Surge in drug-fuelled hold-ups stuns state’s top cops

DAVID PENBERTHY
OCTOBER 29, 2019
The Australian

South Australian police admit they have been stunned by a six-fold increase in armed robberies across the state’s hotels, and attribute the unprecedented level of violence to the ice scourge, saying abuse of the drug had changed ­offender behaviour and crime patterns.

With 36 pubs having been robbed this year — up from just seven last year — senior officers told The Australian yesterday that SA Police had the requisite resources and was close to making further major arrests, having already nabbed 20 suspects. But with Adelaide having been ­labelled last week Australia’s “ice capital” off the back of waste water studies tracing drug levels in sewage, Detective Superintendent Stephen Taylor, who heads the Serious and Organised Crime Branch, conceded that spiralling amphetamine use was changing the nature of policing.

“If you went back several years ago, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” Superintendent Taylor said.

“If you went back 20 years ago, heroin and cannabis were the two big drugs, but now over the last 10 years methamphetamine has crept up and up. It is very brazen offending we are really concerned about.

“These people have no regard whatsoever for public safety. They’ve got no regard for people who are just trying to earn an honest living. These people are just coming in, some of them not just on methamphetamine but other drugs as well, and they really couldn’t care less about the consequences of their actions.”

The nature of the crimes has sickened South Australians. Two pubs were held up last week by ­offenders armed with machetes and billiard cues. Two weekends ago, a pub was robbed at knifepoint at 8.30pm, in the midst of dinner service at a quiet family hotel. A patron was stabbed in the back and a taxi driver was bashed after his vehicle was used as a getaway car.

“Being stabbed for an offence like that … it was very quick, it was very brutal, it was completely unwarranted,” Superintendent Taylor said. “It was a terrible thing to see. I have seen the footage of it. The prevalence of violence is what has really spiked, the unpredictability of amphetamine-type drugs. You can’t reason with a lot of these people. They have no conscience for what they do. They don’t think through the consequences of their actions.”

The response from SA Police to the almost weekly attacks has been swift and co-ordinated, pulling in resources from the major crime squads, the special operations Star Group, as well as uniformed police, who are doing checks on suspicious patrons to assess their bona fides.

While none of the 20 people arrested so far has yet appeared in court, police have the names and identities of other suspects and are amassing cases against them.

“We are quietly building briefs of evidence against these people,” Superintendent Taylor said. “The time will come sooner rather than later when they get a knock on their door. And they’re going to have a very long time to reflect when they’re sitting in their cell about whether it was worth it.”