Gay basher walking free
A gay couple beaten with metal poles is still waiting for justice three months after they were attacked in a Blacktown street.
Greg Harland, 27, and his 21-year-old partner Aaron Warnecke were assaulted by men wielding beer bottles and baseball bat-sized metal bars. The incident followed an altercation at an RSL club 90 minutes earlier where a man, who is known to the pair, called them fucking faggots and lunged at them.
But three months after the attack Blacktown Police are yet to press charges or lodge an AVO. This is despite the fact that one of the attackers identified by the pair lives just minutes from the victims.
Harland was hit in the head by the attackers, before turning to see a group of men running towards him and Warnecke, throwing beer bottles.
I just yelled to Aaron and Corey [Aaaron’s brother] to run, Harland told Sydney Star Observer. This guy had a bottle in his hand and I’m just trying to avoid it by running up the road in awkward directions and then eventually he hit me with the bottle. I remember smelling beer. I could feel punches.
He was then attacked with a metal bar, which he wrestled from the man, before turning to see Warnecke being attacked by the same man who verbally assaulted them at the RSL.
He was running towards Aaron with the bar and then the next minute I see him whack Aaron. Aaron went down on his knees, Harland said.
He just went plonk. He was convulsing … he was just making this really blood-curdling moan, and then he just went out. I thought this was the end for Aaron, I honestly thought he was going to die.
Warnecke spent two weeks in Blacktown Hospital with a fractured skull and bleeding on the brain. He could not walk or talk, had migraines, ongoing vomiting and intense sensitivity to light and noise.
He has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. He still gets daily migraines and has short-term memory problems which have forced him to postpone his studies and delay pursuing work. He may need brain surgery and is in therapy to regain his memory and cognitive skills.
Harland also has post-traumatic stress disorder and cannot work. Both suffer from ongoing nightmares about the attack.
On the night of the attack, Harland spoke to a Blacktown Police constable. According to him, the interview took no longer than 10 minutes and no notes were recorded.
The constable was insinuating that we had started the argument. He was pretty uninterested in what I had to say, Harland said.
I said to him, -˜Are you able to get the video footage from inside the club? That will clearly show that this guy was highly aggressive to us’, and he’s just gone, -˜Don’t fucking tell me how to do my job, I’ve been a fucking police officer for 14 fucking years’.
It took police three days to get in contact with Harland to lodge a report.
Despite the pair knowing the name of one of the attackers, police have not pressed charges and have stymied requests for an AVO.
In fact police only started AVO proceedings after Harland and Warnecke lodged a complaint with the NSW Ombudsman. In July the pair went to Blacktown Court to see the AVO lodged, only to be told police had not served the papers. They will return to the court later this month.
Harland said repeated attempts to get information from Blacktown Police had failed, as had requests they treat the incident as a hate crime.
When I mentioned the hate crime stuff he’d say, -˜Don’t play the gay thing … an assault’s an assault. We don’t care if you’re straight, gay, transgendered or even bended’, Harland said.
[The constable] just keeps saying, -˜We’re looking at charging him, we’re not sure when, we might just question him and charge him at a later date.
I just feel so hopeless. Here am I taking Aaron to the hospital and doing all that, we’re having to travel suburbs away to do our shopping and all this time it’s just not being taken seriously.
A spokeswoman for NSW Police Media said, a number of lines of inquiry have been pursued by Blacktown Local Area Command, who have been investigating the alleged assault.
Those inquiries have now been finalised and a brief of evidence is being prepared with the view to obtaining further legal advice in relation to potential charges.
Further comment could not be provided on the case to protect the integrity of the investigation and any judicial proceedings and no explanation was given as to why it had taken so long for police to put an AVO in place.
Blacktown police station does not have its own Gay and Lesbian Liaison Officer, but shares one with the nearby Quakers Hill station.
