Granddad Killed In 1980 Newcastle Toilet Attack Was Victim Of Anti-Gay Hate Crime
Image: Richard Slater.
A 69-year-old granddad, who died in 1980 after he was bashed in a Newcastle toilet because he was presumed to be gay, was the victim of a gay hate attack, a special commission of inquiry was told on Friday.
The special commission of inquiry, headed by Justice John Sacker, is looking into the unsolved deaths of gay men and trans women in Sydney and NSW between 1970 and 2010.
On December 19, 1980, Richard Slater, who had a prostate condition that led to frequent urination, had stopped at a toilet in Birdwood Park, Newcastle, which was a well-known gay beat. He was brutally assaulted and robbed and died three days later in a hospital. The cause of death was a heart attack.
Slater’s family “assume him to have been heterosexual and have no information suggesting that he may have been gay”. The commission was told that Slater’s sexuality or his reason for visiting the toilet was not critical for deciding if his death was motivated by anti-LGBTQI bias.
Attacker Targeted Gay men In Toilets
A 20-year-old gay man Jeffrey Miller was suspected to be the attacker after witnesses placed him in the toilet. The inquiry was told that it was highly likely that Miller had assaulted Slater and was responsible for his death. However, since Miller had died, there was no way to test the case against him as he could not defend himself.
Though Miller himself was gay, the inquiry heard that he “had a practice of assaulting and robbing men, often in toilet blocks, and in particular gay men.” He was never prosecuted for the assaults, though he was charged with assaulting a gay man at a nightclub.
“Miller did make a practice of targeting men who were beat users, or who were presumed to be beat users, this is likely to have been for the reason that they were seen as “easy targets” of robbery who might be unlikely to report being attacked, or whose reports might not be the subject of a vigorous police investigation,” counsel assisting said.
“In Slater’s case, his death (if at the hands of Miller) is likely to have involved the targeting, or “discriminatory selection” of someone presumed to be gay and/or a beat user (whether or not this was a correct assumption) on the basis that he was therefore seen as a vulnerable target of a robbery,” the inquiry was told.
Investigation Bias
The police had charged Miller in 1982 for Slater’s death, but the prosecution was dropped subsequently.
The counsel assisting submitted that it was difficult to assess the adequacy of the police investigations as investigation records were missing. The commission heard that the investigation was characterised by negative stereotyping of the LGBTQI community. Homosexuality was still a criminal offence in NSW, and it was decriminalised in the state only in 1984.
“There is some indication in the material that a large part of the initial investigative efforts was directed to interview ‘numerous homosexuals, transvestites and other persons’, seemingly because the toilet block was well known as a ‘renowned meeting place for the homosexual element of this area at all hours during the day or night’.”
“Unfortunately, other material suggests that this approach may also have been informed, or at least affected, by negative stereotyping, with an early police summary at pains to note that, despite the assault taking place in a public toilet ‘frequented by homosexuals’, Slater enjoyed a good reputation and there was no suggestion he was an associate of a ‘criminal element’,” the counsel assisting said.
