL submission provided the committee, I believe, with the very evidence needed to illustrate that homosexual people have been, and remain, the subject of hatred, myth, misinformation and vilification, which in turn leads to the very dehumanisation of, and violence towards, gay and lesbian people."
At about the same time that Senator Greig was tabling his report in Parliament, an ACTU National Congress was being held in Wollongong. (26 to 29 June 2000)
Frank Barnes, the convenor of the New South Wales Teachers Federation's Gay and Lesbian Special Interest Group, was a delegate to the ACTU Congress.
Frank Barnes reports that "History was made at the ACTU National Congress held in Wollongong from June 26 to 29, when, for the first time there was an official gay and lesbian caucus held as part of the conference.This meant official gay and lesbian workers were given recognition by the ACTU and its members. This is enormously significant given the ACTU is dominated by right-wing middle-aged men who are traditionally somewhat homophobic. Congress showed there has been some positive change in attitudes and carried two significant resolutions without dissent. The first gave support for equal superannuation rights for gay and lesbian couples and the second achieved endorsement and support for an international conference for homosexual trade unionists to be held in Sydney in 2002 to coincide with the Gay Gaymes."
"If nothing else happened there was some consciousness raising. I opened my speech by stating: 'I am a worker, I am a trade unionist, I am gay and I am being discriminated against.' We have come a long way and we must celebrate the fact that we have done so but it is of some concern that it has taken until 2000 for the needs of gay and lesbian workers to be addressed openly by the ACTU.
However, refer to the book "GREEN BANS RED UNION" by Meredith and Verity Burgmann, UNSW Press re NSW Builders Labourers Federation p 141 re homosexual liberation.SSO 050700 - stabbing murder of fisherman at Little Congwong Beach near La Perouse - 29 June 2000
See report of NSW Police and Crime Prevention group - Sue Thompson - published August 2000GAY AND LESBIAN HATE CRIMES - BIBLIOGRAPHY AND RECOMMENDED READING LIST