This is shocking. I am currently doing some research with gay based characters. I came across the awful bloodsport or Badlands murders on Bondi clifftops in the late 80s/early 90s. The local police dismissed any concerns and totally botched investigations. A Commissioners enquiry years later damned their reactions. That was in about 6 years ago! I thought our police had training on being more sensitive to gay and lesbian issues. I know they do in other global cities like London. There they are very sensitive and understanding on gay hate crimes. In fact there it is a criminal offence officially based on actual legislation
Being a gay man living in Blacktown with my partner, this worries me. Not every gay person can live in the city. I have notice that Blacktown’s GBLT community is growing we need a Gay and Lesbian Liaison Officer,
I have simply come to the conclusion as a result of suffering many injustices, first at the hands of meat heads, then at the hands of investigating officers, that I have decided it is time to source a good supply of metal rods in order to ensure that the joy of forcing your ways on someone else are also enjoyed by the gay community. In short, there are very few ways for you to get your life back – some countries endourse and support the eye for an eye approach.
In this country given the lack of movement on crimes like this, it might serve as a logical motivator, that should you decide to smash some straight homophobe in the head then take him out back for you and your mates to re-educate, that no one will investigate your actions, nor will they press charges, and just remember, no one cares that they are straight just that they have been assaulted (lol)
I am all for finding these animals and putting them down quietly.
This is a meaningless and appalling hate crime against two kindhearted & harmless blokes.I knew Greg and Aaron for over 5 years while being in a relationship with Aarons older sister.These guys are two of the nicest guys you could meet.Im straight and proud of my sexual orientation but have no fears or worrys at all about speaking in my disgust of this crime which I have only just found out about as I live in Perth now.I know whats it’s like to be on the end of a bashing and now suffer from epilepsy because of it,I havent been the most perfect of human beings either and am paying a heavy price for that also.I do hope they catch these bastards or karma has its own way on catching up on all of us who do wrong to others.Hope you two guys are well now.Peace
I can tell you the 8 problems here as a gay activist:
1. NSW does not have anti-homophobia strategies in all schools.
2. People generally think that gay bashing is a “thing of the past” – well it is not. Remember the dark days of the 1990’s Bondi gay murders.
3. It is true that gay bashers are actually very unhappy being gay themselves (University Study in the US state of Georgia 1996). The study said that “men who are homophobic and who have recently bashed gay men are 3 times more likely to be sexually aroused by other men”.
4. Australia still has not legalized gay marriage and NSW still has no civil partnership or a relationship registory based on the TAS or VIC model.
5. I read a story in a Library back in 2003 looking though the G & L archives and found a gay bashing story in Broken Hill that happened in 1997. It happens in country areas as well – not just the city slickers – not just the western surburbs. ALL OF NSW – ALL OF AUSTRALIA – IN FACT ALL OF THE WORLD has gay bashers. Even the Netherlands has gay bashings – even after 8 years of gay marriages.
6. Australia does not have “hate crime legislation” at all in fact – believe it or not.
7. The NSW police forces and all other states across Australia need to address bullying, domestic violence and bashings the same way – regardless of the race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, etc. – and the circumstance, time or status. Even a streamline process to better communicate between the police and eventually deal with the sirges in hate crimes in the past year. Hate crimes have risen again due to fears about the economy and family breakdowns and other rubbish “socialist propaganda” from the anti-gay Labor party. I blame Kevin Rudd and the 12 year of ultra-conservative rule of the Howard years for the cause of gay men killing themselves and advocating gay bashers.
Finally 8. Manatory minimum life sentences need to be implemented for gay haters and gay bashers – even their advocates of hate that aid, abet and encourage hate crimes and hatred of gay men (such as Hillsong and the Australian Christian Lobby or ACL run by bigoted little clowns such as Fred Nile).
I hope this clears the air in this debate about gay bashing and hatred. As a 23 year old autistic gay man as an activist who is very smart and intellegent and I can tell you that I have had enough and many of you have also had enough of the violence and discrimination our community faces each and every single day from the general public, from politicians and from anti-gay family groups and bigots – that was when I came up with a group called CGMOA back in 2008.
Paul Mitchell from CGMOA (Concerned gay men of Australia).
John…totally agree with you..WTF are the NSW Police doing in OUR Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade???
bit like inviting the KKK to a festival in Harlem.
I hope I am wrong in my suspicions and I hope Brian S. is right in the conclusions he draws from his experience.
Asinine comments from Chillsauce100 claiming professionals provide reports to courts for “economic” reasons can’t be taken seriosuly.
