25 years later, thugs who bashed gay man turn out to be police
You may not know it looking at him today, but it is no understatement to suggest Alan Rosendale (pictured) is very fortunate to be with us. Now aged 56 and living in Newtown, Rosendale was viciously attacked by a gang of club-wielding “skinhead” thugs on a cold autumn’s night in May 1989 while walking through Moore Park on his way to his Surry Hills home after a night out with friends.
“They said something like: ‘There’s one – get him!’. I just ran. I think I actually fell, they didn’t push me into the gutter, and then they attacked me,” Rosendale told the Star Observer this week.
“I got a broken nose, I needed teeth work done and I was in hospital until the following Friday. I wasn’t in a good way and I was off work for about three weeks.”
Rosendale was only saved when a local gay man – Paul Simes – who happened to be driving on South Dowling Street flashed his headlights at the assailants and slowly drove past before taking down the registration of a car he had seen them leap out of. Simes quickly called the police from a nearby payphone on Cleveland Street and upon returning to the scene found the attackers had disappeared and Rosendale, who had been taken to St Vincent’s Hospital, was nowhere to be seen. Up until this month, Simes believed Rosendale may have been killed – another victim of Sydney’s gay hate epidemic that had been silently culling members of the city’s burgeoning gay community.
For a quarter of a century, Rosendale lived with the belief he was lucky to escape with a savage beating after being randomly picked on by a group of youths who had gone “poofter bashing” – an activity which a series of recent articles in the Star Observer, as well as the Sydney Morning Herald, have suggested was rife across Sydney from the 1970s to the 90s and led to the deaths of about 80 gay men in the space of a few decades.
“It was at a gay beat and it was at about one o’clock at night,” Rosendale recalls matter-of-factly. “I had just left the Taxi Club and I was probably half-pissed to be honest. I lived in Surry Hills – and it was on the way home – so I just popped in to see what was going on, and that [gay bashing] was what was going on.”
Then a 32-year old hospitality worker employed as a front-of-desk staffer at the Waldorf Apartments on Liverpool Street, Rosendale told the Star Observer he has been in a state of shock for the past week after happening across Simes’s account of the attack in an article published in the Sydney Morning Herald earlier this month.
“I’ve walked around for 24 years thinking that I was bashed by thugs, and then you find out one Saturday morning you weren’t bashed by thugs but by cops,” he says. “It’s amazing.”
The licence plate number Simes had noted down and given police matched the registration of an unmarked police vehicle. Simes was called in for a meeting with senior police weeks after the incident and told his report would be properly investigated, but was informed soon after that the officers from the ‘unassigned response unit’ allegedly responsible for the attack had been disbanded.
“The information that came out is that I was never interviewed and the only time I had contact with police was when I was being admitted to St Vincent’s Hospital,” Rosendale tells the Star Observer. “It was uniformed police and according to the incident report they put down that I had been bashed by a gang of skinheads. End of conversation.
“I gave my statement for what happened in 1989 on Tuesday of last week because no police ever interviewed me before then.”
Sydney MP Alex Greenwich told the Star Observer he has called on the Police Minister and State Ombudsman for a “proper investigation” into Rosendale’s case and that of other historical violent crimes against gay men across the city’s parks and beachside clifftops.
“While it will be difficult to do this so far after the events occurred, the community rightly expects that NSW Police act within the law and protect vulnerable people,” Greenwich said.
“Ongoing and widespread cultural change is required to ensure that no one thinks it’s okay to assault or abuse others on the basis of their gender or sexuality. I am working with the families of some of the victims towards justice.”
At the opening of the new Surry Hills police cell complex last Friday, Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione told the Star Observer that police were taking seriously revelations of links between gay-hate gangs and serving officers in decades past.
“We have full-time officers who work in those [LGBTI] communities and we have commanders from this area here today that police this area, and I know they would welcome anyone coming forward to give us information that might assist us in an inquiry that you might be wanting us to consider,” Scipione said.
Reflecting on his near-death experience at the hands of police, Rosendale says what worries him the most is that the officers involved in the assault upon him may still be in the force, and their superiors who failed to investigate may still be even higher in police ranks.
“Thinking about it now, I honestly believe I wasn’t the only one. They targeted me but I think they would have targeted others.
“After all this time to think that I was bashed by people who are there to protect me, it makes me feel disgusted,” Rosendale said.
“I thought things had changed since 1989. I thought things had changed a lot for the better but maybe they haven’t. I was very shocked when that guy was bashed at this year’s Mardi Gras.
“I really thought that when I was in the gutter and they were hitting me with their batons that I was going to die.”
