Adelaide crime wave shatters public faith, creates huge challenge for police

Adelaide is becoming a more dangerous city as horrific crimes spark community alarm, Paul Starick writes.

Adelaide is becoming a more dangerous city as a spate of horrific, violent crimes triggers community alarm.

The evidence is more than a knee-jerk reaction to the latest alleged murder, of mother-of-two Julie Seed in a random daylight stabbing at her Plympton real estate office.

Latest official police statistics to October show crime rising in all-bar one of eight major categories. Year on year, robbery and related offences were up 23 per cent; sexual assault up six per cent; homicide 17 per cent, theft 15 per cent but fraud deception and related offences down 22 per cent.

Julie Seed, right Picture: Supplied

Julie Seed, 38, was the victim of an alleged murder at Plympton.

There is no doubt these trends have provoked fear, at varying levels, in households across the city. A cost-of-living crisis and post-Covid desperation might explain some of these crime rises but certainly cannot in any way excuse them.

Dr Michael Yung, pictured, in a photo supplied by his family.

The wave of appalling crime in recent weeks is the worst I can recall in more than 30 years as a journalist and commentator working in Adelaide. The sense of helplessness and fear is, perhaps, surpassed only by the so-called Family murders of the 1980s and the notorious abduction and murder of Louise Bell in 1983.

There have been gruesome and sick murders in Adelaide before. The city has been tarnished for years with the undeserved and inaccurate moniker as “the serial capital of the world”. My respected and highly experienced colleague Sean Fewster, The Advertiser’s chief court reporter, shot down this myth in his City of Evil series and book.

But, arguably, there has not been such a sustained spate of killings in supposedly safe places – like homes and the workplace – that have so rattled the public’s sense of personal security.

After the fatal attack of Dr Michael Yung in his Gilberton home on December 11, The Advertiser revealed serious crimes against people and property in suburbs across Adelaide were being reported, but neighbours were unaware because police were not making them public.

The October crime statistics show 13 offences in Gilberton, mostly for theft, property damage and trespass, and 45 for Plympton, where Ms Seed was stabbed to death on Wednesday. Most were theft, particularly from shops.

Arresting this crime blowout and restoring public confidence represents a huge challenge for police, whose leader, Commissioner Grant Stevens, is himself on indefinite personal leave after his son, Charlie, in November was struck and killed in an alleged hit-run crash at Goolwa Beach.