Professionals have more than enough work to do without haivng to do the court’s work. Less than about 10% of their work is earnt from pre-sentence reports. TReports are not written to satisfy what someonen thinks a judge might want to hear – they don’t care about the judge because they are not answerable to them, financially or otherwise.
It is not high-paid work and the gay community can be thankful they do them – recommending gay bashers are put behind bars. The judge decides.
Otherwise, lawyers for the accused can put a very persuasive case why they should walk free.
These professionals are not the paid hirelings of anybody,
and chillisauce100 highlights the dangers of sprouting forth opinions not based on facts.
I have never seen a judge “really admire” poofter bashers as chillisauce100 claims they all do.
Let’s leave Chillisuace100 to their opinions and start contacting the other media, notwithstanding SSO’s briliant detective work in getting this story up.
Thank you, Brian S.
————————————————————————————————————————
I am an ex-detective one stationed at the Kings Cross Command. About 30% of police are homophobic. I left the service in disgust in seeing police time and time again turn a blind on anti-gay violence, and also on drug dealers. Police culture is slow to change. I saw blatant corruption- some officers taking protection money from drug dealers. At the same time the same people raiding gay bars with sniffer dogs as an easy way of looking tough on drugs, and an easy way of getting ‘arrest points’ for easy promotion. Gays are also a soft target for some police.
Now i know everyone is about to gang up on me…. but heres my thoughts: I live in Blacktown with my boyfriend, and i can understand exactly what these guys went through, as i quite aware of what the people in the area are like. The article mentioned “an RSL” – which im guessing was blacktown. So im guessing the boys went for a drink there and were followed after they left. I can only imagine that they were being quite affectionate at the RSL, perhaps even kissed, which may have been the reason they were followed. Now I know that we should not have to hide who we are, we should not hide our love or our relationship, but seroiusly, we have to be careful about where we choose to display it. Blacktown RSL is full of bogan, hompphobes, wife beaters etc, and obvioulsy they reacted. No i do not think it was justified, and the boys did not deserve it at all, but caution must be taken. Fair enough when its oxford street and its “our territory”, but when youre at boganville RSL, a little sublty might be needed. Peace
Editor’s Note: Lukas, to set record straight, the boys did not kiss, hold hands or touch each other. They did dance as part of a larger group, however.
To all readers;
Homophobia is the point. The leading articles indicates that certain police are so homophobic that they do not investigate serious crimes and fob off victims of crime because of homophobia.
The homophobia exhibited by the police is just as dangerous as the homophobia exhibited by the offenders who attacked the victims.
The point is that there are people in positions of authority in NSW who are homophobic.
Many people want to believe that only a few police at Blacktown Police station are homophobic. People want to believe that all the people they are encouraged to write to and complain to are not homophobic.
I suggest those beliefs are naive. You only know if someone is homophobic or not be engaging with them personally. The victims engaged with the police at Blacktown police station personally and found them to be homophobic.
If police can be homophobic so can politicians and judges and crown prosecutors.
Brian S. said the reports submitted to the courts are tested by examination.
Actually, Australian courts are not like the U.S. Courts that you see on television plays. How it works here is that lawyers, especially defence lawyers, do not ‘rock the boat’ by asking hard questions. That is because if they ‘rock the boat’ they wont be given any more cases. No cases, no money, no income.
It is important that we, the gay community, investigate any discovery of homophobia exhibited by people in authority.
Brian S. indicated that some reports relating to assault on homosexuals may be based on flawed science but that those flaws are not corrected because those flaws reinforce the prejudices of judges and allow those judges to mitigate the sentences of people who attack homosexuals.
Homophobic judges want a plausible excuse to reduce the sentence of people they really admire, poofter bashers, and professional psychologists provide those homophobic judges with that plausible excuse in the form of reports that are based on flawed science and wrong conclusions.
I suggest that the reason professional psychologists continue to provide courts with reports based on flawed science is economic. If the psychologists provide the courts with the type of reports that they want, then, the courts will pay for those reports and ask the psychologist to produce more in the future.
If the psychologist does not produce the type of reports that the courts want, that is reports that do not give the judge the excuse to mitigate the sentence of a poofter basher, then that psychologist will not be called on again to provide the courts with reports. No reports, no money, no income.