Everyday were reading about Phedophile Priests who absused boys & girls 20-40 years ago being round up and named & shamed,even an apology from the current Pope was just made on this disturbing piece of History,So Why arn’t the Authorities on the ball and questioning/charging the Police Bashers who assaulted Mr Rosendale?
They clearly know who they are as everything is recorded,everything.
Logic tell us the SSO to get in touch with The Police Commisioner Mr Scipione to get the ball rolling,maybe a few calls with the Telegraph would help…
Would be an Interesting story on the 6 O,Clock News….
Thanks
Corruption isn’t defined by taking money. It’s whenever a policeman ignores the laws and attacks the people whom he has sworn to protect. Attacking people surreptiously, when they are guilty of no crime, is something which police continue to do.
It’s completely counterproductive. Anyone who hears about police degrading our laws is another person who will refuse to engage when police ask assistance of the public.
And it adds to the feeling among the police that they are unwanted and disliked until someone needs them.
Bad all round.
Based on all of the facts coming to light now about the police beatings, the deliberate sabotaging of investigations into hate crimes to allow the perpetrators to get away with it – why are the police now marching in our parade?!?!
Like every other org with an interest reforming their PR image, David, they do it for publicity. One night march by any group is used by them all the time as ‘see we are gay friendly” it’s called tokenism!!!
That’s not fair.
Not everyone who is gay is by definition a good person; not every member of the police is by definition a bad one.
Bigotry hates to acknowledge that their may be all kinds of people in any given group. It’s been done to you. Why perpetrate the habit?
Nsw police – ur record re caring for and protecting gay people is in fact a grubby stain that seems to spread – lying deceitful police – paid by us- but for what – when dealing with police I was struck by the fact they are always on leave – their mo at time it seems is to lie at every turn – such are the wages of sin – I have formed the view the view that NSW police are a bloated out of control of control organization – expert in lying and working the system to hide their MO – otherwise they will lie and bury u – And they r very good at this lying fuckers
The reality is this is how police operate in NSW – the police pretend they are all honest and good but in reality they aren’t – most of them are grubby benefit obsessed tumors – masters of bullshit but totally ineffective – couldn’t solve a crime if it slapped them in the face
Paul I wish it were different but it ain’t – NSW police need an enema – the level of lying and bullshit extends from probationary constable to superintendent – and that’s very sad – lying pieces of shit
A most horrifying exposé of criminal behaviour by police, which contrasts so completely with my own experience that I can only conclude it either must have been largely covert. or that one half of the police doesn’t know what the other half is doing.
From the period in question, I can recount two instances where NSW Police investigated homophobia based crimes against me, one of attempted assault with a knife, and another of months of threatening phone calls to my home. In both cases, the investigations were carried out diligently and professionally with utmost thoroughness, and in both cases, convictions resulted.
I have likewise had more recent assistance from NSW Police that has been carried out in an entirely competent manner. I can only hope and trust that police of the kind I have worked with will be able to weed out and remove police of the kind that bash gay men who never harmed anybody, to within an inch of their lives, or killed them.
Reading this story and its ongoing ramifications should heighten all the more the need to step up and help LGBT minorities in Russia whose police are going through a comparable evolution.
Not the first case of Police being the bashes of gay men, there was that case in Adelaide where they bashed a gay man in the park and threw him into the river where he drowned. I know a lot of guys that have been abused by undercover cops & some that have had the same cops turning up on their door steps after taking down car registration details. This is bigger than we think & who better to get away with this sore of crime than those that can control the information thats presented to the Police stations by the public.
You would think that identifying who the police were that attacked this chap would be relatively straight forward. How stupid those police were to drive around in an unmarked police car attacking people at night. But sure enough, NSW Police lied and bull shitted their way out of this one, and I will watch with interest to see how they re-investigate this now. Maybe super sleuth Supt Tony Crandell may have a cup of coffee and make a few phone calls before he throws in the towel and gives up, stating that this all happened too long ago now. Bottom line is many NSW police (not all but many) are lying homophobes and those who aren’t still protect their buddies – they still assault gay people today with impunity and then manipulate the system to get away with it. The rot and corruption in NSW police is evident and major action is needed to send the clear message that its not OK to treat gay people like shit, or worse attack and assault them.
In the late 1980’s and early 190’s there were numerous bashings assaults and threats in and around the ACT it was widely known at the time that many of these assaults were the result of what was seen at the time as a so called right of passage they were committed by young officers and cadets from Duntroon. Complaints were made and ignored by both the police and senior officers. No doubt many of these homophobic young thugs now have been decorated and are covered in gold braid. I wonder are these assaults being investigated as part of the ongoing investigations into the military. And will the investigations disappear if and when the coalition is returned in Septemeber?