‘Lone wolf’ terror attack on Melbourne races thwarted by new crack team

Melbourne punters were close to being the victims of a terror attack after specialist police thwarted a lone wolf who was threatening to attack the races. And that was just one of 181 cases probed by a new crack team tackling violent terrorists.

Specialist police have managed to thwart a high-risk individual who was threatening to attack punters at the races.

The Sunday Herald Sun can reveal the averted incident is one of 181 cases dealt by a new crack team of police investigators, forensic and mental health experts in its first year.

Public officials have also been targeted by individuals who police feared would launch violent lone wolf attacks.

The $32 million fixated threat assessment centre, set up after James Gargasoulas’s murderous Bourke St rampage, is currently tracking dozens of cases including 35 high-risk “lone actors” and eight potentially dangerous groups of people.

James Gargasoulas’s attack spurred the creation of the fixated threat assessment centre. Picture: David Crosling/AAP

Police Minister Lisa Neville recently told a parliamentary hearing that the centre was asked to intervene in the case of a man who was “threatening to cause serious harm at the races”.

It is unclear which race meetings or tracks he was targeting.

Ms Neville said the man had been living in a car and struggling with gambling debts, and was committed to a mental health facility and then helped to find housing and stop betting.

“Ultimately he has now been able to not be under the constant monitoring of (the centre),” Ms Neville said.

Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton said the team was closely tracking several individuals who were fixated on public officials — such as MPs or bureaucrats — who had “made a decision that has impacted them, through service delivery quite often”.

Police have thwarted a terror attack at the races. Picture: Jay Town

“That seems to be a very common theme — and then fixating on that person as the cause of their whole life’s issues and then wanting to act out, or potentially act out, violently around that,” he said.

Acting Superintendent Steve Cooper, who is in charge of the centre, told the Sunday Herald Sun his team was dealing with people who had “an intense preoccupation with a highly personalised cause”.

It also handled cases involving individuals with mental illnesses “who pose a risk to themselves and others by engaging in problematic and high risk behaviour related to beliefs they have developed”.

Police Minister Lisa Neville and Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton. Picture: Stuart McEvoy

Almost 100 referrals were made to the centre in the first five months of this year, and acting Supt Cooper said he was “seeing a lot of success” in protecting the community by connecting people with housing, mental health help, and drug and alcohol treatment.

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Ms Neville said the centre was designed on international models and had a particular counter-terrorism focus to monitor radicalised and extremist individuals.

“These are not people you want to leave waiting to access those services because we know that those services can be critical to reducing the risk of somebody who may cause really serious harm, not just to themselves but more in terms of the broader community,” she said.

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Originally published as ‘Lone wolf’ terror attack on Melbourne races thwarted by new crack team